D&D General How much control do DMs need?

[AbdulAlhazred]

It is not quite that simple. There are some things prescribed. The players need to prepare a form according to quite strict rules and bring them to that activity. However how these forms are used later in the activity is indeed prescribed by suggestions rather than rules. Some suggestions are stronger and more elaborate than others though. For instance a DM might use various tricks to formally avoid declaring combat, but if that formality is invoked we are entering into a procedural regime that I would say is even more tightly game-defined than DWs counterpart.

What do you mean 'formally declaring combat?' This is how WEIRD the construction of the 5e rules really is! You say "the players need to prepare a [character sheet]", but where does it say that? The Introduction on Page 5 (top of the 2nd column) mentions that there are roles of GM and Player. I find it pretty weird that this is in an intro, which is presumably not even part of the main text of the game! That is, it is NOWHERE ELSE. I mean, its assumed everywhere, but there's really no structure to the whole thing. I mean, I grew up playing wargames, I know a rule when I see one. Even amongst RPGs 5e is very strange.

As for defining what is "good" and "bad" DM. Why would you want the text to say anything about that? The rules of the game snake and ladder for instance do not say anything about what a good player looks like. Still I there are certain things that is common knowledge makes a snake and ladder player better than another despite both adhering to the very strict and well defined procedures of the activity: Not being a sore loser, roll in a timely manner and display of aproperiate engagement (rather than apathy) are some examples that come to mind.

I think your example here is so trivial that it loses all force. You surely are not attempting to maintain a position that GMing is as simple as snakes and ladders, right? Especially given how little structure and thus DIRECTION the 'rules' of 5e give the participants, they better get a LOT of advice to make up for it! Well, they do. I think it could be more effective if there was some actual discussion of the rationale behind things and a more firmly enunciated structure, but there's quite a lot of advice, and boy do we need it.

Moreover the absence of clear performance criteria for its participants is the big fat well known common trait of almost all ttrpgs that have had theorists struggle with figuring how the activity still appear to be reasonably considered a game vs simply play.

I mean, I won't really argue you are wrong in that RPGs as a class seem to suffer a lot from an assumption that the participants already understand the basic premise and that the structure of RPGs is obvious. It is thus little shock to see that when people like Edwards and Baker started actually dissecting what was going on in a productive fashion that one of the things they immediately did in the resulting games was actually spell out how to play and what their RPGs are doing.

I mean, look at it this way, when Gygax wrote up the rules for D&D in 1973, he was simply writing down a bunch of notes for how to run a particular type of wargame campaign, right? He didn't really spell out the structure very explicitly, and every other RPG of those early days simply followed suit, basically reproducing the same structure of presentation with whatever desired rules permutations.

And finally there have been arguments that D&D could be considered an art form. And attempts of trying to talk about what makes "good" vs "bad" art tend to prove utterly futile. So why should the DMG try? If an artsy DM ask their players to prepare their forms and then proceed to lead a shared story session with no reference to those forms at all - as a wider comment on bureaucracy, how could you say if this is good or bad DMing?

Yeah, I think art is in the eye of the beholder, so to speak. It seems odd to equate an activity like this with art, we don't generally consider sports performances or play of board games as art, for example.

(As for if they in this case actually would be playing D&D at all I think the act of bringing that form and deferring to another participant to organise an activity is indeed enough to at least being quite recognizable as something very similar to playing D&D. I cannot see how an argument against it being actually playing D&D could be made without invoking potentially controversial criteria. Anyway, this is beside the point I am trying to make with regard to the issue of defining good vs bad play)

And no, I don't see how they would really be playing D&D in a meaningful sense.

 

[The-Magic-Sword]

I would disagree.

Right now (well, not right right now, but you get what I mean) I'm playtesting a game. Two players take on roles of different drives:

• Steel: discipline, honour, cold calculation
• Blood: passion, love, rage and all the emotions that make us human
• Sun: lust, greed and utter, total domination

They are intentionally vague and intentionally abstract. Finding conflict between the two the players have chosen is their job, it is an integral part of the gameplay.

