The two approaches to judging RPGs

[catsclaw]

Forked from: Different party, same adventure, big variation

That's sort of like asking, "Why did you ride the rollercoaster if it wasn't enjoyable?" You don't know how it's going to be until it starts.

Sure, but you're the one designing the roller coaster, operating the controls, and manning the concession stands. Really, the one thing you can never say as a judge is "It's out of my control." "I won't run it that way," maybe, or "These are the rules I choose to adhere to." But never "I couldn't change things."

There's a mentality that's handed down from the early days of the hobby which, oddly, both expects the judge to be an impartial arbiter of rules as well as setting them up as an antagonist to the party. This might be called the Tomb of Horrors approach to DMing. The judge designs an adventure full of monsters and traps and treasure, trying to outwit the players and then, when running, steps back and lets the dungeon do the work. You don't make things harder or easier on the fly, you don't tone down undead encounters if the cleric can't make it that week, you don't ease up if there's a new player who does something stupid. It almost has to be that way, because if you're intentionally stacking the deck against the party when you design the dungeon, you need to be able to say you don't have your thumb on the scale when you're running it.

There's nothing wrong with that style of game. In fact, I'm prepping a one-shot 4e dungeon crawl using Grimtooth's Traps right now. Characters will die. Horribly and unfairly. I will laugh.

But in general, especially for long-running campaigns, I think it's more productive to consider yourself cooperating with the players, not antagonizing them. You're supposed to have fun. Sure, that means fighting tough monsters and risking death--and that has to be a real risk, or it feels cheap--but by the same token you need to make the players feel like they've got a shot. The players are supposed to ultimately win. You can knock them down and beat them with sticks while they're down there, but eventually you have to let them get back up and kick your ass.

It's very tempting to "punish" players for making stupid decisions, for attacking rather than retreating when they're outclassed, or for failing to prepare for something they know is coming. But ultimately, that's counterproductive. I'm not sure what I would have done in your situation. Maybe nothing differently. But you could have had it start knocking PCs unconscious; or grab one and fly away; or just had it get bored, kill a couple PCs, call in a bunch of minor creatures to mop up, and leave. The PCs are going to still feel horrible because they lost, but each also provides direction and motivation moving forward.

 

[Piratecat]

Good summary, catsclaw; the first few paragraphs echo my own viewpoint very closely. I like that kind of games, but I don't find them as much fun as one where I'm actively plotting on the fly.

 

[Doug McCrae]

The judge designs an adventure full of monsters and traps and treasure, trying to outwit the players

Challenge, not outwit.

One thing that does annoy me is when GMs entirely blame the players for failure. It makes no sense because those same GMs seem to be very much in favor of the GM having lots of power. You can't have power without responsibility, it doesn't work. If the GM is powerful than he has to take his share of responsibility, and it will be a large share, for what happened.

In fact from the GM's seat I quite often see players collude in this, taking more responsibility than they really ought to when something goes wrong. They're like - "Well we could've won if only we'd done X, Y and Z."

In the last game I ran, a player felt he was to blame when his character got ambushed by some cat monsters he had antagonised in an earlier session. And I thought, no, I'm to blame. I was the one who decided to have those cat monsters show up this session. That was an entirely contingent decision. I could've very easily had them never appear again. It was much more my responsibility than it was the player's.

 

[Ariosto]

"Challenge, not outwit" is right; one is delighted if the players' wits overcome the challenge.

This is only anecdotal evidence, but in 30+ years, I have encountered only one DM who was out to screw players. That was a stranger running a "pickup" game at a convention, and he apparently got his jollies by letting his player pal assassinate everyone else's characters. Neither do I recall hearing much of such creatures until quite recent years. The "killer DM" seems rather suddenly to have become such a pressing danger as to warrant any excess billed as combating the menace.

What's up with all the passive aggression on issues such as this? Don't people talk with each other any more? Has it fallen out of fashion to play D&D with friends, as a social activity?

Impartial adjudication keeps it a game, not an exercise in which the "players" are hapless puppets.

It's like designing a computer-program game. One puts in opportunities for players to lose, because that gives context to winning. "Cheat codes" are for those who want to do something else.

If players in an RPG want to do that kind of something else, then we can make it so.

