I think we're slipping a bit here into territory I'd rather not venture into
<snip>
You might think I'm more against 4e-style play than I actually am. As I've said a few times, I really enjoy 4e, but also feel that something is lacking, or has been lacking for me (and many others who express similar feelings). What this is is not so simple as to be easily narrowed down, but is a combination of factors, only some of which we've discussed in this thread. But I do want to (re-)emphasize that I don't even dislike AEDU in and of itself, I just feel that it has a kind of totalizing effect that obfuscates the approach to game play that page 42 seeks to address but is, in the end, de-emphasized.
As best I can tell, the approach to game play that you are advocating is one based on freeform descriptions by players that are then adjudicated by the GM without reference to any general framework of the 4e style.
Whatever the merits or demerits of such an approach, I don't accept that it has some special or privileged relationship to imaginative RPGing.
I want to imagine myself in the game world, and determine my action as the character that is there, and then pick a power or skill if I need to. Actually, all versions of D&D allow for this, but some emphasize different components more than others, and to varying degrees.
I don't entirely see how you can imagine yourself in the gameworld without having some conception of what resources are available to you as a player (correlating, at least in part, to capabilities of the character). For example, how can you imagine yourself as an inspirational battle captain without knowing something about your capacity to inspire? Or as a happy-go-lucky daredevil without knowing something about how lucky you are likely to be?
This relates back to a point [MENTION=27160]Balesir[/MENTION] made upthread.
I want both: clear and definable resources, but also a free-wheeling, improvisational play style that isn't relegated to a single page in one book, but is firmly part of the game ethos.
<snip>
As a DM, I always allow and encourage players to think outside of the box, to do whatever it is they want, and I've found that 99% of the time my players trust my judgment and sense of fairness. I would never make it "very, very difficult to play an inspirational battle captain" - that is a misunderstanding and/or misrepresentation of what I was trying to express; I'm honestly not sure how you came up with that interpretation! My point was simply that players can doanything, even if it isn't on the character sheet or defined by the rules, even if it seems nearly impossible.
The reason I thought it might be hard to be an "improvisational" battle captain was because you said the GM's response should be "That will be very, very difficult, but you can try . . ."
I'm still curious as to how you would adjudicate the inspirational battle captain leading the charge in Moldvay Basic, or AD&D, or Next.
I'm also curious as to the metric on which "near impossibility" is determined. For instance, for magic-users the test obviously is not real-world possibility. Suppose a MU wants to use Charm Person to persuade a sleeping guard to talk in his sleep and reveal the password - how hard is this? And how is it adjudicated?
Or suppose a PC who is conceived as a happy-go-lucky daredevil wants to jump from the castle tower into the moat 80' below. How is that adjudicated? By reference to real world criteria of difficulty? (And how do we compare the PC to the capabilities of real world acrobats and divers?)
There are different ways of answering these questions, and different versions of D&D seem to support different answers. For instance, my take on Moldvay Basic is that Charm Person can't be used to persuade a sleeping guard to reveal a password in his sleep - spells are confined to their descriptions. And the jump into the moat is to be adjudicated by the GM assinging a % chance of success - with no real mechanism for factoring in level, or thief class, or anything else.
My take on 4e is that the use of a Charm spell to persuade the sleeping guard to reveal a password is to be adjudicated as an Arcana check - everything else being equal, a Hard check. And the jump into the moat would be an Acrobatics check, with the difficulty also probably at Hard - and making it to Medium probably interpreted as a successful jump but damage at the appropriate level for a bad landing.
4e handles the Battle Captain via class-specific powers, and to confer bonus actions through improvisation would at a minimum have to cost an encounter power. I don't think in Moldvay Basic it is possible to confer bonus actions through improvisation. But I'm interested in other opinions on how this might be handled.
In my game if someone wants to be an inspirational battle captain then they play a character with a high CHA, and/or say or do something inspiring during a battle. Such acts will have a direct impact on the morale of allied npcs. Other PCs will get no tangible benefit from such an act because each player has free will and is not subject to the morale rules. This is easy to implement and does not break the overall action economy of the game.
This fits with my sense of how classic D&D handles the archetype. It means that, in a game in which NPCs will have little or no practical signficance in resolving challenges, it is impossible to play a battle captain as anything other than colour. Which isn't per se objectionable, but does bring out a distinctive feature of 4e.
