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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8397779" data-attributes="member: 42582">I think the DMG shows Gygax - as he, perhaps, always was - in a state of transition and invention, responding to the problems that his own game was throwing up for him and for others who were playing it. He doesn't always have the technical vocabulary to explain those things well - I think we have an advantage in that regard, being 40 years on in the history of RPGing. But in terms of game play I think he could clearly see what was going on.There are two places in the DMG where (in my view) we can see Gygax recognising some of the limits of neutrality as far as the transition from prep to actual situation in the game is concerned. (In previous posts on this point I've also referred to this as "content introduction".)The first is in the intro, on p 9: he considers the possibility that unlucky wandering monster rolls might wreck the game even for a group of players who aren't playing unskilfully and so haven't merited such punishment. He affirms that, in such cases, the GM should not "allow the party to kill them easily or escape unnaturally, for that goes contrary to the major precepts of the game." In other words, he sticks to his guns on skilful action resolution. But he does say that the GM might "omit the wandering monsters indicated by the die." That is to say, the GM might curate content to ensure the play experience doesn't become self-defeating.The second places is in the discussion of dice rolls on p 110. Here we see Gygax reinforce the major precepts of the game, when he talks about the possibility of ameliorating undeserved character death: this should only be done for a player who "ha<s> done everything correctly, taken every reasonable precaution, but still the freakish roll of the dice will kill the character." In such cases, the GM may inflict a lesser penalty than death, such as blinding or maiming or unconsciousness "that still takes into account what the monster has done." But we also see him reiterate the point from the introduction, about the possibility of non-neutrality in "content introduction", ie in establishing the in-game situation: "You also might wish to give them [ie the players] an edge in finding a particular clue, e.g. a secret door that leads to a complex of monsters and treasures that will be especially entertaining."This is a departure from neutrality. By giving the players an edge in finding an entertaining part of the dungeon, the GM is no longer neutrally playing the setting. To a modest extent, this undermines the control that skilful players exercise over scene-framing if they play as Gygax advised them to in his PHB. It undermines the utility of a wand of secret door detection.But it obviously has the potential to make the play experience more entertaining.Strict neutrality is a very demanding requirement, and I think fits more naturally with wargaming than with the cooperative "immersion in situation and character" that RPGing quickly evolved into for many if not most participants.EDIT:This is a more pronounced version of the same issue that Gygax is grappling with in his DMG, of managing the transition from set-up to actual situation in play without making the play experience a pointless or self-defeating one.</blockquote>

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