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

[RFisher]

Later in the 1e period, and certainly by the time 2e came out, there was assumption that the purpose of the game is to generate Story, and the way to do that is for the DM to devise a Plot. I blame Tracy Hickman, personally; he started it with Pharaoh and made it worse with Dragonlance.

I don't think the two styles of play you outline are as much reflected in reality as in print. People were running railroady--story-oriented games before Pharoah, & there are people who ignore all the provide-a-challenge-customized-for-the-PCs stuff in 3e. In truth--in my experience at least--the vast majority of us fall somewhere in the middle. We do a little of both, sometimes at the same time.

Even in the earliest days, I think TSR did us all a disservice by thinking that all published modules had to be very different from the actual notes they used to run their own games. While I appreciate many of the modules, I don't think any of them really taught us how the originators prepared & ran games.

I think there was a further problem in that the authors & editors at TSR couldn't really know how to explain the game to someone who'd never played it before. It seems like there was a real divide between how the game was played by those who could trace a "lineage" back to Lake Geneva (X played with Y who played with Z who played with some TSR folks) & the rest of us who learned the game from the books alone. I think this explains a lot (although certainly not all) of the difference between those of us who see the earlier editions as flawed & those of us who don't.

But, I digress. The point is that, despite what you may see written in the books, these play styles don't fall along edition lines so much in my experience, & most of us actually play a mix of the styles.

 

[Hussar]

Even in the earliest days, I think TSR did us all a disservice by thinking that all published modules had to be very different from the actual notes they used to run their own games. While I appreciate many of the modules, I don't think any of them really taught us how the originators prepared & ran games.

Now this I agree with. I've said it before as well. Compare the suggestions in the DMG to any published module and they are worlds apart. The DMG says to keep magic rare and wonderous. Modules come with so much magic that people NEEDED bags of holding to carry them. The rules said that low stat characters are perfectly fine and lots of fun. But every NPC has at least one 18. Look at the characters from the Heroes of the Lance and you'll see what I mean. So on and so forth.

Don't get me wrong. I have experienced a bad DM before, but it's a rare thing & never a member of my regular group.

Wow, are you lucky. Then again, as I said, my regular group changed members every couple of years for the last twenty years or so, so, I've played with a rather large number of DM's. I'd say of the last 10 that I played with, 2 were outstanding, 4 were fine, and the other 4 were extremely poor.

 

[Raven Crowking]

A DM who doesn't want everyone - and I mean everyone - to really enjoy the time they spend at the game table isn't a good DM.

Maybe it's just that I know my limitations, and maybe it's just that I have played with so many people in so many different areas, but I have to say that IME the best way to ensure that everyone who plays at my table really enjoys the experience is to be somewhat selective with just who that "everyone" is.

Sure, I'll give just about anyone a chance to play. However, if the person's expectations are radically different from my own, or if the person's enjoyment of the game is derived from actions that detract from the enjoyment of others, then that person will not be invited back. That seems pretty simple to me. In all honesty, I think it is mandatory, whether I am the DM or not. If my expectations as a player diverge widely from that of the group (i.e., the DM cannot give me what I'm after, unless he changes the game so that it is no longer fun for him and/or others) and I am for some reason unable to realize this on my own, I expect the DM to tell me it isn't working out. Life is too short to waste time on games you aren't really enjoying, and I wouldn't be offended by someone removing me from a game if I was preventing real enjoyment.

Now, as previously stated, my DMing style can accomodate quite a few different player styles. Which is lucky for me, because that means that I have a really large player pool to choose from. Does this mean that everyone will like everything about every game session? Well, obviously not. I have bad nights, like everyone else. I have played with groups that contain players more interested in talking to the creatures than fighting them, and also contain players more interested in fighting. Obviously, not everyone is getting everything they want all the time.

What everyone does get, though, is the potential to get what they want. Assuming, of course, that they are at all compatable with my DMing style.

If a player comes up with a character background that fits the world, I use it to heighten their experience of the game. If a player is looking for a dungeon crawl, interesting locations to explore are not hard to find. If a player is looking for political intrigue, there is plenty of that to go around. As a DM, I set up situations -- a lot of ongoing situations of different types -- and the players decide what to follow up on.

