D&D General DM's: How transparent are you with game mechanics "in world?"

[Chaosmancer]

It's the entire point. Without it, there are no speeders and the vast majority drive safely anyway. With it, the reckless drivers still go well beyond the speed limit and can be punished. Those signs serve no purpose other than to punish the reckless drivers.

You are absolutely wrong. Like... ahistorically wrong. A website about the history of road signs states "First instituted in 1901, speed limits are assigned to increase road safety and reduce the risk of traffic collisions." and "With the expansion of road systems in the first half of the 20th century, speed limits – and speed limit signs – had already grown vitally important to the safety of American citizens."

If you want to make some anarchist statement about how all laws only exist for the sole purpose of punishing people, well, no politics on the forums. But considering we've had road signs and speed limit signs for 120 years, I'm pretty sure we have the data to back up the fact that they have increased safety where they were implemented properly.

Without limits the vast majority of DMs do not act the way you are talking about, and none of bad DMs will stop being bad because rules that you want to implement.

What rules do I want to implement? This is the second time you've made this type of declaration, but I've not pushed for any new rules, so what are you talking about?

Did you miss the example above where I did one time this campaign appropriately make a ruling opposite to what the players wanted? The power is there for judicious and appropriate use. It's only the rare DMs who will abuse it, the same ones who won't stop because you wrote some rule, that are a problem.

No, I didn't miss it. I didn't consider a single instance in your multiple decades of playing the game to be "typical game play". And while I could talk at some length about that situation, and how you may have handled it, I don't really see that adding to the conversation in a meaningful way.

And again, you seem to be of the opinion that the issue of DMs overreaching because they are told they cannot overreach is somehow not going to be resolved because a DM who is a bad actor is going to ignore limits anyways. You aren't arguing anything that relates to my point.

Three times you either asked or wondered why I was doing what I was doing. I gave you the answer about why I wasn't. The rest is you once again reading something that wasn't said or implied into my words. Especially since I went out of my way to say why I thought you were arguing what you are arguing, and it wasn't lying.

So, again, here is a summary of the point, yes, I am summarizing and changing your exact wording.

"Why are you making these arguments?"
"Because I'm not a liar and not making these arguments would make me a liar."

How does this follow? Even if we accept your premise that the DM has no limits on their power, arguing for WHY that should be can't be based on the fact that it is. That would literally be arguing that the status quo should be kept because it is the status quo. And you still could have gone with "these are what the rules say" without bringing up the idea that lying is in any way relevant to this discussion.

I didn't say it was an anomaly. I said I don't know if there are other games out there like it. There may well be. I haven't read all RPGs.

I never said that you said it was an anomaly. I said it was an anomaly. I said other things to, but I'm getting the feeling that repeating myself isn't going to do any good.

Yes I do, because I know why they were bad. The games were bad, because of bad DMs. The kind of DM that isn't going to stop because Chaosmancer wrote in the book that they shouldn't do stuff like that.

Can you prove that? Can you prove that if the DnD culture wasn't one that Lionized the DM as an absolute authority with no limits on their power that they still would have turned out exactly the same? Personally, I think that since bad habits tend to breed and cause issues, that in a different set of cultural norms some of those DMs might have been average DMs instead of Bad DMs.

You do know that people are many times more likely to complain than to compliment, right? It's human nature. It's especially true now that the internet lets people come together to complain in misery together that you see a very, VERY disproportionate number of complainers vs. happy players, even though DMs like that are pretty rare.

So? Does that mean that every complaint is false? That I haven't seen those stories, and they never actually happened?

"good DMs exist and people love them" doesn't mean a thing to what we are talking about.

Presenting a very different situation as equivalent is, though. Stop using the fallacy.

That isn't what I did. Stop accusing me of fallacies every time you don't like what I have to say.

The truth isn't a healthy way to go forward? That's an odd sentiment.

Not really, it is the basis of every social change that has ever occurred.

Why bring up a situation only a bad DM would do like it's an AHA! moment that proves your point?

Because you seem to think that no one would call that cheating. And that the rules perfectly justify you doing it. It seems to me that if you think the rules justify bad behavior, then we might want to look at those rules and consider if they need adjusting.

Will that stop everyone? No, of course it won't. But I also don't see the harm in it. Even an acknowledgement that while the DM is free to homebrew and change rules to support the story the group wants, it is still a group game and the players voices should be heard. Honestly, with how many times you and others quote the rules at me, have you ever once seen a rule that acknowledges that player opinions should be given weight? That's how you run, but is it in the rules? Does DnD acknowledge that at all, or is the only opinion that matters in the rule books the DMs? Because, I find that unhealthy. And while there are plenty of people willing to die on the hills of making the DM the sole, ultimate authority in all things... some of the rest of us don't see the point. We don't need that much authority.

 

[Stalker0]

I'm not a huge 3e fan but the consistency of design between PCs and NPCs is IMO one thing it got 100% right.

