D&D General A glimpse at WoTC's current view of Rule 0

[Bagpuss]

You cannot on the one hand say that the rules can't protect you from a bad DM and then also say that the rules can save you from bad players, even if that rule is rule zero. You can't have it both ways.

Yes you can. If the DM is the one with final say established in Rule 0. Because the DM can rule against the bad player to keep them in line, but players can't rule against a bad DM.

 

[AnotherGuy]

"You don't get to have an opinion unless you're a DM yourself" is not, and has never been, a valid argument.

That is one way to interpret it, and not one I share.

More importantly? Becoming a DM has made me less sympathetic with the Viking Hat, not more. I have become even more convinced than I ever was before that the first and foremost obligation of the DM is to earn their players' enthusiasm, and that the one and only way to successfully do that in the long term is to genuinely, deeply care about what your players want, to work together so that you collectively bring about things they value, and to always, always be humble and circumspect about what you're contributing to the experience.

The Viking Hat couldn't be further from my thoughts when I'm DMing. It would 100% guaranteed lead to disaster.

Apparently Viking Hat wearers are defined thusly

• Not humble;
• Not circumspect about their contribution to the experience;
• Don't deeply care about what their players want;
• Tend not to work together with their players to bring about things they (players) value; and
• 100% guarantee that its (Viking Hat) wearing leads to disaster.

I hope I have done justice in outlining your strawman.

I blame Ragnar Lothbrok for this.

 

[Emerikol]

The theory advanced seems to be, from the perspective of a given DM

1. play will be unsuccessful unless they run it in the way they are good at​

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2. players don't impinge on play success as they can be swapped out for those that fit​

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and from the perspective of a given player

3. play will be unsuccessful unless DM runs it in the way they (the player) works well with​

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4. but DM doesn't impinge on play success as they can be swapped out for one that fits​

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I feel like this theory rests on over-simplifications - play is successful or unsuccessful, and DM and players simply are the way they are. There's no room for increasing success with a new approach or growing skill. I'm not saying this is what @Emerikol intends to argue, only that the words I quoted seem to contain those implications.
<snip>

I may be coming at this from a very experienced DMing perspective who has seen a lot of things. So a brand new DM probably should explore a bit because you don't know what you like until you experience it. My theory though is that a DM will like to DM the types of games he likes to play in as a player. So playing with a whole bunch of different DMs might be a quicker way to understand playstyle.

The problem with roleplaying is that it is not a single game. Playstyle really represents a type of game. I'm not saying every single detail but overarching style. And I do like to play the game I play and I like it a lot more than other playstyles. Since D&D even for a player is a big time commitment compared to say a board game, I think it makes sense to find your groove if you will.

I don't struggle to find players. Do all of my players agree with me 100%? No. But as players what I offer is worth a lot and our differences are tolerable to them. Some of my players have become DMs and when they do they implement some of their ideas on the game. Most are playing the same playstyle though one guy did drift more toward neo-trad than trad. Could I play in one of their games? Yes. Would I ever think any of them are as good as mine? No. If I did, I'd switch up my game to match theirs more.

These forums are fun places to debate philosophy about game design. As I have said many times, anyone can play how they like. I am not saying my playstyle is the best for everyone. It's just the best for me. But I will defend it here and everywhere to those who want to make it out to be bad or not fun. I have literally decades of proof to the contrary.

 

[Emerikol]

I think when you look at the definition of arbiter,

"a person who settles a dispute or has ultimate authority in a matter"

Bagpuss, your overall post was better than mine at explaining.

The referee concept is a good one. In the NFL, the referees are the final arbiters. The players are not inferior in any way but the role of the DM is to be the arbiter.

 

[AnotherGuy]

Misinterpretations are what led to the founding of the Cult of the Dragon and then a reinterpretation (but also bad) of the same text by Severin Silrajin is what led to the Tyranny of Dragons storyline.

 

[Oofta]

Maybe it is stage of life. My players if they didn't like what I did would just not play in the game. No harm no foul. And there isn't much DM/Player hostility. We take rule 0 (DM Final Arbiter) as a given. Some of them have run games. Our games aren't identical so I imagine the things that are different are areas where that person thought their idea was better. They didn't try though to force me to do their idea.

I've had a couple of people quit my game where it was obvious that we just had different expectations*. In one case the player wanted to "just go to a bar and stuff happens" which ... I'm still not sure what they wanted. Maybe simple dungeon crawls? Another wanted to play an evil PC, something I don't allow. In those cases we just parted ways amicably like adults. Meanwhile, even though I've had to start new groups because of moving, once a group gets going my retention rate is very high. Even though, yes, I restrict what species are allowed.

