Fighters vs. Spellcasters (a case for fighters.)

[Hussar]

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.

Read more: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...s-(a-case-for-fighters-)/page54#ixzz2guHZH81A

No one said I had to succeed. What I said was, "I use diplomacy on the chamberlain to see the king" to which the DM replied, "The chamberlain sticks his fingers in his ears and cries 'La la la I can't hear you".

If the DM did, in fact do that, I most certainly would leave the game.

But, rolling this back to the original point of this thread, casters vs non-casters, it's extremely telling that the diplomacy skill (the only way a non-caster can mechanically affect the reactions of an NPC) get's hosed, while, a simple 1st level wizard spell (Charm Person) would get me exactly what I want without any fuss.

This is why I talk about the disparity in power. The non-casters are at the whim of DM's who feel entitled to change the rules whenever they feel like it, while the casters can generally know that the spells they cast will be ruled upon in a fair manner. Heck, you, N'raac, have talked at length about how clear interpretations of the spell effects makes for a better game. I cast a Silent Still Charm Person on the Chamberlain and he fails his save. Do I get to see the king or not?

Or, do you simply Auto-save the Chamberlain to protect your scenario. After all, you've auto-failed the fighter for trying diplomacy, so, it should be the same thing no?

And this whole game of trying to find equivalency in DM power is laughable. We've already stated that the DM has total control over the game world, barring a few, generally fairly minor, exceptions. Of course he does. That's not what GM Force refers to. GM Force refers to DM's actively changing the rules in the middle of the game for the purpose of delineating specific actions to the players.

IOW, starting your campaign in Waterdeep is not an example of GM Force. Telling a player he can't play a Cyborg Ninja is not an example of GM Force. An example of GM Force is any time, during play the GM over rules the resolution mechanics of the game.

 

[Ahnehnois]

Actually, no. What I am in effect saying is that when the DM decides to arbitrarily change the rules, simply to protect his precious scenario and force the players into prescribed paths, I have no interest in playing.

And what if he changes the rules for some other reason? There are lots of reasons.

To me, it's far worse if the plan the DM has creates a bad game experience and he does nothing to change it, however arbitrary that might be.

We sat down, as a group, and agreed to play with these rules (whichever these rules happen to be) and the DM has basically stepped back and said, "Nope, these rules, that we all agreed to, don't apply to me".

To be fair, as this thread has hammered into the ground, the rules explicitly state that they don't apply to the DM.

A DM who simply manipulates the game world to negate player actions is a bad DM. Or, at the very least, a DM I have no interest in playing with anymore.

That seems a very jaded view to me. More typically, a DM will manipulate the game in order to facilitate rather than negate player actions. And if you're going to take the good, you have to take the bad.

***

I do get the impetus to want to use the rules as a strict world simulator and have them enforced rigorously and consistently. That's a very difficult approach to actually play with, and a very hard line approach, but I get it. I don't do it anymore (for D&D, anyway) because I don't think it's worth the effort.

 

[Quickleaf]

Are there any quotes in the 4e guide which tell the DM that sometimes, in the interest of everyone's enjoyment, or the flow of the game, he is going to have to change or ignore the game rules, but that he should do so judiciously?

We have read Gygax's words in the 1e DMG to this effect, though some deny that he meant what he said, we have read it in the 3e DMG, and its in the Pathfinder Core rules. So is the same thing in the 4e DMG?

I don't recall anything like this in the 4e DMG or Rules Compendium, that the DM should bend the rules when necessary. Just did a search for "rules" in my PDF copy of the DMG and didn't find anything along those lines. If anything the 4e DMG suggests the DM should remain at all times as a neutral arbitrator.

The closest is page 42 in the DMG, which deals with "Actions the Rules Don't Cover." But that's more about improve, not breaking the rules. Maybe because 4e is a very hard rules system to break.

And I agree with this approach that the DM should not break the rules. Of course in 4e with the strong monster improvisation guidelines, it seems fair to give a monster an ability that is thematically/situationally appropriate even if it's not in the monster's statblock.

