Fighters vs. Spellcasters (a case for fighters.)

[pemerton]

How about how all the adventure and encounter design information being in the Dungeon Master's Guide, and not in the Player's Handbook? The implications of that are terribly strong

They imply that the GM gets to draw the map of the world, gets to decide who is living in what part of it (subject to player control over PC hometowns, which is something on which the players have had some say - like who else lives with them in their houses - in every game I've ever been involved in).

They don't imply that the GM is entitled to disregard the opinions of the players on such matters. Nor do they imply it. This is up to the group.

Nor do the imply that the GM is entitled to tell the players who they should oppose, or with whom they should seek alliances.

The players get to offer suggestions as to what elements of the game world they want to engage, but the PHB gives *NO* information or mechanics for the players to outright dictate those things in play. Players don't get to say, "There is an orc there, I attack it!"

That's true. It's true in D&D, it's true in Burning Wheel, it's true in HeroWars/Quest. But it would be misleading to say that players in BW or HW/Q have no say over who are the antagonists - that is what the relationship rule in those games are for (and the BW rules call out that the GM is obliged to incorporate those relationships into play).

D&D has no general relationship rules. But a table who plays a ranger's favoured enemy in that way, or who plays a cleric's choice of deity in that way, is not deviating from the rules text. Because the rules text is silent on these matters.

You will probably spin a line of how adventure and encounter design are not the same as choosing antagonists - and you'd have half a point. But the other half still notes that it is the GM who actually puts the monsters and NPCs in play.

This depends. If you read Gygax's description of playing the game in his PHB, it is the players who bring monsters and NPCs into play by choosing where in the dungeon they go to. That is, the GM has predetermined the location and basic disposition of these beings; the players gather that information in various ways; and the players then launch expeditions. A GM who rearranges the map or the opposition simply to thwart the players' plans is cheating in that style of play.

(Lewis Pulsipher in early White Dwarf is another strong advocate of this particular playstyle.)

The GM decides who is at the location the PCs go to.

But in Gygaxian play must decide in advance (or perhaps via random roll). And the players get to choose where the PCs go.

all that means is that you have a strictly logical argument that it isn't explicitly prescribed by the rules. Note how a logical argument is not the same as a *reasonable* argument.

When I bought Oriental Adventures back in 1986, I discussed with my players starting an OA game. They agreed that we should do so (playes help decide basic campaign framing). They rolled up PCs, including using the family/ancestry charts - these dictated ancestral relationships and feuds (player-side mechanics helping with basic framing of antagonists). In one adventure, the PCs ventured into the mountains and met some ogres with whom they allied (action resolution, a mixture of AD&D reaction rolls and freeform roleplaying, helping determine who are and are not antagonists).

None of this was prescribed by the rules. Nor was it proscribed. The rules were silent on how these things are to be done. Pointing that out, and pointing out that different people do it different ways, is not in my view unreasonable.

You know, I generally gloss over the intro to RPGs because after you've read one, you've read them all

I don't agree with this at all, but that's a side point (compare the explanation of the GM's role in the 4e PHB, for instance, compared to the Essentials rulebooks).

Your quote from the PF rulebook - "the Game Master (or GM) who decides what threats the player characters (or PCs) face" - indicates that PF affirms what I had suspected upthread was the norm for PF play, namely, a very high degree of GM force in relation to matters of antagonism. The contrast with Gygax's PHB is quite marked, because that book is all about the players planning what threats their PCs will face.

the DM is under no obligation to make a character friendly if he does not want to. He gets the final say in who is actually acting against the PCs, regardless of their perception.

I don't think this is true in all versions of D&D. For instance, classic D&D has reaction rolls (modified by CHA) for this purpose. From Gygax's DMG, p 63:

Any intelligent creature which can be conversed with will react in some way to the character that is speaking. Reaction is determined by rolling percentile dice, adjusting the score for charisma and applicable loyalty adjustments . . .​

In AD&D the GM is allowed to suspend these rules - but if s/he doesn't, then once the dice are rolled the GM has to stick to the result. And there is definitely an assumption that these rules will be the general default.

Again trying to reframe the point pemerton is making (or at least how I'm interpreting it, apologies if I totally hamfist this point!), I believe what's he saying is that there are several systems outside of D&D that use character build resources to actively determine the flow of the narrative, and thereby what sort of enemies will be encountered.

