D&D General Why Editions Don't Matter

[gorice]

I keep trying to answer, and I keep giving super wide ranging things, so I'm sorry if this these aren't the lenses you're looking for. But,

• I like to be mechanically competent, but I'm usually not worried about optimization.
• Similarly, I enjoy combat in moderation. I wouldn't want to play a game that's all thoughtful tactical combat; the shifting of playstyles between pillars breaks up monotony.
• I want to poke and prod at the world and have it react, however I prefer when I have a tangible and narrative long term goal I'm pursuing. I'm not looking to save the world off the bat, but enjoy something more substantial than making money/finding treasure/clear the dungeon for no other reason.
• In terms of the 4e DMG player motivations, probably mostly a Storyteller and Explorer. Character death might be disappointing, but I'm generally more interested in the journey than my personal goals, though I do want to know my characters and and define them well by my actions.
• I love stuff like joining factions, earning titles, creating a home base, and finding magic/items that at least 'feel' personal versus generic.
• I'm totally on board with high fantasy/high magic, and player characters that are powerful within the world.

Happy to answer further if you want.

Thanks for replying. I realise now that my question was unhelpfully vague.

Glad we are on the same page there


IMO. The nuances of social contracts are vast. I doubt any of us could distill our table's social contracts to anything less than a large book while maintaining any sense of accuracy.

Sure, but you can still answer questions like 'does this game follow a set story, the DM's story, or is it driven by the player characters?'. That's just low-hanging fruit. People who want to drive the story with their characters will not enjoy being railroaded. Maybe the DMG has something on this, and I missed it. If people want to quote chapter and verse at me, please do!

So ... you try somethin out and it doesn't work. You learn from your mistake and have a better understanding of the game. It's only a problem if you don't get, or pay attention to, feedback from your players. As a software developer I've had to learn multiple new technologies over the years, it's not really that different. Some advice works, some thing your try and their crap.

How else do you expect to learn?

Presumably, as a developer, you know (hopefully!) what it is you're supposed to be developing, and have various metrics or milestones to meet. As an inexperienced DM, how would you even know what it is you should be looking for? 'My players show up and seem like they're having fun' is a minimal baseline.

 

[Imaro]

If the GM honours those automatic successes, then no complications emerge. This tends to make for boring play. If the GM introduces complications to make play less boring, that requires setting aside or compromising those automatic successes, contrary to the conferral of authority on players.

Well I think those automatic successes are bought with a dwindling resource which, if following the guidelines of the game, should create escalating choices about when and where to use them (combat vs. exploration vs. social pillars) This also generates tension as one nears a point where those resources have either been expended too early, managed correctly or wasted in being overly cautious. No reason to set aside or compromise those successes unless you as the DM are trying to create a specific cadence, story or outcome.

EDIT: Though looking at the exchange I have to ask how does this actually create a problem stemming from who has narrative power over a success once it has already been established... or are you implying that DM's must override success in order to run a successful game?

 

[Campbell]

Well I think those automatic successes are bought with a dwindling resource which, if following the guidelines of the game, should create escalating choices about when and where to use them (combat vs. exploration vs. social pillars) This also generates tension as one nears a point where those resources have either been expended too early, managed correctly or wasted in being overly cautious. No reason to set aside or compromise those successes unless you as the DM are trying to create a specific cadence, story or outcome.

EDIT: Though looking at the exchange I have to ask how does this actually create a problem stemming from who has narrative power over a success once it has already been established... or are you implying that DM's must override success in order to run a successful game?

Which fundamentally undercuts the undercuts the tension of the moment for potential tension later. It also requires a certain approach to play to be a meaningful decision. It's a playstyle thing. As a GM I often prefer games that give me a lot of leeway in how much I care about space and time considerations and usually like the focus to be on the current moment.

 

[pemerton]

But all of that is just discussing DMs who are not running the types of games that the players want.

No it's not. The post you quoted actually described particular techniques, and how they relate to particular play experiences. I agree with @Campbell: assertions of preferences are not all that interesting, given that most of us posting in these forums will never RPG together. It is discussions of techniques, and how they produce (or produced) particular experiences, that are interesting, because (as @hawkeyefan has said) this is how we can get better at our craft.

