The core mechanic -- am I doing it wrong?

[Grabuto138]

No offense taken, but each table is different, and some DM's have a table of great players who can drive a very player-centric story. Some DMs have tables of rocks who wouldn't roleplay if their characters life depended upon it. To each their own style.

The benefit of D&D next seems to be that the system supports the players/DMS in the latter situation by giving both parties tools to make the game enjoyable for them.

And some players respect the story the DM is trying to tell and try to compliment rather than derail a story.

 

[Tallifer]

This is off topic and I hate edition wars, but as for your last comment, It wasnt the dramatic play that was limited, but rather my character who chose non combat options to specialize in, was hard to design in that edition. I preferred illusion, charm, skills and various other unconventional ways to help my group, these options were limited when we started 4e. The dramatic mad gnome wouldnt have made as much sense to me in my mind, if he was doing equivalent combat damage with the rest of the party, I wanted to sacrifice that to gain somewhere else.

<nods> I understand better now. That was a missing component in the first Players' Handbook.

 

[Noumenon]

I think it's important to note that the main mechanic of role playing games involves the player interacting with the DM. The mechanic is how your interaction with the game world is operationalized and handled. You may feel, using your X-Box, that you're interacting with Ferelden and its denizens, but the mechanic of doing so is by manipulating your X-box controls and how the operating system interprets those inputs within the structure of the game's code.

I've seen game designers define "core mechanic" like this before:

Core Mechanic The moment-to-moment activity of a player, repeated over and over throughout a game, such as trading, talking, shooting, guessing or conquering terrain.

That's how I took it -- that Monte meant saying "I want to X" and waiting for the DM to respond was what you're supposed to do in D&D. It's D&D's equivalent of Halo's "30 seconds of fun."

May I ask you a theoretical question?
(If yes please continue if not you can skip right to the end)

What if you were playing in a game of D&D or whatever and your character sheet by whatever means had clearly printed on it that your character could jump 30 ft at will. This 30ft jump would have been perfectly rules legal. How would you feel if the DM did not let you jump 30ft because it did not make sense with game, or for the encounter, just didn't like the ability, or whatever other reason you want to ascribe to the story teller for this denial. How would it make you feel about the game system and/or the DM?

Situation 1: "You can't jump 30 feet here because you're in orbit, and wearing magnetic space boots."
A-OK with me.

Situation 2: "You can't jump 30 feet because I don't play with a battlemat, or because I rule that jumping provokes AoOs that stop you and knock you prone and also causes falling damage whenever you land."
I'm not happy with this, the book promised me jumping 30 feet and didn't say it would be worthless.

Basically, as a control freak, I want to know beforehand whether something is going to work (barring fun surprises), and not have to ask the DM.

Your post made me sad. The DM is like an Xbox? An Xbox with a really really bad Crpg in it no less.

The Dragon Age: Origins DM is better than most DMs I've seen. It's certainly better than me. It has a hugely detailed campaign world and fits your character into those details, it provides encounters based on what parts of the story you found interesting, it provides all kinds of meaningful choices (especially in regard to your NPC companions, who you can leave to die if you want, gradually coax into sharing their story, or influence their perspective till they've totally changed their outlook on life). The DA:O DM lets you go wherever you want way better than human DMs can, keeps the challenge level balanced, lets you talk your way through some encounters instead of fighting, lets you influence politics, and all kinds of other stuff good DMs are supposed to do. It's really good.

You do understand that the DM is a player as well don't you? The storyteller plays D&D with you. They do not just take a bunch of time out of their week prepping for game day so they can be your character sheet's math co-processor once a week. It is a storytelling collaboration where you do not have to have a rule for everything. You have a player playing with you who gave up being one of the heroes in the story your group is making to play the bad guys and everybody else the players meet to make the story more real for everyone.

When I DM, being the math coprocessor is one of the things that's fun for me. Story and exploration are more work, so I like to run modules. I also like imagining how the adventure is going to go beforehand. I don't feel like I'm giving up my chance to be a hero, it's more like I get to play five or six different character sheets each session (and be guaranteed their abilities will actually work).

The DM is a player, and a friend, but the game doesn't consist of interacting with him that much. It's like Settlers of Catan -- you interact while playing Settlers, but interacting is not a big part of gameplay.

DMing itself is pretty interactive, though, as it's all focused on what the players will enjoy the most based on what they're thinking right now. If Monte had phrased his quote from the DM's perspective, I might have seen no problem with it. If he had said,

"The core mechanic of #dnd is: DM says 'what do you want to do next?' and player responds"

That matches a lot better the way I like to play, even though it replaces interaction with just action.

 

[Lord Mhoram]

May I ask you a theoretical question?
(If yes please continue if not you can skip right to the end)

What if you were playing in a game of D&D or whatever and your character sheet by whatever means had clearly printed on it that your character could jump 30 ft at will. This 30ft jump would have been perfectly rules legal. How would you feel if the DM did not let you jump 30ft because it did not make sense with game, or for the encounter, just didn't like the ability, or whatever other reason you want to ascribe to the story teller for this denial. How would it make you feel about the game system and/or the DM?