Different situations are suited to different levels of skill. Player expertise is much more important than character "experience levels" in the Tomb of Horrors. If having attained the latter is something other than a product of acquiring the former, then the players are not ready for the scenario. The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan is less demanding, although failure to heed the PHB advice to stay on objective can easily be deadly; fortunately, there's a continual reminder of that.

Those are tournament scenarios; similar setups are also good for "one-shot" sessions at conventions. In a traditional campaign, even a single dungeon is likely to offer challenges in a range of difficulties. The "dungeon level" concept facilitates player strategy: going deeper means daring greater risks, for commensurately greater rewards. Besides that vertical movement, great freedom in horizontal movement is key to a proper campaign dungeon.

Beyond that, a full-fledged campaign offers a wide variety of options besides undertaking an expedition into Dungeon X.

In the last game I ran, a player felt he was to blame when his character got ambushed by some cat monsters he had antagonized in an earlier session. And I thought, no, I'm to blame. I was the one who decided to have those cat monsters show up this session. That was an entirely contingent decision. I could've very easily had them never appear again. It was much more my responsibility than it was the player's.

There's a necessary responsibility: If not for the limited-information aspect of D&D, there would be no need for a judge in the first place! Going further, if the appearance (or not) and behavior of cat monsters were a matter of player decree, then provision of an actual game would depend on some mechanism that somehow makes a challenge of acquiring or managing the power to make such a decree.

Was the ambush a product of the antagonism? Was that a reasonable outcome? Did you assign a reasonable probability that it would not happen then, or would not happen at all? If you really were playing at omnipotence rather than binding yourself by such rules, then in my opinion you were indeed serving the players poorly.

One serves them just as poorly by wielding such arbitrary power in their favor. It's the referee's job to let the players play the game, not to "play" them.

I have seen the argument that a GM should "fudge" to keep a PC from dying, because "otherwise it means the GM wants to kill the character." That in fact is certainly the case when a GM, having cheated before, chooses on one occasion to let the dice lie as they fall.

If defeat or death is truly unacceptable, then the sensible course is simply to make that a rule.

Now that "D&D" has in some quarters been reduced to "&", not only the "RP" but the "G" seem to be slated for extermination. What lies beyond may be great entertainment for some, but this is crossing a significant frontier into a different environment calling for a different set of tools.

The most important tool, though, remains communication. If you're turning the referee's role into writer-director-producer, then the production can flop as easily as any on stage or screen. If admission costs nothing, the hours of labor are unpaid, then the players-become-audience must bring to the table something better than rotten tomatoes. Otherwise, you're going to see a heavy selection pressure against people willing to risk refereeing.

"When you assume, you make an ass of u and me" is a relevant maxim. If you assume that the GM knows what you want, then it's easy to assume that failure to deliver it indicates malicious desire to keep you from having fun. Instead of building a grudge-producing mechanism, why not try talking together in friendship and maturity?

 

[thecasualoblivion]

The two philosphies are defined by their focus, and who is "acting" within the game's framework:

1. In old school D&D, the participants were the players vs. the DMs. The DM didn't challenge the PCs, he challenged the players, and he did so directly.

2. The new school defines the struggle as the PCs vs the Campaign in the context of an ongoing story. The Campaign assumes and defines the PCs as long term participants with some level of plot protection, and the DM and players are not antagonists but shared participants in the overarching story.

 

[Mallus]

Has it fallen out of fashion to play D&D with friends, as a social activity?

Not where I'm from. Of course, I'm in the City of Brotherly Love.

Impartial adjudication keeps it a game, not an exercise in which the "players" are hapless puppets.

Less than impartial adjudication does not automatically reduce the players to hapless puppets. Also, impartial adjudication is something of a fiction.

It's like designing a computer-program game. One puts in opportunities for players to lose, because that gives context to winning.

If one is a smart computer game designer, one puts in lot more opportunities to win. People like winning.

Player expertise is much more important than character "experience levels" in the Tomb of Horrors.

My personal belief is that the Tomb of Horrors measures only the ability to survive the Tomb of Horrors. It describes no greater area of expertise.

(ie, I don't think it's such a great module. It's fame has a lot to do with its irrational difficulty. Emphasis on the 'irrational')

Now that "D&D" has in some quarters been reduced to "&"

I'm certainly guilty of this. I prefer my fantasy stories less focused on the dungeons + dragons.

