A DM by any other name

[ComradeGnull]

As a DM, I never control what the players do, or how they react. If a player wants to leap a 200-foot gap, they are welcome to try. I supply the players info and they decide their actions. What I will do is assign odds and create spot rules to cover what the rules don't cover. (Something that proved a lot faster than the endless "look it up in the book" in the 3e days.) There's a world of difference in creating a mechanic or assigning odds versus controlling what a PC does.

Why look it up if you feel it slows things down too much? The fact that somewhere out there in the world a published rule exists doesn't compel you to use it. It's perfectly fine to use published rules for those situations you most frequently expect to encounter, and then improvise for the rest. Or look up every single rule if it floats your boat.

1e style:
DM: You've entered a dusty chamber with a vaulted ceiling... (yada yada)
Player: I'm going to look around for anything of value.
DM: Whereabouts are you searching?
Player: I'll check the room corners, brushing away dust as needed.
DM: Nothing there but some old cobwebs, and a few tiny, yellowed bones in the northeast corner—possibly the remains of a rat.
Player: How about higher up? I look up at the ceiling beams.
DM: Roll percentile dice for me.
[Player rolls.] Player: I got a 87.
DM: You discover an old coffer tucked away on rafter.

4e style:
DM: You've entered a dusty chamber with a vaulted ceiling... (yada yada)
Player: I'll make a Perception check. [Rolls die.] I got a 24, which includes my racial bonus and Soaring Eagle Eye utility power.
DM: You discover an old coffer tucked away on rafter.

Now the second example certainly cuts to the chase quicker. But to me, it's devoid of soul or feeling; comparing the two is like putting poetry next to a car repair manual. Yet the latter approach seems to be what some people are advocating—"Rules exist for passive and active Perception, so let me call the skill and make my roll, and let's not bother with the details."

Ok, how about this:
DM: You've entered a dusty chamber with a vaulted ceiling... (yada yada)
Player: I'm going to look around for anything of value.
DM: Whereabouts are you searching?
Player: I'll check the room corners, brushing away dust as needed.
DM: Nothing there but some old cobwebs, and a few tiny, yellowed bones in the northeast corner—possibly the remains of a rat.
Player: How about higher up? I look up at the ceiling beams.
DM: Roll Perception.
[Player rolls.]
Player: I got a 24, which includes my racial bonus and Soaring Eagle Eye utility power.DM: You discover an old coffer tucked away on rafter.

The rule being used isn't actually the difference. It is that you are permitting the player to use a rule as a substitute for roleplay in one example, and not the other. The rules as written don't say 'once a player decides to roll Perception you must tell them if there is anything interesting in the area, no matter what'; they say 'when a player tries to look for something or search an area, Perception resolves whether they do or not. How you apply that is entirely up to you.

 

[Scylla]

Ok, how about this...

Your example pretty much sums up how I DM 4e at the moment.

As far as looking up rules, it's more the players that feel compelled. Folks feel compelled to use the anyway, and it's often easier to make up a houserule to cover an unruled situation than to convince people not to use an existing book rule.

Often rules that supposedly clarify or speed up things do quite the opposite. I initially celebrated the clear guidelines in 3e that defined the actions you could perform in a combat round, in part because of a bad DM experience (the fellow, a DM-vs-Player sort, allowed the bad guys to do far more in a round than the PCs). But in practice the players "adding up" all their actions slowed combat.
In my current 4e campaign, three combats in a 5-hour session is the average, and 4 is a really good night. A fellow 4e DM has experienced similar numbers. The other night we played a 1e one-shot for a change and ran 12 combats in a single 4-hour session. Big difference considering the supposed paucity of rules!

 

[Grabuto138]

Your example pretty much sums up how I DM 4e at the moment.

As far as looking up rules, it's more the players that feel compelled. Folks feel compelled to use the anyway, and it's often easier to make up a houserule to cover an unruled situation than to convince people not to use an existing book rule.

Often rules that supposedly clarify or speed up things do quite the opposite. I initially celebrated the clear guidelines in 3e that defined the actions you could perform in a combat round, in part because of a bad DM experience (the fellow, a DM-vs-Player sort, allowed the bad guys to do far more in a round than the PCs). But in practice the players "adding up" all their actions slowed combat.
In my current 4e campaign, three combats in a 5-hour session is the average, and 4 is a really good night. A fellow 4e DM has experienced similar numbers. The other night we played a 1e one-shot for a change and ran 12 combats in a single 4-hour session. Big difference considering the supposed paucity of rules!

Maybe the players like to look up rules because they like to feel that their decisions in terms of skills, feats, multi-class etc. have meaning, and they do not want to just roll random dice against randomly determined target numbers based on the DM's gut feeling at the moment.

 

[Shadeydm]

Why do you prefer that the DM gives you a more or less arbitrary number to roll against? If the DM simply describes the scene, and you know the target is about 5' away, then you know, based on your athletics check what it would take to make a standing jump 1 square. It is consistent across encounters. The DM can plan terrain to challenge the strengths and weaknesses of the party rather than challenging through ad hoc, arbitrary target numbers.

