Axioms of D&D

[hong]

DM Axiom #8: If you spend hours setting up a believable, compelling, interesting, and immersive adventure, the PCs will miss the hook entirely and whine the entire night about how this "adventure" sucks as they roam about the countryside looking for orcs to kill.

... I don't get it. Every believable, compelling, interesting, and immersive adventure MUST feature orcs to kill, surely.

Maybe I'll call that Axiom #9.

 

[Someguy]

Axiom 10-If it's different from them, they kill it.
Axiom 11-If it's the same as them, the kill it.

 

[rounser]

Every believable, compelling, interesting, and immersive adventure MUST feature orcs to kill, surely.

Point in case: "Orc and Pie", Monte Cook's finest hour.

 

[GuardianLurker]

First Rule of Player Behavior :
When the GM expects (or requires) the players to be smart, they'll be dumb. When the GM expects/requires the players to be dumb, they'll be smart.

Comment on the First Rule :
Especially when it will "ruin" the adventure.

Corrollary of the First Rule :
Never expect the players to remember all of their equipment.

Second Rule of Player Behavior :
It is impossible to predict player behavior or choices.

Corrollary of the Second Rule :
GMs must learn to think *really* fast.

First Rule of Adventure Design :
*Never* base the outcome of an adventure on the result of a single roll. For instance, don't put the magical artifact needed to defeat the big boss behind a secret door; it will not be found.

Second Rule of Adventure Design :
Anything that belongs to an NPC villain *will* end up belonging to the PCs by the end of the adventure; "ally" NPCs' equipment isn't safe either.

 

[Alejandro]

Heh. Reminds me of our Star Wars Top 10 List:

1. Jedi attract trouble.
2. Cute is bad. Cute and furry is worse.
3. When th GM draws a map, combat is near.
4. When characters near a cliff, precipice, or power core, climactic combat is near.
5. Dodge is the most important skill you can have.
6. You can never have too much body armor.
7. Everything explodes. Everything. And often when you do not want them to. This includes, but is not limited to, you, your friends, your starship, puddles of water, etc.
8. There is no such thing as overkill. "Nuke them from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."
9. While you may never get killed, there'll be plenty of times when you'll wish you were dead.
10. The ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the stupidity of your fellow PCs.

 

[Rel]

"Never buy shoes from a cobbler named Melkar the Destroyer."

"If powerful wizards ask you to retrieve an artifact of great evil and promise only to use it for good, check their references."

 

[nopantsyet]

This was one I learned from my players in a previous group:

Proposition: Never climb an 80' stone chimney in a mountain just because "it wouldn't be here if there wasn't something there."

Corollary #1: Web is not the same as feather fall.

Corollary #2: If you're going to fall when climbing it will be in the last 10'.

Corollary #3: Even good clerics can be begrudging about healing a character entangled in a web.

Conclusion #1: Even half-orc barbarians can die from falling. (Or at least close...-9HP.)

Conclusion #2: When the cleric gets entangled because he healed from near-death your half-orc barbarian who insisted on climbing an 80' stone chimney despite the opposition of the whole party, it's polite to help him out of the web.

 

[bret]

Just because you find a locked, barred, glyphed, fire trapped iron door doesn't mean you should open it.

It might be intended to keep something in rather than you out.

 

[Shadowdancer]

When the DM suddenly starts describing something in great detail, prepare to roll for initiative.

 

[Darkness]

If you stat it, they can kill it. (Although this might be less true in D&D 3e than it was before, given the obscene amounts of power some NPCs have...)