3e, DMs, and Inferred Player Power

[Belen]

I can explain how I am a referee easily. As the DM, I set the stage BEFORE gameplay starts. I have a pretty good idea of what's where and what the situation is before the players sit down. Once gameplay starts however, I do not feel I should change rules.

Whoa....hold on there. Please find where anyone advocated changing the rules on the fly during gameplay. I certainly never supported anything of the sort. I think you may be letting your bad experiences with some poor DMs color your thinking.

For the other 99 cases, I follow the RAW or any house rules we've agreed to before the session begins. In that way, nearly all the time, I am purely a referee. As was mentioned earlier, I have no vested interest in the outcome of any particular action. Like many others here, I've run into one unbelievable DM's fiat ruling after another.

N0. You have run into poor DMs. The problem here remains that a DM who wants to power trip can do so in 3e. The rules are not going to stop any DM bent on having their way.

A good DM is always vested in the outcome of any particular action. A good DM wants the players to succeed. He may not want them to run through a cake encounter, but he does want them to succeed. The DMs you describe want the players to fail.

I agree with almost all of that. Except the part about DIRECTING a cooperative story. In my game, the players direct the story, not me. If I'm directing the story, that means that I no longer am disinterested in the outcome. If you direct something, you have to direct it TO somewhere. I couldn't care less how the story comes out. That's the player's job. And, if directing a story means that I have to create new rules on the fly, then perhaps my story isn't as good as I think it is.

It is directing. Or do you never throw out a plot hook or create encounters for the characters. If players direct things then I fully expect them to look at you and say "Hey, DM, we want to fight a Troll. Hurry up."

Like the example of the undispellable trap. How dare the players use the abilities of their characters to get around my idea. Nope, by Gum, they are going to solve my riddle or rot. No shortcuts for you, peasant!

I can create an unbeatable trap in 3.5 and do it via the RAW. You are describing a bad DM regardless of edition or system.

Do DM's have the right to say no? Absolutely. As I said, my role as campaign creator occurs between sessions. That's when you tell your players that they can't play this or that because it doesn't fit into your game.

So you are saying that it is ok to be arbitrary and have total control as long as it does not happen during gameplay?

Again, you are confusing your experience with bad DMs and my argument that DMs need more support from on high. There are entirely too many players who believe that they can play whatever they want whether the DM makes the call in or out of play. And Wizards does seem to supoort this notion. The connotation of "options" in 3e means "requirement" in the eyes of a lot of folks, most especially those who have only played 3e.

WOTC needs to say that a DM has control over the style, power, and available options in their game and that saying "no" does not violate the rules. The players are not entitled to every option released for the game. They also need clear instructions on how a DM can modify the rules to suit their world or style of play. These instructions would go a long way to providing consistency among house rules.

Right now, 3e is a player-friendly game and decidely neutral (if not hostile) with regards to the DM.

 

[jasper]

Henry has the right of it. And what happens when the rules are not specific K M? Aka astral projection mining
KM you making our point. It took you 1 minute to look the rule up in the core rules. Now if the dm must allow x splat books which would or may modify the tumble/jump check how long would you allow the dm to stop the game to determine if Piratecat’s, Ninja half chipmunk with kung fu grip and GI Joe prestige class pc can do it? When can the dm just say I limiting the rule books to these and I do not care if Diaglo has just spend $3200 on the “Super Thick Munchkin and Dirty Tricks for Dwarves”?

 

[Henry]

FWIW I would give 90% cover (+10 AC*) to the target here, with misses being rerolled vs the friends....

*One of the stupidest things about 3.5 was its elimination of variable cover bonuses.

S'mon,

Get

Out

Of

My

Brain!

As the DM, I set the stage BEFORE gameplay starts....if one of those 1% events comes up in my game, unlike a referee for soccer, I do have to make a ruling to keep the game moving...Event occurs, players make their arguements, I rule one way or the other, game moves on. After the session, we can discuss the ruling ad nauseum, but, in the game, getting things moving is more important. Now, my players trust me enough to know that I'm ONLY going to do this in the 1 in a 100 cases where it needs to be done.

This is the funniest part of these discussions, because I see it every time -- you run your rules discrepancies EXACTLY the way we run ours. The only difference is, I see rules questions and issues more than one time in 100; during the game, it's more like 1 situation in 10. And the need for the DM as a final authority is RIGHT THERE, whether your group came to a consensus or not.

