Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tatsukun" data-source="post: 2248852" data-attributes="member: 15511">I still think the poker (or any other game) analogy holds water. DnD is a game, and it’s true that nobody wins in the end, but in a way there are a lot of little battles that can be won or lost (I am using “your character fails” as a “loss” here and “Your character achieves his/her goals” as “win” here). It’s rather like the many hands of poker a group of friends might play. We’re talking a friendly game here, maybe in the “$1 max bet” kind of league. You play hand after hand, you win some and you loose some. Overall, you have fun, and nobody really wins big or looses big. No imagine that while you are playing the dealer announces that fours are wild after he deals. That’s clearly a violation of the agreed upon rules. He can change that rule (make fours wild) before he deals, but not after; just as the DM can change a rule before the game, but not willy-nilly. If you are still having trouble with the poker analogy, try this one…You are reading a mystery novel. You get to the middle of the book and there are two people who stand out in your mind as suspects. Let’s say it’s ‘Mr. Butler’ and ‘Mr. White’. You know that the murderer had to climb a 50’ sheer wall to escape the police, and you are wondering how s/he might have done it.  Then, you get to the last chapter and the main character policeman announces that it was Mr. Butler who did it. “After all”, says the policeman, “he had a 10’ ladder, and the wall was only 10’ tall.” You scan back through the pages and confirm that the wall has always been referred to as a 50’ sheer wall. You flip back to the last pages, and one of the other guests says “I still think Mr. White did it!, after all, he has a 10’ ladder too!” To which the main character police man replies “Well, of course a 10’ ladder isn’t tall enough to get over the 50’ wall!”.You finish the book, the end result is that Mr. Butler climbed the wall with his ladder.Do you want to read another novel by this author? Of course not! His/her world lacks internal integrity. Rules and facts change as needed page to page to fit the story. The changing of the height of the wall for one character only is not any different than the changing of a rule in DnD for one character (be it a PC or NPC). The author writing that Mr. Butler can climb the 10’ wall is no different than the DM announcing that the BBEG can’t be hit with ‘magic missile’ because he has ‘Blur’ running. This actually fits nicely with the other point I made in my first post; that the DM should never try to regulate role-playing. I have heard of DMs who told players that their (Cleric) PC had been fighting in melee a lot, so his next level had to be fighter. If you want to control the role-playing of the PCs, write a book. If you want other people to role play with you in a group setting, play DnD and don’t try to control the PCs. Ok, that’s all. Hmm, this one is a little longer. I’m going to call this “My 3 cents” -Tatsu</blockquote>

Verification