That is a very oddly specific example of bad DMing. I've seen bad DMing in the past (i.e. "A hand comes out of the wall and [DM rolls dice] Bob's PC is now dead.") and sadly nothing can prevent that other than to remind the DM that their supposed to make the game fun for everyone. If that doesn't work, find a different DM.

This claim isn't true either. As a GM I've made bad decisions. I didn't improve by having my players find a different GM. One of the ways I improved was by reading analysis and advice, and acting on it. I've mentioned many examples in earlier posts, and will revisit a couple in a moment.

But first: the advice to make the game fun for everyone is, frankly, pretty vacuous. It's like advice to make the cupcakes you bake golden and fluffy. I mean, sure, who doesn't like golden, fluffy cupcakes? But that doesn't tell me how much baking powder to use, or what temperature of oven. I was trying to make Classic Traveller fun for everyone since the early 1980s, but only in the past few years have I actually worked out how to do that, not through magical intuition but because of focused discussion of particular technical aspects of RPGing. In particular, it was @Campbell's explanations, over the past several years, of how Apocalypse World's "if you do it, you do it" differs from intent-and-stakes oriented, scene-based resolution of the sort found in (say) HeroWars/Quest, Burning Wheel, DitV, Maelstrom Storytelling and 4e D&D, that helped me understand how to GM Classic Traveller. Which meant that, after decades of wanting to do this successfully I have finally been able to do so.

And to prevent any possible misunderstanding: this is no criticism of those other RPGs: the discussions of how to GM scene-based resolution in HeroWars/Quest, Burning Wheel and Maelstrom Storytelling were invaluable, for me, in developing my skill in framing and adjudicating 4e D&D skill challenges. And they also inform my GMing of Burning Wheel, Marvel Heroic/Cortex+ Heroic, Prince Valiant and Agon.

To come back to the concrete example, of the GM setting aside the regular action resolution rules and just narrating an adverse outcome for the PC: I don't see how it would make the game worse for it to have concrete advice not to do that. After all, Moldvay's Basic rulebook had this.

In a technical sense it satisfies the play loop... but it disregards most if not all of the advice, procedures and systems around adjudication, combat, how to DM, etc. If I give an example in Blades where the advice around adjudication and when/how to use systems was disregarded but I still technically followed the play loop... it would be considered an example of bad DM'ing... all you've done is reconstructed that here in an example with D&D. I don't think anyone is arguing agianst the fact that bad DM'ing will create a bad game... in any system so I have to honestly ask what was the point of this absurd example?

If everyone agrees that it is bad GMing, then to me it would make sense for the rulebooks to call it out as such. Which is to say, it would make sense for the rulebooks to say something more than simply that the GM narrates consequences. Now as it happens I think that the 5e rulebooks do say a bit more than that: what puzzles me is that a number of 5e GMs on these boards deny that, and assert that there is no principle applicable to 5e GMing other than "GM decides".

The only one(s) who did this in the thread were those already pre-disposed to a bias against GM authority... so...SURPRISE... of course they paint it in the worst light possible.

I have no bias against GM authority. I GM games with very strong and clearly-defined GM authority: Burning Wheel, 4e D&D, Torchbearer, Prince Valiant, Agon, etc.

I don't enjoy games in which the GM has sole or close-to-sole authority over the content of the shared fiction. I don't think I'm especially unusual in that respect, as the response to the example I posted shows: no one is defending that as an instance of GM authority. That's why I don't understand why many posters nevertheless assert that there is no limit to GM authority in 5e D&D.

 

[hawkeyefan]

It's the same section in the DMG...

"A downside is that no DM is completely neutral. A DM might come to favor certain players or approaches, or even work against good ideas if they send the game in a direction he or she doesn't like. This approach can also slow the game if the DM focuses on one "correct" answer that the characters must describe to overcome an obstacle.

Not sure how you missed all of that.

