D&D General The Problem with Talking About D&D

[EzekielRaiden]

And I explicitly noted that the fact that "battle has been joined" does not mean a particular combatant's combat-related stats have been interacted with yet. Adjusting the AC of a combatant has not been attacked yet, for example.

I find this a pretty damn pedantic perspective, but even in context it's questionable. This implies that it is 100% completely impossible to size up an opponent before you attack: the player character must be completely ignorant of anything combat related until actually striking.

Even if I allow that, though, people are talking about modifying it after an attack has already been rolled. That is the very observation you seem to be asking for.

No one needs to do anything as a DM. But there are many things that can be done to improve the game experience for some people. Maybe this is one of them?

Outright deceiving your players—not their characters, the players themselves—is a huge risk. Nearly every single person who advocates fudging (whether it be roll-fudging or stat-fudging) is quite clear that they must keep it a secret forever, otherwise it will actively upset or even anger their players when the behavior is revealed. Why would players be upset by a perfectly innocent action? And if them ever discovering it, for any reason, would be an indelible black mark on a campaign, why risk it if there are other methods to achieve the same end (dramatic story beats) that do not carry the risk of player anger?

It is not necessary, and almost everyone recognizes it as at best questionable, otherwise they wouldn't work so hard to hide it!

I flatly reject the idea that "deceptive" and "cheating" are synonymous. DMs till tend to do all kinds of things that could be described as deceptive, as part of the game to make it more interesting.

Well, looking at the intransitive definitions of "cheat" since that's how I'm using the term (ignoring those related to relationship infidelity)...

Merriam-Webster:

1a: to practice fraud or trickery
denied the accusation that he cheated
b: to violate rules dishonestly
cheat at cards
cheating on a test

Dictionary.com

verb (used without object)
1. to practice fraud or deceit: She cheats without regrets.
2. to violate rules or regulations: He cheats at cards.

Lexico (the new rebranding of the free version of the online OED):

[no object] Act dishonestly or unfairly in order to gain an advantage, especially in a game or examination.
‘she always cheats at cards’

I am well within my rights to call dishonesty about how rules are adjudicated "cheating." Only the Lexico definition explicitly includes "gain an advantage," and I still see an advantage gained by the manipulations people discuss here, even if it is an advantage granted to PCs rather than their opponents.

Deceptive, secret manipulation of the rules is cheating. That's why players get upset when they learn their DM fudges, and why DMs go to such great lengths to hide that they do it and prevent the players ever discovering that they've done it.

In a way, this reminds me of the hidden factors in video games that I think many would considering "cheating". If they can do it, why can't DMs!?

To name a few:

• Shadow of Mordor grants additional health to dueling Uruks to increase the length of the fight for the sake of spectacle.
• Assassin's Creed and Doom have more health associated with the last tick of the health bar, to make you feel like you barely survived.
• Ratchet and Clank scaled enemy damage and hid enemies based on time played and total deaths of the player.
• Enemies in some LEGO games have a hit or miss chance. If a projectile misses, it's offset and has no collision. This is done to make fights more hectic.

Looks like I missed this before.

You should know that many people are aware that this happens in games. Strategy games, for example, must often resort to letting computer controlled countries flagrantly violate the rules in order to not crumple, because actually coding intelligent computer behavior is very hard in games like this. You know what TVtropes calls this kind of game design?

"The Computer Is A Cheating Bastard."

Soooo....yeah. It is something game designers do. It is classified as cheating by many players. And it is seen as an objectively inferior design. Sometimes, game companies do not have the budget or time to avoid this flaw, so players grimace and bear it, but that does not make it acceptable. If a game like Dark Souls or Elden Ring had done things like this, it would have rampantly infuriated the fanbase. The fact that Skyrim DOES scale everything to player level is one of the greatest criticisms of the game (even though it should have been criticized for how buggy and broken it often was), and people specifically used the example of Skyrim in order to criticize 4e during its heyday.

Such techniques are controversial at best. Given they are not needed (as noted above), so risky, and not the only means to achieve the desired ends, why employ them? Sure, they're one of the easier means to achieve said ends, but that ease belies their true cost if the players ever discover it.

The first rule to making D&D fun is to listen to your players at your table. Not the designers. Not the people on youtube. Not the people who post on forums daily and will likely never sit in one of your games.

This also applies to almost everything else in life.

So...why don't DMs who fudge listen to players who would respond extremely negatively to the discovery that the DM fudges? Why would the correct response be "do whatever it takes to prevent them finding out" rather than "stop doing a thing that would (almost surely) upset the players if they found out you do it"?

