In-game debates and rules disputes: What do you do about them?
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ThirdWizard
First Post
Storm Raven said:
I just want to point out that I completely agree, and would probably not come back to the next gaming session if this is par for the course for this particular DM. The play style is just too different than my own.
EDIT: If you can charge down a gently turning corridor, then what about on an open field? Can you charge in an arc if there are no walls? When you start moving away from the rules like this you open up the possibilities. When players later want to arc their charges in open fields they are well within their rights to do so now, and now you've completely gotten rid of the "charging in a straight line" rule in favor of a "charging in a 20 degree arc" House Rule.
This is a Big Deal and is not a minor House Rule. It does cheapen the 90 degree feat, and if players have a fair understanding of the rules, then they have probably passed up many opportunities to charge in an arc. This goes back to my example of changing Weapon Finnese to drop the +1 BAB requirement and not telling the PCs. The PC rogues will never benefit from the feat before 3rd level but NPC rogues will take it at 1st level, creating an imbalance between PCs and NPCs.
Last edited:
Henry
Autoexreginated
For my take on it, for what I and my group do, we have a sort of social contract, but not spelled out on any document as some do that I've heard in past threads. Our rule is this:
---The DM has final authority in all rules disputes.
---If a dispute is not resolved in a coupleo of minutes, then the DM makes a ruling and sticks with it for the duration of this session.
---If a player would have decided that he would not have done a given action, knowing the outcome, then he is allowed to amend that action and do something else.
---Between game sessions, the actual rule is looked up, and the DM discusses it. If he's okay with the by-the-book version, then it is used. If he is dead-set against the book version after all discussion, then he still has final call over it. The players have the option to ret-con any character decisions based on the final ruling.
---The player has the option when it's his turn to DM to do the exact same thing.
---Everybody in the group has the option to not play. That's obvious enough to not even need a ruling. If people are tired enough with the campaign at hand, we can opt to play a different game with a different DM, if desired.
Now, an excellent question was brought up by Storm Raven and Celebrim's discussion; what DO you expect when you're playing by the "D&D rules"?
I expect only the least: The iconic six attributes, a range of classes and races to choose from, feats, skills, and equipment for my character, and the use of Hit Points, Armor Class, and Saves. That's pretty much it. I'd like to know any house rules ahead of time, but I'm also open enough to allow for them on-the-fly. I do this because no person is perfect, and no one can know all rules at all times.
However, if I DO know a rule is changed, as Celebrim noted, then that rule should not change between now and the time I take advantage of it. If so, then I have the right to accept it, or find another game. I have never met a DM that was so inconsistent that this occurred, though.
That's my take on it, anyway. For me, life is too short to be so concerned with the rules that I will stop someone's fun over them. It's my call to use or walk, and that's the extent of my powers. I can't make someone be a good DM.
---The DM has final authority in all rules disputes.
---If a dispute is not resolved in a coupleo of minutes, then the DM makes a ruling and sticks with it for the duration of this session.
---If a player would have decided that he would not have done a given action, knowing the outcome, then he is allowed to amend that action and do something else.
---Between game sessions, the actual rule is looked up, and the DM discusses it. If he's okay with the by-the-book version, then it is used. If he is dead-set against the book version after all discussion, then he still has final call over it. The players have the option to ret-con any character decisions based on the final ruling.
---The player has the option when it's his turn to DM to do the exact same thing.
---Everybody in the group has the option to not play. That's obvious enough to not even need a ruling. If people are tired enough with the campaign at hand, we can opt to play a different game with a different DM, if desired.
Now, an excellent question was brought up by Storm Raven and Celebrim's discussion; what DO you expect when you're playing by the "D&D rules"?
I expect only the least: The iconic six attributes, a range of classes and races to choose from, feats, skills, and equipment for my character, and the use of Hit Points, Armor Class, and Saves. That's pretty much it. I'd like to know any house rules ahead of time, but I'm also open enough to allow for them on-the-fly. I do this because no person is perfect, and no one can know all rules at all times.