And I'm saying that, by contrast, D&D (except apparently PF) leaves the approach to this open - ie it doesn't have mechanics (though Gygaxian D&D comes close, with its random tables) and hence it is a table matter.

While it's easy to say the DM chooses the enemy, that's only true in the sense that the DM places the encounter. But the DM already does that for the whole world, since it's assumed that the world has millions of NPCs the PCs could encounter if they so choose. The players have to be the ones to make the active choice that this NPC matters, because they choose to engage with him. Only the places where the PCs choose to spotlight their attention has any effect on the game, and that's just as true of D&D as any other RPG.

Yes. This is an important part of my point.

I would argue the game is designed around not only the DM placing challenges, but also (among other things) around the PCs interacting with those challenges. There is typically an assumption that the DM merely placing opponents means the players should interact with them, but giving the PCs control over themselves means that they might choose not to interact with the opponents at all. Granted, this can be a douchebag move on the players' part since the DM has likely put a lot of effort and thought into those opponents, but it is still a possibility.

I basically agree with this except the douchebag part - that depends on the prior table understanding as to who is meant to do what. In my games it's understood that the players get to choose how they respond, although the players are also expected to have run up honest flags in PC building and in general discussion around planning for the campaign.

I believe he's talking about who the players view as antagonists, not who the DM chooses to introduce into the game.

Thanks - you've followed my point, yes. Also, there are different practices as to who gets to decide which encounters the PCs face: contrast Forge-style scene framing, for instance, to Gygaxian sandboxing, and contrast both of them to AP-style play. To pretend that these are all just the same way of playing the game will make it impossible to understand why some people have issues with caster/fighter balance and others don't. (These play differences may not be the only factor; but they're clearly one of them.)

But I'm not talking about those systems. The point being made was that Dungeons and Dragons had no official stance on how antagonists were placed and I countered that it did: the books and the game specifically expect the DM to do it.

I'm not talking about those systems either. I'm saying that D&D doesn't tell us who is in charge of deciding what matters in the game. To the extent that PF does (as per the text you quoted) it is a departure from classic D&D, and from 4e, and I think from 3E. (I wouldn't be surprised if it's similar to 2nd ed AD&D.) But it does make good sense for a game whose purpose is to support the sale of APs.

I don't really handle the pacing of rests; not as such... I sometimes roll for wandering monsters, sometimes I just let them sleep.

<snip>

The whole point of having a GM is that he is able to do this in a reasonable way.

That can't be the whole point of having a GM. After all, 13th Age has a GM, but in 13th Age the pacing of rests is determined by quite strict rules text (which I quoted upthread).

It is undesirable to have rules that tell you how rests have to occur because there will always be exceptions in a truly fluid RPG environment.

All "undesirable" means here is "undesired by you". There is no inherent flaw in the 13th Age approach - it's actually a clever solution to something that is a major problem for many D&D players, and I think 4e would have been a stronger game if it has included something similar as an option at least.

And the idea that the 13th Age approach is incompatible with fluidity is a mistake. It's not more incompatible with fluidity then is an approach to combat adjudication which permits a PC to miss an attack even if the player describes it in the most florid and graphic terms imaginable.

The issue, it seems to me, is not that wizards are overpowered, but that some GMs need pointers in being better GMs.

And once again we learn that anyone who has different experiences, and different priorities for play, is inept. I'm surprised that you can't see how judgemental that is, and how much it involves projecting from your own experience without even trying to reflect on how others might be playing the game.

but ultimately, the story that gets told is the one the DM allows to be told.

If the DM does not decide the outcome of any particular conflict (hopefully guided by a good understanding of the rules) then what is he there for?

Your comment about story is not true of any game I've run since about 1985.

What is my job, then, as GM? To frame scenes, to provide antagonism, to push the players, to adjudicate within the parameters of the rules.

Naturally a good DM will allow the rules to have a major say in what happens. And the player choices should be meaningful. But in the end, the DM says when the monster dies, not the players. The DM chooses who the antagonist is. The DM determines whether or not the spells have an effect. The DM decides whether a given dice roll is good enough or not. None of this necessarily implies railroading. It is simply what the DM does. Its his role in the game.

What you describe as the role of the GM is not even mentioned in the 4e PHB. (It is mentioned in the Essentials rules - in my view, a retrograde step, given that the 4e mechanics are predicated on the assumption that the GM will abide by them.)

