Dealing with an "oldschool" DM

[Ariosto]

The rest of that Mearls quote:

"I'm sympathetic to the idea, but human society has existed for thousands of years and has yet to find a solution for jerks. I don't think RPG rules are going to solve that."

 

[Thirsty]

I normally lurk around here and rarely post but this has been an interesting read for me as it reminds me of an experience I had a few years back running a game in 3.5. During the game I had a mini-rebellion bought on by a perceived lack of items since the party had not met the average wealth suggested by the DMG for their level. This came out of the blue since no one had actually talked to me about it previously.

The result from the subsequent discussion was two fold: firstly we "rebooted" the game and I allowed them free reign at items they thought would be appropriate and secondly, I chopped a large chunk of the campaign out as it was no longer particularly relevant (for other related reasons).

The net effect of these changes was unfortunately not really what the players wanted. They were all having more fun before the "reboot" than they had after. It also had the effect of convincing me to try other systems (WHFRP, HARP & RM) which the players knew far less about, and which we have all been enjoying a lot more than we were with D&D.

I guess the point I'm trying to make is "sometimes the cure is worse than the disease". If you are enjoying the game as it is, just beware that it might be less fun fixed.

 

[korjik]

I have a slight dilemma. I'm currently in a 4e campaign but until we started this campaign, my DM hadn't played since 1st edition in high school. He doesn't seem to grasp the fact that 4e is simplified and that the rules are more "set in stone" than previous editions to ensure balance; he still seems to think that every rule in the game is a guideline that he can change as he sees fit.

This causes a lot of issues in our games because he's not balancing things properly. Here's a few examples:

• He doesn't balance encounters; we only have 4 PCs but he uses encounters as-written in the published adventures. He says that the math WotC uses is flawed because we easily deal with encouners designed for 5 PCs but this is because half the time he forgets creature's powers, gets them flat out wrong, and/or plays monsters as mindless AI.
• Not only does he not scale down encounters, he also cheats us on XP as he divides the encounter by 5, not 4. He thinks that when a 4e adventure says it's for "14th - 17th level" it means like 1st edition where the PCs can be between those levels, when in fact it means it's supposed to take us FROM 14th level TO 17th level. We're playing through Demon Queen's Enclave right now but we're only level 13, about to hit level 14.
• He skimps on treasure; I'm not sure exactly what the ratio should be but we seem to have slightly less powerful items than we should have at 13th level.
• My girlfriend recently said she wanted to play, so I made her a character at the same level as us; until I convinced him otherwise the DM was wanting her to start a level or two behind, and STILL not scale the encounters or scale her XP accordingly to have her catch up; I can't seem to find an exact rule that says what XP amount new PCs are supposed to start with. He keeps saying that we blast through encounters with 4 PCs so "even if she was at 2nd level you would be better off than you are now, since you'd have 5 PCs".

I really don't know how to deal with it; I have the 4e DMG myself and the stuff he says makes no sense at all to me, and IMO it's not how the game is designed to work; I've played 1st, 2nd, 3rd and now 4th edition of D&D. Sure, he's the DM, but IMO 4e supposed to be a lot more "these are rules, not guidelines" than previous editions were, because the game is intended to be balanced on core assumptions, or require DM interaction to bring things into balance. Once you start changing the core rules or things like that, you're breaking that balance, more so if you don't compensate for it like my DM seems to do.

Any advice on this situation?

Sounds like two problems here:

First, he isnt an 'old school' DM, he is a bad DM. He seems to be too inflexible to take into account the new rule system, dosent seem to what to know what his monsters do, and dosent seme to know how to pace a game to make sure the characters can do what they should.

Second, you are being too much of a roll player, and not enough of a role player. So what if you are getting through encounters that the rules say you should lose. If you still had fun with the fight and adventure, then why should you even care that the monsters didnt use all their powers.

If you are not enjoying the game, then stop playing it. Find a different game or DM. If you are enjoying the game except for the DMs disregard for the rules, then shut up and play.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

Deleted.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Did they? Or were they just using it as a justification to ask for more treasure or easier monsters? I bet you 20 pence players don't cite the wealth-by-level guidelines as often when they they have more gear than they 'ought' to have.

There's always been a gamist element, especially in D&D. Players have always used arguments of all kinds as to why their PCs should be more powerful. Appeals to realism or fairness or whatever. It's just like a player in 1985 arguing he should get to use an OP class cause it's in Dragon magazine. It doesn't matter, the justifications shift and change. But the desire for power is eternal.

