D&D General Fighting Law and Order

[Maxperson]

I cannot help but go back to all the times I've been told that this sort of thing never happens, or only happens with "bad" DMs that you should simply refuse to play with. What choice did these players have but to be "taught a lesson," and in the process likely driven away from the hobby, possibly forever?

And it's still true. Think about the sheer volume of DMs on this site and we have what? One or two in this thread "claiming" to DM that way? That's still a very low percentage.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

And it's still true. Think about the sheer volume of DMs on this site and we have what? One or two in this thread "claiming" to DM that way? That's still a very low percentage.

Except that you--and others--have explicitly said that this doesn't happen.

That we were talking about phantoms, that it was all pure theory.

Of course you can now retreat to the motte of "well it's not like it's common" now. But you're going to continue trying to claim the bailey of "this never actually happens." We've now seen it, demonstrated directly by an actual person, on this website, for all to see, by their own admission.

How on earth could that possibly be inadequate for saying, "This is real, it happens, and (most importantly) rules can help address it."

No fix is perfect. Ever. Nothing is perfect. But using "you can't perfectly fix it!" as an excuse to do diddly-squat is simply a crap argument. That perfection is impossible should not mean we decide "eh, no point trying to ever make anything better."

And, besides? It's not this horrific extreme I rail against. It's things like the person (on this very website!) who came to realize that their players believed "if there's a map and minis, it absolutely must mean a fight is completely unavoidable, no matter what we might like to do instead." Or other folks in this thread, who have mentioned their own struggles with genuinely well-meaning GMs who fell into traps, like having almost beat-for-beat the same "patron betrays you" situation three times in a row.

Those are people who truly want to do better, who genuinely intend to do the right thing for the right reason, but still made mistakes that harmed their game. Mistakes that good, effective, well-written rules and guidance WOULD help address. Again: nothing is perfect. No guidance can fix every problem, and sometimes, you're stuck with PEBKAC (or, I guess, PEBSAC for in-person GMs.) But better guidance is completely, 100% possible--particularly given how poor the guidance is in the book literally called a "guide"--and good rules are, in part, guidance on how to play successfully.

 

[Maxperson]

Except that you--and others--have explicitly said that this doesn't happen.

I've never seen anyone say that, and I've absolutely never said it. I said it doesn't happen EXCEPT for the RARE bad DM, and 2 among bunches and bunches is pretty darn rare. Especially when it's internet talk and leaves room for doubt on whether it's even happening with these posters.

How on earth could that possibly be inadequate for saying, "This is real, it happens, and (most importantly) rules can help address it."

Because, and this is something else I've said, rules CAN'T help address it. Bad DM's are bad regardless of the rules. No game rule can cure that. You don't hamstring the myriad of average and good DMs for the few rare bad ones that won't stop anyway.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Because, and this is something else I've said, rules CAN'T help address it. Bad DM's are bad regardless of the rules. No game rule can cure that. You don't hamstring the myriad of average and good DMs for the few rare bad ones that won't stop anyway.

False. They absolutely, 100% can. Good rules help address all sorts of ills--including both bad GMs (helping to call them out on their behavior, discourage that behavior, and provide instruction on how to change it should they feel the impulse to do so) and simply poor/mediocre ones, who are by far the more pressing concern.

Good rules work to address toxicity in community behavior. Research proves this. Good rules work to address bad behavior in schools, workplaces, charities. They don't suddenly transform badly-behaved people into saints, because (again) that is a perfection argument, and perfection arguments are BS, always have been, always will be. But in various ways--identification, curtailment, education, support--good rules address bad behavior.

Unless you can produce the studies to say otherwise, you are simply wrong.

 

[pemerton]

I don't characterize railroading the way you do (your definition honestly doesn’t even make sense to me in regards to a railroad)

That is the oddest definition of railroading I have ever heard.

I don't think it's that odd. The fiction is being provided by the GM. The stakes are being established by the GM. The consequences are being determined by the GM. That is what, in my view, makes it a railroad.