Every DM is going to have a style and expectations. Allowing every option under the sun is just another setting option and one which doesn't work as well for some people. There is no one true way.

*there have been others that left because of time constraints, decided bowling league was more important, they moved across country, were just trying out the game.

 

[FrozenNorth]

*I don't care if it was tongue-in-cheek. If we had people making tongue-in-cheek extended "jokes" of crapping on nostalgia about early editions, there would be riots in the proverbial streets.

We did. There were. Remember Thaco the clown?

 

[Oofta]

So I don't know every corner of Artra, and there is plenty left undefined on purpose so that new things can be added. But that doesn't mean those new things can be anything. Settings have themes and some things are quite intentionally excluded. For example, with Artra I tried to intentionally move away from Tolkienesque medievalism, so there very explicitly are no classic fantasy elves or dwarves.

Furthermore, I am not a fan of the "stranger with no connection to the setting" thing. Perhaps it can be done now and then, but generally it is a bad idea. The game will be better if the characters feel like they're part of the setting and have connections to it. For example two of the characters in my campaign are orcs, and it actually means something as they live in environment where there are other orcs and orc traditions and orc culture.




There are plenty of published setting and existing IPs people manage to create characters for within the parameters of the setting. The person who insists on playing a wookiee jedi in a Star Trek game is a problem. Thankfully this is not something I have actually encountered in real life during my adult gaming life. There seems to be plenty of such people on the internet though.

For me, it's also because I have a persistent game world that I've always used. So if a tabaxi shows up in a game then they have always existed and will continue to exist. But as the saying goes, once a camel gets his nose under a tent flap the rest of the camel is soon to follow. Allow a tabaxi? Then you have to allow a dragonborn, tieflings, aarakocra, firbolgs, harengons, whatever other species someone wants to play. Fine if it's what you want, I don't. That, and every species will ultimately just be represented as having some aspect of humanity that any human can also focus on. Species seems to fade into the background of pretty much every PC, including my own, after a little bit.

I allow exceptions now and then but it has to make sense and there has to be justification for the addition. I can also imagine a campaign world where Mos Eisley's Cantina wouldn't be out of place. It's just no my campaign world.

 

[Micah Sweet]

What, exactly, is that difference?

Because I had always been under the impression that an absolute and final authority was by definition one that cannot be questioned. Being open to being questioned is specifically the thing that makes an authority non-absolute.


The player has to be willing to play ball. At some point, you have to hit somewhere where they're willing to engage in good faith. If you genuinely have someone who refuses to engage in good faith, it is not possible to work with them. Period. Doesn't matter whether they're players or DMs.

You cannot on the one hand say that the rules can't protect you from a bad DM and then also say that the rules can save you from bad players, even if that rule is rule zero. You can't have it both ways.


So, where exactly do player choices come in, when you already know everything the world could ever possibly contain?

There is a vast difference between being flexible and leaving yourself room to improvise when needed, and never planning anything, exclusively flying by the seat of your pants. The middle is feeling deeply excluded here.

Player choice in that case would be choosing what to play from the choices available in that setting, presented by the DM. Does choice not count for you unless it includes options the DM didn't think of or doesn't want in the setting?

 

[Micah Sweet]

When I've seen my preferences crapped on over and over and over and over and over by people who think it's cool to say dragonborn are just stupid and no one could ever possibly like them unless they're a dirty filthy powergamer (despite the fact that dragonborn in 5.0 were the weakest PHB race...)--to the point that EVEN THE DESIGNERS THEMSELVES got in on the "let's make fun of people for liking dragonborn" train*...

Yeah. I think I have a very good reason to see hostility. Because it's demonstrably there.

*I don't care if it was tongue-in-cheek. If we had people making tongue-in-cheek extended "jokes" of crapping on nostalgia about early editions, there would be riots in the proverbial streets.


I tend to assume that when someone tells me they deserve absolute authority and zero accountability beyond me dropping the nuclear option, something is amiss. Particularly when the very same people then get up in arms about the folks who actually do drop the nuclear option and tell them they were unjustified for doing so! We had a thread just last month about that. Ask pemerton about it.

First of all, if you won't play in a setting without dragonborn, wouldn't it be better for everyone to just get that out of the way in session 0 by making sure your DM knows this? Seems like it would save everyone a lot if trouble.

Secondly, I don't recall anyone but you claiming the DM must have zero accountability. I agree with @dave2008 . I think you assume high levels of DM hostility as a given.