[EDITION WARZ] Selling Out D&D's Soul?

[Thurbane]

Maybe I have a faulty memory, but threads such as those are not something I see "here all the time". Sure, I see threads about players asking why their DM thinks something is overpowered or something like that. But I don't recall ever seeing a thread in which a player thinks the DM must allow everything from WotC. Couple of times I've seen hissy fits, but considering the traffic this site sees, it's no surprise. I might very well be wrong, though.

In any case, it seems to be such a minority that I have a hard time believing that to be the main reason people don't play D&D. If you go outside of D&D boards the reasons are altogether something else - hit points, levels, mandatory BAB progression, etc..

Add to this the fact that there's the rule 0 printed in the books.

If not here, then most definitely at the WotC forums.

I also do not agree this is the primary reason that people don't play D&D - but trust me, it happens, and quite regularly. I have seen people advised to drop out of a particular DMs game because they were told they couldn't play a particular race or class.

I fully agree with you about rule 0, as well.

 

[Philotomy Jurament]

DM: "...and across the room...is a Lich!"

There's some clumsy DMing. Why give away that the skeleton is rotting robes is a lich?

 

[Hussar]

If not here, then most definitely at the WotC forums.

I also do not agree this is the primary reason that people don't play D&D - but trust me, it happens, and quite regularly. I have seen people advised to drop out of a particular DMs game because they were told they couldn't play a particular race or class.

I fully agree with you about rule 0, as well.

Heh, the funny thing is, we actually have had more than a few polls on exactly this.

I once did a poll about how many people had ever seen what you are describing - players demanding this or that from a DM. By an overwhelming majority - some twenty to one - no one had ever seen it in play. Those who HAD seen it, had seen it from exactly one player. This is a myth that gets promoted by the internet.

Raven Crowking did a poll some time ago about whether or not he should allow a player to play a warforged ninja in his pirates themed game. Again, by a margin of about twenty to one, people supported RC's denial of the player.

The numbers simply do not support what you are saying Thurbane.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I haven't witnessed 3e making anyone a better DM than they were with any other system.

I'm going to call this out specifically, because I *have* seen this happen. Over and over again. 3e is making people better at running games, and many of the more recent supplements and redesigns are headed even further in that direction. The DM's chair is no longer a coveted seat of power and authority, a throne bestowed upon you by "alpha male" status and mastery of rules in obscure tomes. It's something anyone with an inclination can be good at. And part of the reason they can be good at it is because 3e provides a very solid foundation of how a game of D&D works...the foundation can be moved and altered, but it's a very good foundation.

 

[PapersAndPaychecks]

I'm going to call this out specifically, because I *have* seen this happen. Over and over again. 3e is making people better at running games, and many of the more recent supplements and redesigns are headed even further in that direction. The DM's chair is no longer a coveted seat of power and authority, a throne bestowed upon you by "alpha male" status and mastery of rules in obscure tomes. It's something anyone with an inclination can be good at. And part of the reason they can be good at it is because 3e provides a very solid foundation of how a game of D&D works...the foundation can be moved and altered, but it's a very good foundation.

I sympathise. Your earlier edition DM must have been a very difficult person to get on with.

But the difference between a good DM and a poor one is down to personality, social skills and experience. It's got nothing to do with choice of rules edition. 3.x can't magically give a poor DM the personal attributes to make him or her into a good one. Nor do earlier editions magically make a good DM into a poor one.

 

[FireLance]

But the difference between a good DM and a poor one is down to personality, social skills and experience. It's got nothing to do with choice of rules edition. 3.x can't magically give a poor DM the personal attributes to make him or her into a good one. Nor do earlier editions magically make a good DM into a poor one.

I'd say the difference between a good DM and an average one is down to personality, social skills and experience.

However, a good rule set with plenty of guidelines and advice (approriate wealth, appropriate CR, etc.) can turn a poor DM into an average one. "Taking the DM out of the equation" means that almost anyone can do a decent job of running a game, when previously, only an elite few were considered good enough to do so.

Whether you deplore the fact that a multitude of talentless hacks are now running dull and uninspired games, or you celebrate the fact that more and more people are discovering the joys of DMing then becomes entirely a matter of personal opinion.

 

[Hussar]

But the difference between a good DM and a poor one is down to personality, social skills and experience. It's got nothing to do with choice of rules edition. 3.x can't magically give a poor DM the personal attributes to make him or her into a good one. Nor do earlier editions magically make a good DM into a poor one.

To reiterate Firelance's point.

Good rules can make a poor DM mediocre. Mediocre is certainly good enough to keep the game going. Poor rules make a mediocre DM poor and a poor DM absolutely attrocious simply because a mediocre DM lacks the talent to improve upon the game.

Good DM's don't need help. Their games are going to be good regardless of system. If you have a good DM, the system doesn't really matter. Unfortunately, the vast majority of DM's out there are average. They have to be. The majority can't be good simply because they ARE the majority. A poorly designed system will make the majority even worse while a well designed system with lots of support will at least keep the majority average.

 

[PapersAndPaychecks]

However, a good rule set with plenty of guidelines and advice (approriate wealth, appropriate CR, etc.) can turn a poor DM into an average one. "Taking the DM out of the equation" means that almost anyone can do a decent job of running a game, when previously, only an elite few were considered good enough to do so.

I'm sorry, I'm afraid I simply disagree.

I agree that mechanisms like appropriate wealth, appropriate CR etc. help a DM to create an encounter which is balanced against the party -- but I think that in itself is one of the two reasons why some DMs are poor: they worry about balanced encounters, and I think that's a mistake. (Yes, seriously. I'll explain in a moment.)

