Dragon magazine is considered official!
- Thread starter greymarch
- Start date
Marius Delphus
Adventurer
Joshua Dyal said:
In order: I imagine you're right, me neither, and thanks.
Last edited:
Winternight
First Post
I`d say i understand greymarch and ryard with the tight ship.
I played long time shadowrun and I only allowed "official" products. But that was because there were that many netbooks with much crap in it. You won`t belive what some players (of my group) wanted to have. (I translate into D&D terms: "I have found this +3 battle axe it has the special ability that is looks like a rapier and can be use with weapon profiency rapier and also with weapon finesse, look here it is written" Did I mention it was a rogue who wanted that weapon?)
Fasa then later got hooked by the rifts train, that every sourcebook has to be more powerful, bigger guns.
So the only official stuff didn`t helped anymore.
Then I did it like most DM. "No not in my campaign".
I also saw this in AD&D there were tons of netbooks with a lot of crap. But T$R also get hooked: "the complete female dwarfen ranger book"
Greymarch and ryard I have an advice for you. I don`t think you will hear, but anyway.
Sit together with your DM ans define what is allowed and what not. Try some "unofficial" stuff. if it`s crap dump it: if it´s to good cut it down.
I am doing this with good experiences.
A player of mine bought DotF, cause I said there is some nice stuff in. I must admit I did`t read it i scanned it in the FLGS and read the reviews here. But he confronted me with one spell Divine sacrifice (sacrifice 10 hitpoints for a 5d6 on your next successful hit. Pal1. I still think it is way to much, but we try it if it`s ok it is his spell if it`s to good it moves to pal2 -HIS suggestion, if it is way to good, then it was a devine power that he got because he was a nice pal the last month an won`t get it again.
I also ask my players on advice on how to level some stuff down, but then i also send them feats I find here and ask the whether they want it or not.
Rule #0:
have fun
I think you have fun on your evenings. You have that much fun, that your defend your gamingstyle here, against those accusations: "that`s not proper roleplay you do"
respect.
I played long time shadowrun and I only allowed "official" products. But that was because there were that many netbooks with much crap in it. You won`t belive what some players (of my group) wanted to have. (I translate into D&D terms: "I have found this +3 battle axe it has the special ability that is looks like a rapier and can be use with weapon profiency rapier and also with weapon finesse, look here it is written" Did I mention it was a rogue who wanted that weapon?)
Fasa then later got hooked by the rifts train, that every sourcebook has to be more powerful, bigger guns.
So the only official stuff didn`t helped anymore.
Then I did it like most DM. "No not in my campaign".
I also saw this in AD&D there were tons of netbooks with a lot of crap. But T$R also get hooked: "the complete female dwarfen ranger book"
Greymarch and ryard I have an advice for you. I don`t think you will hear, but anyway.
Sit together with your DM ans define what is allowed and what not. Try some "unofficial" stuff. if it`s crap dump it: if it´s to good cut it down.
I am doing this with good experiences.
A player of mine bought DotF, cause I said there is some nice stuff in. I must admit I did`t read it i scanned it in the FLGS and read the reviews here. But he confronted me with one spell Divine sacrifice (sacrifice 10 hitpoints for a 5d6 on your next successful hit. Pal1. I still think it is way to much, but we try it if it`s ok it is his spell if it`s to good it moves to pal2 -HIS suggestion, if it is way to good, then it was a devine power that he got because he was a nice pal the last month an won`t get it again.
I also ask my players on advice on how to level some stuff down, but then i also send them feats I find here and ask the whether they want it or not.
Rule #0:
have fun
I think you have fun on your evenings. You have that much fun, that your defend your gamingstyle here, against those accusations: "that`s not proper roleplay you do"
respect.
Desdichado
Hero
Winternight: I think the point some of us have tried to make, is that "official" stuff is too meandering and potentially badly done in and of itself, especially if you open the floodgates and admit everything ever published in Dragon Magazine. It makes (as if it wasn't already) the "official" stamp completely meaningless.
Nifelhein
First Post
Okay I wil just take this away from educational theories to power theories.
Seems most of us agree in the centered power dtyle of gaming, we have agreed on a "contract", much like Locke, and have given the DM the power to decide what fits the game, we can always show him new stuff and work a way of making it fit if we want.
Ryard and Greymarch have the democratic style of game, everyone work together to state what are the rules and supplements accepted, they have agreed ona contratc much like Rousseau's.
Is any of them better? As I see it no, today we don't have a true democracy in governments, but a representative one, it more to a representative republic, except for those theories on the power coming from the people, must be used for the people.
I would like to say to ryard and greymarch that I am mostly WotC up to now, but there are good things around, I just want to know what it is, so it was that we are gonna play midnight, a FFG setting. You two should strongly consider allaowing some good books from 3rd party publishers, you don't even have to consider them on the whole, just Prestige class X would fit well.
