Judgement calls vs "railroading"

[Imaro]

My claim is that the flexibility of D&D is overrated, and that the non-flexibility of (say) BW is exaggerated. Hence I point to constraints in D&D, and to variants of BW.

Okay.

The idea that D&D is flexible because there are lots of house rules, variants etc out there doesn't change my mind. I'm aware of a reasonable number of them.

I'm not really trying to change your mind but since you brought it up... what exactly would change your mind?

But other systems can be modified and house-ruled too. The Cortex+ Hacker's Guide is full of such stuff for MHRP, Leverage and Smallville, for instance - I used some of those ideas to run my MHRP/Cortex Fantasy Hack.

Never said they couldn't but I am moreso speaking of different ways to play or focuses when playing said games. Can their play procedures, goals, etc. be changed and hacked? Can I run a game that focuses on powergamming with MHRP? Can I play a tactical combat game with Cortex?

When I look at 5e, the variants are mostly around PC build rules and some elements of combat action resolution.

Really... have you looked in the 5e DMG? It's not really bursting with PC build options or options specifically for combat resolutions but instead has a multitude of ways to modify all aspects of 5e to play differently. Everything from hero points to adding honor or sanity into the game...more abstract skills in play and optional systems for dispersing narrative control through plot points and more are covered in that book alone.

But at it's core it doesn't look that flexible. Just to give one example: the rate of PC failure in BW is, to me at least, very striking. It's a core feature of the system, and a lot of other system elements are built around it. It's very hard for me to see how 5e would be modified to deliver that sort of experience in any coherent way.

Wouldn't you just adjust what the DC's represent, shifting higher numbers for easier tasks? Or maybe I'm missing a key part of this comparison?

The Ideals/Bonds/Flaws mechanic doesn't contain a system for change.

No but they are a part of the game and with the general resolution system for reactions and skills in general, it's a pretty easy mod.

And the Inspiration mechanic is triggered by "playing your character in a way that’s true to his or her personality traits, ideal, bond, and flaw" and/or "when you play out your personality traits, give in to the drawbacks presented by a flaw or bond, and otherwise portray your character in a compelling way" (SRD pp59-60). In the PC build dimension, and in the award of Inspiration dimension, there is no concern for conflict.

Actually the DMG goes into more depth making it clear that inspiration is malleable and can be awarded for a multitude of actions depending on how you want to shape your campaign. The DMG specifically mentions using it as a tool for encouraging roleplaying (what you cited above), heroism, as a reward for victories, genre emulation and so on. There are also optional rules for letting players award inspiration as opposed to the DM as well as altogether ignoring inspiration.

It's also far from clear that the maths of the game, and the basiscs of PC build, support constant access to advantage (eg look at barbarians' Reckless Attack), which means that the GM has a mechanical reason to be cautious in awards of Inspiration.

Well if a DM is truly worried about that... there's actually an optional rule where the players hand out inspiration and the DM in turn receives inspiration to use for the foes of the PC's depending on how often they hand it out. So problem solved.

Conversely, the system in BW works in part by relying on the maths of the game: failure is a common default, so spending artha to boost rolls doesn't break the maths, it simply reduces the incidence of failure. A dice-pool system in which players are rolling for successes, not totalling the dice, means that adding bonus dice (Persona points add bonus dice 1-for-1; Fate points allow adding bonus dice by way of opening up 6s for re-rolls) increases the prospects of success while still leaving failure as an option (unlike bonuses in the d20 system); and there are rules for enhancing abilities, over the long sequence of play, by spending artha on them, which give players another consideration to factor in in spending their artha; etc.

Ah... ok. So basically you are put at a standard disadvantage in order to get you to do something around your beliefs (this sound surprisingly similar to what default inspiration does in D&D for ideals, flaws and traits) in order to receive artha so that you can reach a level of minimal competence?

Also, on a side note... advantage doesn't give you an actual bonus even with advantage your roll can't be higher than a 20...so granting advantage in and of itself doesn't determine whether failure is impossible or not.

Well, hit points and damage dice are central to any D&D game. Does that mean that all the "flexible" options you are pointing to are all just changes in scenery?