However, if I DO know a rule is changed, as Celebrim noted, then that rule should not change between now and the time I take advantage of it. If so, then I have the right to accept it, or find another game. I have never met a DM that was so inconsistent that this occurred, though.
That's my take on it, anyway. For me, life is too short to be so concerned with the rules that I will stop someone's fun over them. It's my call to use or walk, and that's the extent of my powers. I can't make someone be a good DM.
Storm Raven
First Post
Celebrim said:
Ah, so you are conceding that you're argument has no merit then.
Storm Raven
First Post
DonTadow said:
That's not what is being said. What is being said is that the DM should inform players of house rules ahead of time, and not change the rules from the rules as written mid-stream. If you want to introduce a house rule mid-campaign, then you should do it between sessions, make clear what the change is, and then determine if there is consensus. Players affected by the rule change should have input on the change - it is their game too (despite what Celebrum seems to think).
Celebrim
Legend
ThirdWizard said:
Well, I told you back at the beginning of the thread that we disagreed on too fundamental of a level to even bother arguing. I can't imagine wanting to play your way as either a PC or a DM. You can't imagine wanting to play mine. I don't understand what you think your way accomplishes, and you probably don't understand what I think my way accomplishes. To a certain extent I'm stunned that anyone actually plays that way and that their groups manage to remain functional. How could you possibly tell a group of PC's that they couldn't run around a curved track just because the rules say that they couldn't? My PC's would be talking about a coup if I made alot of arbitrary rulings like that.
You probably feel exactly the same way about me.
But I would suspect that if we put it to a vote, made a poll out of it, or whatever, that a good deal of the people here when presented with the above situation would think that the DM was being an authoritarian jerk and a good deal of the people would think the player was being a rules lawyer jerk.
What's most interesting to me is that I find your way to be too authoritarian and confining to the PC's, since it seems to imply that anything that isn't implicitly allowed by the rules is forbidden - even when ordinary experience would suggest that its a perfectly reasonable thing to occur, where as you find my way to be too authoritarian and confining to the PC's because it implies that the DM is above the law and can modify it at will.
Law vs. Chaos divide?
ThirdWizard
First Post
They can Move around to the enemy and use a Standard Action to attack.
They can't use the Charge Action to move to the enemy, gaining a +2 to attack -2 to AC and move twice their movement speed.
So they can still do it, the curve just means they do it less effectively. I'm not limiting them to not do things, I'm limiting them to not being able to do the action as well as if they were in a straight passageway.
EDIT: And if it isn't within their movement speed, then they can still get to the monster and attack it, it just takes multiple rounds to accomplish. This isn't limiting what they can do, it is simply not allowing them to do everything in one round.
They can't use the Charge Action to move to the enemy, gaining a +2 to attack -2 to AC and move twice their movement speed.
So they can still do it, the curve just means they do it less effectively. I'm not limiting them to not do things, I'm limiting them to not being able to do the action as well as if they were in a straight passageway.
EDIT: And if it isn't within their movement speed, then they can still get to the monster and attack it, it just takes multiple rounds to accomplish. This isn't limiting what they can do, it is simply not allowing them to do everything in one round.
I just recently quit my D&D gaming group because of issues dealing with the DM. No, I am not the subject nor involved in the subject group that started this thread.
I do not have a problem with DMs making up house-rules, in fact I think many times it adds more flavor to what they are trying to accomplish. Likewise I have no problems with them changing their house-rules or any "Official" rules being used.
I do have a problem if these changes are suddenly brought on without any time for the players to adjust to the concept being implemented. If for instance the blink spell issue came up. If this was the first time the spell (or similar force effects) were used against the subject of a blink spell - no real problem, unless of course it resulted in a PC's death then it is hard to shake that off.
If, however the "official" rules had been being followed and this was the first time that they were changed - I do have a problem with that.
Back to my story. . .
