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Message: <blockquote data-quote="N'raac" data-source="post: 6197376" data-attributes="member: 6681948">[I like the headings, so I’m recycling them. Distinguishing social and table dynamics from GM force I’m speaking to the initial suggestion that Spellcasters are overpowered in general, and that Teleport is overpowered specifically.  It was suggested that the different playstyles address that issue in differing manners, with GM Force not being appropriate in every case.  However, GM Force has now been so narrowed in scope that it’s not really the solution anyone actually seems to be using. At many tables, the GM decides.  At others, there may be a vote.  Group consensus is great, but my recollection is that studies of various decision making styles indicate, while this is the best method for achieving buy-in, only about 1/3 of decisions will ever reach consensus, and those take a lot of time to get there.  I don’t want multiple game sessions of time devoted to “should we alter this one spell because it is a poor fit in our game and, if so, how?”?  I want to play the game. One decision theorist suggested that a single decisionmaker for minor decisions, hearing the arguments and deciding, and a consensus approach for the most significant decisions, is a solid approach. In an RPG context, I suggest “significant decisions” are on the level of game system and campaign tone, not individual spell effects.  This reminds me that one term for GM/DM/Referee has also historically been “Judge”, who hears the arguments and renders a decision. The only player consensus in the situation I framed was that none of the players wish to end the campaign.  They all want it to proceed, and they all want to continue playing their characters.  They cannot reach consensus as to how this will be accomplished.  How does the issue get resolved?  Or does it not get resolved, and the campaign simply ends, unresolved?Distinguishing social and table dynamics from GM force Again, your post said “I gave the player the choice”.  This clearly indicates you could deny the same choice.  As the GM, you have chosen to pass the choice to the player, but I don’t see what required this, nor have your further comments altered that.  Let’s go over those: Again, each of these statements sets you as the ultimate arbiter.  YOU ask the player; YOU could simply proceed, but THE PLAYER must ask – he cannot make the decision.  Again, I submit that the fact you decide to delegate your authority does not mean you lack that authority – it is merely the manner in which you have decided to exercise it. If nothing has been lost, why is there a desire to return the character to life?  The norm in my games is not to punish the player with a weaker character.  That serves no purpose.  But we have lost the opportunity to resolve that character’s story threads, plots and themes.  And the player has lost the opportunity to play that specific character, with his background, history and personality.  He could choose to surrender that by moving his character out of the game and bringing in a new one.  Character death was not his choice.  And I don’t see where your comments indicate the decision of whether he gets to choose whether that character death is, or is not, binding and permanent is his.  Quite the contrary, your comments indicate the decision is yours, and you choose to share that decisionmaking power with the player.  Some reasons were actually provided in your quote from the 4e rules, I believe.  Let’s hit those later.  But I’m not arguing the death should, or should not, be final.  I am arguing that, by the rules, the power to make that decision rests in you, the GM.  You can delegate that authority, which you choose to do as part of your game style,  but it is not the rules of the game that provide the choice to the character – it is your modification of those mechanics.  It is, to me, GM force – the death dictated by the action resolution mechanics are overridden by your authority as the GM.    Seems like that first aspect is very much a storyteller motive.  And, again, I am not arguing against delegating the choice to the player.  I am arguing that it is you, in your role of GM, who decides to delegate that choice – the game mechanics themselves do not put this decision in the player’s hands. The rules say the players as a group.  Your description says you and the specific player made the choice.  Have you not, then, deviated from the rules in removing the decision from the group as a whole and placing it entirely in the hands of the single player?  Again, I’m not asserting this rules deviation is a bad choice.  I am, however, asserting that the rules did not generate the result you wanted (player gets the choice), so you are overriding those rules (“I gave the player the choice”). I note the one thing it does not state is “if you’re going to allow the clone character, why not just override the death of the original character”.  In fact, nothing here says the character death should be overridden or reversed, only how the new character should be addressed.  Does the discussion of the Raise Dead ritual suggest the player of the fallen character should have the authority to unilaterally have that ritual applied? You told us above that YOU gave the player the choice.  