Does play center around damage and hit points like it does beliefs in BW? I'd even argue you are overstating the importance of damage dice since in 5e monster damage can be run with average damage and it would be trivial to do the same with PC's

Furthermore, Burning THACO presents a completely different way of establishing and using backstory, and of establishing Beliefs: instead of the players working out Beliefs for their PCs, and the GM "going where the action is", the GM (via choice of module) establishes what the action is, and estabishes a whole lot of secret backstory (contained in the module keys) that s/he will use to adjudicate action declarations, and the players set Beliefs that fit with the module. That you see this shift from largely player-driven to largey GM-driven play as "a mere change of scenery" is to me very telling. It suggests that, in judging whether or not D&D is notably flexible compared to other systems, there are whole dimensions of game play that you are disregarding.

But it is still play centered around player character beliefs.

In any event, if you wanted to strip Beliefs, artha etc out of BW (and the "fail forward" resolution logic that accompanies it) then you'd have a simulationist dice-pool system that plays a bit like RQ or RM (or a fantasy version of Classic Traveller). I don't know if that would be fun or not - they're fairly brutal systems, and BW played in this way would be just as brutal, I suspect - but it could be done easily enough. You could even - to ameliorate the brutality - just put in a rule where each player gets (say) 2 Fate and 1 Persona at the start of each session.

So you wouldn't really be playing BW anymore...

Which is actually another thing D&D can't do: this sort of classic sim game.

Color me confused...

Seriously? So D&D is flexible because it has all these official and unofficial house rules, including under the OGL, but Torchbearear and Mouse Guard - which are BW variants designed and published by the BW designers and which have a greater degree of mechanical resemblance to BW than Moldvay Basic does to 5e - don't count as indicators of BW's flexibility?

D&D (and again I am speaking to 5e here) is flexible because it let's the group determine what the focus of play is vs. determining it for you and pushing it with mechanics tailored for that specific goal.

OK, then, you win. (And no doubt that the HeroQuest revised rulebook is full of example that include low-brow superhero hijinks doesn't tell us anything about what that game can be used for either.)

It's not about winning, I'm stating my view and you're stating yours... and again I'll ask could you provide some examples, it's been a while since I've read Heroquest. I do remember that DC's increased or decreased depending on your previous successes or failures (getting harder the more you succeed and getting easier when you fail)... but I don't specifically remember that being tied to low brow superhero examples... that's why I asked for some examples.

 

[Lanefan]

But (within the fiction) the skulker does have a motivation or goal! It's just not known yet.

If the GM had already decided what it is, then (as I have talked about upthread) to the extent that the skulker becomes a focus of play at all, it is the players trying to find out what is written in the GM's notes.

If the GM doesn't know - at that point - what the skulker's goal is, then if the players engage with the skulker as an element of the fiction, some sort of motivation or goal for the skulker will emerge out of play. Eg, in the 4e game, at a certain point I decide that skulker is engaged to the baron's niece. I obviously couldn't have made that decision until it was established that there was a baron, so this was months of play (more than a year, I would guess) after the first occurrencdes of the yellow-robed mage as an NPC. This established new backstory about him, which informs what his motivations are. These emerging motivations (i) provide colour and framing, and (ii) answer questions that arose from earlier play ("What exactly is the skulking wizad's plan?")

From the players' side this seems like nothing more than splitting hairs. They see the yellow-robed guy, eventually realize he's more significant than first thought, dig further, and learn some things about his motivations-goals-personality-history-etc.

Whether you decide he's engaged to the Baron's niece a) on the spot during a played session (i.e. from what's already in the DM's brain) or b) 6 years ahead of time in your world design phase (i.e. from what's already in the DM's notes) doesn't matter a whit to the players at the table. You-as-DM still decided it, and they as players still learned it.

It's different from the DM side, of course, but that's irrelevant - it's the players' perspective that matters.

I'm not seeing what the illusion is, other than the "illusion" inherent in any fiction. (Ie fiction is a type of pretence.) The GM isn't manipulating the players into believing something about the dynamics or elements of play that is false.

The illusion is in making a) and b) above completely indistinguishable from the players' side (regardless of whether the information being presented is true, false, or neither). The illusion is in keeping the players unable to tell whether you're running from notes or from what you're making up on the spot...and this applies to both your system and mine: my illusion is that I'm using notes when I'm sometimes not, yours would be the opposite.

In the Adventure Burner, Luke Crane discusses the players checking Architecture to see whether their PCs discover a secret door into a citadel they wish to infiltrate. The failure of the check estalishes (among other things) that there is no secret door to be discovered.

And success on the check means there is?

