3e, DMs, and Inferred Player Power

[Mallus]

I've never gone into any other game EXPECTING that the rules will be changed from the standard ones.

My experience is the exact opposite. I expect idiosyncracies, because that's what I've always gotten (granted, I did most of my playing/Dm'ing prior to 3.x). Each game used a slightly (or massively) different iteration of the core rule set. Whichever that was.

I always saw the rules-as-published as the general framework from which each specific, indivdual game was bulit from. Rules as basic toolset, not as all-ecompassing (and complete) definition of the game environment.

People are right, D&D has a lot of core assumptions and some setting elements built in. If your campaign is far enough way from the core assumptions, it may be better to just use a more generic system like Fantasy Hero or GURPs. D&D is more setting specific.

While that's true for some players, I've always found people flexible enough to enjoy games with signifigant deviations from the 'norm'. Whatever that is.

My friends played D&D because it was the de facto common language for gamers in our area. And like language, everyone spoke a different dialect, with different rules and idioms.

While that often led to disagreements, confusion, and all-out fighting, it was still preferably to all of us learning French, or Esperanto.

 

[Sundragon2012]

What strikes me as a bit odd is that those who defend RAW/core assumptions at all costs either must play on the world of Greyhawk or a homebrew exactly like Greyhawk. To play on other settings, even Eberron which has divergences from the standard D&D assumptions, is to break in one way or another with the core rules/core assumptions.

If I run a:

Midnight
FR
Dragonlance
Freeport
Darksun
Planescape
Spelljammer
Dawnforge
Arcana Unearthed
Arcana Evolved
etc.

game I am running a divergent setting with divergent assumptions from the core D&D rules and in some cases very divergent mechanics. Fundamentally, I am playing someone else's homebrew. In fact the only difference between an individual DM's homebrew setting and those 3rd party settings on the market is that some are labors of love and others are for profit enterprises. Any non-WoTC setting is essentially another DMs homebrew with snazzier art and higher production values.

Now according to the idea that D&D must be played with certain assumptions, I would argue that none of the settings I mention above should be played within the D&D game because their assumptions, setting, and mecahnics are in some cases strongly divergent from the core assumptions.

So, is it possible to cut the "One True Faith" crap out and realize that RPGs have always supported DM creativity and innovation. The day they don't is the day I find another hobby....who am I kidding I will just keep playing the most recent version of the game that allows me to tinker with it. D&D is a game where the DM is final arbiter and lawgiver and the one who in many instances creates an entire setting for players to enjoy. Its laughable to assume that the core assumptions work for all settings when its obvious they would not.

The only folks I commonly see complain that DMs shouldn't have creative control of their own games are players who do not DM and think that somehow they are getting somehow screwed if they are not granted access to anything and everything in the core books or WoTC sourcebooks or access to rules that would benefit their characters from those books.


Chris

 

[Psion]

I am not advocating that the DMG display different styles of play. I am saying that the players should not look at the core assumptions in the DMG and attempt to tell a DM that is the only way that he can run the game.

That I would have to agree with.

I think that the GM owes it to the players to give them some idea of what to expect. It's better to let the players dwell on the mysteries of the game world rather than newly conjured rules mysteries. But when the players are using the rules as a lever to get their way in all things, they have begun to outgrow their usefulness.

 

[Belen]

To me, when I got into a D&D game, I expect that it will be a 3.5 Edition games with no house rules that takes place in a Greyhawk-like world unless I'm told otherwise. The more changes from this, the less like D&D it feels to me. Just like when playing Settlers of Catan, I expect we are playing the basic game unless someone says we're playing with expansions, however.

So Wizards was wrong to create Eberron, right? It is not a Greyhawk-like world. Therefore, Eberron is not D&D and they should not use the logo for the setting books. Also, D&Donline (which uses Eberron) is not D&D either.

If Wizards can create their own campaign world with rules that do not exist within the 3 core books because those rules are setting specific, then why is Joe Blow, the DM, barred from it? Why is it that someone not hired by Wizards is not qualified to write rules for the game?

What you may want to consider is that 3e may not feel like D&D to people who played in the previous editions. It is certainly different enough. You may come to realize that D&D means different things to a large variety of people. You cannot go tell them to play some other game because you do not feel they play D&D the right way.

