DMing philosophy, from Lewis Pulsipher

[Umbran]

It might be bad of me, but I generally enjoy when that happens. It's hard to remain impartial all the time. I keep failing my will save.

My players don't enjoy it (either the process or the results) so I don't enjoy it. It means my friends are not having as good a time as they otherwise might have.

This is not to say I care whether their plan will succeed or fail. But they can fail without spending a third of the session figuring out exactly how they'll fail.

 

[Baron Greystone]

As often happens, this debate is an example of deliberately taking an extreme position, and choosing to 'misunderstand' what others are saying. There is a certain amount of fun in assembling a dungeon randomly, but isn't 'designing' a dungeon instead of rolling it randomly cheating? All depends on how strict an adherent you want to be to the idea of "No DM interference." There is a certain amount of fun in running a dungeon by rolling for everything that happens. But that can get dull for everyone. Playing a game, even a wargame, is fantasy. Escapism. With rules to make it somewhat more predictable than 'make-believe' games we played as children. Playing a fantasy is story-telling. Role-playing games are story-telling with rules. The goal of playing games is to have fun. "Fun" will be defined in different ways by different groups of people, who will gravitate to like-minded players. So, this group thinks it's fun to actually tailor an adventure to its liking. A different group wants everything randomized. Each can start with the same rpg, and take in their own direction. Honestly I don't see how one group can criticize another. Lew Pulsipher is a member of the industry with an august track record, but in the end, his tastes are subjective. And this is true of everyone. Personally, I find that a conscioiusly-desiigned adventure is preferable, rather than something generated randomly. That includes trap placement, treasure, monster generation, background rationales, personalities and all. When it comes to playing it through, I as a DM feel that 'the play's the thing.' If I need to tweak something in play, I will. Everyone should have fun, and fun means overcoming obstacles, risking death, for rewards like victory, fame, fortune. I will not be a slave to the dice.

 

[Storminator]

That's a perfect explanation of the perspective, and one I can see working very well. It puts the emphasis on the game as "the players vs. the dungeon" and puts the DM purely in the role of referee. I've played games like this, admittedly not with D&D, and had a blast doing so. I think Pulsipher did a fine job of explaining the approach to take for that type of game.

The only thing I don't like about Pulsipher's comments are his stance that other ways of playing the game are inappropriate or not enjoyable.

I hadn't really thought of this before, but the "players vs. the dungeon" style has an interesting dichotomy of strategic thinking.

The DM expends all his tactical thinking in the set up, scripts monster/NPC actions, places loot and environment ahead of time, then minimizes adaptation. He's all strategic.

The players spend a small amount of time and energy planning and preparing, then execute their dungeon run reacting to the dungeon. Most everything they do is tactical.

Interesting.

PS

 

[Emerikol]

My players don't enjoy it (either the process or the results) so I don't enjoy it. It means my friends are not having as good a time as they otherwise might have.

This is not to say I care whether their plan will succeed or fail. But they can fail without spending a third of the session figuring out exactly how they'll fail.

If planning doesn't improve the groups chances of success then of course it's not worth any time. In my games with my players, planning is well worth the effort because it produces better results. I'm not sure why the difference.

Is it because my players are smarter and come up with better plans? Is it because I play the monsters straight and don't use metagame knowledge that those same monsters don't have? Is it because I let the dice fall where they fall?

I'm not sure. It might be interesting to figure that out. I mean when you think about it, planning seems intuitive if you want to win and you have the time to do the planning.

 

[Umbran]

If planning doesn't improve the groups chances of success then of course it's not worth any time. In my games with my players, planning is well worth the effort because it produces better results. I'm not sure why the difference.

Is it because my players are smarter and come up with better plans?

Do you really want to open this with questioning my players' intelligence? Really?

Is it because I play the monsters straight and don't use metagame knowledge that those same monsters don't have? Is it because I let the dice fall where they fall?

I fudge only rarely, and I make sure my antagonists behave in ways that are entirely reasonable, given the information they have, thank you very much. I try to pack my metagming into the design end, not the runtime end, as much as possible.

I'm running classic Deadlands. The combat dynamic is much different from what you may be used to in D&D - the action economy is unpredictable, and without D&D's ablative hit points, combat is extremely swingy. This leads to things more than very basic plans tending to fall apart upon contact with the enemy. The mechanics make Deadlands combat less about planning up-front, and more about adapting to change and new information mid-combat.

 

[Emerikol]

Do you really want to open this with questioning my players' intelligence? Really?

Actually I thought I'd start with the absurd choice (still theoretically a possible one though) and work my way through the reasonable ones.

