D&D 4E 4E's New Direction: Giving the game back to the DM.

[pemerton]

The problem or issue with magic items in 4E is that they are essentially a secondary leveling mechanic, where gold = secondary XP. The sheer variety of items and combinations available has made balancing and testing their different combinations very difficult for Wizards to successfully do

I agree, but I would rather WotC make the effort at balance, leaving me to engage in occasional GM intervention when something goes wrong, than change to an approach that requires me as GM take responsibility from the get-go.

The bottom line is that I want my players to build their PCs. That's their job, not mine.

In my opinion, the player entitlement issue, initially, came from several different factors:

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With 3.5, we did, in my opinion, start to see more of a change from WOTC. The removal of Rule 0 was a big one. Then, the designers moving away from encouraging the toolkit mentality (e.g., Andy Collins in Sibling Rivalry column on WOTC's site telling DMs to to try and say, "Yes" and make room for player requests for races, classes, etc.).

I don't think it's about discouraging a toolkit mentatlity. Or about Rule 0. Rather, it's about "whose toolkit" or "whose rules". The game is everyone's, not just the GM's. So the ruleset in play has to be something that everyone agrees on.

Now one way to get everyone's agreement is for the rules to say it's the GM's job, and then rely on the GM not to make decisions that will drive the players away. This is the traditional D&D approach.

The alternative is to publish rules that work pretty well as a whole, and rely upon the play group as a whole to make decisions about which elements they'll introduce into their own game (eg if everyone things warforged are silly, then no on will play one; if everyone things iron armbands are broken, then they'll agree to exclude them from their game).

In practice it's always likely to be the GM who initiates these sorts of discussions. But it is meaningless for the rules to try to specify that the GM has the final say, when of necessity it's a group thing.

 

[Odhanan]

Giving choices back in the hands of the DM is a good thing.

I do not see a fundamental opposition between a game system that provides you tools and set pieces that make prep work a breathe, and choices that allow the DM to tailor the campaign's exact tone, content and game play to the specifics of the game table and its play style(s).

In other words, making a game easier to DM doesn't mean you have to have less choices in the hands of the DM. You can do both at the same time, and I'm eager to find out if Essentials actually tinkers in this game design direction.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

In practice it's always likely to be the GM who initiates these sorts of discussions. But it is meaningless for the rules to try to specify that the GM has the final say, when of necessity it's a group thing.

I would generally agree to this. But in the end, there needs to be someone who makes the final decision. Not against democracy in general. But it just does not always work and is not always the fairest thing. And the last thing you want is discussions during the game.

 

[P1NBACK]

I would generally agree to this. But in the end, there needs to be someone who makes the final decision. Not against democracy in general. But it just does not always work and is not always the fairest thing. And the last thing you want is discussions during the game.

Agreed. The DM is the arbiter, official and host (typically) of the game. Therefore, the DM needs to have some explicit authority when it comes to the group dynamics.

I don't think this authority is necessarily a bad thing. Can it be abused? Sure. But, I'd hope a group of players (including the DM) were mature and communicating any issues.