 

[Dwimmerlied]

Actually, no. What I am in effect saying is that when the DM decides to arbitrarily change the rules, simply to protect his precious scenario and force the players into prescribed paths, I have no interest in playing.

Although the rules provide a legitimate avenue for this to occur, given the situation you describe, the rulebooks, and various other sources advise against it. And noone is advocating this at all.

To be honest, it can be a legitimate technique. If your players are absorbed in the story and are happy with your gaming style and you adhere to a rule that will ruin it, that might be a little silly.

Conversely, if you are changing rules that will frustrate your players to preserve a plot they aren't that invested in, thats probably a bad idea. If you are doing it antagonistically to one-up your players, well, its simply not going to work for very long.

Here's the thing. Given that its been made clear many times that noone here is advocating the former, can we get past this?

 

[Dwimmerlied]

I'm sorry [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] if this is going to sound rude, and I honestly don't mean this as a personal attack, just a suggested interpretation;- I'm open to being corrected, but it does seem that your interpretations of what people are saying is being coloured by your bad experiences with overbearing DMs. This reading might be wrong, but its informed by how you seem to be construing the arguments presented, and I don't believe they are an accurate reflection of the heart of the matter.

Noone has been arguing autosaving for the purpose of precious plot preservation. Whether that's legitimate or not is not the issue (though even then I suspect most people here would agree that its mostly not). The debate, if my interpretation is any more accurate is about whether casters (particularly wizards) are really as powerful and game-breaking as they are made out to be if a DM fairly applies all the resources and realistic restrictions that are part of the rules. A number of us, me included, believe that they are only so powerful when many restrictions are ignored or handwaved.

My fairest interpretation of the other side of the argument is that those resources and realistic restrictions aren't legitimate because they often depend on DM arbitration, or even that its not actually RAW to do so.

 

[Manbearcat]

I (as have plenty of others) have written a ridiculous amount of words to try to achieve some semblance of clarity on this subject...and we can't even get past the definition of GM-force (of which I've written out, explicitly, multiple times now), let alone try to analyze the nuance of its application broadly or specifically. I'm reading follow-up posts and I truly have no idea how they are supposed to be a progression of prior information assimilated from the discussion. I answered Cadence's specific, focused, well-considered query. Now things are meandering wildly, careening into things past that should have been well-resolved, information/concepts conflated viciously into a collage that basically serves as a treatise which could only be titled "The Last 55 Pages Didn't Exist". I don't even have any idea how to come to square the last several pages. Goalposts are all over the place.

Whether or not various D&D GMs have vaguely mused upon GM-force as a technique or specifically granted authority of its use (eg AD&D 2e) is irrelevant. Whether pemerton employs it in his 4e game in any frequency beyond gross anomaly is irrelevant (and he doesn't by my reading of his myriad play examples)...he (or I...or anyone) could be the biggest hypocrite in the history of the world and his (or mine...or anyones') hypocrisy, being merely a biographical fact about the individual, would have 0 bearing on the veracity of the issue under discussion (and I don't see any cause to try to indict him as such).

What is relevant is (i) the definition of GM-force (canvassed so many times in frank language at this point that its impossible to confuse), (ii) it is a real thing, (iii) GMs employ the technique to achieve a specific sought end, (iv) its invocation has implications on play (hopefully understood and therefore intentional), table dynamics generally, can be analyzed to qualify (and even perhaps quantify in certain situations) its effect, and (v) does it provide us insight into the nature of disparate perceptions of linear fighter vs quadratic wizard.

 

[cross ofth carpenter]

I think this thread should be closed. The topic has been officially exhausted. It is beating a dead horse with a stick.

 

[Dwimmerlied]

I (as have plenty of others) have written a ridiculous amount of words to try to achieve some semblance of clarity on this subject...and we can't even get past the definition of GM-force (of which I've written out, explicitly, multiple times now), let alone try to analyze the nuance of its application broadly or specifically. I'm reading follow-up posts and I truly have no idea how they are supposed to be a progression of prior information assimilated from the discussion. I answered Cadence's specific, focused, well-considered query. Now things are meandering wildly, careening into things past that should have been well-resolved, information/concepts conflated viciously into a collage that basically serves as a treatise which could only be titled "The Last 55 Pages Didn't Exist". I don't even have any idea how to come to square the last several pages. Goalposts are all over the place.