The thought that the rolls matter, matters to the players.
OK, but if they don't then why lie? The fact that it matters to the players seems, if anything, a reason to be truthful.
Concerning DM force, it is VERY CLEAR in the editions of old that the DM has unlimited power on every aspect of the game, as the presence of domination, possession, charm, illusion effects, and other niceties such as dopplegangers, intelligent swords, cursed items and corrupt artifacts make mandatory.
Quite simply, not all of us accept that the trad way of roleplaying is the only way to play D&D, that trad style defines D&D, or that it is even the only textually supported way.
I agree with TwoSix. This came up in the long Fighters vs Spellcasters thread. [MENTION=6701124]Cadence[/MENTION] had some quotes from Gygax's DMG. My reading of those quotes was that Gygax advocated strong GM authority over, and adjudication of, fictional positioning - which is a particularly important contributor to action resolution in classic D&D, given the comparative lack of mechanical systems outside of combat and dealing with dungeon doors and traps. But I don't think Gygax advocated that the GM could suspend action resolution at will - or should call for (say) an attack roll or a saving throw and then ignore its results, or roll an attack roll for a monster while disregarding a PC's AC in declaring a hit or a miss.
And you don't need to do those things to adjudicate (say) doppelgangers, or cursed items, or illusions.
I think we operate under a different paradigm of what a DM's role is with regards to D&D and, I imagine, this goes back a long way. I've always taken the approach that the DM is a combination of many roles: storyteller, referee, worldbuilder, scene-setter, moderator, conflict resolver, and yes, "overlord" of the game and campaign.
In that sense, the DM's role is fundamentally different than the players, who play characters in the DM's campaign world.
<snip>
What you describe seems to involve a lot more player empowerment - that they are not as much characters within the DM's creation, and protagonists in the story, but co-creators of the game itself.
The most natural reading, for me, of "the game" is
the events and experiences of play. And I take it for granted that the players are co-creators of that.
I take it for granted that world-building is also shared - for instance, players have primary authority for creating backstory around their PCs', their PCs' families and homelands, their PCs' mentors and organisaitons, etc. But the GM has responsibility for more of it, and also for backstory around the antagonists.
Scene-framing I prefer as a GM role, because I think it is hard to ask players to set their PCs' own challenges. Refereeing and adjudication is a GM function, within the scope of the action resolution mechanics.
I don't find it helpful to run these different things together, because it then becomes hard to draw distinctions that I think are pretty crucial across different approaches and different play experiences.
If the DM has a world design that that the player's choices clashes with, shouldn't the player change what they were going to do?
<snip>
who does the tie-breaking when there is a disagreement because fiat attempts clash?
This can be handled different ways. GM authority is only one approach. Negotiation and compromise/consensus is another. GM deference to players in matters that affect their PCs directly (eg race, family, mentor, organisation) is another. I personally like Luke Crane's advice in the Burning Wheel books - by which I mean I think it leads to satisfying play that engages everyone at the table.
I think I've always played with groups where the DM would incorporate any ideas the players had that didn't strongly clash with the world design
That sounds like one viable approach. It doesn't make me think we need GM authority to be stated as any sort of default or presupposition.
Does the DM have greater knowledge of where things are going in general? If so, should that give them the tie-breaking vote when its otherwise split? Or should they just get it simply because the role of DM is different from that of the player and all of the players have agreed to make that person the DM?
I'm not sure about the "greater knowledge of where things are going". I don't see that the GM has to, or even should, have such knowledge. If the players are playing the protagonists, why don't
they know where things are going?
how do you deal with situations like the one over at:
http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...orlds-Combat&p=6229433&viewfull=1#post6229433
The DM is sick of playing the game because of two broken spells... and the player doesn't want them nerfed because it would destroy all the hard system mastery work they put in to developing the character.
It seems somewhat sad, but does each group need to agree on how they will deal with mid-game-discovered-brokenness before they start to play?
I haven't read that thread, and so have no advice to offer for these particular players. But I'd be surprised if a rulebook statement that the GM has absolute authority would make the problem go away.
I have had this sort of problem playing Rolemaster. It was always solved via group discussion and consensus, not unilateral exercise of authority.
:
