D&D General How much control do DMs need?

[Maxperson]

...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 keep saying that, but that's not what the DM does. The die roll doesn't need to be interpreted at all. It results in success or failure according to the rules. What the DM does is narrate the result. What does the success or failure look like.

....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.

Have you ever run D&D before? More and more it doesn't seem like you have.

 

[Umbran]

I also find these conversations frustrating. I'm trying to say 'please actually read the rules for these games, and you will see they are not the same thing', and I get responses that make it sound like I'm trying to be the Chief of D&D Club Membership.

So, let us look at that a bit.

You ask folks to "actually read the rules" - we will set aside the possible condescension of that suggestion for the moment - "and you will see they are not the same thing."

Well, of course they aren't exactly the same thing. That's trivial. But we then get to how meaningful the differences are, and upon which differences your argument rests and what you are asserting about those differences.

So, if you are saying, "X and Y are different in <this specific way>, and that is terribly meaningful and it means <specific thing about play>..." and folks disagree with your assessment, you will get pushback. Those asserted meanings often look a lot like gatekeeping, asserting a right and a wrong way to play - which is typically coincidentally aligned to the speaker's own preferences.

To which the collected answer is usually of the form, "For crying out loud, stop telling people how to have their own fun already!

I ask people to explain what they think D&D actually is, in a positive sense, and no-one can explain, except to say that it's unique and ineffable and I will never find a satisfying answer.

Well, yes, that'll happen when you try to nail people down to defining it as one single thing, when... it isn't one single thing in application.

D&D is a set of rules that can be applied to play an RPG. Those rules are not explicitly proscriptive about what kind of game it can be, or what the goals or style of play will be. As a practical matter we can allow that those rules are better at supporting some styles than others. But, folks have a good time using them over a wide range of playstyles.

Right now, I'm playing in one game that's very dungeon-crawley, combat-on-a-map every session, where most problems are solved by deadly force of arms, and a few are solved by the party Paladin rolling a natural 20 on a persuasion check, much to the party bard's chagrin.

Meanwhile, in a game I am running, the party is almost level 4, and the only things they have killed are two goblins and a gelatinous cube.

Both are very obviously D&D to anyone observing. But they aren't really the same either. Players are having a fine time in both.

Do not confuse "ineffable" with "flexible".

 

[Maxperson]

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.

You're off just a bit. We do have a box from ikea with instructions on how to assemble. It's just that the box is a multifunction item that can be used to build 20 different things and with a bit of effort can mix and match, and sometimes we have to come up with a solution when we mix and match and the instructions don't cover it exactly as we want it. What we aren't doing is buying a pre-built desk that only allows us to open specific drawers at specific times.

 

[Maxperson]

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.


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.

The bolded is the crux of the problem you are having. For some reason you are unable to understand that for a whole heck of a lot of people, killing or subduing the gangsters is ALSO important, not just be able to get to the ship on time. We enjoy both. You enjoy one.

Essentially you like salad and we like pie. Pie is a bit more complex than salad to make, but while we are doing more work than you are, we still aren't making all the ingredients from scratch. Instead we've purchased the ingredients and are just doing a minority of the work involved to eat the pie.

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

You could do it as some sort of skill challenge, but really D&D isn't built to function like a salad. If you want salad you are better off buying what you need to make a salad, not try to make a salad pie. The opposite is also true. If you want a pie, trying to make a pie salad probably isn't going to taste as good, so why do it.

This is just a preference thing. Salads are good and pies are good. Eat what you like and understand that even if you intensely dislike pies, pies are still tasty to a lot of people are not a bad thing.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

In AW (at least the version I have, which is the original) there is a 4 page list of threat types (pp 138-41). The list is of descriptors, impulses and moves. The descriptors gives us colour. The impulses give us a context or rationale for making the threat a part of the situation in play. And as the moves are GM moves, they are basically particular ways in which that particular threat might announce its future badness, or put someone in a spot (or capture them, or separate them), or inflict harm, or take someone's stuff, or provide an opportunity.

Apart from the bare fact of being GM prep, there is almost nothing in common between prepping in AW and prepping in (say) Moldvay Basic. No maps. No "hidden board". No ways to render action outcomes certain or uncertain such that dice don't or do need to be rolled.

Right, that's the main difference with classic styles of RPG play, you really do have to play to find out, not just what happens, but what IS. There's no "you fail to find any secret doors here" without a check, because it isn't established that there are or are not secret doors here. Note that (in Dungeon World at least, which is very similar to AW in most respects) there aren't moves of the type "I search for secret doors" however. There's a Discern Realities move that allows the player to ask from a fixed list of general questions and get an answer from the GM. On a 10+ the answer(s) must be 'useful'. Given a certain particular set of circumstances a secret door might be a 'useful' result; however the GM isn't constrained to that one possibility, they could provide other answers that are commensurate with the DW GM's role. Now, the player can certainly declare that they are searching for secret doors, as a fictional action, but the GM is then going to ask "how, and where." This might elicit a direct answer too "yes, there's a secret door, you push on a hidden latch, and the shelving swings back." Of course this is likely to be followed with "A terrible stench emanates from the space beyond" or something like that... It is also perfectly possible for the GM to reply with "no such door appears to exist here" especially if that puts the character in hot water!

