Fighters vs. Spellcasters (a case for fighters.)

[TwoSix]

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.

Yes, as [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] said above, I certainly feel like it's time to take the ball and go home. I think this thread did a better job than last year's epic Wizard vs Warriors thread at proving the issue is purely a difference in assumed playstyle.

 

[Wicht]

Shall we do it again next year?

 

[pemerton]

But if the player becomes arbiter of what will work and what will not, then of course there will be imbalance

In which system? Perhaps in 3E/PF. Not in 4e, in my experience at least. Nor especially in Rolemaster, in my experience. And I think many people like to play other versions of D&D too in a fashion in which player contributions to arbitration of what will or won't work don't lead inevitably to imbalance in the game. Hence they try different styles from your own, and hence they encounter fighter vs caster problems. Telling them they're doing it wrong, or that they're inept, when they're trying to play in a completely mainstream RPG style, isn't really helping them.

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

Those aren't mind control, they're mechanisms for adjudicating NPC and monster reactions.

The DM decided when to roll the dice

In any game I've played in, a player can decide when to roll the dice. Here is one example: the GM describes the room that the PC is walking into, including the fact that within it are two orcs. The player of that PC then says "OK, I cut them down, starting with the one nearest to me!" That player has decided to roll the dice - in the case of D&D, a d20 attack roll.

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

This whole thread, together with the dozens of others like it, is proof that there is no "neutral" rule set of the sort you describe. In particular, player protagonism that is a function of the GM, rather than the rules, is not really protagonism at all - as I know from my own experience, it is vulnerable at myriad points as the GM comes under intolerable conflicts of interest due to the conflicting demands of maintaining antagonism and adjudicating fairly.

By insisting that the rules of 3E/PF not change, you are restricting all players to one approach - namely, one in which GM force is required to balance casters and fighters. That's a fine approach as far as it goes, but for those who want to play a different sort of game 3E/PF won't deliver. As I've said, achieving protagonism via GM force, while not quite contradictory, is an extremely unstable base for satisfying play.

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.

4e, at least, has rules - guidelines, if you like - for the GM. It says, "Within these parameters the game will deliver what it promises. Step outside them, and we - the designers - don't vouch for the play experience you will get". This is not an issue of GM skill, then, except the skill of reading English and then doing what it says. And conversely, a GM who reads those rules, and who still thinks that 2 1st level goblines are a challenge to a group of 7th level PCs, hasn't shown a lack of GMing skill. S/he has shown a lack of reading comprehension.

Do the dice decide the outcome, or do the players win because they have more than adequate resources?

Rationing of resources has been a fairly important part of D&D play in most of its iterations. It's generally accepted that if the players have infinite resources (or, at least, resources that are effectively unlimited in relation to the sorts of situations that the PCs might confront) then the game has broken down, or at least deviated a long way from the norm that the designers intended. The old name for a particular version of this was Monty Haul.

When [MENTION=27570]sheadunne[/MENTION] says that dice decide the outcome, I don't think the comparison is to craps or snakes and ladders. I think "dice decide the outcome" is shorthand for "the action resolution mechanics" decide the outcome, with an understanding that the action resolution mechanics are not under the unilateral control of the GM. I'm pretty confident that sheadunne would accept that player skill, including player skill in the husbanding and deployment of resources, is one factor that contributes to outcomes.

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.

The notion of "GM force" was introduced into this discussion by me, [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION], [MENTION=205]TwoSix[/MENTION] and [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION]. By "GM force" we mean what [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] has described about half-a-dozen posts upthread, namely, the imposition of the GM's will onto the fiction in disregard of the outcome of the action resolution mechanics.

Your contention that the GM can choose how or whether to use the action resolution mechanics may be true of your game - which would be Exhibit A in proving the hypothesis that your GMing approach deploys a fair amount of GM force. But that contention is not true, in general, of D&D play (Lewis Pulsipher explicitly and vehemently rejects it in his characterisations of his preferred approaches to D&D in early White Dwarf articles), and it is not true of how I approach the game. Their are action resolution mechanics. The players are entitled to deploy them. As GM I can say yes instead of having the players roll the dice. As GM I can lead the discussion around whether or not a certain outcome is feasible within constraints of genre and tropes (eg "What's the DC for jumping to the moon?" impossible at 1st level, let's talk again once you're in Epic tier). But I don't have any general authority to suspend or disregard the action resolution mechanics. And therefore have no general authority over the content of the fiction.

