Fantastic mysteries vs. DM cheating

[DungeonKeeperUK]

But it isn't always that way. PCing in a game where you just meet the DM that day or vice versa is a little odd. It is more of a familiarity issue then trust perhaps, but there still seems to that period of oddness. It does seem, though, that many of the newer players want to know everything the DM is doing. They want to know what that spell was or what class that NPC is. I'm from the school that anything the DM says goes.

Fair point, from teh DM stand point knowing your players also enable you to be able to predict what they may ot may not do an din turn be prepared for different occasions.. and haveing a prepared "lie" is always easier to pull off ...

 

[barsoomcore]

I love mystery. For the longest time I told my players there was no magic in my campaign -- since that's what most people believe -- and even though they were running into animated skeletons, winged demons and other nasties, they were still shocked when they finally ran into an actual wizard! And then it was a long time before they discovered how magic worked, and figured out how to use it.

I have a rules lawyer in my group who is always trying to do things to get exact specifications for all my offhand creations ("Okay, I walk ten feet away. Does it still work? Okay, twenty feet. Still? I keep trying every ten feet until it doesn't work anymore."). He gets driven crazy whenever he makes an incorrect assumption about the way things work and then things don't behave according to his model.

I use mystery in both a story and a mechanics sense, and at both a revelatory and conceptual level. I mean that my campaign has story elements that are mysterious (characters, races yada) and mechanics (summouning demons, witchcraft, fey oaths yada), and they're all mysterious on one of two levels -- revelatory, that is I know what's going on but the players don't until I reveal the truth to them, and conceptual, that is I myself don't actually know what's going on.

So what kinds of mysteries are we all talking about here?

Story/Revelatory
Story/Conceptual
Mechanic/Revelatory
Mechanic/Conceptual

Anal-retentive much?

 

[Synicism]

It depends on the GM. Generally, it's a matter of trust between the people involved. So long as players and GM trust each other, and no one abuses that trust, it's OK for things to be "different."

Abuse of trust can, of course, ruin that relationship.

 

[Synicism]

I use mystery in both a story and a mechanics sense, and at both a revelatory and conceptual level. I mean that my campaign has story elements that are mysterious (characters, races yada) and mechanics (summouning demons, witchcraft, fey oaths yada), and they're all mysterious on one of two levels -- revelatory, that is I know what's going on but the players don't until I reveal the truth to them, and conceptual, that is I myself don't actually know
what's going on.

Which is actually pretty cool. Though it's difficult to maintain the believability of your world without some internal consistency, even if they are rules that only you know.

If something works one way, there should be a reason for it to work a different way the next time that is, at least in your own mind, consistent with your design.

Otherwise that player/GM trust starts to strain.

 

[barsoomcore]

It's difficult to maintain the believability of your world without some internal consistency, even if they are rules that only you know.

Step One: Never tell your players anything as though it were from your own (the DM's) mouth. Their character's knowledge doesn't come from God, it comes from what people tell them. And people can be wrong.

That said, once you've definitely committed to something, of course you have to maintain it. Unless you can come up with a viable reason for changing the rules. And even then, if you keep changing the rules, your players will get frustrated. Players need to feel like they have some kind of solid ground to stand on.

Step Two: Never tell yourself anything as though it were true unless you absotively, posolutely have to. Don't make any decisions you don't have to make. You can't tell your players what's what if you don't know what's what, and the less defined everything is, the easier it is to wiggle yourself out of any conceptual corners you might inadverdently stray into.

You don't have to make a decision about how psionics work until a psion appears in your campaign. You don't have to decide if monkeys wear pants or not until the party runs into monkeys. So don't. It's much easier to be consistent if you're not making decisions about distant places.

 

[Umbran]

I'm talking more about things that are mysterious mechanically.

Ah, but you see, the distinction there can be completely eliminated. Every single mysterious mechanic can be explained by using a mysterious plot

They have a spell that does something that can't otherwise be done by the rules? That's fine, just so long as it's connected to something in the plot they don't know about.

 

[justa goblin]

I'm talking more about things that are mysterious mechanically. A vast spell that summons hordes of demons, for example. There's no such spell in the books, and you don't make any rules for it; it's just something that is.

As long as you have some idea of it's relative power the actual rules don't really matter. If the players really need/want to know and are going to invest a lot of time divining the spell come up with a quick name (Storm of the Abyss), a quick level, and maybe some cost (promise your soul blah, blah). As long as the spell is not rediculously over powered your players should'nt have a problem. Also you might want to look into the Defenders of Daybreak. PCat's handling of TMOSAT was brilliant and the players seemed to really enjoy it. It would have driven me up a wall. But in a good way.
justa

 

[Wicht]

I think one simple trick is to always tell the players what happened but not why it happened. It is easy for instance to say, "The quasit attacking you suddenly becomes invisible." But it is far better to say, "the little horned creature suddenly vanishes."

Both provide the same information, but the second statement lends itself to creating more of a mystery atmosphere for the game. Learning to describe things in this way allows you to create a sense of wonder without having to create special rules.

 

[Buttercup]

Rule 0. The DM cannot cheat, by definition.

The DM can be clumsy, or uncreative, or make a stupid decision, all of which I'm afraid I've been guilty of at times. But cheating is impossible.

 

[Bagpuss]

(SNIP) The nature of RPGs is that things that happen are codified, classified and described in detail so that DMs and players don't have to wonder about how or why something happens.

Hmm can't agree with you on that point. The nature of D&D perhaps with it codified spell lists, and magic item catalogs, etc. but many other RPG's are much more flexible.

Spells in Call of Cthuhlu (Chaosium edition) for example are often made up, unbalanced and specific for the adventure and so the players will have no knowledge of them before hand and no 'rules' for them to be codified by.

Its only really when the game is seen as Players Vs the DM that the DM can ever really be accussed of cheating. Since the DM sets the RULES (see Rule 'O') how can he ever possibly cheat? Since a good DM is working for the players (this doesn't mean for their characters) and not against them cheating is never an issue.

I have some ideas of my own, but I don't think they're very coherent at this point, so I'd like to just start some discussion at this level before I chime in with what I think.

I've think you have expressed a few already (although I've snipped them), I think you really would like to see a debate on the issue.

I think its only an 'issue' when you have a rules lawyer in your group, or a group that feels the DM is 'out to get them'. Since the main rule our group tends to play by is "Have fun" this never is a problem in our games.