3e, DMs, and Inferred Player Power

[Majoru Oakheart]

Personally, I think the "throw all the spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks" philosophy of world design results in a world that is inherently less interesting and meaningful than a world that follows through on a limited set of initial premises.

Well, I don't see my ideas as being "throw all the spaghetti at the wall".

Since I run a pretty much standard Greyhawk game, I understand that there are European style knights that come from the Shieldlands, the Northern Kingdom, Furyondy, etc. There are Arabic style people's who come from the west, from Ket, Zeif, Tusmit, etc. There are powerful mage guilds in cities always discovering new magical abilities and styles. There are people who are nomadic and shamanistic leaving room for other styles.

I so far have only disalllowed things purely oriental in nature as there isn't a major oriental culture in the Flanaess. There MIGHT be one elsewhere in the world, but most of the area outside of the Flanaess is not really explored or canon. Which means I can use all of those PrC if I want as one time enemies or as storyline devices.

As for almost all the creatures in the MM, MM2, FF, and pretty much every other book, they've been proven to exist somewhere and there are areas that have been unexplored where the rest could come from.

So, overall, I find that it is a good world because all of the material put out can fit into it without straining belief. This is actually why I chose Greyhawk as a world. It allows me as a DM to come up with almost anything without restricting myself to what may or may not exist in the world. If I feel like a high seas adventure, I can run one, if I plan on sending them to a desert and using Arabic enemies for a week, I can. A lot of my fun comes from seeing the PCs deal with situations that put them out of their element. They don't know what the enemies can do to them, because the enemies could be ANYTHING.

As a secondary benefit, it gives me excuses to allow almost anything as a PC as well. Although I restrict races to those in the PHB and subraces of those races. Also, each final character has to be run past me because although individual classes or feats are not overly powerful, certain combinations are. I've rejected only a couple of ideas though.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Well, I don't see my ideas as being "throw all the spaghetti at the wall".

Not to imply that your ideas, specifically, are "throwing all the spaghetti at the wall". However, WotC seems (to me, YMMV) to be advocating more of a spaghetti-slinging philosophy than even 2E did. This makes sense from their end, because more options = more books = more sales = more money. 2E at least marketted their books on the basis of "Here is a bunch of stuff, some of which may be useful in any given campaign" as opposed to "here is a bunch of stuff for any given campaign".

(Another hair-splitting, I know, but like so many of these things, it is the fine differences which make up the meat of the problem they cause.)



RC

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

2E at least marketted their books on the basis of "Here is a bunch of stuff, some of which may be useful in any given campaign" as opposed to "here is a bunch of stuff for any given campaign".

Well, I've always viewed it more as "these are things that might be in Greyhawk", adapt from there. Since I can find a place for almost all the material released somewhere in Greyhawk (and due to their similarity, FR and Eberron as well), every book that comes out could be useful, from beginning to end.

IMHO, this is the market WOTC is going for. That it COULD be adapted to other settings further away from the "standard" settings, but it takes a lot more effort and a lot more cutting out classes or spells that don't fit your own homebrew settings. Most people who run their own homebrew settings are already used to this and made the choice to do this when they chose a setting far away from the D&D "norm".

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

One other fine difference I think exists whether you view crunch and fluff seperatable...

An example is the Dervish mentioned upthread. If I was running a Nautical campaign and had a player wish to take the Dervish PrC, I would see if thier was any fluff that matches both the setting I am running and the crunch of the class.
IMO, it would be easy to see a Dervish type character in the pirate organizations...

 

[Thotas]

Majoru, I think we're just about there.

You've described to us how you set up your game. It's perfectly legitimate by the standards of , I think, everyone here that's been arguing the other side -- at least partially because we've been arguing the point that it's yours, you can do what you want.

As it happens, you've also described a situation in which your world is quite large, and some of the parts of it are intentionally left open specificly to facilitate the option for you and your players to bring in ideas from many published sources, even ones not in print yet. WotC loves you, you're the demographic that best keeps them in business. If you're enjoying it that way, great. If you are good at running the table, I'd probably enjoy your game myself.

But, and here's the big but, it's set up that way because ... you exercised your authority as a DM. You chose a large world, you run it in an open fashion 'cause that's the game you want to DM. Raven Crowking runs his tighter, from the sound of it. Which is his authority as a DM, also. I bet I'd enjoy his game, too.

And if I show up at your table or his, I don't like what you've done, it's time for me to leave you to your game and your other players. It's not for me or another player or Monte Cook or some guy in a suit at Hasbro to tell you what should be in your game or what shouldn't.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

And if I show up at your table or his, I don't like what you've done, it's time for me to leave you to your game and your other players. It's not for me or another player or Monte Cook or some guy in a suit at Hasbro to tell you what should be in your game or what shouldn't.

