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

[Maggan]

This statement is endorsed by the PapersAndPaychecks school of DMing.

The idea that a DM can get away without knowing the rules is a bit pathetic, frankly.

Cool. Whatever floats your boat(s). I'm content to be one of the pathetic and bad DMs of the world.

I haven't survived playing (A)D&D since 1982 by not having help from my friends when I get rules wrong.

So sure, my rules mastery may be lacking ... but I'm one hell of a story teller. And for my friends, that's what counts. And whether or not that makes me any better or worse DM, I honestly don't know.

/M

 

[Crothian]

So sure, my rules mastery may be lacking ... but I'm one hell of a story teller. And for my friends, that's what counts. And whether or not that makes me any better or worse DM, I honestly don't know.

There are of course exceptions to everything. Like for instance I think Piractecat could do a damn good job DMing a game he's never read as long as he is familiar enough with the genre. But I would not suggest that for Shaylon. He can run a good game, but he needs to understand the rules because he can't make up for not knowing them. So, if someone tells me a DM has to constantly ask his players for rules explanations, I'm going to think he's not that good of DM. That is only judging him on that info though, he could be great at the other areas of running a game.

 

[DestroyYouAlot]

Oh and as for d20 being modable? Hah. You start pulling on one rule and the whole mess comes tumbling down, based on the way the whole system works. I as a DM for just about any previous edition of D&D can make a rule up on the fly or add stuff or take stuff away and as long as I'm consistent and fair, or at least am percieved to be by the players, it's all good.

That's just not so with d20. Muck with some part of the code and the whole application crashes, unless you're willing to rewrite the whole thing.

(I'm just replying as I read, here, so this may have already been said, but

I really do not find this to be the case. I've grafted several sub-sets of rules onto my 3.0 game, some from third-party publishers, some from online sources, and some out of my brain, and it's done nothing but enhance an already-enjoyable experience. And it's the one, (mostly-)universal central mechanic that makes it as easy as it is. I did this with 2e, as well, but I now have a much easier job of gauging the effect of my tweaks before throwing them at the players. The same has gone (so far) for removing rules, or replacing them entirely (see Rich Burlew's excellent alternate Diplomacy system HERE for an example).

Of course, this is just my game, and YMMV, but I really think it's the same as it's ever been, i.e., you have to think long and hard before throwing a new kink into the engine. But, IMHO, it's never been easier.




More to the point, I'll come right out and say it. This entire thread is based on an unproved and (in my experience) invalid assumption: That there is something "wrong" and/or "missing" with the game as it currently stands, or that the "soul" has, at some indeterminate point, gone out of the game. Data does not compute, program is null and void, syntax error. I don't know what group you're playing with, but mine's doing fine, thanks. And, you know what? How many people on this forum are currently playing OD&D, 1e, freakin' Chainmail even, and having a great time at it? Lots, last time I checked? So what's the problem? I don't anticipate 4e being something I feel the need to "upgrade" to, and that's fine - I still have my books from 3e and every edition leading up to it, and - until WOTC comes to my house and takes them away - I can play whatever edition I want, for free, until the end of time. There Is No Problem. Thank you.

 

[ghul]

Cool. Whatever floats your boat(s). I'm content to be one of the pathetic and bad DMs of the world.

I haven't survived playing (A)D&D since 1982 by not having help from my friends when I get rules wrong.

So sure, my rules mastery may be lacking ... but I'm one hell of a story teller. And for my friends, that's what counts. And whether or not that makes me any better or worse DM, I honestly don't know.

/M

Storyteller? Egads. Storytellers and amateur thespianiasm equals boring D&D in my opinion, but of course YMMV. The DM need only set the table, where I come from. Let the actions of the characters dictate the course of the "story". Otherwise, the players feel as though the actions of their characters have little bearing on the outcome of events.

That being said, I too proved to be a lacking DM when it came to mastery of the rules...when I was DMing 3e. I found myself a judge often requesting laws from a few of the lawyers in my court, this due to the subsets of subsets of subsets of laws.

But since about a year ago, when I concluded my tenure as a 3e DM and started a new game (a hybrid of C&C and AD&D 1e), I have resumed control, and all is right in the universe. I am, once again, Charles in Charge, and in these Warz of Editions I have recaptured the pesky soul of D&D and hold it in my grasp!

--Ghul

 

[Lanefan]

Storyteller? Egads. Storytellers and amateur thespianiasm equals boring D&D in my opinion, but of course YMMV. The DM need only set the table, where I come from. Let the actions of the characters dictate the course of the "story". Otherwise, the players feel as though the actions of their characters have little bearing on the outcome of events.

Well, someone's got to tell the story and do the acting...and if the players don't do it (in my experience, most don't) then it falls to the DM. I fail to see a problem...

And to respond to an earlier post: that the game now needs rules gurus to interpret fine points of law is to me a Bad Thing, reminiscent more of Magic - which needs it - than D+D, which shouldn't.

Yes, there's always been things like "Sage Advice" column in Drag-Mag, the difference there was I and others could (and often did) choose to ignore their *interpretation* of a given situation; the column was called Sage *Advice*, not Rules Q+A. Now, there seems to be more of a sense from WotC of This Is How It Must Be Ruled than ever came out of TSR.

Lanefan

 

[Raven Crowking]

But, there is a significant difference. PrC's are entirely the responsibility of the DM. There's absolutely nothing about PrC's in the PHB. Priests were called out in the PHB, meaning that players might actually think that they are for playing.

Let me see if I understand where you are coming from.

(1) One of the really great things about 3.x is that the players can know the rules as well as the DM, and the DMG is not off-limits to the players.

(2) Optional prestige classes cannot cause the problems that optional priest classes can cause, because one appears in the DMG and the other appears in the PHB.

See, I still have a hard time with both (1) and (2) being true. Of course, (2) is only even remotely true if you consider the Core Rules only. Prestige classes and alternate classes appear hither and yon in all sorts of splatbooks.

You argue that "the authority now rests in a codified set of rules that is known by all players," but somehow in this circumstance that isn't true? I hope you will understand, given the circumstances, that I see approximately 0% (with a .1-.5% deviation) difference between the two. 3.X might offer a wonderful ruleset, but there is absolutely no reason to trash previous editions on this basis. I would go so far as to say that the variable priest was one of the best things in 2e, and that only the addition of prestige classes prevented dropping it from being a major gaffe in 3e.

In 3e, the player looks on his character sheet, notes his jump check modified by armor and whatnot, looks at the PHB for the DC and rolls. The DM isn't even involved.

That, BTW, is an illusion. Simply because ordinary circumstance modifiers and DCs exist in the PHB, you cannot automatically conclude that you are making a check under ordinary circumstances. In other words, because the PHB lists a DC, you cannot assume that the DC listed is correct in any given in-game jump.

And this is, exactly, the attitude that causes all of those "My DM said X, is he right?" threads that spring up on EN World (and that you, apparently, deny the existance of when Thurbane brought them up).

3.X offers an illusion that the rules are known by all players -- the DM may create new modifiers, new DCs, new monsters, new spells, new prestige classes, etc. Even if you know the basic rules, you do not necessarily know all the rules that apply to any given situation, nor do you always know which of the rules you know apply to a given situation.

The 3.X ruleset may, indeed, raise the lowest common denominator...allowing poor DMs to run mediocre games. OTOH, if you allow the attitude that "todays game has removed some of the DM's authority over the rules, which also removes some of the DM's authority over the players.....No, the authority now rests with the rules." to fester, you also lower the highest common denominator. The attitude and the ruleset are not the same thing, and you do not require one to have the other.


RC

 

[PapersAndPaychecks]

Well, someone's got to tell the story and do the acting...

Why?

You might treat D&D as an exercise in amateur theatrics or round-robin storytelling, but I don't have to.

 

[Michael Morris]

Allow me a moment to troll. I have come to despise 1e/2e. Perhaps my betrayal by the last group I played that edition with colors my perceptions of it, but there are a lot of things within the system itself I find intolerable. Dusk for 2e was 397 pages long and 250 pages of that was a rewrite of the Player's Option system from the ground up. Dusk for 3e is 320 pages long and 1 page of it addresses a minor flavor tweak to the 3.5e rules - all the rest is material that builds upon the foundation of 3.5e.

So although some of you will view this as a troll - my earnest opinion of 1e/2e is that it was fun while there was nothing better, but in hindsight it is a horrid Frankenstien's monster of a 'system' that only someone completely blinded by nostalgia can love - certainly not me. I doubt I can say anything to dissuade the grognards so I no longer try - these days when I tell a prospective player my game is 3.5e and they say they prefer 1e or 2e my response is 'too bad - I run 3.5e'

I also view any claims that the current game isn't D&D as infantile moaning by persons unable to accept the passage of time. I mean, hell, the Commodore VIC-20 was a fun system to learn about computers on, but I sure as hell don't want to use one today, not even emulated on a stronger machine.

 

[Thurbane]

I don't think I could disagree more.

I don't think he's saying that any DM who ever checks with a player for clarification is a bad DM, but rather a DM who constantly misunderstands basic rules and needs to check with players on every minute detail...

 

[Ranes]

I doubt I can say anything to dissuade the grognards so I no longer try.

Some grognards agree with every word you posted. But you're right. Let contrary grognards lie.