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

[Thurbane]

I think you're way off the mark.

Certainly this behaviour is more apparent due to the greater convention play of D&D (see Living Greyhawk and related) and the rise of the internet, but I don't think it is anything new. Knights of the Dinner Table existed long before 3e, and it's very much the DM vs Players style of game.

Cheers!

Oh, for sure, adversarial groups have existed as long as D&D has, but I still feel that this style of play has become more prevalent in recent times, especially among newer players. People keep saying that 3.X gives more power back to the players and discourages heavy handed DMing by making the rules more accessable to all involved, and I agree that, to an extent, this is a good thing.

When carried far and beyond a reasonable level, though, this becomes a bit of a "trust no one/question everything" mentality, on both sides - which is NOT a good thing, IMHO. 3.X also seems to put a lot more emphasis on RAW, and again, this is not a bad thing in and of itself, until someone at the table wants to use RAW to disrupt the flow of a game or try to score an advantage over everyone else by virtue of greater RAW knowledge.

 

[Ourph]

the player/DM dynamic is turning more from everyone being there to have some fun, to more adversarial and everyone wanting to hold each other "accountable".

Probably way OT but I think this has little to do with the rules and a lot to do with people in general becoming more adversarial and less respectful of each other. The guys I learned to play D&D with in the early 80's were all born pre-1970 and grew up with MUCH different values and attitudes in their homes than the kids I'm teaching to play today. I understand completely the "all for one and one for all" attitude you're talking about, but in larger culture (as well as gamer culture) it seems to have been replaced to a large extent by "me first", which can't help but lead to the kind of adversarial relationships you're talking about.

Anyway, /off-topic rant.

 

[Thurbane]

Probably way OT but I think this has little to do with the rules and a lot to do with people in general becoming more adversarial and less respectful of each other. The guys I learned to play D&D with in the early 80's were all born pre-1970 and grew up with MUCH different values and attitudes in their homes than the kids I'm teaching to play today. I understand completely the "all for one and one for all" attitude you're talking about, but in larger culture (as well as gamer culture) it seems to have been replaced to a large extent by "me first", which can't help but lead to the kind of adversarial relationships you're talking about.

Anyway, /off-topic rant.

That's also a very good point.

 

[MerricB]

Oh, for sure, adversarial groups have existed as long as D&D has, but I still feel that this style of play has become more prevalent in recent times, especially among newer players.

I think it's often a trait of newer players, regardless of era.

3.X also seems to put a lot more emphasis on RAW, and again, this is not a bad thing in and of itself, until someone at the table wants to use RAW to disrupt the flow of a game or try to score an advantage over everyone else by virtue of greater RAW knowledge.

Indeed. Brian from KoDT comes to mind as the archetypal rules-lawyer... oh, wait - wasn't Gary inveighing against that type in the 1E DMG?

The era of 3e has seen the heaviest discussion of the game online, thus skewing our perceptions of the matter. I do agree that 3e lends itself more to rules discussion than 1e, thanks to the options available for it; but I daresay similar scenes were enacted in 1e days with optional material from Dragon magazine - Len Lakofka comes to mind as one of the early "complexifiers" of D&D - and certainly in 2e the rules debates were legion. Much more after Player's Option, as well!

Cheers!

 

[Raven Crowking]

I acknowledge that there is no definitively right style of playing D&D, but I can't imagine a less interesting game to be involved in as a player where the DM just sits there and asks "So what do you do now?" all the time. My best and most memorable D&D experiences of the last 20 years have been with imaginative, descriptive DMs detailing their world, the adventure, and playing my character's involvement in it all.

Now, see, I would say that I am one of those DMs who lay the table and let the players choose what to do. OTOH, I set a lot of hooks. And many of those hooks are NPCs doing what they choose to do.

Example: Orcs attack woodsmen and farmers around Long Archer. The Baron of Long Archer therefore sets a bounty on orc ears. The orcs are being goaded by a group of undead "druids" who call themselves the Bonewardens (which is actually the name of another religious sect). The Bonewardens have fallen under the thrall of a demon who long ago tricked them into believing that undeath would minimize the impact of humans on nature.

Nothing forced the PCs to seek out the Bonewardens....but they did when a treant named Longfall the Windsinger advised them to do so. Had they not, the orc raids would become more severe over time, until they or someone else decided to do something about it.

It is not that I do not present "stories"; it is simply that I provide a lot of potential stories, and that the background stories are largely about NPCs until the PCs become involved. There are a few exceptions. In one ruin, a ghost was the lover of a character's grandmother in life. Other storylines revolve around PC backgrounds supplied by the players. Does Locke want to know who he really is? Does Nift want to avenge his parents?

The important thing, IMHO, is that the world moves with the PCs or without them, that PC backgrounds are given significance (if the player in question supplied enough to work with), and that the PCs get to choose how they deal with ongoing events.

If this is the least interesting type of game you can imagine, our styles are very different indeed!


RC

 

[Thurbane]

If this is the least interesting type of game you can imagine, our styles are very different indeed!