Thanks in advance for the answer.

I'd like to answer this one too. My playstyle is sort of in between the two exremes.

Rules or being book legal is secondary the game the GM runs. If the GM says "no teleportation in my world, it doesn't work" then there isn't teleportation and I am fine with that. It is the GMs world to create - his choice. The GM should have something that is his for the work that is put into runing the game.

So if the "no 30 ft jumps" was a campaign ground rule for whatever reason, I'm perfectly fine with that.

However if it was for a specific encounter, I would need a in story reason why an ability my character has used before cannot use it at this time, other than "I don't want it in this encounter" - for me that breaks the immersion of character and world.


As a note, I play HERO a lot, and those rules are so flexible the let any player come up with just about any character concept they want. However being a point based system, with that flexibility it also leads to book legal character design that is patently stupid or overpowered. The game relies on the GM to catch that and say "No you cannot play this in this game". I don't see any reason that should be any different in D&D.

In a tourney or "encounters" style situations where it isn't a steady group - that is one thing. However around a table - GM has ultimate power on what is allowed in the game and world he came up with.

I think that every table and every group should play just a little bit different in rules, rulings, style than just about anyone else's. Part of the reason I am looking forward to how the D&DNext modularity is going to work.

 

[Lord Mhoram]

Another thought I had while thinking about this -

I wonder if there is a correlation between the "GM can disallow powers/races/etc". camp vs the "It's in the rules, I can play it, it's legal" camp and those who used primary home made worlds and adventures, and those that use published ones.


I have never used a published campaign setting in my gaming life (going on 35 years now) and have used modules, but have always modified story/intent/background of them to fit my group and the world.

And I am in the "GM can Disallow" camp.


And that of course leads back to the original topic of play-style the OP mentioned.

 

[hanez]

Another thought I had while thinking about this -

I wonder if there is a correlation between the "GM can disallow powers/races/etc". camp vs the "It's in the rules, I can play it, it's legal" camp and those who used primary home made worlds and adventures, and those that use published ones.


I have never used a published campaign setting in my gaming life (going on 35 years now) and have used modules, but have always modified story/intent/background of them to fit my group and the world.

And I am in the "GM can Disallow" camp.


And that of course leads back to the original topic of play-style the OP mentioned.

I wouldnt think its as tight of a relation as you might think. I almost always use modules. But am firmly in the "DM is god and can fudge all he wants as long as its making the game is more fun, and he often double checks thats true with the players" camp.

I started off making my own worlds. but then Paizo started making there incredible adventure paths, and Alderac Entertainment had these awesome 8 page adventures in 3.5 and what was the point buuilding worlds when I could just add to theirs.

 

[underfoot007ct]

Gotta spread some XP around.

It is time the adjudication of the game returned to the people playing.

OK, sure, But which people playing? I play 4E, my friend play 4E a few hundreds played 4E at DDXP, thousands at GENCON. Or the 1E/2E, or 3E guys. Which people get to "adjudicate" ? Just not sure who you mean the "people" are.

 

[ExploderWizard]

OK, sure, But which people playing? I play 4E, my friend play 4E a few hundreds played 4E at DDXP, thousands at GENCON. Or the 1E/2E, or 3E guys. Which people get to "adjudicate" ? Just not sure who you mean the "people" are.

The ones gathered to play at a particular game. When you gather together to play a game with several friends that means "you guys".


Put another way, "official" can take a hike. A set of rules is a toolkit that anyone can use to build a game of thier choosing. Being a hobbyist rather than a consumer.

 

[JamesonCourage]

The Dragon Age: Origins DM is better than most DMs I've seen. The DA:O DM lets you go wherever you want way better than human DMs can

We'll have to agree to disagree, because this breaks so significantly from my experience it's foreign to me. As always, play what you like

 

[Lord Mhoram]

I wouldnt think its as tight of a relation as you might think. I almost always use modules. But am firmly in the "DM is god and can fudge all he wants as long as its making the game is more fun, and he often double checks thats true with the players" camp.

I started off making my own worlds. but then Paizo started making there incredible adventure paths, and Alderac Entertainment had these awesome 8 page adventures in 3.5 and what was the point buuilding worlds when I could just add to theirs.

Yeah - I didn't know which way it might go, part of the reason I asked.

I tend to come up with my own world, and tone, but use modules all the time. I just work some way in to the players background, and twist it to fit my world. The dungeon and monsters would be the same, but the motivations of NPCs or other stuff would be fit to my world.

And I agree on the adding to thiers, only in reverse.

I GM a lot of Champions. I love superhero RPGs. So I use mostly the Champions universe, but I have characters (converted or inspired by) 4 or 5 other superhero games, and cities from at least non Champions Superhero games....

Heck we used undermountain and Waterdeep in an old game, but didn't use anything else of the realms.