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

[Nail]

Life is too short for games I don't enjoy.

Hear, hear!

But seriously: How does being the DM change your answer?

 

[Telas]

I think this argument has reached the critical mass stage, where arguing any point your opponent makes is somehow justified. :\

Storm Raven: You may want to know that Celebrim referred earlier to a massive house rule document that he does distribute to his players. This may have gotten lost in the suffle, and may explain the "straw man" comments.

The whole "if you change it, it's not D&D" is just silly. I don't know of a game without house rules or the need for on-the-fly rules interpretation.

The DM has the right to reinterpret anything at anytime. No, it's not considerate or acceptable to do so, especially if it screws over a character, but it's his right. All this talk of an 'implied social contract' is sophomoric and ridiculous. Contracts give rights; players should indeed have a certain level of expectation, but they can't exactly sue or argue over it.

Again: There's no law against bad DMing. Players hold no trump card in arguments with the DM. There's no guarantee that the RAW will be followed. There is, however, the option of politely discussing the matter afterwards or finding another table.

I say this as a player whose character almost died when the DM interpreted a rule in midstream. I disagree with his interpretation, and mentioned it politely at the time. He overruled, and we talked about it afterwards. I still disagree with him, but it's his game.

Finally, this is not a defense of the Killer DM or DMing as a power trip. It's his game, his rules, his interpretation. The DM is in charge of the table. If he's smart, he'll listen to the players and try to pitch the game to them, but the players do not have any "right" to challenge the DM on anything.

Telas

 

[Gaiden]

Do what is best for your group

I've read many varied responses and it seems that the universal thread to everyone's response is do what is most fun - this is a game after all. If your group will have more fun breaking from the game (typically a combat situation) - do so. Debate the topic and then come back to it. If on the other hand that debate is unfeasable (because your group is not willing to compromise their position, is "pigheaded", it will take too much time or whatever), then go with another option - probably DM call by the concensus here.

My personal experience is that the rules exist for a reason and that any debate over existing rules should follow the RAW unless there is a previous house rule. In my group, if there is a question (very rarely, does this become a debate) we pause real quick and check it. This means that if the DM has made a bad call, he should fix it. On the other hand, debates over gray areas in the rules are the tough part and I think there is tacit consent that when you begin playing that that area is in the DM's hands. Of course, when one particular ruling is chosen, it should be consistent.

 

[Storm Raven]

No, your not. You're operating on what you think I've presented, but you aren't listening. You keep thinking you are making strong objections, but really you are just setting fire to scare crows.

Nope, you just are assuming answers that fill in the blanks because you assume them to be true. They aren't. When you don't actually say what you mean, you lead to people drawing different conclusions than the ones you want to convey.

In brief, because I've no desire for a flame war. Content and rules are not completely equatable.

No they aren't, but both are necessary to evaluate what sort of game is being run. Which is very different from your bald statement that "rules don't matter at all".

The relative power levels of the various ages of middle earth have little real effect on themselves and are only important if you want to run a coherent campaign over lapping all three, and in any event that debate has nothing really to do with my point.

Actually, it has a great deal to do with what sort of game I can expect. The fact that you can't understand this indicates that you don't even know what sort of argument you are making. If I'm playing a game in which everyone is the same power level as hobbits, that's a very different game in tone and feel from one in which everyone is the same power level as First Age Noldor. Saying "I'm using Tolkien" doesn't tell me which one to expect.

I still don't need to explain to you the Ravenloft system in order to for you to play the game, so please don't pretend that I do.

No, but you need to explain that those are the rules you will be using. Your first argument was that the rule system doesn't matter at all. You defeat your own argument when you start saying "well, to accomplish this I'm going to use X rules." Because now you are saying that the rules system does matter.

We both reasonably expect that I would use those rules and not just discard them when it suits me, so obviously you're argument is with someone elses opinion and not with mine.

Except that your argument here has been that the DM can discard rules willy-nilly in favor of a good "story" because the rules don't matter at all. Which argument do you want to make?

I don't assume people will understand anything. I've played with too many new players that not only have never played an RPG, but have never read a fantasy novel. The basic gist of your argument seems to be that the more expansively I explain the setting, the clearer that I'm being. What an amazing observation you've made. It seems to me that you are arguing that anything outside the SRD or not published by TSR isn't D&D. Ok, fine. So I'm playing D20 with alot of D&D related material available under the OGL. Happier? What's your point?

No, I'm saying that once you have a DM who decides to set aside the rules for no reason other than "because I said so", you aren't playing D&D any more. You are playing a different game, and one in which the DM is hiding the ball from the players.