For everything else I have just changed my way of stating basic rules:
The golden rule: Everyone involved on a game must have fun, or else it must be changed, dropped or restarted.
Rule 0:The Dm is the final arbiter, we can agree but on disagreement he says what goes in, after all he took the job this time, want to make it different? Nice, so DM for sometime and let me see if it fits your approach.
...
Just my two cents worth more, and waiting for the official approach from Baraendur's earlier post.
Seems most of us agree in the centered power dtyle of gaming, we have agreed on a "contract", much like Locke, and have given the DM the power to decide what fits the game, we can always show him new stuff and work a way of making it fit if we want.
Ryard and Greymarch have the democratic style of game, everyone work together to state what are the rules and supplements accepted, they have agreed ona contratc much like Rousseau's.
Is any of them better? As I see it no, today we don't have a true democracy in governments, but a representative one, it more to a representative republic, except for those theories on the power coming from the people, must be used for the people.
I would like to say to ryard and greymarch that I am mostly WotC up to now, but there are good things around, I just want to know what it is, so it was that we are gonna play midnight, a FFG setting. You two should strongly consider allaowing some good books from 3rd party publishers, you don't even have to consider them on the whole, just Prestige class X would fit well.
For everything else I have just changed my way of stating basic rules:
The golden rule: Everyone involved on a game must have fun, or else it must be changed, dropped or restarted.
Rule 0:The Dm is the final arbiter, we can agree but on disagreement he says what goes in, after all he took the job this time, want to make it different? Nice, so DM for sometime and let me see if it fits your approach.
...
Just my two cents worth more, and waiting for the official approach from Baraendur's earlier post.
Mercule
Adventurer
I agree that there has been a lot of interesting stuff about player/DM contracts in this thread. It's prompted some thought from me.
I think most of us (at least myself) started out gaming based on the idea that the DM was the guy who either volunteered or was nominated to run a game. After that point, the players stepped back and let the DM do all the work.
Under that model, the DM is obviously going to be put in the "god" role. He reads the rules. He explains the rules. He chooses the rules. Sometimes he just makes up the rules. No consentual baseline is established -- sometime not even a unilateral baseline.
Now, part of the role, by definition, of the DM is referee (the old AD&D books refer to the DM as referee quite a bit) and arbitor. I _don't_ think that everything the DM does, says, or computes should be up for debate, inspection, or review by the players. Usually, the most a player should say is, "That sounds wrong to me, can you check your math," or something to that effect -- basically pointing out when the DM is making an actual mistake.
The DM always knows more about the game than the players. Always. That isn't to say he's got an encyclopedian knowledge of the game, although proficiency in the system _is_ a good thing. The DM has the long-view of the campaign. He knows when some critters aren't what they seem or when an opponent gets an extra AoO because of Combat Reflexes. That sort of thing.
The basic rules, though, do form a sort of "laws of physics" in the game world. If the Flanking only comes into play after both parties have attacked the target, the Rogue had darn well better know of the house rule before positioning himself. Likewise with PrC requirements and so forth. _This_ is where I see the idea of "official" sources being useful. The group decides or is informed of what constitutes the norm of the rules and which variants are in place _before_ beginning play. If something changes for some reason (a "broken" rule is found, etc.), they need to know in advance. Anything else would be like living in a world of fluctuating natural laws.
To bring this back home, I've gotten some ideas on how I plan to do things when I take the reins in the next couple of months. The current DM is nearly burnt out after Dragon Mountain and RtToEE -- we're only waiting because I'm pretty sure I'm going to use a couple of major variants (Defense by class/level and one of the spell systems) from Unearthed Arcana.
Traditionally, in any group I've played with, the GM would just declare the system, the level, the world, and tell people what sort of characters to make up. If someone really wanted to play WoD, that would probably happen, but no vote was taken. Likewise, variants and house rules were the sole province of the DM.
I plan on actually sitting down and discussing things with my group. The running assumption, that everyone has pretty much bought into is a long-term game that will reach epic levels and will probably be the closing story for my 20 year old campaign setting. I'll find out if this is what they really want to do, or if they want something else.
We'll discuss what the foundation rules/books are and what sort of theme they want to see. If the decision is made to play my homebrew, then I'll be taking on quite a bit of the control as I want a certain "feel" to the story/setting. Otherwise, we'll see. If no discussion ensues, then I'll take it as a "we trust whatever you're doing" and proceed accordingly.
Once the discussion ends and the campaign begins, we'll switch to a DM-as-referree-and-arbitor mode. See the top of this post for what I mean by that.
Of course, that's only a plan. Still, it's what sounds like the "best scenario" to me.
I think most of us (at least myself) started out gaming based on the idea that the DM was the guy who either volunteered or was nominated to run a game. After that point, the players stepped back and let the DM do all the work.