Frankly, no one IS telling you what can be in your game. WOTC releases a bunch of books as to things that are in THEIR game. Some of the ideas you may want to use.

That's why I've said before, to me D&D is baseline D&D. Everything that changes the rules or campaign world so it doesn't even resemble one of the published ones is running a variant. No problem with that, luckly you can do whatever you want with the rules.

However, I think there's nothing wrong with expecting a D&D game is using the baseline and to have each DM describe his differences from that.

I think it's fairly clear, for instance, that Magic of Incarnum is a book that's rather ourside of the standard D&D and that it should not be expected to be used. The Complete books, no so much so.

 

[Thotas]

But again, the point is that nowadays, it seems, there are players out there who think they can tell DMs what is allowed and what isn't. Though I've said above that I run an old-fashioned game in terms of who's in charge, I do have a player I have to be a little stern with at times when, for example, he wants to know why something doesn't work the way he expected it to, but I refuse to tell him why for the simple reason that his character doesn't have a way of knowing it at this point. He's also someone who can beat a video game that takes most people a month in under a week. Based on what I've read on this thread, I'm guessing this isn't a coincidence. And it seems that several DMs are having a perception that the owners of the brand name are encouraging this kind of thinking to a point of detriment.

That player doesn't run the game, I do. When someone wants to know if it looks like they can climb a given wall, I'll describe that wall in minute detail to help them estimate the likelihood of success, but I will absolutely not tell them what the DC is. The characters can only read their own sheets if I'm running an "Order of the Stick" campaign.

This is a slightly separate issue, of course. This whole issue is actually divided between a DM's prep time rights and a DM's table rights issue. As I've indicated in my previous post, I think the prep time issue has been settled now. You repeated a lot of in your latest post, in response to me.

The only real difference I see now is an ettiquette one. You go in "expecting" a baseline, or very open, game. I think politeness requires you to actually ask, immediately, when you are given the option to play. And if it's not a baseline game, politeness requires your DM to provide you a rundown on those changes in a coherent, concise manner earlier enough for you to follow them. KM's Arthurian DM example, is well within D&D rules but hopeless wrong in terms of the rules of being a good host.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

That player doesn't run the game, I do. When someone wants to know if it looks like they can climb a given wall, I'll describe that wall in minute detail to help them estimate the likelihood of success, but I will absolutely not tell them what the DC is. The characters can only read their own sheets if I'm running an "Order of the Stick" campaign.

You are right, they don't run your game. You are well within your rights not to tell them the DCs.

Still, from ther other side, as I've said earlier, if I'm not given enough detail about WHY I fail or why an enemy is changed, I feel like the DM is out to get me.

When I do this to my party, I say "Unlike other trolls you've encountered, this one seems unphased by the torch waved in front of it. When you touch it with the fire, it doesn't seem to even hurt it."

I've seen DMs who just said "It's a troll as far as you can tell" then after about 10 rounds of using every fire spell we had on it and wondering why it wasn't dead yet said "well, maybe you should try something other than fire and stop metagaming."

I can well play within a world that doesn't work like my expectations of the world. I just need the DM to describe to me the whys of his world and make sure I know. If EVERYONE in his world knows that his trolls aren't killed by fire, I should know too. If it is rude to say hello to nobles without them addressing you first, I'd like to know before rather than after I embarrass myself.

So, yes, as long as you give people the information they need, you don't need to give them the EXACT DC to accomplish things. I find giving them the DC often doesn't hurt anything and enables things to move quicker, but it's not required. I'll say "Alright, you find a wall, if you'd like to climb it, it is about a DC 10, can you all make a DC 10 taking 10? Yes. Good, you climb the wall and move onwards." Either that or "Everyone make a DC 19 Fort save." I don't always do it either.

 

[Varianor Abroad]

My question is, why are so many DMs threatened by players who ask questions?

It's like people at work who are told "Just shut up and do what I tell you." You don't know why they ask the question. Maybe it behooves you to find out instead of throwing out an order?

(Note. I'm not talking about preserving mystery about something. That's fine. I am talking about providing an explanation to a player of the rules so that they know you've been fair with them.)

 

[Raven Crowking]

So, yes, as long as you give people the information they need, you don't need to give them the EXACT DC to accomplish things. I find giving them the DC often doesn't hurt anything and enables things to move quicker, but it's not required. I'll say "Alright, you find a wall, if you'd like to climb it, it is about a DC 10, can you all make a DC 10 taking 10? Yes. Good, you climb the wall and move onwards." Either that or "Everyone make a DC 19 Fort save." I don't always do it either.

Also, I would say that if you are not giving the DC, and the PCs take 10, it is important to say something along the lines of "The wall seems like it's (a little/a lot, depending) harder than you thought. Would you like to make a roll?" Rather than just saying that the check fails.


RC