Free Will and Story

[Hussar]

[MENTION=5143]Majoru Oakheart[/MENTION], [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] - as a GM who has had to nerf/rewrite overpowered spells (esp in RM, where not all the books are equal in quality/balance), I've always tried to do it by getting the player on board and discussing how a balanced alteration/alternative can be arrived at. Sometimes the player has suggested nerfs. Sometimes a player has been very wedded to the broken version, and I've backed off.

To be honest, I've done the same. My beef generally comes when the changes come after the fact. The character has done something and the DM says, "Hey, wait, I think that's too powerful, you can't do that". It almost never, IME, works the other way - the DM does something and stops and says, "Hey, wait, I think that's too powerful, I can't do that". Just like in the OP, the massive damage effect wasn't taken back even though it was problematic.

Now, if I know before I take, say, Glitterdust, that the DM has alternative rules in place? That's 100% on me. No problems. But, again, IME, DM's rarely do that. It's all after the fact and they want to retcon the player's action to protect their scenario.

Pulling the rug out from under the players is never a good thing IME. If something is established in the game, change it for next time after a discussion with the players. Don't try to change things after the fact. That always leads to bad feelings and breeds distrust between the player and the DM. After all, once you've shown that you are willing to retcon an action taken by the player, there's no reason to believe that you won't do it again, and every reason to think that you will.

Which leads to Mother May I gaming where the player has to view every action both through his personal lens of how the rule of the game are written and through the lens of how he views the DM will interpret the action within the game world. Any and all actions become suspect.

 

[pemerton]

My beef generally comes when the changes come after the fact. The character has done something and the DM says, "Hey, wait, I think that's too powerful, you can't do that".

<snip>

It's all after the fact and they want to retcon the player's action to protect their scenario.

Pulling the rug out from under the players is never a good thing IME. If something is established in the game, change it for next time after a discussion with the players.

In the RM experience I was referring to it's sometimes after, sometimes before.

When the effect that's overpowered is core to the spell - say the duration of a buff, or the way of calculating damage for an attack - then I wouldn't normally retcon.

When the effect is something peripheral and broken (one that comes to mind is using scrying defences spells, that create a false vision when scrying is attempted, to try to set up communication systems more powerful than the message/sending spells in the system, by having the scrying attempt hit an image of the character reading a newspaper with the information that the player in question wanted to communicate) then I might intervene when the players are making their plan.

The way things work at my table, it would never come about that a player would simply declare an action and then have me veto or retcon it. Either I would intervene at the preliminary planning stage, or suggest a retake, or suggest a change for the future because what happened was clearly overpowered.

(I should add - this has not really been an issue in 4e, because of its general tendency to approach mechanics from the point of view of satisfactory metagame parameters rather than modelling ingame cause-and-effect. It's the latter approach that I have found tends to produce overpowered combos and/or side effects.)

 

[Ahnehnois]

See, that's the point though. The spells are overpowered in your opinion. ((Now, I'll say that I likely agree, but, that's not the issue)) But, since you're wearing the big daddy pants, only your opinion matters. If the player disagrees, he's out of luck. You believe that changing the rules when the DM feels its appropriate is something a DM should do.

I do not.

I understand that, but I have a hard time seeing a viable alternative within a D&D context. One common synonym for DM/GM, after all, is "referee". Does your average baseball player agree with an umpires ball/strike calls (or any athlete with any calls) when they go against him? Probably not. Does he get a say in the matter? No. Even when the people in charge of adjudicating the rules are clearly wrong (definitely happens), even more clear is the importance of having someone to do what they do. Someone tries to blind a crowd with a Glitterdust spell, all I do is call a ball, throw them a new baseball, and let them keep trying.

So yes, when a player disagrees, he's out of luck. It can sometimes suck being that player, but that's the game.

I really don't get the attitude that you seem to be suggesting, which is that if a group picks up the 3.0 rules, a fighter goes and buys a bag of rats and whirlwind attacks the rats so he can cleave an opponent to oblivion, the DM is obligated to allow it. That was totally legal. Then they fixed it in 3.5, and addressed the systemic issues with how multiple attacks were gained so it was clear that stuff like that shouldn't work. Until then, it was just player discretion to not do it, or the DM saying no. When I make changes in the rules, or rule for situations not covered, all I'm doing is enforcing my vision of common sense and drafting 3.75 as I go. That is, I'm doing my job.

A 4th level spell is pretty high level? That's a 7th level wizard. That's the beginning of mid-range for 3e.