You as GM, not the players as a group.  The exact same way, I believe, that Ahnehnois would decide, for the group, whether the specific PC could be returned to life. They died?  I thought they woke up in a goblin jail cell.  Most dead people don’t get incarcerated and wake up, do they?  The result of “death” has been overridden to “taken prisoner”.  As I read your comments, you as GM made that decision.  How is that not GM Force? As have requirements like an intact body and an actual spell being used.  I didn’t think that was what happened based on your comments – and if it was, why didn’t the goblins raise all the PC’s? You consistently refer to “the group” as though they are always in 100% consensus.  Is that, in fact, the case?  Is it inconceivable that “the group” may not agree?  Perhaps it is – many of us have the good fortune to have a group of like-minded players, often because the non-like minded characters get frustrated and leave, hopefully finding a group more fitting to their playstyle. I suggest that, if some players want the result – death – to be overridden, and others want it to be binding, then someone must make a decision.  Who makes that decision?  Or must we suspend any game play until a consensus is reached, however long that may take?  Let’s assume a less like-minded group, which results in a search for consensus looking a lot like threads like this one JThe Chamberlain I thought GM force was limited to overriding the action resolution mechanics?  Can a PC enter combat when the target is a continent away?  The scene framed is one of a Chamberlain who refuses to listen to the PC for the required length of time allowing Diplomacy to be entered into.  Would you allow this same player to apply Diplomacy in combat?  If not, why not?  Should he not get the same -10 penalty if he is prepared to undertake a full-round action?  I agree that option should be available to the PC – it’s tough for the Chamberlain to avoid a 6 second peppering of the PC’s words. If social success against the Chamberlain is impossible, I suggest this has not been framed as a social challenge.  Perhaps it is an information-gathering challenge, as the players must determine what steps they could take to win over the chamberlain, or circumvent him to get to the king, rather than a social challenge which can be resolved with a single roll, however good.It has been suggested diplomacy is a poor choice for this discussion.  While I feel it is a mechanic which is suitable for discussion, I do find it problematic in that there is no possibility the PC can lose.  In combat, he can be overpowered and captured or killed.  But PC’s are immune to diplomacy.  So the same player who tells me even the most stubborn, hostile, unwilling target can be persuaded to undertake the most unlikely actions with a single roll of the dice in a minute or less will also tell us that, no matter how persuasive the Chamberlain is in return, the attitudes of the PC’s will not shift one iota as PC’s are immune to interaction skills.  I suspect this ability to avoid any stakes offered on the PC side makes this mechanic problematic for Indie play as well.Authority over situation, and action resolution It is overriding the action resolution mechanics.  Those mechanics say “killing the chamberlain requires rolling initiative, rolling to hit, rolling damage and continuing to do so until the chamberlain is reduced to death” (-10 hp in 3.5, -CON in Pathfinder). To me, it is a sensible override where there is no chance the chamberlain can defend himself or survive, so it’s not different that overriding the mechanics to mop up those last couple of goblins, but that does not make it any less an override.  Perhaps another player’s character is grappling with his conscience, and while “OK dead Chamberlain” does not afford him the time to consider, the player would see the Chamberlain hit once, then fall on a second strike, then intervene before the killing blow could be struck.  In that case, the override was a poor choice and should not have been implemented.  I trust you would agree that, if there would be such a conflict relevant to one or more of the characters, the Chamberlain should not simply be declared dead. OK – then isn’t you passing the choice from the goblins you direct to the players an abrogation of this rule?  If not, why did one Goblin not share the desire to take live prisoners?I asked previously - Who makes the final decision if they do not concur. Not in your game, but by the 4e rules themselves. It seems like this may well be an instance where the rules are giving way to the GM’s discretionary arbitration It seems from your comments that, in some cases, the table decides by the book, yet you give individual players the choice, overriding the book.  In others, the choice falls to you, but you choose to delegate it to the players, individually or as a group.  In other words, these rules do not perfectly support your playstyle, so you alter the rules.  Certainly – they are invisible in the water, and consistently take exactly the same action of hurling the PC’s back to the bank, then Readying an action to do so again.  