I'm sorry you've had some bad experiences with Storyteller's. I might well have been sympathetic with 'Storyteller games are deadly pretentious, no matter who is narrating them', but on 'dull' you lost me.

Then again, that's been my experience with Storyteller games. They have all been deadly dull. The system seems to lend itself to deadly dull games.

I suppose so. But I woudl like to point out that this statement doesn't contridict the previous one. Rules are both there for a reason and they are a hinderance.

Rules form the shared framework that allows a group of people to work together. Without them you just have anarchy and unpredictability. Players can't decide what they should be doing, since they don't have a good idea of what the probable outcomes of their decisions would be. At that point, you may as well just be writing a story at home.

Errr.. again you lose me. Fudge, Amber, LARP, heck 'let's pretend'... you can do alot of role-playing without anything like a rules system.

And yet Amber and Larp have rules, rules that make the role-playing flow. In your local Larp, would it lend itself to role-playing if someone decided that the rules didn't apply and that they had access to nuclear weapons because they said so? Or would it detract from the role-playing to deal with someone who decided that? In Fudge defining the rules to be used is an important part of the system, it is the antithesis of your argument that "system doesn't matter", because it is al;l about defining the system. "Let's pretend" doesn't lend itself to role-playing, it lends itself to bad amateur theater.

You know, some might say that the person who says role playing isn't role playing unless its played his way is being hyper-pretentious.

Of course, that's not what I said, but have fun attacking your strawman. You are the guy who wheeled out the "rule-play" line and claimed it was you who was really "role-playing". Spare me your pretentious superiority. These are games in which people pretend to be knights and wizards fighting dragons and zombies. Talking about it like its high theatre just makes you look silly.

Some might say that the person who claims that the role playing that lots of people do isn't role playing - even though it meets the dictionary definition of role playing - because he doesn't like that sort of role-play is being hyper pretentious. Some might claim that the person denouncing whole role playing communities for not role playing in his manner as pretentious, is being a little pretentious. All I'm claiming though is that the person that thinks role playing is defined by rules and not by well, role playing might not know what role playing is - whatever he may know about games. And furthermore, I'm claiming that RPG's are distinct from other sorts of games in that the size of thier rules sets is inifinite, because no RPG can have rules expressedly for every possible situation and that if you approach the game backwards 'game' first, role playing second, that you are likely to see the whole of the game as what is contained within the pages of the rules. And when you sit down to the table, you are probably thinking in terms of what the rules let you do and not being your character. You may well enjoy that, and you are free to and I've even enjoy that on occassion, but my personal preference is not for that. The old adage goes that a role player can take off his RP hat and put on his gamer hat, but generally speaking the gamer has a harder time putting on the RP hat. Maybe you can, but I find in general that the adage is true.

And some might say that this proves what a pretentious person you are. And how very little you know.

UPDATE: I just thought of a question. I've played eight hour sessions of 1st edition D&D in which no dice where thrown and no rules where referenced. What role did the rules system actually have in the game? Would it have really mattered what the rules system was? Was I actually playing D&D? Was I actually playing a role playing game?

Did you have a framework to inform your decisions? If not, then no, you weren't playing D&D. If you did, then you were. Whether the rules get used in a session is beside the point. The question is whether the rules help give infomation concerning the nature of the decisions made in the session.

 

[Storm Raven]

Storm Raven: You may want to know that Celebrim referred earlier to a massive house rule document that he does distribute to his players. This may have gotten lost in the suffle, and may explain the "straw man" comments.

And I pointed out that is what a DM should do. I've focused on Celebrim's rather absurd contentions that the system doesn't matter at all, and that the DM should be freee to set aside rules at will during a session to make for what he interprets as a better "story".

The whole "if you change it, it's not D&D" is just silly. I don't know of a game without house rules or the need for on-the-fly rules interpretation.

No one is saying that. What is being said is "if you set aside the rules at a whim, then you aren't playing D&D". There's a difference.

The DM has the right to reinterpret anything at anytime. No, it's not considerate or acceptable to do so, especially if it screws over a character, but it's his right. All this talk of an 'implied social contract' is sophomoric and ridiculous. Contracts give rights; players should indeed have a certain level of expectation, but they can't exactly sue or argue over it.

Actually, some DMs think they have that right. They don't. Those guys usually end up with an audience of one: themselves. D&D is a social game. It requires a DM, but it also requires players. And they have to work together to make the game successful. DMs who break the implied social contract may find themselves by themselves.

Again: There's no law against bad DMing. Players hold no trump card in arguments with the DM.

Sure they do. They have feet.

 

[Celebrim]

No they aren't, but both are necessary to evaluate what sort of game is being run.