However, if Joe wants to do dungeon crawls, and Bob wants to do politics, it is incumbant upon Joe and Bob to strike a compromise. I don't tell them where to go. I don't simply "think about a campaign {I} want to run" -- I think about a campaign setting I want to run, develop that setting, and then set the players loose in it to follow the hooks they are interested in and build the campaign they want. This is, IMHO, a lot more satisfying than a 1-20 adventure path. YMMV.

My primary concerns as DM are

(1) that the players have a lot of different hooks of different types, so that they may find things that they are interested,

(2) that the players are challenged, with the potential of real loss and real gains, and

(3) that the players walk away from the table with some experience of a world that is different than the one they live their day-to-day lives in. In this last case, I like to throw in the potential for philosophical or (fantasy) religious debate, as well as bits and pieces that demonstrate how different our modern worldview is from earlier worldviews.

IME, these things make the game better for the players as well as for me.

However, if all you want to do is spend time with friends, roll dice, and eat pizza, and that is consitently or nearly consistently your reason for playing, then either you should have someone else DM or we should be playing a different game. Monopoly is just as good for those sorts of nights, and I am happy to join you in a game of Sorry.

While, beyond a shadow of a doubt, some players will come to my game table eventually and find something they dislike, it is not necessarily my job to rectify it. It depends upon what they don't like, why they don't like it, and why it is there. I mean, really, if you had a player come up to you and say "I don't like rolling 1d20 for attacks anymore; let's roll 2d10 instead!" would you necessarily change? Would changing result in everyone ending up pleased? In my world, elves are different than those in the PHB. If a player wants to play a PHB elf, should the world change to accomodate that player? Why is this any different than the 1d20/2d10 example?

If by then they tell it to you fair and square, and you answer "you agreed to the playstyle/campaign theme/whatever before playing, so too bad, man!", then I think you're not trying hard enough to make everyone have fun around the table, or in other words, you are too rigid with your own rules while we are speaking of real, breathing, inconsistant sometimes, complex most of the time, human beings.

How about, "I'm sorry, but there are no PHB elves in this world"?

Or do you imagine that, simply because I am DMing a game, that I have the players chained to their seats, unable to get up, unable to find a new game, unable to run a game themselves if they want something different?

For Cthulu's sake, man, the players are people. They are quite capable of taking responsibility for their own needs and desires. I run a game because I want to. Period. I run the game I want to run. Period. I don't have to run it; no one has to play in it. If it works out so that everyone is happy with the running and the playing, then that is great. If you think you'd be happier running your own game, or if you think you'd be happier playing with someone else running a game, both are perfectly fine. I don't break friendships because you'd like more plane-hopping and Joe's running Sigil.

I'd say, if your players are children -- or you are used to thinking of them as such -- then your point may be valid. I like to believe that my players are able to act like adults.


RC

 

[Hussar]

Maybe it's just that I know my limitations, and maybe it's just that I have played with so many people in so many different areas, but I have to say that IME the best way to ensure that everyone who plays at my table really enjoys the experience is to be somewhat selective with just who that "everyone" is.

I can get behind that.

I think something to remember here is many people, myself included, don't game with friends. Err, that came out wrong. What I mean is, the people I game with are just that - they're the people I see during game time. I don't particularly interact with any of them outside of the game. I'm thinking that RC is in a similar boat.

I don't game with people that I go out for pizza with. And I haven't in a very long time. Which generally means that I get a game together, advertise that game, and then people show up who are interested in the game I have advertised. The group self selects based on my initial proposals. If someone doesn't like the game, that's groovy - different strokes and all that.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I'll get RC's back on this point, at least. You don't HAVE to want all human beings to potentially have fun at your table...like the man says, he knows his limitations.

Still, I do consider it a mark of great DMing to be able to take styles you aren't that enthused about and run good games with them because your group would like to do it. Certainly no one HAS to, but those out there who can are some of those "naturally wonderful" DMs.