There are two dozen of them.  It is still functionally impossible for the PC to swim across the moat.  And the players  may well perceive this as GM dickery, rather than an actual “challenge” in the moat.   I’m not saying it’s good or bad GMing.  I am saying it seems no different, to me, than the moat that inexplicably pushes the PC’s back to their side of the moat, and can certainly appear identical in game.  I suggest that a chamberlain unswayed by diplomacy and the magical moat are both capable of being part of a scene framed by the GM. Why do they need to be told?  Do we also tell them there is a invisible assassin in the room? So it is OK to add the water elementals or the stubborn chamberlain, is it not?  Both inject additional opposition to the players’ goals.  I thought putting water elementals in the moat didn’t settle any questions of action resolution.  Would it similarly be improper for the GM to frame a scene where the party stands on one side of a gorge and its enemies on the other, wide enough that the fighter will clearly fail any effort to leap to the other side? Burning Wheel Circle mechanics and other mechanical mattersI’m not qualified to discuss BW mechanics (or 4e mechanics, really).  I believe it is also possible to oppose such rolls.  To use HeroQuest, [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] can certainly have a Likeable Fellow ability, and the Chamberlain a much stronger “Stubborn as a Mule”, or “No time or tolerance for commoners” trait, backed up by “Zealous defender of the King’s privacy”.  How does this come to resolution?  The chamberlain is deaf to the character’s requests, and the wheel has come full circle.Using GM force to control spellcasters We started this discussion off with the question whether fighters and spellcasters are unequal in the game.  How is the spellcaster with Detect Magic different from the large group of guards which deter the fighter from hacking and slashing his way to the king?  Sometimes, magic is not the solution.  Sometimes, combat is not. You seem to leap to this conclusion.  It does not give him a viable means to immediately succeed in his chosen goal.  Just as the fighter lacks a viable means to immediately succeed in his chosen goal.  It does not mean either could not undertake alternative means to achieve their goal, only that a complication (the chamberlain) has been added, and a means of dealing with that complication must be undertaken.  If that followed an attack on the King’s chambers in which the PC’s were defeated by the King’s Guards, I don’t see them having grounds for complaint.  Isn’t this more or less the fate of your Goblin-captured party?  Just as I would expect PC’s to be aware the King has guards, the fact he likely has spellcasters should also be known.  If the players seem unaware of this casual knowledge their PC’s would possess, then they should be advised before any action declaration is final.  If I as GM fail to do so, it falls on me to make it right, even if that means unwinding a previously declared action (eg.  “Had the enchanter known it is routine for nobility to have spellcasters paid to detect magic, would you still have cast the spell?  No?  Then we’ll back up and he does not cast it.” I think there is a lot of room between “this ability is always useless” and “this ability is a I WIN button.  Isn’t that the problem levied against spellcasters?  I would like to think the GM and player established some common ground for socially acceptable use of enchantment spells before the player committed to his character construction so he knows whether or not he can use those abilities in social challenges. But again, this is the heart of the issue – if the use of diplomacy is subject to being blocked, or failure, why is the Charm spell permitted automatic success?  Well and good – but last I looked, we weren’t discussing those systems.  We were discussing the power of the spellcaster in 3e, where the Charm spell is an enchantment, does allow a saving throw and is, to many of us at least, an attack – not a socially acceptable means of making friends and influencing people.  Nor should it be as or more potent than Diplomacy, and usable in as many or more situations, without requiring a greater investment of character resources.  That is the crux of the question posed by this thread, is it not? And would a scheming, plotting enchanter whose use of such enchantments is neither ethical nor legal not be an equally valid character? Excellent – but that does not, to me, mean that the 3.5 mechanics cannot give rise to an enjoyable play experience, or that this relies on unreasonable GM interpretations, or GM override of the rules, under its mechanics.  The fact that you want the player to be able to use Charm Person in a social context cannot be taken in isolation.  The player that views the spell, or the skill, or whatever, as an automatic “I WIN” button is, in my view, taking a very liberal interpretation of the rules.  A more realistic interpretation is not, in my view, “GM Force” – it is what the rules say.  