Well, in over overpowered 3E FR campaign, we figured out that we had way too much wealth according to our level and started investing into a castle and equipping our followers and cohorts to compensate a little.

[/Proof of the Contrary by Anecdote]

 

[fanboy2000]

He doesn't seem to grasp the fact that 4e is simplified and that the rules are more "set in stone" than previous editions to ensure balance; he still seems to think that every rule in the game is a guideline that he can change as he sees fit.

If that's what he actually thinks, he's right. 4e DMG pg 172: "You're not even limited to the encounter rules in the book or the selection of monsters in the Monster Manual--only your own imagination controls what you can do."

This causes a lot of issues in our games because he's not balancing things properly. Here's a few examples:

*He doesn't balance encounters; we only have 4 PCs but he uses encounters as-written in the published adventures. He says that the math WotC uses is flawed because we easily deal with encouners designed for 5 PCs but this is because half the time he forgets creature's powers, gets them flat out wrong, and/or plays monsters as mindless AI.

Are you complaining that he's throwing encounters that are to hard? That seems like a strange complaint because you admit that the encounters seem to be to easy. But then you complain that he runs the monster's wrong. So here's my question: what makes the encounter not fun? If you didn't know how the monster's were intended to be run or how the encounter's were designed would you still not find the experiance fun? Or is there something about the actual game play, beyond the encounter design issues that bothers you?

*Not only does he not scale down encounters, he also cheats us on XP as he divides the encounter by 5, not 4. He thinks that when a 4e adventure says it's for "14th - 17th level" it means like 1st edition where the PCs can be between those levels, when in fact it means it's supposed to take us FROM 14th level TO 17th level. We're playing through Demon Queen's Enclave right now but we're only level 13, about to hit level 14.

Technically, that's buy the book. 4e DMG pg 121 allows for varying the rate of advancement. If you didn't know how he divided-up the xp, would you care?

*He skimps on treasure; I'm not sure exactly what the ratio should be but we seem to have slightly less powerful items than we should have at 13th level.

Wealth by level in 4e isn't as cut and dry as it appears at first blush. While treasure parcels sugest that magic items up to four levels higher than the party are approte as truesure, there is nothing requiring that PCs have acess to such powerful magic items. While magic items have levels, it would be a mistake to think that you must always have magic items of your level. Since you seem to be doing fine in combat, I wouldn't worry about it.

*My girlfriend recently said she wanted to play, so I made her a character at the same level as us; until I convinced him otherwise the DM was wanting her to start a level or two behind, and STILL not scale the encounters or scale her XP accordingly to have her catch up; I can't seem to find an exact rule that says what XP amount new PCs are supposed to start with. He keeps saying that we blast through encounters with 4 PCs so "even if she was at 2nd level you would be better off than you are now, since you'd have 5 PCs".

First, there isn't a rule about how much xp new players start with. Second, the 4e rules don't care if everyone has the same xp or not. Third, the fact that it doesn't take as much xp to reach the next level at lower levels means that she would catch-up in level fairly soon. Your DM was right, it's ok if she's a little behind.

I really don't know how to deal with it; I have the 4e DMG myself and the stuff he says makes no sense at all to me, and IMO it's not how the game is designed to work; I've played 1st, 2nd, 3rd and now 4th edition of D&D. Sure, he's the DM, but IMO 4e supposed to be a lot more "these are rules, not guidelines" than previous editions were, because the game is intended to be balanced on core assumptions, or require DM interaction to bring things into balance. Once you start changing the core rules or things like that, you're breaking that balance, more so if you don't compensate for it like my DM seems to do.

Any advice on this situation?

There is one major balancing factor in 4e: the liner scaling of bonuses to attacks, defenses, and skills. It replaces the multitude of balancing factors 3.x had, and it's across the board for all classes. Unless he's changing that none of what you say he's doing in this post is unbalancing.

Has he changed any of the rules in the PHB like the grab rules, the number and type of actions monsters and PCs, get? What about skills? Those kinds of changes should, in my opinion, be discussed with players prior to implementation. However, encounter design and actually running the monsters are the domain of the DM and he or she should be given free reign in doing so.

My advice is to see if the two of you can alternate DMing duties. You sound like you have specific ideas about how to DM, and I think that if you had a chance to DM the way you wanted to, it wouldn't bother you that he has a different style.