And what is not true in general of D&D play, is even moreso not true in general of RPGing.

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.

I've given two examples: Gygaxian/Pulsipherian "classic" D&D; and pre-Essentials 4e. And I think many people have played 2nd ed AD&D and 3E in this fashion too, carrying on norms learned from earlier D&D play, or importing norms from other RPG experiences. The particular style of play you are describing has never been the only or even the only mainstream way of playing D&D.

 

[pemerton]

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.

So you are saying that 3E/PF cannot do Gygaxian sandboxing? Because that is a playstyle in which the GM is not the final arbiter of events within the game.

 

[Wiseblood]

@pemerton I did not get that impression from the lines you quoted in #394. I read that the DM has the power to rebalance things that would otherwise be out of whack.

 

[pemerton]

I did not get that impression from the lines you quoted in #394. I read that the DM has the power to rebalance things that would otherwise be out of whack.

I was focusing on the idea that the GM is final arbiter of events within the game.

In Gygaxian play as described in his PHB and (in less detail, I thnk) in his DMG, the GM is not the final arbiter of events within the game. Events within the game emerge from the interaction between the PCs, as played by their players, with the setting elements that the GM has either created in advance or is generating via random rolls. The goal for players is to show off their skill (and Gygax makes repeated references to skilled players, and repeated criticisms of players who are unskilled).

The whole idea of skilled play in Gygax's sense - that, through skilled play, the players can have their PCs overcome challenges and achieve their goals within the gameworld - entails that the GM is not the final arbiter of events within the game. The players' skill is the ultimate determinant. (And the only time that Gygax canvasses fudging dice in his DMG - and then with some hesitation - is if the oddities of the dice rolls are going to bring an undeserved consequence onto a PC whose player has nevertheless played skilfully.)

 

[Manbearcat]

So you are saying that 3E/PF cannot do Gygaxian sandboxing? Because that is a playstyle in which the GM is not the final arbiter of events within the game.

It can. I've certainly done it at length. Probably more than any other D&D I've GMed, to be honest. And I've run plenty of purely pawn stance, step on up 1e dungeoncrawls. And I've GM-forced my way through more than a few years of AD&D 2e (so I'm quite familiar with the techniques and the reasoning for the application thereof). And, of course, I've got 5 years of hybrid gamist/narrative 4e under my belt. Conclusively, AD&D GM-force storyteller techniques are not the only/onetrueway to run D&D nor is it a consistent system default.

As you know, there has been a variety of system defaults throughout D&D's lifespan and a medley of drift-enabling (bolt-on), incoherent components that have come to fruition throughout the various iterations (some more dysfunctional than others). Much of this waxing and waning has been propelled aplenty by cultural inertia and GMing techniques honed in other systems. Somewhat tangential but related, we are seeing a "throwbackish AD&D 3e" due to Mearls clear affinity for AD&D 2e (and the GM force presupposition inherent to it...which is abundantly clear in the GMing in his podcasts; plot dump via meaningless charisma check and other sleights of hand with action resolution having illusory meaning).

 

[Cadence]

Events within the game emerge from the interaction between the PCs, as played by their players, with the setting elements that the GM has either created in advance or is generating via random rolls. The goal for players is to show off their skill (and Gygax makes repeated references to skilled players, and repeated criticisms of players who are unskilled).

The whole idea of skilled play in Gygax's sense - that, through skilled play, the players can have their PCs overcome challenges and achieve their goals within the gameworld - entails that the GM is not the final arbiter of events within the game. The players' skill is the ultimate determinant. (And the only time that Gygax canvasses fudging dice in his DMG - and then with some hesitation - is if the oddities of the dice rolls are going to bring an undeserved consequence onto a PC whose player has nevertheless played skilfully.)

In the 1e DMG Gygax explicitly says that everything doesn't need to be created in advance or via random rolls: pre-planned rolling of random encounters should be disregarded if the party was already adequately challenged (pg. 9), experienced DMs can create improvise on the fly (pg. 87), ad hoc adding thieves and new taxes if you gave them too much treasure (pg. 92) , and metagamely using ethereal mummies and bolts from the blue to send a message to troublesome players (pg. 110).

