DM's forfeit power

[Janx]

It would seem that the more things taken out of the DM's hands, the more free time a DM would have for other tasks....


As for organic character creation, Umbran hits it on the head. If you don't plan ahead, your PC will develop organically in 3e. Compared to 1e, where with no skills, traits, or feats, the only difference between your 20th level fighter and mine was the gear we had... not very organic either.

I've never used a Prestige Class, they never appealed to me. Except for my most recent Paladin character, I've never planned on feats either. For the Paladin, he was a cross-bow only user. So I kinda had to plan out exactly which feats to take when to figure out when I could get the bow feats (and in what order).

 

[ashockney]

Pen and paper vs. MMORPG

Thanks for the responses, excellent points.

Some examples of being organic vs. static:
Treasure tables vs. Wealth by level
percent chance vs purchased
abilities as a consequence of actions vs abilities for level
reward/reinforcement for all actions vs. reward for stomping CR
fighting a beholder at any level vs. fighting a beolder between 11-14
hammer of thunderbolts vs. +5 electric warhammer of stunning

As we discussed this last night it brought to mind what the pen & paper game can do better than a CRPG and MMORPG - adapt.

 

[Mort]

3e or 3.5 has the potential to be hugely more organic than 1e or 2e.

As stated above, if you started with a 1st level fighter - 99% of the time you ended with an 18th level fighter, just with more stuff. If you started with a 1st level mage, you ended with an 18th level mage, just with more stuff. I had a blast in my 2e campaigns, but not because I had "so many paths" for my character.

The current eddition is different. Sure you "can" plan a path from 1-20, but the DM can throw a lot at you to diverge from that path. In my last campaign one of the players started with a half-elf ranger with the full idea to become an undead slayer; along the way, however, he met the elves of Celene and through a few adventures joined their legendary arcane archers. By level 20 his build was radically different from his "original" vision, but he had a blast all the same.
The fighter in the group was the same way. She started with an archer concept, but by 20th level, she was a power attacking, cleaving machine (and enjoying every minute of it), again her concept changed as she was playing the character.

As a matter of fact, out of the 6 people in my group - only 1 kept their original concept and "focus" in the 4 year arc I ran. Why? because as the DM, I had many opportunities to throw options at the players that they hadn't considered, both from a role playing angle and from a crunch angle. There were many moments of "you know, I wanted this way originally, but this way seems cooler." I think 3e has more in this regard for the DM than previous edditions not less.

Monte Cook has commented in the past about how AU was intended to put more control back into the hands of the DM.

In a conversation with my friend last night we were reminiscing about some of our first edition games. A common theme that materialized from that discussion involved the vanilla character classes, elegant systems, and what I called organic character development. In 3rd edition and beyond, you can begin with the end in mind. You could say with a high degree of certainty exactly what your character would be like, and his abilities, at any level. In many of my 1st edition campaigns the characters were radically different than in the books using things like psionics, dual wielding, weapon mastery, rare powerful spells, and rare powerful items.

In our experience we looked back very fondly on those characters and those games.

Why did we give up that control?
Is it better for the pen & paper game?
Could all the excellent toys of 3rd edition be used to develop a more organic pen & paper game experience?

 

[el-remmen]

As many of the things brought up on these boards - this is a matter of playstyle.

My groups that play 3E (who are, for the most part 1e>2e>3e folks) are not character "builders" - they are character players - that is to say, while we might all have some ideas where the character might go as it rises in level, these often change due to the circumstances of the game.

The sneaky fighter who was going to take levels of rogue makes do with a feat that makes Hide into a class skill.

The dwarven fighter has a cultural-regilous experience on returning to his homeland and decides to enter the church.

The self-absorbed amoral witch starts to seriously re-consider her life choices because of the heroic nature of her companions, but is killed before she can seek guidance.

Etc. . . Etc. . .

EDIT: Mort said it better than I did. . .

 

[Numion]

I don't think it was about giving up power for DMs - it was just giving players choice past 1st level (sans the wacky dual classing in previous editions). Someone who starts a fighter doesn't have to be a pure fighter from 1st to 20th. I think that's good.