In saying that what you do, and how you see the GM, is "simply what the DM does", you are projecting your own practices and experiences onto others. I have been GMing for nearly 30 years, and I haven't been doing what you say I should be doing for over 25 of them. For instance, my monsters die when they reach 0 hp; my players choose whom they oppose; the rules for spellcasting and spell resistance tell us whether or not spells have an effect; the difficulty charts for the game tell us whether or not a given dice roll is good enough; etc.

If you think you can reconcile the sort of GM force you describe with non-railroading, good luck to you. But unless your actual game is radically different from the impression you are giving of it, I'm fairly confident I would find it very railroady.

 

[Ahnehnois]

That spells and fighting can be put into the same mechanical framework is actually an idea that could be traced back at least to early 80s points-buy games. That players of fighters should contribute equally to the game with players of casters is an idea that I've taken for granted since the early 80s also, and I'm not the only one. It's been a topic of discussion since the earliest RPG magazines.

Yes, but AFAIK, systems that do use the same mechanics for both don't use a spell system for both. Let alone a crappy spell system.

I'm all for putting magic on the same system as everything else. In a d20 context, I'm all for making magic a d20 commodity; skill-based most likely. d20+modifiers vs DC; that's how d20 works. Of course, those skills would be no more equal in power than, say, Swim and Decipher Script. They're completely different things.

I'm not in favor of taking a magic system that is idiosyncratic if not archaic, and which deviates from the normal d20 mechanics, and using it for nomagical abilities. Even if you take as valid the opinion of the "fighters and magicians must be equal" crowd, their perspective basically boils down to "magic is broken, so therefore everyone should have an equal amount of it". It's pretty self-apparent how bad of an idea this is. Wouldn't it be better to fix everything equally rather than break it equally?

No one is saying that fighters and wizards should play the same. They want the players of fighters and wizards to enjoy comparable degrees of protagonism.

I'm saying they shouldn't necessarily. Their degree of protagonism, as you put it, should not be considered as a function of the rules, but of the rules and the participants at the table. If a DM wants to make a particular character a protagonist, or make all of his PCs equally so, or defer that decision in some manner, all of those are fine ways to go.

I don't see that anything is gained by restricting all players of the game to one approach, or why having players have unequal degrees of what you refer to as protagonism is apparently verboten to all who roleplay.

Who wants a fighter to be able to do mind control?

Whoever wrote the Goad feat, or the PHBII knight, or various other things like those.

 

[N'raac]

In my games. DMs present challenges. Players decide actions. Dice decide outcomes.

OK, let me present a very heavy-handed approach. The PC's are 7th level. The DM presents a challenge. It is an attack by 2 Goblins who charge the PC's from three full move actions away.. Will the dice decide the outcome, or did the GM decide the outcome by selecting an adversary that presents no real threat? Perhaps the DM decides the next challenge will be thee Ancient Red Dragons, swooping out of the sky and attacking the PC's. Will the dice decide the outcome, or did the DM decide the outcome already by setting an unwinnable threat before the PC's?

A good GM will not likely set either of these challenges, as they are not suitable to the players. He may set a challenge based on the parameters of the game itself (a 3e challenge expected to consume 20 of the party's resources). Do the dice decide the outcome, or do the players win because they have more than adequate resources? Or maybe the GM sets a truly challenging encounter that could go either way, a real nail-biter. The dice will decide the outcome. But who set the challenge level such that the dice will decide?

To me, it's pretty poor game design to have the success or failure of the PC's rest upon a single die roll. Isn't that why we see the concept of "fail forward"?

 

[Manbearcat]

So basically after this last series of posts I rest my case and consider the issue at rest. Meanwhile, in light of that flurry of "the GM decides outcomes" posts that is basically shorthand for the thesis under review, I sit here utterly baffled that there was ever a question of whether GM-force as a technique was "a thing" and whether or not heavy leveraging of it is central to whether or not you perceive a power gap between Fighters and Wizards. Stupifying. Why do we keep doing this?

 

[Ahnehnois]

Meanwhile, in light of that flurry of "the GM decides outcomes" posts that is basically shorthand for the thesis under review, I sit here utterly baffled that there was ever a question of whether GM-force as a technique was "a thing" and whether or not heavy leveraging of it is central to whether or not you perceive a power gap between Fighters and Wizards.

The thing is, the term "force" is misleading, as is its relative, "fiat".