Our DM (a friend, we still game together just not in his game) decided to start a new game using the 3.0 D&D rules when they came out. Great we all thought we hadn't played D&D for sometime and wanted to try the new rules. He wrote up some guidelines for how he wanted his game to run. Mostly describing the individual cultures and races. His elves and dwarves were different than the standard ones. Only one clan of dwarves could be wizards and they didn't heal well, if they took serious damage they had to be healed by dwarven healingmagic normal healing magic wouldn't do. Elves had cold iron susceptability (this was 3.0 before the amterial type rules of 3.5 came out) that caused them to take extra damage from any thing made of iron (mithral didn't give this penalty) so they couldn't wear any normal metal armor either. 2 of us played dwarves and no one played an elf at the time so we didn't see the problem with the penalties associated with the elves. When he sent it out I made a few comments on things he forgot to include or address due to the changes he had made. My background was that I had been working on the Birthright setting update to 3.0 (on Birthright.net) for many months already and thus had already gotten deep into rules writing.
Some of my suggestions he took others he disguarded, but he read them and listened. Good so far.
When we started playing he had assigned individual characters some "special" equipment and conditions based on where they were from. Now this only applied to 2 characters from a group of around 8-10. One character received an entire heard of really tough and extremely well-trained horses and special armor that she never took off (also never suffered any penalties for sleeping in armor). She also received special lances. The other character got a souped up version of the katana and waz (forget the spelling) that the DM made up. I pointed out to him that the DMG actually had stats for these weapons (they weren't in the PHB at the time) and they were different. He said never mind the ones in my world are different. Again no real problem but note that "no other characters received any special equipment or conditions". In fact the setting was taking place in a region that these 2 characters were not from.
As the game progressed it became evident that these 2 characters (especially the one with the horses) were dominating every event. The one with the horses was constantly using them as extra fighters to take out the enemy and riding (charging) and shooting arrows inside dense forests.
Then came 3.5, even as the group was getting frustrated with the "power" of the horse maiden.
He redesigned his setting and added more cultural balance, each culture had to use their starting skill points (human only) for a certain set of skills that were always considered class skills. We retrofit our characters to match up with the new system. One player whose previous character had died decided to play an elf and we discovered the huge penalties he had to suffer. I proposed something to the DM to help balance this out - basically if you take something away then you need to give something back in order to maintain balance between players. This elven balance was eventually redone based upon the player's comments and feedback (another good thing, IMO).
The DM then started changing more rules arbitrarily. My son was playing a wizard and was approaching 5th level and trying to figure out what feat to take. We suggested craft wands since it basically rocks. All of a sudden (several sessions after the player had trained up his PC) the DM decided that in order to craft a wand the character ahd to have a masterwork wand to charge. The price of this masterwork wand was supposed to be the price of making the wand per the DMG. I asked the DM why and he said in order to create magic items you had to have a masterwork quality item to start with and the quote from the DMG about the cost of special materials for making a wand was refereing to this. I said what happens when the charges are used up in the wand? If it is a masterwork wand then it can't just turn into a plain stick. Also that masterwork items are supposed to have some special benefit to them even if they are not enchanted, tools give circumstance bonuses, armor gives a reduced Dex penalty and weapons get a +1 to hit. He had no comment on this. I asked him what craft skill should be used to create the masterwork wand and he replied anyone you want to apply. Very heated discussion followed where I blew up (and subsequently appologized to him for my behavior). But I still wanted to know how to make a masterwork quality wand in the first place for which he couldn't give me an answer.
Another issue arrose when the DM decided that it was possible to craft keen arrow heads and weapons. These weren't magical and had to be kept sharpened or they lost their edge. The arrow head could be reused if even they hit their target and cost the price of a masterwork item only didn't get the +1 to hit, so for a double masterwork item you could get both the +1 to hit and the keen property. I pointed out to him that this essentially made the keen magical property of an item relatively useless since arrows were destroyed when they hit their target. Didn't care this is the way it is, a magical keen weapon doesn't have to be resharpend and thus that is the balancing effect here was pretty much his reply.
About those horses. . . he was constantly letting their owner give them extra tricks without any training and more then they were entitled to based on the rules for training.