One way we differ, however, is if we find something unbalancing for our game. If an item I allowed previously (PrC, feat, player-created magic item) is becoming too effective, and either making the game boring to the other players with its effectiveness, or the other players are complaining because my ramping up the challenges to take the unbalanced thing into account it hurting them, I will after the session discuss it with them, disallow the thing, and give the player a retroactive option, or compensation for losing the item. But I won't let it continue to upset the other players just because, "well I allowed it and now it's in-game."

I'll also put a blanket stop to PCs killing other PCs, too, because in all cases this leads to less fun for the group -- but it doesn't make me a Bad DM. In my opinion, it makes me a good one. It's also why I recommend every player taking a turn at DM'ing, too -- because I ALWAYS notice problem players put a stop to nonsense after they've had a turn putting down other people's nonsense.

 

[Raven Crowking]

I agree with almost all of that. Except the part about DIRECTING a cooperative story. In my game, the players direct the story, not me. If I'm directing the story, that means that I no longer am disinterested in the outcome. If you direct something, you have to direct it TO somewhere. I couldn't care less how the story comes out. That's the player's job. And, if directing a story means that I have to create new rules on the fly, then perhaps my story isn't as good as I think it is.

Like the example of the undispellable trap. How dare the players use the abilities of their characters to get around my idea. Nope, by Gum, they are going to solve my riddle or rot. No shortcuts for you, peasant!

I refuse, absolutely refuse, to play in that style of game anymore. If the DM is incapable of challenging the players without cheating (ie rewriting the rules) then he or she shouldn't be DMing.

Actually, I am shocked that you ever accepted that.

When I was in high school, lo these many years ago, I had a friend DM White Plume Mountain. In one of the encounters, I decided to go around the edge of a cavern wall rather than face an intermittant hot mud geyser. The DM disallowed it because it wasn't an option in the module. But, he was new at DMing, and I forgave him.

Another guy, running one of the Slavelords modules, decided that the PCs aged 10 years/round whenever they didn't do what he wanted. I got up and walked away from the table and never looked back.

OTOH, I don't see the problem with the DM deciding that there's a chance of hitting an allied character when you fire through areas occupied by four of them to hit another target. The rules, as written, may not support that decision, but common sense does. To some degree, the DM's job is to ensure that common sense trumps the rules (bucket of snails and great cleave?)....and also to ensure that the rules are used to support the integrity of the game/game world rather than to undermine it.

PCs should not know everything. They should be surprised by new monsters, new feats, new spells, etc., etc. The DM should be designing new rules (i.e., "crunch"), and letting the players learn about it in character. It is not "unfair" that a group of NPCs has a feat option that the PCs didn't have (but maybe have now).

The DM has information about the world that the players do not have. As a result, a decision that the DM makes may appear to be simple fiat when it is not. In a really good DM's campaign, seeming rules inconsistencies are actually clues as to the nature of the world, and/or what's going on in a particular circumstance.


RC


P.S.: Anyone claiming that previous editions of D&D had as comprehensive and internally consistent of a ruleset as 3.X are simply blowing smoke. 3.X is a better ruleset than previous editions from a game design standpoint. Of course, anyone claiming that the current edition is without ruleset problems is doing likewise. The forums here (and elsewhere) demonstrate that point amply.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Rights vs. Responsibility

BTW,

All rights (whether they be civic, legal, or social) are balanced by a responsibility to use those rights without abusing them. We exist in a society (at least, here in North America) that is really big on knowing what our "rights" are without giving a second thought to our "responsibilities".

When the DM was the final arbiter of the game (or where, if it is still the case at your table [as at mine]), the success or failure of a camapign fell pretty squarely on the DM's shoulders. Bad DM = bad campaign.

Giving more "rights" to players means, as a necessary corollary, that the players have more "responsibility". Yet we do not see many forum threads suggesting that a poor campaign experience is the players' fault. Nor do we see many forum threads that suggest that the players be responsible for dealing with problems arising from the actions/styles of particular individuals.

Instead, when it's time to dish out "responsibilities" the same people who were bellying up to the trough for their "rights" are nowhere to be seen.

I realize that this is a broad generalization. I realize that this isn't true for every group out there (and, thankfully, not for mine). But it is something I have noted coming up repeatedly in thread after thread.


RC


EDIT: It occurs to me, too, that this is often the case of of bad DMs, too: Everything is the players' fault & their stuff is gold. If you can't handle the responsibilities, you shouldn't ask for the rights. Peter Parker's Uncle Ben was right, you know: "With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility." DMs everywhere should take note.

 

[Thotas]

Okay, this is an enlightening thread!

