D&D General How much control do DMs need?

[AbdulAlhazred]

Idk if this was brought up before, but a thought just crossed my mind.

We talk about the distribution of authority as if it's a zero sum game, as if taking the power from someone automatically gives it to someone else. It doesn't.

Let's suppose there's a meta currency that the GM can use to mess with the players (I think 2d20 games have a such? Correct me if I'm wrong), and introduce a complication unpropmted (otherwise they must be clearly telegraphed). Yeah, the GM lost the ability to just paradrop tarrasques from a C-130. Did anybody else gain any more power?

I'm bringing that up, because, uhm, "unfair", unrestricted rules, on top of all other issues, create an additional responsibility of keeping the experience fun for the other side. And that responsibility can and does clash with others (namely, providing a challenge and controlling the opposition).

For a videogame example, again, there's this weapon in Team Fortress 2 called Short Circuit. It is arguably overpowered in specific situations (like when you stand near an ammo dispenser), which, in turn, adds a burden to anyone who chooses to use it: to use it with honour. For contrast, there's no dishonourable way to use a pistol (which occupies the same slot): you can just... Use it. You never have to worry about not using it while pushing cart, accidentally or otherwise.

As for a TTRPG example, let's return to a locked barn.

GM: There's a rusty old lock on a door, probably to keep out wild animals rather than provide any actual security.
Player: Cool, I'm going to pick it. Here it goes... 25!
GM: You pull out your tools and start working your magic... To your dismay, all this flimsy look is just a façade, the lock is actually a masterpiece of engineering, merely camouflaged to look cheap. (Offscreen: the lock also has a magical silent alarm system, and guards will arrive in five minutes)

This situation can make a narrative sense and show how ingenious and careful the opposition is, and GM here might be acting with honour, having planned this in advance and merely portaying the world with integrity rather than playing dirty and actively trying to screw over the players, but who gives a damn? From the player's perspective, they aren't bamboozled by the opposition, they are bamboozled by the GM. There's nothing the GM can possibly do to persuade the player otherwise, that no, she didn't mean to screw them over, it just so happened that the player's chosen approach didn't work.

The GM unquestionably has this authority, but precisely because she has this authority, she can't actually use it. She can't portray the world with integrity and control opposition to the fullest extent because it looks dishonourable -- higher order directive, Playing In A Way That Is Fun For Everyone, overrides both.

Now let's suppose GM has a Trouble Pool, transparent to the players.

GM: There's a rusty old lock on a door, probably to keep out wild animals rather than provide any actual security.
Player: Cool, I'm going to pick it. Here it goes... 25!
GM: (contemplates for a second, whether to give this position up or to defend it) You pull out your tools and start working your magic, but... (dramatically removes a token from the Trouble Pool) To your dismay, all this flimsy look is just a façade (and then GM will use another Trouble Point to pay for guards arriving)

Now, it's fair play. The GM had to sacrifice a resource, so the player wasn't bamboozled, merely outplayed. In giving up complete absolute power, the GM was actually enabled to exercise more power.

Well, there's a game which works almost exactly like this, though it is diceless, called Pace where the GM and the players can each spend 'tokens' to increase their commitment to a contest like this. It doesn't, AFAIK, really describe what that specifically represents in fictional terms, but the above would seem pretty apropos (given that the PCs might also be able to spend resources in a similar way).

The main point though is, the GM has a fixed pool of tokens to spend, and they're on the table, so players can strategize. Worst case at least you know whatever problems you run into NOW means the GM has less to through at you later. Also it may require a big resource expenditure to thwart a ploy like this up front, but a small expenditure later on might subvert the whole threat (IE you might spend several points managing to defeat the lock anyway, but it might be cheaper to just hide from the guards).

 

[Oofta]

...so you will just invent rules. I fail to see, what tools the toolbox gave you? Ability to... ask for a diceroll for you to interpret?


....you can? The GM will just have to come up with new complications that wouldn't be there if PCs had enough trouble before, so they can continue thinking outside the box.

We have been given the tools. It's just that we have a toolbox, not a box from Ikea with instructions on how to assemble.

 

[loverdrive]

I think you will probably strongly disagree with my approach to this situation, but I would handle it by trying to balance (i.e. do the design work) so that getting through the tower with some difficulty is the most likely and intended outcome...but not the only acceptable one. Where the story might just be tragic, and failure to even reach the BBEG is a possible outcome. Especially if the players make bad choices, but possibly if they are just very unlucky. And I roll in front of the players all the time, unless there is some narrative reason why they could not know whether a roll was successful or not, so they know that jeopardy is real.

So, you will conform the game to D&D, rather than conforming D&D to suit your game. I think it's pretty much the textbook opposite of "flexibility".

You can't choose a suitable level of detail for a situation where everybody knows that the characters will be fighting, but nobody actually cares about the fighting itself, because they are excited to finally settle things with the BBEG! Fighting orcs in his tower is just a chore.

If they are simply trying to subdue the opponent, RAW already allows players to stipulate non-lethal damage. If they were just "feeling each other out," I would apply my own hack and keep track of damage, but simply rule that none of it counted once the combat was over (i.e. instead of actually following through with a strike, spell, or whatever, they were aborting the damaging part by pulling a punch or whatever). This is not a situation that I find hard to handle in D&D. It would be a really hard one to handle in Dread unless I had a second tower handy (I do).

As an example of a dangerous fight, where killing the enemy isn't the actual goal.

