Dragon magazine is considered official!

[maddman75]

Ok, I'm not sure where this whole tying the DM's hands came from...you're not the first to mention it. Like many other things, someone made a ridiculous assumption and it got repeated as truth here. The only thing tying the DM's hands is the RULES. If the DM finds an interesting little item in some Forgotten Realms accessory, super. If he finds an interesting little item in some sourcebook nobody's heard of, that's not acceptable in our group.

That's a fundamental disconnect. Is the DM 'allowed' to make up his own stuff? A secret order of evil necromancers, and he comes up with a PrC to reflect their abilities?

Many's the day I wonder if Epic is a little TOO crazy...

Yeah, I don't use those rules at all. I'm not even too hot on high level D&D (level 15+) to be honest. The laundry list of items, spells, powers, just gets to be too much to bother with.

Great googly moogly. Cold day in hell before I expect my DM to put six-seven hours a week in preparing an adventure, then playing six-seven hours...I won't make a snappish comment about getting a life but...damn, there is some good TV out there to watch, too. I suggest Gilmore Girls, personally.

But seriously, no...we don't slave over our campaigns, and trust me when I tell you that Grey reads more than the regular DM does each week of materials. And yet, we still have a fully realized world and lots of fun...and six or seven extra hours a week to watch Gilmore Girls. I just think that Lauren Graham is hot, ok?

Well, our weekly games are usually 3-5 hours, which is doable. Couple of hours after work. And I can get it down to about 1/2 hour of prep per hour of play, but that's after a few years of doing it. (hint - have lots of stat blocks ready to do, abuse cut + paste)

And I appreciate that, and I've said over and over again where I'm coming from, but to dare to be...DIFFERENT is somehow frowned upon here. I'll remember that.

Just that my experiences have been a lot looser than this. Heck, if you want something outside the rules as a player, talk to the DM and we can usually work something out.

Let me try and explain where others and I are seeing it as a trust issue. You want to have some control (consensual within the group) over what rules the DM uses, and expect him not to go outside of them. Your reason for this is to ensure that the players can catch any mistakes and make sure everything is fair.

My perspective is that D&D is inherantly unfair. Everything is tilted in favor of the PCs. They are expected to win their fights, save the girl, and ride off into the sunset. That isn't to say that they can't fail, but as written for instance, it is MUCH easier to invade a place than to defend it. Why? Because the game assumes that the players will be invading places, killing things, and taking their stuff.

Therefore ensuring that the DM is fair *with respect to the creatures, foes, and challenges he comes up with* isn't even an issue. Of course it won't be fair. Everything will favor the PCs. We therefore trust that whatever the DM is doing is for a good reason. So what if he pulls something out of an odd accessory, or creates it out of thin air. Barring blatent stupidity, the PCs will usually win. Balance and such concerns only matter where PCs are concerned. The DM does not have to be balanced. The DM has to craft a good story. The mechanical means he uses to do that are frankly none of the players' business.

 

[buzzard]

Oh. I didn't realize I was speaking with the arbitrer of all reality. I had no idea that things could ONLY BE DONE YOUR WAY. I like to do things a different way. See, we call that "variety." I assume you've heard of it, but don't understand what it means.

I don't recall telling anyone how to do anything. I do recall someone describing people who don't dictate rules to their DM as followers of Charles Manson.

Oh, so you'll just toss someone out because you don't like the way they play. We choose to come to a consensus and work together. Aren't we the spoiled ones.

No, you are dictating how he runs his game. If he's OK with that, fine. I just don't like people dictating how I run my game.

No, it implies that he makes mistakes. Jesus. I wish my sponge like memory could absorb the intricacies of thousands of pages and rules. I'd rather have a DM who worked with the players than against them. Sounds argumentative to me.

If you think anyone needs to know all the rules all the time, then I question your experience playing. You only really need to be familiar with the rules you are using right now.

However you seem to have a fundamental difficulty understanding what it is to have a DM whom you trust such that you can expect him not to work against you without you controlling him.

I don't like hypocrites telling me I'm doing something wrong by not playing the game by their rules.

Ok, I'm a hypocrite now. Interesting. I suppose I'm also all manner of other nasty things. I have taken umbrage at being described as a homicidal cult follower, and by defending my position I am hypocritical. I recommend you learn what the word means.

