A DM by any other name

[Mercule]

it's all about Player DM Synchronization.

Very good point. This is why I threw in my caveats. A good DM has reasonable knowledge of what the players will find fun.

 

[ComradeGnull]

DM'ing combines several distinct tasks: making & interpreting rules, world building, creating and playing NPC's, plotting.

There is no guarantee that any DM is good at (or enjoys) all of them. Having rules to cover a wider array of situations without recourse to on-the-spot adjudication helps DMs who want help in that department, the same way that published adventures help DMs who want help with plot and balance, and published settings help DMs who want help with world building. No one is obligated to use any of it, but that isn't a reason not to publish it.

DMs who love building settings are totally free to ignore Eberron, Faerun, Greyhawk and the rest. DMs who love plotting and encounter design are free to ignore published adventures. DMs who love adjudicating rules questions on the fly are free to ignore the published rules and run rules-light versions of games.

In other words: why should I be required to create house rules because you enjoy it, anymore than you should be required to design a campaign setting because I enjoy it? I would rather let people who make games as their day job make rules so that I can focus on the things that I enjoy: worlds, characters, plots, and interacting with players.

 

[Mercule]

In other words: why should I be required to create house rules because you enjoy it, anymore than you should be required to design a campaign setting because I enjoy it? I would rather let people who make games as their day job make rules so that I can focus on the things that I enjoy: worlds, characters, plots, and interacting with players.

Fair point. Speaking for myself, I don't want to force you to house rule. What I want is for the published rules to not be so complex and/or interconnected that I cannot do so without pretty much disassembling the whole game.

Also, speaking for myself, I love pretty much every aspect of DMing that you listed. I've been frustrated with d20 because the rules for all of them.

 

[ComradeGnull]

Fair point. Speaking for myself, I don't want to force you to house rule. What I want is for the published rules to not be so complex and/or interconnected that I cannot do so without pretty much disassembling the whole game.

Also, speaking for myself, I love pretty much every aspect of DMing that you listed. I've been frustrated with d20 because the rules for all of them.

I understand that a game can get harder to house rule if there are already a lot of rules in theory... in practice I just don't quite know what someone would like to be able to house rule that they feel unable to do because of the existing rule system. Can you think of something from d20 or 4e that you feel is too hard to change because of the published rules?

 

[Scylla]

Putting these kinds of words into people's mouths is just plain rude. These kinds of discussions would be a lot more polite and constructive if you didn't create these fantasy motivations for people who have different interests and ideas than you.

Before I delve into your thoughtful post any deeper, I had no intent to put words in anyone's mouth (or I wouldn't have asked for other folks' opinions and opened myself to the firing line in the first place).

I'm trying to understand what seems—to me, emphasis there— to be a newish phenomena or attitude shift. My post wasn't meant as a personal attack anyone's style of play. As I said, it was my first thought and little more than that. I respect your opinion and hope (despite your labeling my observations "silly" and "plain rude") that you respect mine, for that's all it is.

 

[ExploderWizard]

I'm against the erosion of the DM's power and ability to houserule.
Why?

— The DM knows the whole picture, the players don't. Sometimes players can undertake actions against their own interest or against the interest of the overall plot/adventure. Yes, a good DM rolls with player actions to a point (I certainly do), but there are times when a DM needs to make things a little harder or easier to move the plot along, etc., and freedom to make rulings without being book-bound facilitates that. No long-running, successful campaign exists without occasional course corrections.

Quite to the contrary, players acting in what is believed to be their own best interests and taking the game in unexpected directions is the main reason I enjoy the game. The overall plot (which will be owned by an entity in the game world) is made to be broken, ignored, changed, or whatever. Actual play rules the day. If the players are happy doing their own thing then damned if I'm going to course correct them.

– Maintaining the challenge. I strongly believe that a challenging game makes for a fun game. Sadly, some players don't understand this. Having a PC able to easily conquer anything he meets sounds like great fun, but in practice it wears thin quickly. (Ever see the Twilight Zone episode about the criminal who thought he was in heaven?) The really memorable combats that you remember years later aren't the easy kills (though smashing through a horde of kobolds is admittedly fun) but rather those times when the player really needs to make that high roll or critical to save the day and does it.

I like to let players decide much about the level of challenge they will face. There are many things to do in the world and it is possible to overpower challenges unworthy of the party and to bite off a lot more than the group can chew at times. Higher risks bring the greatest rewards.

