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

[Belen]

I've mentioned the GM having a tiebreaker vote several times. Giving the GM a tiny bit of authority more than any individual other player is not even close to the same as they having all authority this side of everyone taking a walk. It just says you probably want to have somebody be able to do so, and while you could have a designated player who does instead of the GM, there's no particular reason not to have that vested in them, too.

The main argument is what level of responsibility should a DM have and it is ill-defined. The new rule 0 does not really help. It does not really clarify.

IMO, the DM is the engine that keeps D&D and many TTRPGs running. This is a person that does an enormous amount of work to run games and campaigns for players to enjoy. There are good and bad DMs as there are good and bad players.

Many in this thread have argued that the DM has virtually zero or very small responsibility. The argument seems that they are beholden to provide the experience players want or they are bad, tyrannical people. I do not see any that are saying that want total power to dictate everything, but there is a strong current that any restrictions or rulings made by the DM are because people want absolute power.

Personally, if I run a game, I want to have run so I create a setting or series of world/region events that will keep me engaged and willing to do the extra work to be the DM.

Many players just want to show up and have fun. They may want a particular concept, or class, or species and that may be ok; however, if I have a specific region that does not have a certain species and a player wants it, then they better be prepared to do the work.

In my experience, many players will not be willing to take on additional responsibility. Why should the DM who has spent hours, days, weeks, months or years to build something have to take on additional responsibility?

The new rule zero works well if the game is equally collaborative but does not account for the extra responsibility that a DM takes on so that players can have a good time.

 

[Belen]

Absolutely! Multiple have said it is never acceptable, for any reason, to have any discussion actually at the table. If you try, you're a problem and you will be removed. This effectively nixes the vast majority of possibilities of discussion, particularly because in my experience, even with very good DMs, discussion outside of game is akin to Mr. Sopwith's description of how many camels he's spotted: "Nearly...ooh...nearly one." "Nearly one?" "Call it none."

Several others have openly rejected any possibility of even out-of-game discussion in past threads. One has said, repeatedly, that they know every territory, polity, and faction of the entire world in which their campaigns occur. It literally isn't possible for any PCs to come from a "ʜɪᴄ ꜱᴠɴᴛ ᴅʀᴀᴄᴏɴᴇꜱ" type region, nor to be any sort of one-off experiment or the result of an accident, nor any other possible way a being could be anything other than one of the races they have established...even though (by their own admission) the players have never been to several of those regions, know nothing about them, and have no possible way to have learned the slightest thing about those places.

There is absolutely a strong antipathy for ever sitting down, hearing what the player has to say, and sincerely working to find a resolution that would please both parties. In some cases, to even ask for it has been likened, I kid you not, to being an outright terrorist trying to destroy the DM's "vision." I can't recall if it was "terrorist" or "saboteur", but it was definitely one of those two words explicitly used to refer to players who dared question anything about the setting or options not explicitly included.

This has not been a strong theme in this thread. You may be reading more into what has been said based on your own preconceptions.

 

[Emerikol]

Then your authority is not and cannot be absolute. If someone can reasonably petition for change and actually have some chance of getting it--even if that change is not at all guaranteed!--then the authority is not absolute. It admits correction from other sources. Yet "absolute authority", a term I have advocated against time and time again and been told no, it really has to be specifically "absolute authority" and nothing less, is what is always used as the line in the sand here.

This is a language thing of course but absolute authority is just having the final decision. It doesn't mean people can't try to convince you to change your mind. It just means a group can't force you.

edit: typo

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I think there's also the overlooked solution of not designing a setting with a bunch of stuff players might object to.

If you can spend 6 months designing a setting with just 3 races, and not having any logical way to have more, why not just, ya know, spend that time designing a setting with a place for everything?

Because it is a lot more work. It also is much harder to give each species a distinct identity if there are a ton of them. With selected few it is much easier for them to actually matter.

 

[TwoSix]

Well, I do have to point out Star Trek and LotR are both settings and systems, where D&D is avowedly just the latter. Someone telling you they're running a D&D campaign probably is telling you at least some minimalist things about the system in play, but it doesn't automatically tell you anything about which races and classes (as two examples) are available. I agree most people would expect it does, but that's not an absolute given (unlike someone, say, who says they're running a Forgotten Realms game).

To be fair, every published setting for 5e includes all the classes, and the only settings with racial restrictions are the M:tG ones (and they're fairly soft restrictions.) Going into a novel 5e group with the general expectation that all core material is in play is certainly valid.

As you said, general expectation, not an absolute given. But receiving some amount of justification for exclusions from the DM is a totally valid expectation.

 

[TwoSix]

Because it is a lot more work. It also is much harder to give each species a distinct identity if there are a ton of them. With selected few it is much easier for them to actually matter.

The amount of work seems relatively immaterial, since you are presumedly doing this as a leisure activity.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I wasn't asking for such advice, so while I appreciate that you are trying to be productive, this is pretty much a total non sequitur.

I was simply trying to respectfully respond to the (mostly irrelevant) argument of "you just need to find a group!" Because that somehow magically wishes away any concerns about whether the rules, procedures, and advice written into a system's books--which is the actual topic of the thread!--are actually well-made or not.

Okay. Well, whether or not the rules are well-made is certainly a discussion point that everyone seems to be happy to argue about. Not that there's any actual answer to the question, because no one will ever agree on what "well-made" actually means in this context, let alone whether 5E24 falls into it, LOL.

 

[Emerikol]

Okay so, since folks have been so eager to ascribe wacko crazy positions to me:

Are you genuinely asserting that it is a fundamental and unforgivable violation of every single DM's setting ever, to ask "hey, can I play dragonborn?"

No. I don't ever say the question is wrong. Maybe it something the DM won't find that challenging to integrate. It just depends. I would not suggest it if I got a session 0 preplay packet that said the races allowed are A,B,C,D. I would pick one of those without question.

There are a lot of reasons a DM might not want a race. Some are flavor and some are mechanics. If it is mechanics you could just say "Hey i want to look like a dragonborn but I'll operate mechanically like a human." If it is flavor it is harder but you could ask him if he had some other flavor that would enable you to use the same mechanics. It also depends on what you wanted to play.

Like, for real. Are you really saying this? The 3rd or 4th most popular non-human race in 5e?

I do think draconian (forgive the pun) changes to the standard PHB options should be telegraphed ahead of time.

This is probably why I don't like 5e though because there are so many races, classes, and subclasses that it seems bad to me but that is my preference.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Okay. Well, whether or not the rules are well-made is certainly a discussion point that everyone seems to be happy to argue about. Not that there's any actual answer to the question, because no one will ever agree on what "well-made" actually means in this context, let alone whether 5E24 falls into it, LOL.

It would seem, then, that you don't see much point in participating in a thread on the topic of "A glimpse at WoTC's current view of Rule 0", since the only possible things one could discuss on that topic are (a) that it was done (which is...not much of a discussion), or (b) the wisdom of WotC's current view. The latter is a discussion about whether the rules, tools, advice, etc. are well-made or not.

Note that I am not saying you should or shouldn't post anywhere. Just that, based on what you have said in this post, I'm not sure the very premise of the thread is one you find interesting or worthwhile to discuss.

 

[Emerikol]

The amount of work seems relatively immaterial, since you are presumedly doing this as a leisure activity.

People will work hard for something that they are passionate about but they won't feel motivated if it is just meh to them.