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Message: <blockquote data-quote="maddman75" data-source="post: 1140682" data-attributes="member: 2673">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?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.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)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.</blockquote>

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