And he does not restrict fudging to "arbitrat[ing]" away an unlucky death. Two paragraphs before death is brought up he says:

You do have every right to overrule the dice at any time if there is a particular course of events that you would like to have occur. In making such a decision you should never seriously harm the party or a non-player character with your actions. "ALWAYS GIVE A MONSTER AN EVEN BREAK!"

He even explicitly says the DM is the final arbiter:

Know the game systems, and you will know how and when to take upon yourself the ultimate power. To become the final arbiter, rather than the interpreter of the rules, can be a difficult and demanding task, and it cannot be undertaken lightly , for your players expect to play this game, not one made up on the spot. By the same token, they are playing the game the way you ,their DM imagines and creates it.

As seen in his use of "arbitrate" in the reversing death quote and his green-lighting of fudging if "you would like it to occur", it reads to me that he clearly thinks the DM does have the ultimate power to disregard the rules within the game whenever he thinks it makes the game better... but if he uses that power too often it is to the detriment of the game and that some rules (system shock rolls, pg. 110 again) should not be fudged.

So I don't think it's fair to claim that the DM described by Gygax for 1e was the same as the DM of platonic pre-planned 4e. And I think that Gygax might say that the DM does have "general authority to suspend or disregard the action resolution mechanics" (contra your phrasing in #393 above), albeit they should use that authority very judiciously.

Of course as @Manbearcat notes, the post-Gygax 2e seems much more strongly in the DM deciding things camp, with the remark on reaction rolls being only for DMs that "don't have a clue about what the monster will do." (2e DMG pg. 102) and the entire section on "Fixing Things in Play" such as having monsters inexplicably flee or miss when they should have hitif the encounter is too hard (2e DMG pg. 103)

 

[Lwaxy]

And the existence of 4e merely proves that WotC is capable of making mistakes.

Edition wars are bad. Calling 4e a mistake qualifies as edition warring. Just don't. Thanks.

 

[pemerton]

I don't think it's fair to claim that the DM described by Gygax for 1e was the same as the DM of platonic pre-planned 4e

I'm not sure what you mean by "platonic pre-planned 4e", but I don't think and didn't intend to imply that the Gygaxian-sandbox GM and the 4e GM play the same role.

In the 1e DMG Gygax explicitly says that everything doesn't need to be created in advance or via random rolls: pre-planned rolling of random encounters should be disregarded if the party was already adequately challenged (pg. 9), experienced DMs can create improvise on the fly (pg. 87), ad hoc adding thieves and new taxes if you gave them too much treasure (pg. 92) , and metagamely using ethereal mummies and bolts from the blue to send a message to troublesome players (pg. 110).

The thieving and the ethereal mummies are both metagame-motivated ways of sorting out various forms of trouble in the game. I don't really class them as the GM being final arbiter of all events within the game, but rather as particular devices the GM uses to correct errors.

The disregarding of random encounter rolls I would put in the same category as fudging to avoid death to the PC of a skilled player: the GM's arbitration is intended to serve the interests of challenging but not punishing the skilled.

The improvisation point is one that I had forgotten!, and does contradict what I said, I agree. I think I must have been running Gygax together with Lewis Pulsipher, who is hostile to improvisation because it undermines skill (eg if the players use Detect Magic and the GM just improvises, then the outcome - either way - does not reward player skill in using divination effectively, but is rather just a random GM response the spell as a plot-coupon style trigger).

And he does not restrict fudging to "arbitrat[ing]" away an unlucky death.

<snip>

He even explicitly says the DM is the final arbiter

I think I've always read those references to disregarding of rolls outside the death context as pertaining to random generation or random effect rolls rather than action resolution in the stricter sense. And likewise, on p 9, I've read that as an invitation to change the rules (ie the GM is an arbiter of what the rules are) rather than to suspend them mid-resolution.

the post-Gygax 2e seems much more strongly in the DM deciding things camp, with the remark on reaction rolls being only for DMs that "don't have a clue about what the monster will do." (2e DMG pg. 102) and the entire section on "Fixing Things in Play" such as having monsters inexplicably flee or miss when they should have hitif the encounter is too hard (2e DMG pg. 103)

This fits with my sense of 2nd ed AD&D, although for me it is gained via the PHB than the DMG (which I've never read). I see this as marking a strong departure from the Gygaxian approach, but I could see how differing interpretations of the passages you've pointed to about being arbiter of the rules and about disregarding dice rolls could lead to a different view about the transition.