Latter editions have—strictly in my experience—led to an explosion of power gaming and "PC engineering." Building a super character is a mission for some players, and the many power combos and feats and other PC abilities in latter editions facilitate this. Building an effective PC can be fun; indeed, I enjoy selecting 4e powers myself. But the erosion of DM power makes it harder to limit the abuses of the rules or prevent one character from shining above the rest because that player is (at best) very knowledgeable or (at worst) a dedicated min-maxer.
Having one character stronger than the rest leads to many problems, and ultimately as DM I'm either forced to find a way to "de-tooth" that PC a bit or I'm forced to escalate the challenges to match, which puts the weaker PCs in serious jeopardy. The erosion of DM power and the increase in the "rulification" of everything enable power abuses.

The "rulification" is simply telling the world at large that a book can run your game better than you can.

The character building thing is another matter entirely. Players tend to become inwardly focused on their special little snowflkes and creative energy that was once spent in actual play contributing to the fun of shared adventures is now turned toward the character sheet. The focus of play becomes all about building the ultimate deck. Adventures and the game world itself fade into a scrolling 2D backdrop against which these tricked out avatars do their cool little stunts.

– DMs want and deserve to have fun too. DMing is a tough craft, and it's work. It isn't for everyone. But the feeling gained from sharing your world with others and challenging and surprising your friends is priceless. It's a different experience from playing a PC, but it's great fun. Reducing the DM to a robot that merely spits out room descriptions and monster rosters is wrong. The greatest challenge for a DM, and I think the most rewarding, is ruling on the fly. A PC wants to swing across the room, kick the bad guy's face, and land on the bar seat next to the baron? Houserule it! Wandering monsters show up? Create the encounter!

This is the crux of it really. I no longer find fun in DMing games for deck builders, so I don't. I prefer lighter, simpler rulesets and it has nothing to do with power or control. I want the group to focus on the shared reality and the adventure instead of the rules. Fewer rules is the path to that experience.

At times the charge has been leveled that latter edition fans prefer a videeogame-style D&D. I've always felt this charge was unfair. But reading some of the "Mother may I" complaints I can't help to feel that some NMMI players now do want that kind of experience, and if they could do away with a DM and simply have an automated system present the mission, Modern Warfare or Uncharted style, they'd seize that option.

I have no interest in being a game server.

 

[El Mahdi]

I think the rules can support a style. If the rules are very strictly designed and specifically constructed to prevent improvisation by the players then less DM adjudication will come into play. Yes the game can be houseruled but that doesn't make the game prior to change a game that fascilitates a style of play.

Rules can be designed to "support" a playstyle. But support is not the same as being "forced" to play a certain way. And any rules system can be played with strong DM adjudication, or very little...no matter what the rules best support...and without the need for houserules.

"Best fit" and "unplayabe in a cerain playstyle" are two very different things. And I have yet to encounter an RPG where the rules absolutely define the role, purview, and limitations of the DM (with the only exception of games made to be run specifically without a DM).

 

[Mercule]

I understand that a game can get harder to house rule if there are already a lot of rules in theory... in practice I just don't quite know what someone would like to be able to house rule that they feel unable to do because of the existing rule system. Can you think of something from d20 or 4e that you feel is too hard to change because of the published rules?

As a general rule, it wasn't so much the number of rules as it was how interrelated they were. When we tried the armor as DR rules from UA (3.5), it radically changed things like poisonous critters. They're balanced with the idea of doing less damage up front, but slamming you with the poison. There's a rule, though, that says anything that does no damage doesn't get to give poison damage. So, the fighter would walk through scads of threatening vermin in his full plate, with nary a care in the world. That sounds pretty cool, but the CR was totally out of whack. There were tons of little gotchas like that with just the armor as DR rule. Other tweaks had their own issues, many of which had daisy chains of downstream effects. Yeah, I've got enough experience that I probably could rework things to balance out again, but it wouldn't have been easy. I also don't think it's fair for my players to practically have an alternate PHB just for my campaign. A couple of pages of notes is cool and flavorful, but a tome just sucks.