During the game,

1. A prompt card is drawn (well, it's not actually physically drawn, as the game can only be played with a "VTT"), eg: "Bad Omen", "Betrayal", "Crisis of Faith", "Death of God's Will"
2. The players play out this scene, fleshing it out, right until they disagree about something crucial.
3. The disagreement is then settled using a fighting mini-game, very reminiscent of Dark Souls PVP, but without the jank (I hope at least)
4. The winner narrates the conclusion of the scene
5. The next scene is drawn, and the loser narrates how it starts, with an opportunity to change characters, location or whatever else, scenes themselves don't need to be directly connected to each other

I, as the designer, rule over the game with an iron fist. There never will be a scene "Catboy Café" because I'll never add such a scene card. Yet, every time I played it or watched others play it, the stories, the conflicts, the characters, the mood, the moral were different. Some went for disconnected vignettes, some went for a grand story with multiple leading characters, one time playtesters asked "The visual aesthetics seem to suggest fantasy, but can it be cyberpunk?" and I replied "Yeah?".

The only constant thing was the essence, in a similar way to how every Quake 3 match is different, depending on the map, the players, the micro decisions they make, yet each and everyone of them unmistakably feels like Quake 3.

The same, I guess, can be said about MUJIK IS DEAD, or Monsterhearts, or Wanderhome, but I can't exactly say that I've had a diverse yet unified experience with, say, World of Darkness. Despite all the thematical difference between Vampires and Mages, despite all the difference between Berlin and Shanghai, it was always the same bland slog, and all the times I did bleed (metaphorically, obviously), it was because I've had enough and started cutting myself. Even though I've played way too much of World of Darkness.

So, one of the things I base my choice of system off of, is actually the way the texture of the mechanics and player options align with the theming and fantasy of what they express. Your system, in theory, should be able to perform any of these narratives, but it's texture will remain static as the same mechanics are used for Dark Souls, Cyberpunk, Vampire, etc-- you have a core resolution system, but at least in comparison to other titles (and granted, some people really don't care about this, so it's only true idiosyncratically for me and other people who think like me) your game is incomplete. This problem is presumably what guided Cortex Prime to work the way it does with all of it's modules to help craft a 'finished' game out of them that can support the genre or setting its working off of. The PVP should feel different if we're chasing eachother in X-Wings vs. when we're having a firefight down a trashy alleyway, or when we're clashing with swords.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

So in this case participants are deciding on the fly what will count as "doing the thing", what success does ("the thing"), what success with complication does ("the thing" and "complication" probably described by GM), and what failure does (probably trouble described by GM.) The dice method is employed according to written principles, introduction to fiction, and who PCs will be.

I think that sounds right. Honestly, it is going to probably look a heck of a lot like endless applications of the Dungeon World 'Defy Danger' move.

For a group who have their own principles, fiction and PCs in mind, the dice method alone may be sufficient.

Yeah, if you have these in mind then I would say you are effectively inventing your own PbtA and so you will be starting at that sort of 'moveless core', which also lacks the other 'glue back to fiction' pieces like harm, etc. Presumably you would invent versions of those suitable to your needs, though I'm guessing nowadays most authors can start with an existing game that is fairly close to what they want vs 'cold design'.

FKR stands for Free Kriegspiel Revolution and you'll see rulesets like Messerspiel which is "ultra-light roleplay inspired by Blades in the Dark". There is a relatively small but passionate group of RPGers who find a game text like Messerspiel not only sufficient, but empowering. The Invisible Rulebooks, Less Rules To Do More, and Worlds, Not Rules talk over some of the purposes folk have in mind for FKR.

Yes, I know what the acronym stands for. I have no idea why they think their games are any more referential of actual Free Kriegsspiel than any other RPG though. FK is not about 'less is more', and it could care less about 'empowering'. FK was about presenting situations that were true to life such that engaging with them in the game exercises would prepare the participants for the real thing. Referees in FK generally had available to them LARGE rule books which they were expected to know and understand, and to employ. The absolute power of the referee was intended to free them from silly things like corner cases and allow them to extrapolate onto situations not already covered. It also COULD provide a way to adjudicate in a situation where a player selected an entirely novel approach.

What the people creating these 'revolutionary' games really need to reference is the Braunstein, which is a bit different thing in that it is composed of ENTIRELY situations which allow for novel approaches and is more free form in some respects. However Braunstein, from what I understand not having played one, DO have potentially very thorough rules and systems for the areas they are focused on. Like the 'Banania' scenarios that Wesely & Arneson ran had a bunch of rules about elections and public sentiment, etc. This is much like FK, which generally deals with military campaigns and has extensive logistics rules and such. Now, maybe the 'Brownstone' Wild West scenario was different, I don't know. We can judge though from Blackmoor that these things were not necessarily 'rules lite' for the time, as D&D itself is essentially just Gygax's gloss of Arneson's actual campaign rules!