Because I don't understand how the GM sets up a setting for the players to interact with counts as a railroad. What do the players and/or the GM have to do to not count as a railroad? I don't get it.

The players establish the stakes. And hence the consequences. The GM responds to the players' evaluations and concerns for play.

This is why GM-side moves in AW (and DW) are things like "Announce badness", "Provide an opportunity", etc. Those are all evaluative notions, and in AW the evaluation is provided by the player. What counts as badness, what counts as an opportunity, etc is dependent upon the players' aspirations for their PC, as worked out through their play of their PC.

This is also why "ask questions, build on the answers" is an important technique in AW (and DW). It's one of the ways the GM works out what the players take to be at stake, and what their aspirations for their PCs are.

The methods used in Burning Wheel and Torchbearer are different in some technical respects, but broadly similar. Upthread, I posted about my most recent BW PC:

The most recent PC I created is a dark elf (in the JRRT sense, not Gygax sense) who became embittered following the death of his spouse. Here are some of the relevant PC elements:

Beliefs
*I will avenge the death of my spouse!
*I will never admit I am wrong
*Only because Alicia [the other PC] seems poor and broken can I endure her company

Instincts
*Never use Song of Soothing unless compelled to
*Always repay hurt with hurt
*When my mind is elsewhere, quietly sing the Elven lays

Relationships
*Hateful relationship with my father-in-law, the Elven ambassador at the port (blames him for spouse's death)

Reputations and Affiliations
*+1D rep ill-fated for himself and others
*+1D aff with the Elven Etharchs

Traits
*Born Under the Silver Stars (To those who look upon me with clear eyes, there is an unmistakable halo, like white light through a gossamer veil or stars shining at night)

*Dark and Imposing (I once was fair and beautiful to all who look upon me, tall and slender, rounded by graceful curves)

*Self-deluded

Etharchal (My noble heritage is recognisable at a glance)​

So it is the GM's job to frame scenes, and (when the dice call for it) elaborate consequences, that will put these key elements of this character into play and under pressure. The GM's function is to provide adversity to this character, given the character's dramatic needs and thematic orientation.

 

[Maxperson]

False. They absolutely, 100% can. Good rules help address all sorts of ills--including both bad GMs (helping to call them out on their behavior, discourage that behavior, and provide instruction on how to change it should they feel the impulse to do so) and simply poor/mediocre ones, who are by far the more pressing concern.

Name one rule you can make that I can't break and use to be a bad DM for some group out there?

Good rules work to address toxicity in community behavior. Research proves this. Good rules work to address bad behavior in schools, workplaces, charities. They don't suddenly transform badly-behaved people into saints, because (again) that is a perfection argument, and perfection arguments are BS, always have been, always will be. But in various ways--identification, curtailment, education, support--good rules address bad behavior.

Unless you can produce the studies to say otherwise, you are simply wrong.

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Sure. They can change..........................with a lot of guidance, therapy and a will to change. Rules aren't anything close to that. They aren't going to cure the bad DM's of their bad behaviors.

 

[bloodtide]

Because, and this is something else I've said, rules CAN'T help address it. Bad DM's are bad regardless of the rules. No game rule can cure that. You don't hamstring the myriad of average and good DMs for the few rare bad ones that won't stop anyway.

For example, were I to play such a game where I think things 180 degrees opposite the typical player poster. Like I posted above.

A player has a character "do or not do something in the fiction " and I as the GM say "well that triggered my hard trap!". I'm sure the player would complain "oh no it does not trigger a hard thing , it triggers nothing!". And I'd disagree and say "I'm GM, and the rules let me make the call...even if you don't agree.".

Then I'd have the poison gas shoot out at the character and the player would say "I defy the Danger!" and I'd counter with "nope, you ignored the treat of the trapped door. So you get no defy...and I'm using my golden opportunity hard trap, as is my right as GM!" And the player would not agree......

 

[Micah Sweet]

I don't think it's that odd. The fiction is being provided by the GM. The stakes are being established by the GM. The consequences are being determined by the GM. That is what, in my view, makes it a railroad.

