D&D General How much control do DMs need?

[Lanefan]

And I disagree for reasons that I have already stated several times beforehand. Thank you. Come again. Have a nice day.

Also, please don't invoke at me a nebulous "in the eyes of many" as if they have any argumentative weight here.

If it's not Rule 0 that allows the ability to kitbash, then what rule is it?

I ask because somehow somewhere there's a stated or unstated (depending on case) difference between RPGs and nearly all other games: RPG rules are open to kitbashing.

The expression of that difference is IMO a part of Rule 0 even if it isn't written out.

 

[gorice]

So the PCs are the only people in the setting who can proactively do anything, and NPCs/the setting can only react to what the PCs (try to) do?

So much for the idea of a living world.

No. Creating a 'living setting' is hugely important in AW. NPCs are absolutely expected to be doing things behind the scenes. The catch is that you can't just hit a PC with something big and scary without foreshadowing it somehow. It's a question of how information is conveyed to the players, and how conflicts are resolved.

 

[Maxperson]

And these boards are RIFE with people who flat out state that it is impossible to run a game, or that some vast swath of the typical RPG fare is unachievable, without a central authoritative GM. Don't even pretend this is a one-way street. And we're (if I can speak for any others) not 'dismissive' of classical RPG play either, this is the tradition we are coming from and in which any newer practices are rooted! I have no problem with what Arneson did, and I entirely understand his reasons. I think we generally game in a different climate than Dave did, so our needs are not his, and our game designs differ, that's all.

This is true as far as it goes. I've seen far more do it on the side of non-traditional play, though. It's common to see that, where it's fairly uncommon or even rare to see it go the other way.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Hmm, you wrote

So I read that as a number of claims

1. It is impossible to run a game without a central authoritative GM
2. Some vast swathe of the typical RPG fair is unachievalbe without a central authoritative GM

I've never read a post on these boards claiming the first. Would you say that's exaggeration for effect (which is fine of course, I just mean that taken literally, I've never experienced it.)

Player-driven campaigns and developing strong stories and this is a MILD version of it! Like this is the blood tide at LOW EBB. Just read the whole thread, you can have plenty of amusement here!

The second depends on what you mean by vast swathe. It seems like I might understand vaster by "vast" than you intend. In my own words I would put it that some folk have said that for them it is easier to resolve some problems in play given empowerment as a GM. IIRC some posts have said or implied that a certain problem won't yield otherwise... but I haven't noticed those amounting to a "vast swathe".

A quite high percentage of posters with a certain general agenda have made statements to this effect at various times. We talked through some, again fairly mild, examples in THIS VERY THREAD! Yes, we have made vast progress, people are no longer able to ignore the burgeoning number of narrativist and other non-classic forms of games anymore! Still, its a quite prevalent sentiment.

If your meaning is that that there are many ways to skin the RPG cat, then sure, I wouldn't rule out finding solutions other than GM-empowerment for any problem in RPG play.

I mean the strongest assertion of non-GM-central-authoritarian play. That is something like "RPGs work perfectly well when all the participants at the table share equally in authority over game play." As I just said above, this now being essentially an irrefutable fact, as 100s of games built on this paradigm are successfully sold and played every day at this point, we find that the denials don't stand up, and are now often tempered, or restated as 'preference'. Nothing wrong with that, but yes I believe there is still a strong underlying belief in the idea that only a game with an absolutist GM can work well is still 'rife'. Heck, you yourself espoused something very close to this in this very thread, proposing that 'Rule 0 always exists', and then another poster insisted that games without this (implicit or explicit) rule 0 were 'inflexible' and asserted a list of things that supposedly couldn't be achieved without rule 0, finally settling in the 'bailey' consisting of, at least, the assertion that it always exists, with its implication that everyone uses it in at least some covert/implicit way. I mean, these are arguments, I'm not criticizing people for making them, but its stunning to then have you assert that nothing like this exists.