Whether or not various D&D GMs have vaguely mused upon GM-force as a technique or specifically granted authority of its use (eg AD&D 2e) is irrelevant. Whether pemerton employs it in his 4e game in any frequency beyond gross anomaly is irrelevant (and he doesn't by my reading of his myriad play examples)...he (or I...or anyone) could be the biggest hypocrite in the history of the world and his (or mine...or anyones') hypocrisy, being merely a biographical fact about the individual, would have 0 bearing on the veracity of the issue under discussion (and I don't see any cause to try to indict him as such).

What is relevant is (i) the definition of GM-force (canvassed so many times in frank language at this point that its impossible to confuse), (ii) it is a real thing, (iii) GMs employ the technique to achieve a specific sought end, (iv) its invocation has implications on play (hopefully understood and therefore intentional), table dynamics generally, can be analyzed to qualify (and even perhaps quantify in certain situations) its effect, and (v) does it provide us insight into the nature of disparate perceptions of linear fighter vs quadratic wizard.

Such is the nature of open discussion, I guess; particularly of that on the internet. In defense of the last few pages, I've found interesting ideas and challenges presented, though I don't think all of them reflect what I understand to be the core of the matter either. I could be wrong here, but I reckon that a large part of this latter discussion is about trying to work out this DM force business; its definition and scope don't at all feel resolved for me. Is DM force a dirty word? a provincial gaming technique? necessary? Are we all, in fact, using it whether we think we are or not? Is it used to dominate players, or a necessary tool to arbitrate reality?

 

[Manbearcat]

In the name of clarity, I'm going to throw out a quick list of things that are NOT examples of GM-force:

- GM forbidding a class/race/genre element during the initial foray into character creation/campaign elaboration.

- GM opening/framing a scene with a "Bang" that is not discordant with respect to a player's prior choices or PC build/archetype/backstory (the resolution mechanics must be engaged/consulted for that to occur). For instance, a GM can frame a scene whereby "on-screen" the master thief has just successfully pilfered the precious item he/the group were looking to attain but something "off-screen" and unrelated to "master thief-dom" has occurred to complicate matters; eg his horse is being attacked by a rabid, starved pack of hyenas. This is especially proper when the intent of the thief has not been negated (pilfer item and escape with it to locale x) by the framing of the scene (but rather, just complicated) and the resolution mechanics will then be engaged/consulted to determine the outcome. In a system that involves conflict resolution (can thief pilfer item from y and escape with it to locale x) by way of complex, non-combat resolution framework, this is not only not "force", it is mandate for functional play. Conversely, if the GM unilaterally (without consulting the resolution mechanics) frames the scene as "the master thief is a failure at pilfering the object" on-screen, that would be GM-force.

- GM saying "yes" and/or allowing players to circumvent mechanical resolution where there is little to nothing at stake, no driving conflict at hand, and the GM wants to push the game toward the conflict; eg "yes, you make it through the gate with little harassment from the watch, and you arrive at (sought location) by sundown...there is fresh blood pooled on the steps...the door is ajar."

Those are a few examples.

 

[Ahnehnois]

In the name of clarity, I'm going to throw out a quick list of things that are NOT examples of GM-force:

- GM forbidding a class/race/genre element during the initial foray into character creation/campaign elaboration.

Uh, what? What does it matter when this happens?

- GM opening/framing a scene with a "Bang" that is not discordant with respect to a player's prior choices or PC build/archetype/backstory (the resolution mechanics must be engaged/consulted for that to occur).

So, completely ignoring the rules?

- GM saying "yes" and/or allowing players to circumvent mechanical resolution where there is little to nothing at stake,

What about circumventing them when there is something at stake? And who decides what the stakes are?

Those are a few examples.

Examples that make it clear about what I said earlier. "DM force" basically boils down to: "stuff that I don't do".