As such I don't believe that what Messerspiel is doing has much to do with the above. I get why they think it does, but I think the two are pretty divergent actually.

If one picks up a ruleset like D&D and can't see what to do with it, then it makes sense to want the principles etc to be written out. Notwithstanding concerns expressed in this thread, that doesn't seem to be a widely felt shortfall. Perhaps because folk seldom come to games in a state of cultural tabula rasa. Their form of life helps them grasp the implied meaning.

I think they almost always come into a game with someone else who has already learned these things. I won't say NOBODY ever masters D&D 'cold', I've seen it, but I've also seen instances where that lead to some VERY idiosyncratic interpretations! I think basically if you read all of 5e in a fairly loose way, which most people are likely to do, they will generally pick up a certain set of ideas about play that are pretty close to 'trad' and the pieces will fit together for them. It just strikes me as a bit of a slipshod approach when you could instead do something like what DW does. Its not like people can't drift DW either, they do it all the time and I can tell you there are various posters on this very thread who have pretty divergent opinions as to how it 'should' be played, or who have done different things with it.

 

[Enrahim2]

Doesn't it solve the problem of deciding how many tarrasques to place?

Ah, let me clarify! I am not arguing threat points wouldn't be without  merit in this situation. I merely commented on the power dynamics involved. The adventure maker would be restrained from doing mistakes like introducing the tarrasques army without fully realising the consequences. My point was that this restriction of power isn't coupled with the liberation of someone no longer having to "hold back" if the roles had been separated.

Reading the rest of your reply, I think we are in full agreement on those points.

 

[Oofta]

OK, how you will condense a fight into a single roll?

How would you handle an actually dangerous fight (or a gauntlet of fights), where PCs might be hurt, but the only acceptable outcome is success? (e.g. the party is fighting their way through the Big Bad Evil Guy's tower -- it's not like they can die, as they must fight BBEG, but it's not like they will breeze through it without a scratch)
How would you handle an actually dangerous fight, where killing the enemy isn't the actual goal? (e.g. when two swordsmen fight to learn about each other's weaknesses)

Not even mentioning the situation where a physical fight is just a thematic representation of a mental one, and nobody actually cares about the swings or parries.

As I said, I wouldn't use a roll if the outcome is guaranteed there's no need to roll. So normally I just narrate it.

If it's a question on how many resources they might lose? I'd probably have everyone roll a check against a DC set by the threat level. So roll a D20, add proficiency and primary ability score against a DC 15. Hit the DC they lose nothing, roll less and they lose some HP based on how much below. Exceed the DC by 5 or more and they get some benefit. Most of the times it would be a bit more complex and I'd handle it like a skill challenge similar to what they discuss with the chase rules and handle it as a type of skill challenge.

The big difference from 4E skill challenges is that I'd allow them to come up with some win condition. Let's say they do something I never expected. They do some investigation and prep followed by casting Seeming and disguise themselves as the caterers for the BBEG's banquet. I don't want to put PC decisions into a box, I want them to think outside the box, tear the box apart and totally trash my plans because they did something clever. We can do that because we aren't limited to a prescribed structure.

Or take the example someone else gave of the party needed to get a message to someone important. Their PC grabbed the message and through a clever use of abilities bypassed the entire challenge. In my game it would have been a success - they achieved the goal in a way the author of the challenge hadn't anticipated. In my game, that would have worked because we aren't forcing ourselves into an artificial structure.

Having a structured way of handling everything too often gets in the way of the narrative logic for me.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

PHB 5 and 6 explain the cadence of the D&D conversation.


This concern seems to rest on an assumption that players ought to have a formal say, i.e. that DM-decides is no good. A group may be satisfied with DM-decides. They wouldn't find reading the rules a weird experience. FKR advocates especially value participant decisions over written rules.

I absolutely appreciate concerns about DM-decides, but there seems to me no objective criticism to make of a work that says "this is how I function" on the grounds that it functions that way.

I'm just saying it doesn't actually do a very good job of describing how it functions! That's my entire point. It was not meant as a value judgment on what that intended function is.

