D&D General How much control do DMs need?

[clearstream]

Yeah, that’s what I’m saying. If the DM is gonna give up some authority to the players, those are constraints. If we accept that it’s standard for the DM to be in charge of creating the setting… which the “master of worlds” section of the DMG and many responses here indicate.

Constraints aren’t a bad thing at all. I find it a lot of fun to GM with constraints in place.

Just for avoidance of doubt, you don't rule out that there can be constraints in place even where DM gives up none of their otherwise traditional-mode authority to players?

 

[S'mon]

Traditionally, the Dungeon Master assumes god-like powers in a game of D&D. They are the omniscient narrator with power over everything but character choices. They build and tell the story, they populate worlds, they interpret rules. They even have the power to set aside rules and rolls, at their discretion (this is a whole other thread). But lately I've been questioning how necessary this power dynamic is.

I recently ran a session of my 5e campaign using modified Fiasco rules, meaning that the game took place as a series of scenes, and each player, including me, was a co-equal narrator - one person either started or finished a scene, taking turns, and the rest did the opposite. I had some control in that I set up the original scenario and put locations, objects and NPCs into play before the game started, but during play the plot was wide open - it was a mystery and I didn't know who did or why any better than the other players. We worked it out together through the course of the game. It was fun!

I also encourage players to improvise plot details that they want for their character, trusting that they too have the best interest of the game at heart. Lately, I have told them that they can add not just suggestions but major plot points, only requesting that they give me time to prepare if the plot point will involve having to create a dungeon or something (a lot of things we can improvise on the fly).

I'm finding that the more control I give up, the more fun I am having at my games. And it is making me suspect that centralizing power in the DM is not as necessary as the rules presuppose. Depending on the group.

I think you're describing a situation where you as GM have delegated certain powers, not one where you don't have power.

I generally delegate where I think it aids immersion rather than detracts. Eg a PC ought to know their own backstory, friends & family etc, so I think players should have a good amount of power to determine those elements. That's different from mutual story creation/storygaming.

 

[clearstream]

I'm not talking about money under free parking, I'm talking about changing the win conditions or whether we even move tokens on the board. There's got to be some level of change where you're not really playing Monopoly any more. Can you accept that?

Two readily identified positions on this question are formalist (if the rules are changed, then the game is not being played... a different game is) and non-formalist (what game is played is essentially a normative determination.)

@Imaro seems to adopt a non-formalist position. 5e D&D rules run to hundreds of pages. I don't think anyone plays every rule exactly correctly (or even knows every rule, in my experience.) It's extremely unlikely that any two game of 5e will be identical on the matter of rules. Is there a change where 5e is no longer played? I believe the answer to that is "yes" there will be a point where some abundance of rules are changed and the normal view would be that a new game exists.

I can give some concrete examples. Chivalry and Sorcery is documented to have arisen out of an abundance of change to D&D for the author's home campaign. I think most folk would agree that C&S is a different game from D&D of that era. 2nd edition D&D is a version of D&D, and although it is recognisably D&D, it is recognisably not any other edition of D&D. However, a passerby might just say that folk playing 2nd edition, C&S, or 5th edition are playing D&D. You can see that what counts as playing a given game is normative.

 

[loverdrive]

This is just flat out wrong. Just because this style of game isn't for you, doesn't mean that it's not a good game. What you dislike =/= bad game. What you like =/= good game. As as for what enemies the PCs will fight with that sword, the book also tells you that, which you might know if you read the rules instead of just poopooing them as being part of a bad game.

What you see as a flaw, is a feature for others and vice versa.

OK. What enemies does D&D prescribe to fight?

And more generally, what experience D&D is carefully designed to deliver? Is every single aspect of it grown in a lab, specifically to drive forward a singluar artistic vision of WotC?

No.

Because there's no design in D&D. DM is doing 100% of the work, while WotC are doing nothing.

 

[clearstream]

I don't buy it. You could say the same stuff about Runequest, or any number of games. That doesn't mean that RQ2, RQG and Mythras are all the same game.

I also find these conversations frustrating. I'm trying to say 'please actually read the rules for these games, and you will see they are not the same thing', and I get responses that make it sound like I'm trying to be the Chief of D&D Club Membership. I ask people to explain what they think D&D actually is, in a positive sense, and no-one can explain, except to say that it's unique and ineffable and I will never find a satisfying answer. I'm not asking about the nature of the Trinity, for goodness' sake.

This is why I think your description, 'product within a culture', is probably the closest we'll get. D&D isn't a game, it's an idea. Which is fine, until you want to talk about the specifics of a game, and they get confused with the idea.

D&D doesn't come with a fixed, written set of principles or agendas. And it expressly authorises folk to change the rules. It offers optional and variant rules. What you are asking for may be a valid question for some RPGs. There is no satisfying answer for D&D.

 

[clearstream]

Because there's no design in D&D. DM is doing 100% of the work, while WotC are doing nothing.

Maybe another way to put this is to distinguish between game as artifact and game as played. For every TTRPG (no exceptions) 100% of the work to go from game as artifact to game as played is done by the players (or DM and players, if you don't count DM as a player.)

