How Important Is Rules Knowledge In Being A Good D&D DM?

[GlassJaw]

This is a topic I find myself dealing quite frequently.

When I sit down with a group, whether I'm a player or DM, I'm almost always the one with the most rules knowledge. As a DM, this is an incredible asset. If I'm running D&D, I keep it very close to the RAW. If there are players that aren't as strong with the rules, they can tell me what they want to do and I can tell, usually off the top of my head, what the implications are.

As a player, however, it can be a double-edged sword. I'm usually skeptical of DM's and how they run things. If I see them ignoring a certain rule, do I assume they are forgetting it or that they have house-ruled something? How much input do they want from their players on the rules? Some DM's don't like to be "corrected". Some players also don't like it when you remind the DM of a rule that they forget that negatively affects the players.

But the bottom line is that a DM's lack of rules knowledge can be a sore spot if they are trying to run a RAW game.

I think I'd almost prefer a DM with an awesome knowledge of the rules who just ran modules than a DM who was a great story-teller but just hand-waved the rules. As a player I'd find that incredibly frustrating.

 

[ThirdWizard]

Some DM's don't like to be "corrected".

The cynic in me says that people who don't like to be corrected should stop being wrong.

 

[GlassJaw]

The cynic in me says that people who don't like to be corrected should stop being wrong.

While I agree, the game table is usually the wrong place for these kinds of discussions. They normally don't end well and usually just slow everything down.

 

[Vegepygmy]

The cynic in me says that people who don't like to be corrected should stop being wrong.

If I used sigs, I'd be asking permission to steal that one.

 

[Kaodi]

Is this somehow related to the battle you were asking for spells for, Olaf? I've been wondering how that went.

 

[diaglo]

not important at all. the key is knowing when to fight and not. and why.

 

[Celebrim]

I'm not a fantastic DM by any means. I still have a long way to go in many aspects of the DM'ing craft. One area that I am slowly improving in, session by session, is rules knowledge. In the last year that I have been DM'ing I have found it to be one of the most important factors in being a good D&D DM

Congradulations. You've just made your first step in becoming a good DM.

I don't know how many arguments I've been in on these boards to the effect of, "The DM doesn't really need to know the rules.", but anyone that believes that probably isn't a DM or has never had a DM that really didn't know the rules.

It is very important that the DM know the rules very very well. In fact, I think that nothing so enhances your DM authority (and thereby prevents all sorts of other problems) as knowing the rules better than anyone else at the table. Ruling according to the RAW might not always be the wisest thing to do, and ruling against the RAW might not either. Ruling according to the RAW and being wrong to do so (because in this situation it causes something that detracts from the game) might harm your game somewhat, but ruling according to the RAW and being wrong is always far superior to ruling against the RAW and being in the wrong. This is especially true if the players know that you are only ruling this way because you don't get it.

And then there are other benefits...

For example, there have been a couple of climactic final battles in my campaign to date. Some of them, especially the earlier ones, were flops. The PC's weren't really challenged at all as I underestimated what good tactics (which includes using your rules knowledge to your advantage) could achieve. One of them wasn't as challenging as it should have been because the main baddie was a caster. I don't have very good knowledge of what spells are the best to use in a given situation. As a result, the fight was a lot easier than it should have been.

Exactly. Another way to enhance the respect you recieve at the table (and therefore avoid all sorts of unpleasantness that a DM that has lost respect has to endure), is to play the evil baddies well. A poor DM resorts to DM fiat to achieve the same result, but this very quickly creates 'favored NPC syndrome', which breeds all sorts of resentment from your players if they detect it.

Poor rules knowledge can also slow the game down and make things boring for the players as the DM searches around, trying to figure out what the rules are for a given situation or action. Sure, you could just make an ad-hoc ruling on it but sometimes the rule may change the balance of the game. It may make some things more powerful than others. It may disadvantage some characters over others, resulting in some players not getting as much enjoyment out of the game.

Exactly.

Now, this isn't to say that a good DM doesn't occassionally make ad hoc decisions on the fly, but when a good DM does it it isn't because of his lack of knowledge of the rules, but on the contrary because of his deep and intimate knowledge of the rules. The good DM recognizes a good well-thought out rule from a bad poorly thought out rule. He knows the limitations of his rules system and when the rules system handles the situation and when it needs help. And, when it does need help, when he decides on an approach, he remembers it. He thinks about it after the fact, and contemplates the justness of his approach and its implications. If he he like what he sees, it becomes a house rule, which can be announced, explained, and justified if it becomes required to do so. If faced with rules lawyers who resist the change because they want to abuse the rules, he can beat them at thier own game by showing them how the rule represent know net advantage to them because the DM can abuse the rules harder and more harshly than they can. Why? Precisely because you know the rules better. See above.

 

[Olaf the Stout]

SRD is your friend. Running a monster from the PHB that has improved grab, Cut n paste the Improved Grab rules right into the word doc print out of the monster.

Likewise do the same for spells with spell casters, or complex magic items.

A little prep with good use of the SRD can do wonders for boosting your effective mastery of the rules.

That's something I have trouble with in the MM. Missing things that a monster can do or is immune to because it is just listed as "Undead Traits" with the definition of "Undead Traits" given in the back. It's so little that I overlook it in the heat of battle.

It's so simple. I don't know why I didn't think of cutting, pasting and printing it out from the SRD before. That should definitely help me remember. It will also save me from constantly flicking back and forth too.

Thanks satori01!

Olaf the Stout

 

[Olaf the Stout]

Is this somehow related to the battle you were asking for spells for, Olaf? I've been wondering how that went.

I ended up using most of the spells that you suggested. The Sorcerer and Cleric combats ended up being 2 seperate combats. The Sorcerer didn't fare so well. Once his meat shields were taken down he went down pretty quickly without much of a fight. He managed to Slow one PC and hot another with Magic Missile but that was about all he did. Getting hit with a Fireball didn't really help him much. He had Stoneskin cast on him but he still didn't have enough hit points to survive more than a couple of hits. I was pretty unsatisfied with the combat but I don't think that it was due to his spell selection.

The Cleric fight was a bit more challenging. She dropped an Unholy Blight on most of the party at the start of the combat and managed to survive 2 Fireballs and a Snowball Swarm thanks to Fire and Cold Resistance 10 (she was a Half-Fiendish). She also managed to make all her saves. Unfortunately her allies weren't so lucky and most of them were taken out by the AoE onslaught. Her one down point was missing with her Smite Good attack. This would have done +9 damage and could possibly have killed one PC. In the end she was surrounded by 3 of the PC's and taken out by the Cleric. This was rather fitting as she was a recurring villain that had just escaped the Cleric's grasp last time. I think the fight ended with 2 or 3 PC's in single digit HP's.

Olaf the Stout

 

[Umbran]

It would depend, in large part, not just on how much rules-knowledge the players have, but also on how much they care.

In a group that has folks who try really detailed rules-maipulation to get phenominal performance in combat, mastery could be an issue. But many groupsj dont try forthat. If the players are happy, that's all that matters. If they don't need you to be a rules-master, then you don't need to be one.