It is not GM Force (based on the definition of overriding the mechanics) for the GM to enforce the restrictions and weaknesses of various abilities, specified in the rules. Quite the reverse, it is the player who is attempting to override the mechanics and the GM who is enforcing them. As set out above, I don’t believe you are simply following the rules as laid out in 4e.  I think you are overriding them where you feel it would be appropriate to do so.  And I think you would be equally capable of overriding rules as needed in a 3e game, although if you find the 4e mechanics preferable, then I see no reason you would not continue to use them.  But the suggestion that any game mechanics system will be perfect for a wide group, requiring no interpretations (or none that differ from every other group) and no rule overrides is not, in my view, a correct one. So does that mean the Evoker must be able to Fireball the king’s guard to get in to see him, and consequences for such actions deprotagonise that character?  I don’t think it does, but you are clearly setting limits on the use of his abilities, just as “Charming the Chamberlain carries negative consequences” sets limits. I find a measure of intellectual dishonesty when every criticism of the very liberal rules interpretations, commonly ignoring the rules as written, which render wizards “clearly overpowered” is met with the claim that the poor wizard is being picked on and not allowed to use his abilities reasonably.   If I remove or ignore the restrictions placed on spellcasters and their spells by the rules as written, I should not be surprised that I have changed the balance of power.  At that point, I need to change other rules in order to restore that balance of power.  However, the argument (not YOUR argument) seems to be that we must allow the most liberal interpretations of each spell as can be imagined, fail to enforce any rules which would limit the spellcaster’s power and then accept that the fact that, if we ignore the rules, the game becomes unbalanced must mean that the rules are the problem.  The refusal to read the rules as written, and take them as a whole, exaggerates any power disparity that might actually exists,  and serves only to obfuscate any real issue.  I think we have become somewhat schizophrenic in our discussion.  There are some discussions addressing differing playstyles, and how or whether the rules accommodate them, and how this might be solved by different editions or baseline assumptions.  You are focused on that discussion. There are others discussing whether the 3.5 rules, exactly as written, without modification for playstyles, create a power disparity which cannot be resolved.  That discussion lead to my comment on the fact that those claiming this huge power disparity appear to resolve every rules ambiguity in favour of the wizard, then ignore some much less ambiguous rules to favour the wizard some more, then complain he is overpowered. So which one is your game – one with no plan, or where you have no responsibility?  I think you can have no specific plan as to the direction the game will go, and still be focused on making the game fun.  To a large extent, that is driven by the concept of failing forward.  Sometimes, that concept may require rules overrides (such as “the goblins take the PC’s prisoner instead of letting them bleed out”).  It is not contradictory to focus on ensuring a fun play experience without having a preconceived storyboard on how that fun play experience will specifically unfold. So it is impossible for the Chamberlain to be thematically relevant and realistic?  I disagree.  When you choose complications in your game, are they just tossed in without consideration of how they fit in with the game world?  If there is no relevance to the Chamberlain, then it should be a simple matter to bypass him, but I would expect he would turn up in the King’s court, and not in a dungeon crawl through Goblin warrens. If the GM adjudicates where required, he is the final arbiter.  The matter is adjudicated.  The GM can adjudicate the success or failure of the PC’s actions with no preconception of whether they will succeed or fail.  He can even have a plan for what will occur if they succeed, and what will take place if they fail.  He does not have to have any stake in which result will occur to have plans in place for both.   Are you saying that you just toss an encounter in front of the PCs with no context and no conception of what will come next?  Are you just making the entire game up as you go along? Then why have action resolution mechanics at all?  Why should the PC’s ever face the possibility of failure?   The worst examples of “storyteller mode” is the GM simply reading his novel of the PC’s successes and failures, and the manner in which they are accomplished, to the players.  But the worst example of “PC Protaganism” is nearly identical, as the player reads his PC FanFic, dictating what occurs and how.  When the players can simply dictate their successes or failures (“I have Diplomacy +x so any refusal of the Chamberlain to let my PC see the King and then use his diplomacy again to get whatever my PC wants is unacceptable and I’ll take my ball and go home if that happens!”), there is no game.  That, if I read Wicht correctly, is “players running rough-shod over the campaign world”.</blockquote>

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