The players establish the stakes. And hence the consequences. The GM responds to the players' evaluations and concerns for play.

This is why GM-side moves in AW (and DW) are things like "Announce badness", "Provide an opportunity", etc. Those are all evaluative notions, and in AW the evaluation is provided by the player. What counts as badness, what counts as an opportunity, etc is dependent upon the players' aspirations for their PC, as worked out through their play of their PC.

This is also why "ask questions, build on the answers" is an important technique in AW (and DW). It's one of the ways the GM works out what the players take to be at stake, and what their aspirations for their PCs are.

The methods used in Burning Wheel and Torchbearer are different in some technical respects, but broadly similar. Upthread, I posted about my most recent BW PC:
So it is the GM's job to frame scenes, and (when the dice call for it) elaborate consequences, that will put these key elements of this character into play and under pressure. The GM's function is to provide adversity to this character, given the character's dramatic needs and thematic orientation.

So you want the player to establish the fiction, the stakes, and the consequences, at least in part, or else its a railroad? No matter how many choices the players have in the world they're playing in, if they don't get a hand in making the fictional setting, it's a railroad?

Best case scenario: hard disagree, and furthermore, you have invented a new, vastly wider definition of "railroad" than is commonly understood of the term.

Also, I don't believe it's the DMs job to address a player's "dramatic needs and thematic orientation", and a D&D-like fantasy game that is designed in such a way has no interest for me.

 

[pemerton]

So you want the player to establish the fiction, the stakes, and the consequences, at least in part, or else its a railroad? No matter how many choices the players have in the world they're playing in, if they don't get a hand in making the fictional setting, it's a railroad?

I said stakes, and thereby consequences (because the consequences are relative to the stakes). I didn't say fiction - that was your imputation, and I explained why it is mistaken in post 1124 upthread.

In AW (and DW), the GM is constantly authoring fiction. But having regard to the players' choices about what should be at stake for their PCs. As per the example of play that I posted not far upthread, the reason the GM introduces the fiction of Isle sitting with her lover and her brother eating tinned peaches on the roof of the car shed is because the player has made it clear that her PC wishes to visit grief on Isle. So the GM introduces fiction that provides an opportunity - ie, Isle is present. The GM also sets it up in such a way that the player has to make a choice, maybe a hard one - because Isle is in company.

In Burning Wheel, the GM is constantly authoring fiction. At the start of the last session of BW, Aedhros was sitting on the docks, with the unconscious Alicia (whose company he can bear only because she seems poor and broken), quietly singing the Elven lays. The GM introduced some fiction - a petty official tried to move Aedhros on, because he was (as the official put it) busking without a permit. Aedhros, never admitting he is wrong and repaying hurt with hurt, humiliated the official. (By using the Rhyme of Unravelling to make his belt unbuckle so that his trousers fell to his ankles.)

And so on. Play is about these characters the players have authored, in situations that speak to their concerns, their hopes, and the risks to them as established by the players.

It is very different from, say, playing a party of D&D characters trying to find the weapons in White Plume Mountain. Or being given a quest to complete. Or the other sorts of D&D adventures that result from the GM providing a hook or a rumour on some other opportunity for adventure that the players pick up on.

I don't believe it's the DMs job to address a player's "dramatic needs and thematic orientation"

Well, I know of two versions of D&D that do give the GM that job - 4e D&D expressly (where it tells the GM to say "yes" to player-authored quests), and the original OA implicitly (because otherwise what is the point of the player working out their family, their martial arts masters, etc). Unsurprisingly, these are therefore my two favourite versions of D&D. Though I've also played non-railroading D&D using non-OA AD&D, with both PCs being multi-classed thieves.

you have invented a new, vastly wider definition of "railroad" than is commonly understood of the term.

