D&D Essay #1: Imbalance of Power [EDIT: 2nd draft in post 44.]
- Thread starter Reynard
- Start date
Fifth Element
Legend
Um....okay...was there supposed to be a smiley there somewhere?werk said:
Very good essay.
frankthedm
First Post
Because he is the one running the game.FireLance said:
Reynard said:
Stormtower
First Post
Reynard said:
Thanks, Reynard. I enjoyed reading your essay.
Your final point about the social contract at a given D&D table is quite accurate, but it only tells half the story IMO. The players too have a responsibility to their DM - that being to remain within the accepted, negotiated framework of the DM's milieu. DM's have all the power they need to "break" a party of PCs at any moment. Conversely, players can easily sabotage a DM's prep work and sense of fairness by exploiting/excessively arguing rules, making broken PrC combos, or simply by intentionally derailing a campaign by ignoring plot hooks.
DMs need players and players need DMs, so this sort of adversarial relationship is rarely made manifest since everyone is there (ostensibly) to have a good time playing D&D. In my 20+ years of D&D I've noticed that the campaigns which last the longest and provide the most fun for players and DMs alike are those where the table culture/social contract is explicitly pre-negotiated at the start of the campaign.
To provide an example: my homebrew tends towards deep immersion, heavy RP, political intrigue and detailed resource management. However, this January I made a conscious decision to integrate the Shattered Gates of Slaughtergarde and Red Hand of Doom into my latest campaign arc. When I advertised this arc to my roster of players, I explicitly stated that it would be faster paced, more hack-n-slash, and would largely adhere to the modules' plotlines. The players who favored that style opted in, and those who prefer the deep immersion opted out (they have their own campaign branch to explore which is more my usual style).
So off we go into the modules as written - and my players all dutifully allowed their PCs to get snagged by every plot hook I dangled. They consciously chose NOT to break the modules because we had explicitly agreed beforehand that we were going to experience WotC's creations more or less as written. And we've had a blast with a very different play style than I am accustomed to as a DM. It's challenged me as a DM, and it's challenged my less combat-happy players to learn the game more thoroughly and optimize their PCs more efficiently.
So the delicate balance of power between players and DMs that you describe seems more easily maintained when everyone's expectations and desires for what's fun are laid out before a given campaign begins. What do you think?
I look forward to the next essay.
TerraDave
5ever, or until 2024
I have to quible with some of the basic premises
1) Imbalance across players is a problem, or at least issue, in lots of games, usually in the form of a first or second mover advantage (e.g. chess) but also sometimes coming from assigned role (e.g. you are assigned the Axis, and versimultude requires that the Allies have the edge).
2) many games have referees....these are not considered players. The idea of the referee was taken from war-gaming (as you sort of imply).
3) RPGs do have de-facto score keeping and "victories". And campaing play is not just known to RPGs.
On the other hand, the elements of cooperation and "evolving" play in RPGs do seem to be much less common. (Though an interesting aside is RPGs that do not have as much emphasis on these...can they sustain repeated play?). And they do have interesting implications, as you note. Including, probably, the "power and responsibility" of the DM.
But you also don't want to forget role-playing, hence point 4...
4) RPGs differ fundamentally from other games because of role-playing , which requires the DM in turn to take on all sorts of roles and do all sorts of things to allow PCs to better play their roles and less restricted then in other kinds of games. This would be true even with limited cooperation and even if the game was a "one-shot", and not campaign based.
1) Imbalance across players is a problem, or at least issue, in lots of games, usually in the form of a first or second mover advantage (e.g. chess) but also sometimes coming from assigned role (e.g. you are assigned the Axis, and versimultude requires that the Allies have the edge).
2) many games have referees....these are not considered players. The idea of the referee was taken from war-gaming (as you sort of imply).
3) RPGs do have de-facto score keeping and "victories". And campaing play is not just known to RPGs.
On the other hand, the elements of cooperation and "evolving" play in RPGs do seem to be much less common. (Though an interesting aside is RPGs that do not have as much emphasis on these...can they sustain repeated play?). And they do have interesting implications, as you note. Including, probably, the "power and responsibility" of the DM.
