What's tactics got to do, got to do with it.

[gizmo33]

They are not the only ones "brilliant" enough to devise such devious plans. How else do you think the sword, the longbow, the gun came into such widespread use? People saw how effective they were and decided to use one for themselves.

No, to you, apparently, the history of gunpowder was "we better NOT use gunpowder or else some omnipotent being will single us out for punishment". Your suggestion is not an honest attempt to respectfully (of the players) develop technology in your game. This isn't about the "history" of anything, this is about the DM not liking something the players are doing. Facing that, rather than passive-aggressive strategies, would be the most polite way of dealing with the problem. The "abuse" here is the DM abusing his role as game moderator in order to "teach" players that they should read his mind.

As someone said upthread, when the pcs start an arms race, they LOSE.

And so the weak appeals to versimilitude have appropriately come to an end.

All I'm saying is what's good for the goose is good for the gander.

What's good for the goose, apparently, is not playing DnD. As I said, I seriously doubt you've ever actually used this strategy as a DM. I don't know of anyone who plays DnD that would continue in this kind of game. What you're suggesting is not respectful of the players.

If a tactic is useable by pcs, it is useable by others. When the players realize that if they abuse the rules, the dm is also free to do the same, that kind of crap will not go on and the game will play as intended.

On one hand you try to justify your actions on the basis of some sort of versimilitude ("people IRL adopt successful technologies") and then nearly in the same breath you give lie to this rationalization by revealing the (rather obvious) motivation for your suggestion here - which has nothing to do with realism and everything to do with the game "playing as intended" which is really just "playing the game the way the DM wants to".

AFAICT "rules abuse" to you is just the PCs using the items in the game to solve problems. The "abuse" part, apparently, is doing it in ways that the DM didn't anticipate. If the DM thinks there's something fundementally wrong with the rule's application (one example given was that oil damage was linearly related to the quantity of oil) then the DM should change the rule instead of embarking on your TPK strategy.

 

[Hussar]

Personally, I'd solve it the same way I'd solve the alchemist fire/lamp oil trick. Let it work. Then some night whilenthe pcs are in camp, a gargoyle or wyvern or some such would silently fly by and drop a barrel on the pcs. Or the dogs that we've already decided are silent would sneak into their camp and tear them apart. That would probably be the end of said "tactics."

And, we're right back to the arms race thing. "I'm the DM, I win". I don't like this solution because it is far too passive/aggressive for me. Boning the players because they thought of an exploit instead of dealing with the underlying issues just doesn't seem productive to me. Unfortunately, the advice you're giving mirrors far too many gaming advice columns over the years. "If the players get too big for their britches, screw them over" sorts of modules, particularly from the pen of Gary Gygax are prime examples of this.

The DM says, "No, there were no trained dogs in town. You can still have the dogs, but they are noisy."

If the player can't handling that ruling, then the game probably won't work. He hasn't agreed to give the DM the authority he needs to make judgement calls in the game, and that's a big feature of D&D.

The DM has the responsibility to remain impartial. He can't care if the dogs help solve whatever challenge the PCs face. He plays the world according to its inner logic, to keep it consistent and interesting.

Are there trained dogs here? This is a poor mining town struggling to get by. They do have war dogs - very handy when you're constantly under seige by goblins and kobolds - but they don't have the luxury of a specialist who trains them.

Gorm Hasag the woodsman might be able to - his dogs are well trained - but he's busy. The PCs might be able to hire him, if they pay him well enough and keep him happy.​

This assumes way too much though. Sure, if I happen to be in a particular location where I can't buy dogs, then fine. If I'm in the middle of a desert, I wouldn't explect to find trained attack dogs for sale. However, in a middling sized town, it's not unreasonable to think that I could find things that are on the PHB equipment list.

Again, it comes down to the DM simply over ruling the players. Why are there attack dogs, but none that are trained to be quiet? This is not a very strange thing to train an attack dog to do. Hunting dogs especially are trained to be quiet (well depending on what you are hunting). In a border town, where working dogs are often going to be used this way, I could probably reasonably expect to find dogs trained not to bark.

So, again, we're right back at dueling assumptions.

 

[ExploderWizard]

But it seems as though the DM who is coming up with reasons why the war dogs available for purchase do not actually suit the players' needs is not actually being impartial, he is engineering the game world to prevent the PC from making use of the game rules.

I know that this is inevitable to a certain degree in every RPG out there, but I don't have to like it. If the rules say that I can buy a trained war dog for X at any store that has trained war dogs, and I can make use of a trained war dog in manner Y, then I'm going to be awfully frustrated as a player if I find out that actually no store anywhere useful to me ever has trained war dogs, or if I find that the trained war dogs available to me always have some additional flaw, not specified in the rules though not disclaimed by the rules, which prevents me from using them.

In general, the more of this that occurs during a game, the more the game world stops being believable and the more the game turns into a battle of logic between the players and the DM in which the DM comes up with plausible explanations for why the players' plans won't work and the players try to reason past those explanations, not as part of a problem solving exercise between the players and the gameworld, but as part of a debate exercise between the players and the DM.

Since when is anything on a standard equipment list automatically available in any mudhole just because it's in the book?

If the party was in a poor village and someone got upset because there were no suits of platemail on the rack I wouldn't consider the DM to be screwing over the players.

 

[gizmo33]

But it seems as though the DM who is coming up with reasons why the war dogs available for purchase do not actually suit the players' needs is not actually being impartial, he is engineering the game world to prevent the PC from making use of the game rules.

I agree. And the problem ultimately is that the war dogs stats are not a good model of reality, hence dogs are being used in unrealistic ways by the players that is bothering the DM. And rather than the DM facing (and fixing) the root cause of the problem, many people's suggestion is that he continue the problem and simply insult the intelligences of the players.