If you believe in the NPC demographic guidelines in the DMG, there are not a lot of 7th level spellcasters in the world. If you have characters overcome 13 on-level challenges to gain a level, the sheer mortality rate in the world's population would place rather harsh limits on what level creatures can reach. If you play E6, that spell doesn't exist. Yes, we do sometimes call that mid-level, because there are a lot more levels, but in the context of the game world I'd say it's a pretty impressive level to be at. And indeed, there are many abilities at that level that commoners would awe it.

And, given this experience, I would say that this is why you don't see a problem with casters. After all, evokers are the weakest of the 3e casters. Which brings me back to the point I made earlier that much of your opinion is based on the fact that you have never really had to face players who dig deeply into the system.

I've had a variety of players from different backgrounds with absurdly different philosophies on gaming. Believe me, some of them dug pretty deep. Evokers are the most popular, but I've seen plenty of other casters. And the druid has always been pretty popular in my games. What's more powerful than a druid? I'm still not buying this notion that I have apparently missed some huge underlying issue with the game. How many casters would I have to see played before I had a decent sample size? How many games must I run before I can be sure that the system works?

Because it can get to the point where the wizard is playing trump cards every single encounter.

Can, but shouldn't, and usually doesn't.

 

[Ahnehnois]

Pulling the rug out from under the players is never a good thing IME. If something is established in the game, change it for next time after a discussion with the players. Don't try to change things after the fact. That always leads to bad feelings and breeds distrust between the player and the DM. After all, once you've shown that you are willing to retcon an action taken by the player, there's no reason to believe that you won't do it again, and every reason to think that you will.

I'm not sure I see the big issue with retconning. I have no problem with saying something, realizing it didn't work five minutes later, and going back and pretending it didn't happen. The important thing to me is that we agree on what happened, and that it makes sense. The messiness of the process used to get there is less important.

But I totally agree that DM actions that invalidate the player's choices or violate the social contract, it defeats the point of sitting down to play the game in the first place. It's worth noting that any rule adjustment that might hurt the players could just as easily benefit them (or hurt their enemies). It's up to the DM to ensure that the players know what to expect and are treated fairly.

Which leads to Mother May I gaming where the player has to view every action both through his personal lens of how the rule of the game are written and through the lens of how he views the DM will interpret the action within the game world. Any and all actions become suspect.

Given your stated opinion that my experience is somehow incomplete or inadequate because my players haven't done certain things, I conversely wonder if you would characterize these things differently if you'd simply had a better DM.

 

[Hussar]

I understand that, but I have a hard time seeing a viable alternative within a D&D context. One common synonym for DM/GM, after all, is "referee". Does your average baseball player agree with an umpires ball/strike calls (or any athlete with any calls) when they go against him? Probably not. Does he get a say in the matter? No. Even when the people in charge of adjudicating the rules are clearly wrong (definitely happens), even more clear is the importance of having someone to do what they do. Someone tries to blind a crowd with a Glitterdust spell, all I do is call a ball, throw them a new baseball, and let them keep trying.

How often does the referee get to change the rules in the middle of the game? If I decide that you're too good of a batter, so, now your strike zone starts at the top of your head to the tip of your toes, is that valid?

Given your stated opinion that my experience is somehow incomplete or inadequate because my players haven't done certain things, I conversely wonder if you would characterize these things differently if you'd simply had a better DM.

But, again, this isn't a DM issue. Not really. It's only a DM issue when the DM insists on forcing his view of the rules on the group in mid play. I've played with DM's who do this, just like you. DM's who change mechanics mid-stream to force the game into a shape that they want. I've also played with DM's who step back, trust the players and trust the mechanics and any changes made are never done mid-action.

I know exactly which ones I want to play with. And, as a DM, I know which way I lean. I would never change something in the middle, just to fit things into what I think is right. If Glitterdust is a problem, it gets resolved outside of game, after the problem is identified. That way, the players know that they can trust the mechanics, and consequently, trust me because they know that they will never have the rug pulled out from under them just because I don't think the rules are right.

Maybe it's because all the people I play with have almost always been DM's themselves. I've never been in a group with only one DM. Or at least, very rarely.

 

[JamesonCourage]

If something is established in the game, change it for next time after a discussion with the players. Don't try to change things after the fact. That always leads to bad feelings and breeds distrust between the player and the DM.

Maybe it's because I only play with friends, but I never have to even worry about my players distrusting me. It doesn't happen, even when changing things after the fact had happened when I played 3.5.

Which leads to Mother May I gaming where the player has to view every action both through his personal lens of how the rule of the game are written and through the lens of how he views the DM will interpret the action within the game world. Any and all actions become suspect.

