D&D General A glimpse at WoTC's current view of Rule 0

[Micah Sweet]

Perhaps I'm overly sceptical, but I would tend to doubt that a typical GM's world is as vital and compelling as some of the most famous creations in fantasy fiction.

For purposes of play I personally would never operate based on that assumption. I don't believe you're giving the game a fair shot that way.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Thanks.
But how do you marry your interpretation in the PHB with



This is just one paragraph...the DMG is littered with this perspective.
Do you not think that perhaps your interpretation of the PHB excerpt may be wrong and that the book is indeed a toolkit?

No, I think my interpretation of the PHB is perfectly fine. The problem with the text cited there is that it makes airy-fairy statements about things and then gives absolutely no actual discussion, explanation, or tools.

It's the setting-contents equivalent of "You can do X. Or you can not do X! You're the DM, you decide." Which is also, as you say, "littered" throughout the 5.0 DMG.

My sincere hope is that the 5.5e DMG is better, but I'm not holding my breath.

 

[Micah Sweet]

This is a pretty strange claim.

Just to pick one example: in Apocalypse World, there are no difficulties. So there is no wargame-y/boardgame-y play of trying to come up with the option that has the best chance of success. That doesn't make AW "snakes and ladders".

AW's rules are very narrative focused. It is to me a very different kind of game than most D&D-style games.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I'm not your slave.

Nor am I yours.

I am not running a game that is a lousy experience for me.

Note that this means you are assuming that every limitation always is done exclusively because not having that limitation would 100% guarantee that you're having a lousy time.

I'm working up a campaign and proposing it to people and those people opt in or opt out.

Okay. And? I don't see your point.

 

[Belen]

I think the reason you aren’t seeing answers to that question is that the answer is « it depends ».
Game’s a bash-the-door dungeon crawler, if the PC wants to be a gnome in a world in which gnomes aren’t established, it’s tough to see how that impacts much of anything.

If the game is a Feywild rp-heavy political intrigue game and the player wants to play a warforged but doesn’t want to detail why the war forged is in a Fey court nor what their motivations are, then the problem isn’t that the player wants to play a warforged, it’s that there is a mismatch between the play styles of the participants.

And if that happens, the answer is also it depends. What do the other players think? If only one player doesn’t want an rp Feywild campaign, then they can sit out this campaign. But if multiple players aren’t enthused about a low-combat campaign, the DM shouldn’t push it.

Thank you.

See, my experience is that players do want to play in the campaign; however, when faced with doing the work to add an option, they just pick something different. This is not always the case, but the majority of the time, the player does not want the added responsibility. Many players find it difficult to even write a character history. I have a fighter in my current game that gave three lines and then said "you can tell me the rest of what I need to know."

The last time I bent backwards for a player was when they were upset that no good fighter mage option existed. I designed 4 subclasses, after each time they said it was not really the direction they wanted. I spent 3 weeks building subclasses to fit their desires and write them into the setting. Finally, they said, I'll just play a warlock with a level of fighter.

I have done the same, in the past, for other folks with species, classes, etc. I just do not have the time to do it for folks that cannot even meet me part of the way.

 

[FrozenNorth]

I believe arguing about the rules during the game is a waste of precious playing time, and most definitely not FUN.

The place for such discussions is outside the game.

If what we are talking about is choice of races or classes, then I think in all cases, it will take place outside the game.

For other rules questions, I think most posters here agree that best practice would be to make a spot ruling and hash it out off-game time. That is incidentally, what is generally recommended when the GM legitimately doesn’t remember a rule and doesn’t have time to look it up.

 

[Micah Sweet]

This, 1000%. You're not doing me a favor by writing up hundreds of hours of setting detail. I'm doing you a favor by being willing to engage with your work enough to make it a playable game.

There are more players than there are DMs, sure. But there also more DMs who love creating detailed lore than there are players who want to read it.

I don't expect a player in a FR game (or any setting with existing lore) to have read all the setting material. But that doesn't mean it doesn't apply to the game we're all playing.

 

[TiQuinn]

Many players find it difficult to even write a character history. I have a fighter in my current game that gave three lines and then said "you can tell me the rest of what I need to know."

It's funny - I remember a time when it was the opposite problem. Players would show up with two-plus pages of backstory that the DM was somehow supposed to incorporate into their campaign. Maybe it's still like that for some tables.

 

[Belen]

Okay. Please put yourself in my shoes: I have never, as a player, been in any group that lasted longer than a year after I joined. (My current 5e group will cross that threshold in a few months, and I am still very grateful for the invitation to join it.) Almost none of the groups I've been a player in have had any players in common. I have been striving to find a long-running group to play with for a very long time, and I've seen many bad apples I've stayed far away from while looking for such a thing. That is part of why almost all of the DMs I've actually had have been at least pretty decent, and the majority have been quite good.

I have never had the luxury of relying on years of reputation. I have never been so fortunate as to have extensive experience with a DM before working with them. And this is going to be similar to the experience for most players today, because most players of D&D 5e (whether 5.0 or 5.5e) are brand-new to TTRPGs, if WotC's numbers are to be believed. As in, something like four to eight new players for every single person who had played a previous edition first.

I get it.

I used to have long standing groups, but I am always the DM. I get burned out after a while. Most of my campaigns run 1-2 years and end between 16-20 levels. I will often have to take a break and this means that the group dissolves because their is no DM.

For me, I have roughly 20 people that have been in my campaigns and have gamed with me for 15-20 years so when I decide to run again, then I just form a group of who is available.

 

[Scribe]

Why would I want my RPGing to resemble a MMO?

Why would I want to role play in a living world?