First reply eaten by computer. We’ll try again…
Furthermore, that text leaves it open when the GM can make those decisions. For instance, it doesn't on its own entail that the GM can veto a player's declaration of action at the time it's made.
Are you intending to suggest there is a significant difference between:
(a) “No, you cannot use diplomacy”
(b) “No sense rolling – your diplomacy cannot succeed”
(c) “OK, roll. That makes what? OK, let’s see…muttermuttercarry the onemutter nope, you failed”?
If I declare my character will shoot the fly off a pig’s back from 500 yards, the GM can, in my view, tell me it fails. He can let me roll first, if he wishes to do so. He can point out that I can’t even SEE a fly on the pig’s back from 300 yards (so what, they are always there anyway!). None of this gives me a chance to succeed.
For my own part, I addressed this upthread by distinguising different domains of authority - over backstory, situation etc. Character build options are in part about genre and backstory - that's negotiated between me and the players at the start of play and on an ongoing basis. Mechanical options are taken from those published by the publishers of the game (ie WotC). If someone wonders whether something would be overpowered, we talk about it and work it out.
But is that “GM Force”? Let’s take an extreme example: Player A is making a new character for the medieval fantasy game in progress. He tells the GM his concept is a laser rifle wielding cyborg. I suspect the other players, as well as the GM, will not appreciate this deviation from the campaign norm, and the GM says “make a character that fits”. I suppose that is GM force, but I suggest it is GM force applied in accordance with the group social contract. Do we really need to get all the players together and pitch the concept?
Now let’s back it up a bit. The game also features True Blue Heroes, and Player A decides to bring in an Evil Necromancer. Should the GM allow the character, as it is allowed under the mechanics? To not do so is GM force, is it not? OK, he’s in. Now, which of these is “GM Force”:
(a) He’s in and the PC’s must accept him because he has PC Halo?
(b) He’s in but the PC’s can decide whether or not to adventure with him
(c) He’s in and when his true colours are revealed, and he is challenged, he drops a point blank high damage spell, killing most or all of the PC’s, but the GM retcons their survival?
I’d say all use GM Force. No GM force says let it play out, so I guess we all make new characters. I think, however, that a GM saying “No evil characters in this game” is exercising force delegated to him by the players.
I also suggest Anhehnois’ players have delegated him the authority to use GM force because it makes the game better for them. If he abuses the force, the authority is readily removed, as discussed further below.
The aspect not considered has been how these changes get made. Is the GM arbitrarily forcing them, against the players’ wishes? Then they need a new GM. Is he addressing a problem raised by the group? Great – do it. I find in our games a “rules problem” is identified by a player, and the issue discussed and resolved. Maybe Teleport is making the game less fun. Then we ban or restrict Teleport. What I don’t get is the same antagonism suggested on some of these posts. These strike me as competitive game play – the guy with the Teleport wants to keep that advantage because it makes “my character” more powerful than “your character”, or the PC’s get some “advantage” over the GM. We game as a group, so if Teleport makes the game “no fun”, then as a group, we would typically agree it needs to change. Probably, the GM makes that change.
Maybe you are not used to your players doing things like setting out their PC backstories, making up the familial, cultural, social, geographic etc histories that underpin those backstories, revealing elements of backstory in play, and the like. I am used to that. For me, that is part of playing the game.
So we must add in a high tech nation building cyborgs with laser rifles, I guess. Sure, players do this. Sometimes, it’s modified to fit the game better, other times it adds in as written. I also don’t mind “you write what your character perceived”. Perhaps two players have a mentor in their backstories who seem similar. Making them the same person, and having that only come out in game, works fine for me and the GM does not need my permission to do so.
Making the Paladin’s mentor actually a disguised Demon Prince? Not so much. Whether it is just the GM, or the GM and all the other players, who think it a good idea.
As an example, I have a character in a pulp game, a riff on Tarzan. He has returned to his native land, and is starting to reclaim his wealth. Aiding him in this is a relative, an uncle I believe. I wrote the uncle in. I also noted he is either sincerely working to aid me, in which case he will likely get in trouble at times and require my assistance (in Hero terms, a dependent NPC) or is actually scheming to retain my rightful wealth (a Hunted in Hero terms). The GM will decide. I don’t know, and the other players don’t know
and we don’t need to.
Returning to the authority analogy - you are other are asserting that a GM cannot revoke authority on a permanent basis. The point of my reference to the British Crown's authority over the US was that it is an obvious counterexample. The Treaties of Paris and of Ghent put and end to British authority. They're not just marks of the British choosing not to exercise authority that they still enjoy.
I’m not convinced politics, present day or 200+ years old, is a great analogy for the game table. That looks a lot, to me, like the US finding a new GM. Luckily, we can do so without the need to fight a long and bloody war.
My game is not as focused on the playes overcoming challenges as LostSoul's is, so I'd be less likely to implement (ii) as you've written it. The ony time my 4e game had a "TPK", I gave the players the option of choosing whether or not their PC died. One chose that - he wanted to bring in a different character - but the others wanted to keep playing the same characters, so in the next session they regained consciousness locked in a gobin prison cell (the TPK had been at the hands of supernatural forces summoned by the goblin hexer).
Emphasis added. Is this not you, the GM, exerting GM force to override the consequences of the mechanical action resolution system? Let’s toss a wrinkle in. Half of the players say “No, we lost by the rules and the results should stand. Otherwise, the action resolution mechanics are meaningless. None of the characters should survive – if you are willing to override the mechanics, then none of our victories have any meaning whatsoever.”
