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<blockquote data-quote="Orius" data-source="post: 9555412" data-attributes="member: 8863">That was a statement made in irony.&nbsp; I don't agree with underhandedly penalizing a player who is even suspected of looking at DM only material behind the DM's back.&nbsp; As I said, there are players who both play and DM, so they're going to have familiarity with the DM-only stuff.&nbsp; Even Gary ran PCs under other DMs.&nbsp; Now players consulting that material during a game is a different matter, and should be penalized, but not through passive aggressive means.Artifacts were a good way of handling this problem.&nbsp; They didn't have set abilities, and the DM chose them.&nbsp; So artifacts wouldn't have the same effect from game to game, and you couldn't be sure how your DM was using them.I think part of the problem was that Gary was assuming players were coming up to 1e from 0e, and knew what he was talking about.&nbsp; Though the stream of thought in High Gygaxian really didn't help either.&nbsp;&nbsp; Nor did the conflicts with Dave that led to the split between AD&amp;D and D&amp;D.&nbsp; And there was the early differences between wargamers who were used to tinkering and the SF fans who were new to hobby gaming and made honest mistakes.&nbsp; To be fair, we're critiquing this through the clarity of hindsight though.And then 2e comes along and assumes new players, especially DMs, are coming up from BECMI, repeating the mistake to some degree.Which is strange to me, because the least essential of the DMGs is 2e's.&nbsp; And again, I think a good part of that is the BECMI assumption I mentioned above.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Orius, post: 9555412, member: 8863"] That was a statement made in irony. I don't agree with underhandedly penalizing a player who is even suspected of looking at DM only material behind the DM's back. As I said, there are players who both play and DM, so they're going to have familiarity with the DM-only stuff. Even Gary ran PCs under other DMs. Now players consulting that material during a game is a different matter, and should be penalized, but not through passive aggressive means. Artifacts were a good way of handling this problem. They didn't have set abilities, and the DM chose them. So artifacts wouldn't have the same effect from game to game, and you couldn't be sure how your DM was using them. I think part of the problem was that Gary was assuming players were coming up to 1e from 0e, and knew what he was talking about. Though the stream of thought in High Gygaxian really didn't help either. Nor did the conflicts with Dave that led to the split between AD&D and D&D. And there was the early differences between wargamers who were used to tinkering and the SF fans who were new to hobby gaming and made honest mistakes. To be fair, we're critiquing this through the clarity of hindsight though. And then 2e comes along and assumes new players, especially DMs, are coming up from BECMI, repeating the mistake to some degree. Which is strange to me, because the least essential of the DMGs is 2e's. And again, I think a good part of that is the BECMI assumption I mentioned above. [/QUOTE]

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