Cannot say I agree with his assessment either, but similar views have been posted occasionally. It also seems to echo Mearls' statement that people choose to deviate from the official game because they feel that 4e punishes active imagination. (ref http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...g-mainstream&p=6126294&viewfull=1#post6126294)
Pros and Cons of going mainstream
James Watt in DMG 2 pp5: "Start by knowing when to say no. If I player bring new options to your table that does not fit in your game, it is ok to tell the player to hold onto the idea until the campaign wraps up and you (or somebody else in your group) starts something new... know the limits of what you what in you game and do not be afraid to enforce them." In other words, a more polite form of "Not in my campaign you didn't" (NIMCYD)
I will reiterate my opinion that while there have been change in rules there also had been a change in demographics and both of those have impact on gaming. Gaming with (near-) strangers is different from gaming with life long friends. In the former often the only known shared ground are the rules and thus RAW start taking a greater spotlight.
As far as the encounter, there seems to be absence of the concept of "status quo" as 3e DMG put it. Encounters have to be winnable. Which is paradoxically not diferent from previus editions, just with the clear cut math there is different definition what is called so. Sending a 18 level elite ( such as a lich) vs party of six composed of level 9 PC is not in 4th or 3rd, but acceptable in 2nd (DUN # 75 "Forgotten Man"). Is that the way to go? Matter of personal opinion.
D'karr
Adventurer
I liked that one... LOL
Imaro
Legend
I find it telling that this is in DMG 2 and not DMG 1... since the official WotC 4e release line was that everything was core and the DMG 1's party line was "say yes"... perhaps this advice was a reaction to exactly the types of complaints I was speaking too earlier... but then again maybe it was their own internal realization that they had went a step to far in dis-empowering the DM, who knows? Of course as far as I understand, this type of DM empowerment and owning of the campaign flies in the face of what many fans of 4e such as [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] want unless I am mistaken.
I also think WotC's push for "official" play (rpga, encounters, etc.) has definitely had an effect on the development of and presentation of their versions of D&D towards a stronger RAW basis. Touching on your comment as to what is or isn't winnable, I don't think that's necessarily the difference so much as the re-definning of what is or isn't fair and the most obvious way of accomplishing (and thus measuring) "fairness" has changed (ie mainly head-to-head combat).
I agree that it should be a matter of opinion and that the game itself shouldn't come down to heavily on either style being "right"but instead giving strong and solid advice for how to accomplish and manage either approach depending upon one's preferences.
Manbearcat
Legend
@D'karr you have a ton of experience running Encounters for strangers or "walk-ups", right? From what I recall you posting, I would trust your body of anecdotal evidence (data) on this issue. Have you encountered little/some/many instances of players quibbling over things like wealth/level (or treasure in general), encounter design/difficulty (eg L + 2 as standard vs L or DCs in Skill Challenges), what PC build elements are "available"?
I've seen 3 encounter sessions (as I mentioned upthread) and haven't seen any of that but my experience is pretty minimal. I play with adults and who are friends and I'm pretty "alpha" and welcome confrontation but I also have little problem admitting when I'm flat out wrong on something; so I haven't dealt with these insidious player empowerment issues that are apparently problematic for whatever cross-section of the gamer populace they are a cross-section for.
I've said many times before; Due to the tight mechanics of the system and the PC build resources, I feel more empowered with 4e than I have in running any D&D system to date and I'm more reliably able to produce the table experience I am looking for than I ever before..
I've seen 3 encounter sessions (as I mentioned upthread) and haven't seen any of that but my experience is pretty minimal. I play with adults and who are friends and I'm pretty "alpha" and welcome confrontation but I also have little problem admitting when I'm flat out wrong on something; so I haven't dealt with these insidious player empowerment issues that are apparently problematic for whatever cross-section of the gamer populace they are a cross-section for.
I've said many times before; Due to the tight mechanics of the system and the PC build resources, I feel more empowered with 4e than I have in running any D&D system to date and I'm more reliably able to produce the table experience I am looking for than I ever before..