Which half of the players do you favour? Absent GM force, I think everyone has to stay dead, don’t they?
Note that I’m not disputing it was a good call, I am saying it is an exertion of GM force to override the action resolution mechanics, which has been called out as “wrong” under Indie play.
The reason for the absence of other TPKs is that given by Manbearcat - I rely on 4e's encounter building guidelines, and these have proved pretty reliable.
When individual PCs have died - the paladin once, the wizard twice - I've worked through with the player the circumstances in which they can be raised or otherwise come back to life.
Same emphasis you have made the determination when and whether they can be raised. I know some players feel easy access to raising cheapens their victories by downgrading the consequences of defeat. Here, GM force could be exercised to enhance or reduce the availability of such options – but either way, GM force is exercised.
When an encounter is actually taking place, I might introduce additional forces and complications, or not, depending on how things are unfolding both mechanics and story-wise. But that is not "being final aribter of events and outcomes". It's injecting more fictional material for the players to engage.
WHOA THERE – didn’t you just extoll the virtues of 4e encounter math? Why, if it works so well, did you need to introduce additional forces and complications at all? And yes, your choice to introduce more adversaries is GM force, no different from changing the opponents’ hit points in the course of the battle. Do the players get to decide things are going poorly, so therefore the cavalry shows up? If not, how is it equitable that you can decide things go too well and add obstacles?
I love that there are a good number of people here, even those having strongly differing opinions, are capable of being courteous or at least impersonal. Its more impressive than cowardly snide remarks and insults of others, and why I love the ENworld community
The ENworld community is a good one. I echo your comments.
I believe that @
Wicht 's DMG quote points out a fact that I've seen furiously debated for some time. My intelligence has been insulted here for invoking those rules before. That quote, Rule Zero, is a significant mechanic and a big part of the system. It might have been implemented (or carried over from its predecessors) because any mortal-generated game system that attempts to model reality, or even a shared fantasy, is likely to be limited in its capacity to do so. Creating this rule zero is a nice and elegant way to help ensure that ridiculous results or game-breaking combinations are not given serious floor-time. It is also a very powerful argument against the proposition that the system is fundamentally flawed because it provides for (or even mandates) the use of uber powerful wizards (argued here) or druids and clerics (argued elsewhere). True system mastery acknowledges the system in its entirety, and not only the parts useful for the debate at hand.
Beyond this, Rule Zero is an essential acknowledgement of different play styles needing different default settings, while the game can have only one. I can’t think of an RPG I’ve played for any length of time that lacks a statement, somewhere, that advises that the rules be changed if they are not contributing to the fun.
Well, at this point, I thank the DM for his time, collect my books and walk out the door.
This DM has just proven that his (or her) ideas for the campaign trump mine, and that he is more interested in having the scenario play out in a predetermined way than he is in allowing me to play the character that we came up with together and he approved of before we played.
Because I do that with any DM - work with the DM when creating a character, to ensure that this sort of thing doesn't blindside the DM.
IOW, this level of DM force is unacceptable to me, and I won't play at this table.
I don’t believe the GM agreed to give you an “I WIN” button, nor do I believe you intend this to be as strong as it comes across. Would you be happier if he said “OK, roll” looked at the result and said “It fails”? A 20 is not automatic success, so any roll can fail, and the DC can be impacted by oh so many factors.
As well, you presumably build a diplomat. But just as the rules set the DC and effects, they also set the rules for use – you need a full minute, and nothing forces him to listen for a full minute (I’d typically allow a check against a hostile attitude to persuade an NPC to listen for a full minute, but I’m overriding the text in doing so, as I should impose a -10 for a full round action only). The rules do indicate “In some situations, this time requirement may greatly increase.” Maybe it requires three months of ongoing persuasion to even GET a roll (obviously not without breaks).
Now, I also sympathize with the player who spent character resources on any ability and is never allowed to use it. If this is the standard – diplomacy can never actually achieve anything of significance – then at some point, I’m packing my books too. But that doesn’t mean every problem can be solved with Diplomacy any more than it means they can all be solved with combat. You can tell by the vibe he will not be bribed – he ain’t in the mood to listen.
If a single incident of your abilities being unable to succeed is enough that you feel you must quit the game, then I would say good riddance to you, frankly. I get the sense several other poster agree both with that sentiment, and that this is not the message you intended to convey.
What you are in effect saying is that some obstacles, say a rude NPC, are simply unacceptable and that your character must always succeed in the exact manner you want them to succeed, to which I would ask, "Where is the fun in that."
Agreed – sometimes the right answer to “it should have worked” is “sure looks like it – I wonder why it didn’t.”
The character is built on the agreement between the DM and the player that the character is not arbitrarily tossed to the side. I'd compare it to making a specialist fighter who focuses on melee only to become entirely sidelined because a significant combat encounter prevents wading into melee and whatever backups he might have likely won't be effective since he invested more into being good at one thing and poor at another rather than being mediocre at two things. That player is not likely going to take kindly to being made useless if he was under the impression that the character he made and got approved by the DM was going to at least be able to do something regularly.
So, if the fighter said “I want to see the King now, and you are in my way”, then proceeded to exercise his melee skills on the Chamberlain, should that get him an audience with the King as desired, or is this a problem his skills cannot solve? Should he have opportunities to wade into melee? Sure. Does that mean it should be the answer to every challenge? NO – you built a very specialized character, and his specialty will not always be the answer.
If all we have on the team is Melee Man and Super Diplomat, they are each useless when the other shines, so the best we can hope for is that each is useless about half the time.