'Cause I've seen a million "edition wars" threads, and never seen the point of them. The anti-3e people would blame the new version for an evil I remembered from 1979, and the pro-3e people would praise it for solving problems that a lot of people had never had.

There's evidently been some confusion, at least part of the time, between The Rules and The Use of The Rules. This thread is basicly discussing rules lawyering, and whether it's a good thing or not. Ten years ago, if asked what a rules lawyer was, almost all owners of a Player's Handbook would have said something like, "A really obnoxious kind of player that most DMs tolerate, sometimes just barely". Of course, that would be a tongue-in-cheek exaggeration. That was only a problem if they were frequently arguementative and overlooked the letter of the RAW if it worked to their benefit.

But things, as we see here, have changed. Again, I'd say it's not so much the rules as it is the way they're sold and spun. Which is why it slid under my radar, and I didn't understand edition wars. I've always known how I wanted to use new material, so I skipped all the ad hype and foreward pages that have encouraged the view created by card and computer games.

As Henry said, I know I have the authority. As I said earlier, I've taught some newbies that I have the authority. When I took a break from running the game and took a player's seat, the newbs asked me questions; I told them the fellow behind the screen now had the authority.

If one of these newer types does hit my table some day? Raven crowking said it very nicely above, and as he said, it really is that simple.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

No, that's what you're arguing - at this point you're focused on the candlestick while I'm looking at the two faces in the picture, so there's really no point in dragging this out any further.

I'm sorry - I thought it was you who brought up the "wildly divergent" answers provided by three different people as "proof" of the lack of internal consistencty in D&D 3E, in what the rules do or don't cover.

Perhaps, but so far we have three possible interpretations for these "nigh-explicit" rules, as well as differing circumstance bonuses and DCs.

That's my point.

The two people (other than yourself) who answered picked the same skills and similar DCs for each action.

You picked the same skills and almost exactly the same DCs - but added an extra check not required by the rules in one instance while admitting that you like to break the rules in order to make things "more fun" or "more dramatic."

Your "evidence" does not support the conclusions you want to draw.

 

[The Shaman]

I'm sorry - I thought it was you who brought up the "wildly divergent" answers provided by three different people as "proof" of the lack of internal consistencty in D&D 3E, in what the rules do or don't cover.

Good job of selective quoting - I said the answers were NOT wildly divergent, but that they were still arrived at differently.

If you have to mislead to make your point, the point probably isn't worth making.

That everyone used the Jump skill is about what I would have expected - no real surprises there. However, you steadfastly refuse to acknowledge that there's another way of looking at the results - that everyone had to interpret the rules to make the call since the action isn't covered explictly. You believe that this is easier and more consistent in 3e than in other editions or game systems? Fine - I'm not attempting to disabuse anyone of that notion. But it still takes someone making a decision on how to interpret and apply the rules when gaps appear.

Please feel free to continue arguing with yourself from here on.

 

[Raven Crowking]

For an example of where I am coming from, check out this thread: http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=146135&page=1&pp=40


The DM asks a rules question, and then determines that a particular optional class will not work in his campaign.

Needless to say, the community responses are relevant to this discussion.

Sounds like you like taking out a lot of material because it doesn't make sense to you. That's fair enough. Also, I'd say that a lot of the un-official D&D stuff can be pretty un-balanced anyways. In the end though, I'd say that even if it DOESNT MAKE SENSE, as long as it's balanced it should be allowed. Sure, he's gettign a couple extra dice to a ranged attack when he moves. BUT<<< he always has to move when he does this, and also he's only getting one attack.

Tell me, do you make any special rules and GIVE players extra stuff if it makes sense to you? Or do you just take it away?

RC

 

[jasper]

PCs should not know everything. They should be surprised by new monsters, new feats, new spells, etc., etc. The DM should be designing new rules (i.e., "crunch"), and letting the players learn about it in character. It is not "unfair" that a group of NPCs has a feat option that the PCs didn't have (but maybe have now).
bingo raven. Amen
I had two gms who ran Chill. The 1st was sitting on the second guy's game. He fail some rolls and started rule lawyering about the rules state that above x% he should have been successful. When he didn't get his way he left the table. At the end of the game the new monster had modifiers which affect everyone rolls.
I have to disagree with Syntethik Fish. Sorry I don't care if it is balanced I have a set amount of time to learn the rules, make the adventure, run the game and get on with the rest of my life. Just because you bought a cool book does not mean I have waste my time learning those new rules. but then again I been know to walk away from the game as player and dm when I was no longer having fun.