We're right back to my somewhat silly example of Schroedinger's diamonds from about a jillion pages ago, where as a player I can bring diamonds into existence in the game world just by having my character search for them. Players shouldn't be able to punch their own ticket to a solution like this and so easily bypass the challenge. In the citadel example, why would a party bother doing anything else (such as scouting, tracking guard movements, even attempting to sneak in) before finding a dark bit of wall and seeing if they can roll up* a secret door? In the diamonds example, why bother adventuring to get rich when I can just generate a diamond about half the time I search for one?

* - for such it is, no more than a die roll.

But that is quite different from "If you think to hunt for secret doors, and the GM rolls a 1 on a d6, then you'll find a new pathway to adventure."

Only true if there's in fact a secret door there to be found.

Secret doors are especially interesting in this context, and raise speciall problems, because of their connection to the framing of scenes. Even Gygax, by the time of writing his DMG, was aware that treating what is, in fact, a question of the players' access to those bits of the backstory that they are interested in, as if it were a moment of action resolution, could sometimes lead to unsatisfying results - hence he gives the following an example of disregarding the dice (p 110):

You also might wish to give them [ie the players] an edge in finding a particular clue, eg a secret door that leads to a complex of monsters and treasures that will be especially entertaining.​

At its extreme, isn't this just another form of railroad?

Lan-"I search for a secret door that is, in fact, a painted-over diamond"-efan

 

[Lanefan]

I don't see any connection between this, and the question of whether or not the GM is "going where the action is".

This strikes me as odd - in a player-driven game shouldn't it be the players' responsibility to go where the action is rather than the DM's?

 

[Campbell]

So let's talk about what the texts of 5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons has to say about the play experience.

• The Player's Handbook calls the adventure the heart of the game.
• The game is divided up between adventures and downtime.
• The Dungeon Master's Guide calls the DM the creative force behind the game and architect of the campaign.
• The Dungeon Master's Guide is divided into Master of Worlds, Master of Adventures, and Master of Rules.
• The adventuring section makes near constant appeals to the story. They encourage you to define what the players' goals are for the adventure. They also encourage surprises and plot twists.
• The play style analysis is limited to hack and slash play and immersive storytelling with any given game fitting on a continuum between the two. There is no meaningful analysis of other ways to play role playing games - not even sandbox games.
• The game has a reward structure built around overcoming challenges and reaching adventure milestones. The alternative is level ups according to the needs of the story.
• Significant portions of the rules are devoted to combat, dungeon exploration, and traversing the wilderness. Most of the spells are heavily biased towards these activities. What little text and mechanisms there is devoted to character exploration assumes fairly static characters we play to rather than find out about.

Relevant Passages are quoted below. Emphasis is mine.

Every DM is the creator of his or her own campaign world. Whether you invent a world, adapt a world from a favorite movie or novel, or use a published setting for the D&D game, you make that world your own over the course of a campaign.

Whether you write your own adventures or use published ones, expect to invest preparation time beyond the hours you spend at the gaming table. You'll need to carve out some free time to exercise your creativity as you invent compelling plots, create new NPCs, craft encounters, and think of clever ways to foreshadow story events yet to come.

Creating adventures is on of the greatest rewards of being a Dungeon Master. It's a way to express yourself, designing fantastic locations and encounters with monsters, traps, puzzles, and conflicts. When you design an adventure, you call the shots. You do things exactly the way you want to.

Fundamentally, adventures are stories. An adventure shares many of the features of a novel, a movie, an issue of a comic, or an episode of a TV show. Comic series and serialized TV dramas are particularly good comparisons, because of the way individual adventures are limited in scope but blend together to create a larger narrative. If an adventure is a single issue or episode, a campaign is the series as a whole.

Whether you're creating your own adventures or using published adventures, you'll find advice in this chapter to help you create a fun and memorable experience for your players.

Creating an adventure involves blending scenes of exploration, social interaction, and combat into a unified whole that meets the needs of your players and your campaign. But it's more than that. The basic elements of good storytelling should guide you throughout this process, so your players experience the adventure as a story and not a disjointed series of encounters.

An adventure starts with a hook to get the players interested. A good adventure hook piques the interest of the players and provides a compelling reason for their characters to become involved in the adventure.

Maybe the adventurers stumble onto something they're not meant to see, monsters attack them on the road, an assassin makes an attempt on their lives, or a dragon shows up at the city gates. Adventure hooks such as these can instantly draw players into your story.