You get what you pay for. If you feel the need to be condescending, don't be shocked when it turns around.

Rubbish. You jumped off the handle and painted everyone with a very broad brush. You the jumped out with guns blazing. Now you are upset that people shot back. I suggest learning a touch about person skills.

A lot of people find your arguments inconsistent at best, and your tone unpleasant. Don't attempt to jump down my throat because you feel you are being picked on. I don't have patience for people who lash out indiscriminately.

buzzard

 

[buzzard]

And I'd laugh in the face of any DM that tried to set himself up as God. Simple as that. Why would you assume the games are anarchy? If they were, would I be defending myself and my friends so much? Seriously...why would you say that? I've known my regular DM for over 20 years. I value him a heck of a lot more than just as my DM. And, since we don't play the way you insist we should play, I'm not appreciative of him? Seriously...why would you say that? And I refer you to Mr. Witt's post from earlier about player and DM prep. I think what you mean to say is, "If you think that players do as much work as I believe DMs should work, you have never run a game under my terms." That makes more sense.

I have little understanding based on what you've said so far.

However, having DMed and played, I know I have spent a heck of a lot more time on the game when running the game. As has been mentioned already, my experience appears to be more the norm. Your group can certainly run things as you like. OTOH, the people here can also express their opinions on what they think of the method. If you feel like getting offended for people thinking your method is atypical, well then maybe you shouldn't invite comments.

buzzard

 

[CaptainCalico]

Recap

OK In the original post Greymarch reports on the email he got from wizards which states that Dragon is "100% Official" and ........

My gaming group had always avoided the stuff in Dragon magazine, because much of it is spurious or could imbalance the game. I guess its time to go back through all my dragon magazines, and start collecting all the rules that my gaming group could use.

Then on this page ryard says:

The only thing tying the DM's hands is the RULES. If the DM finds an interesting little item in some Forgotten Realms accessory, super. If he finds an interesting little item in some sourcebook nobody's heard of, that's not acceptable in our group.

My question is: if limiting the pool of sources that everyone (including the DM) can pull from aids your group's enjoyment of the game (on the grounds of consistency and familiarity), WHY would a token "official" stamp cause you to suddenly throw open the floodgates to a monthly stream of widely variant material? This is the core of the inconsistency, from my point of view anyway.

 

[Nifelhein]

Wow, got away for some hours and got to read about 4 pages or so... and so much flaming, not open but flaming.

I hereby state that I don't mean to offend or say what should be true about anything, everything here written states my opinion, my thoughts or just my reality explanations.

I think there many possible routes to fixate what would be allowed in game, only WotC would be one, ot popular around here though, I, for one, am oen to anything, published or internet browsed, or home made, but nothing comes in before I read it, check its implications in the game and make sure it fits, why?



My reasons are simple:

1. Whatever applies to the PCs apply to NPCs, nothing should be a DM against Players.


2. Any material can be problematic in a campaign, it depends on what kind of game you play, what you excpect to have and so on and so forth.

3. I want to be clear on what can be used, any book allowed are so stated to the players, monster books are exception, my monsters can be anywhere and do whatever I want, why? Because surprise rocks, but I don't do it to kill everyone, spoil fun or the like, I do it to improve fun, make everyone keep themselves on their toes and also give a sense of mistery and danger.

4. Whatever we don't have acess to cannot be used, your word is good, but unless you present where or write it up for everyone to see it is gonna be completely rejected.

5. I DM because I want, the game is set up as I have thought and while I do want we to create the story together, I also want to be able to use what is appropriate and make you know what can be used beforehand.

​

Now that i made myself clear, I think your group stated that they would not want to do such a think, ryard, so they trusted that WotC would be a good reliable source enough that it would not make a problem. If not the case, please correct me, just be polite with it ok.


Many people around here were amazed and so on, the reason I am and I think most are is because many material from other publishers actually are more playtested and careful with balance and rules than WotC has been with some products or piece of it.

I, for one, am the greatest source of books for my group, most of them don't even own the PHB, and as I am gonna use 3.5 for a nearly coming game no one will have it, not even me...

