D&D DMing is not playing chess against the players!!

[billd91]

Gaming fans on the internet may be few in number but individually each is mightier than a dozen casual gamers, almost gaming Spartans as it were.

Fans who care enough to spend time online discussing these things represent more than just the products that they buy themselves. Dedicated gamers will be the ones most likely to run demos at game stores, actively recruit new players, and inform the less connected members of the gaming community about products and the hobby in general since the majority doesn't go online to find out for themselves.

If designers are not paying attention to what the most active fans are saying then it is a mistake IMHO.

The real risk I see from paying too much attention to the internet discussion is the way it shapes the discourse. A relative few gamers can have a large impact on the discussion, channeling it in ways that you don't see so much in the broader gaming community at large. This may be whether they are really active fans, willing to run demos and game days, or not.

So there's a risky element in paying attention to the most active posting fans as well. You may "fix" the squeaky wheel only to find that most players preferred the root cause of the squeaking unfixed.

There's also the echo chamber risk. Positions and ideas may bouce back and forth among the subset of gamers that comprise the set of active posters until they become common "wisdom". Yet they may not reflect the opinion of gamers or the world at large. You see this in all sorts of relatively insulated groups ranging from internet fanboys/girls to political think tanks. If the common wisdom produced in the echo chamber fits the biases of the game designers, you may see it them heavily drawing on it to the game's ultimate detriment.

It's because of these issues that I have absolutely no problem with people chiming in with alternative play style commentary. Open forums, marketplaces of ideas, need to have diversity of ideas.

 

[Silverblade The Ench]

Stay Frosty.

In this case, it wasn't even that ... the guy who started the thread was upset that people were trying to figure out if the game's math works out from the monster's standpoint.

Cheers, -- N

Um, no.
It wasn't that the perosn was working out of the summons was gonna be worthwhile now/efficient
it was that "the whole viewpoint had shifted to playing an RPG has become Kriegspiel"
that the DM was expected to play the critters purely tactically to "win D&D/defeat players", rather than as "critters with tactics and their own minds"

I've seen many threads with folk talk like that, and not about comparitive analysis of the game's mechanics, but about how they actually play it like that :/
They play for efficiency, metagaming and viewing critters as "tactical objects only".

sure everyone cna play it how they like, but there's way too much of this, it's pushing D&D into being a board game...


Again, I like 4th ed, but this isn't a good thing :/

 

[LordBill]

'Critter Mentality' tempered by 'Fun' is the magic formula for me.

My critters do what makes sense for the critter to do. Then add a dash of fun (I love the Mindflayer hungry for wizard brains idea, by the way!)

Voila!

Everyone wins.




In my experience, the very worst games are 'DM vs Player'

 

[Scribble]

Oh certainly not worthy of VIP status or anything. The vocal die hard fans don't deserve special treatment but failing to acknowledge their influence at all is unwise.

Remaining silent about products that you would like to see changed/improved or offered at all is the surest way to make sure that change never happens.

Who said anything about remaining silent?

I say feel free to talk to no end about what you prefer, and even say that you prefer this to something else that you don't find fun.

I think it's only a problem when, not only do you have an opinion about the "fun-ness" of something, but you try to then prove to everyone how their own ideas are wrong.

I think talking about things you'd like in the game, or things you find fun is a better way to reinforce what you want, as opposed to just attacking things you dislike.

Just my opinion, though.

 

[Nifft]

Um, no.
It wasn't that the perosn was working out of the summons was gonna be worthwhile now/efficient
it was that "the whole viewpoint had shifted to playing an RPG has become Kriegspiel"
that the DM was expected to play the critters purely tactically to "win D&D/defeat players", rather than as "critters with tactics and their own minds"

The DM is expected to know the best way to play his critters, because sometimes, the critters are supposed to be smarter than the DM.

I've seen many threads with folk talk like that, and not about comparitive analysis of the game's mechanics, but about how they actually play it like that :/
They play for efficiency, metagaming and viewing critters as "tactical objects only".

If you don't know how to play well, then you can't play well. Period.

If you do know how to play well, you can make an informed choice about how to play. That choice may be informed by roleplaying, or plot, or meta-game concerns. It's your choice to make... unless you choose to be ignorant of the mechanics. Then you can't make an informed decision.

sure everyone cna play it how they like, but there's way too much of this, it's pushing D&D into being a board game...

How exactly is their conversation impacting YOUR game?

Did they come to your house & force you to play on a board?

 

[Umbran]

Remaining silent about products that you would like to see changed/improved or offered at all is the surest way to make sure that change never happens.

The surest way to get what you want is not go speak on message boards, but to buy things that give you what you want. Vote with your wallet, and all that. Flapping your electronic gums will sit a distant second compared to the balance sheet.

Being negative about someone else's play style is not a good way to convince people to cater to you. Being against something is a good way to make yourself look bad, as you have to spend your time saying negative things - you generally end up looking like someone who got up on the wrong side of the bed, all grumpy. Who wants to deal with a customer who seems to be spending their time being down on everything?

So, go ahead and support your own play style, but skip the part where you get annoyed at the other play styles, and feel you have to "challenge" them. Just do your own thing, like they are doing theirs. If there are enough folks like you, then someone will cater to you, because doing so will be good business.

 

[fuzzlewump]

They play for efficiency, metagaming and viewing critters as "tactical objects only".

sure everyone cna play it how they like, but there's way too much of this, it's pushing D&D into being a board game...


Again, I like 4th ed, but this isn't a good thing :/

Didn't Doug's quote of Dragon Magazine establish that this, not 'good thing,' has been around about 30 years before 4th edition? And check out the same kind of threads in the 3rd edition forum. Mathematics and statistics exist in any version of D&D; some are interested in it, others are not.

What they choose as the defining fun characteristic of their game is their issue, and complaining about it in such a nebulous way seems dubious at best.

If this is simply a thread about how much you like storytelling and realistic portrayal of NPC's, then awesome, but that has nothing to do with any edition of D&D I don't think.

 

[Aegeri]

The surest way to get what you want is not go speak on message boards, but to buy things that give you what you want. Vote with your wallet, and all that. Flapping your electronic gums will sit a distant second compared to the balance sheet.

How do you vote with your wallet on an issue that is almost entirely at the discrimination of a human being? Putting aside mechanics, this has been ongoing from 2E and hell, you even encounter this sort of thing in World of Darkness. If the DM/ST makes very mechanically "optimal" things in combat and basically treats the game as a race to see who can best exploit the game, it's hard to do anything about in reality by not buying it.

The only real solution is to go and find a group of players who like playing the game like you do! Or just not play at all

 

[The Shaman]

The surest way to get what you want is not go speak on message boards, but to buy things that give you what you want. Vote with your wallet, and all that. Flapping your electronic gums will sit a distant second compared to the balance sheet.

Well, I bought stuff I like and didn't buy stuff I don't like and yet somehow a lot of crap in which I have no interest is still being published.

What's my Plan B, there, Umbran?

 

[Herschel]

So the referee should not run the npcs tactically, except when he should?

Manwhut?

There's a big difference between tactically and logically. Unintelligent monsters especially have a different type of "logic" more based on instincts than reasoned thought. Take a hungry bear with pals facing a warlord and a swordmage. The swordmage may LOOK easier to hit than the armored warlord but in reality isn't. Tactically, going after the leader makes the most sense, but instinctually the "appearing" unarmored swordmage makes more sense.