We have no idea if that is an arbitrary number that is an assumption on your part. Futhermore yes in every situation I would rather have the dm tell me what I need to roll. I want to describe what my character is doing not calculate it.

 

[Minigiant]

We have no idea if that is an arbitrary number that is an assumption on your part. Futhermore yes in every situation I would rather have the dm tell me what I need to roll. I want to describe what my character is doing not calculate it.

Oh you can tell when the DM is pulling numbers out of nowhere. As a player and DM, there are tells.

Also in my experience, I find that players become more immersed and RP their character more accurately when they calculate their own numbers and reference their sheets. There is more of a sense of ownership when they do some of the work (and it frees up brainpower for the DM to run the world in their head).

 

[Shadeydm]

Oh you can tell when the DM is pulling numbers out of nowhere. As a player and DM, there are tells.

Also in my experience, I find that players become more immersed and RP their character more accurately when they calculate their own numbers and reference their sheets. There is more of a sense of ownership when they do some of the work (and it frees up brainpower for the DM to run the world in their head).

My experience is quite the opposite so i suppose it's really a subjective matter of personal preference.

 

[Minigiant]

My experience is quite the opposite so i suppose it's really a subjective matter of personal preference.

It really comes down to individual DM styles and Player styles and matching them up.

That is where the modular ruleset shines. If a player likes modules A B and C and the DM likes A B and D, they both know and agree with how A and B work so no conflict arises. All they have to do is discuss C and D. Its a create your own rule set style game. And my experience with any type of game is that things are smoother when everyone at least knows most of the rules before play and not during play and modifications after play are rare except in emergencies.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Oh you can tell when the DM is pulling numbers out of nowhere. As a player and DM, there are tells.

Also in my experience, I find that players become more immersed and RP their character more accurately when they calculate their own numbers and reference their sheets. There is more of a sense of ownership when they do some of the work (and it frees up brainpower for the DM to run the world in their head).

Likewise. If I know what sort of things my PC is expected to be able to do within the rules I am a lot more confident about trying them and pushing them than I would be in a game where I needed to read the DM's mind unless I knew that DM incredibly well.

Also I want to know precisely what powers the OP thinks that I as DM have lost in 4th ed that I had in 1st ed or have in D&D next. I can and do happily houserule actions where I need to - I just need to do it a whole lot less. I can tell the players "no" to just about anything and in my experience they will accept it.

In fact I'd go so far as to say that as DM I have a lot more freedom in 4th ed than I do in any other edition of D&D. For a simple reason - I have all the power I had in pre-3E, but I also have the power relax, sit back and let the PCs plan unfurl with only a few light touches. I am not being compelled to make things up every time the PCs want to do something cool.

And, for the record, 3.X and 4e are incredibly different in terms of the workload for the DM and how rules light they are.

 

[Shadeydm]

It really comes down to individual DM styles and Player styles and matching them up.

That is where the modular ruleset shines. If a player likes modules A B and C and the DM likes A B and D, they both know and agree with how A and B work so no conflict arises. All they have to do is discuss C and D. Its a create your own rule set style game. And my experience with any type of game is that things are smoother when everyone at least knows most of the rules before play and not during play and modifications after play are rare except in emergencies.

On this I coundn't agree more.

 

[Emerikol]

Likewise. If I know what sort of things my PC is expected to be able to do within the rules I am a lot more confident about trying them and pushing them than I would be in a game where I needed to read the DM's mind unless I knew that DM incredibly well.

Also I want to know precisely what powers the OP thinks that I as DM have lost in 4th ed that I had in 1st ed or have in D&D next. I can and do happily houserule actions where I need to - I just need to do it a whole lot less. I can tell the players "no" to just about anything and in my experience they will accept it.

In fact I'd go so far as to say that as DM I have a lot more freedom in 4th ed than I do in any other edition of D&D. For a simple reason - I have all the power I had in pre-3E, but I also have the power relax, sit back and let the PCs plan unfurl with only a few light touches. I am not being compelled to make things up every time the PCs want to do something cool.

And, for the record, 3.X and 4e are incredibly different in terms of the workload for the DM and how rules light they are.

While I don't disagree that 4e offers a lot of things to make a DMs life easier, for me it is not the lack of adjudication. That would make 3e easier to DM than 1e/2e which is not true. I don't find adjudication all that hard and I can mostly do it on the fly where appropriate. I do think though that there is nothing wrong with good guidelines for commonly done things like bullrush. What isn't ok though (FOR ME) is when spells/powers are written so tightly that they can't be used innovatively. When you look at the stat block and you know that is it. 4e fostered that approach even if a DM could overcome it. And I don't disagree that 3e started us down this path.

The problem is that good DMs are not super common and bad DMs often screw it up. The reality though is that bad DMs will never get good if they are put into a rules system were they function great no day one. They'll just remain bad forever. So I'd prefer the new DMs hit a few road bumps (and preferrably play with a good DM to learn) and become good. Because a good DM and group are the best fun.