When players don't know what they're supposed to do in a given encounter, anticipation and excitement can quickly turn to boredom and frustration. A transparent objective alleviates the risk of players losing interest.

For example, if the overall story of your adventure involves a quest to deliver a priceless relic to a remote monastery, each encounter along the way is an opportunity to introduce a smaller objective that moves the quest forward. Encounters during the trip might see the adventurers accosted by enemies determined to steal the relic, or by monsters that are constantly threatening the monastery.

Some players create their own objectives, which is to be expected and encouraged. It is, after all, as much the players' campaign as yours. For example, a character might try to bribe enemies rather than fight them, or chase after a fleeing enemy to see where it goes.

Players who ignore objectives will have to deal with the consequences, which is another important facet of encounter design.

This is no weak text. I appreciate the call outs to trying to make decisions matter and keeping player interests in mind. I was also pleasantly surprised that the text emphasized the value of the rules far more than most practitioners here. I am actually liking the game as defined by the text far more than I like it as described by most users. However, this is a game that definitely wants to be run in a certain way. The adventure and the story are primary to the experience. World building is expected. Story advocacy is constant. Following defined objectives is expected and there are consequences when you don't.

The game has a much stronger voice than expected. There are no weasel words here.

 

[Campbell]

Here's the way I look at it: Hacking is good. Customizing any game you play to fit the interests of the play group is a very good thing. I just think it is best when you realize you are hacking a game, and the hacking is a group activity rather than a solitary pursuit. There will always be a significant amount of give while operating in the rules of a given game. My experience is that there is a significant amount of diversity in Apocalypse World play. My experience tells me there is a significant amount of diversity in Dungeons and Dragons play. My experience tells me the games according to their texts are better at satisfying different desires and both can be fun in different amounts for different people.

Apocalypse World is a game that offers a strong amount of latitude to the GM. It offers less in some ways than D&D. It offers more in some different ways. It is also imminently hackable and offers several suggestions on how to hack it directly in the text. In fact, hacking is expected. You are supposed to add custom moves that reflect this group's Apocalypse World and reflect the threat of your fronts. There are several peripheral move sets that may or may not come into play in a given game. We are talking about a game that tells you how to hack it, was designed to be hacked, and expects you to hack it. The move architecture was literally designed to be developed in play. It is entirely self-contained and modular.

When it comes down to it I believe that every game provides a specific experience. It is just a question of who designs what parts of the game, when they design it, and how they design it. 5th Edition favors a certain amount of real time design of mechanisms by the DM, but favors designing content before play. I believe this favors the Achievement and Creativity Components more than it favors the Mastery and Social Components. The shifting ground and lack of transparency in both mechanics and social contract can make it more difficult to effectively collaborate on equal ground and engage our strategic muscles both from the standpoint of fictional positioning and engagement with the rules of the game. Apocalypse World favors designing content more collaboratively in real time to a certain extent, but favors design of mechanisms and principles before they come up in play. I believe this favors the Mastery and Social Components over the Achievement and Creativity Components. It makes it much more difficult to explore a world or have a story that conforms to all our desires when it tends to raise up in response to exploration and we have far less capacity to design our experience during the course of play. We must live with it.

The idea that there are no meaningful trade offs in one form of design, but there are in others is something I find problematic. I do not think we are wedded to one set of trade offs, but I believe there will always be trade offs.

 

[Campbell]

Dungeon World is not particularly typical of most Powered By The Apocalypse design. It plays with the form in some major ways, even more than Blades in the Dark in some ways. It has some fairly weak principles, unusual move design, and tends to cross the Player/MC line established by Apocalypse World quite frequently.

This blog post by John Harper discusses crossing the line.

I'm seeing a trend in some of the custom moves people are making for Apocalypse World. Basically, some moves are "crossing the line" regarding what the players' role is and what the MC's role is. I think it's a bit of a problem, so I'm writing this post to lay out my thinking.

The Line

In Apocalypse World, the players are in charge of their characters. What they say, what they do; what they feel, think, and believe; what they did in their past. The MC is in charge of the world: the environment, the NPCs, the weather, the psychic maelstrom.

Sometimes, the players say things that get very close to the line. Usually this happens when the MC asks a leading question.

MC: "Nero, what do the slave traders use for barter?"
Player: "Oh man, those ers? They use human ears."

