3e, DMs, and Inferred Player Power

[Quasqueton]

You should not need a college degree to play D&D.

But with Thac0 gone, we need something to keep the riff-raff out. ;-)

Quasqueton

 

[Joshua Randall]

Oh, please..... In my opinion, the CR was an afterthought, tacked on to the rules (it shows (to me, at least) because of how clunkily it works compared to the rest of the system) could be why it is not well understood.

Your opinion is wrong ...

Have I personally tried to understand it? Nope, not even once. I looked at it, and then promptly ignored it from then on.

... and your dismissive attitude is extremely ignorant.

CR may be a flawed system, but it perfectly fits the bill of something that was designed into 3.x in order to help the DM. Specifically, to help the DM balance choose reasonably balanced foes for the PCs to fight.

 

[swrushing]

DM's shouldn't have to say, "no". Telling a DM to say, "no", implies the default answer is, "yes", and the DM must stop Players from bringing things into his game.

Well from the opposite side of the spectrum, i Gm under the say yes rule... which is "say yes, unless you have a **compelling** reason to say no".

Now, if i have a compelling reason to say no, i don't have any qualms about it and at campaign start i set the products (and parts of products) i will allow for the campaign, as that helps define "the world" and it doesn't significantly change until campaign ends ion spite of what new whizbangs get published.

but if my plauer wants to alter a class to suit his idea or have a customized spell or whatever, i wont say NO to the request unless i have a darn good reason to do so. My default is yes.

I find it works well enough.

 

[Ace]

Mearl's experience parallels my own. My group has only 1 player out of 5 that doesn't have a college degree. Not unsurprisingly, that one player is the one who has the most trouble with the rules and has to have his character sheet checked by me. Of the other players, 1 has a PhD in astronomy, and the other 2 are software engineers in Silicon Valley. It doesn't surprise me that most of my players have a better grasp (and understanding) of D&D rules than most RPG designers.

The only player to have problems is the one without a college degree? And you don't see something wrong with that picture? As BU says, one should not be required to have a college degree to be able to understand and/or play a game.

I'd like to jump in on this Rasyr.

Most of the problems peeople are having understanding 3x is caused by players and GM's who haven't sat down and actually tried to understand the rules not that they don't have a college degree.

They are no more complex than say Panzerblitz -- or even some collectable card games.

the lack of interest in learning the rules is understandable though. Not only are there time constraints in peoples lives but most of the games relased in the last 10 or so years have been rules light or at least "non rigorous" -- stuff like Unknown Armies, Over The Edge, Storyteller and the like are meant to be played fast and loose. It is what people are used to

Even D&D'rs fall prey to this as most of the original D&D games were basically Ad Hoc mobs of rules that let the DM basically wing it.

D&D3 and its cousins OTOH are a lot more like those old 80's games, Aftermath, Space Opera, Rolemaster and the like

Its a rigid, structured game with built in guidelines and balances. It can be very rewarding in play if and only if the players understand the rules and take the time to make them work.

Now there are 4 problems (IMO) with 3x

First the fact that it is exception driven like a collectable card game -In actual play the tactical managemnt can be a pain for players or GM's used to "get em!" as the limits of tactics

Stuff like "ok so I can move after an attack if I have x feat or am x race -- this spell does x under y condition" is a royal pain to maanage in play if you come from -- he can attack and has 5 HP left he is down -- thats it. Look at a stat block for C&C or OD&D vs 3x for an example

for a fun short hand version of the troubles see the the half ogre with a spiked chain bit on Order Of the Stick

second: prep time for the GM increases exponentially at high levels. Low level d20 is easy -- OTOH Epic -- no so good. It can 30 minutes to make 1 Epic NPC. I don't have the time and interest in that and neither do a lot of DM's. Electronic tools can help but they aren't the be-all end of gaming. I know I don't want to spend an hour prepping per hour playing

third: D&D is too balance driven at times. The game can break down and be less fun if you give out to little magic without hacking the rules just right. This can be vexing for DM's who want lower magic settings.
Worse if players don't use or understand the appropriate resources they have what was supposed to be a balanced encounter can quickly turn into a TPK. No fun

Fourth: Parsing material for inclusion is a challenge. Once you step beyond the 3 core books (or worse go into 3rd party stuff) the difficulty of "what to allow" increases very quickly. Too much No and you lose players (I personally have quit games for this reason) to little No and your DMing job gets much harder.

I have always felt that once you get much beyond "Core Rules, Critters, an Expansion or Two and 1 Notebook peril ensuses for the GM--

Certainly adding 4 class books, 3 race books, 3 enviroment books, combat books and more can make being DM go from fun to a burden.

 

[Crothian]

But with Thac0 gone, we need something to keep the riff-raff out. ;-)

Quasqueton

That never kept the riff raff out. I think the only thing that can is the price continually rising.

