3e, DMs, and Inferred Player Power

[tetsujin28]

Then don't play with those kinds of players. When the players restirct whatr you as a DM does, then you need new players. I'd perfer to not play, then play with a group that limits my fun as a DM.

Indeed. Life is too short to play with jackasses

 

[Belen]

Then don't play with those kinds of players. When the players restirct whatr you as a DM does, then you need new players. I'd perfer to not play, then play with a group that limits my fun as a DM.

Well, that was my old group. I stopped gaming with them about a year ago and things have been better, although I am still never going to be that permissive again.

 

[howandwhy99]

While a plethora of options for players is a good thing for players, it places a great burden on the DM -- or at least those DMs who prefer to use all the options and rules available, as well as design their own adventures (as opposed to those DMs who wish to simply 'hand-wave' things during play, or are willing to rely exclusively on published adventures). Being a DM should not feel like a 'job', yet for myself (and many other DMs and ex-DMs that I know) prepping for 3e feels that way.

Designing a way to both: (a.) provide an adequate variety of options and variants for players; and (b.) accomplish (a.), while providing the DM with tools to minimize prep time (plus stat blocks, etc.) is important (IMO). WotC has focused on (a.), and done very little about (b.). Since DMs are essential to the success of table-top RPGs (no DMs = no games), more attention to (b.) would make sense.

I'm sort of surprised that no one has mentioned computer DM aids yet. When 3.0 came out waaaay back in 2000 they had the release paired with E-tools. This seemed to make sense. If there really was a highly customizable and rules literate DM tool by WotC, then a lot of DM prep time would be minimized. I haven't really tried any of the software currently out there, but I imagine the publishers are doing their very best to fill this need.

My policy is learned from one of the best DM's on this board: To always try and say yes to the player. I don't believe it is the DM's job to limit the players' imaginations. Quite the contrary actually. I know the amount of published rules is vast, but even with a zillion options PC builds always have a finite limit in play. And the ones you choose for your NPCs are up to you. This means you really only have to track the current PCs' powers.

That said, I do believe the current climate of the game is limiting imagination. Like Henry said, players brought up only under the new system tend to see the rules as more credible than DM arbitration. If a DM makes an antithetical call or chooses not to use a newly published option/rule, it may appear as if they know "better" than the professional designers at Wizards. Someone else mentioned needing real balancing guidelines. I'm sure Wizards has these developed even though much of it is an art, as they say. But there are definite reasons why they do not release these spreadsheets and rules of thumb. Having the best balanced rules is a big selling points in an OGL market. Unfortunately, the idea "only Wizards has extensively balanced rules" contributes to the mindset of DM's not being the preferred arbiter of what is allowed.

However, everything here mentioned so far has focused on rules. This is the real limitation in my mind. The DM must memorize all the rules possible for their game. The players must buy rules to use in their games. The rules must be followed while playing the game. Even with 1000's of books and options, I think this is extremely limiting. The game is about imagination. 57 channels and nothing's on... Pull out a blank piece of paper and write the character you want to play without any rules. The DM can fill these in. He/she could even balance it so it's not a "poor build". Yes, this means they are going to have to build a whole new race for you, a whole new class and prestige class, develop new weapons, spells, magic items, and more. They will even need to create a whole slew of new monsters for the crazy world you developed for your character. Impossible!? Hours and hours of work you say? Well yes, if you believe only professionals can make balanced rules. This is the limitation on imagination: believing both player and DM are no longer adequate for designing the game.

 

[Thorin Stoutfoot]

Over in the thread where this post originated, Mike Mearls made a side comment that very few game designers (i.e. authors) do not understand the CR system or use it properly (or something to that effect). This system (the CR system) is another of the examples of power being removed from the GM. The CR system says what the GH "should" be throwing against the party at a given level.

This demonstrates the lack of understanding of the D&D 3e rules by most RPG designers. The CR system doesn't say anything about what the DM should be throwing against the party at a given level. The EL of an encounter is the gauge of how hard an encounter should be. An encounter at the same EL of a party should eat up about 20% of a party's resources. Nowhere in the DMG does it say: "All encounters should be at the same EL as a party." It does, however say that at EL +3 or +4, you should start to see PC fatalities.

The CR/EL system is a tool for the DM (and while not perfect, is much better than nothing, which was what previous versions of D&D had). It certainly doesn't prevent the DM from throwing anything he wants at the party, it just helps him guess what the likely outcome will be (whether it's a pushover or likely to be a climatic encounter that leaves the PCs exhausted).

If you as a DM think that the CR/EL system restricts you in what you can toss at the players, you haven't read the relevant portions of the DMG or failed to understand them.

Here's one of my favorite quotes from Mearl's blog that illustrates my point:

"How can D&D now be the best game in the RPG world, if no statistically significant portion of its users really grok it, even after 5 years of play? If essentially no one in the subset of players/GMs who became d20 writers really understand the game, how many of those who didn't become writers do? Or is just that they only can grok it well enough to utilize published materials written by the select handful that truly understand how the machinery works underneath the hood?"