We also had to train to go up levels, using the optional training rules in the DMG. Not too bad since this one was explained to us before it was enforced. It did cause a lot of "problems" when characters advanced levels at different times and the party had to take some downtime to accomodate the training though.
These were rules based issues that aggrivated me to no end but the real reason I quit was that his style of running a game was totally disorganized. He relied on random encounters to drive the sessions. We had nights when nothing happened at all and other nights when we had to wait for 1-1/2 hours while he made up the stats for his random encounter that he had just rolled up.
Talking to other GMs in my gaming group (who weren't playing in this game) they told me that is how he has always run his games - all randomly driven and no real story to them jsut a series of unrelated events. The whole time he was raving about how the last time he ran this game he joint DMed with one of the other members of our group and the game was awsome. Basically from what I've been told was that it was awsome despite how he ran his "side". I believe this since the other GM is one of the best I have ever played under (even though he had killed many of my PCs) he still ran a well organized and balanced game. He did house rule a lot of things and fudged dice rolls to make the story flow but there was always a reason for this it wasn't because he said it was so.
Oh well so much for the ranting.
A GAME IS NOT ABOUT THE RULES BUT IN HOW WELL PEOPLE GAME TOGETHER AND RESPECT EACH OTHER. If the game is not fun then people will not play.
I do not have a problem with DMs making up house-rules, in fact I think many times it adds more flavor to what they are trying to accomplish. Likewise I have no problems with them changing their house-rules or any "Official" rules being used.
I do have a problem if these changes are suddenly brought on without any time for the players to adjust to the concept being implemented. If for instance the blink spell issue came up. If this was the first time the spell (or similar force effects) were used against the subject of a blink spell - no real problem, unless of course it resulted in a PC's death then it is hard to shake that off.
If, however the "official" rules had been being followed and this was the first time that they were changed - I do have a problem with that.
Back to my story. . .
Our DM (a friend, we still game together just not in his game) decided to start a new game using the 3.0 D&D rules when they came out. Great we all thought we hadn't played D&D for sometime and wanted to try the new rules. He wrote up some guidelines for how he wanted his game to run. Mostly describing the individual cultures and races. His elves and dwarves were different than the standard ones. Only one clan of dwarves could be wizards and they didn't heal well, if they took serious damage they had to be healed by dwarven healingmagic normal healing magic wouldn't do. Elves had cold iron susceptability (this was 3.0 before the amterial type rules of 3.5 came out) that caused them to take extra damage from any thing made of iron (mithral didn't give this penalty) so they couldn't wear any normal metal armor either. 2 of us played dwarves and no one played an elf at the time so we didn't see the problem with the penalties associated with the elves. When he sent it out I made a few comments on things he forgot to include or address due to the changes he had made. My background was that I had been working on the Birthright setting update to 3.0 (on Birthright.net) for many months already and thus had already gotten deep into rules writing.
Some of my suggestions he took others he disguarded, but he read them and listened. Good so far.
When we started playing he had assigned individual characters some "special" equipment and conditions based on where they were from. Now this only applied to 2 characters from a group of around 8-10. One character received an entire heard of really tough and extremely well-trained horses and special armor that she never took off (also never suffered any penalties for sleeping in armor). She also received special lances. The other character got a souped up version of the katana and waz (forget the spelling) that the DM made up. I pointed out to him that the DMG actually had stats for these weapons (they weren't in the PHB at the time) and they were different. He said never mind the ones in my world are different. Again no real problem but note that "no other characters received any special equipment or conditions". In fact the setting was taking place in a region that these 2 characters were not from.
As the game progressed it became evident that these 2 characters (especially the one with the horses) were dominating every event. The one with the horses was constantly using them as extra fighters to take out the enemy and riding (charging) and shooting arrows inside dense forests.
Then came 3.5, even as the group was getting frustrated with the "power" of the horse maiden.