Let's suppose PCs have booked tickets for a ship that is departing, like, RIGHT NOW! A bunch of gangsters they owe money to are trying to stop them.

Killing or subduing gangsters is completely unimportant -- what's at stake is whether the PCs will be able to get to the ship on time.

How can you handle this situation, presuming that pulling out a battlemat and playing it turn-for-turn with initiative is too cumbersome?

 

[loverdrive]

We have been given the tools. It's just that we have a toolbox, not a box from Ikea with instructions on how to assemble.

Do you sincerely consider "GM can ask for the players to roll dice, add an arbitrary number to it, and then narrate arbitrary results" to be a usable tool?

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

The core books can, and should, do a better job. I've suggested before that the PHB should walk through part of a combat (or even other scenarios) from the player's perspective and the DMG should cover the same scenario from the DM's perspective. Maybe even have a section in the MM talking about how the scenario would play out differently with a different enemy with different abilities and demeanor had been chosen.

But just because the rules could be improved doesn't mean they don't exist. They're too scattered and probably not explicit enough, but they do exist. Saying you "have to invent the game" is simply hyperbole.

While I can't speak to a newbies experience of 5E, the proof is in the pudding so to speak. Millions of people have started playing the game. If it was such a dumpster fire of horrible rules, that would not have happened. I started playing D&D in the dark ages of the game, with Gygaxian prose that had conflicting rules everywhere. Yet we still managed to figure it out. The current rules are such a vast improvement over what we started with back in they day it's a night and day difference.

Having the options to have different styles and play the game slightly differently is core to D&D's success. The fact that we have optional rules, that the book acknowledges that not everyone needs to or wants to play the game exactly the same way is awesome! If you want exactly the same experience as everyone else, play a board or video game. I don't want to have the game as locked down on the rules as Monopoly.

As far as some of the other stuff such as not making it clear the purpose of making checks ... that's simply not true. It talks about different styles and whether or not you want to use dice to resolve uncertainty. It talks about when you can use multiple checks, contests, success and failure but also success at a cost, degrees of failure and so on. Just because they don't prescribe one true way and instead encourage you to make the game your own doesn't mean the information isn't there.

This level of flexibility may not be your preference. But saying the guidance doesn't exist is untrue. It just doesn't try to implement board game levels of specificity to the rules. Thank goodness.

The weird thing is, I just don't see all this 'flexibility' and I am unable to understand how not really describing the core loop and drivers of the game -the process of play- really creates any additional flexibility. Its basically a trad game, straight up. To do anything else with it takes significant game design chops and effort. At that point there are simply better games. Its really a pretty highly niche game! But I don't think it is necessarily all that hard to 'get' the basic idea of what to do, its just odd that the designers think they're clever. In fact I am of the opinion that they don't think that. I think they simply don't really deeply examine their work! Hey, its successful, maybe that's for the best for them. 4e seems a bit more self-analyzing than 5e, and frankly I liked it that D&D moved in that direction, the 4e PHB1 Chapter 1 is IMHO a bit more clear about what the game's structure and process is (and the DMG1's Chapter 1 is very similar). I don't think it has the economy or completeness of explication that Dungeon World has, but its closer.

 

[clearstream]

I don't think so, it wasn't really my intention. What different meanings did you read in it?

I'm struggling with coming up with a more clear way to convey what I'm trying to say.

Well, I don't typically think in terms of power in the context of outplaying players as a GM, so when you say

Now, it's fair play. The GM had to sacrifice a resource, so the player wasn't bamboozled, merely outplayed. In giving up complete absolute power, the GM was actually enabled to exercise more power.

I note the obvious paradox that giving up "absolute" power can result in having "more" power, and therefore wondered if you were using the second instance in the sense of your discussion above it, which is something like greater freedom of choice in practice. As @pemerton noted, the word is being used to imply two different things. The first instance means power in principle. The second means power in practice.

 

[Oofta]

Do you sincerely consider "GM can ask for the players to roll dice, add an arbitrary number to it, and then narrate arbitrary results" to be a usable tool?

Yes. I prefer it that way. I like the freedom. Any resolution of fictional events is ultimately going to be arbitrary.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Have sympathy for those of us who only have interesting thoughts about RPG because we read Baker (or Luke Crane or Ron Edwards) some time in the past two decades!

Quit describing me, doc!

 

[Oofta]

The weird thing is, I just don't see all this 'flexibility' and I am unable to understand how not really describing the core loop and drivers of the game -the process of play- really creates any additional flexibility. Its basically a trad game, straight up. To do anything else with it takes significant game design chops and effort. At that point there are simply better games. Its really a pretty highly niche game! But I don't think it is necessarily all that hard to 'get' the basic idea of what to do, its just odd that the designers think they're clever. In fact I am of the opinion that they don't think that. I think they simply don't really deeply examine their work! Hey, its successful, maybe that's for the best for them. 4e seems a bit more self-analyzing than 5e, and frankly I liked it that D&D moved in that direction, the 4e PHB1 Chapter 1 is IMHO a bit more clear about what the game's structure and process is (and the DMG1's Chapter 1 is very similar). I don't think it has the economy or completeness of explication that Dungeon World has, but its closer.

Different strokes for different folks. It thought 4E was way too formalized and constricted for me.

 

[clearstream]

I thought it was pretty clear, and didn't take you to be using "power" in two senses, but rather to be saying that by giving up what is in principle absolute power, the GM actually gets more power in practice, because they don't need to hold back for fear of dropping too many tarrasques into play.

That's what I meant. It is literally using the word in two senses!