D&D General Why Editions Don't Matter

[Thomas Shey]

Surely a huge part of the reason that there is far more strategy in combat is because there are detailed rules for it. If you only had very basic rules for it, the possibility for strategy (or tactics, rather) would be greatly reduced.

Not entirely, but it becomes primarily dependent on reading what the GM will and won't engage with usefully. That's why I claim to this day that fundamentally, trying to play an OD&D fighter in a way that wasn't dull as dishwater was really an exercise in playing the GM more than the game in any meaningful way.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I don't evaluate player performance?* Other than I guess the basics of are they fun to have at the table. I don't care if they run their PC effectively as long as they aren't being consitently disruptive or annoying other players.



The general goals of play are discussed during a session 0. I generally do heroic campaigns because it's what I enjoy running. My goal as a DM is to come up with interesting and varied locales, NPCs and challenges with plenty of options and threads so the players feel like they can choose direction and have in impact on the campaign world.



I guess I'm saying I'm running more of a emergent story style game. I don't want "phases" (i.e. town, conflict, journey, etc.), I don't want what I consider an artificial predefined structure. I want the game to feel like a fantasy TV series where the entire group is developing a story on the stage that I've set.

There's nothing wrong with different approaches. I understand why some people may have liked 4E's skill challenges for example even if I did not. I think the DMG could use more sections like they did with The Role of the Dice where they discuss extremes and mixing styles. Of course the problem with that is that any general advice on high level options gets parsed out as if it were legal text and some people will parse out every comma to say that "this is the way the game is supposed to be played".

I think the way the game is supposed to be played is for the DM and the group to find their own groove that works for them. In my case that's quite unstructured and has almost no predefined set procedures because I want the world to feel more lived in and responsive to the actions or inaction of the PCs. I don't care for games that have hard and fast procedures such as "It's turn 6 so it's time for a random encounter" or "You get a success because you did something that should immediately end the challenge, but you only have 5 successes so it's Jo's turn". They just feel less immersive to me.

I do think the game would benefit from more advice and optional “modules” concerning running the game in different ways, with different kinds of procedures, and actual writing about the pros and cons of gameplay where the PCs don’t look at the rules and “just roleplay” vs play where the PCs are thinking tactically and strategically about the mechanics and procedures of the game.

*that's not strictly true because my wife and I complain about the bad tactics other people use afterwards all the time.

Same.

Where I would probably agree with them more is that granting the DM more fiat authority isn’t making the game more flexible, it’s simply giving the DM more authority.

A GM less game where authority is shared between participants equally, requiring consensus or turn by turn authority grants, is also much more flexible than a rules bound game, for example.

While the above is true, it’s also true that a game wherein the GM determines the procedures of play beyond the basic action resolution mechanics and specific abilities, is more flexible than one where there is a GM, and the rules determine those procedures directly and by the book the GM is expected to follow those procedures.

 

[Garthanos]

Why not just ban them from using darts?

Arbitrary banning was a distinct strangely opposed complaint aka the Gandalf used a sword argument.
In other words genre was both more open and more confined too LOL. Banning is also less flavorful than providing a magical variant (this rune-scribing would of course call on Dex)

Perhaps casters are limited to the suits of Tarot, with Athame (including daggers and swords), (wands staves and rods also under their own). then it has an in world fiction these are the foci and some are weapons already.

Casters not feeling like casters most of the time esp at earlier levels was also kind of bleh to many folk, cantrips fix that.

People were all about realism back then too and crossbows being easy to use... is probably how they ended up in the casters hands of 3e.

 

[Garthanos]

Can we all agree with the premise that a DM having less rules constraints on adjudication means there is greater flexibility in a game?

*Note there are pros and cons to greater flexibility

For instance with greater flexibility in general there is less well defined common ground between DM and players and fewer result expectations for anyone. Open ended or freeform can also make it hard to prevent ummm "rules" shifting if you want the experience consistent it takes more diligence. With defined rules you can still change them (though that is for some harder to do and they can get push back) but for me defined rules give a starting point instead of demanding a whole cloth construction.

 

[Garthanos]

@FrogReaver I can't agree that fewer constraints on the GM when it comes to adjudicating gameplay equals more flexibility during gameplay of necessity. In fact, I would go so far to say that most of the time, it means less flexibility in whatever aspect of gameplay you happen to be considering, because the GM has only themselves to fall back on whenever anything happens and they need to make a decision or adjudicate something. That's a pretty high cognitive burden when you get down to it.

Being more DM work is I think not inconsistent with flexibility... it means the DM may be spending time on creating those undefined things instead of deciding other things needed and that could result in a DM being inconsistent or other game play issues (but inconsistency is just a likely problem with increased flexibility).

 

[Azzy]

For instance with greater flexibility in general there is less well defined common ground between DM and players and fewer result expectations for anyone. Open ended or freeform can also make it hard to prevent ummm "rules" shifting if you want the experience consistent it takes more diligence. With defined rules you can still change them (though that is for some harder to do and they can get push back) but for me defined rules give a starting point instead of demanding a whole cloth construction.

There's a breaking point where a "well defined" system creates more overhead than a more "loosey-goosey" system, though. I'd rather an occasional inconsistency than having to cross-reference or memorize seldom-used or corner-case rules.