If your campaign is far enough way from the core assumptions, it may be better to just use a more generic system like Fantasy Hero or GURPs. D&D is more setting specific.

Now this statement is a joke considering that multiple settings exist for D&D and all of them do not follow the "core assumptions" 100%. The entire purpose of d20 was to create a unified system. You're saying that anyone who uses the d20 rules must play using the "core assumptions" of 3e. You're also implying that anyone using rules from UA is not playing D&D because some of those rules change the "core assumptions."

D&D is a long tradition of DMs changing, modifying, or creating rules in order to fit specific campaign worlds or types of play. Without the ability to do this, you may as well pull out a copy of Heroquest or D&D Minis.

 

[Belen]

That I would have to agree with.

I think that the GM owes it to the players to give them some idea of what to expect. It's better to let the players dwell on the mysteries of the game world rather than newly conjured rules mysteries. But when the players are using the rules as a lever to get their way in all things, they have begun to outgrow their usefulness.

I agree with you as well. I have a two page document of feats and tweaks that every player in my game has access too. If something would affect a player in the normal operating of the game, then they will know about it. If I craft a new rule that would affect them, then I will ask for their comments and revise it before I release it.

It's not about stickin it to the players. I just want to run a game that makes sense and runs smoothly. And no rules set is without flaw, despite what some people may want to believe.

If players want a game that is run strictly by the RAW, then they can find one or run one themselves.

 

[Quasqueton]

I've never gone into any other game EXPECTING that the rules will be changed from the standard ones.

I've started a new thread on Majoru Oakheart's statements in this thread.

Quasqueton

 

[Mishihari Lord]

I actually find it is the other way around. When you KNOW that you can charge and you KNOW it adds a +2 bonus to your attack roll and lowers your AC by 2, then you know your options, you know what effects they will likely have. Then you can decide "Would my character be the type who would risk himself this way?" and take the action.

Like I said, it's all about preferences for different styles of play. I want a simulation of the experiences I've read about in fantasy fiction. You want an upgraded form of Monopoly (to use an example you seem fond of) I prefer that the DM use their common sense to overrule the RAW beacuse this works better for the style of play I prefer. Your insistence that this is the wrong way to play is narrow and silly. You've had a bad experience with this style of play, but IME this is the way most people do it, and I've seen very few problems with it.

 

[Varianor Abroad]

Your insistence that this is the wrong way to play is narrow and silly. You've had a bad experience with this style of play, but IME this is the way most people do it, and I've seen very few problems with it.

How can we have a productive discussion with folks deriding a certain play style? (99% of the differences in player compatibility can be explained by play style.)

Having been a DM for 20 years and using the "common sense overrides the rules" attitude, I can say that 3E helped me lose that for the better. I still do override the rules from time to time when there's a grey area, but I allow the rules to work for me now. I've talked to many players who truly appreciate that consistency because they have not just played but suffered under the caprices of martinet DMs. I'm not accusing anyone in this thread of being the latter by the way.

I think it's fair to say that people have different approaches that work for them. Nobody's going to win this argument, by the way. How many pages long is it? I think we have a better chance of teaching rocks to sing.

 

[Greg K]

This is the one thing I've never completely understood about RPGs. Any game I play other than an RPG, I expect to play the game their way. Even if someone plays Monopoly and they are only the banker, I expect them to play fair and not make up their own rules.

The difference is that RPGs, unlike other games in Western society, are not designed to be competitive. RPGs are designed to be cooperative games with the rules as merely guidelines to aid in the cooperation of creating adventures. Therefore, house rules have always been an acceptable means of altering the rules to help create specific styles of play- the exceptions being both tournament games which are competitive and the rpga which, as an organization, needs a consistant set of rules.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

So Wizards was wrong to create Eberron, right? It is not a Greyhawk-like world. Therefore, Eberron is not D&D and they should not use the logo for the setting books. Also, D&Donline (which uses Eberron) is not D&D either.

You missed the obvious answer.

In Eberron, the house rules are presented up front and are agreed upon. There are positive-energy undead-like things, there's new templates, gods work like X, etc.

The Eberron campaign setting book does not change midgame, and it most certainly doesn't say, "Use your common sense when your players want to do something you don't like."