But its also something that 5e has consciously moved away from.... love it or hate it.... NPC rules are no longer the same as PC rules. Personally I think its much improved but I admit its a personal preference. That said it does help my argument, the DM can easily insert NPC only rules to create specific effects that they want to use.

 

[Lanefan]

But its also something that 5e has consciously moved away from.... love it or hate it.... NPC rules are no longer the same as PC rules.

I know. I call it a mistake, though I realize others don't.

Personally I think its much improved but I admit its a personal preference. That said it does help my argument, the DM can easily insert NPC only rules to create specific effects that they want to use.

Sure, a DM can insert whatever she likes; but my position is that doing so to any excess will only serve to hurt her game in the long run.

Now if the campaign's to be very short, or even just the one adventure, then who cares: there's no long-term to worry about and thus nowhere near as much need for consistency. But if the campaign's to be at all long, then if something works in a particular way once then by precedent it has to work that way for the whole campaign, in the interests of internal setting consistency. Otherwise, nobody can ever be sure how anything works in the setting from one occasion to the next.

A DM inserting strange NPC quirks all over the place risks breaking this consistency unless she's very careful with her note-taking (or memory) in order to preserve the mechanics of said quirks should they ever need to be repeated - or should a PC somehow gain access to the same ability.

 

[Stalker0]

Sure, a DM can insert whatever she likes; but my position is that doing so to any excess will only serve to hurt her game in the long run.

And here we have the two magic words that joins our arguments together.

You see I agree with you here. DM fudging can absolutely be abused if its used over and over and over again. But to me its not a black and white scenario. For example:

• Players gets some really bad luck, like getting critted on all 3 of the monsters attacks. I might fudge the damage down just a bit to ensure he's not obliterated. The player is already plenty scared, but I may want them to get a chance to fight back or run before I finish the job.
• Player did all but 3 damage to a monster.... I may just say they got him so we can move on. This is especially useful in fights where the players clearly have this, and its just mopping up, helps to keep the game moving.
• Players activate the sacred relic, it drains each of them for 1 exhaustion and uses the very expensive material component. The goal is it stuns the BBEG for 1d4 rounds. If I roll a 1, I might just make it a 2 to ensure the party gets some bang for their buck for all the effort they put into it.

Again the key here is its a fudge, a shift, an adjustment.... done well it can make the game more cinematic. Used too much than yes you can cause problems, but every so often I think its completely fine for a DM to add something to enhance the excitement or drama of the game....and to ensure the players are having fun. Player fun is THE metric by which the game is measured, and a little fudge here and there can turn an ok scene into a really great one.

 

[Maxperson]

You are absolutely wrong. Like... ahistorically wrong. A website about the history of road signs states "First instituted in 1901, speed limits are assigned to increase road safety and reduce the risk of traffic collisions." and "With the expansion of road systems in the first half of the 20th century, speed limits – and speed limit signs – had already grown vitally important to the safety of American citizens."

Doesn't really matter what the reasoning was. It's not like the government gets it right all the time. They screw up a lot and the studies have shown over and over that laws do not prevent crimes. They simply punish them. And tickets are one of the big ways that cities get money. THAT's the reason for speed limits. Money.

What rules do I want to implement? This is the second time you've made this type of declaration, but I've not pushed for any new rules, so what are you talking about?

You keep saying that the DM should not have ultimate power. Well, the only way to get what you want is to change the rules, so those rules are what you want to implement.

And again, you seem to be of the opinion that the issue of DMs overreaching because they are told they cannot overreach is somehow not going to be resolved because a DM who is a bad actor is going to ignore limits anyways. You aren't arguing anything that relates to my point.

That's so convoluted that I don't even know what you are trying to say there, but it's probably not my opinion.

How does this follow? Even if we accept your premise that the DM has no limits on their power, arguing for WHY that should be can't be based on the fact that it is. That would literally be arguing that the status quo should be kept because it is the status quo. And you still could have gone with "these are what the rules say" without bringing up the idea that lying is in any way relevant to this discussion.

It's RAW, not a premise.

Can you prove that? Can you prove that if the DnD culture wasn't one that Lionized the DM as an absolute authority with no limits on their power that they still would have turned out exactly the same? Personally, I think that since bad habits tend to breed and cause issues, that in a different set of cultural norms some of those DMs might have been average DMs instead of Bad DMs.

Yes I can, but asking the player to make accounts so that they can tell you something you aren't going to believe anyway is too much hassle. I'm not going to do that.

So? Does that mean that every complaint is false? That I haven't seen those stories, and they never actually happened?

It just means that they are a small minority. They happen, but not often enough to be a real issue.

That isn't what I did. Stop accusing me of fallacies every time you don't like what I have to say.

Your example was wildly different.

Not really, it is the basis of every social change that has ever occurred.

So truth is bad, because it's the basis of social change? Got it.

Because you seem to think that no one would call that cheating. And that the rules perfectly justify you doing it. It seems to me that if you think the rules justify bad behavior, then we might want to look at those rules and consider if they need adjusting.

Just wow. You challenge me for saying you want to change the rules in one breath, and then argue(again) to change them in the next.