I've been using the term that way for 30-ish years, and posting using the terms that way for over a decade I would say.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Kinda yes to both, but it still produces some wonderful play. (being married to the one player helps too! )

Oh, no question. I'm certain you two have had a blast. But the main point was just that the basal assumption of D&D play is collaboration and cooperation--true "solitaire" play or one-DM/one-player play requires a bit of elbow grease. Not impossible, by any means, but a meaningful effort to make it work more-or-less equivalently to how regular play does.

Adventuring NPCs (nowadays called DMPCs as, I think, a largely derogatory term) are a near-constant in our games/parties anway, so nothing new there. Henches and hirelings are certainly another, but for ome reason have never been as common as one might expect (I suspect because people don't like having to pay them!). I try to avoid giving resources etc. that a normal party wouldn't receive; for example if I'm running a single player through a canned module I don't adjust the treasure - or the opponents! - because of that.

Interesting--though if you've been using both "player plays multiple PCs" and (to use your less-pejorative term) "Adventuring NPCs" (ANPCs) then I think you're really pretty close to playing the game as "intended." E.g. if there's a beefy Fighter ANPC, and the player is playing both a cunning sneak-Thief and a well-prepared Magic-User, and they occasionally hire the services of a local Cleric when they do delving they expect to be particularly dangerous, then you've basically just run the game as-is, just with the DM playing one character, the player playing two characters, and more or less the two of them splitting the responsibilities for the third. (That is, player giving orders and probably handling much of the ordinary interaction for the hireling, but DM presumably keeping tabs on whether the player has gone too far, upset them, or the like.) Hence, rebuilding the basic method of play, but both participants taking on significantly more responsibility than they normally would--a meaningful effort to "make it work."

More or less, I think we can agree that if both you and your wife had tried to play it completely unchanged--no multiple PCs, no ANPCs, no hireling coordination, etc.--that there probably would have been a lot of difficulties and the experience would have been less enjoyable for you than with the tweaks you've gone for, even if they are not as deep or complex as other tweaks could be.

Indeed; I was thinking of the sum total of a system rather than individual parts; and I believe that sum total does sit on a sliding scale somewhere between zero and overkill.

Alright. My issue, then, is that the variance between "subsystems," to use a common albeit loose bit of jargon, can be absolutely wild, which makes the average rating across the entire system not particularly helpful. Doubly so if it's solely meant as a personal "eyeballing it" metric, since (as I'll discuss more below) a lot of that can depend on someone actually having rejected significant portions of one system (due to familiarity and comfort) while evaluating the absolute and thoroughgoing entirety of another. Such evaluations will then be really unhelpfully biased, since we kind of run into a Ship of Theseus problem of how much removal is "too much" vs "completely acceptable."

Well, there's a reason why many tables dropped weapon speed and some other over-complicated bits. And some tables (like ours) added some complexity to a few bits e.g. hit points, to give them a bit more detail and imply that yes not all injuries are the same.

So, this then leads to the question: Are you actually judging the whole game as being on the low end of mechanics, or are you only judging the game you play(ed) as such? Because, if I were a betting man, I would consider putting good money on you rating a system in its entirety if it's one you sat down to read and review with only a limited (say, 3-4 session) playtime experience, vs. rating a system you've run for however many years (

You're close-ish, but not quite on.

The way I see it, early-era D&D put its detail-abstraction level in direct inverse to what could be done at the table through roleplay. We can't live-roleplay combat, it has to be completely abstracted and so that part got highly detailed rules. Exploration needed some abstraction and thus it got some rules, but not as detailed as combat as the players could often just describe what they do and how they do it, in a more useful way than for combat. Social interactions got very few rules as there wasn't much abstraction needed: you just live-played it out at the table.

Interesting--not a theory I'd heard before, but a solid one, I'll definitely be keeping that in mind gong forward. My only issue with this (at least thus far, since I'm splitting your thoughts here) is that this seems like a non sequitur. That is, for the purpose of this discussion only, I don't necessarily care why one thing got lots of mechanical detail and another got almost none. I only care that they got different levels of detail, and thus glossing over it as "it's on the low end for mechanics" seems unhelpful when several important parts, intended to be commonly used (even if people chose not to), were in fact extremely detailed and finicky.