Definitely a big risk, and part of why I made skill uses and such so spelled out in my game. I wanted to empower the players as much as I could, which mean concrete abilities that they could rely on, including spells, skills, martial abilities, and the like. Which, yes, takes mechanical balance, playtesting, etc.

It's definitely a system issue as much as it is a table issue, in my opinion. And I'd prefer to avoid saying "that doesn't work" as GM all the time. As always, play what you like

 

[Ahnehnois]

How often does the referee get to change the rules in the middle of the game? If I decide that you're too good of a batter, so, now your strike zone starts at the top of your head to the tip of your toes, is that valid?

Yes, it's valid. And referees of all sorts absolutely do these things. Wise? No. Umpires (and DMs) who do a lot of that tend to be weeded out over time, but they do have that level of authority.

I think it's important to note that many of those situations are places where the player gets screwed by the rules, and the DM/referee steps in to give them a fair chance.

I know exactly which ones I want to play with. And, as a DM, I know which way I lean. I would never change something in the middle, just to fit things into what I think is right.

A reasonable approach, perfectly within the DM's discretion.

I do think, however, that if you are going to take a passive approach to DMing, you have to accept the consequences, which can include players doing questionable things that may derail the game. I do not think that a game designer's job is to prevent those kinds of situations. I doubt that many of them can be attributed to a presence or lack of "balance" in the rules themselves. And your assertion that one popular rpg falls apart like a house of cards any time a player tries to do anything while another less popular rpg is impermeable to the assaults of players' will and has made the DM's judgment obsolete, is so extreme a statement, and so at odds with my own experiences and the market trends of the game, that I do continue to wonder where that assertion comes from.

 

[Ahnehnois]

Maybe it's because I only play with friends

That's something I wonder as well. I've certainly had people come in and out of my group, but I've had long-term continuity on the whole with my D&D players. The social contract and the experience we have is likely to be very different than people who play at game stores or through some kind of organized situation with strangers.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

That's something I wonder as well. I've certainly had people come in and out of my group, but I've had long-term continuity on the whole with my D&D players. The social contract and the experience we have is likely to be very different than people who play at game stores or through some kind of organized situation with strangers.

I don't think this is just it however. I play with my friends like Jim as I've been discussing. However, my friends want to win. They have the most fun when they are winning. They don't like changes mid game because they built their character around the abilities they chose SO they could win. If you change something to make it worse, it's likely that they'll get angry that they can't win as easily anymore. In a worst case scenario, they feel that what you've changed has made their character unplayable because it was part of some unbeatable combo they've discovered. Take away any key piece of that combo and it might only be good instead of completely overpowering. They didn't take the combo just to be GOOD.

Which is why Jim has stated multiple times that he doesn't trust ANY DM. They are all bastards who are out to ruin interesting ideas he comes up with.

 

[Hussar]

Yes, it's valid. And referees of all sorts absolutely do these things. Wise? No. Umpires (and DMs) who do a lot of that tend to be weeded out over time, but they do have that level of authority.

That's the thing though. DM's who do this a lot don't get weeded out over time. They keep on going and going and going. I've had this sort of experience with DM's who've run games for many years. They don't see anything wrong, because, like you, they feel that it's incumbent on the DM to change the rules whenever they feel it appropriate.

However, the problem is, "appropriate" can vary pretty wildly.

I think it's important to note that many of those situations are places where the player gets screwed by the rules, and the DM/referee steps in to give them a fair chance.

A reasonable approach, perfectly within the DM's discretion.

I do think, however, that if you are going to take a passive approach to DMing, you have to accept the consequences, which can include players doing questionable things that may derail the game. I do not think that a game designer's job is to prevent those kinds of situations.

While I absolutely do think that it's the game designer's job to prevent serious mechanical issue from occurring. That's the whole point of playtesting and whatnot, isn't it? To make sure that one option isn't so superior to other options that it becomes the default.

I doubt that many of them can be attributed to a presence or lack of "balance" in the rules themselves. And your assertion that one popular rpg falls apart like a house of cards any time a player tries to do anything while another less popular rpg is impermeable to the assaults of players' will and has made the DM's judgment obsolete, is so extreme a statement, and so at odds with my own experiences and the market trends of the game, that I do continue to wonder where that assertion comes from.

Whoa down there partner. I've not said anything whatsoever about 4e here. You really don't have to be coy about it do you? There's all sorts of issues in 4e. They tend to be different issues than 3e, but they're still there. But, since I know you don't know much about 4e, why would I use 4e examples? 3e examples of imbalance work pretty well here. And 3e is a thousand times better balanced than what came before it. So, please, do not attribute things to me that I haven't actually stated. It's much easier that way.