As far as I can say is that I advise you to debate to your group, if you see the need to, and try to show them that 3rd party publishers don't necessarily mean other rules to be aware of, I am happy that I am clear on what is supposed to be used as guidelines...

As for my way of handling the game, I also think that everything is subject to consensus, except when we are in middle of a session, because we are there to have fun and whenever doubt arises, and it does for many times, I say how we are handling things for that time, after session we discuss and state how it is gonna be from that point on.

Wargame, Storytelling, Roleplaying, whatever your game is I just hope you enjoy it, and I mean this to everyone, not ryard only, because rpg is everything about fun and being the *my point of view rules* type of DM, or the *you better make everything straight out of the book* type of player is something that truly spolis my fun.

Anyway, I hate metagame and tend to penalize it, there is no standard troll, I can rule that instead of fire they are vulnerable to ice, but if you are trtuly playing a role-playing-game, than it shouldn't be a problem, after all, you know, but your character doesn't, so no ire unless you justify for your self and everyone else, not just me, why you would use it...

Okay, my opinions, my thoughts, my understanding of said things and my way of handling things.

 

[Arnwyn]

Yes and no; while I find the idea extremely strange that the group would come to the DM and say "you can't use such and such book, and you can use such and such book" I do very much believe in the collaborative nature of the process. DMs need to make sure they're running a campaign that the players are interested in playing in. If I insist, as a DM, that I'm going to run Sailor Moon meets Call of Cthulhu and my players all want Forgotten Realms, then I'm not doing anyone any favors by coming up and saying BESM d20 for character creation and Call of Cthulhu d20 is my monster book. You are right, though, in that I'm genuinely confused by the thread and the contents therein, but find it intriguing in many ways, so I keep posting.

Well, I had hoped not to have to explain to that extreme level. There is always a base point.

ps. I don't honestly believe that the average DM puts in significantly more time than their players when it comes to the game. I have met far, far too many players who spend hours and hours each week doing work for the campaign to believe this is anything but arrogance.

Huh. Maybe for you. Oh, to have one of JD's custom smilies readily available - this one would get a big "guh?". As others have noted, IME the above statement is entirely false (anecdotal, IME). I have never, ever, seen a player put as much work into the campaign as the DM. So, it is certainly not "arrogance". Nice try, though.

 

[Arnwyn]

Oh oh oh. I just saw the "contradictory" posts. I missed those earlier. His timeline is a little messed up, so here goes. I have found things in Dragon that I wanted to use. I have third party books where there are a couple of things to use. The CONSENSUS of the party was, naw, better not. It'll complicate to many things and open up doors we didn't want to deal with. So, we go by the WOTC materials. WOTC opens the door that says Dragon IS official D&D materials, so now Dragon is in. Grey posts that. Grey gets a lot of crap thrown in his direction that ALSO drags his party in ("sounds like Grey's group are blah blah blah and some such"). I log in to say, "no, don't paint the ENTIRE party like that, but here is our justification" and immediately, I'm labeled and attacked. "ryard isn't listening..." That on the basis of ONE post (which, to be fair, Joshua retracted). But then the insults kept coming.

Okay, I'm following you so far.

Well, that's one thing. I can understand that. But why the hell is AVOIDING 3rd party stuff so egregious? Why the hell does my group no longer have fun and has no imagination? That's mind-numbingly insulting.

Still following you. It's not egregious - it's legitimate. I think some might be confused about why specifically, as the answers may not have been all that satisfying. *shrug*

No, I think you're reading something wrong. According to the information from WOTC, the information Greymarch reported (to immediate catcalls) Dragon is "official," by WOTC standards, which opened the door for Greymarch to accept it.

Oops! You lost me. No, I'm not reading anything wrong. I don't think I need to go back and re-quote anything, but I will if I have to.

The question still has not been answered: "what is official"? What is the definition? You yourself said that it's "Wizards-produced material". That, however, is an incorrect definition, since Dragon isn't Wizards-produced (it's Paizo-produced, with some articles by WotC on company time). Because Dragon is licensed by WotC (they *legally* own the rights to it still), that's part of what makes it "official" (the other part, as I noted here and earlier, is that a few articles are written on WotC company time by WotC staff. But only a few). Unfortunately, being "official" as noted by WotC has very little to do with the game material found within, since (noted previously in this thread) most of Dragon is written by 3rd party and/or freelance authors (not WotC). It's really just legal licensing stuff. Is legal licensing stuff what you base your game around? That seems to be unwise, and I think that's contributing to the confusion...

