D&D 4E Ryan Dancey on 4E

[librarius_arcana]

That can be a fun way to play, but some people don't like it. I'd rather not see that kind of thing supported in D&D. Ah well, to each his own.

You mean you don't like Unearthed Arcana? :\

 

[Hussar]

You mean you don't like Unearthed Arcana? :\

But, why should using the Unearthed Arcana be a sort of benchmark for being a DM? If I chose to use variant rules, that's fine. However, it should be equally acceptable to play a game entirely RAW as well. I would certainly not look down on any DM who did so.

In all honesty, I loathe Unearthed Arcana. Mostly because I just don't enjoy tweaking. I want to play. I don't want to design a game. It does not interest me in the slightest. I got all that amateur game designer beaten out of me in 2e when piles of contradictory rules forced me to constantly rework the game in order to use any new material.

To me, the best part of being a DM is the creativity of it. Being able to envision an entire world (or at least a part of it) and then expressing that vision to my players. Reinventing rules bores me to tears and I drop games that expect it as fast as I can.

I don't want to have to think about the rules. I want rules that work the vast majority of the time. The corner cases I can deal with if they come up or just ignore them. Bag of kittens and great cleave? Meh, never had to worry about it and wouldn't let it bother me if a player ever tried it. Hulking Hurler or whatever? Meh, I trust my players more than enough to know that they won't do that to me.

I adore the fact that I can now lean on the rules and know that they aren't going to bog my game down most of the time. To have to go back to the days when every new piece of material that comes out, be it from Dragon or in a book, needs to be thoroughly vetted and play tested would cause me to drop the game entirely. Is there broken stuff out there? Oh yeah, of course there is. However, the existence of specific examples of broken mechanics is not proof that the game is broken.

I love playing with a game that works.

 

[librarius_arcana]

I love playing with a game that works.

As does everyone else,

The problem is, when it doesn't work,

What you going to do?, live with it?, or fix it?

 

[Geron Raveneye]

But, how often does that happen? Every session? Every few months? Once in a blue moon? I'm hoping it's the once in a blue moon sort of thing or the game is either designed poorly (if its a situation that SHOULD be covered) or is a true corner case that only applies to your group anyway.

The point that Firelance makes though is why should rules tweaking be a sign of a good DM? Yes, we all know that a DM does have to make a ruling from time to time, but, why should the assumption be that if you play by the rules, you are a, what is the buzz phrase that got tossed in here? A MMORPG Server instead of a "real" DM.

Why is rules neutrality a bad thing in a DM?

First, a little correction...the point Firelance made was the following:

There seems to be some unstated assumption that a DM must have the right to change the rules or he is not really a DM. Why should that be the case?

My answer was to that point, which, if I'm not corrected by Firelance next, states that a DM doesn't need to have the right to change the rules to be a DM. Neither Firelance, nor I, inferred that rules tweaking is a sign of a "good DM". Rather, to me rules tweaking is part of a DM's authority in order to keep the game going in points where the rules don't cover it, or cover it in a bad manner. It's something a DM should be able to do without much problem if necessary, and able to do it quick and concisely without having to cross-reference more than one book, and without shattering half a dozen dependent subsystems.

The question how often that occurs is rather irrelevant, in my eyes...even if it occurs only once in every game other session, I'd prefer to be able to make a quick ruling on the spot instead of hunting through 600 pages of core rules and additional supplements in order to find the rule that deals with the situation. Especially in a system where there's not just the "core system", but also countless D20 supplements on similar topics, any rules question that is not covered with an easy "roll a D20" might get half a dozen different answers from DM and players who remember different stuff they all read. Not that other "complete" rule systems are any better in that regard. I've yet to see a roleplaying game that actually manages to pack it's claim of covering ALL eventualities in a game into less than a thick tome of rules.

The thing is, it's already a lot of work to be a DM, and the reward is mostly that you are able to present a lot of fun to your players and derive your own fun from that. The benefit is that you control what does and does not work in your world, and that includes the ability to change some part of the rules if you want them to work differently. After all, the rules are only a tool to mechanically display a part of the game reality, so if you create a game reality that isn't properly expressed by the rules at hand, you're well advised to change the rules in that part to mirror the game reality. Taking that ability away from the DM would, in my eyes, lead to more frustration than the part of being DM is worth. It's already a drag with the heavily codified 3.x system, where you by now need software to quickly create a full NPC (or a love for number-crunching), and where you have to check a dozen books to create something with "official" rules, because otherwise you might offend some player's sensibilities.

 

[Henry]

There seems to be some unstated assumption that a DM must have the right to change the rules or he is not really a DM. Why should that be the case?

