One of the most interesting things about running campaigns of AD&D, D&D Next, D&D 4E and Pathfinder is being able to compare the level of rules knowledge I need as a DM to run the systems. I'll try and set out in this post a few comparisons. This also includes thoughts on what knowledge a player needs to play the system.
AD&D
AD&D comes from a tradition where the DM was the only one allowed the rulebooks, and the players were under the mercy of the DM. This is putting it harsher than actual play of AD&D eventuated, but you can see aspects of it in the forewords and introductions to the books. In any case, it set the stage for the DM needing to know all the rules and the players needing very little. In fact, the DM doesn't really need very much knowledge to run AD&D: the primary knowledge base is quite small, consisting mostly of the rules for combat with a few exploration rules to keep in mind.
In addition to the basic rules of the game, the AD&D DM running an adventure will come up against the monster stat blocks. Mostly, these are quite easy to interpret needing little more knowledge than the basic rules. There are three instances where more knowledge is needed: Class abilities, Spells, Magic Items and Monster abilities.
Class abilities are - for the most part - pretty minor. Most of the classes have few abilities that the DM actually needs to memorize to run the monster, and he could probably get away with looking up them during play. Spells are more important, but there are so few effective spells in AD&D that the most significant ones (magic missile, sleep, lightning bolt and fireball) could be memorized; more obscure spells would need looking up. Magic items tend to be obvious (protection and weapons), but look-up is probably required for most of the other items. Monster abilities would rarely be spelled out in full in a stat block, so a copy of the appropriate Monster Manual would be needed - assuming the DM hadn't memorised them. Of course, many monsters had no abilities worth mentioning.
Adjudicating player abilities tended (in my case at least) to make me very aware of what their abilities were and did with no need for book checking. You'll see most of the thief skills again and again, and they're not hard in any case. Magic-users brewing potions required book searching, but of course is infrequent.
So:
DM knowledge of core rules, major class abilities and spells.
DM lookup of obscure spells and class abilities, monster abilities
DM at finger-tips: attack charts, saving throws, monster stats (in adventure or on screen).
Books to run: Players Handbook, Dungeon Masters Guide, Monster Manual, DM Screen
Pathfinder
Pathfinder derives from the tradition where the DM knows everything. Unfortunately, there's a lot more the DM has to know! In fact, Pathfinder requires preparation from the DM like no other RPG in my experience.
Like all RPGs, the DM needs to know the basic rules of the game. These are far more extensive than those of AD&D, but the basics of combat aren't that hard. Lookup of special manoeuvres and skill uses beyond the basics are probably necessary for most DMs - they are for me, despite the 8 years of 3E and 1 year of weekly PF. The big difference comes when you get to player character abilities: in AD&D, there are so few that I can remember most of them. In PF, there are so very many options, that we've moved a lot more to the players keeping track of how they work and the DM nodding and saying, "I see... can I have a look at the APG to confirm that?" Of course, with repeated play these powers will become known, but There Is Always More(tm)!
Monster stat-blocks are likely to need research and a fair bit of rules knowledge. The AC, MV, HD, hp, Atk and Damage of AD&D is a lot more simple than what you get in Pathfinder. The biggest difficulty comes from all the hidden information. Consider the following feats and special qualites from a monster in a recent PF publication:
The level of system mastery you need to understand all those terms is quite astonishingly high. I expect there are PF GMs out there who do know all these terms like the back of their hand - I had a really good knowledge of 3E, after all - but I also suspect that a lot of PF GMs research abilities before they play an adventure, look them up during an adventure... or even just ignore them. (Having a tablet and access to the internet makes PF play a lot, lot easier, I believe).
So:
DM knowledge of core rules, major class abilities and some spells.
DM research of monster abilities
DM look-up of spells, magic items, and class abilities
DM at fingertips: basic stat blocks (with look-up/research needed to interpret all details).
Player Reference of player options
It should be noted that current Pathfinder releases assume you own nine or ten books (or have access to the internet and the PRD). This is a departure from 3.5E, where Wizards assumed that you owned the three core books and nothing else.
Books to run: Players Handbook, GameMastery Guide, Bestiary 1, Bestiary 2, Bestiary 3, Advanced Player's Guide, Ultimate Magic, Ultimate Combat, Ultimate Equipment, Inner Sea World Guide, GM Screen... or an iPad with a link to the PRD.