I fudge only rarely, and I make sure my antagonists behave in ways that are entirely reasonable, given the information they have, thank you very much. I try to pack my metagming into the design end, not the runtime end, as much as possible.

Good that is exactly how I do it.

I'm running classic Deadlands. The combat dynamic is much different from what you may be used to in D&D - the action economy is unpredictable, and without D&D's ablative hit points, combat is extremely swingy. This leads to things more than very basic plans tending to fall apart upon contact with the enemy. The mechanics make Deadlands combat less about planning up-front, and more about adapting to change and new information mid-combat.

Well based on what you've said I suppose it could be the system. I was honestly curious. Let's make the question more straightforward to eliminate side distractions. Suppose you played a traditional game of OD&D like they routinely played in the 70's. Do you believe that planning would help or not? If not then I am curious as to why it seems to be worthwhile in my case and not yours given we seem to have the same approach on so many things.

 

[Emerikol]

I hadn't really thought of this before, but the "players vs. the dungeon" style has an interesting dichotomy of strategic thinking.

The DM expends all his tactical thinking in the set up, scripts monster/NPC actions, places loot and environment ahead of time, then minimizes adaptation. He's all strategic.

The players spend a small amount of time and energy planning and preparing, then execute their dungeon run reacting to the dungeon. Most everything they do is tactical.

Interesting.

PS

I think though that the players are often put in a situation where strategic thinking on their part was called for and paid off. The group goes into a room and gets their butts kicked by the bad buy and has to flee. When they get somewhere safe, they regroup and try to come up with a plan where they can mitigate the enemies advantages. Pure strategic and very much a key part of the playstyle Pulsiper seems to be advocating for in that snippet. It was a key style in the 70's for sure regardless.

 

[Sadras]

My players don't enjoy it (either the process or the results) so I don't enjoy it. It means my friends are not having as good a time as they otherwise might have.
This is not to say I care whether their plan will succeed or fail. But they can fail without spending a third of the session figuring out exactly how they'll fail.

The above sounds a lot more serious than I was anticipating. My line of thought was as an example, and it doesn't happen often, the party is aware of a BBEG and his crew is on the other side of the door, they decide on tactics (which is never a completely unanimous decision) and execute plan A, only to discover that the tactics utilised were not ideal. One player will humourously bitch at another player for coming up with the decision, there will be some light ragging about how the "party leader" is incompetent, some laughs and play continues.

I'm running classic Deadlands. The combat dynamic is much different from what you may be used to in D&D - the action economy is unpredictable, and without D&D's ablative hit points, combat is extremely swingy. This leads to things more than very basic plans tending to fall apart upon contact with the enemy. The mechanics make Deadlands combat less about planning up-front, and more about adapting to change and new information mid-combat.

As @Emerikol mentioned perhaps our different experiences is a result of different systems. Even though we have curbed D&D's ablative hit points somewhat and reworked the healing spells, it might still be more swingy than Deadlands. Sadly, I'm not familiar Deadland's system.

 

[lewpuls]

30-some years see lots of changes

Two and a half years ago I completed my book "Game Design: How to Create Video and Tabletop Games, Start to Finish" (McFarland, 2012). Whenever I have occasion to look up something in it, I've been happy to find that I still agree with myself!

But agree entirely with something I wrote 30-some years ago, when game players had a different mind-set than nowadays? Not so likely.

What do I mean when I say a different mind-set? Hobby game players then (as opposed to mass-market/party gamers) mostly played games to overcome challenges and to earn what they received. Most players now, especially influenced by video games and free to play video games in particular, play games to be rewarded for their participation. In other words, consequence-based gaming is being replaced by reward-based gaming. People play not to gain something but to receive something. A secret door is not a situation to cope with or a clever obstacle, it's a dirty trick by the GM because it interferes with rewards. The old-school movement is one reaction against the newer point of view. My old view of D&D-as-wargame doesn't fit the newer point of view *at all*.

I'd expect a forum like this one has a higher-than-industry-standard proportion of people still interested in consequence-based gaming.

Someday I'll combine all those old articles into a couple PDF books (100K words each, it appears). But I haven't played RPGs (with one exception for old times' sake) in more than five years.

Lew Pulsipher

 

[pemerton]

[MENTION=30518]lewpuls[/MENTION]

Thanks for dropping by the thread!

For what it's worth, I still re-read those old columns every now and then and find interesting ideas in them. (Hence this thread.) And that is despite the fact that I probably count as more of a new-style than old-style RPGer.

So thanks, too, for a lasting contribution to the hobby!