Kamikaze Midget said:
Actually, the DMG includes rules for building new monster abilities. And for adjudicating things that the rules cannot cover. So, you know, rules for when the rules fail. And there's the ever-popular Rule 0 as well. All of these have a good reason for existing, and I'd expect a DM to adhere to them, too.
And if I can't get the ability I want from those rules? What then?
Note that the DMG doesn't really include rules for arbitrarily killing a high-level knight for falling off of a horse. That's because there are many people who would have their games fairly well ruined by such an experience.
The high-level knight is only a high-level knight when there's high-level knighting to do. Otherwise, off-screen he's just some dude on a horse. Likewise, if a player retires his PC and later says that he's killed in a pointless bar fight, despite actually being capable of single-handedly wiping out whole kingdoms, that's fine too.
Sure, sounds like fun. It's a good thing the DMG gives guidelines for setting DC's and making monsters and covering situations that aren't covered by the rules. Pretty good ones, IIRC. It's great when a DM plays by the rules.
Oooh, ooh, what about when the rules cover a situation, but we don't want to apply them because it would be extremely tedious?
Take the following. Team Good (the PCs) and Team Evil (the enemy) are both going up a mountain to find the Temple of the Plot Device. It's a tall mountain. According to the Climb skill rules, they're only for an individual wall, or section of mountain, or cliffside. But instead of making six hundred and forty one climb checks for each side...
DM (me): "You all have Climb?"
PCs: "Yeah. Except for Dave."
DM (me): "Whoever's got it highest roll it, with the others Aiding him, and Dave giving a penatly of, oh, say -3, 'cause you got to help him climb. If you beat Team Evil, you get there first. If you don't, you get their after they do."
No falling off the mountain, because we don't care. No tedious mountain climbing, because all anyone wants to do is go fight team evil. All that matters is whether they get there first, and so can set up an ambush, or get there second, and walk into an ambush. But this breaks the rules for the Climb skill, doesn't it?
And yes, before you start yammering about how the players have no input here, if they had some other idea, I'd certainly listen and probably say yes. (Like, "Can we try to intercept Team Evil before the Temple? or, "Can we trigger an avalanche..." or "Can we bribe this nearby dragon to just fly us up..." and so on.)
I don't see how you're breaking/bending/modifying/igoring the rules with crazy schemes and new monsters, though. The rules pretty much expressly state that there are circumstances they won't cover, and they give the DM ways to handle it. That's entirely within the rules.
(emphasis mine) And if I want to handle it some other way? Besides, you already established that changing the price of a magic item is a heavy-handed rules change that implies an abusive GM castrating his players, so clearly your threshold for "circumstances not in the rules" is pretty low.
Furthermore, I'm merely mentioning that when a DM takes a heavy-handed tactic like many of the OP's examples, without accounting for it in the rules, just to achieve some expidited narrative end, I get the feeling that this whole game is just an excuse for the DM to achieve his own expidited narrative end, and get the distinct feeling that my participation has no effect. Which is largely true, since the rules are the mechanism by which my character has an effect on the game world. If the DM doesn't use the rules, I can't affect the process, and my character is impotent.
The rules are one way you have an affect on the game world, but not the only way. But keep in mind, just as I expedite a particular narrative effect, so can the players.
And, again, the goal is an emergent narrative- you don't have the story prepared ahead of times, it grows from play in a mutual, cooperative fashion between DM and players.
It's not an accuastion of being railroady. It's an accusation of making the player impotent. Which is actually a much deeper, more pointed criticism.
This doesn't make the player impotent. Roleplaying games are not zero sum, they are collaborative. It makes the players more potent, because they're range of power over the setting is not found just in the rules, but with some discussion with the GM, can extend to the game world itself.
If the game just becomes round after round of the DM just saying "Yes" or "No" to my PC requests, it's not a game I particularly am interested in playing. Similarly, if the game just becomes the DM doing whatever they want without my character being able to affect it, it's very dull to me. In both instances, I feel like my character has no effect on the world other than that which the DM allows it to have. Which, again, is a feeling of impotence.
That's ridiculous. There is a huge in-between area. There is no reason to think your character cannot affect the world if NPC knights can break their necks.
But if that knight was the 20th level epic hero of the realm who slew the great red wyrm Galhadrarix and consorts with the gods nightly on Mount Maia, simply falling off an old nag in the country doesn't make sense. The rules don't really permit such a thing to happen. And because it sets off those flags, it has one of two possibilities: either there's more going on (warlock curses and the like), or the DM is beating my sense of believability with a mallet.
The rules don't apply. He's off-screen. He's an NPC. He's not facing down the dragon, he's just some dude on a horse. The rules are a
provisionally applied abstraction, designed for certain circumstances. NPCs don't follow the rules when the PCs aren't around- the whole world operates exactly how the DM imagines it does...until the PCs change things. The rules are there for the players, not the DM.
But if the DM just 'made it happen,' without an in-game explanation, I'd feel robbed and impotent as a player. "Oh. Well, I make it happen where I kill him. Game over!"
What are you even talking about with this "game over" business?
Take another example. The PCs at some point in the past fought alongside Archbishop Preacher McGodly, the 15th level Fist of the Sun God or somesuch. He's the high priest of a city the PCs have left. Later, they learn via messanger that the archbishop has died under scandalous circumstances- a prostitute stabbed him whilst he secretly visited a brothel!
But wait! He's 15th level, isn't he? He can't die from a stab wound! Yes, yes he can. He can die from the flu. He can get run over by a cart crossing the street. He's only a 15th level Cleric when there is 15th level Clericing to do.
They return to the city. The players might expect it to have been dopplegangers or some 15th level threat- but no, it is all mundane. Just an old man indulging his vice and paying the consequences. Maybe I'm setting up a fall from grace themed story, or I expect the PCs to take over the church in the wake of the scandal, or are granted in the Archbishop's will some terrible knowledge of a dire threat that he wanted them to face if he were unable. Whatever.
Permenant magical enchantments are part of the rules, as are rules that allow you to be better at a specific weapon. If the DM uses those, I'm fine. If he doesn't, my sense of believability is bludgeoned. Oh, so your pet NPC can get something that no one else can? How wonderful for him.
Unless, of course, you go find that same master and get the same training...Or maybe the master is long dead. Too bad! The world might be full of those little exceptions. Some might be available to the PCs, some not.
Meaning what?
Specifically?
I can attest from personal experience- I am loose with rules. I handwave. I fiat. I fudge. I ignore. I break. I bend. I modify. And yet my players are powerful actors within the setting and the driving force behind the narrative. And we still get good use out of the rules very regularly.
Hey, as long as we all share in the ability to violate the rules enough to basically dictate our actions, I guess it's fair. If you can arbitrarily decide some knight breaks his neck, and I can arbitrarily decide some good dragon gives me his horde as a birthday present because he really doesn't need it anymore, I suppose we're even.
You known what? You are being disingenous. This is not honest discussion. I might as well ask you, "OH yeah? Well if the rules are so important, why even have a GM?"
It's ridiculous.
EDIT: Also note that I can use or not use the rules for different reasons. For storytelling purposes, I might run a scene as a rules-less roleplaying bit between players and NPCs, adjudicating NPC reactions based on how I think they would react.
At some other time, because I want an element of gamist challenge, I might do a full on combat scene with all the rules at work.
Or, maybe I run the combat as a narrative excercise, and the conversation with all the rules. Different tools for different purposes.