Right here:

* maintaining game cohesion (aka keep in moving smoothly)

There are some things that rules as written cannot follow smoothly. There's also a desire for groups to not have to look up information constantly in a session, thereby dragging people out of suspension of disbelief and into books (also known as, "how does this spell react with that monster?" and "how many halflings fit inside a behir?"). It's one thing I have begun to miss since we started playing 3.5, and when I DM the next fresh campaign, I'm probably going back to core rules only just to cut down on the rules look-ups.

 

[sullivan]

As does everyone else,

The problem is, when it doesn't work,

What you going to do?, live with it?, or fix it?

Or get a game that works?

Ever been in a gaming situation where you discover that the rules as they are stated in the rulebook simply make no sense?

For in a quality game? Not anywhere as often as where someone claims it makes no sense, but in truth they simply have not understood the rules. Which is something drastically different.

Where there simply was no proper rule for a certain situation?

Ocassionally.

And where you either get an endless discussion between six people about how to rule it (because everybody of us is an expert on explosives/weird scientifc gadgets/magical weirdness, of course ), or you get one guy who calls himself DM making a ruling that will, hopefully, be better suited or make more sense.

It's funny how the latter actually brings on the former. How the one guy who calls himself dictator imposing his will begets pushing back. One person imposing his will does NOT resolve the matter, and certainly doesn't solve it in a longterm healthy way. In truth DM in control of the rules creates adversary between player and DM, DM nearer equal with the players brings that back to NPC vs. PC.

Of course it requires rules for handling the rare intractable dispute. So what impartial judge is there at the table? What blindfolded lady? Yes, your doom and saviour. Dice.

Is funny how games used to, and sometimes still do, depend on the common sense of one person to run a roleplaying game for a group of others.

Isn't funny how often in the end the dictatorship of one person ruIns a roleplaying game for a group of others?

Without true and honest negotiation there can be no peace. With the hammer of arbitory imposing of will this does not actually exist.

 

[Geron Raveneye]

...and "how many halflings fit inside a behir?"...

Classic answer: Depends on how thorough it chews them up. Enough to eat all of your halflings for sure. Roll for initiative, behir-fodder.

 

[Geron Raveneye]

It's funny how the latter actually brings on the former. How the one guy who calls himself dictator imposing his will begets pushing back. One person imposing his will does NOT resolve the matter, and certainly doesn't solve it in a longterm healthy way. In truth DM in control of the rules creates adversary between player and DM, DM nearer equal with the players brings that back to NPC vs. PC.

Of course it requires rules for handling the rare intractable dispute. So what impartial judge is there at the table? What blindfolded lady? Yes, your doom and saviour. Dice.

Isn't funny how often in the end the dictatorship of one person ruIns a roleplaying game for a group of others?

Without true and honest negotiation there can be no peace. With the hammer of arbitory imposing of will this does not actually exist.

Sorry to hear that you have such a negative and totally wrong picture of the relationships between players and DMs in roleplaying games, and my condolences go out to everybody who had his games ruined by some ego-tripping DM.

But it's sorely overexaggerating, and pretty out of proportions to give this anti-fascism anti-dictatorship speech here, to be honest. There's more appropriate boards to take that kind of attitude, in my opinion. The DM is neither a dictator, nor a tyrant, and a roleplaying group is not a forced affair, where innocent players are subjected to the whims of some overlord and kept there by force. It's a voluntary shift of a bigger part of control to one of the players in exchange for all the work that one player is supposed to do to give his fellow players a game.

The dice are not the "impartial judge" that makes a ruling for a special situation...they are simply the tools for the ruling to be executed. If there is no rule on how to resolve something with the dice, simply rolling a few dice won't get stuff resolved either. And those rules either come out of a rulebook, or from the DM. If you doubt your DM's rulings and trustworthiness, nobody forces you to play with him. If you want to put ALL the experience and eventualities for how the rules are applied to any given situation into a DM's Guide, we'd probably be looking at a tome at least twice as thick as the current one.

 

[sullivan]

Sorry to hear that you have such a negative and totally wrong picture of the relationships between players and DMs in roleplaying games, and my condolences go out to everybody who had his games ruined by some ego-tripping DM.

It isn't "ego-tripping". It is following the letter, if not and spirit, of rules in the DMG. Serious, if you have it handy go check it out. Unfortunately I don't have the 3.5 DMG available at the momment, so I can't give the full text or page number. But it goes so far as to give the DM the sole authority to kick people out of the game!

The dice are not the "impartial judge" that makes a ruling for a special situation...

But they can be.

 

[Geron Raveneye]

But they can be.

Now I'm curious. So you have a situation with a player wanting to attempt something with his character. The rule system has no rule for what he wants to attempt, and the DM is not supposed to come up with a ruling of his own, either derived from another "official" rule, or of his own making. How can the dice be the impartial judges in this?