As the resident DM I don't think I've forfeited power. I control everything else in my game except the PCs. I'm surprised that isn't plenty o' power for everyone - it's plenty for me

 

[Whisper72]

It would seem that the more things taken out of the DM's hands, the more free time a DM would have for other tasks....

Although this may seem to be so at first glance, I get the feeling that in reality, it is quite the opposite.

The more the players are 'in conrol', the more important it is for the DM to be completely up to speed with rules, effects, feats and spells etc. If there are less codified rules, there is more left to the DM to decide, with less second-guessing possible by eager players toting all manner of rulebooks.

From a stress-level point of view, it is my opinion that the newer games put a lot more strain on the DM then older games. (I am speaking IMHO and in generalizations here).

As to the organic growth, I agree that it is more the player mind-set then anything else. Organic growth basically means less planning on the part of the players.

One thing that may be the cause is something completely unrelated to the game itself. When I look at myself (and presumably many other 'old skoolers' here on the boards), it used to be that games were played multiple times per week, at least once a week. We were simply younger and less 'serious' and there was not yet the influence of CRPG's where ppl also have to deal with character/class combo's etc.

With less time between games, there was less downtimes for players to plan. In my experience, old skool games were also often more lethal, so there was less point to plan far ahead. Furthermore, the whole idea to plan your PC ahead of time was pretty much alien to us.

Theoretically, the vaster rules and plethora of options under DnD3.x, should allow for a MORE organic play style. I feel that 'environmental' factors around games and gamers are the real 'culprit' of the 'planning' style, not the rules themselves.

 

[an_idol_mind]

One thing that may be the cause is something completely unrelated to the game itself. When I look at myself (and presumably many other 'old skoolers' here on the boards), it used to be that games were played multiple times per week, at least once a week. We were simply younger and less 'serious' and there was not yet the influence of CRPG's where ppl also have to deal with character/class combo's etc.

With less time between games, there was less downtimes for players to plan. In my experience, old skool games were also often more lethal, so there was less point to plan far ahead. Furthermore, the whole idea to plan your PC ahead of time was pretty much alien to us.

I think the whole time issue comes down less to a system than to a lifestyle. When I played basic D&D and AD&D, I ran multiple sessions in a week. Now, I run sessions once a week or biweekly. But it's not because I'm spending more time planning than before; it's just that I'm not in school anymore and therefor don't have as much downtime. Until retirement, most people lose free time as they get older. (Arguably, they still lose that free time after retirement.)

In general, planning a game takes about the same amount of time in 3rd edition as before, depending on your DMing style. It gets more complex as you add templates and classes to your monsters. If that becomes a problem, though, go back to the tried and true method of throwing the unwanted rules out. Folks has no problem tossing irritating and time-consuming rules in older editions out; why is it suddenly such a problem in 3rd edition? Especially considering that the new rules seem perfectly suited for stripping down to the simple mechanic.

 

[Barak]

Thanks for the responses, excellent points.


fighting a beholder at any level vs. fighting a beolder between 11-14

As we discussed this last night it brought to mind what the pen & paper game can do better than a CRPG and MMORPG - adapt.

I just want to adress this one, 'cause I see it come up often in varying threads, and it boggles my mind.

In 3E, you can still fight a beholder at any level. Just like in older editions. And just like in older editions, except for a few specific levels, chances are good it'll be a TPK or a cakewalk. That hasn't changed at all. The CR is just a system that allows the DM to see, at a glance, how the fight will -likely- go if he uses that monster/monsters. It doesn't tie the DM's hands in anyway, it just gives him the info quicker.

 

[Mark CMG]

Any time a player can use the rules to veto the creative input of the DM, the game potentially suffers.

 

[an_idol_mind]

Any time a player can use the rules to veto the creative input of the DM, the game potentially suffers.

Any time that happens, it's usually a sign that both the DM and the players have forgotten the rules in the parts of the core books that stress the DM as the ultimate authority in the campaign.