 

[Composer99]

Being more DM work is I think not inconsistent with flexibility... it means the DM may be spending time on creating those undefined things instead of deciding other things needed and that could result in a DM being inconsistent or other game play issues (but inconsistency is just a likely problem with increased flexibility).

I would say that my point is that what with analysis paralysis, decision fatigue, and any other issues that crop up from increasing the cognitive burden directly borne by the DM/GM, there's no universally-observed inversely proportional relationship between formal constraints on GM decision-making and flexibility in one or more aspects of gameplay as such. Such a thing might be true of some GMs, sure, but I wouldn't posit it as something worthy of unanimous agreement regarding its existence.

 

[FrogReaver]

Eh. I genuinely don't know about that. "Flexibility" is a difficult thing to define. Not trying to be pendantic, I genuinely mean that "flexibility" can mean very different things to different people.

I've never viewed flexibility as a difficult thing to define. You either have more options or not. I think where many get hung up is that flexibility is a virtue. So there is a bit of judgement there. But it's not judgment about what game is overall better because I believe flexibility most often conflicts with consistency, which is something else that's also a virtue. I don't view D&D as a very consistent game, in that 2 tables are likely to play very differently in many important regards. Even the same DM from campaign to campaign may play differently and sometimes even within the same campaign!

For example, I've had multiple PF/3.X DMs who completely burned out on running that system. They felt that, because the rules were so open-ended and had so few limits, they were screwed. If they just went all out and created whatever they wanted, it would essentially guarantee they'd crush the PCs no problem. If they tried to make something balanced and effective, players would easily roflstomp it with a ridiculous combo of spells, items, feats, features, etc. They had a great deal of "flexibility," and yet they felt 90% or more of the roads they could take went somewhere frustrating or disappointing.

That's another well stated con of flexibility. Just because you have more freedom in making a choice doesn't mean that all or even most of possibilities are good choices.

By comparison, in both 4e and 13A, I've seen DMs genuinely feel inspired and excited, because they realized that there was very little they could do that wouldn't work out. Sure, things are somewhat more constrained than they are in 3e (or 1e or whatever edition one wishes to compare), but many of the avenues cut off were the ones going to unfortunate places. Instead, they could move forward with confidence, doing whatever made sense to them, because the system had their back and would provide a very high likelihood of doing something cool in actual practice, not just in theory.

I don't disagree with the theme here - flexibility has more positive and negative space. There must be something else that constrains toward the positive space. In some games that may be explicit game principles. In other games that may be social contract/table expectations. It's my belief that constraints applied based on the social contract absent explicit rules are also much more flexible than explicit and unchangable written game principles.

Again, flexible does not equal strictly better. There's pros and cons to everything!

So...is the former "flexible" but requiring "caution" and the latter "inflexible"? Or is the latter "flexible" within reason, and the former so open it verges on vacant, to reference that old saying about keeping an open mind?

And "flexibility" isn't the only thing that can cash out like this. For some, "complexity" is absolute anathema--it means busywork, "filling out your taxes" in order to play, comprehensive and utterly needless overhead for absolutely no gain. For others, it's a delight, the richness of a system with many parts that need careful consideration and which rewards skillful manipulation thereof. For some, "simplicity" is a godsend, a respite from the tedium and a chance to finally cut loose and play the way they want to play, regardless of what some pencil-pushing designer thinks. For others, it's a nightmare, a prison of inability and monotony without recourse that drains away whatever interest the game might offer.

This makes it very hard to unequivocally support any attribution of virtue, even if in principle the idea of something like "flexibility" or "elegance" or "ease of use" should be universally desirable.

More or less I agree here. Pros and Cons. Flexibility it good but it comes at the expense of other good things. Each of us have our own preferences about which good things to place greater value on.

 

[Garthanos]

This makes it very hard to unequivocally support any attribution of virtue, even if in principle the idea of something like "flexibility" or "elegance" or "ease of use" should be universally desirable.

Isnt that the engineering statement ... you can have 2 of three virtues but not all at once?

 

[FrogReaver]

@FrogReaver I can't agree that fewer constraints on the GM when it comes to adjudicating gameplay equals more flexibility during gameplay of necessity. In fact, I would go so far to say that most of the time, it means less flexibility in whatever aspect of gameplay you happen to be considering, because the GM has only themselves to fall back on whenever anything happens and they need to make a decision or adjudicate something. That's a pretty high cognitive burden when you get down to it.

I think I am following your gist here, but just to be sure. You are saying something like - while the GM has a high flexibility in a theoretical space, there exist cognitive load and time constraints that constrain that space on a practical level such that he will be able to find and choose between more 'good' choices so long as he has certain constraints than if he has no constraints at all.

That's an interesting idea. I think on some level that constraints can force more depth to the DM's search which as likely help them DM locate more 'good' choices. However, I think that as a DM gets more experienced that he develops heuristics to aid in the search for 'good' choices. And while perhaps not perfect, I think there's still a strong possibility that such heuristics + high rules flexibility + constraint of social contract will yield more 'good' choices than less flexible rules. I don't think there's going to be any proof here on such a nuanced and deep question, but I think we can talk through possibilities and acknowledge them.

To my mind, say rather that a lesser or greater amount of constraint on GM authority with respect to establishing fiction or adjudicating gameplay will serve to satisfy different sets of gameplay preferences, and rather than push for less constraint because flexibility, it's better to offer tables the means to tailor the amount of constraint that suits their desires.

I would say let's do that and not leave the other undone