D&D General Is power creep bad?

[Maxperson]

I think it is important to remember the completely open ended nature of tabletop RPG play when looking at the issue of "silence as information." Because you can literally do anything in an RPG, what the rules do and do not cover gives you significant information about not only the intent of the design and the designers' preferences, but also what the participants are expected to do in the spaces that are and are not explicitly covered by the rules.

We know the design preferences, and those are rulings over rules. To that end, they made 5e to be full of holes and vaguely written rules that require DM interpretation and house rules. The silence isn't informing us about how they want the game to be played, but rather the opposite. It's deliberately open and flexible so that we can run it how we want.

First, it is important to make a distinction between "not in the rules because it isn't supposed to be part of the game" and "not in the rules because the participants are expected to be able to handle it without rules." An example of the former is the lack of rules for Jet Fighters in OD&D. Given the context of the game those rules are not there because PCs aren't supposed to hop in the cockpit and shoot Hellfire missiles at the peasants.

And yet spaceships, robots and lasers have been in the game. It's not even a small stretch to include jet fighters. The DMG even lists technology as something to discover or dig up, mentioning the Barrier Peaks and Elminster coming to our Earth. Then going on to mention including science fiction as part of your game. Later we get rules for figuring out alien technology.

Fighter jets are not in the rules, but this is very clearly not because they aren't supposed to be part of the game.

 

[Lanefan]

The fear of power creep has everything to do with trusting the players. There's this weird pervasive paranoia I keep seeing that any advantage the plyers find will be exploited

Yes. IMO that's what a player should be doing in any game, not just D&D - looking for advantages and using them when found.

with the express intent to ruin the game.

No. They're not trying to ruin the game. Any game-ruination is just a very avoidable side effect, avoidable in that the DM always has the power to close any egregious game-wrecking loopholes the players happen to discover.

 

[Lanefan]

Here you used phrases like "intended for a very different style of play" and "the way [the game] is meant to be played." These things are statements, not about things like "skills do X, but old-school fans think 'skill' should be something players have," but things like what the game IS for, how it IS meant to be played, what style it actually DOES pursue. That is, they are not statements about "the rules permit you to <action>" or "the rules are silent about <action>, because they want people to decide for themselves," but rather statements about the purpose or meaning or intent of the rules collectively.

Part of the reason might be that each different rule might require a different statement, or a variance on another statement, resulting in the rulebooks each becoming the size of those massive Oxford dictionaries still found in some libraries.

Why not have rules that make this clear, so that there won't be such misinterpretation or confusion? Just be really forthright about it.

3e tried that approach - a rule for everything - and it didn't end up working very well. 5e specifically backed away from this approach and so far, if the sales stats and player numbers are any indication, it seems to be doing well enough...

 

[niklinna]

So...silence is now information. That's a new one.

Refusal to choose is itself a choice....

 

[EzekielRaiden]

3e tried that approach - a rule for everything - and it didn't end up working very well. 5e specifically backed away from this approach and so far, if the sales stats and player numbers are any indication, it seems to be doing well enough...

Again, you are conflating the rules themselves with what the rules tell you they're for. The two are not the same thing.

If the rules are transparent--you can clearly see the functions they serve--and the advice and descriptions surrounding the rules are similarly clear and straightforward about the "style of play" the rules support and telling people "the way it is meant to be played."

Early D&D is somewhat infamous for being bad at communicating the experience it was intended to support--the whole distinction from those who learned from Gygax or Arneson or a player-teaching-chain leading back to their tables, and those who just read the books. We can, and IMO should, expect an improvement after forty years on this front. Again, I don't see this as a "you MUST play THIS ONE AND ONLY WAY," but rather as, "This is what we made this to do. If you use it for something else, be ready for wrinkles and side-effects." That empowers people, whether by preparing them for making changes, or by making it easier to see that they want something else.

Refusal to choose is itself a choice....

While that is true, choosing not to give any information is clearly different from choosing to give information, I hope you would agree?

 

[Lanefan]

Again, you are conflating the rules themselves with what the rules tell you they're for. The two are not the same thing.

The very existence (or lack thereof) a rule often tells me something about what it is there for.

If the rules are transparent--you can clearly see the functions they serve--and the advice and descriptions surrounding the rules are similarly clear and straightforward about the "style of play" the rules support and telling people "the way it is meant to be played."

Thing is, while the designers can wax eloquent about the function any given rule is intended to serve in their eyes, their words don't mean jack to me-the-DM trying to use said rules to run the game I want to run in the style I want to run it.

And yes, this means sometimes I might end up fighting the rules system without realizing it, but so what? That's what my rules machete is for; it's the item in my kitbasher's toolbox that I use to chop down rules that get in my way.

Just give us the rules, preferably in a modular manner with discrete and disconnected subsystems that by their nature are easy to kitbash to suit our own tastes and-or tables, and let us each figure it all out on our own. Editions 1e and earlier did this well, probably without intending to.

Early D&D is somewhat infamous for being bad at communicating the experience it was intended to support--the whole distinction from those who learned from Gygax or Arneson or a player-teaching-chain leading back to their tables, and those who just read the books. We can, and IMO should, expect an improvement after forty years on this front. Again, I don't see this as a "you MUST play THIS ONE AND ONLY WAY," but rather as, "This is what we made this to do. If you use it for something else, be ready for wrinkles and side-effects." That empowers people, whether by preparing them for making changes, or by making it easier to see that they want something else.

The example of play on 1e DMG pages 96-99 (-ish) gives about as clear an idea of the intended experience as you're ever likely to find anywhere. What more do you need?

 

[Micah Sweet]

Refusal to choose is itself a choice....

All hail the power of Rush!

 

[Scott Christian]

The only thing that makes power creep bad is when it severely limits the DM's ability to help construct a story.

 

[d24454_modern]

The only thing that makes power creep bad is when it severely limits the DM's ability to help construct a story.

Not really.

“Restrictions breed creativity” applies to the DM as well as the players. How they react to the players’ power lets them decide how their plot actually functions in their game.

 

[Neonchameleon]

The only thing that makes power creep bad is when it severely limits the DM's ability to help construct a story.

That seems to me to be a strongly stated argument in favour of power creep. The DM shouldn't be writing the story - the story should be about the PCs and their actions and choices.