The problem with the "PC rules are not the same as NPC rules" approach (that I see increasingly advocated, without much thought IMO, by 4e) is that it really contradicts the simulationist aspects that are already in the game. Powers and equipment have rules that are NOT based on plot consideration - instead they are modeled as well-defined (to a point) elements of technology that are intended to be used by players without having to get permission from the DM (once they are defined for the game and allowed).

If you want to run a "knights in shining armor" type game, then don't make barrels of oil, war dogs, spiked chains and leather armor the best items in the game! It's as simple as that. And if they are, change the rules, don't just brow-beat the players constantly that they shouldn't be using these items because the "right" way to play the game is to use plate armor and lance.

 

[MichaelK]

I don't really even understand the proposition of rules being used to resolve problems like this.

The writers at WoTC worked hard to make their roleplaying games, but they're not perfect and they do make mistakes. You can have misprints, outdated terminology from previous editions, miscommunication between authors and ambiguous phrasing.

If I find something that's a mistake, misprint or misleading in the book, then I'll fix it in my houserules.

Also if the rules left something out that it turns out I need for my game, like... how quickly the air will run out in a sealed room, then I'll write a house rule myself (or actually I'd just convert it from my 1st edition dungeoneer's survival guide in that case).

This thread's first example is talking about a final category of the same sort of thing. The rule that was left out because it's assumed people have common sense. If a player's actions reveal that they do not have the common sense to interpret the rules as intended, then I'm forced to correct that by writing it into the house rules thus making it rules as written.

At least theoretically... that's never actually happened to me.

 

[gizmo33]

If the party was in a poor village and someone got upset because there were no suits of platemail on the rack I wouldn't consider the DM to be screwing over the players.

Right, but this has nothing to do with the issue outlined in the OP. Your PCs entire existence could, hypothetically, be in a featureless 10x10 room with no dogs, or platemail, or anything else. Problem solved.

 

[MichaelK]

Since when is anything on a standard equipment list automatically available in any mudhole just because it's in the book?

If the party was in a poor village and someone got upset because there were no suits of platemail on the rack I wouldn't consider the DM to be screwing over the players.

Well that's just plain RAW. Check the DMG 3.5 page 137, 139 and 140.

(Not that I would consider a DM to be wrong if this weren't in the rules, I'm just saying that it is).

 

[Hussar]

Since when is anything on a standard equipment list automatically available in any mudhole just because it's in the book?

If the party was in a poor village and someone got upset because there were no suits of platemail on the rack I wouldn't consider the DM to be screwing over the players.

Oh, and fair enough, but, let's be honest here, not the entire campaign is going to take place in some random mudhole. Presumably, the players are going to go someone, at some point in time, where they can buy what they want.

The problem with the "PC rules are not the same as NPC rules" approach (that I see increasingly advocated, without much thought IMO, by 4e) is that it really contradicts the simulationist aspects that are already in the game. Powers and equipment have rules that are NOT based on plot consideration - instead they are modeled as well-defined (to a point) elements of technology that are intended to be used by players without having to get permission from the DM (once they are defined for the game and allowed).[/quote

Yes and no. I don't think the basic equipment lists are anywhere near as rigorous as you seem to be making out. They are a fairly broad list of items that an adventurer would find useful and could reasonably be expected to be able to find.

They are not simulationist in the slightest. They are entirely gamist. It makes very little sense for most of those items to be available at all (alchemists fire? Tanglefoot bags?) to the general public and the prices are based on adventurer economics, not on any functioning economy.

 

[billd91]

This assumes way too much though. Sure, if I happen to be in a particular location where I can't buy dogs, then fine. If I'm in the middle of a desert, I wouldn't explect to find trained attack dogs for sale. However, in a middling sized town, it's not unreasonable to think that I could find things that are on the PHB equipment list.

Again, it comes down to the DM simply over ruling the players. Why are there attack dogs, but none that are trained to be quiet? This is not a very strange thing to train an attack dog to do. Hunting dogs especially are trained to be quiet (well depending on what you are hunting). In a border town, where working dogs are often going to be used this way, I could probably reasonably expect to find dogs trained not to bark.

So, again, we're right back at dueling assumptions.

What's wrong with dueling assumptions? Or even more important, what's wrong with unevenly distributed product services if that's the way the DM sees the town (or towns in a small region)?

And if you can't currently find attack dogs for sale that are trained to be quiet on command, what's wrong with hiring someone to train them? Is it always right for the players to expect instant gratification for every desire they have, that they never have to invest time and effort beyond small pile of gold coins?

 

[gizmo33]

This thread's first example is talking about a final category of the same sort of thing. The rule that was left out because it's assumed people have common sense.

"Common sense" is a misnomer because that's all culturally dependant. If the sense here really was "common" then there would be no reason to explain it to the players. The fact is that the DM has a certain *opinion* about how a rule ought to be used, and it's his job (as the DM) to make sure that this opinion is incorporated into the game. Calling that opinion "common sense" IMO is patronizing and insulting to the players.

If a player's actions reveal that they do not have the common sense to interpret the rules as intended, then I'm forced to correct that by writing it into the house rules thus making it rules as written.

IMO the players aren't supposed to be "interpreting the rules" in the way you describe (in the context of the OPs problem). That's the DMs job. A DM shouldn't feel "forced" to do his job.

At least theoretically... that's never actually happened to me.

Many of the suggestions I've seen in this thread would not fly in any group I've ever DMed for. My players are not under the impression that our differences in opinion stem from their lack of "common sense", and I would expect them to be rightfully offended at the suggestion.