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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7726946" data-attributes="member: 42582"><p>In the past two years I've GMed two 4e campaigns, a MHRP campaign, a Cortex Fantasy campaign, an AD&D game, a Burning Wheel campaign, and recently started a Traveller campaign.</p><p></p><p>What you posit here was not true of me in any of those games. And I don't know of any rulebook that says otherwise. Eg Gygax's DMG expressly states that the GM will develop the world as the game goes along and so needs more material.</p><p></p><p>Where do you believe this rule to be stated? I've never read it.</p><p></p><p>The 4e PHB describes the role of the GM thus (p 8):</p><p></p><p style="margin-left: 20px">The Dungeon Master has several functions in the game.</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px">* <strong>Adventure Builder</strong>: The DM creates adventures (or selects premade adventures) for you and the other players to play through.</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px">* <strong>Narrator</strong>: The DM sets the pace of the story and presents the various challenges and encounters the players must overcome.</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px">* <strong>Monster Controller</strong>: The Dungeon Master controls the monsters and villains the player characters battle against, choosing their actions and rolling dice for their attacks.</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px">* <strong>Referee</strong>: When it’s not clear what ought to happen next, the DM decides how to apply the rules and adjudicate the story. . . .</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px">The DM’s job is to provide a framework for the whole group to enjoy an exciting adventure. That means challenging the player characters with interesting encounters and tests, keeping the game moving, and applying the rules fairly.</p><p></p><p>And here's what I found in the 5e Basic PDF (pp 2, 4):</p><p></p><p style="margin-left: 20px">One player, however, takes on the role of the Dungeon Master (DM), the game’s lead storyteller and referee. The DM creates adventures for the characters . . .</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px">The adventure is the heart of the game, a story with a beginning, a middle, and an end. An adventure might be created by the Dungeon Master or purchased off the shelf, tweaked and modified to suit the DM’s needs and desires. In either case, an adventure features a fantastic setting, whether it’s an underground dungeon, a crumbling castle, a stretch of wilderness, or a bustling city. It features a rich cast of characters: the adventurers created and played by the other players at the table, as well as nonplayer characters (NPCs). Those characters might be patrons, allies, enemies, hirelings, or just background extras in an adventure. Often, one of the NPCs is a villain whose agenda drives much of an adventure’s action.</p><p></p><p>Nothing here prohibits the GM deciding - for instance - that the 13th level PCs suddenly find themselves confronted by some 13th level challenge (an angry angel, a demonic assassin, or whatever else the GM thinks makes sense relative to the established ficiton), even if they PCs are hanging out in the village of Hommlet rather than the icy wastes of the frost giants.</p><p></p><p>Besides these accounts of the role of the GM, which appear to contradict your posited "rule", tjhere is another point: the idea that RPGing invovles <em>nothing more than</em> the players narrating their PCs moving across a pre-authored landscape, hoping to encounter the stuff that might be fun (relative to their PCs' levels, backstories, capabilities, etc) is in my view incredibly narrow. It doesn't correlate to how I have been GMing for the past 30+ years - which involves a much more active role for the GM, deliberately (and not at all covertly) framing the players, via their PCs, into situation that will immediately engage them, and oblige them to make hard choices for their PCs.</p><p></p><p>Given what my players expect from the games I run, if I didn't do that - if I adopted the approach you advocate - then I would be failing my obligation to my players, and frankly probably would not have anyone wanting to play in my games.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 7726946, member: 42582"] In the past two years I've GMed two 4e campaigns, a MHRP campaign, a Cortex Fantasy campaign, an AD&D game, a Burning Wheel campaign, and recently started a Traveller campaign. What you posit here was not true of me in any of those games. And I don't know of any rulebook that says otherwise. Eg Gygax's DMG expressly states that the GM will develop the world as the game goes along and so needs more material. Where do you believe this rule to be stated? I've never read it. The 4e PHB describes the role of the GM thus (p 8): [indent]The Dungeon Master has several functions in the game. * [B]Adventure Builder[/B]: The DM creates adventures (or selects premade adventures) for you and the other players to play through. * [B]Narrator[/B]: The DM sets the pace of the story and presents the various challenges and encounters the players must overcome. * [B]Monster Controller[/B]: The Dungeon Master controls the monsters and villains the player characters battle against, choosing their actions and rolling dice for their attacks. * [B]Referee[/B]: When it’s not clear what ought to happen next, the DM decides how to apply the rules and adjudicate the story. . . . The DM’s job is to provide a framework for the whole group to enjoy an exciting adventure. That means challenging the player characters with interesting encounters and tests, keeping the game moving, and applying the rules fairly.[/indent] And here's what I found in the 5e Basic PDF (pp 2, 4): [indent]One player, however, takes on the role of the Dungeon Master (DM), the game’s lead storyteller and referee. The DM creates adventures for the characters . . . The adventure is the heart of the game, a story with a beginning, a middle, and an end. An adventure might be created by the Dungeon Master or purchased off the shelf, tweaked and modified to suit the DM’s needs and desires. In either case, an adventure features a fantastic setting, whether it’s an underground dungeon, a crumbling castle, a stretch of wilderness, or a bustling city. It features a rich cast of characters: the adventurers created and played by the other players at the table, as well as nonplayer characters (NPCs). Those characters might be patrons, allies, enemies, hirelings, or just background extras in an adventure. Often, one of the NPCs is a villain whose agenda drives much of an adventure’s action.[/indent] Nothing here prohibits the GM deciding - for instance - that the 13th level PCs suddenly find themselves confronted by some 13th level challenge (an angry angel, a demonic assassin, or whatever else the GM thinks makes sense relative to the established ficiton), even if they PCs are hanging out in the village of Hommlet rather than the icy wastes of the frost giants. Besides these accounts of the role of the GM, which appear to contradict your posited "rule", tjhere is another point: the idea that RPGing invovles [I]nothing more than[/I] the players narrating their PCs moving across a pre-authored landscape, hoping to encounter the stuff that might be fun (relative to their PCs' levels, backstories, capabilities, etc) is in my view incredibly narrow. It doesn't correlate to how I have been GMing for the past 30+ years - which involves a much more active role for the GM, deliberately (and not at all covertly) framing the players, via their PCs, into situation that will immediately engage them, and oblige them to make hard choices for their PCs. Given what my players expect from the games I run, if I didn't do that - if I adopted the approach you advocate - then I would be failing my obligation to my players, and frankly probably would not have anyone wanting to play in my games. [/QUOTE]
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