D&D 4E
Fourth Edition took D&D to a point where the DM needed to know things the least - at least as a proportion of the rules. 4E requires a slightly larger knowledge base than AD&D in terms of basic rules (with how to interpret powers being one part of the additional rules needed), but sheds the need for knowledge of spells, class abilities and powers. It also empowers the players to interpret their own abilities - and makes it easy to describe them to the DM - by using a much cleaner and structured language. The trade-off comes in complexity: monsters and powers are nowhere near as complex as they are in 3E or PF, although the basic monsters tend to be able to do more than just attack.
The other trade-off comes in space: a 4E adventure will normally give the entire statblock (PF will often just give a page reference). So, the natural flow of writing an adventure is interrupted. Mind you, PF can have that trouble as well with unique creatures. (Kyuss!) 4E also experimented with the formatting of adventures, with results that often left a lot to be desired... some late 4E adventures tend to use monster vault references and read a lot better.
The most complicated essential part of the 4E system are probably the conditions, which are handily reprinted on my DM Screen. Players will generally have full explanation of powers on their character sheets, so books are often required only between sessions (preparation and levelling-up!), or very occasionally for looking up how a skill works. Thus, assuming you've got a published adventure, what you need to run it might only be the DM Screen! I've certainly run a lot of games like that. These days, I have the Rules Compendium as well... and my computer for adventures I write myself for easy access to the monster and treasure lists.
So:
DM knowledge of core rules
Player knowledge of player character abilities
DM at fingertips: monster and magic item stats
Books to Run: Rules Compendium, DM Screen.
Books to Run (expanded): Rules Compendium, Monster Vault, Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion, DM Screen.
D&D Next
Actually analysing D&D Next is harder, as it is still a lot in flux. My impression from what I've run is that the rules knowledge and look-up is nowhere near as onerous as what is in Pathfinder, but there's more of it than in 4E. Monsters tend to have special abilities that are spelt out in the adventure blocks, but spells use references. Monsters don't have feats, which makes "hidden" information less of a problem.
I can certainly tell our unfamiliarity with the rules by how much we had to look up for player abilities - the major point of confusion. I expect that players will tend to know more about their characters than the DM, but the DM will need to learn certain abilities to judge the action. For instance, the restrictions on a druid whilst wildshaping.
I'll leave off the quick summary as I'm not sure how much will apply when the next packet comes along!
So, is there anything I missed or misinterpreted? None of the approaches is dogmatically wrong, for each enables certain things whilst making other things harder (or impossible). What is your preference for a system and the knowledge required to run it... and where that knowledge is found?
Cheers!
AD&D
AD&D comes from a tradition where the DM was the only one allowed the rulebooks, and the players were under the mercy of the DM. This is putting it harsher than actual play of AD&D eventuated, but you can see aspects of it in the forewords and introductions to the books. In any case, it set the stage for the DM needing to know all the rules and the players needing very little. In fact, the DM doesn't really need very much knowledge to run AD&D: the primary knowledge base is quite small, consisting mostly of the rules for combat with a few exploration rules to keep in mind.
In addition to the basic rules of the game, the AD&D DM running an adventure will come up against the monster stat blocks. Mostly, these are quite easy to interpret needing little more knowledge than the basic rules. There are three instances where more knowledge is needed: Class abilities, Spells, Magic Items and Monster abilities.
Class abilities are - for the most part - pretty minor. Most of the classes have few abilities that the DM actually needs to memorize to run the monster, and he could probably get away with looking up them during play. Spells are more important, but there are so few effective spells in AD&D that the most significant ones (magic missile, sleep, lightning bolt and fireball) could be memorized; more obscure spells would need looking up. Magic items tend to be obvious (protection and weapons), but look-up is probably required for most of the other items. Monster abilities would rarely be spelled out in full in a stat block, so a copy of the appropriate Monster Manual would be needed - assuming the DM hadn't memorised them. Of course, many monsters had no abilities worth mentioning.
Adjudicating player abilities tended (in my case at least) to make me very aware of what their abilities were and did with no need for book checking. You'll see most of the thief skills again and again, and they're not hard in any case. Magic-users brewing potions required book searching, but of course is infrequent.
So:
DM knowledge of core rules, major class abilities and spells.
DM lookup of obscure spells and class abilities, monster abilities
DM at finger-tips: attack charts, saving throws, monster stats (in adventure or on screen).
Books to run: Players Handbook, Dungeon Masters Guide, Monster Manual, DM Screen
Pathfinder
Pathfinder derives from the tradition where the DM knows everything. Unfortunately, there's a lot more the DM has to know! In fact, Pathfinder requires preparation from the DM like no other RPG in my experience.
