D&D General D&D as a Curated, DIY Game or "By the Book": Examining DM and Player Agency, and the DM as Game Designer

[Urriak Uruk]

I think what I was realizing is that there is a profound difference in the a priori starting points that different people have when they start these conversations, and this is why they get so confusing.

In my conception of what it is to play D&D, it is always a custom game. The DM is the initial "game designer" at the table. That does not preclude player collaboration on building the world through ideas and/or emergent play- it's the best part! But because every game is a custom game, I would never assume that anything (including PHB races or classes) is standard. Now, there are many times that the table might want to play a "standard" D&D game- whether it's a one-shot, or a competition (remember those?), or because that's what the table wants. But I would always go into a situation with the assumption that, at session 0, there will be some DM guidance about the guidelines of this custom game, and that players will design characters within those guidelines.

On the other hand, there are many people who start with the assumption that D&D is always standard; that any deviation from "base" or "core" D&D by the DM needs to be justified. A player should be allowed to create any type of PC, and it is the job of the DM as referee/facilitator to find a place for the PC, so long as the PC was created within the rules.

In the other thread, I just saw that @cbwjm posted this:
Maybe, I have definitely noticed a lot more people nowadays who think that just because something exists in a core book it must exist in game (could easily just be due to the prevalence of forums and social media making it seem like more though). I remember having an argument with people on Reddit who seemingly took offence at my statement that my world didn't have dinosaurs in it. They couldn't grasp that everything in the book is an option and that somewhere in the real world a game was being played where they couldn't polymorph or wildshape into dinosaurs.

And that's where a lot of the befuddlement, for me, came. Because people can yell and scream at each other on the internet; despite the protestations, the actual positions of most people aren't that different.

A: "It's my way or the highway. DM RULEZ"

B: "You're a terrible person. Players should be able to bring any concept, ever, and the DM has to accept it. U A PLAYA HATER!"

A: "That's silly. Besides, at my table, we actually discuss stuff. Not like your table, where people show up and DEMAND that the player gets to play."

B: "No, you're the silly one. Besides, at my table, we actually discuss stuff. Not like you table, where people show up and the DM DEMANDS that the player plays what the DM wants."

etc.

To me, though, I kept noticing that one of the fault lines kept going to the "if it's in the published material, the DM has to use it." Which is something I'm not familiar with; it's just a difference of opinion.


EDIT- by the way, I am not offering this as a be-all, end-all approach to solving the DM Agency/Player Agency "debate." Just a different way of looking at it in terms of D&D.

Weirdly, I listened recently to a talk between Adam Koebel and Matt Colville where this disagreement was addressed. Koebel was frustrated with D&D 5E because he is not a fan of any ruleset in which you can disregard a rule if you don't like it, and argues that's an inherent weakness of the ruleset. He also believes it is a failing of the rules designers of 5E, that whenever challenged on flawed rules, they just shrug it off and say "if you don't like that ruling, don't use it in your game. The rules are guidelines, not hard rules."

Colville sort-of agreed, especially in that it's not the best tactic to use D&D 5E for every TTRPG game experience, but tacked away as well. He finds it extremely positive that the D&D 5E rules are, as designed, meant to be flexible and very well suited for homebrew and alternative rulings, as opposed to 4E (which he argued was much more inflexible). 5E allows a lot more additional rules for people to create on their own, and new infrastructure like the DMsGuild helps propagate that material.

Anyway, the rules are really more a shared framework to resolve disagreements between the DM and players. But if everyone agrees that they don't like a rules, say for example material components, then there is no harm in not using them.

 

[Neonchameleon]

I believe you as to that being your intent, but using phrases like "almighty throne" and "kowtow" suggests that DM as sole curator has some tyrannical undertones.

The DM enforcing their role as sole curator against the wishes of the players absolutely deserves tyrannical undertones.

The DM being willing to be sole curator because that's what suits everyone is a different story.

 

[Oofta]

When it comes to published campaigns, those campaigns serve one of two purposes. Either their trying to sell setting specific books such as DarkSun or they're trying to sell as many supplemental books as possible as FR. I sincerely doubt FR is a kitchen sink because it makes sense for the setting, it's a kitchen sink because a lot of people use it as their campaign world and they want people to buy new books.

In other words, what makes sense for a published campaign has little or nothing to do with how a home campaign is run.

