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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Essafah" data-source="post: 7956942" data-attributes="member: 16472">Whether the DM is weaving their own unique story, trying to tie together the various pastiches her players have created into an organic whole, or playing episodic games with no over-arching connectivity just a stream of individual afters that is creating an interactive fictional narrative or in other words story-telling.No.  What I am doing is addressing the point that in 5E and every version of D&D since 2E the game assumes the players are the lead characters of the setting and the game is their for everyone's enjoyment.  It is not an adversarial relationship of player vs DM as often (but not always) it seem to feel like in OSR style games.  I agree that driving story as you mentioned is bad if done wrong (the bolded emphasis above is my doing).  Yet, any aspect of DMing if done wrong is a problematic.    When I speak of creating an engaging story I am not talking about railroading or forcing players towards a preset end.  I actually prefer a sandbox style of play in fact.  What I mean is again making players feel like the leads in the story even from the beginning.  This is the story we as a collective are building but the choices and outcomes is dependent upon the choices the cinematic characters make.    Railroading is a bad game design and again I didn't feel the need to state the obvious.Well, I can respect your opinion and disagree at the same time.  I think the design choice of modern games is definitely 1) truer to the Sword & Sorcery roots of the genre the game is based on and 2) better for the growth of the hobby as a whole.   I agree on one premise that it is easier to be harsher and let up than it is to grant leniency then take it away but I feel that this more for specific issues vs. general game play.  For example, I fully support the baseline assumption of 3E, 4E and 5E that the players are not common in abilites but stand out from the norm and are cut from the stuff of myth.   That being said if there is an individual class feature or specific rule that is unclear on how it works I usually rule it in a way that is less favorable to the PCs until I can do more research on the subject or Sage Advice makes a ruling, etc. but even this I do not out of a spirit of being punitive but out of a spirit of being fair, because in my view it would not be fair to my players to grant them something (feature usage, item usage, etc.) and then snatch it away (the way many old school modules and monsters encouraged DMS to do).Also, the flaw with OSR being the baseline instead of the way the game is currently set up is that basically you run a decent risks of losing players to the game like what happened in The Secrets of Blackmoor and that I have personally witnessed happen at game tables.  For example, one of our players (we will call him Rob) is easily one of the more tenured people in our diverse group.  Rob has been playing D&D since early 1E.  I am honestly not sure of Rob's age but I am sure he is in his early 60's.  Rob for the most part likes the current edition but can't stand OSR games and in particularly talks about the ridiculous and nonsensical traps that existed in what he calls Gygaxian dungeons.   I can tell you now, if Rob who is a very amenable guy showed up at a table and lost his PC to some random F ery like cockatrices as the first encounter of a level 1 dungeon, some trap that was roll a save or die because you didn't take a wooden pole with you and check every 10'f feet for traps (and yes in 1E I recall a game like this) or worst yet you brought the pole and checked every 10' feet but through a random 1d2 die roll you hit the wrong floor plate so BOOM you're dead, Rob would not make a fuss he would say, "I am sorry. I think I am wasting your time and mine. Please forgive me this game is not what I thought but I hope you have a good day" and then leave.    Many newer players would do the same thing.  So no, I don't think the current game is a design error.  I think having heroic be the standard but allowing dials of customization to scale the game tougher or more heroic (which is what I want to happen) is the right way to go.  I will say for both ends of the spectrum the dials in 5E could be a little better.In the two quotes above you are fully taking what I said out of contexting or flat out ignoring the poster I made those quotes in response too. The poster being [USER=6859536]@Monayuris[/USER]  The person made a statement that he did not care what happens as a DM.  I am not saying 0-1-2E DMs did not care.  Many did that is why many had house rules that disregarded random F-ery and the harshness of those systems.  I am was addressing that poster directly and saying in the DMG the DM is to care and it continues to emphasis the point of  the DM should care in various places not the least of which is pg. 6 of the DMG where it talks about getting to know your players so that can understand their motives and playstyles and thus help ensure they are having fun.  What a novel concept.  I must sayy I feel like you are too intelligent to not get what I was saying here especially since it was in direct response to [USER=6859536]@Monayuris[/USER] whose quotes are in my post.Yes. The DM is free to ignore the rules as they see fit but in my opinion if have to ignore a large amount of rules for the game to be fun then you have a very flawed game.  In a solid system the rules enhance the game and for the most part in modern iterations of D&D I think this is true.  My players and I (and me when I am a player) loved to optimize and explore the full mechanical potential of our characters.  We also favor the tactical combat aspects of the game.  For this reason we adhere to the rules as strictly as possible which is one reason why we all crave new official material vs. third party stuff because we like to stay legal.   Some of us are lawyers in spirit if not profession and some in the group are both <img class="smilie smilie--emoji" alt="😄" src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f604.png" title="Grinning face with smiling eyes    :smile:" data-shortname=":smile:" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" /></blockquote>

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