That's a case of the player authoring part of the world outside their character, however -- and this is critical -- they do it from within their character's experience and frame of reference. When Nero answers that question, he's telling something he knows about the world.

Compare that exchange with this one, which is crossing the line:

MC: "Okay, Nero, so you get the box of barter away from the slave traders and haul into the back of the truck."
Player: "Cool. I open it up."
MC: "Okay. What do you see when you open it?"
Player: "Um... uh, a bunch of severed fingers?"

See the difference? In the first case, the MC is addressing the character and asking about some knowledge he has. In the second case, the MC is fully turning over authorship of the world in-the-moment to the player, which is not part of the player role in AW.

Moves That Cross the Line

So, given that, we can look at a custom move and see if it's crossing the line. Is the move asking the player to fulfill the authorship role of the MC? In my opinion, if the answer is 'yes', it's not a good move. Let's look at some examples.

Here's a custom move from the book that approaches the line:


When you go into Dremmer’s territory, roll+sharp. On a 10+, you can spot and avoid ambush. On a 7–9, you spot the ambush in time to prepare or flee. On a miss, you blunder into it.


At face value, it might look like the player is authoring the world in-the-moment, determining if there's an ambush or not. But this move is rooted in what the character does and the effect it has. By making this move, the player isn't deciding what Dremmer and his people do, that's the purview of the MC. The move is determining how well the PC deals with what Dremmer already has in motion (i.e. lying in ambush for trespassers).


For contrast, here's a custom move that crosses the line:

When you try to deal with the rat-men, roll+hot. On a 10+, they'll listen to what you have to say. On a 7-9, they'll listen, but choose 1:- they're drug-crazed and seeing visions
- they're arming up for war on the tunnelers
- they're starving for blood and demand some right now

See how that move asks the player to author the game world in-the-moment? There's no opportunity for another player to have any say. The player says what they do, then rolls the dice, then says what the NPCs do, then says what he does about it. Not only is this crossing the line into the MC's arena of authorship, it's also a huge bore for everyone else.

In various custom move threads around the web, I'm seeing moves that cross the line like that. They ask the player to initiate the action and then also author the outcome. That structure makes for a boring move and also a confused player who's asked to do things that fall under the MC's role.


Here's a simple fix that improves that move:


When you try to deal with the rat-men, roll+hot. On a 10+, they'll listen to what you have to say. On a 7-9, they'll listen, but the MC chooses 1:
- they're drug-crazed and seeing visions
- they're arming up for war
- they're starving for blood and demand some right now


That's pretty obvious, right? Instead of the player choosing what the NPCs do, the MC does (I also dropped 'on the tunnelers' from the war choice, so the MC can decide in-the-moment who the rat-men are going to fight).


Here's another way to do it, with the player still choosing, without crossing the line:


When you try to deal with the rat-men, roll+hot. On a 10+, they'll listen to what you have to say. On a 7-9, they'll listen if you prove yourself. Choose 1:
- you consume their vile drug and have visions with them
- you give them some intel on their enemies
- you let them taste your blood (1-harm ap)


Similar choices, but all written as actions the character takes.


Hopefully that all makes sense. "Crossing the line" isn't the end of the world in a custom move, but it's something to be on the lookout for. Keeping moves on the player-role side of the line will help make them sharper and stronger in play.

 

[Campbell]

[MENTION=48965]Imaro[/MENTION]

Is it helpful to know that many groups run Dungeon World with an established setting? That there are adventure modules written for it? Is it helpful to know that our Blades in the Dark crew treats acquiring turf differently? That some players are all about The Devil's Bargain while others are not? That some Apocalypse World games use the battle moves while others do not? That principles can be actively prioritized in different ways? That we sometimes alter the principles? I know some people use Fiasco style setup for Monsterhearts to generate some of the initial fiction. When I ran Masks I did not use the default setting and went for something more X-Men like. One of the core features of Burning Wheel is the spokes on the wheel concept where you slowly bring in more advanced mechanics as fits your group or not. Some games run forever on just simple tests and bloody versus combat. Some use the detailed combat rules, but not Duel of Wits. Some do the reverse.

There's a fairly strong DIY mentality to the indie culture and we absolutely customize our games. We just tend to view doing so as hacking the game and hacks our encouraged. During my last Blades in the Dark session I advocated for harm because it made fictional sense to me. When I run Monsterhearts I often limit playbooks. When I ran 4e I did so by altering the rest structure and having very infrequent combat. I know [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] uses far more skill challenges than combat encounters.