The DM may use exactly the rules as written, or make houserules and alterations. The DM may use monsters out of the book, or may custom-build them. The DM may create challenges to match the player's abilities, or may make them without regard to said capabilities. In all cases, the DM is making the choice.

A DM who runs a bunch of standard array characters with no houserules through a preplanned generic adventure is exercising exactly the same amount of force as one who rewrites the rules and improvises a campaign customized to the players. Which is really none. Both DMs have absolute power to make these decisions by default; making them is not 'forcing' anything, any more than an umpire calling balls and strikes is forcing his will on a baseball game.

More to the point, DMs who make decisions that produce outcomes discordant from their desires are responsible for those decisions.

If a DM's goal is to take whatever characters the players come up with, magic or no, and force them to have equal power/spotlight time/protagonism/etc., and he doesn't take all the necessary actions to achieve that goal, whose fault is that?

 

[Manbearcat]

The thing is, the term "force" is misleading, as is its relative, "fiat".

The DM may use exactly the rules as written, or make houserules and alterations. The DM may use monsters out of the book, or may custom-build them. The DM may create challenges to match the player's abilities, or may make them without regard to said capabilities. In all cases, the DM is making the choice.

A DM who runs a bunch of standard array characters with no houserules through a preplanned generic adventure is exercising exactly the same amount of force as one who rewrites the rules and improvises a campaign customized to the players. Which is really none. Both DMs have absolute power to make these decisions by default; making them is not 'forcing' anything, any more than an umpire calling balls and strikes is forcing his will on a baseball game.

More to the point, DMs who make decisions that produce outcomes discordant from their desires are responsible for those decisions.

If a DM's goal is to take whatever characters the players come up with, magic or no, and force them to have equal power/spotlight time/protagonism/etc., and he doesn't take all the necessary actions to achieve that goal, whose fault is that?

Your missing the mark here by a fairly wide margin. GM force is, by definition:

- GM frames scene/presents situation > PCs respond > Resolution mechanics dictating outcomes should go here...BUT...no... > GM circumvents resolution mechanics to force/impose his own will upon the fiction (fudging dice/target or enemy numbers/scene-dynamics), rendering the outcome mandated by the resolution mechanics null, thus re-framing the scene as the GM sees fit.

That is GM force. The term force is not misleading. It clearly implies the the imposition of will (the GMs) over fictional positioning, forcing it toward or away from a particular outcome. In RPG terms the imposition of will and the application of force overpowers mechanical resolution and by proxy, the impetus of PC resources deployed and player decisions made.

It isn't badwrongfun. It isn't poor GMing. But it is "a thing". It is "an available GMing technique". And some systems mandate it (CoC) or their overriding cultures presuppose/nurture its use (AD&D 2e, Vampire, etc). Finally, it is not "fundamental to the role of GM" and there are plenty of systems that explicitly mandate or implicitly presuppose its lack of use.

 

[Ahnehnois]

- GM frames scene/presents situation > PCs respond > Resolution mechanics dictating outcomes should go here...BUT...no... > GM circumvents resolution mechanics to force/impose his own will upon the fiction (fudging dice/target or enemy numbers/scene-dynamics), rendering the outcome mandated by the resolution mechanics null, thus re-framing the scene as the GM sees fit.

Definitely not my definition of this term (it would be a narrow subset of my definition). That being said, yours still raises the same issue.

The DM has the choice of how or even if to use the result of the existing action resolution mechanic. He can choose to use the mechanics, or not. Using the existing mechanic is no less "forceful". Both are equally "forceful" choices.

More to the point, your definition doesn't apply to most of the behaviors under discussion. Targeting a cleric's holy symbol has rules, for example. Encumbrance is a rule. By your definition, there's no force there at all.

That is GM force. The term force is not misleading. It clearly implies the the imposition of will (the GMs) over fictional positioning, forcing it toward or away from a particular outcome. In RPG terms the imposition of will and the application of force overpowers mechanical resolution and by proxy, the impetus of PC resources deployed and player decisions made.

Well, okay. But the DM is imposing his will by running the game in the first place. How he runs it is irrelevant to that point.

Running a game is like driving a car. Making rulings and houserules is like steering. Running an absolute RAW game is like taking your hands off the wheel. You're still driving, whether you want to steer or not. You may not be making as much effort, and the outcome may be different, but your level of agency is still the same. It's still your choice. You're still responsible for the outcome.

