"Fun"

[med stud]

Over and over again. Lean how to say YES! to your players.

That also gets old.

In that case it seems that the most important advice is there .

 

[hong]

Over and over again. Lean how to say YES! to your players.

That also gets old.

There is nothing wrong with a bit of positive reinforcement, especially for DMs who have had long years and experience at crafting carefully detailed, closely argued reasons to say no.

 

[Cadfan]

How about "Talking with guards usually isn't fun."

Ironically, the word is present in the second sentence, the one about rations and encumbrance. Also, the intention is obvious is obvious.

Which would mean this whole thread is an argument about the lack of one word in the DMG.

That would be accurate, yes.

 

[Reynard]

How about "Talking with guards usually isn't fun."

Which would mean this whole thread is an argument about the lack of one word in the DMG.

But an extremely important word. More to the point, what gets my goat is that this little badwrongfun paragraph is an anomoly in what is otherwise a very DM empowering system. It isn't that I think, "Oh, noes, I'll never be able to run 4E my way!", or even "poor newbs will never understand the fun of tracking rations!" -- the problem is that the paragraph serves no useful purpose, is insulting to a particular play style, and would have been far better served reiterating and reenforcing the general "play to your players" tone of the introduction.

 

[Imaro]

Simple. There's a GIANT DIFFERENCE between 1) forcing the players to talk to the guards at the gate in a perfunctory and ultimately pointless exercise, and 2) refusing to permit the PCs to talk to the guards at the gate even if they want to do so.

Bad DMing 1:

DM: The guards at the gate stop you. There are two, one tall, and one short. "Name and business?" the tall one asks.
PC: I am [blah blah blah]
...
30 seconds of conversation passes
...
DM: They wave you through the gate.
PC: We head to the tavern.
DM: You're early for your meeting with the Scarlet Scoundrel, so lets roleplay another mandatory conversation with a faceless NPC that isn't likely to matter ever again and about whom you don't care in the least! Act out your drink orders at the tavern bar. NOW!

Bad DMing 2:

DM: You arrive at the city, and the guards wave you through the gate after determining your name and business.
PC: I'd like to ask the guards about...
DM: NO! The DMG says you're not allowed to talk to guards! Its not fun and you're not allowed to do it! I know because I read books the same way Amelia Bedelia pitches tents! Move on!

Good DMing 1:

DM: You arrive at the city, and the guards wave you through the gate after determining your name and business. You head to the tavern where you agreed to meet the Scarlet Scoundrel.

Good DMing 2:

DM: You arrive at the city, and the guards wave you through the gate after determining your name and business. You head to...
PC 1: Actually, I'd like to ask the guards some questions before we go into this.
DM: Oh, sure.
PC 2: And I have some investigation I'd like to do as well before we meet this guy.
DM: Alright, go ahead. *makes notes and secretly starts a skill challenge*

First...nice hyperbole. Second why is Bad Dm'ing 1, actually bad DM'ing? Some players (especially new players may not even realize they can talk to the guards if you push them through to the "fun". IMHO, if all the players are interacting with the guards and having fun I don't see how the interaction is "wasted" even if it doesn't progress the story. Perhaps a player gets a chance to devise a quirk, or a voice for his PC, maybe he just wants to be able to call on the guards later. Now if after the initial interaction, no one is interested, by all means move along.

The problem is the DMG addresses it in absolutes instead of a "how to make it interesting or tell if it's interesting" way. The funny thing is they identify an "Actor" player type, yet according to your advice above it's okay to force the Actors to sit through hour long combats...but 30 secs of interaction is just too much. Uhm... ok.

 

[CleverNickName]

Which would mean this whole thread is an argument about the lack of one word in the DMG.

What? Impossible! That would never happen in these game forums. [/sarcasm]

This is just one example of the DMG's poor writing style; I am sure you can find others if you wanted to. The book just doesn't read very well.