 

[Maxperson]

But you understand the huge difference between 'Rule 0' which states that the GM has total authority over the rules and the proposition that the rules 'hackable' in some way shape or form by some process which presumably requires at least a modicum of consensus of the same degree as that required to decide on which RPG to play in the first place? These are two entirely different, and unrelated, things.

It's not either Rule 0 or a consensus agreement if no Rule 0 exists. You can have a DM unilaterally change something in a game with no Rule 0 and like a Rule 0 change, the group doesn't have to overtly affirm or deny the change.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

So the PCs are the only people in the setting who can proactively do anything, and NPCs/the setting can only react to what the PCs (try to) do?

So much for the idea of a living world.

Definitely not what was being said/implied. The NPC sniper in the example is TRYING, proactively, to kill the PC. There is simply a rule (more a consequence of the nature of the construction of the process of play) that precludes a GM from harming a PC (hard move) without there being SOME sort of 'out'. Now, ACTUALLY, the sequence "Lily (PC) goes out the door and a shot rings out! Lily you take 10 HARM." is QUITE possible, in isolation. HOWEVER the lead up to that would require that the player either fail some sort of check (Defy Danger in DW, I'm less familiar with the AW names for these moves) OR perhaps that the player ignore a blatant warning, like say another NPC telling her "don't go out there, Mick's guy is out there, he's deadly!" or something like that.

Fronts EXIST for the purpose of putting independent life into the setting outside of what the PCs do. They will spin off dooms and then raise dangers without any regard to the PCs, unless the PC's actions actually thwart them. Actions have consequences too, so it is perfectly in keeping for, say, the above sniper, to arise out of something that Lilly did to cross Mick. Now Mick wants her dead, he takes action. If she avoids or survives that scenario, maybe he'll try something else, clearly he's a hostile force that is opposed to Lilly. The GM is completely free to do whatever she wishes with this, as long as it results in moves that are in keeping with the rules. We're not going to see Mick simply go set off an H-Bomb on the hardhold as the next move!

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

More or less, yes, unless there's someone who has final-word authority.

Compromise doesn't happen easily or quickly with stubborn people.

@clearstream another example! Again, @Lanefan is expressing a mild form of "non-GM-authoritative games don't work", but that's kind of the sense of it. (I'm not picking on you @Lanefan its a legitimate concern).

 

[Xamnam]

But the permission you're perceiving with Rule Zero does nothing to address knock on effects. It doesn't seem to address the concern you're expressing here.

True, not directly, but what it does do is explicitly communicate to me that the structure of the game is expressly designed to take modification in stride. 5e specifically calls out the three changes that will unbalance the combat chassis. The combination of those two (not to mention the extensive optional rules section) gives me confidence that changes made, outside of those three exemptions, are less likely to have the negative consequences I'd rather avoid.

I contrast this with Blades in the Dark, which talks instead about the game is designed to "fail gracefully" if sections of the rules are forgotten or ignored. Which, is still reassuring, but in a very different context. It expressly says "The game is better when you use all the details, but the whole thing doesn’t come crashing down if you don’t." This sort of language actively works to suppress any desire I might have otherwise had to modify the game to fit my purposes. Which I think is the right call for Blades! It's got a lot of interlocking systems, and if I mess with, say, Stress, than that is going to potentially affect flashbacks, vices, trauma, devil's bargains, rituals, etc. When I play a game as specific as that, I want to try and follow the designers' intentions, so that I have the envisioned experience and can examine it on its proper merits. And that's what I'm looking for out of Blades, I've seen very convincing arguments about how the game is so very pointedly crafted to create the pressure-cooker environment that forces characters to act both appropriately and in exciting ways. In addition, I read posts on here that talk about GMs that run PBtAs and the like in "degenerate" form, and how they are fundamentally not actually playing the game they say they are because of misapplied principles. I'm quite concerned about ending up there just by failing to fully embody the agendas, which I already struggle to keep as forefront in mind as I'd like. Intentionally changing the rules text feels even more likely to push play into that state.

To be fair, I do know the rulebook has a section called Changing the Game, and there are extensive and varied options there. That does help to empower me, but only to the degree that I would probably generally limit myself to the options that are called out there, having been vetted by the creators.