My bad, that is a bit about not using dice. I suppose I was more focused on the next section, which states:

"Remember that dice don't run your game- you do. Dice are like rules. They're tools to help keep the action moving. At any time, you can decide that a player's action is automatically successful. You can also grant the player advantage on any ability check, reducing the chance of a bad die roll foiling the character's plans. By the same token, a bad plan or unfortunate circumstances can transform the easiest task into an impossibility, or at least impose disadvantage."

The bolded emphasis is mine. Don't you think it's odd how that last sentence is phrased so differently than the two before it? Why is that, do you think?

What's wrong with it not doing this if we all (well the majority) realize it is a bad way to DM in most cases? But also leaving the possibility on the table for DM's to realize there may be small fringe cases (I am running a prelude adventure where the characters are NPC's that were killed by Orcus in order to open a dimensional gate) where it is a great way or necessary way to run the game. See that's the type of creativity I don't need prescribed out of the game...

Do you think that all the wording in the PHB and DMG about the game being the GM's and their role is the lead storyteller and all of that will only influence people who would run the game that way anyway?

I mean, I think D&D is a largely GM-driven game as it is, so maybe that's why I don't see the need to go so far in that direction?

I think perfectly reasonable people make decisions with those phrases in mind and may not if other advice were offered.

Because our groups are distinct and we aren't all looking for the same experience or the same social contracts. Some groups want PvP some don't... some want player driven games other groups don't want or need that level of player authorship. Again once you start to prescribe these things as right or wrong you limit what can be done with the game and who the game appeals to.

I don't think I agree with that. Other games are able to pull it off.

And I'm not really talking about revolutionary changes here. Something like "The rules should be observed whenever possible. In those cases where the rules are unclear or otherwise lead to something nonsensical or undesirable, the DM should use care in how they handle such changes."

Something like that.

Ok now we get to the crux of it. The thing is... this actually does boil down to YOU not trusting your DM. For those of us who do the possibility that some theoretical DM out there somewhere might make a ruling that ruins the entire game for all of his players just isn't a big enough concern. The other thing I find interesting is your phrasing of the issue as I don't believe that just because the players don't like a decision doesn't in turn mean that it wasn't a justified decision.

No, that's not the case. My D&D GMs are all reasonable. I don't think they've always spent as much time as a GM as they have as a player, and that they don't make distinctions from the many editions of D&D and other games that they've played from a process standpoint.... but I trust them to make decisions based on what they think is right.

They still make mistakes. So do I! Some of which I think can be attributed to the fuzziness in the D&D texts, but certainly not all.

Less concerning to me, but more on my mind, is all the threads and topics here where this seems to be relevant as well.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I don't enjoy games in which the GM has sole or close-to-sole authority over the content of the shared fiction. I don't think I'm especially unusual in that respect, as the response to the example I posted shows: no one is defending that as an instance of GM authority. That's why I don't understand why many posters nevertheless assert that there is no limit to GM authority in 5e D&D.

Yes, this was my point. People agreed that the GM can abuse their authority... but they also seem to need for the GM to have absolute authority.

I don't know why that is.

 

[gorice]

In response to @Snarf Zagyg 's question about why any of this matters, let me first go back to the problem of 'DM decides' and it's ambiguity. Here's something that actually happened to me while playing 5e:

DM: 'As you pass the town square, you see that a man is being tied to a stake by a large group of heavily armed guards, with logs and kindling piled around his feet. "Sorcerer!", hisses one of the bystanders. The town is clearly in a bad mood.'

Me: 'I won't stand for this. I walk over and--'

DM: 'Anyway, when you get to the tavern...'

Bad DMing? Sure. Is it against the rules to ignore my input and transition to another scene? Maybe? After all, I said what I wanted to do, and the DM said what happened.

What about the advice in the DMG?

Whether you write your own Adventures or use published ones, expect to invest preparation time beyond the hours you spend at the gaming table. You’ll need to carve out some free time to exercise your creativity as you invent compelling plots, create new NPCs, craft encounters, and think of clever ways to foreshadow story events yet to come.

