D&D 4E Ryan Dancey on 4E

[sullivan]

If the game is fun for the players and the GM who the heck cares how they play it? It is, after all, a game... its purpose is to entertain.

Sure. But if you are cruising along and not watching while stuff builds up. Things are happening, laughing is going on. Then bam. Or not a bam. Someone just isn't showing up anymore. Hey they have a credible excuses, life happens, no biggie. Well I've taken the time to pry underneath a few times, and that's when you see discover the problem.

Or maybe things are OK, but you are still coming up short. But you don't miss it because you assume this is what it is suppose to be, because that is all you know.

If you want it to be a vehicle for social interaction experiments you very well might be taking the "game" out of the game for many players (although apparently not all).

Experiments would be playtesting. Having it as part of a game isn't an experiment.

 

[Banshee16]

Sociology of gaming actually. But since sociology underlies a lot of politics, both of these involving people functioning in a group, your confusion is understandable.

I simply left out my sarcasm indicators My educational background consists of both sociology and psychology, so I understand the point you're trying to make. My comment had more to do with the tone of your message, which I understand may have been, to a degree, tongue-in-cheek.

Collaboration is not a horrible way to accoplish something. It is an extremely powerful way. On a larger scale we, meaning humans, currently lack the interpersonal communication abilities, technology, and methologies to successfully function this way. But at the level of 4 to 6 people? Who at the very least pass for marginally mature and intellegent? In a limited senario where actual life and limb are not on the line? These are lifeskills, and if found lacking then what a great way to learn them and enrich the rest of a life.

Collaboration *can* be an effective way of accomplishing something....*if* the people doing the collaboration have both the background and experience....and if they have no agenda. But it does take more time, and does not always lead to better solutions, from a purely empirical standpoint. Obviously such skills are important......equally as much as competition is. But I disagree that it's unhealthy to have a group leader. A leader does not necessarily equate to being a dictator. A GM/DM who is a dictator likely won't have a group for very long.

I've had instances of losing players due to personality conflicts among the players, such as having one player in the group who's a rules fiend, and others willing to have them bent where appropriate, when it makes a better overall experience for the majority of players. With some of those trouble players, consensus does not seem possible. So, as a GM, am I doing my job by allowing a player who is using the rules completely to his advantage, to the point that it's disrupting the rest of the players from being able to enjoy the game? Or do I attempt to reach consensus, and failing that, use rule zero to force the troublesome player to comply, by overruling his interpretations? I'd rather have one player complaining, than having 3 players complaining.

Groupthink implies an uncritical acceptance, which is certainly not something I'd advocate. Groupthink is something that can occur just as easily, if not more readily, in a situation of a DM as the authority figure. Because often the players are encourgaged to NOT complain or question or act on their own. Not to pick on him because he's not alone, nor can I say I've lived a life without sin, but just look at Lanefan's comment above.

Groupthink implies not only an uncritical acceptance, but compromise to the level that the solution itself becomes ill-thought out, simply so that everyone can have their say. It takes longer, and results in inefficient decisions. Any time you get a group involved in making decisions, it becomes more prone to drift from the initial objectives, take more time, and to have some members of the group riding on the coattails of others who are the strong contributors. Think back to any time you had to do group work in school. Getting 1 or maybe 2 other people to work with you could be very effective....especially with one person taking a leadership role. But trying to get something done with 5 people or 6 people? Ugh. Usually someone slacked off, there would be trouble getting people to coordinate their time, more chances for personality conflicts, etc.

By definition, I think that a DM as the authority figure is contrary to the characteristics of what you get with groupthink.

On a personal level, I think that if the DM is the person putting all the effort into the game, which is often the case, he needs to have more say in what's going on. Otherwise, why bother? And how can he prepare properly if the player(s) can simply abuse the rules, or challenge him on everything. Who wants to spend 6 hours a week preparing the next scenario, only to have a player spend an hour every session arguing with you? That's not fun for the other players, or for the GM. It takes so long to prepare for sessions if you're a DM, and so little time as a player, that the emotional and personal investment is so much greater on the DM's behalf. Obviously, the players have attachment as well, or they wouldn't be there. And the DM could be succeptible to abusing the rules, or the other players *because* of his/her emotional and personal investment. But I think being the GM/DM of a game is an excellent way for people to learn leadership and time management skills. And that is just as important as learning to collaborate.

Maybe a better term for GM's would be "referee". I've always hated the term "Dungeon Master".

Banshee

 

[ST]

Man, that has not been my personal experience at all.

It's entirely possible to have a group collaborate to make joint decisions without it being "groupthink". I will say that it helps a ton if the group's friends outside of gaming, because yes, if their total social interaction is defined by the game, that can skew things.