The other thing with d20 is that something about the way the rules are presented implies a degree of "this is immutable law" I hadn't encountered in D&D previously. I don't know whether it's the implied balance, the interconnected nature, the detail, or something else, but it's there. I played AD&D with the same group for years without issue. After about two years of 3e, there was a marked shift in the tone of rules discussions. I had a player go from thinking my house rules were awesome and bragging them up to others to actively calling me out on perceived minor rules violations, even after I told him that his character found that odd, as well and it might be a clue to something else. Now that we're play testing 5e, that same player is, once again waxing favorably to how "cool" my tweaks to AD&D were and looking forward to me bringing back some of the flavor.

I can't tell you exactly what the root issue is, though I have my suspicions, but 5e appears (at this early stage) to be bringing back something that hasn't been available to be in well over a decade. I'm very, very excited by it.

 

[TwinBahamut]

Before I delve into your thoughtful post any deeper, I had no intent to put words in anyone's mouth (or I wouldn't have asked for other folks' opinions and opened myself to the firing line in the first place).

Well, that is good to know. In that case, I simply ask that you understand that the thought's you've put forward don't really describe how many of us feel.

I'm trying to understand what seems—to me, emphasis there— to be a newish phenomena or attitude shift. My post wasn't meant as a personal attack anyone's style of play. As I said, it was my first thought and little more than that. I respect your opinion and hope (despite your labeling my observations "silly" and "plain rude") that you respect mine, for that's all it is.

I don't regret expressing how your post offended me, but I will apologize if you found my "silly" comment to be a bit rude. I can sometimes use harsh language when attacking ideas, but that is really what I was directing that word towards: your idea, not you. I hold the two apart, and when I attack one I don't intend to attack the other. I honestly didn't mean offense.

Anyways, if you are curious about why people are suddenly bringing this issue up, I would say that it is simply because it wasn't relevant until now. 5E is the first edition of D&D in quite some time to so openly embrace the idea. 4E was quite the opposite in intent, and 3E itself didn't require "mother may I?" play either. But now, we have things like lengthy blog posts from Mr. Mearls that strongly praise the idea, say that such a style is better than anything that came before, and describe how it is going to be essential to 5E. As such, it is perfectly natural that it will be discussed much more, and many people who have long-held views about the subject have new cause to speak up rather aggressively.

 

[ComradeGnull]

The other thing with d20 is that something about the way the rules are presented implies a degree of "this is immutable law" I hadn't encountered in D&D previously. I don't know whether it's the implied balance, the interconnected nature, the detail, or something else, but it's there. I played AD&D with the same group for years without issue. After about two years of 3e, there was a marked shift in the tone of rules discussions. I had a player go from thinking my house rules were awesome and bragging them up to others to actively calling me out on perceived minor rules violations, even after I told him that his character found that odd, as well and it might be a clue to something else. Now that we're play testing 5e, that same player is, once again waxing favorably to how "cool" my tweaks to AD&D were and looking forward to me bringing back some of the flavor.

I can't tell you exactly what the root issue is, though I have my suspicions, but 5e appears (at this early stage) to be bringing back something that hasn't been available to be in well over a decade. I'm very, very excited by it.

I'll definitely say that the presentation has changed over the years. I would say that was what initially put me off 4e- the presentation has emphasized the RAW, combat, etc., a bit more than before. I would chalk that up both to the formalization of things that used to be at loose ends- earlier versions of the game often just had never bothered to create rules for certain things, or had never really even given any guidance for them- and to a growing perception as D&D became part of a bigger corporation that there was a need to explicitly target new players. "Here are some things you can ignore and play the game how YOU want!" isn't actually a great way to appeal to new players, since they don't really know what the game is, much less how they want to play it. I think writers were probably thinking: new players need guidelines, old players will take or leave whatever they want anyway, leading to a presentation of the material that made it sound more immutable than it actually is.

I understand your example, but I would also say: armor as changing hit chance is pretty core to the game, and goes back a long way. I'm not surprised that that would have some pretty big cascade affects, but I would chalk that up as much to the way the alternate rule was presented in UA (without being completely thought through) as anything. I also think that is of a different class of customization than, say, resolving how far someone can jump using an on-the-spot ruling vs. a published rule. One is replacing what is actually a big element of the combat system, whereas the other one just needs to meet very basic requirements of common sense, real-world physics, and consistency. I doubt you are going to find a system that leaves how armor works up to DM preference by default, whereas jump distance is the sort of thing I could figure out for myself but frankly can't be bothered.