I disagree. I've played too many games where I didn't know the rules or only knew the rules in part. Knowing the rules is not necessary to evaluating what sort of game is being run. It might can help, but it is neither a necessary nor sufficient condition.

Which is very different from your bald statement that "rules don't matter at all".

I had to reread the whole thread when I saw that. I'm still not at all convinced that the person you are having an argument with is me. If you can show me where I said that, I'd appreciate it. I really think you are hearing things that I'm not saying.

Actually, it has a great deal to do with what sort of game I can expect. The fact that you can't understand this indicates that you don't even know what sort of argument you are making. If I'm playing a game in which everyone is the same power level as hobbits, that's a very different game in tone and feel from one in which everyone is the same power level as First Age Noldor.

No, I know what argument I'm making. I believe its you that don't know what sort of argument I'm making. You are focused on mechanistic attributes. I'm point out that in so far as I want to run a simulation, I can if I want run trolls as 2HD monsters in the first age, and Balrogs as 8HD monsters, and run 1st age PC's in the same fashion as 3rd Age PC's. And if you didn't get behind the screen to see that Balrogs where 8HD monsters in defiance of your expectations, you'd never know. Latter I could run Balrogs as 24 HD monsters versus the 3rd age PC's, and if you didn't get behind the screen, you'd only know that your 1st age PC's where really poweful compared to your 3rd age PC's and seemed to move across a grander stage. But you wouldn't need to know that to run a campaign in either the 1st age or the 3rd age, and you wouldn't need to know that I'd simply shrunk the stage. What you'd really need to know to RP a 1st age Noldor lord or a halfling from the Shire has nothing to do with the mechanics, and they can both have 20 hit points and they can both move across a stage designed for them.

In this case, if you are rules centered in your understanding, 8 HD balrogs seem unsatisfying. If you aren't rules centered, you don't know that your 8th level fighter isn't 'epic' because you define character by what he does, and not by numbers on the page.

Your first argument was that the rule system doesn't matter at all. You defeat your own argument when you start saying "well, to accomplish this I'm going to use X rules." Because now you are saying that the rules system does matter.

Again, you don't understand what argument I'm making. Go back and find where I said that the rules system doesn't matter at all. Please go back and show me where I made that my first argument. I'm not defeating my argument, you have invented what you think my argument should be. I didn't say that the rules system didn't matter. I said that the rules system belonged to the DM and was a tool of the DM to moderate the game, and further that the player did not need to know what the rules system was or how it worked in order to be a good player and enjoy the game. Now note, because some other people misunderstood me to be saying that it is better for the player to not know the rules, that that is not what I'm saying. I'm saying that it is not necessary for the player to know the rules, and that it is not a precondition of good role play for them to do so. And further, I'm saying that it is not necessary for the player to see the magic behind the screen and that everything that goes on behind the screen is the perogative of the DM. I'm not saying that it is impossible to be a bad DM. I am saying that a DM has the right and authority to rule however he likes.

But please, go back and read where I said that I had less respect for DM's that break the rules all the time than I have for those that use them again, because that is one of the many things I've said that you did not hear.

No, but you need to explain that those are the rules you will be using.

I disagree. I disagree not only as a DM, but as a player who has played in games where I did not know the rules. Furthermore, I remember a time when most game books advised that the various resolution systems and rules not related to character generation be kept secret from the players. So I think I'm on pretty safe ground in saying that the PC's don't need to know the rules.

Your first argument was that the rule system doesn't matter at all.

No, it wasn't. I don't know who you think said that, but it wasn't me. I said that the rules system was less important than the story. That is very different than saying that it isn't important, and in fact several times during this thread I've explicitly argued that its the job of the DM to craft a rules system that supports the story.

Except that your argument here has been that the DM can discard rules willy-nilly in favor of a good "story" because the rules don't matter at all. Which argument do you want to make?

The one I made, and not the one you keep trying to put in my mouth. The DM can discard rules because he is the DM. The DM can even do it willy-nilly, but to do so suggests that he should have had more foresight as a DM. And the DM can discard rules because the story is more important than the rules are. I never once said that the rules don't matter at all. They certainly matter to the DM, because those are the tools he's going to use to arbritrate the game.

No, I'm saying that once you have a DM who decides to set aside the rules for no reason other than "because I said so", you aren't playing D&D any more.

I disagree. I think that any game which recognizably is D&D is D&D. If you pick up a character sheet and it looks like a D&D character sheet, then its probably D&D regardless of whether they are using AU, Iron Lore, Vitality Points, or whatever.

You are playing a different game, and one in which the DM is hiding the ball from the players.