 

[EzekielRaiden]

an environment like todays where houserules are so often maligned that even saying no to something printed in a deviation of what AL allows generates reactions once reserved for the most oppressive abusive hostile GM styles

Oh please. The beleaguered victim DM card? Really? And in such hyperbolic terms? Pull the other one. Such poor, misunderstood, abused creatures DMs are. They only have near absolute power and zero checks on that power other than players dropping the nuclear option and abandoning the table. How can they hope to have any fun or do anything interesting in the face of such cruel, malicious players, with their petulant and mocking demands?! How can they fulfill their artistic vision with pugnacious players who won't even listen to their weary, browbeaten DM trying to explain that no, you can't play a dragonborn, they don't fit in this world of crazy fantastical creatures and open defiance of physics and biology, they're insufficiently verisimilitudinous, no it has nothing whatever to do with the absolutely objective fact that they're a dumb powergamer* snowflake race.

Maybe that vaunted "DM empowerment" so many crowed about, back when 5e was in playtest, created more of a pushback than you expected. Maybe people expect DMs who actually talk with them and work through their reasoning, being open to alternate paths or pursuing consensus if it can be reached.

*AN: For the record, PHB dragonborn are actually one of the weakest races, if not the outright weakest, in the PHB. Yet they're extremely popular, one of the top 4 options even if you lump together all elves (except half-elves) as a single race.

 

[Jacob Lewis]

So...why don't DMs who fudge listen to players who would respond extremely negatively to the discovery that the DM fudges? Why would the correct response be "do whatever it takes to prevent them finding out" rather than "stop doing a thing that would (almost surely) upset the players if they found out you do it"?

You would need to ask those DMs. But if you're not sitting in their game or at their table, why would you care? Not my zoo, not my monkeys.

 

[Mercurius]

.

I think you might be missing the point of having a graphical thing or sig code type indicator does in an environment like todays where houserules are so often maligned that even saying no to something printed in a deviation of what AL allows generates reactions once reserved for the most oppressive abusive hostile GM styles. Having the indicator on a gm screen or whatever means the onus is back on a new player to find out the house rules rather than the GM to explain all of them in the first three sentences of interacting with a perspective player. In cases on internet discussions it also sheds light on why someone's experience might be so different.

I hear you and my experience joining new groups in recent decades is quite limited. I personally cannot imagine joining a group - and thus essentially being a guest, at least at first - and complaining about or trying to dictate the scope or theme of the campaign.

But what we're saying aren't opposed. I'm talking about the more macro-level - that is, changing the culture of gaming. Maybe part of that can be codes or explicit indicators of how a specific campaign varies from the RAW, but still I think it is important to consider the larger context and encourage a gaming culture where uniqueness isn't just encouraged, but expected.

 

[Argyle King]

The difference being a quick point of reference you can look at on the front or back cover of a book vs having to buy, then read most of the book, then gleaning the information on your own.

I don't see that as necessary.

There are reasons for why it has been standard practice to arrange books in a commonly understood way.

A short summary blurb and bullet points would more accurately give an idea about an adventure than color coding. I get the idea of the color coding, but that raises a whole other series of questions concerning where the lines are drawn between adventure categories.

By what table standards are the categories defined? If an adventure falls into two different categories, does it earn two colors.

Ultimately, I see the color coding needing further clarification anyway.

I agree with what the video establishes as "problems" in modern adventure design. However, I don't see the benefit of inventing a more-vague coding system than what already exists by getting back to using established parts of a book; such as good indexing, an introduction/premise, useful boxed text, and etc.

 

[pemerton]

Is this thread about the varieties of D&D play, or about the social obligations of D&D players? Surely the latter are no different from the social obligations of anyone else.

 

[bloodtide]

Yes, this has always been a problem. If it is a problem. As an old school DM I have seen endless post from other DMs about problems they have with the game. And it's odd how I never have the problems or even anything close.

A LOT about any RPG is how you play the game beyond the rules. DM Andy is a super soft buddy DM that just has his monsters sort of attack to scare the players in a fun romp of combat that the player characters will auto win. I, on the other hand, I'm a Hard Core Old School Killer DM and my monsters will rip into the player characters with unparalleled aggression with the intent to kill the player characters. Same exact rules...but two very diffrent games.

A lot of the game is how you play it.

 

[Oofta]

Oh please. The beleaguered victim DM card? Really? And in such hyperbolic terms? Pull the other one. Such poor, misunderstood, abused creatures DMs are. They only have near absolute power and zero checks on that power other than players dropping the nuclear option and abandoning the table. How can they hope to have any fun or do anything interesting in the face of such cruel, malicious players, with their petulant and mocking demands?! How can they fulfill their artistic vision with pugnacious players who won't even listen to their weary, browbeaten DM trying to explain that no, you can't play a dragonborn, they don't fit in this world of crazy fantastical creatures and open defiance of physics and biology, they're insufficiently verisimilitudinous, no it has nothing whatever to do with the absolutely objective fact that they're a dumb powergamer* snowflake race.

Maybe that vaunted "DM empowerment" so many crowed about, back when 5e was in playtest, created more of a pushback than you expected. Maybe people expect DMs who actually talk with them and work through their reasoning, being open to alternate paths or pursuing consensus if it can be reached.

