D&D General How much control do DMs need?

[loverdrive]

As of "feature or flaw": it's both.

When it comes to designing an actually good game, it's a flaw. Without it, the books are, for all intents and purposes, completely useless. Ooh, I have a book that tells me how much damage a sword does! Too bad it absolutely doesn't matter if I don't know what enemies PCs will fight with that sword.

When it comes to scamming people into giving you money for doing your job, though? Yeah, of course it's a feature! You can sell your books to people who have diametrically opposing view on how the game should be played, and then you also can sell them adventures, and then, you also can take a cut from anyone who fixes your rulebooks and adventures for you!

Wondering whether lack of, y'know, design is a feature or not because purposefully unfinished games sell is like wondering maybe lootboxes are actually good since so many people keep maxing out their parents' credit cards to buy them.

 

[ad_hoc]

I encourage players to have a very bare bones backstory and then create it as we play.

They can say they know an NPC for example.

It gives them more connection to the world and it takes a load off of me during the game.

 

[Oofta]

As of "feature or flaw": it's both.

When it comes to designing an actually good game, it's a flaw. Without it, the books are, for all intents and purposes, completely useless. Ooh, I have a book that tells me how much damage a sword does! Too bad it absolutely doesn't matter if I don't know what enemies PCs will fight with that sword.

When it comes to scamming people into giving you money for doing your job, though? Yeah, of course it's a feature! You can sell your books to people who have diametrically opposing view on how the game should be played, and then you also can sell them adventures, and then, you also can take a cut from anyone who fixes your rulebooks and adventures for you!

Wondering whether lack of, y'know, design is a feature or not because purposefully unfinished games sell is like wondering maybe lootboxes are actually good since so many people keep maxing out their parents' credit cards to buy them.

If you hate it so much and think it's a crap game designed to scam people out of their money why post to a forum dedicated to the game? Unless you're just trolling of course.

 

[Incenjucar]

One thing I enjoy doing is letting the players design the battle map when they're in an open area and setting an ambush. It rewards scouting and planning by letting them literally choose where the fight happens, and spares me a bit of work.

 

[niklinna]

One thing I enjoy doing is letting the players design the battle map when they're in an open area and setting an ambush. It rewards scouting and planning by letting them literally choose where the fight happens, and spares me a bit of work.

When you get your players to have fun doing your work for you, that's a win all around.

 

[Blue]

Just to add support the @Clint_L 's thesis, you've got fantasy RPGs like Ironworn that can be played DM-less.

And games like most PbtA where the GM is explicitly constrained in what they do, has rules, principles, and agendas to follow, and can "cheat", which is something that some D&D DMs think a DM "can't do" because of how much control over the rules they are given. (But that's not an absolute, things like favoritism can end up not being tolerated by players otherwise willing to give a DM full in-game authority.)

There's a whole spectrum of in-game authority that works, usually with a range for any particular game and table.

As a side point, it's interesting to me how much power GMs are given outside of the game. To me, that's a bunch of friends getting together for a pleasurable activity. If Alice can't stand Bob, Charlie can't unilaterally invite Bob to the game regardless if Charlie is the GM. But at some tables they can and people accept it.

 

[Blue]

One thing I enjoy doing is letting the players design the battle map when they're in an open area and setting an ambush. It rewards scouting and planning by letting them literally choose where the fight happens, and spares me a bit of work.

I've done this as well. "Okay, you're ambushing and your skill checks were successful. Here's terrain pieces and a battlemap, design where you are going to ambush them."

 

[niklinna]

As of "feature or flaw": it's both.

When it comes to designing an actually good game, it's a flaw. Without it, the books are, for all intents and purposes, completely useless. Ooh, I have a book that tells me how much damage a sword does! Too bad it absolutely doesn't matter if I don't know what enemies PCs will fight with that sword.

Although I get your point, I'm not sure I get this particular example. Which enemies the PCs will face is usually one of the more open-ended parts of an RPG.

When it comes to scamming people into giving you money for doing your job, though? Yeah, of course it's a feature! You can sell your books to people who have diametrically opposing view on how the game should be played, and then you also can sell them adventures, and then, you also can take a cut from anyone who fixes your rulebooks and adventures for you!

Wondering whether lack of, y'know, design is a feature or not because purposefully unfinished games sell is like wondering maybe lootboxes are actually good since so many people keep maxing out their parents' credit cards to buy them.

Well, there is design there, and quite detailed rules for a pretty narrow range of gameplay activities (round-by-round combat, "just roll for it" task resolution). But outside of that box, most things are punted. And it's funny, your lootbox comparison really hit home for me. I find what D&D does define often goes directly against what I want to play, or doesn't deliver on the class fantasy (ranger & druid, I'm lookin' at you), and yet I keep checking in, hoping on some level it might change to offer more of what I want. I may not be paying them money for all those products, but they've got me watching.

But again, maybe I just haven't met the right GM yet! One who will drift 5e just so.

 

[Enrahim2]

I think there's a difference between inventing rules because existing rigid rules ain't cutting it and applying rules that require human interpretation.

Applying Fate rules doesn't require ad-hoc gamedesign. You are just applying rules, and the rules leverage the fact that there will be a human being at the table who can do things trivial for a human being, but impossible for a piece of paper with words written on it. Hm, I wonder, can aspect *The Best Marksman This Side Of Volga help with shooting someone in the face?

No D&D version  require ad-hoc game-design. It require however a lot of judgement calls with regard to what should be the outcome of various situations. Many people by their own preference decide they want to make rules for themselves to help them make such judgement calls, or as a medium to communicate a piece of their mind to the players so they can better predict the outcome of actions they take, and make more informed decissions. It is hence a matter of choice.

Similarly fate do also require judgment calls. For instance do experienced sailor in a world filled with pirates help with shooting someone in the face? And there are clearly room for and people interested in making new rules on top of that system as well.

I think the qualitative difference between fate and D&D doesn't lie in if new rules are  required or the absence or presence of a need for a clear system for how to make judgment calls for things rules don't cover. I think is that the qualitative difference is that those situations that do require judgment calls in D&D are of a kind that it is easier to make rules for that have similar "shape" as the existing rules. Hence making new rules are both more inviting, and it is easier to view the system as flawed when you recognize how easy it is to find such "gaps" that is easily filled by rules.

However having judgment calls that that is easy to fill with rules doesn't mean that the game is harder to judge or give more "power" to the judge, than a game where the judgment calls is of a type that is not easily filled by rules. Indeed it might be harder to make good judgment calls when they have to be done in relation to an all-encompasing abstract rules framework rather than just relying on your everyday experience as a human being.

 

[MGibster]

My players call me Shai-Halud. You can guess which side of the GM control spectrum I fall upon.