D'karr
Adventurer
Yes, I have run D&D Encounters tables as well as organized them at two different game store locations since the program started. We are talking about hundreds of players over several years, with many repeat players too. I also organize and run the Living Forgotten Realms (LFR) gamedays locally at multiple locations on a bi-monthly basis. With that program we are talking about quite a larger community, and a lot more repeat players. The frequency makes it such that we are running a mini-convention sized event every month. I've also organized one of the local conventions with a huge amount of LFR play. Not to mention that I volunteer at GenCon, DDXP (now Winter Fantasy), and Origins. All in all I've observed/played in/DM'd games with thousands of D&D4e players that were complete strangers to me before they sat at my table, and I also run a regular D&D4e game for my group of friends (7-9 players). Before 4e I ran Living Greyhawk (3.x) locally and at conventions, as well as 3.x for my regular group. So 3.x for 9+ years, and 4e since after DDXP 2008.
In that whole time, with thousands of players, the only time I have seen "quibbling" about the specific areas you mentioned was when we were doing playtesting of LFR adventures. That is part of the work involved in playtesting for gauging the relative difficulty of encounters for the advertised tier of play (average party level APL).
As a DM for my own group, and as a regular player in another group I can say that the robustness of the 4e framework is one of the greatest assets of the game. You can bend it quite far, my players and I do on a regular basis, but the robustness always helps me to gauge if I'm going to achieve the desired outcome. And the framework is so simple, that tacking on other stuff is relatively easy. The rules don't take away player agency, usually a DM that doesn't trust his players does that. The "rule" of yes, is there so that DMs have guidance to not automatically use NO as the default answer. It does not mean that the DM should not use "yes, but" as well as "yes, and" as the answer. It also does not mean that there are no situations when "no" is the appropriate answer.
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Manbearcat
Legend
Imaro
Legend
[MENTION=336]D'karr[/MENTION] ... I think I would be more interested to hear how often (if at all) you have seen a DM modify, change or go off the rails in official play, and how this was received by players? I mean it's all well and good to say in a program that (for the vast majority of the time) abides by the actual guidelines presented in the books, which is what is expected by the players, there is no disagreement or squabbling. But we are talking about the DM having the authority to go outside of those boundaries and it being acceptable to players.
Well, if you are not going to post what a "DM-empowered" game looks like, I am stuck with trying to draw inferences.
As best I can tell, you are describing in these remarks one feature of a "DM-empowered" game, namely, GM control over introduction of story elements, and of mechanical elements of PC build. That was my first and fifth dot points.
"DM owning of the campaign" might also imply GM control over campaign storyline, which goes to my third dot point.
This also seems to me to be a description, by you, of another feature of a "DM-empowered" game. It seems to correspond to my fouth dot point - namely, that if there are encounter-building guidelines, the GM is free to ignore them.
So it's not clear to me, at this stage, in what way my dot points involved misinterpretation. It would be clearer if you actually said a bit more about what constitutes a "DM-empowered" game, and what the role of the players is in such a game. For instance, what role do the players in such a game have in introducing story elements? In contributing mechanical elements, and/or adjudicating the mechanics? In setting goals for their PCs which, if they accomplish them, can earn metagame rewards like XP?
That last thing, in my view, has a long tradition in D&D. For instance, Gygax makes it completely clear in his PHB that players are expected to set treasure-recovery goals for their PCs, and his DMG makes it clear that they are entitled to metagame rewards - XP - for recovering treasure. Does this mean that Gygaxian D&D is "dis-empowering" of the GM?
When has that ever been acceptable in tournament play?
Back in my university days I ran a tournament scenario - it involved 20+ players with pregen PCs in a series of interlocking scenarion "zones". Each zone had its own GM; one of the GMs imposed his own judgement on the particular zone he was GMing, adding abilities to one of the NPCs (a lich) which were not in the encounter description I had prepared. As a result, those players who ended up in that zone had no chance of winning the tournament, as they could not escape from this GM's free-formed challenge. That's not "empowered DMing", that's just breaking the rules of the competition.
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I don't entirely see what this example has to do with the player adjudicating the mechanics. For instance, in D&D there is no mechanic of "being in charge of the rest of the party". And to the extent that a player is trying to break the game by introducing excessive starting wealth, why does the GM have some special role in relation to that? What are the other players doing here? (Burning Wheel, in particular, emphasises the role of the other players in ensuring that starting PCs are well-suited to the game that everyone has agree to participate in.)
More strength to your arm!
But I don't really see what this has to do with "DM empowerment" or decadent RPGing. For instance, I hate the whole notion of "sidequests" because it implies that anything player initiated is not central - the central, non-sidequest is created by the GM. Is this a mark of decadence in play? Of player-empowerment? And how does this related to the alleged thwarting of player agency by 4e?
