In-game debates and rules disputes: What do you do about them?

[Telas]

In the game, the DM is Gawd Awlmighty. (/southern accent)

If he want to change the rules willy-nilly, kill the players for no good reason, send a level one party against an EL666 encounter, and make fun of Driz'zle, then it's his right to do so. Sure, the players may have a bad evening, get in a fistfight, or spend the next day in a passive-aggressive sulk, but that's the sum total of damage done.

The DM created the game (or bought the module), and is willing to run it. Unless the players are paying him something for his efforts, they have absolutely no say in the rules. None. Zip. Zilch. Period.

It is not a democracy, a union, or a committee. It's a dictatorship, and the best a player can hope for is that it's a benevolent dictatorship. The players can do something about it. They can express their displeasure verbally, or they can walk out and find another game. You don't like the free entertainment you're getting? Fine, here's your money back.

The DM is under no contract, no agreement, and no compulsion to follow the "rules", even if Gary Gygax himself, accompanied by a retinue of trumpeting flumpf, comes down from Lake Geneva and tells him to do so.

I say this as a DM in one game, and a player in two. If my DM decides to wig out, it's his right to do so, just as it's my right to take my game elsewhere.

Telas

 

[ThirdWizard]

Personally, I try not to live out my megalomaniacle fantasies through DMing. YMMV

 

[Telas]

Personally, I try not to live out my megalomaniacle fantasies through DMing. YMMV

And apparently it does, since I've got people trying to get into my game.

Snide remarks aside, I'm not saying any of this is A Good Thing. I am saying that the DM is the ultimate arbiter of his game, and that the players are there to play. Not to make rulings, argue, or enter into some "contract" or other silliness. When you're the DM, you have all the power. Peter Parker will tell you that you have all the responsibility, too.

Telas the Megalomaniac-Apparent

 

[ThirdWizard]

I run my game as a democaracy, though... House Rules are basically what everyone thinks they should be. I think that responsibility is very important as a DM, not to make sure that people return to the gaming table, but to make sure that the players are 1) having fun and 2) feel that they have an understanding of how the world works.

I feel that a DM shouldn't make up rules on the fly because that interferes with the player's ability to function well in the game. A DM who ignores AoOs, for example, should tell his players this before they take Combat Reflexes. At the very least, he should allow them to switch feats when they realize the mistake they've made, but I would hope it wouldn't come to this. Likewise, a DM who believes that force attacks shouldn't hit etherial opponents shouldn't spring this on the PC after he has cast magic missile at the ethereal target. Ad Hoc rulings rub players the wrong way for good reason.

EDIT: I generally agree that a DM can do anything he or she wants to do. However, I don't think that this matters to the general discussion, because what a DM can do is very different than what a DM should do. A DM can declare all the PCs dead, or a DM can declare that all the PCs are suddenly 100th level gestalt characters with 10 divine ranks. It doesn't mean anything.

 

[Telas]

I run my campaign as a courtroom. If they want a ruling, then they can approach me outside the game and ask. All my House Rules are posted, and I listen to their arguments. But I alone make the decision.

If I make a mistake, then I correct it afterwards, with a minimum of "do-overs", and never after a full round of combat. If it's a deadly mistake, I'll take time to discuss and check the rules (and my assumptions), but only a little time. Variations on the following have happened to many characters in my campaign: Some guy took a shot at a monster, and it somehow didn't land when it should have. Strangely enough, he later found himself doing the exact same thing, to the exact same monster, in the exact same situation, and it did work. Life's funny like that.

Telas

PS Just saw your edit. Yeah, we're off topic. Another day at the boards....

 

[Celebrim]

Totally disagree. They are not guidelines, they are rules. You can change the rules with House Rules, but these should be made known the player before he is in the situation, not after the fact.

The DM has no responcibility to tell the players the rules. The DM has no responcibility to even tell the player's what rules system they are playing. The DM's sole responcibility is to entertain the players. If the DM does that, then the DM has succeeded. If the DM fails at that, it doesn't matter what rules his using or how closely he's sticking to them.