You know, that sounds like a

Rolling behind a screen lets you fudge the results if you want to. If two Critical Hits in a row would kill a character, you could change the second critical hit into a normal hit, or even a miss. Don’t distort die rolls too often, though, and don’t let on that you’re doing it. Otherwise, your players might think they don’t face any real risks—or worse, that you’re playing favorites.

Oh, it's just old-fashioned railroads and illusionism.

Now, to be completely fair: the DMG also says that some players want to see their characters' actions impact the story, and that the DM should try and make that happen for them. Waffle and contradictions, in other words.

What do you think the impact of this sort of thing might be on play culture? What will new players learn when they pick up this book?

That's before we get to the book's complete inadequacy as a set of tools to, e.g., run an actual dungeon crawl.

 

[Oofta]

Thankfully I haven't proposed walls of text. I proposed a more efficient use of text.

Okay. What does that mean? Because one person's more concise is another person's gamerspeak. It's easy to be a Monday morning quarterback. Obviously everything can be improved and hopefully the anniversary issue will have some improvement. But there's only so much that can be done, at a certain point a new DM just has to jump in.

 

[pemerton]

Though looking at the exchange I have to ask how does this actually create a problem stemming from who has narrative power over a success once it has already been established... or are you implying that DM's must override success in order to run a successful game?

An interesting game requires complications. I know of two main approaches to introducing complications in RPGs with a typical GM/player differentiation of roles.

One is based around map-and-key resolution: the GM has already established that certain obstacles will appear if the players declare actions that take their PCs to particular places (eg entering the room triggers the trap). There can also be event-based alternatives (eg speaking to the sphinx triggers the prophecy). But this is not consistent with giving the players authority over the fiction on a success, because some possibilities in that respect are already precluded by the prior establishment of fiction in the map-and-key.

The other approach is to use failure on action resolution as the trigger to introduce complications. This is how games otherwise as different as Burning Wheel and Apocalypse World work. A variation on this is the 4e D&D skill challenge, where every check introduces a further complication whether or not it is a success or failure, provided it's not the final successful check; but that those complications are either consistent with, or push away from, overall success depending on whether the check being responded to was a success or a failure. (This feature of skill challenges is, in my experience, the thing that is most challenging about adjudicating and narrating them.)

The second approach is consistent with allowing player success to generate unalloyed authority over the fiction. But as I posted upthread, will not work well if players have lots of auto-success abilities. Because in that case there won't be the failures that allow for the complications that generate interesting play.

Well I think those automatic successes are bought with a dwindling resource which, if following the guidelines of the game, should create escalating choices about when and where to use them (combat vs. exploration vs. social pillars) This also generates tension as one nears a point where those resources have either been expended too early, managed correctly or wasted in being overly cautious. No reason to set aside or compromise those successes unless you as the DM are trying to create a specific cadence, story or outcome.

I posted that if players have access to lots of automatic successes, that creates a problem for play in which the GM honours player successes.

You seem to be agreeing here, by saying that the finite supply of the automatic-success resources will generate tension once there are no longer lots of them available.

As @Campbell has posted just upthread, getting to that point does require a particular approach to play. An alternative, which personally I prefer, is to have fewer such resources in the first place (eg Prince Valiant, 4e D&D) or even none at all (eg Burning Wheel, Torchbearer, Agon, Classic Traveller, MHRP/Cortex+ Heroic).

 

[Xamnam]

Okay. What does that mean? Because one person's more concise is another person's gamerspeak. It's easy to be a Monday morning quarterback. Obviously everything can be improved and hopefully the anniversary issue will have some improvement. But there's only so much that can be done, at a certain point a new DM just has to jump in.

I think a section on Players' best practices and GMs' best practices is something that would be a welcome addition to the PHB specifically, after seeing first hand how beneficial they were to me in the context of reading other RPG texts, and BitD does both in 6 pages with much less dense text placement, so I don't think that's an overwhelming hurdle of an addition. As has been said, the people who are going to ignore it are going to ignore it, but there are people it would assist, and the 4e DMG shows that it's not a unachievable goal in spirit.