 

[Lyxen]

But its also something that 5e has consciously moved away from.... love it or hate it.... NPC rules are no longer the same as PC rules. Personally I think its much improved but I admit its a personal preference. That said it does help my argument, the DM can easily insert NPC only rules to create specific effects that they want to use.

I live it so very much ! It was one of the brilliant breakthroughs of 4e, and thankfully continued in 5e.

Creating High Level NPCs was an absolute nightmare in 3e. Took me 3 hours to make it technically palatable, all of that for a single fight where most of the carefully calculated abilities were actually mostly useless. Total pointless waste of time which I'd much rather had spent on his personality or history.

Now, I can do whatever I like, and as you point out I can extremely easily cut/paste PC abilities in any NPCs in seconds, just adjust the attack bonus or the DC and here you go. And it avoids so much silly metagaming of abilities and silly hypothesis from players and all ruleslawyering. Totally brilliant move.

 

[Baldurs_Underdark]

I am happy that my players don't try to figure out the mechanics behind monsters. I'd think it's a slippery slope. If all monsters should be built with the same rules as PCs, what about vehicles, traps, weather phenomena, buildings? Next thing the rules lawyer is gonna tell me you can't really have a lava river running through a dungeon because realistically the atmosphere would be toxic and lethally hot my monsters shouldn't survive.

TL;DR: I want a lava river in a dungeon, so zero transparency on mechanics when I am the DM.

 

[Lyxen]

I am happy that my players don't try to figure out the mechanics behind monsters. I'd think it's a slippery slope. If all monsters should be built with the same rules as PCs, what about vehicles, traps, weather phenomena, buildings? Next thing the rules lawyer is gonna tell me you can't really have a lava river running through a dungeon because realistically the atmosphere would be toxic and lethally hot my monsters shouldn't survive.

And that's exactly one of the things that 3e made worse, with these expectations from the players that everything was available to them (player-centricity). For some groups, it did not matter, for others it was OK, but some groups went completely overboard with the concept (which is what KotDT made fun of with the requests for dungeon auditing post-session), insisting on full transparency and the need to be able to second-guess everything that the monsters could do to be able to play tactically to their heart's contents.

Nothing wrong with that as a playstyle in and of itself if everyone wants to play like this at a table, but some people need to realise that it's not a due, that it's not bad DMing or playing not to show everything to the players, and that (as with any other playstyle), forcing that playstyle on people who don't want it is not good table etiquette. There are other playstyles which are just as valid and who feed much better on the mystery and secrecy of the world and its inhabitants.

 

[turnip_farmer]

I am happy that my players don't try to figure out the mechanics behind monsters. I'd think it's a slippery slope. If all monsters should be built with the same rules as PCs, what about vehicles, traps, weather phenomena, buildings? Next thing the rules lawyer is gonna tell me you can't really have a lava river running through a dungeon because realistically the atmosphere would be toxic and lethally hot my monsters shouldn't survive.

TL;DR: I want a lava river in a dungeon, so zero transparency on mechanics when I am the DM.

That doesn't require any secrecy, though.

Player: How can there be a lava river here without the monsters all suffocating?
DM: Because lava rivers are cool.

The mechanic is revealed as DM fiat; the players know not to waste their time figuring out how to manipulate the clever combination of magical effects in the rulebook that could allow such a thing, and can get on with trying not to get thrown in the lava.

 

[Chaosmancer]

And here we have the two magic words that joins our arguments together.

You see I agree with you here. DM fudging can absolutely be abused if its used over and over and over again. But to me its not a black and white scenario. For example:

• Players gets some really bad luck, like getting critted on all 3 of the monsters attacks. I might fudge the damage down just a bit to ensure he's not obliterated. The player is already plenty scared, but I may want them to get a chance to fight back or run before I finish the job.
• Player did all but 3 damage to a monster.... I may just say they got him so we can move on. This is especially useful in fights where the players clearly have this, and its just mopping up, helps to keep the game moving.
• Players activate the sacred relic, it drains each of them for 1 exhaustion and uses the very expensive material component. The goal is it stuns the BBEG for 1d4 rounds. If I roll a 1, I might just make it a 2 to ensure the party gets some bang for their buck for all the effort they put into it.

Again the key here is its a fudge, a shift, an adjustment.... done well it can make the game more cinematic. Used too much than yes you can cause problems, but every so often I think its completely fine for a DM to add something to enhance the excitement or drama of the game....and to ensure the players are having fun. Player fun is THE metric by which the game is measured, and a little fudge here and there can turn an ok scene into a really great one.

I don't think anyone completely disagrees with you, but there is also the other side of this. Where the DM fudges against the players consistently, because the players succeeded just barely, but the DM wants to see this cool effect happen anyways. Or they built the scenario around the PCs failing, so they just nudge it in that direction.

Like you said, it isn't black and white, and there are also bad reasons to fudge. And getting too used to fudging in your own favor can potentially lead to increasingly blatant acts and eventually start harming the game instead of increasing fun.