I've long held the opinion that there's a tremendous gap between the customer base for RPGs and the population of designers. I've met very, very few designers outside of WotC who majored in the sciences, yet the staggering majority of the people I've gamed with have been programmers, engineers, lawyers, and so forth. I think that, in general, the typical high end D&D player with a deep understanding of the game is too busy with a career more lucrative than writing RPG material for 3 or 4 cents a word. I've had conversations with friends who graduated 1st in their class at law school, or are studying for PhDs at places like MIT and CMU, that have basically been these people saying, "I read d20 books and see that I know the D&D system better than these designers, but I'd much rather work for the UN/pursue a tenure track position/prosecute hate crimes/etc than write D&D stuff."

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.

 

[Belen]

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.

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

 

[Thorin Stoutfoot]

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

You don't. You might need one if you wanted to write an RPG to compete with D&D, for instance. And you'll almost certainly need a good system design background to understand the whys and hows of CR/EL, magic items/XP rules, etc. You don't need a degree in mechanical engineering to drive a car, but you do need one if you want to design one that's any good.

 

[Crothian]

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

You don't, but you do need to have some smarts to understand what the game does and perhaps some education to make the game do what you want it to do. But Mearls is talking about the writers of the game, not the people playing.

 

[mmu1]

I'm currently playing in two D&D games I'm quite happy with, but getting there had been a long and painful road...

One of my worst experiences was playing in a game in which the GM would allow virtually anything from any supplement, because that was the path of least resistance... He then dealt with the absurd power level by giving enemies hundreds of hit points, huge spell resistance and extremely high saves, which turned all encounters into boring slugfests. (spells didn't work, sneak attack didn't work, trip/disarm didn't work, touch attacks missed, stun attempts failed...)

Another was a game I tried to GM in which every time I tried to say no to what I felt was unreasonable twinkage, I was made to feel as if I was telling a bunch of kids that there was no Santa - that they couldn't possibly be expected to have fun unless they could have all the toys.

For me, those examples sum up the biggest problems I have with the game: Inadequate understanding of the basic rules too often leads to the inability to play the game well, which makes it easy for a lot of people to believe they'll have more fun if only they get supplements to make their enemies thougher/their characters more interesting, which leads to rampant power creep and gameplay that's far more generic than with just the PHB and some imaginative characters.

 

[Rasyr]

This demonstrates the lack of understanding of the D&D 3e rules by most RPG designers.

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.

Have I personally tried to understand it? Nope, not even once. I looked at it, and then promptly ignored it from then on. I have GM'd D&D (3E, not 3.5) before, but it is not something I would ever do again. If I am going to GM, it will be for systems that I do understand such as Rolemaster, HARP, and Hero. There are too many "special situations" or rules by exception for me to be comfortable with GMing D&D. Play it? Sure, no problems there, as I think D&D is a pretty good system (and for reference, I also think HARP is a pretty good system, and I wrote HARP).

The CR system doesn't say anything about what the DM should be throwing against the party at a given level.

Explicitly? No. But the entire CR/EL system implies it. There is a lot in D&D that implies certain styles and mehtods of play. The inclusion of the CR/EL system in the core rules implies that you are supposed to use it.

The EL of an encounter is the gauge of how hard an encounter should be. An encounter at the same EL of a party should eat up about 20% of a party's resources.

Oh! A gauge of how hard an encounter should be. And who decided it should eat up 20% of the resources? Why does it need to eat up any resources? Why can't it eat up all of the resources? Another example, of the game making decisions for the GM, removing control from him.

Nowhere in the DMG does it say: "All encounters should be at the same EL as a party." It does, however say that at EL +3 or +4, you should start to see PC fatalities.

No, it doesn't specifically say that all encounters should be at the same EL as the party. However, doesn't the DMG say something to the effect that an average party should advance a level after x number of encounters (or something along those lines). I am pretty sure that the 3e DMG said something to that effect.

Thorin, there are several ways of saying something. You are looking for "explicit" statements spelling it out. I doubt that you will find any. However, the overall implications are there - play using this style, players can expect such and such by this level, average encounters for players should be 'so' tough, it should take between x & y encounters to gain a level, and so forth....

The CR/EL system is a tool for the DM (and while not perfect, is much better than nothing, which was what previous versions of D&D had).

Well, actually "nothing" would be preferable, at least to me, as opposed to saying that I should play using a certain style, especially if I don't want my campaign to be done using that style.

It certainly doesn't prevent the DM from throwing anything he wants at the party, it just helps him guess what the likely outcome will be (whether it's a pushover or likely to be a climatic encounter that leaves the PCs exhausted).

BAB, number of foes, any powerful special abilities, etc can tell you that just as well. Then again, if player dice rolls go south for a combat, something a lower CR/EL can result in a TPK, unless there is a major difference in levels (in which case, the monster will always miss).

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.

 

[Campbell]

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.

It is not necesarrily a problem that deviations from the standard mode of play require a technical background if you are going to attempt to maintain the same level of play balance that D&D 3.x maintains within its core rules. While 3.x might be strongly tied to a standard mode of play and require strong technical skills to modify the game to fit those who want to alter the d20 system as the basis for games with differing modes of play I do not believe that there is anything inherrently wrong with that. After all 3.x is one game that is available in a sea of games with differing default play standards which are not always as strongly represented as D&D 3.5's.