*AN: For the record, PHB dragonborn are actually one of the weakest races, if not the outright weakest, in the PHB. Yet they're extremely popular, one of the top 4 options even if you lump together all elves (except half-elves) as a single race.

You started to sound like you were making a reasonable (if overly antagonistic) point and immediately segue into ... what ... power hungry control freak DMs and if you can't play any race you want the DM sucks? That if the DM doesn't agree to everything any given player at the table wants they're scum of the earth? Give me a break. Different tables run things differently.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

You started to sound like you were making a reasonable (if overly antagonistic) point and immediately segue into ... what ... power hungry control freak DMs and if you can't play any race you want the DM sucks? That if the DM doesn't agree to everything any given player at the table wants they're scum of the earth? Give me a break. Different tables run things differently.

It's the poster child race for "DMs hate it, players love it," and in particular, DMs citing that they won't allow it because it's OP or "ridiculous" but they do allow, y'know, three-foot-tall halfling barbarians with 24 Strength (assuming they reach level 20, that is), or half-elves, which are objectively superior to dragonborn in almost every mechanical way (more stat points that were, pre-Tashas, among the only flexible ones; extra skills, or the option to pick up benefits from any elf subrace; darkvision; and, although it's a minor benefit, an extra language.)

If you have an adult conversation with your players about it, you have not been a poor beleaguered DM--you either found a way to resolve the issue, or you found the issue was irresolvable and you went your separate ways. It is ludicrous to claim, and I quote, "houserules are so often maligned that even saying no...generates reactions once reserved for the most oppressive abusive hostile GM styles." No, it does not. That is way beyond the limits of "hyperbole" and into satire, except that I know Tetrasodium is completely serious.

Either have the adult conversation--which, y'know, this very thread seems to be all about "talk out what you're going for, don't just assume people are on the same page--or accept that the group you want to play with has a fundamental impasse about how to play.

Also, you're the one who injected "scum of the earth" into this. I'm pointing out the hypocrisy of claiming all that phenomenal cosmic DM empowerment and then getting upset when players don't instantly kowtow to it. With great power comes great responsibility--or, if you prefer a more storied version of that phrase, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, --That...Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government..."

If your players challenge you this hard, you don't have their consent anymore. Their actions demonstrate it. Getting petulant and wailing about horrific pushback doesn't solve anything. It just blames the players for a two-way-street problem. The only actual solutions are to abandon the effort as insoluble (which is unfortunate, but it is the eternal fallback), or to talk it out, to earn the players' consent.

 

[tetrasodium]

Oh please. The beleaguered victim DM card? Really? And in such hyperbolic terms? Pull the other one. Such poor, misunderstood, abused creatures DMs are. They only have near absolute power and zero checks on that power other than players dropping the nuclear option and abandoning the table. How can they hope to have any fun or do anything interesting in the face of such cruel, malicious players, with their petulant and mocking demands?! How can they fulfill their artistic vision with pugnacious players who won't even listen to their weary, browbeaten DM trying to explain that no, you can't play a dragonborn, they don't fit in this world of crazy fantastical creatures and open defiance of physics and biology, they're insufficiently verisimilitudinous, no it has nothing whatever to do with the absolutely objective fact that they're a dumb powergamer* snowflake race.

Maybe that vaunted "DM empowerment" so many crowed about, back when 5e was in playtest, created more of a pushback than you expected. Maybe people expect DMs who actually talk with them and work through their reasoning, being open to alternate paths or pursuing consensus if it can be reached.

*AN: For the record, PHB dragonborn are actually one of the weakest races, if not the outright weakest, in the PHB. Yet they're extremely popular, one of the top 4 options even if you lump together all elves (except half-elves) as a single race.

ok? Dragonborn? huh? Your comment in post162 seems to be the only mention of dragonborn in this thread up till that point, did you quote the wrong person or type in the wrong window? I'm not sure what you are trying to get at.

As to dragonborn, I frequently have severe problems with players wanting to bring in a dragonborn. That hurdle is "most dragonborn come from q'barra, & are frequently assumed to be lizardfolk by people from other regions. rising from the last war page 122 talks about q'barra but they exist in other regions & we can talk about those if you have one in mind. oh yea bahamut & tiamat are some other setting, dragons in eberron are very different & kinda like the vorlon in babylon 5 in some ways that set them apart as mysterious chessmasters. skim this page or two & lets talk." Usually trouble starts around wanting them to skim a couple pages & talk to me so I can get them onboard in the proper setting or when they come back a week later with a multipage backstory set in what is not Eberron." I may deviate from the official setting & tend to favor Kannon over Cannon when they clash, but I do my best to use an official setting to ease the process of fitting into the setting for players making the hostility that comes from saying that backstories need to conform with the setting something of a double facepalm headscratcher.