Like all RPGs, the DM needs to know the basic rules of the game. These are far more extensive than those of AD&D, but the basics of combat aren't that hard. Lookup of special manoeuvres and skill uses beyond the basics are probably necessary for most DMs - they are for me, despite the 8 years of 3E and 1 year of weekly PF. The big difference comes when you get to player character abilities: in AD&D, there are so few that I can remember most of them. In PF, there are so very many options, that we've moved a lot more to the players keeping track of how they work and the DM nodding and saying, "I see... can I have a look at the APG to confirm that?" Of course, with repeated play these powers will become known, but There Is Always More(tm)!
Monster stat-blocks are likely to need research and a fair bit of rules knowledge. The AC, MV, HD, hp, Atk and Damage of AD&D is a lot more simple than what you get in Pathfinder. The biggest difficulty comes from all the hidden information. Consider the following feats and special qualites from a monster in a recent PF publication:
The level of system mastery you need to understand all those terms is quite astonishingly high. I expect there are PF GMs out there who do know all these terms like the back of their hand - I had a really good knowledge of 3E, after all - but I also suspect that a lot of PF GMs research abilities before they play an adventure, look them up during an adventure... or even just ignore them. (Having a tablet and access to the internet makes PF play a lot, lot easier, I believe).
So:
DM knowledge of core rules, major class abilities and some spells.
DM research of monster abilities
DM look-up of spells, magic items, and class abilities
DM at fingertips: basic stat blocks (with look-up/research needed to interpret all details).
Player Reference of player options
It should be noted that current Pathfinder releases assume you own nine or ten books (or have access to the internet and the PRD). This is a departure from 3.5E, where Wizards assumed that you owned the three core books and nothing else.
Books to run: Players Handbook, GameMastery Guide, Bestiary 1, Bestiary 2, Bestiary 3, Advanced Player's Guide, Ultimate Magic, Ultimate Combat, Ultimate Equipment, Inner Sea World Guide, GM Screen... or an iPad with a link to the PRD.
D&D 4E
Fourth Edition took D&D to a point where the DM needed to know things the least - at least as a proportion of the rules. 4E requires a slightly larger knowledge base than AD&D in terms of basic rules (with how to interpret powers being one part of the additional rules needed), but sheds the need for knowledge of spells, class abilities and powers. It also empowers the players to interpret their own abilities - and makes it easy to describe them to the DM - by using a much cleaner and structured language. The trade-off comes in complexity: monsters and powers are nowhere near as complex as they are in 3E or PF, although the basic monsters tend to be able to do more than just attack.
The other trade-off comes in space: a 4E adventure will normally give the entire statblock (PF will often just give a page reference). So, the natural flow of writing an adventure is interrupted. Mind you, PF can have that trouble as well with unique creatures. (Kyuss!) 4E also experimented with the formatting of adventures, with results that often left a lot to be desired... some late 4E adventures tend to use monster vault references and read a lot better.
The most complicated essential part of the 4E system are probably the conditions, which are handily reprinted on my DM Screen. Players will generally have full explanation of powers on their character sheets, so books are often required only between sessions (preparation and levelling-up!), or very occasionally for looking up how a skill works. Thus, assuming you've got a published adventure, what you need to run it might only be the DM Screen! I've certainly run a lot of games like that. These days, I have the Rules Compendium as well... and my computer for adventures I write myself for easy access to the monster and treasure lists.
So:
DM knowledge of core rules
Player knowledge of player character abilities
DM at fingertips: monster and magic item stats
Books to Run: Rules Compendium, DM Screen.
Books to Run (expanded): Rules Compendium, Monster Vault, Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion, DM Screen.
D&D Next
Actually analysing D&D Next is harder, as it is still a lot in flux. My impression from what I've run is that the rules knowledge and look-up is nowhere near as onerous as what is in Pathfinder, but there's more of it than in 4E. Monsters tend to have special abilities that are spelt out in the adventure blocks, but spells use references. Monsters don't have feats, which makes "hidden" information less of a problem.
I can certainly tell our unfamiliarity with the rules by how much we had to look up for player abilities - the major point of confusion. I expect that players will tend to know more about their characters than the DM, but the DM will need to learn certain abilities to judge the action. For instance, the restrictions on a druid whilst wildshaping.
I'll leave off the quick summary as I'm not sure how much will apply when the next packet comes along!
So, is there anything I missed or misinterpreted? None of the approaches is dogmatically wrong, for each enables certain things whilst making other things harder (or impossible). What is your preference for a system and the knowledge required to run it... and where that knowledge is found?
Cheers!