He redesigned his setting and added more cultural balance, each culture had to use their starting skill points (human only) for a certain set of skills that were always considered class skills. We retrofit our characters to match up with the new system. One player whose previous character had died decided to play an elf and we discovered the huge penalties he had to suffer. I proposed something to the DM to help balance this out - basically if you take something away then you need to give something back in order to maintain balance between players. This elven balance was eventually redone based upon the player's comments and feedback (another good thing, IMO).
The DM then started changing more rules arbitrarily. My son was playing a wizard and was approaching 5th level and trying to figure out what feat to take. We suggested craft wands since it basically rocks. All of a sudden (several sessions after the player had trained up his PC) the DM decided that in order to craft a wand the character ahd to have a masterwork wand to charge. The price of this masterwork wand was supposed to be the price of making the wand per the DMG. I asked the DM why and he said in order to create magic items you had to have a masterwork quality item to start with and the quote from the DMG about the cost of special materials for making a wand was refereing to this. I said what happens when the charges are used up in the wand? If it is a masterwork wand then it can't just turn into a plain stick. Also that masterwork items are supposed to have some special benefit to them even if they are not enchanted, tools give circumstance bonuses, armor gives a reduced Dex penalty and weapons get a +1 to hit. He had no comment on this. I asked him what craft skill should be used to create the masterwork wand and he replied anyone you want to apply. Very heated discussion followed where I blew up (and subsequently appologized to him for my behavior). But I still wanted to know how to make a masterwork quality wand in the first place for which he couldn't give me an answer.
Another issue arrose when the DM decided that it was possible to craft keen arrow heads and weapons. These weren't magical and had to be kept sharpened or they lost their edge. The arrow head could be reused if even they hit their target and cost the price of a masterwork item only didn't get the +1 to hit, so for a double masterwork item you could get both the +1 to hit and the keen property. I pointed out to him that this essentially made the keen magical property of an item relatively useless since arrows were destroyed when they hit their target. Didn't care this is the way it is, a magical keen weapon doesn't have to be resharpend and thus that is the balancing effect here was pretty much his reply.
About those horses. . . he was constantly letting their owner give them extra tricks without any training and more then they were entitled to based on the rules for training.
We also had to train to go up levels, using the optional training rules in the DMG. Not too bad since this one was explained to us before it was enforced. It did cause a lot of "problems" when characters advanced levels at different times and the party had to take some downtime to accomodate the training though.
These were rules based issues that aggrivated me to no end but the real reason I quit was that his style of running a game was totally disorganized. He relied on random encounters to drive the sessions. We had nights when nothing happened at all and other nights when we had to wait for 1-1/2 hours while he made up the stats for his random encounter that he had just rolled up.
Talking to other GMs in my gaming group (who weren't playing in this game) they told me that is how he has always run his games - all randomly driven and no real story to them jsut a series of unrelated events. The whole time he was raving about how the last time he ran this game he joint DMed with one of the other members of our group and the game was awsome. Basically from what I've been told was that it was awsome despite how he ran his "side". I believe this since the other GM is one of the best I have ever played under (even though he had killed many of my PCs) he still ran a well organized and balanced game. He did house rule a lot of things and fudged dice rolls to make the story flow but there was always a reason for this it wasn't because he said it was so.
Oh well so much for the ranting.
A GAME IS NOT ABOUT THE RULES BUT IN HOW WELL PEOPLE GAME TOGETHER AND RESPECT EACH OTHER. If the game is not fun then people will not play.
Celebrim
Legend
Storm Raven said:
No, quite the contrary. One rests one's case when its clear that one has won, and that further argument would only obscure the point that you've just made. I don't expect everyone to agree with me, but I do expect that the whole point of my line of reasoning is now clearly revealed.
I'm now only interested in what the current 'common sense' about this matter is, and whether there actually has been a big shift in the attitude of players since I first learned to play.
ThirdWizard
First Post
Celebrim, you have yet to show a situation where a House Rule unknown to a player actually will benefit them. Even your own example showed PCs who were upset and the House Rule only hindered their ability and fun! How does this help your case?
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