And running a RAW game is a lot like hands-free driving. Sure, it might work if you're alone on a really straight road, but I wouldn't recommend it. And, to the point, if you refuse to steer the car and it runs off the road or hits someone, it's not the car's fault.

Finally, it is not "fundamental to the role of GM" and there are plenty of systems that explicitly mandate or implicitly presuppose its lack of use.

None of which remotely resemble any form D&D or are in any way relevant to this discussion. I'm saying it's fundamental to the role of DM, which is D&D-specific. Correct me if I'm wrong, but there are no versions of D&D in which the DM does not have the powers being described here.

 

[Wicht]

- GM frames scene/presents situation > PCs respond > Resolution mechanics dictating outcomes should go here...BUT...no... > GM circumvents resolution mechanics to force/impose his own will upon the fiction (fudging dice/target or enemy numbers/scene-dynamics), rendering the outcome mandated by the resolution mechanics null, thus re-framing the scene as the GM sees fit.

But thats not really what happens in our games. In almost all cases I utilize the rules to the full effect of the rules, or at least close enough to be within the framework of the rules. Furthermore, once a scene has been framed, it is a poor technique to re-frame it after. But the DM is most certainly the one who frames it to begin with, no matter whether he chooses to do so randomly or purposefully.

What you are describing is a possible use of DM authority but it does not follow that recognizing the authority of the DM to arbitrate is synonymous with what you are calling force. The game you are describing does not sound like much fun to me, personally.

I've said throughout that I think that the wizard is balanced, as written, according to the rules. I disagree you must override or ignore the rules to make them balanced.

But if the player becomes arbiter of what will work and what will not, then of course there will be imbalance, but its because the dynamic of the game, as designed, has changed.

These are separate points, though tangential, to the one you are making.

I don't have to force the world to do anything to make wizards work. They just do when the rules are applied.

One of these rules is the DM runs the game, not the players, and not even the rules. Though, as I have been saying, though it feels like people don't listen, a good DM utilizes the rules in making his decisions.

 

[pemerton]

I would say this is on topic because it's the heart of the topic! Spellcasters and warriors are balanced if the DM uses a strong amount of adjudication, or as Wicht said above, the "DM decides the outcome". I agree that strong use of DM force is a very common playstyle, and was pretty much canonical in the '90s (both AD&D 2e and Vampire/Mage et al had strong statements favoring this). But there's been a pretty strong design trend away from DM force and towards player empowerment over the last decade or so, and 4e embraced many of these new design elements. (The DMG2 most specifically embraces this style.)

Now, what does this have to do with 3e? 2e is explicitly pro-DM force, and 4e is explicitly pro-player empowerment. Where does 3e lie between those two extremes? I would say the evidence is pretty strong, based on what play styles work well and what do not, as well as where it falls on the time scale of development (a game developed in the late 90s, published in 2000), that 3e responds best to a lot of DM force. Casters are balanced when the DM drives the scenario so they are balanced.

I agree with tall this. My reason for introducing the discussion of playstyle upthread was because it seemed central to the topic.

And nothing that has been posted since has dissuaded me from that - if anything, the fact that [MENTION=221]Wicht[/MENTION] presents a particular approach to GMing as if it were the only sensible alternative is making me more firmly convinced that this is overwhelmingly an issue of playstyle.

 

[Wicht]

And nothing that has been posted since has dissuaded me from that - if anything, the fact that [MENTION=221]Wicht[/MENTION] presents a particular approach to GMing as if it were the only sensible alternative is making me more firmly convinced that this is overwhelmingly an issue of playstyle.

I don't think anyone has argued its not playstyle, except for those who insist that the perceived flaw represents a drastic inherent flaw in the game. It does not. The game assumes a certain play-style as a matter of course (a broad playstyle too, I would add, extremely flexible in its application*) which, when used, makes the game run smoothly, with the rules, as written.

If someone begins trying to make the case that the DM is not the final arbiter of the rules and events within the game, and at the same time claims to have extreme problems with play imbalance, I think that is the problem right there. There is no need to talk about power levels, or rests, or DM force. When one departs from the central dynamic of the game, of course the game play changes.

*And by broad, I mean broad... I have run horror, mystery, adventure, survival horror, sword and sorcery, gritty, sand box, and a host of other styles all using the Pathfinder rules and do so successfully without having to adjust the base game.