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

[Thomas Shey]

Oh absolutely.

Did you ever have a friend who offered to do you a favor… and then they bring it up every chance they get like you’re meant to owe them?

That’s how I view DM’s who feel put upon by the amount of effort they put in. Especially when the venn diagram between such DMs and ones who say they love world-building and game prep shows considerable overlap.

Yeah, I'm pretty much with you there. I'm simultaneously in the camp that says there can be a bridge too far in how much I'm willing to change things and still run a given game, and thinking that the early habits in this hobby have left a lot of control-freak tendencies strewn around the role of GM I think it'd be far better off without.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Yeah, I'm pretty much with you there. I'm simultaneously in the camp that says there can be a bridge too far in how much I'm willing to change things and still run a given game, and thinking that the early habits in this hobby have left a lot of control-freak tendencies strewn around the role of GM I think it'd be far better off without.

Sure, I don’t think it’s a zero sum game where it’s like one or the other. I’m not against saying no at times… I just don’t do so willy-nilly or do so based solely on my preferences.

I think you can show consideration to players and what they want, and still arrive at an end they might not prefer… assuming everyone is reasonably mature.

From what we see in these discussions, I think it’s the DMs who tend to be more zealous about “their campaigns” and insisting on the final arbiter thing.

 

[Thomas Shey]

From what we see in these discussions, I think it’s the DMs who tend to be more zealous about “their campaigns” and insisting on the final arbiter thing.

Well, the more rigid GMs are liable to be the ones that standout in these discussions; GMs who have a fair bit of give aren't liable to be the ones with big objections.

 

[pemerton]

Would you not say that signing a contract with terms you dislike but tolerate is agreeing to those terms?

In the same way that clicking “I agree” on the terms and conditions of a license still counts as agreeing to those terms and conditions, even if I don’t like those terms and conditions and plan to try to look for a way around them.

These are questions with legal answers that depend upon the contract law and consumer law of a particular jurisdiction.

For instance, if a particular jurisdiction has a law that precludes the exclusion of certain statute-implied terms; or has a law that prohibits the inclusion of a certain term in a contract; then no one can agree to such a thing regardless of what they sign or what button they push.

A simple example that would apply in most jurisdictions is that no one can agree to sell themself into slavery, regardless of what document they might execute.

Anyway, I don't see that these legal examples shed much light on understanding the social process of converging on rules for RPGing.

 

[pemerton]

I agree with you here.

The designers of modern D&D, however, don't seem to agree with either of us; in that they've stripped out most of the loss conditions and make the remaining few rather difficult to achoeve.

Modern D&D isn't built around the idea of winning or losing. It's offering a completely different RPG experience from classic D&D. To use the current jargon, it's built to support neo-trad/OC play with a hint of trad on the side.

Of course if someone wants to take the basic rules chassis, and add in other stuff (derived from Arneson, Gygax and/or Moldvay, or from some OSR riff on their ideas), and play the resulting game in the classic style, nothing is stopping them. But it's obvious that this is not the default framing for WotC's presentation of the game.

 

[Hussar]

Wow. Whodathunk that saying we should cooperate in a cooperative game would spawn so much contention?

 

[Oofta]

I see this as a criticism of modern D&D. A lot. "Kids these days...in my day we had to fight orcs uphill. In the snow. Both ways!"

I think contemporary D&D makes it harder for an inexperienced D&D to wipe out a party by accident, and I think that's a good thing. I don't think it makes it harder for an experienced DM to challenge a party. I can build a challenging encounter no problem. So I think that contemporary D&D gives the DM more control over the difficulty level, and that's a good thing.

That said, I had the same main character for all of my AD&D years, as did most of my friends, so I also think the lethality of the game "back in the day" is overstated. Modern parties aren't festooned with 10' poles and disposable hirelings.

Also, I don't see level drain as making the game particularly harder, I just see it as making the game more annoying while adding a mechanism that makes no narrative sense.

We largely avoided level drain and while I don't remember details of how we did it, most PCs survived. There have always been different ways of playing.

I would also say that there are several fail states short of death, dismemberment or level loss. Sometimes those failure states can have more impact on some players than a character dying. At least they do for me and my players.

 

[Hussar]

We largely avoided level drain and while I don't remember details of how we did it, most PCs survived. There have always been different ways of playing.

I would also say that there are several fail states short of death, dismemberment or level loss. Sometimes those failure states can have more impact on some players than a character dying. At least they do for me and my players.

We used a homebrew rule from Dragon Magazine where level drain healed at 1 level per week. I then gave things like wights a claw/claw/bite routine.

But yeah not a whole lot of people thought undoing weeks of play randomly was much fun when entire campaigns lasted a matter of a single school year.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Are we? Again, how does one play in a game with rules they don’t agree to? Is one being forced to play somehow?

People can comply grudgingly without actually agreeing.

A conclusion or statement that doesn’t logically follow from the previous argument or statement is exactly what the response was.

You not agreeing with the definition of 'agree' does not make it so my statement didn't logically follow.

 

[MGibster]

The DMG has a section on house rules, and says the DM can change or make up rules, as long as they think that it will improve the game, and the players will like it. It also suggests DMs take player feedback on house rules, and remove or revise them as necessary.

That sounds like reasonable advice. Are you sure it was in the DMG?

If Rule 0 were a line in a movie, it would be from the 1981 comedy film, Stripes: "Lighten up, Francis."

Part of me wants to make a joke about age, but since I understand the reference I'm keeping my mouth shut.