I think the other reason why some DMs are poor is that they try to write plots. They create scripted series of events which the party is supposed to progress through one by one, usually in a fairly linear fashion, and when the party attempts to deviate from this scripted series of events, they try to get the plot "back on track", often by ad-libbing interventions from big monsters or powerful NPCs.

I think this is unfair to the players, because it takes away the meaningful choices which they should rightfully have.

Personally, I prefer to design an adventure environment which I think is interesting and challenging, and then just turn the players loose. I'll tend to designate some areas as "low level", some "medium" and some "high", but that's about it.

In this style, the players have no reason at all to assume that any given encounter is balanced against them. It's up to them to figure out what they're up against, so they have to scout effectively, pick and choose the fights they want to get involved in, and either hide from or talk their way out of the others; the players find their own preferred level of difficulty, rather than having the DM impose it on them.

There's a mirror for this approach in the old 1e-style 15-level megadungeons. The players could choose to hang around on the first dungeon level, where there are a hundred rooms full of kobolds and giant rats and easy puzzles, and where they can adopt the Rambo(TM) approach to adventure gaming if that's what suits their style. But if they go down a few sets of stairs and hang around on level 7, that's up to them, and they can't complain when they meet the vampire. And if they're good, maybe they'll manage to lure that vampire into a carefully-prepared trap involving six dozen wooden stakes and take him out! Or maybe they'll get wiped.

And, of course, the first party doesn't get anywhere near its "appropriate wealth level" because it's picking up the occasional pouch of copper pieces and the odd arrow +1 that's all the treasure the kobolds have, while the second party gets the super-cash megaprize bonanza with choice of vorpal swords.

I'm not advocating megadungeons necessarily, just the underlying idea. The DM creates an interesting place to explore, and the players find their preferred level of difficulty within it -- and because there's no "plot", the players choose what happens to their characters. The DM just hands out the rewards, or enforces the consequences.

There is story in this, but it's the result of the game, not a process within it. The players and the DM are collaborating to produce an interactive, character-driven story and none of them can tell what the resolution will be.

So anyway, what I'm saying is that tools like appropriate wealth and appropriate CR are a prop to turn a weak DM into a vanilla DM. I think a good DM ignores appropriate wealth, CR, plots, storylines, BBEG's and all that rubbish because he hands so much control of the game back to the players that he doesn't need it.

 

[WizarDru]

So anyway, what I'm saying is that tools like appropriate wealth and appropriate CR are a prop to turn a weak DM into a vanilla DM. I think a good DM ignores appropriate wealth, CR, plots, storylines, BBEG's and all that rubbish because he hands so much control of the game back to the players that he doesn't need it.

Well, most of what you discuss has absolutely nothing to do with any specific edition. Railroading DMs were rampant under previous editions, too....and arguments with the DM over rules occured then, as well. This comes back to my point about KODT....a comic about a game firmly rooted in older editions of D&D which is pretty much appropriate now, as then. Bullying players who quote chapter-and-verse from the rulebook, for example, are a staple of that comic. A 'weak' DM was just as easily pushed around then, as now.

If the 3E ruleset does, in fact, make a poor DM better....how is this bad? Quite frankly, the best DMs can't be everywhere. My players used to joke that they could rent me out (which was flattering, natch) since there were so many players with no game at all. I didn't actually get a chance to be a player for more than a single session until well over a decade after I started playing RPGs, because other gamers often found it too intimidating or difficult.

You also seem to forget that DMs don't leap from the forehead of Zeus, fully grown. 3E has lowered the barrier to entry that DMing represented, allowing many people who might have otherwise never become DMs to do so...and to learn at it. An inexperienced DM might not understand that a Ghast can easily create a TPK for a low-level party...or could be a total cake-walk, all depending on the whim of the dice. Under AD&D, I had far more problems with trying to figure out appropriate challenges outside of written modules, because it was a much more subjective system with different goals.

One comment that was made by (iirc) Andy Collins was that with the advent of 3E, players and DMs both had become much more knowledgeble about good game design...such that people could identify bad rules, mistakes and poor mechanical design much, much quicker than they ever had in the past.

It is far easier to ignore a guideline than it is to try and guess what a proper baseline is when you need one. The CR and wealth systems do not, by any measure, mean that every dungeon has to be safe and level-appropriate, per se....they can be just as easily ignored as they used to be. The PCs don't have to go through the Crater Ridge mines from the main entrance...but watch out for that spectre, chuul and the xorn through the secret cave tunnel (to use RtToEE as an example under 3.0). The only difference now is that you know you are ignoring the guidelines (and hopefully understand the consequences).

 

[MerricB]

I'm not advocating megadungeons necessarily, just the underlying idea. The DM creates an interesting place to explore, and the players find their preferred level of difficulty within it -- and because there's no "plot", the players choose what happens to their characters. The DM just hands out the rewards, or enforces the consequences.

Although I appreciate the style - see my post here - I hardly think it's the be-all and end-all of adventure design. Most of the classic adventures have very strong plots - or do I mean goals? - behind them.

I dislike intensely railroaded adventures, easy though they are to design, but the intensely freeform adventure also fails to engage me. *Goals* are terribly important to good play, IMO, as well as a choice of paths to get to them.

The introduction of *time* to an adventure is tricky. Too much of a time constraint and players have no choice but to act recklessly. However, used properly, it's really effective.

Cheers!