 

[Nagol]

@Imaro

Is it helpful to know that many groups run Dungeon World with an established setting? That there are adventure modules written for it? <snip>

Really? I didn't think anything like a module existed other than Starters -- and they are not comparable to a published adventure for D&D. I'm struggling to grasp what such a product would look like. How could you make a true adventure in publishable form when play is so personalised to the characters?

 

[Campbell]

Really? I didn't think anything like a module existed other than Starters -- and they are not comparable to a published adventure for D&D. I'm struggling to grasp what such a product would look like. How could you make a true adventure in publishable form when play is so personalised to the characters?

Red Box Vancouver does these modules that use a combination of fronts, custom moves, and B/X style module design with what looks like some pretty strong setup stuff to get PCs invested. It's definitely not exactly traditional Dungeon World play or traditional B/X play, but it looks like a strong mix. I have never personally used them because I don't play much Dungeon World, tending to favor other Powered By The Apocalypse games. I own a couple though. They are also supposed to be B/X compatible.

 

[Imaro]

So let's talk about what the texts of 5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons has to say about the play experience.

Are we really doing that if we slectively pick and choose which tools we will emphasize from the PHB and DMG. They are corebooks and thus are meant to be used and digested as a whole not piecemeal. I'm having a hard time believing that a 320 page rulebook of dense text can be summed up in 8 bullet points but ok i'll address these as best I can

The Player's Handbook calls the adventure the heart of the game.

Didn't see a quote for this but found the relevant passage in the PHB... I think it's more important to figure out how 5e is defining an adventure by looking deeper into the components it states are part of an adventure.

The adventure is the heart of the game, a story with
a beginning, a middle, and an end. An adventure might
be created by the Dungeon Master or purchased off the
shelf, tweaked and modified to suit the DM’s needs and
desires. In either case, an adventure features a fantastic
setting, whether it’s an underground dungeon, a crumbling
castle, a stretch o f wilderness, or a bustling city.
It features a rich cast o f characters: the adventurers
created and played by the other players at the table,
as well as nonplayer characters (NPCs). Those characters
might be patrons, allies, enemies, hirelings, or
just background extras in an adventure. Often, one of
the NPCs is a villain w hose agenda drives much o f an
adventure’s action.


Over the course o f their adventures, the characters
are confronted by a variety of creatures, objects, and
situations that they must deal with in some way. Sometimes
the adventurers and other creatures do their
best to kill or capture each other in combat. At other
times, the adventurers talk to another creature (or even
a magical object) with a goal in mind. And often, the
adventurers spend time trying to solve a puzzle, bypass
an obstacle, find something hidden, or unravel the current
situation. Meanwhile, the adventurers explore the
world, making decisions about which way to travel and
what they’ ll try to do next.

Honestly I'm finding this hard to label as defining fo D&D since adventure as defined in the context of this passage seems to encompass very broadly what takes place in the majority of roleplaying games (traditional and indie) during play in the moment. The only thing I find possibly defining is the assertion that the adventure is created or purchased by the DM... it seems to point to a DM driven game. Of course if we look at the DMG we get an optional rule to subvert this assertion...

Plot points allow players to change the course of the
campaign, introduce plot complications, alter the
world, and even assume the role of the DM. If your first
reaction to reading this optional rule is to worry that
your players might abuse it, it's probably not for you.

So now we have a mechanism in 5e where the players help to create the adventures and even take on the role of DM... and even a little advice on what may be a warning sign about this particular playstyle with some players. this is what I am speaking to when I talk about flexibility

The game is divided up between adventures and downtime.

Yeah since downtime is presented as a totally optional activity (even in the PHB) I'm not sure it's really a defining feature of 5e play. But, I'd be interested in hearing why you think it is...

The Dungeon Master's Guide calls the DM the creative force behind the game and architect of the campaign.

And yet in the same book are rules to allow players the power to...


1. ...add some element to the setting that the group must accept as true
2. ...add a complication to a scene
3. ...switch off as DM during play


I find number 3 especially interesting since if it is selected for a camapaign it means everything you are citing as DM duties or goals are actually shared by all players since they are all running and playing the game. Again with a less than a full page of optional rules 5e becomes a shared narrative game driven by all who are playing... that IMO is flexibility.