Since you don't seem to know the definition of "official", maybe you could ask greymarch what he thinks it is (since he started this thread and he seems to think it's somehow important, for whatever reason)?

 

[Darrin Drader]

Alright, tell you what. Its obvious that this argument is going around and around in circles. Some people are making the claim that because material is "official" that it can be tossed into their game indescriminantly. Others are saying that official means nothing and that its up to the DM and the group to decide what should be included. Forget about the third party material for now, the main question comes down to a very simple question: what is the definition of "official" as it applies to Dragon, Dungeon, and Polyhedron.

First off, I don't have an appropriate answer for that at this time, but I can get make an effort to get an answer. I can go to the brand manager, discuss the confusion with him, and get a stated definition that I can either post to the boards, or possibly have him post.

Part of this is easier to get an answer to though. Dungeon/Poly is easy to claim as official. Any Star Wars stuff that gets published must be cleared through Lucasfilm. Does that make it canon? Yes, unless Lucas decides to make a movie that contradicts it, in which case it gets tossed. Dungeon adventures usually draw upon things that have been published in the core books, so they're just as easy to call canon.

Dragon is not so easy to pigeon hole because they are constantly providing option rules, new classes, magic items, etc. True, there is a fair amount of material that winds up in there that is promotional material from upcoming releases (or material that was cut, or material that was generated to promote it). Then there is the stuff generated by the readers, and stuff that ends up in there and then gets contradicted later in a book. There was an article I quite liked that Eric Cagle wrote in a Dungeon magazine a while back that contradicts something I did for the Book of Exalted Deeds. It happened because we weren't aware that we were working on similar things, and neither was Jesse Decker, who let Eric's material make it into the magazine. These things happen.

So bottom line, as an ambassador between the company and the community (which is essentially what my day job for them is anyway), I'm going to try to get a definition of "official" and come back here with it. In the meant time, I would very much appreciate it if the flame wars would stop, because as much as you want to go around in circles about a definition, no one, including myself, has that definition.

 

[Numion]

No, you are dictating how he runs his game. If he's OK with that, fine. I just don't like people dictating how I run my game.

Sorry to jump in to this thread at this point, but I disagree. In our group we decide before the campaign what kind of campaign it's going to be. Naturally the DM has a lot of weight in that decision, but also the players can have their say.

Even though I'm mostly a DM I never really got the attitude that it's the DMs game, which seems to be a popular one here at ENWorld. Presumably because majority of the members are DMs themselves.

IMO, it's never just the DMs game. It's the groups game. Or has anyone ever run a game with one DM and zero players? (Actually yes, but that was some horrorstory over at Wizards boards )

I certainly can agree with ryard here. They aren't forcing their DMs oh-so-precious (more precious than a players', anyway, it seems) imagination in some small box. They're just deciding as a group the common ground on which the campaign should take place. It's basically just deciding what ruleset is going to be used. Or do you think that players have no say in the matter if the DM decides to run a GURPS campaign instead of D&D?

 

[Darrin Drader]

Even though I'm mostly a DM I never really got the attitude that it's the DMs game, which seems to be a popular one here at ENWorld. Presumably because majority of the members are DMs themselves.

IMO, it's never just the DMs game. It's the groups game.

The DM is the person who runs the game, interprets rules, and must often decide how something is handled when it falls outside the rules. Without the DM, there would be no story, no encounters, no nothing. The bottom line is that if you are playing D&D, the DM is the ultimate decision maker. If the DM is not allowed to be the final arbiter of what happens in his or her game then you have chaos, or you have a player who is acting as DM in all ways except story telling. The DM should allow players to influence his or her decisions, but according to the rules, a group opinion is not enough to overrule a DM. Neither is writing in and getting an "official" answer from rules support. This isn't an ENWorld thing, this is the way D&D and nearly every other roleplaying game in existence is designed to be played.