+ his method is alien from my own experience, but I think we're cool with that by this point.

I guess this has all come to the point that, while DMing education in 3e does make a distinct break with earlier editions in providing a coherent baseline, that this has improved the game, making DMs without the "natural knack" able to run enjoyable games anyway. And when you can sell a DMG + MM to not just one, but ALL members of the group....you're on your way to good design and good sales sense!

....and that this seems to give a different Player/DM dynamic attention seems to fly in the face of what those who are used to the older editions have seen, so it seems like something key to the game has been totally changed by the use of a reliable baseline.

 

[PapersAndPaychecks]

I guess this has all come to the point that, while DMing education in 3e does make a distinct break with earlier editions in providing a coherent baseline, that this has improved the game...

I agree!

It's shown me what to avoid.

 

[Odhanan]

Maybe it's just that I know my limitations, and maybe it's just that I have played with so many people in so many different areas, but I have to say that IME the best way to ensure that everyone who plays at my table really enjoys the experience is to be somewhat selective with just who that "everyone" is.

I absolutely agree. I'm actually filtering people at the game table by telling up front what kind of game I'm thinking about and having a briefing with the players before the campaign starts (a session during which we discuss what we all want out of the game and start coming up with character concepts).

My point is that, however you filter the players of the game, you'll run in a situation where there was a misunderstanding about the aim of the campaign, or simply the player plays the game not because he agrees with the playstyle but wants to enjoy the game with his friends and not be left out.

My point is, players may come to play the game for other reasons than playstyle and in that case, gosh, every case, the game doesn't stop being defined in its nature and aims by just the briefing prior to the campaign, nor should the DM's listening skills just stop being used because decisions have been made before. It's better to bend afterwards and have everyone enjoy the game than just stick to the principles and have a game that excludes a part of the players, I think.

Of course, this whole thing isn't black or white, and like many people have said, I think we all agree more than we disagree. That's on the details we're nitpicking really, but it's good. It makes our DM brains work for greater games in the end.

 

[Thurbane]

Speaking for myself, I never find creating a detailed campaign world to be "work", I genuinely enjoy doing it, even if I happen to detail an area players never get to visit.

I guess this has all come to the point that, while DMing education in 3e does make a distinct break with earlier editions in providing a coherent baseline, that this has improved the game, making DMs without the "natural knack" able to run enjoyable games anyway. And when you can sell a DMG + MM to not just one, but ALL members of the group....you're on your way to good design and good sales sense!

Sorry, but I still can't really agree with that.

1E and 2E were not some the arcane, incoherrent bable of rules that it took years to master that some people are implying, IMHO. I went/am going though the exact same learning curve (rules-wise) with 3.5 as I did with earlier incarnations...

 

[I'm A Banana]

Speaking for myself, I never find creating a detailed campaign world to be "work", I genuinely enjoy doing it, even if I happen to detail an area players never get to visit.

I hope you'll forgive the rest of us (probably the majority of people) who don't enjoy spending hours building a world that will never have a use beyond self-amusement.

It works for you, and that's good, but it cannot work for the majority of people, I believe, so something else needs to be there to meet that need. 3e helps more things be there.

Sorry, but I still can't really agree with that.

1E and 2E were not some the arcane, incoherrent bable of rules that it took years to master that some people are implying, IMHO. I went/am going though the exact same learning curve (rules-wise) with 3.5 as I did with earlier incarnations...

You misunderstand. It's not that 1e or 2e were poor. They were just poorer at delivering what most people wanted to do with the game. It's not that legos are bad, it's just that when people want action figures, they're a pretty lame substitute.

 

[Hussar]

Speaking for myself, I never find creating a detailed campaign world to be "work", I genuinely enjoy doing it, even if I happen to detail an area players never get to visit.

I would say that the plethora of campaign settings out there and the enduring popularity of some of them points to a fairly large number of gamers who don't want to detail out a setting.

I used to spend hours detailing things only to realize after game night that I wasted that time that could have been better spent making the parts that did get played better. So, now I am far closer to the 15 minute campaign side of things. If I don't think it will get air time, I don't bother with it.