But you also don't want to forget role-playing, hence point 4...
4) RPGs differ fundamentally from other games because of role-playing , which requires the DM in turn to take on all sorts of roles and do all sorts of things to allow PCs to better play their roles and less restricted then in other kinds of games. This would be true even with limited cooperation and even if the game was a "one-shot", and not campaign based.
LostSoul
Adventurer
Reynard said:
Prime-Time Adventures.
edit: Some people don't consider that an RPG (I don't think it says RPG anywhere in the book itself). So let's make one:
Any time you do something in-game, the player to your right can demand you roll a d6. If you roll 1-3, you fail/can't narrate; if you roll 4-6, you succeed/can narrate.
There. That rule covers everything.
Another interesting thought is that there are some (very tightly structured) roleplaying games that do away with a separate referee entirely.
As I understand it, Nixon's Dunjon does this, as does one whose precise name escapes me (but LostSoul is wise and kind: Polaris) (it won an award of some sort fairly recently), in which each player has a position to play at the table, and represents an aspect of each of several interlinked characters (All I remember is that you're supposed to light a candle before each game, and drink chilled white wine and listen to Sigur Ròs whilst playing. I never said it was an unpretentious game!).
In other words, the Fog of War effect that seems to require a narrator can, with proper protocols, be sustained by players alone.
It's just tricky. Imagine, for instance, if each player ran two characters; their own character, and the nemesis of another. By having a larger number of game sessions, or structuring each session appropriately, you could prevent any character from learning the plans of his nemesis.
Alternatively, each player could represent the nemesis of another, and for each action a player attempts, be responsible for ensuring that the outcome matches the observed facts of the scene thus far, and have some sort of bidding system to ensure commensurate penalty to apparent risk.
(actually, that sounds kind of interesting. Maybe I should write this up.)
If any action required the votes of the non-involved players to determine success/failure/unexpected ramifications, the narrator role has been sufficiently spread around.
I probably wouldn't play this game too often, since it involves a LOT more structure than I'm used to, but there's no one narrator character, and is fairly tightly structured, more so than I usually enjoy.
It might be fun to play this before getting into a game to reflect the struggles of the gods while creating the world, though, leading to a shared campaign that has something interesting to each of the players.
It's also definitely not D&D
PS: Oo, my brain tingles from the interesting conversation. Thanks, Reynard!
As I understand it, Nixon's Dunjon does this, as does one whose precise name escapes me (but LostSoul is wise and kind: Polaris) (it won an award of some sort fairly recently), in which each player has a position to play at the table, and represents an aspect of each of several interlinked characters (All I remember is that you're supposed to light a candle before each game, and drink chilled white wine and listen to Sigur Ròs whilst playing. I never said it was an unpretentious game!).
In other words, the Fog of War effect that seems to require a narrator can, with proper protocols, be sustained by players alone.
It's just tricky. Imagine, for instance, if each player ran two characters; their own character, and the nemesis of another. By having a larger number of game sessions, or structuring each session appropriately, you could prevent any character from learning the plans of his nemesis.
Alternatively, each player could represent the nemesis of another, and for each action a player attempts, be responsible for ensuring that the outcome matches the observed facts of the scene thus far, and have some sort of bidding system to ensure commensurate penalty to apparent risk.
(actually, that sounds kind of interesting. Maybe I should write this up.)
If any action required the votes of the non-involved players to determine success/failure/unexpected ramifications, the narrator role has been sufficiently spread around.
I probably wouldn't play this game too often, since it involves a LOT more structure than I'm used to, but there's no one narrator character, and is fairly tightly structured, more so than I usually enjoy.
It might be fun to play this before getting into a game to reflect the struggles of the gods while creating the world, though, leading to a shared campaign that has something interesting to each of the players.
It's also definitely not D&D
PS: Oo, my brain tingles from the interesting conversation. Thanks, Reynard!
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