If I rule something, and you tell me, "This is the rules. They are not guideslines, they are rules.", I'll tell you immediately to go find your own table to run because I have no interest in you being at mine. I'm been a DM for 20 years now. When I'm in the middle of running a campaign, I may be putting 20-30 hours a week into the endeavor and I don't need some immature rules lawyer back seat driving my game and telling me that I've got to follow Monte's or Skip's or anyone elses preferences for how the game should work. If you don't like it, go somewhere else and find a DM that will put up with your social contract. I don't need to beg people to play in my games.

I do not have time nor interest in teaching everyone all my house rules before we begin play, nor for that matter do I have the time or inclination to throughly go through the books and write all my opinions down. But that is irrelevant to being able to play at my table. When I start up my next campaign this summer, I'm likely to give players a 100 page hand out (about 70 pages are complete already) just on character creation but I don't do so that the player's will know what rules that they will be playing under. I do so solely to help inspire the players to create more interesting characters, and it will be easier on me if they know what at least some of thier options are.

The rules are for the DM. The rules are not for the PC's. It makes a DM's life easier if the PC's know at least some of the rules pertaining to thier character, but it's not at all a necessary condition for play. The DM is the PC's sole interface with the world, and it is the world that the PC's interface with - not the rules. The players don't really need to interface with the rules at all any more than a player playing Neverwinter Nights needs to know the details of the C++ that it is written in.

 

[ThirdWizard]

I'll tell you immediately to go find your own table to run because I have no interest in you being at mine.

Eh, I really doubt the two of us would have made it past:

"What are you running?"
"I have no responsibility to tell you what rules system I am running."

EDIT:

Or:

"What are your house rules?"
"You'll find out when you try to do something and can't."

 

[Celebrim]

"What are you running?"

It's a fantasy setting variously inspired by the Brothers Grimm, JRR Tolkien, and HP Lovecraft. I've got a lot of background in medieval history, so be prepared for a little grittier dirtier campaign than most.

It would seem to me that the content is more important than the mechanics. Do you personally really have to read rule books before you play the game? I can't count the number of systems I picked up as I played the game without ever reading the rule book.

"What are your house rules?"
"You'll find out when you try to do something and can't."

I prefer to think of it as players trying to do something and finding that they can.

 

[ThirdWizard]

Do you personally really have to read rule books before you play the game? I can't count the number of systems I picked up as I played the game without ever reading the rule book.

Depends on if its a one-off or if its going to be a long running campaign. For a one-off I want to know the character creation rules and the basics of my own character, and for a long running campaign I will read the core book from cover to cover.

I prefer to think of it as players trying to do something and finding that they can.

Here's where I run into a problem, though. A rules change means that however the player thinks something will occur, something different will happen. Lets say you change the rule so that Weapon Finnesse doesn't have the BAB +1 requirement. Now we have PCs who don't take it until 3rd level because they don't think they can and NPC rogues who take the feat at 1st level.

Take another example of allowing a Fast Mount as a free action after a move but you fall prone if you attempt it and fail (a house rule in my game). A player isn't going to attempt it because they think its impossible. An NPC can do it, though.

Say you House Rule Quicken Spell so that sorcerers can use it to cast a spell as a free action. A player will never know this unless they try and take that metamagic feat with a sorcerer, but they never will because they don't realize its impossible. NPC sorcerers can, though, and the normal player response isn't going to be realizing that sorcerers can quicken spells, its going to be that that NPC must be a wizard or be using some other rule (Sudden Quicken maybe).

Lets say you allow paladins and monks to freely multiclass. The PCs will never know. Say scorching ray caps at two rays intead of three. The PC will only know after many many levels of scorching ray use. Say protection from evil doesn't prevent domination. The PCs who try to use it to protect themselves from domination are screwed.

I can think of no cases where a House Rule will benefit a PC without them knowing said House Rule. It will aid NPCs quite effectively, however. Which is my second problem with not telling the players House Rules. It creates an inequality between PCs and NPCs.

 

[Mistwell]

This Blink spell example is muddling the debate over what a DM should reasonably be able to do or not (because it impacts a very limited number of events). Allow me to add a more extreme example:

You run a sorceror as a player, and choose (as one of your limited selection of spells known) Mage Armor.

On first casting Mage Armor your DM says that Mage Armor carries a spell failure chance equal to chain mail.

When you as player ask to then switch spells known to something else, your DM says no, because you already chose that spell and cannot switch it.

So, in the minds of some of the DMs here, this is perfectly acceptable? There is no implied contract of basic fairness in a D&D game? No social contract at all?