 

[haakon1]

In my games I try and severly limit feats, PrC's and especially spells. My reasoning being that with the more options added to the game my job as DM becomes harder as I have to keep a track of everything that the players have at their disposal so that I can keep the game interesting and not one sided. This adds to the time needed to write/read and prepare scenarios.

I'm open to a player asking about the use of a certain option and will consider it but ultimately the continued addition of more and more options that players feel are available to them is detrimental. Sadly this is a trend that started with the release of 3rd ed and has just grown.

I've gone to 2nd Edition rules -- default rule is no additional rules outside the core rule set (PHB, DMG, DMGII, MM-MM3 + Fiend Folio, Deities & Demigods). The only additions I allow are:
- occasional feats that make sense to me
- one or two rules from Unearthed Arcana (like Arcana or Divine spellcasting classes stack)
- gods from Living Greyhawk and from 1st Edition Deities & Demigods
- homebrew variant ranger
- Stargate D20 & D20 Modern Weapons Locker, for a very few special "magic" items that add flavor to my campaign

I recently bought the icy polar splatbook and the war splatbook from WOTC, and decided both were essentially -- 10 pages of killer, no filler would be worth the $39, but 116 pages (or whatever) of useless minutia and campaign wrecker rules means I should have kept the cash, and should just dump the book.

 

[Henry]

There is one thing that Mike Mearls said that bothers me -- not that I'm bothered with him, but that I'm bothered with the truth of the statements:

MMORPGs generally stick quite close to the D&D mode of RPGs: fight monsters, grab treasure, power up, go on quests. An entire generation of games has learned that that is what you do in an RPG, whether it be Final Fantasy, WoW, KOTOR, or whatever.

and

I think the number of gamers who leave D&D for other games is falling, both because D&D does a good job of meeting its goals and because the play style of D&D is so player-friendly. As a game player, why swap D&D for something that gives the DM more power over you?

The problem with this model is that it's forgetting the one thing that separates D&D from traditional games: The DM. This model, taken to its extreme, destroys the position of Game Master. If MMORPG's are an example, it also hinders the idea of roleplaying itself, because it gets lost in power-play. If it degenerates into players running around requesting "buffs," looking for quests to "level", and how to start the best "monster trains" then it's transformed into something I haven't taken part in since I was 14 years old. It's fine if this is one form of play facilitated, but when this is the ONLY form facilitated, it's something I no longer want to take part in.

 

[Stalker0]

My problem is that the more options that are out there....the less options players have and here's why:

It used to be you had only a few core options. The rest was then imagination. The players and dm started brainstorming how to make the character cool, add a little here, take a little there.

Now its about picking from a big list. Players aren't using their imaginations anymore, they are just flipping through books picking what looks good. In that sense, its no different from a video game.

The main benefit of paper rpg is that in the end there are no rules except what the dm and players agree upon. But I feel that we have lost that over the last several years.

 

[rogueattorney]

This is something I learned way back with 2e, when the Complete Books of X came out.

And it's not so simple saying "no", when your best buddy just plopped $20+ down on a book to use in your game. In most of my experience, the player was actually trying to be helpful and creative, but it was the supplementary rules themselves that were the problem.

This is why "If it's not core, it's out the door" will always be my motto as DM, and it will be broadly and generally announced to the players before the campaign begins. I seldom stick to the motto. However, if something is added, I add it.

R.A.

 

[Rasyr]

and

I think the number of gamers who leave D&D for other games is falling, both because D&D does a good job of meeting its goals and because the play style of D&D is so player-friendly. As a game player, why swap D&D for something that gives the DM more power over you?

"why swap D&D for something that gives the DM more power over you" ?!?!

Wow! That line is spinning so hard that I am surprised that we don't see smoke coming off it. It is so loaded, that it couldn't pass a breathalyzer test at 10 paces. Has Mearls been taking lessons from Dancey?

First off, it tries to make other games sound as if they are "Player vs GM". It also makes it sound like other games do not give players choices. Not to mention the fact that it implies, through the mis-statements about other systems, that DMs in D&D do not (or should not) have any power (or only a limited amount of power) over players, or even the games that they run. It also implies that a GM having "any" sort of power over the players of a game (apparently in regard with player choices) is to be considered a bad thing. Or is he attempting to imply that D&D is for power-gamers cause D&D allows them all the choices they want (as opposed choices available due to setting/game).

The problem with this model is that it's forgetting the one thing that separates D&D from traditional games: The DM. This model, taken to its extreme, destroys the position of Game Master. If MMORPG's are an example, it also hinders the idea of roleplaying itself, because it gets lost in power-play. If it degenerates into players running around requesting "buffs," looking for quests to "level", and how to start the best "monster trains" then it's transformed into something I haven't taken part in since I was 14 years old. It's fine if this is one form of play facilitated, but when this is the ONLY form facilitated, it's something I no longer want to take part in.

You are very right here, and it was not something that I had noticed previously. Thanks for pointing it out.