... not only the "RP" but the "G" seem to be slated for extermination.

I think it's safer to say that the nature of some of the challenges, and the skills required to navigate them, have changed. It's still very much a game.

The most important tool, though, remains communication.

Absolutely!

 

[Nameless1]

Nice summary. I tried to say this in the original thread. I like communication.

 

[Bullgrit]

Sure, but you're the one designing the roller coaster, operating the controls, and manning the concession stands. Really, the one thing you can never say as a judge is "It's out of my control." "I won't run it that way," maybe, or "These are the rules I choose to adhere to." But never "I couldn't change things."

Well, since you quoted me by name, I must point out that you are misrepresenting what I said. And your post goes in a completely different direction than I was talking in the statement you quote.

What I was referring to is that no matter how well a DM creates an encounter to entertain and challenge the PCs, once the PCs enter the encounter (enter the equation), the Players have a lot of control over the outcome (for good or bad). Or it could be said that the DM looses a lot of control over the outcome.

Plus, don't forget that simple randomness from the dice can completely throw things out of whack, against the best planning and best intent from either the DM or the Players.

To continue the rollercoaster analogy. The DM may be the one designing the roller coaster, operating the controls, and manning the concession stands. But once the Players sit in the coaster, they may stand up, they may jump out (thinking it would be fun). They may try to juggle knives while the coaster is running. They may choke on a peanut from the concession stand. happens, you know.

And even if the DM is masterful enough to keep a PC from killing himself with the encounter, the DM is outnumbered 4 to 1. You know the saying, "Make something foolproof, and the world will invent a better fool." And even the best, smartest, wisest, most cautious Players can sometimes have a fool moment that catches the DM off guard and not be able fast enough to stop the fool from getting a bad result. (See my thread about me stepping out in front of two dire lions as an example.)

For instance: "you don't tone down undead encounters if the cleric can't make it that week"

First - I consider it the Players' responsibility to note that hole in their abilities and plan to work around it somehow. Or avoid going into ancient tombs without the cleric.

Second - How about if the cleric is present, but he doesn't try to turn anything because, "They're only wights. We can take them without wasting a turn." And then by the end of the encounter, the party is down half a dozen levels.

Or if the cleric does try turning, but he fails, every time. (I've seen this.)

Of if the cleric Player is present, but the PC was killed just before the party entered the undead encounter.

Of the rogue Player thought it would be a funny gag if he pickpocketed the cleric's holy symbol, not knowing undead were coming up.

Of if the cleric burned up all his turning attempts using other abilities that use turns (certain feats).

Unless you're suggesting the DM place and remove encounters on the fly depending on how the party is doing in the adventure.

It's very tempting to "punish" players for making stupid decisions, for attacking rather than retreating when they're outclassed, or for failing to prepare for something they know is coming. But ultimately, that's counterproductive.

I take exception at you suggesting I was punishing Players for making stupid decisions. I never punish Players for being dumb. I do, however, usually let things just play out naturally. But for the particular encounter you're talking about here, I actually did a lot on the fly to try to keep the Players from suffering from their foolishness. They overwhelmed me.

I'm not sure what I would have done in your situation. Maybe nothing differently. But you could have had it start knocking PCs unconscious; or grab one and fly away; or just had it get bored, kill a couple PCs, call in a bunch of minor creatures to mop up, and leave. The PCs are going to still feel horrible because they lost, but each also provides direction and motivation moving forward.

Monday morning quarterback. Even if I did what you suggest here, the Players can still totally screw it up.

For instance, in a recent adventure (in which I was a Player, not the DM), the DM needed us to get a piece of information for us to be able to find a secret door and finish the adventure. He placed a couple of minor humanoids ahead of us in the corridor -- they would not be a real threat to us, and he was going to make them surrender as soon as they saw us. They would then willingly give us the info we needed -- even without us asking for the info. It was a slam dunk way of giving us the info.

But the party barbarian ran up ahead of our group looking for a fight (we had been wandering the dungeon for too long). He attacked the humanoids, who threw down their weapons and surrendered. The PC barbarian slew them anyway.

The DM told us later about his intents with that encounter. happens. And sometimes the DM can't do a damn thing to stop it.

Bullgrit