I'm still trying to figure out the "Players arguing with you for an hour every session", though. That sounds really just awful, and I feel for anybody who'd put up with something like that. (Again, though, gaming with friends, and having gaming be one of those things you do together, but not the whole raison d'etre, seems to largely avoid those kinds of issues.)

 

[Brian Gibbons]

I think anyone seeking an answer to this question should play in an RPGA game.

I think so, too, but for a different reason.

You can play an RPGA module at 2am at a con with an inexperienced GM and have a decent time.

You can also play an RPGA module with a group of experienced players and a talented GM and end up with a four-hour enjoyable experience that you will reference years later.

I've played RPGA games where the GM does everyone strictly by the book and if it's not written down in front of him, he's scrambling. I've played RPGA games with GMs where we didn't realize we had left the scope of what the module had expected us to do an hour earlier, and hadn't noticed.

The problem is that, among people who play D&D, a lot more people have the ability to run a game in the former fashion than the latter. If you raise the bar so that only the latter type of GM can run a game, you're eliminating a lot of possibilities.

I would imagine that the proportion of people in the RPGA who GM on at least a semi-regular basis is significantly higher than in the general gaming population as a whole.

I have no idea what changes WOTC might make to decrease the burden on a GM, but I can easily see them trying. After all, GMs buy more books and create more opportunities for new people to start playing.

I'm also not sure why people would be up in arms about such changes: Creating a new campaign world from scratch is a lot of fun. However, many people do not have the time, talent or interest in doing so, so if you set as the bar that GMs must provide all that information themselves in order to run a campaign, you're eliminating a lot of people from being able to GM.

On the other hand, the fact that WOTC gives you Greyhawk or the Forgotten Realms as a baseline doesn't stop people from ignoring that and using their own campaign world as they wish. It merely gives options for those who prefer a less-intensive GM role.

 

[Mark CMG]

Sorry Mark. I've fixed my post.

Thanks!

 

[tenkar]

On a personal level, I think that if the DM is the person putting all the effort into the game, which is often the case, he needs to have more say in what's going on. Otherwise, why bother? And how can he prepare properly if the player(s) can simply abuse the rules, or challenge him on everything.

Maybe a better term for GM's would be "referee". I've always hated the term "Dungeon Master".

Banshee

I agree that the DM puts in nearly all, if not all of the game prep and effort. Lose one player you still have a game. Lose the DM/GM/Referee its time to pull out Nuclear Assault.

I think Sullivan's slant on this (and I could be wrong) is the old Socialist approach of "From each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs". The DM plays his role based upon his skills and knowledge of the game, but has no more authority then any single player, because they all have the "need" of equal authority in the game. More like a Socialistic Democracy at work I would guess.

Haven't seen it work in real life, and would hate to see it bog down my game time so that a group consensus can be reached at the major points of the game.

If the game ain't broke, why fix it? This would be turning DnD into a social interaction experiment as I said earlier. It has nothing to do with playtesting and everything to do with graduate student type thesis. Thank god my History degree kept me off the slippery slope of Sociology

 

[Sulimo]

I don't know if this would be true, but I'd like to think it would be true - and would kinda be interested in seeing it happen.

Now maybe the local players I know are unusual, but it seems fairly unlikely to me. Most hardcore D&D players I know just stick with Wizards products and pretty much ignore everything else for the most part.

 

[Ashrum the Black]

"groupthink"?

I'll pass. I spend all day long at work doing groups. For the most part they are highly ineffective and generally a waste of time. Why? Because you're always pulled down to the level of the lowest person there.

Put somebody in charge, let him make the call, and move on. Yeesh. I waste more time explaining issues ten ways all day long to make sure everybody understands. I DM, and play in my group and have no issues of trust concerning my DM's. Why? Because I'm having fun. If he wants a pink dragon with a candy corn breath weapon. Fine. As long as I'm still having fun who cares it's not RAW?

You want to improve the game then make the DM's job easier by giving him the tools to make NPC's in less then an hour each at 15th level. Make the rules flexible enough to accomplish just as much as they do today, but make them more consistent. I'm looking at you here grapple. Don't remove the DM, I'm tired of groups doing things in cooperation because not everybody is reasonable. Sometimes you simply can't agree, and there is why a DM exists.

I will with hold judgment on 4E until I see it. I'm trying to keep an open mind, since really, we know nothing about it beyond speculation anyway. Each of us has our own sacred cows we don't want to see disappear. Until we hold the book in our hands though we will have no idea which truely were slaughtered and which remain. Some of us will decry the changes and leave the hobby, others will applaude them and bring new blood in.

-Ashrum