I'm not sure where you saw the 5-6 on d6 model for resolution; that one's new on me. What I'm more used to as a fallback resolution system where nothing else applies is to roll under a relevant stat on d20. So if you're trying to run along a narrow ledge you'd roll under your Dexterity score (with the roll perhaps situationally modified e.g. a bonus if it's a wide ledge or a penalty if you're in heavy armour) to not fall off, that sort of thing; and it's IME a very elegant and simple mechanic.

IIRC it was a discussion of the very early days of D&D, when few of the messy/idiosyncratic subsystems people came to know (and sometimes love) had existed yet. I do know that "roll-under" checks were quite common a bit later, once more of the aforementioned subsystems came online.

The thing with "play to find out what happens" is that, in the context it usually appears, it's supposed to apply to the GM as well as the players; where in my view while it's a great principle for the players it's not for the GM, who should already know what could* happen and ideally be thinking a few steps ahead of any likely outcome in order to best deal with it if it arises.

* - note 'could', not 'will'.

I mean, realistically, the GM in Dungeon World (or any PbtA game) does know a good deal about what could happen. That's what prep is for; indeed (not to go too deep into DW stuff), that's explicitly how Fronts are constructed. TL;DR, avoiding DW jargon: for both campaigns as a whole and for sessions (usually 1-3 at a time), you're supposed to come up with dangerous/threatening things, a Really Bad Thing that will happen if a given danger/threat isn't prevented/stopped/forestalled/etc., and various alerting events (signs, symbols, calamities, etc.) that will happen before the Really Bad Thing unless it's prevented/etc. (In jargon terms, every Front has 2-3 Dangers, each Danger has an Impending Doom, and every Impending Doom has 1-3 Grim Portents if it's an adventure Front, or 3-5 Grim Portents if it's a campaign front. Examples are given for what Dangers, Impending Dooms, and Grim Portents can be like, but it's best to come up with your own.)

This way, you reap the best of both worlds: as play advances, new Fronts may emerge (again, the analogy of "Fighting on multiple fronts" really does apply extremely well here), whether because of player choices or simply because they make sense to become real threats; and yet at the same time, there's still a sense of the world existing, as there are real threats that the GM knows will be a problem...unless those meddling heroes get their noses all up into it. Improvisation and recognition of the players pushing the story forward is central, but there are still known things.

After all, you can't "draw maps, leave blanks" if there isn't enough world to draw maps about, y'know? It just means that there's the known stuff, and yet also ʜɪᴄ ꜱᴜɴᴛ ᴅʀᴀᴄᴏɴᴇꜱ. Likewise, you can't "think offscreen too" if there's nothing that ever happens unless it's on the proverbial screen.

I've never watched B5 and am not very interested. But Battlestar Galactica was similar; and while it was engaging to watch as a show I can't imagine porting it over to an RPG, because once you know the ending, what's the point?

Well, that's sort of the thing. You don't! You (as GM) know what would happen if the PCs just up and disappeared one day--and that it would (generally) be pretty bad.*

OK, let's take this one step further. We've got the beans class and the rice class. Each has a clear benefit and a clear weakness. Each of them would like to become the mythical "meat" class that can do everything, but that would bugger up game balance along with destroying niches; and the closer both get to becoming meat the less distinct they are, to the eventual point of their becoming both more powerful overall and indistinguishable from each other.

Now, let's say we want to introduce a "potatoes" class, that's as good as rice but has some added benefit (I don't know what - my knowledge of nutrition would fit into a teaspoon, with about a teaspoon's volume of space left over). Leaving it as-is will unbalance things, as potatoes become a clearly superior option to rice and maybe ot beans as well. So, we can either find some way of powering up rice and beans to compensate, or - and this is my preferred option - we can find a way to tone down potatoes to bring them in line with what already exists.