 

[TwoSix]

What has been published in any D&D that's an example of a novel setting defined by curation and exclusion? I can get about as far as Dark Sun's divine magic (Dark Sun being pretty kitchen sink-ish otherwise) and Council of Wyrms. Meanwhile Greyhawk, the Forgotten Realms, Eberron, the Nentir Vale, Golarion, and just about everything else that has been remotely core are all kitchen sink. Greyhawk looks less so in retrospect simply because it's the oldest.

Dragonlance is pretty exclusionary, since it throws out some broad swathes of the Monster Manual. Same with Dark Sun.

 

[prabe]

You mean it's silly to consider looking someone in the eye and saying "No you can't play what you want and there's no way and no how I'm going to adapt my world to make us both have fun and have fun playing something that isn't your most inspired choice for X hours per week" different to not taking into account what people you have never met or heard of might want?

They're not different.

I started both my campaigns in game stores, and I was willing to tell people I hadn't met yet they couldn't play certain things; I was equally willing to say that to people I've known for years--why should some of the people at the table get special treatment because we're age-old friends, never mind the question of whether my wife should be more-special than anyone else at the table.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Dragonlance is pretty exclusionary, since it throws out some broad swathes of the Monster Manual. Same with Dark Sun.

You're suggesting Dragonlance is pretty exclusionary since there are things on the DM's toolbox that it suggests not using - when the DM has the absolute power to overrule the published setting if they want to anyway?

That's not really my definition of exclusionary.

 

[tetrasodium]

I think that 5e's reliance on "rulings, not rules" is what makes it so amenable to easy customization.

OD&D, and to a lesser extent, 1e also did the same thing. The primary difference is that a lot of the "rulings" eventually calcified into published rules - and many of the divergent rules didn't play well together since they were created on an ad hoc basis (hence the issues with the d6 or d20 or d00 for similar things).

I don't agree at all and think that trying to make that claim involves conflating the two. Everything in 5e is a one off rule with little structural framework linking it. Someone else mentioned needing to check a rulebook in an old edition like 3.5 if being on higher ground meant +2 or not, the ruing is "yes or no" and the +2 is because there is a framework saying that a circumstance/situation/whatever bonus is +2 while a penalty is -2. 5e lacks that so the answer is a rule once you include the fact that the gm needs to makeup a system for how it benefits/hinders someone. A ruling is "yes being on higher/lower ground helps/hinders someone in this situation" a rule is what it does to help. in the past the PC would have a good idea of how much it would help/hinder if at all and so did the player.... both PC & player could confidentially estimate the benefits of that high ground because there was a rules structure for them to estimate against.

You only need to look at ome f the optional dmg rules that fail at the goal thy need to meet or all of the discussion about different races being all over the map in the number kinds & value of things given by races after tasha's came out to shine a spotlight on how completely lacking in structure they were as evidence to how badly that lack of structural framwork hinders a gm from making changes to 5e when wotc can't even do it without exposing just how haphazzard the whole mess is...

Others are talking about how 5e is great at letting the gm build the kind of setting they want & that is where 5e shines... but that's a flawed argument as well because wotc used the core rulebooks as a standin for the 5e version of "forgotten realms campaign setting" to the virtual exclusion of all other settings unless those settings happen to be basically the same as FR in some area. The GM's freedom here is much like Henry Ford's "you can have any color you want as long as it's black". Sure "you can make any setting you want... as long as it looks & acts like FR" might be applicable, but it's hardly a ringing endorsement for 5e being a system that shines at letting the gm make the setting they want.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

never mind the question of whether my wife should be more-special than anyone else at the table.

I mean .... I would certainly hope that your wife is more-special than anyone else at the table.

Not that I'm judging! I hear that the kids today are all into the poly and the ethical non-monoga...

Oh, wait. You meant as a player!

 

[TwoSix]

You're suggesting Dragonlance is pretty exclusionary since there are things on the DM's toolbox that it suggests not using - when the DM has the absolute power to overrule the published setting if they want to anyway?

That's not really my definition of exclusionary.

In the context of "Do we have examples of settings that are defined by excluding core elements of the rules", I would say replacing orcs, gnolls, goblins, etc. with draconians is a pretty salient example, yes.

 

[Twiggly the Gnome]

You mean it's silly to consider looking someone in the eye and saying "No you can't play what you want and there's no way and no how I'm going to adapt my world to make us both have fun and have fun playing something that isn't your most inspired choice for X hours per week" different to not taking into account what people you have never met or heard of might want?

My contention is that a prospective player who has read my campaign syllabus and demands to play a halfling has no more standing than a player that demands to play a gnome in a Darksun game.