The DM is always hiding the ball from the players. That's part of the DM's job. If the ball didn't need to be hid, you wouldn't need a DM. But this is really silly. I'm tired of fisking you. As I said before, it was pretty obvious that you weren't going to listen. Anyway, I hope you have fun with your implied social contract, but they have a name for players whose social contract implicitly includes a clause that demands all rules and rulings follow that of the books and be spelled out for them in documents ahead of time. My social contract as a player is alot less demanding in that way.

Did you have a framework to inform your decisions?

In summary, you and I have a very different notion of what a necessary 'framework to inform your decisions' is. Put simply, you believe that the player primarily needs to know the crunch, where as I primarily believe that they need to know the fluff. I do not believe that you believe that the 'fluff' is unimportant, but you seem to believe that I believe that the 'crunch' is unimportant. As long as you continue to have this binary understanding of things, there isn't any point in continuing the discussion.

 

[Telas]

Again: There's no law against bad DMing. Players hold no trump card in arguments with the DM.

Sure they do. They have feet.

Next time you argue with one of my quotes, try using the whole quote. I believe I mentioned that as a disgruntled player's only option (aside from discussing it politely, which seems to be beyond a number of folks).

Again: There's no law against bad DMing. Players hold no trump card in arguments with the DM. There's no guarantee that the RAW will be followed. There is, however, the option of politely discussing the matter afterwards or finding another table.

Oh, look, there's the whole paragraph. And it seems that you're arguing with only a part of what I've said. Which leads me to believe that you're not here to actually discuss and possibly learn something, but to argue and put down people who disagree with you.

If you're trying to imply that I DM at a small table, try again. I have two people waiting for slots, and one trying to get back into my game. Apparently I'm doing something right, since there are other options out there.

The DM is like the judge in a courtroom (with the exception that you can always pick another DM). The table is his domain, and he is omnipotent. He can change the rules as he wishes. Yes, it's rude and unprofessional and short-sighted to do so. But the players really can't do a damned thing about it, other than to complain, convince, or leave. That's it. No "implied social contract", no "save vs. DM", nothing. If this bothers you, you should play a game that is entirely objective, like chess.

The game can continue without one player. It can even conceivably continue without all the players (assuming new ones enter). But it CANNOT continue without the DM, even if a new one is found. Change the DM, change the game on a fundamental level (Hell, you might just change it back to factory-stock D&D!).

Telas

 

[TheEvil]

Hear, hear!

But seriously: How does being the DM change your answer?

I don't generally use house rules, so if there is disagreement, it will be over the grey areas. I tend to talk those over with players to get a consensus. I offer examples of how their interpretation could be used against them. If, after all of that I was consistantly at logger heads with someone, I would drop them from the game. If I constantly disagreed with the table as a whole, I would probably stop running. I am not a particularly skilled GM and do not particularly enjoy it, so I only run if there is no one else to.

 

[Angel of Adventure]

I hate, above all else, a slow moving game that results from bickering about rules. I would much rather be wrong and apologize later than stop the game for 30 minutes to discuss the finer points of D&D. In general, I think my players agree, and we all try to be fair and not screw people on obscuring rulings.

However, as a player, nothing is more upsetting than thinking you know the rules, only to have a DM change them (or, completely reverse them) on a seeming whim. The DM I play with is semi-notorious for this, and its a combination of too much "partying" and a sadistic streak that is (sometimes, but not always) a reason that I like his game.

 

[Storm Raven]

Oh, look, there's the whole paragraph. And it seems that you're arguing with only a part of what I've said. Which leads me to believe that you're not here to actually discuss and possibly learn something, but to argue and put down people who disagree with you.

You said there's no trump card (a point you yourself contradicted). There is. Players have to show up to a DMs game for his opinions to matter.

If you're trying to imply that I DM at a small table, try again. I have two people waiting for slots, and one trying to get back into my game. Apparently I'm doing something right, since there are other options out there.

No, I'm stating that DMs who make rules off the cuff on a regular basis "because they said so" usually end up quite lonely. I didn't say you necessarily did that or not.

The DM is like the judge in a courtroom (with the exception that you can always pick another DM). The table is his domain, and he is omnipotent. He can change the rules as he wishes.

Except a judge in a courtroom cannot change the rules as he wishes. He is contrained by the law, just like a DM should be.

Yes, it's rude and unprofessional and short-sighted to do so. But the players really can't do a damned thing about it, other than to complain, convince, or leave. That's it. No "implied social contract", no "save vs. DM", nothing. If this bothers you, you should play a game that is entirely objective, like chess.

Of course there is an implied fair play contract. Break it and lose players. Break it too often, and lose them all.