Afterword

[Alan Shutko]

This quote is interesting if you consider it in light with his books Mastering the Game and Dungeon Mastery. It's been years since I read them, so I may misremember some things, but what I got from them was the idea that there is a platonic ideal in "The Game", and the closer you hewed to that ideal, the better the experience would be for everyone.

I would read this as being opposite to "don't let the rules get in the way of the fun". More like "Don't let arguments over the letter of the rules, or pleas from the players, distract you from pursuit of the spirit of the game."

Remember that this was the time when AD&D was meant to help standardize the experience across different tables, because D&D had been interpreted in a very freewheeling way. I don't think he would have suggested at that time "Oh, if you aren't having fun, just skip that rule." Rather, I'd expect something like you don't understand why that rule is there, here's why it's important, and here's how you work within that rule to get fun.

 

[Charles Wright]

I would argue that the opposite of "don't let the rules get in the way of having fun" would be "let the rules get in the way of having fun".

 

[Alan Shutko]

Where I'm going is perhaps more a difference between "Rules stopping fun? Skip the rule" and "Rules stopping fun? Don't skip the rule, you're doing it wrong, do this instead."

 

[Charles Wright]

I see your opinion as valid. It's not what I pulled from it when I read it, but I get you.

 

[Emerikol]

I've always held to those words and consider them in force in any campaign I run. If I ever find I can't get players under those terms, I'll stop playing altogether. So far I have waiting lines for my games so I'm not worried. Ultimately power can be used for good or evil. (Evil in quotes if you want). You can be a jerk or you can be a DM that genuinely seeks a fun game.

I believe the DM should set out to run a game that he would absolutely love as a player and that he loves running as a DM. Then he should seek players who have the same desires. If a player becomes disruptive or wants a different style then I think parting company is best. It doesn't mean you have to have 100% agreement but the DM should rule the game he runs because he will run that game best if his goals are right. The players have less commitment though not a minor one.

 

[innerdude]

More generallly, though, I think that Gygax is emphasising the integrity of the GM's creation over the experience of the players. That's not unreasonable or anything - it was debated in the letters pages and articles of the magazines of that time, and it continues to be debated on these boards today - but it's not a position I agree with.

I think the spirit, or emphasis of the quote is to carefully consider the consequences of player overreach---asking for inappropriate considerations, whatever they may be. Those could be loot, player "spotlight" time, disruptive characterizations ("Of course my thief steals from everyone in the party, why wouldn't she?"), or in-game plotting ("Hey GM, we can totally do insert crazy thing here and you have to allow it!").

To me it's an appeal to maintain integrity and continuity of vision, and I've found that players that want to achieve that goal as much as the GM does make the best players.

Players who respect those boundaries / vision are generally those that actively and willingly contribute to campaign background, character background, and engage in conflict resolution in productive rather than disruptive ways.

To me a player who vocally grates against the spirit of what Gygax espouses here is generally A) a pain in the butt, and B) interested in only producing the kind of experience he or she wants, regardless of how it affects the group.

 

[pemerton]

Mostly because I think that it's a part of play that has been lost by a lot of people I see posting.

<snip>

This saddens me because I feel that they aren't playing to the original spirit of the game.

OK, so I was correct to infer that you do endorse Gygax's remarks.

When I started playing the idea was to put the game first. What that meant was "putting fun first".

"The game" as described is indeed not about a particular product or product line. The game refers to the good time and ongoing fun to be had by ALL participants.

Gygax says game 1st, campaign 2nd, participants last. I'm not sure how you can read that as an invocation to put the fun of the participants first.

If you do read it in that way, then why would you dissent from my post 2 upthread, in which I said that I put the participants in my game first?

What I endorse, and how I've played the game in the past and play it now is that I create a world and I invite people to take part in it.

OK, so you put your campaign ahead of the participants in your game. I don't, and I personally would never advise a new GM to do so. In my experience it makes for a poorer play experience than playing with a GM who puts the participants first and the gameworld second.

To help me grow and create that world. I think of the DM-Player relationship as inherently cooperative.

I don't think of the role of the players being to help grow and create the GM's world. In the last AD&D game I played in, the GM thought of the game in roughly those terms. It caused the game to fall apart, because it meant that he would not accept player declarations of actions for their PCs (on small or large scale) that didn't fit into his preconception of his world.

I think that people who don't like this quote think of that relationship as inherently antagonistic.

I don't like the quote very much, in the sense that I don't agree with Gygax's priorities and don't think they make for better play. That doesn't mean that I see my relationship with my players as inherently antagonistic. Certainly far less than Gygax seemed to, judging from some of his remarks in his DMG (as [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] alluded to upthread)!

Using the rules to bully other players (which includes the DM) is not something I endorse.

<snip>

It also saddens me because I think that a cooperative game isn't possible when you've cowed the person running the game under the guise of "player advocacy".

Do you have concerete examples in mind? My advice to a GM who feels "cowed" or "bullied" by the people s/he is playing with would be to find new friends. Bullying is a genuine social problem, but I don't think it is has any distinctive significance for roleplaying.

 

[pemerton]

I think the spirit, or emphasis of the quote is to carefully consider the consequences of player overreach---asking for inappropriate considerations, whatever they may be. Those could be loot, player "spotlight" time, disruptive characterizations ("Of course my thief steals from everyone in the party, why wouldn't she?"), or in-game plotting ("Hey GM, we can totally do insert crazy thing here and you have to allow it!").

What i think he was mostly trying to teach new DMs was that often the things that players want for their characters can destroy a campaign.

This was the lesson I learned from Gygax: to block player desires for their PCs. It was some of the worst GMing advice I ever received. Once I let go of it, and started following my players' leads, my GMing, and my RPGing more generally, improved no end.

 

[Morrus]

All that paragraph says to me is "Rule Zero", albeit in Gygax's own particular writing style. I certainly took nothing else away from it.

 

[MerricB]

One of the biggest problems I have with the DMG is that Gary occasionally assumes too much knowledge on the part of the reader. There's this wealth of experience informing his writing, but without that experience, some of the advice is rather opaque or easily misinterpreted!

For instance, the heavily house-ruled campaigns of original D&D (where groups would replace a lot of the rules) so that the entire structure of the game changed are fairly alien to us now. In the original D&D, it encourages monsters-as-PCs, but by AD&D, the advice is "don't do it!", which shows how much more experience Gary had by then with, not only his own group, but with how many other groups were running the game.

Looking at the DMG entry on "Time" has a campaign being played on a near-daily schedule with several groups of players all participating, not always together. That's a fair cry from how D&D is normally played today. However, lots of groups into megadungeons was far more common in the early days, from what I've read.

I look at the afterword to the DMG, and think I understand what Gary was talking about: that individual sessions should be enjoyable, that the campaign as a whole likewise, and to not let disruptive players get in the way of the fun... but he's adding in other ideas at the same time and I feel it's not as clear as it should be.

Cheers!