Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="Herzog" data-source="post: 4841868" data-attributes="member: 25696">No, If your players decide, on the spur of the moment, to teleport to a far-away city and go to the bazaar, the appropriate response would be 'they can't, because it is not in the module'.&nbsp;Note that I have played as a player with a DM who would play his games like that for years, and we were very, very happy when last time we played he looked in the module, looked back at us, and said:'Yes, what you plan to do to solve this mysterie is very logical, is a brilliant way to fix it, but its not in the module. It works. Let's move on.'&nbsp;Now, I'm not saying the way of playing described by howandwhy99 is wrong. It is, in fact, probably the way modules have to be run for conventions, when there is an element of competition, and referees need to be able to compare different adventure groups.&nbsp;However, as other people have already hinted, a (big) part of DMing is, IMO, improvisation. To be able to respond to your players with an answer to their question or action, without blinking an eye, when the module you are using doesn't provide the answer. (like, how did the gargantuan blue dragon end up in the lowest level of the kobold caves....)&nbsp;Required for this is, of course, the lack of competitive playing. (DM vs players). If the players and/or DM see it as a competition to see who 'wins', restricting the DM in his allowed actions might be necessary to keep things fair.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Herzog, post: 4841868, member: 25696"] No, [I]If your players decide, on the spur of the moment, to teleport to a far-away city and go to the bazaar, [/I]the appropriate response would be 'they can't, because it is not in the module'. Note that I have played as a player with a DM who would play his games like that for years, and we were very, very happy when last time we played he looked in the module, looked back at us, and said: 'Yes, what you plan to do to solve this mysterie is very logical, is a brilliant way to fix it, but its not in the module. It works. Let's move on.' Now, I'm not saying the way of playing described by howandwhy99 is wrong. It is, in fact, probably the way modules have to be run for conventions, when there is an element of competition, and referees need to be able to compare different adventure groups. However, as other people have already hinted, a (big) part of DMing is, IMO, improvisation. To be able to respond to your players with an answer to their question or action, without blinking an eye, when the module you are using doesn't provide the answer. (like, how did the gargantuan blue dragon end up in the lowest level of the kobold caves....) Required for this is, of course, the lack of competitive playing. (DM vs players). If the players and/or DM see it as a competition to see who 'wins', restricting the DM in his allowed actions might be necessary to keep things fair. [/QUOTE]

Verification