And, to this:

I think the instinct you expressed above about unclear situations would guide you best here, as well.

That's very fair, and I probably worry more than is strictly necessary. But, I worry more than is strictly necessary about roughly 83% of the things in my life, so I can't say it's a surprising call out, nor do I think it's an issue I'm likely to leave behind me anytime soon.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

This is true as far as it goes. I've seen far more do it on the side of non-traditional play, though. It's common to see that, where it's fairly uncommon or even rare to see it go the other way.

I think its likely that people don't notice so much, as a lot of the "GM-centered-thinking" (I'm picturing Spock and Kirk on the bridge of the Enterprise in the middle of fighting Khan here) is so implicit that people don't even realize they're doing it. That, and obviously if you are talking about most D&D play you SHOULD assume it is the case, whether you like it or not...

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

I have a PDF of the material that Dave sent to Gary at one point sitting on my hard drive. Its substantively most of what is in the 3 LBBs... No, it wasn't written down in a very fleshed out form, that is where Gary came in, was to make it comprehensible to other people. In fact this is where the two of them needed to HAVE rules, because they wanted to teach this game/technique to other people! I've also been playing RPGs since the early days, 1975, and I've played plenty of super rules-light games, as well as just making up stuff totally on the fly, no pre-established rules at all.

Really? You have the material that Dave Arneson originally sent to Gary?

I mean ... okay. So why don't you share it? For real! I mean, that is quite the claim. @Alzrius - I am summoning you as well given your interest in history. @Mistwell @overgeeked

We had a thread on that recently ....

D&D General - Arneson's original notes to Gygax?

Considering all the "archaeology" that's going on with early D&D, I'm curious if anyone's come across the original notes Dave Arneson sent to Gary Gygax. I wonder how playable the game presented in those notes would be.

www.enworld.org

So, please share! I mean, I just read history and talk about it, but I've never read the famous twenty pages of notes. I'll wait! With bells on!*

So, the concerns and ideas of the FKR people are in no way foreign to me. Its not rocket science anyway! So we will simply have to totally disagree about what you or I or anyone else does or does not know or understand!

Yeh... given the number of times I've had to say something about this, and given how easy it is to do, your continued choice to comment about FKR while displaying a level of ignorance about it continues to befuddle me. Again, there's a lot of resources- I recommend just running it for a while, and it will make a lot more sense.

Nor do I need to read a book about RPG history that I lived, lol.

Well, a lot of people live history- the thing is, actual history is a lot more varied than a single person's experience.

As far as Dave's rules, he DID make stuff up, like the cleric, it wasn't simply an unwritten rule. It might have been developed to meet a specific need, and what was initially written down was very likely nothing more than some very simple notes. It was still codified! Other people could now play that same type of character. I mean, this is a pretty special case in game design/play when you are making up the whole game from scratch in the process of playing. Nor is it my contention that the things Dave was doing were not a LOT like what he and others were doing previously (and continued to do) in Braunsteins and such. I don't contend that where they STARTED wasn't something a bit like the 'invisible rulebook' but that was not necessarily their intent! It was simply a part of the process that they used as DESIGNERS AND REFEREES at the same time! Its a little questionable to take all this early play, which was a LOT more provisional than even 1977 era play, and conclude from it that Dave or Gary didn't value codified rules. Also I think it is dubious to assume their opinions were simply static and didn't evolve as the activity they were undertaking also evolved. You CERTAINLY cannot maintain that Gary, the very least, didn't come to the conclusion that codified rules were needed, as the DMG flat out says it! Dave's opinion might be somewhat more open to question, but the fact that he fed his material to Gary to be "put into shape" tells us a lot!

No. But what I can do is continue to tell people to read actual histories about the game instead of relying on people to improperly explain it. Just this, right here, does a giant disservice to the diversity of play that existed in the 70s.



*Seriously! IIRC, people have speculated that the notes were deliberately destroyed during the lawsuit. But I would love, really really love to be totally wrong on this so I could geek out to it instead of having to backwards imagine based on the First Fantasy Campaign.