Under that model, the DM is obviously going to be put in the "god" role. He reads the rules. He explains the rules. He chooses the rules. Sometimes he just makes up the rules. No consentual baseline is established -- sometime not even a unilateral baseline.
Now, part of the role, by definition, of the DM is referee (the old AD&D books refer to the DM as referee quite a bit) and arbitor. I _don't_ think that everything the DM does, says, or computes should be up for debate, inspection, or review by the players. Usually, the most a player should say is, "That sounds wrong to me, can you check your math," or something to that effect -- basically pointing out when the DM is making an actual mistake.
The DM always knows more about the game than the players. Always. That isn't to say he's got an encyclopedian knowledge of the game, although proficiency in the system _is_ a good thing. The DM has the long-view of the campaign. He knows when some critters aren't what they seem or when an opponent gets an extra AoO because of Combat Reflexes. That sort of thing.
The basic rules, though, do form a sort of "laws of physics" in the game world. If the Flanking only comes into play after both parties have attacked the target, the Rogue had darn well better know of the house rule before positioning himself. Likewise with PrC requirements and so forth. _This_ is where I see the idea of "official" sources being useful. The group decides or is informed of what constitutes the norm of the rules and which variants are in place _before_ beginning play. If something changes for some reason (a "broken" rule is found, etc.), they need to know in advance. Anything else would be like living in a world of fluctuating natural laws.
To bring this back home, I've gotten some ideas on how I plan to do things when I take the reins in the next couple of months. The current DM is nearly burnt out after Dragon Mountain and RtToEE -- we're only waiting because I'm pretty sure I'm going to use a couple of major variants (Defense by class/level and one of the spell systems) from Unearthed Arcana.
Traditionally, in any group I've played with, the GM would just declare the system, the level, the world, and tell people what sort of characters to make up. If someone really wanted to play WoD, that would probably happen, but no vote was taken. Likewise, variants and house rules were the sole province of the DM.
I plan on actually sitting down and discussing things with my group. The running assumption, that everyone has pretty much bought into is a long-term game that will reach epic levels and will probably be the closing story for my 20 year old campaign setting. I'll find out if this is what they really want to do, or if they want something else.
We'll discuss what the foundation rules/books are and what sort of theme they want to see. If the decision is made to play my homebrew, then I'll be taking on quite a bit of the control as I want a certain "feel" to the story/setting. Otherwise, we'll see. If no discussion ensues, then I'll take it as a "we trust whatever you're doing" and proceed accordingly.
Once the discussion ends and the campaign begins, we'll switch to a DM-as-referree-and-arbitor mode. See the top of this post for what I mean by that.
Of course, that's only a plan. Still, it's what sounds like the "best scenario" to me.
Marius Delphus
Adventurer
d4 said:man, i haven't seen a Star Frontiers reference in years. nearly made me spill my coffee!
[brief hijack]
What would the ECL of a Dralasite be, do you suppose?
[/brief hijack]
Mercule
Adventurer
I find it odd that a typical DM wouldn't spend many times the time on the game than a player.
Back in HS and college, I used to spend a _lot_ of time on my setting. During the summers, I'd get into a weird sleep/work/play schedule that let me work on my setting pretty much from 10:00 pm until 4:00 am about four or five nights a week (my "life" was limited by various work schedules and curfews of myself and my friends).
So, for 25-30 hours each week, I was directly/formally working on my game. Add in a bit here and there as well as "casual" work when I was talking with someone or at work, driving, etc. and I probably put in more work on setting and adventures in those years than I did in classwork.
I'd take a cash bet that, at that point in my life, I put in more work as DM in any given year than _all_ of my players combined put to gaming. There have even been times since getting married and having kids that I'd take that bet -- although not as quickly. Regardless, I'd be happy as a DM if the players could be troubled to learn the name of the country their character is from.
Considering that all that work is still valid today, you'd better believe that I stake a higher claim to the games I run than I expect players to.
Back in HS and college, I used to spend a _lot_ of time on my setting. During the summers, I'd get into a weird sleep/work/play schedule that let me work on my setting pretty much from 10:00 pm until 4:00 am about four or five nights a week (my "life" was limited by various work schedules and curfews of myself and my friends).
So, for 25-30 hours each week, I was directly/formally working on my game. Add in a bit here and there as well as "casual" work when I was talking with someone or at work, driving, etc. and I probably put in more work on setting and adventures in those years than I did in classwork.
I'd take a cash bet that, at that point in my life, I put in more work as DM in any given year than _all_ of my players combined put to gaming. There have even been times since getting married and having kids that I'd take that bet -- although not as quickly. Regardless, I'd be happy as a DM if the players could be troubled to learn the name of the country their character is from.
Considering that all that work is still valid today, you'd better believe that I stake a higher claim to the games I run than I expect players to.