The Dungeon Master's Guide is divided into Master of Worlds, Master of Adventures, and Master of Rules.

These are catchy titles for headings of passages in the first 5 or so pages of the book. I'm not sure what is supposed to be taken away from this... that they decided to play on the title Dungeon Master to make them catchy?? I'm going to need more explanation as to what this is supposed to impart before i can address it.

The adventuring section makes near constant appeals to the story. They encourage you to define what the players' goals are for the adventure. They also encourage surprises and plot twists.

We must be reading different books then I see...

An adventure starts with a hook to get the players
interested. A good adventure hook piques the interest
of the players and provides a compelling reason for
their characters to become involved in the adventure.

It doesn't say anything about defining their goals... it says to create your adventures around something that will hook the players interests... which IMO is just common sense...


I also notice you conveniently choose not to highlight this, IMO, very important assertion in the passage you quoted...

When players don't know what they're supposed to do in a given encounter, anticipation and excitement can quickly turn to boredom and frustration. A transparent objective alleviates the risk of players losing interest.


For example, if the overall story of your adventure involves a quest to deliver a priceless relic to a remote monastery, each encounter along the way is an opportunity to introduce a smaller objective that moves the quest forward. Encounters during the trip might see the adventurers accosted by enemies determined to steal the relic, or by monsters that are constantly threatening the monastery.


Some players create their own objectives, which is to be expected and encouraged. It is, after all, as much the players' campaign as yours. For example, a character might try to bribe enemies rather than fight them, or chase after a fleeing enemy to see where it goes.


Players who ignore objectives will have to deal with the consequences, which is another important facet of encounter design.

The fact that you are clearly reading these closely to highlight specific statements but choose to ignore this pretty big one makes me feel like you're cherry picking to suit your own preconceived idea of how D&D is supposed to be run...

The play style analysis is limited to hack and slash play and immersive storytelling with any given game fitting on a continuum between the two. There is no meaningful analysis of other ways to play role playing games - not even sandbox games.

Well the playstyle section references the player motivations section... where they explore 7 different player motivation types. And they also again stress that the game is just as much the players as the DM's. IMO this seems to support that 5e puts emphasis on catering to your players motivations as more important than a traditionally defined playstyle. In other words it seems to advocate designing a customized playstyle based on what you players desire... and as i said earlier in this thread is exactly what I do through varying techniques when running D&D.

The game has a reward structure built around overcoming challenges and reaching adventure milestones. The alternative is level ups according to the needs of the story.

There is also session based advancement... but again all this does is show flexibility in the advancement schema of 5e...

Significant portions of the rules are devoted to combat, dungeon exploration, and traversing the wilderness. Most of the spells are heavily biased towards these activities. What little text and mechanisms there is devoted to character exploration assumes fairly static characters we play to rather than find out about.

And significant portions have nothing to do with combat, dungeon exploration and traversing the wilderness... especially in the DMG, again you seem to be cherry picking as opposed to really taking the time to look at what options the books actually present.


Honestly I mostly agree with the defualt being static characters... but there is no penalty for changing ideals, personality traits, and flaws. that said, I'm not sure how this precludes playing to find out about your ideals, flaws, bonds and personality traits. There are no penalties for choosing to change these things Or are you saying that in order to play to find out we need mechanics that force them to change at some point? Perhaps it's a matter of preference but I'm not sure I agree. If we all want to play to find out then I would think the players would be the best judge as to when something has affected theor characters to the point where something as significantr as a change in ideals or your very personality takes place... what i don't want is a couple rolls and you're a different person... tadaa!!

Relevant Passages are quoted below. Emphasis is mine.


This is no weak text. I appreciate the call outs to trying to make decisions matter and keeping player interests in mind. I was also pleasantly surprised that the text emphasized the value of the rules far more than most practitioners here. I am actually liking the game as defined by the text far more than I like it as described by most users. However, this is a game that definitely wants to be run in a certain way. The adventure and the story are primary to the experience. World building is expected. Story advocacy is constant. Following defined objectives is expected and there are consequences when you don't.


The game has a much stronger voice than expected. There are no weasel words here.

I think you feel that way because you chose to actively ignore the numerous options presented and the advice about using them in conjunction with the advice you cherry picked to support your own view. I think a much more thorough and neutral reading of the DMG would find that said voice is full of concessions but in isolation so that different groups can run the game they want to with 5e.