 

[Oofta]

Dungeon World and similar games have fairly straightforward solutions to these "problems".

But it's still a judgement call on the part of the GM. In D&D there are rules for how far you can jump, if you're exceeding the default auto-success distance it's an athletics check.

You may think that DW is straightforward and while I've never had an opportunity to play I have skimmed the rules a few times. It doesn't seem any better or worse than D&D, just different. I doubt I'd enjoy the game as much after a quick read-through, it's too prescriptive for me. To each their own.

 

[Clint_L]

OK, how you will condense a fight into a single roll?

How would you handle an actually dangerous fight (or a gauntlet of fights), where PCs might be hurt, but the only acceptable outcome is success? (e.g. the party is fighting their way through the Big Bad Evil Guy's tower -- it's not like they can die, as they must fight BBEG, but it's not like they will breeze through it without a scratch)

I think you will probably strongly disagree with my approach to this situation, but I would handle it by trying to balance (i.e. do the design work) so that getting through the tower with some difficulty is the most likely and intended outcome...but not the only acceptable one. Where the story might just be tragic, and failure to even reach the BBEG is a possible outcome. Especially if the players make bad choices, but possibly if they are just very unlucky. And I roll in front of the players all the time, unless there is some narrative reason why they could not know whether a roll was successful or not, so they know that jeopardy is real.

This is a philosophy that I emphasize with my players at session 0, if it is a new group. It also allows for the possibility that the players could turn back and find a new strategy. Sometimes I will set up situations that are very unlikely to be beatable by a direct approach, and a party that insists on forging ahead despite all the evidence suggesting they should find another way could well suffer a TPK.

How would you handle an actually dangerous fight, where killing the enemy isn't the actual goal? (e.g. when two swordsmen fight to learn about each other's weaknesses)

If they are simply trying to subdue the opponent, RAW already allows players to stipulate non-lethal damage. If they were just "feeling each other out," I would apply my own hack and keep track of damage, but simply rule that none of it counted once the combat was over (i.e. instead of actually following through with a strike, spell, or whatever, they were aborting the damaging part by pulling a punch or whatever). This is not a situation that I find hard to handle in D&D. It would be a really hard one to handle in Dread unless I had a second tower handy (I do).

Edit: Linking back to my OP, I think one reason that I like having less narrative control is because it makes the game more fun for me. Prepping a game is like writing a story without knowing for sure how it will come out. I generally have an idea where I think it will come out, and where I initially intend for it to come out, but the possibility that something completely unexpected might happen is very exciting for me.

 

[loverdrive]

If it's a question on how many resources they might lose? I'd probably have everyone roll a check against a DC set by the threat level. So roll a D20, add proficiency and primary ability score against a DC 15. Hit the DC they lose nothing, roll less and they lose some HP based on how much below. Exceed the DC by 5 or more and they get some benefit. Most of the times it would be a bit more complex and I'd handle it like a skill challenge similar to what they discuss with the chase rules and handle it as a type of skill challenge.

...so you will just invent rules. I fail to see, what tools the toolbox gave you? Ability to... ask for a diceroll for you to interpret?

The big difference from 4E skill challenges is that I'd allow them to come up with some win condition. Let's say they do something I never expected. They do some investigation and prep followed by casting Seeming and disguise themselves as the caterers for the BBEG's banquet. I don't want to put PC decisions into a box, I want them to think outside the box, tear the box apart and totally trash my plans because they did something clever. We can do that because we aren't limited to a prescribed structure.

....you can? The GM will just have to come up with new complications that wouldn't be there if PCs had enough trouble before, so they can continue thinking outside the box.

 

[Clint_L]

Yeah, I think art is in the eye of the beholder, so to speak. It seems odd to equate an activity like this with art, we don't generally consider sports performances or play of board games as art, for example.

I think sports performances are often discussed in terms of art and could find you many, many examples from mainstream sports (e.g. boxing, basketball). And, of course, many sports specifically involve scores for artistry (e.g. figure skating).

In gaming, I think design can be considered an art, absolutely. For one, there is the aesthetic presentation of the game in itself, which not only involves art, but is itself art. But I also think the mechanics can be considered art, in the sense that there is an intent to produce an aesthetic or emotional response. Story creation, world building - these are clearly arts.

In a TTRPG, there is also the art of the gameplay itself because it is acting.