 

[clearstream]

I wonder if you have hit upon a central distinction of D&D-style games that goes back to the premise of this thread. It seems to be that D&D campaigns are mostly about the creative expression of the Dungeon Master. Players mostly contribute and enjoy creative expression in response to how they build their characters and how they react to the situations the benevolent DM puts them in.

When I read that, it parses as that D&D campaigns are mostly built around the differentiated creative expressions of players and DM.

 

[Maxperson]

OK. What enemies does D&D prescribe to fight?

Look up the CR rules for encounters and encounter building. You don't according to the rules put up a CR 18 dragon to fight a 2nd level group.

And more generally, what experience D&D is carefully designed to deliver? Is every single aspect of it grown in a lab, specifically to drive forward a singluar artistic vision of WotC?

Of course it isn't. Nor should it be. If every game were designed that way it would be absolutely horrible. A very large number of people enjoy the way D&D is designed. A large number enjoy games the way you like them designed. What we prefer isn't the "good way" to design a game and what we don't like doesn't become "the bad way."

Because there's no design in D&D. DM is doing 100% of the work, while WotC are doing nothing.

And this is just objectively false. Even when I make my own adventure up WotC has done 95+% of the work for me. I'm not building monsters. I'm not building magic items. I didn't have to come up with the units of currency. The rules for handing combat have been done for me. The rules for non-combat encounters and interactions have been done for me. I don't have to create the races, classes, spells, items, feats, etc.

What I need to do is select the monsters from a small list of acceptable NPCs, draw up the maps to whatever detail level I decide(detailed or vague), and come up with a plot(i.e. the king's advisor kidnaps the princess in order to force him to abdicate) that may or may not matter depending on what the players decide to do. Every once in a while I need to make a ruling if the rules don't cover a situation properly.

This idea you keep putting forth that the DM for D&D has to do all the work and WotC does nothing shows a profound lack of understanding about what it is that the DM actually does.

 

[Maxperson]

Very nice point!

No it isn't. In fact this, "Cool, I still have to do all the work myself, but now I also need to learn how this new system works..." is a statement that completely contradicts itself. If you are doing all the work yourself, there is no system, new or otherwise, to learn! If you are spending a lot of time learning a new system, then the system is going to be doing the vast majority of the work for you.

It's like Super Mario. You can play the Super Mario game which does almost everything for you. All you have to do is learn the various Mario moves and you're off to the races. Or you do what my son does and create your own Mario levels using Super Mario Maker. Even though you need to put the various pieces of the level together(terrain, traps, monsters, etc.), the game is still doing the vast majority of the work for you. My son isn't coding the game from scratch. He's not deciding what monsters are going to be in the game and what their abilities will be. He's not inventing new traps and terrain types. All of those things have been done for him.

Player facing games that @loverdrive likes are like the base Super Mario game where there's little or nothing for a DM to create. D&D is like Super Mario Maker where there are some decision points for the DM, but the vast majority of the game has been created for him.

 

[Maxperson]

We talk about the distribution of authority as if it's a zero sum game, as if taking the power from someone automatically gives it to someone else. It doesn't.

Let's suppose there's a meta currency that the GM can use to mess with the players (I think 2d20 games have a such? Correct me if I'm wrong), and introduce a complication unpropmted (otherwise they must be clearly telegraphed). Yeah, the GM lost the ability to just paradrop tarrasques from a C-130. Did anybody else gain any more power?

Yes. The players got it. As I have seen these sorts of games described here, the meta currency that the DM gets is wholly or in large part due to what the players do and/or how they do it. For example if the players decide to pull out some sort of device to greatly help the situation due, the DM might get more of the currency than if the player pulled out a device that helped a little. Another example could be if the player used something to make success much more likely, the DM might get some currency to be able to introduce a complication later.

In those kinds of games the players can pick and choose when or even if they are going to push things in a direction that gives the DM more currency to use against them. The players have gained more power than they would have had in a traditional style game.

As for a TTRPG example, let's return to a locked barn.

GM: There's a rusty old lock on a door, probably to keep out wild animals rather than provide any actual security.
Player: Cool, I'm going to pick it. Here it goes... 25!
GM: You pull out your tools and start working your magic... To your dismay, all this flimsy look is just a façade, the lock is actually a masterpiece of engineering, merely camouflaged to look cheap. (Offscreen: the lock also has a magical silent alarm system, and guards will arrive in five minutes)

This situation can make a narrative sense and show how ingenious and careful the opposition is, and GM here might be acting with honour, having planned this in advance and merely portaying the world with integrity rather than playing dirty and actively trying to screw over the players, but who gives a damn? From the player's perspective, they aren't bamboozled by the opposition, they are bamboozled by the GM. There's nothing the GM can possibly do to persuade the player otherwise, that no, she didn't mean to screw them over, it just so happened that the player's chosen approach didn't work.

So then what does it mean that if I were to do exactly that, none of my players would feel bamboozled or screwed over by me? What would happen is that they would say, "Something more is going on here than meets the eye. We should investigate further to find out why this barn is protected like this."

Reacting as if the DM is bamboozling or screwing you over shows a profound lack of faith in the DM, which just means that either you have the wrong DM or you are playing the wrong kind of game, not that the game itself is bad or poorly designed.