 

[S'mon]

Re magic items - I've found that the best approach in 3e and 4e is to run a relatively low-level game (both PC and NPC), with slowish advancement and few high level NPCs, but the PCs have more than standard items for their level. It's particularly important in 3e because more items means less disparity between casters and non-casters. This actually gives a much more old-school feel than do high level but underequipped PCs. The GM does need to control purchase & sale of items, though. The best approach is to limit what can be bought to low-powered stuff, limit sale price (4e does that by default with the 1/5 rule), but have powerful stuff findable in dark dungeons, in the hands of villains, and even gifted by the PCs' King, Temple, etc.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Not really. It allows for a degree of customization per campaign that gives the game a human element. I game at the tabletop to play with people that can contibute ideas beyond those presented in a book. If I wanted to play a game run by a server I would just log in and start questing.

I just have to respond to this. Not picking on you in particular, but I've seen this argument thrown around a lot. The idea that if someone follows the rules without changing them that the game is somehow a computer game. It's just plain wrong.

Someone can like the idea that an orc with always give 25 xp and that their sword always does 1d8+5 damage regardless of the DM's mood or personal preferences while still appreciating that there is a human running their game who can respond to more than 3 set options when speaking to them.

I mean, in a roleplaying game you can say "Why don't you and I make a deal?" and your DM(as the NPC) can think through the benefits and disadvantages of that deal and come up with a response. You don't get that in computer games. In a roleplaying game the DM can have the monsters run when they are losing, switch tactics when they realize the ones they are using aren't working, have monsters work together in very specific ways, adapt the story to make up for changes the PCs have done, change the monsters occuring in one encounter based on the outcome of another, and so on.

To me, DMing is about those sort of decisions, not whether or not you feel like giving out the proper XP for defeating monsters.

That having been said, I find myself seeing nothing wrong with what the DM in question is doing. The REASON there are XP and Treasure rules in the DMG is to maintain game balance. If game balance is maintained when he gives you less XP and gold but plays monsters tactically poor, then the reason for the mechanics is fulfilled and it doesn't matter that you level slightly slower or have slightly less magic items.

It also might be slightly less fun in that you don't have as many cool new powers and items as you want. And it isn't as much fun to fight monsters that aren't very surprising and extremely straightforward.

But it is more of a slightly annoying thing than something I'd condemn a DM for. My current DM doesn't hand out XP. He gives us levels whenever he thinks we should get them. He's also been handing out magic items piecemeal without much thought of how often or which items he gives us. I have no idea how close to the guidelines in the DMG we are at this point. Neither does our DM. He refuses to actually READ the DMG because he started reading it and said "All it has is a bunch of advice on how to DM. No rules or anything I need to know. So I stopped."

The people in our group have discussed the lack of treasure a couple of times. Mostly in a sort of "I wish I had better equipment..and we might if our DM actually read the DMG....oh well, we'll make due" sort of way.

 

[Dire Bare]

No, the idea needs to die so it doesn't keep getting trotted out like a propped up aged soldier used to demonstrate the defense bona fides of a cheap politician. The ideas that the DM is God, that the DMG should be off-limits to players, that the players should just sit down and mind their manners and not complain, and so on are all ideas that need to simply die. In my experience, they seriously turn off new gamers, especially anyone who comes to the game as an adult. They are a meme that should be done away with and left in the dustbin of history.

Stormy, you're getting an awful lot of grief in this thread, some from (IMO) folks using the same "tactics" as they claim you are . . .

You speak my language and we come from the same D&D planet.

I've been playing since the 80s and have very little nostalgia for "old school", well DMed or not. I agree that the latest two editions of the game do a better job at pushing roleplaying than earlier editions . . . although that's not to say that older editions didn't encourage roleplaying . . . I do fondly remember the scads of books from 2nd Edition that sparked my imagination.

Knocking "old school" is tough, as different folks define it different ways and it (obviously) touches a lot of buttons. And, as has been pointed out by others in the thread, there is a huge difference between the "old school" style and plain bad DMing.

Regarding the OP, we only have his side of the story to go on, but if we take him at face value . . . I'd talk to the DM, my friend, and try to have a conversation about why I'm annoyed with the game. If that didn't work, I'd probably bail. Life's too short for bad D&D games.

 

[roguerouge]

That having been said, I find myself seeing nothing wrong with what the DM in question is doing. The REASON there are XP and Treasure rules in the DMG is to maintain game balance. If game balance is maintained when he gives you less XP and gold but plays monsters tactically poor, then the reason for the mechanics is fulfilled and it doesn't matter that you level slightly slower or have slightly less magic items.

You've missed some things mid-thread. He berated them for exploring the dungeon. And he plays "Guess what I'm thinking" with RP encounters, giving little hint that THIS heavily armed group is the one to RP with.

If the game provides stunted opportunities for exploration, tactics, and RP, there's only the soda left.