Sure. This is why class design is challenging. Generally, you avoid this by not doing what beans, potatoes, and rice do--namely, each of them covers lots of things and is only really deficient in one or two areas. (Ironically, in this sense, potatoes are actually mostly worse than other staple products, being weak but not quite deficient in three different amino acids, as opposed to genuinely deficient in just one, so you still have to pair them with something else--sometimes two things!)

Instead, with class design, you make it so each class only brings (by default) a small set. If there are ten things that every adventuring party should really be doing, then no class should bring more than (say) three of them. Even if a character expends resources in order to get better at more things, they should never cover more than about half--and the opportunity cost of their choice is that they don't become absolute masters of whatever they started out being good at. For this purely "positive" design, opportunity cost is the primary drive.

Spells specifically, no; but (ideally*) you've already paid for them by becoming a member of a class who can cast them and in so doing have lost out on a bunch of other things you could have done instead e.g. fight worth a damn.

* - ideally, though in practice this payment is becoming smaller all the time.

Alright, but this would seem to be conceding the core point: there are broad swathes of game design, at least as far as D&D-like games are concerned, where it would be genuinely impossible to think of designing those things in an exclusively "absolutely every single beneficial thing MUST be matched with a detrimental thing." Instead, you can have differential access to abilities, such that Class A starts off with abilities 1 and 2, class B starts off with 3 and 4, class C with 5 and 6, etc. Then other classes can mix things up, bringing 1 and 6 or 2 and 4 or whatever. And as characters grow, they can become 1++++ and 2, or 1++ and 2++, or 1++ and 2+ and pick up 3, etc. Again, these things are purely "positive" in the technical sense that they only add more things, but because you're limited in how much you can add, you can't get everything.

To use 4e as an analogy, both Paladins and Fighters are Defender classes: this means they start off with features that pursue the same end (punishing enemies for attacking the party, and drawing enemy fire/position to places advantageous to the party.) However, Paladin starts off with a minor in Leader (Lay on Hands, a Channel Divinity to help cleanse an ally), while Fighter starts off with a minor in Striker (mastery of weapons, and powerful weapon attacks to punish enemies.) Either one can easily choose to specialize in Defender things, through feats, powers, PPs, EDs, and items, making it so their enemies constantly face a lose/lose proposition in battle. Either can choose to pick up Leader-like features, and for the Paladin, that can effectively make them almost as good as actually being a Leader--but that's a double opportunity cost, as they haven't improved their defensive abilities, and (generally) can't do both Defender-y things and Leader-y things simultaneously. Meanwhile, the Fighter can absolutely go full Striker, becoming an absolute terror to her enemies--risk her mark punishment and she'll end you, but don't risk it and you've just made her job so much easier, as long as she can take the hits.

But neither of these characters can do everything. Indeed, neither of them ever gets much more than about halfway there. The "I'm almost as much Leader as Defender" Paladin will definitely fall if forced to stand alone, because for all that healing, he can't dish out the punishment, and healing just delays the inevitable. The mega-damage Fighter may be a force of nature when dealing with an enemy squad, but what can she do against a veritable horde of little pissers? She can only cleave so much flesh on any given turn, and they are so very ready with their own weapons.

One could extend a classic phrase: It is not just that "no man is an island," it's also that no man is a continent either. Even if you manage to claim another nearby island, it's never going to be enough on its own. You need your allies. There can never be a "potato class" as you've described, because you don't make classes that do "everything bean-class does, and also three other things."

*In my home game, a black dragon would take over the city; an assassin-cult would finish its civil war with the "yes we really do just want to murder when we like" faction winning and making a major decapitating strike against the main religious authorities that have spurned them; a cult, semi-unknowingly worshiping an elder orb beholder, would do horrendous damage to the planet in order to allow said elder orb to escape to the cosmos beyond; and a heretical sect of death-worshipping druids would begin transforming the region into a fetid swamp where their mushroom-hive-mind could live forever and become incredibly powerful.

Name one rule you can make that I can't break and use to be a bad DM for some group out there?

Point to the post where I said rules were perfect and I will be happy to do exactly as you have requested.