 

[Doug McCrae]

As a GM I've certainly messed up in the past by allowing the PCs to go wherever, talk to whoever they want, without making it clear enough where the plot lay. Really the players wanted plot, they were looking for plot, they wanted to be entertained, but I was mistakenly hiding plot. I've played in games like that too. Ofc if everyone is enjoying the 'meandering' then all well and good but I sensed that wasn't the case.

These days I'm thinking about adopting a different method of adventure design - prepare some interesting, but not tightly connected, scenes and then connect them in actual play via whatever way the players approach the situation. For example if the players question a faceless NPC I'd made up no details about whatsoever, he'll suddenly turn out to have useful info pointing to prepared encounter #3.

Some might call this latter approach railroading because in a sense it doesn't matter what the PCs do, they'll always get to scene #3. It's a continuum, not a hard-and-fast distinction between railroading and perfect freedom. The PCs probably do have the power to avoid certain scenes if they take very unexpected actions or come up with a brilliant plan to cut to end scene #8. Otoh prepared scenes are usually better than improvised ones, so the GM doesn't want to throw away his prep work if it can be avoided.

 

[hong]

But an extremely important word.

Oh, poppycock.

More to the point, what gets my goat is that this little badwrongfun paragraph is an anomoly in what is otherwise a very DM empowering system. It isn't that I think, "Oh, noes, I'll never be able to run 4E my way!", or even "poor newbs will never understand the fun of tracking rations!" -- the problem is that the paragraph serves no useful purpose, is insulting to a particular play style, and would have been far better served reiterating and reenforcing the general "play to your players" tone of the introduction.

It does play to your players. The context of that paragraph is that the game should be fun for everyone. Presumably, the DM doesn't need to be told to include stuff that he finds fun himself.

You can introduce all sorts of nonlinear elements without having to describe everything in exhaustive detail. Say the players get to town. Instead of playing out their interaction with every guard, beggar, merchant and barmaid, you can roll Streetwise, or even a full-scale skill challenge; if they succeed (or even if they fail), they learn a bunch of facts and rumours. What they do with these tidbits is entirely up to them.

And no, just because you roll dice doesn't mean you discard freeform roleplay entirely either.

 

[Hussar]

I like the new DMG. I like the fact that it is both geared toward new DM's, actively teaching them how to run a game of (4E) D&D, and that is full of useful material like traps and monster creations rules and diseases and the like. However, I found something in it that irritates me to no end and brings back all that teeth gnashing resistence I felt during the lead up to release.

First, though, a little bit from the introduction:



This is a nice little statement early on in the game, reminding the DM thatthe definition of fun varies between folks. But later, at the very end of a very good encounter chapter, we get this definition of "fun":



This is stuff straight out of the pre-release hype machine that badwrongfun'd pretty much everything about earlier editions. This is stuff that says that Mearls and Co. know fun, and your ain't it. This is stuff that just plane pisses me off. To some people, some of those listed things are, in fact, fun. For a few, all of those things are fun. I think those 100 words or so would have been better spent reiterating the point of the first quote, that there is no right (or more importantly in this case, wrong) definition of fun and what matters is that the group as a whole shares a similar definition.

Instead, we've got badwrongfunism forever enshrined in the DMG, and thus, if goal are met, a whole generation of D&D players that don't waste time on unfun stuff like talking to guards, exploring dungeon coorridors or managing "real" resources.

I've been rereading my Dungeoncraft articles from way back when. Funny thing is, the table management advice is pretty much IDENTICAL to what is being complained about here. Almost word for frickin word.

When Paizo publishes it, it must be true, but, when WOTC says it, it must be false.

 

[AllisterH]

What? Impossible! That would never happen in these game forums. [/sarcasm]

This is just one example of the DMG's poor writing style; I am sure you can find others if you wanted to. The book just doesn't read very well.

Weird.

I consider it the best ever DMG period. And yes, I'm including the 1E DMG.

THe DMG actually teaches you how to run a game which I think is the most important aspect that the DMG should focus on.

(That said, I do think this thread seems somewhat weird in that we're focusing on one sentence even though as Lizard mentions, the DMG actually talks about how to identify what is fun for each player...)