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I don't disagree with any of this.

To be honest, I take this to be obvious. It's one starting point for the discussion about GM control, not a resolution of it!

I should add: I don't take this to be true of 4e D&D. Nor of some "neotrad" 5e D&D. But it is part-and-parcel of what I think of as post-DL D&D (what many would call "trad").

Frankly I think 'trad' is mostly just "what happens when the PCs start to interact with less easily defined parts of the world" in classic D&D. It became a thing, more and more, of its own perhaps at a certain point, but most games of the early '80s were basically "its a dungeon crawl, and then we went to the town, and we tried to role play."

 

[loverdrive]

You keep saying that, but that's not what the DM does. The die roll doesn't need to be interpreted at all. It results in success or failure according to the rules. What the DM does is narrate the result. What does the success or failure look like.

You could just look up what I was replying to:

I'd probably have everyone roll a check against a DC set by the threat level. So roll a D20, add proficiency and primary ability score against a DC 15. Hit the DC they lose nothing, roll less and they lose some HP based on how much below. Exceed the DC by 5 or more and they get some benefit.

The bolded is the crux of the problem you are having. For some reason you are unable to understand that for a whole heck of a lot of people, killing or subduing the gangsters is ALSO important

That's the point.

Supposedly "flexible toolbox system" lacks a very basic tool: ability to adjust the level of detail on per situation basis.

 

[Maxperson]

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

No it's not. The only thing she got right was that the DM can ask for rolls. What is added to the die isn't going to be arbitrary at all, but will be the set numbers attached to the skill or attack roll. The narrated result is also not going to be arbitrary and is going to necessarily be the result of reason based on what the die shows. The DM is going to be constrained to narrate a result that involves 1) the PC(s) in question, 2) the situation, including the skill, specific NPCs if any, specific environment, etc. and 3) whether it is success or failure dependent on the die roll.

The narration and numbers/skills involved are reasoned, not arbitrary.

 

[Umbran]

You're off just a bit. We do have a box from ikea with instructions on how to assemble. It's just that the box is a multifunction item that can be used to build 20 different things and with a bit of effort can mix and match, and sometimes we have to come up with a solution when we mix and match and the instructions don't cover it exactly as we want it. What we aren't doing is buying a pre-built desk that only allows us to open specific drawers at specific times.

Hm. So, wrong Nordic country - it isn't from Ikea. It is from Lego.

 

[Imaro]

The heroes explore the island is a description of some fiction, not of a process of play. The process of play is on p 68. Notice how it tells the strife player to reveal what the heroes suspect, and (p 69) to reveal the situation in motion. The players don't need to explore. They need to choose sides and weigh consequences.

I needed to actually find my Agon book and re-read some of it before fully addressing this... You've selected one principle and tried to present that as how the book defines exploration.

P.66

When the group is ready to play, read the island description, signs of the gods, and the arrival out loud to establish where the heroes are and what they first encounter. This introduces the key problem on the island - its strife- which the heroes may overcome to win the aid of the gods for their journey home...

After the intro, game play begins. Each arrival section lists a few contests for the heroes to tackle right away. You can use those or create your own.

After that, the Hero Players decide what to do about the strife on the island and face trials to address it. Each island has a set of trials the heroes may face - they'll explore, make discoveries, contend with villains, and make tough choices...


P. 66 (In reference to the play loop)
Follow these three steps
Reveal the situation to the Hero Players
Ask questions and build on the answers to drive the game
Judge contests and resolve the outcomes into new situations

P.68
REVEAL
Reveal the situation by telling the players what their heroes know and what they might suspect. Each island begins with an introductory passage you can use as the first reveal upon arrival, to get the ball rolling.

Reveal what the heroes know by describing what they see and hear (and other senses as you like)...

Reveal what the heroes suspect by describing the overall impression they get, including insights they might have...

When a hero player asks a question about the situation either:
-Reveal the answer if it's something they know or suspect.
-Propose a contest to see if the hero can overcome an obstacle to discover the answer...


How is this play loop not exploration. there is a map (The writeup of the island)... there is secret/hidden knowledge that you sometimes have to discover through asking, sometimes through a roll concerning the strife .

As for prep... the only thing missing from prep as I understand how you use it are lists of monsters (and then only because the system doesn't use traditional monster stat blocks. But there are entire pre-constructed islands with strifes, opening scenes, npc's etc. alll pre-created.