I guess I would say I'm "middle of the road" between your style, and the "railroading style". I will certainly give players a nudge in the direction of the adventure that I have in mind for them (in terms of hints, clues and info), but if they choose to go in a totally different direction, I won't punish them for it. Same when I am a player - while I like to have a certain amount of freedom to explore anywhere I like, I don't mind if the DM drops some hints (even unsubtle ones) about where there might be some suitable adventure opportunities.

The main point I was trying to get accross is that DM theatrics and/or storytelling, and player choice don't need to be mutually exclusive.

 

[Raven Crowking]

The main point I was trying to get accross is that DM theatrics and/or storytelling, and player choice don't need to be mutually exclusive.

Well, I agree with that!


RC

 

[Hussar]

Oh, for sure, adversarial groups have existed as long as D&D has, but I still feel that this style of play has become more prevalent in recent times, especially among newer players. People keep saying that 3.X gives more power back to the players and discourages heavy handed DMing by making the rules more accessable to all involved, and I agree that, to an extent, this is a good thing.

See, that's the mistake right there. 3.x did not give the power to the players. It took the power from the DM's and kept it wrapped up in the rules. Take the example of jump that I gave earlier. A 10 foot jump (barring any strange circumstances) is a set DC. In 1e, there was no set rules for making that jump, so, any answer the DM came up with was right. It was right because the game also stated that the DM is always right. So, if the DM decided that you cannot jump in plate mail, you can't.

The power lies entirely in the hands of the DM. In 3e, the power lies in the rules.

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).

Pardon? I never denied any such thing.

However, the point of those thread, by and large, is a to clarify the rules. Not to judge the rules making ability of the DM. If the DM decided that the DC for a 10 foot jump was 35 and had no reason for it, then I can say that that was a bad DM call. It was a complete misreading of the Jump skill.

Now, if there were additional factors which changed the DC, then fine. But, again, that's the point of discussing the rules - to determine if those factors merited such a huge bump in the DC. Maybe there was an earthquake at the time. Or some sort of magic involved. Fine. No problems. But, if the DM is simply pulling the number out of the air, then the players have every right to question it when rulings actually exist in the RAW.

(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 misunderstand. PrC's are entirely the responsibility of the DM. It specifically says so in the DMG. If the DM doesn't want to allow a PrC in the game, he doesn't have to. However, specialty priests are called out in the 2e PHB, with almost no guidance on how to create them. It does say that you have to work with the DM to create one, but, it doesn't say that that DM should nix ideas if he doesn't like them.

As was mentioned, I could think that a Vic 20 was a great computer, but that doesn't make it so now. Does that mean that I cannot criticize older systems for not doing what they should have?

 

[Thurbane]

See, that's the mistake right there. 3.x did not give the power to the players. It took the power from the DM's and kept it wrapped up in the rules. Take the example of jump that I gave earlier. A 10 foot jump (barring any strange circumstances) is a set DC. In 1e, there was no set rules for making that jump, so, any answer the DM came up with was right. It was right because the game also stated that the DM is always right. So, if the DM decided that you cannot jump in plate mail, you can't.

The power lies entirely in the hands of the DM. In 3e, the power lies in the rules.

Yes, it was so horrible back in those dark ages when the DM had to be called to make a ruling due to the fact the rulebooks weren't a cross between Encyclopedia Brittanica and Advanced Copyright Law For Beginners. He would always use the chance to wring his hands, cackle in glee, and screw the players over, rather than to make a fair ruling. And the players all had to sit silently in their iron shackles, quivering in fear lest the Evil One might smite them down with a houserule if they dared to speak out.

Oh, troubling times, indeed they were...

Just one question - can you point me to the 3.X rules on the effects of lack of sleep? Surely such a majestic system has detailed rules on something so trivial, that is likely to crop in the daily life of an adventurer on the road...

OK, I was being a total jackass with those comments, but was trying to illustrate a point. A point someone else made so elquently earlier:

3.X might offer a wonderful ruleset, but there is absolutely no reason to trash previous editions on this basis.

My mind boggles that there are people out there who actually played 1E and 2E and apparently found them such cumbersome, unfair and unplayable systems, seriously...in 15 years, we never had a fraction of the problems some people here seemed to. :\

 

[Hussar]

It might help a bit to back up a second and rephrase my point.

I wasn't intending on bashing earlier editions. I can see how it could be taken that way, but it wasn't my intention.

The point was raised that because 3e has a fairly comprehensive ruleset with a high degree of functionality, it is easier for poor and average DM's to run a decent game. It might not be a great game, but, at least playable. I was then told that rules make no difference whatsoever in the quality of the game, only the DM's abilities do.

I disagree with this and gave the examples of the specialty priest and jumping to illustrate how having codified rules makes it easier to run a game. How having solid rules means that the DM's particular abilities don't have to directly impact the quality of the game.

This doesn't make earlier editions bad. It makes them more DM dependent.

Now, whether you think DM dependency is a good thing or not is up for grabs. Personally, I would rather focus on the fun stuff of DMing - runnign monsters, designing adventures and whatnot - and not bother rewriting rules. Some people enjoy rewriting the rules. More power to them. It still doesn't actualy affect my base point which is that removing some DM authority and vesting into the rules means that the DM's abilities become somewhat less important to the quality of the game being run.