Kinda changing rules without telling players.

[Rackhir]

Because there's no such thing as standard D&D. Especially with the plethora of books available now under d20, there are no two groups who run everything with the same rules. Even of people running out of only the 3 'core' books, I doubt there are too many groups who use exactly the same subset of rules.

If there /are/ rules, and the rules are /consistent/, then that's sufficient, even if the players don't know all of them exactly. Next time Doc's characters fight these critters, they'll know what to do, because the PCs learned in the course of the game.

Actually there is such a thing as standard D&D it's called the 3 core books. Apparently you've even read them at some point. Alternatively you could make an argument for the SRD/OGL as being the "standard", but either way there IS a standard.

House rule are of course part of the game, but in my experience people are told that they exist otherwise it make it much more difficult to follow them.

 

[Petrosian]

Some general thoughts...

Do CHARACTERS have a universal knowledg of everything, some sort of omniscient knowledge? nope. Does this have anything to do with whether or not they know how things work in the world they live in? Not really.

In my world, the one where i am sitting at the keyboard, i know that vampires need stakes, that holy water affects them, that werewolves need silver, that rakshasas need blessed crossbows, and that you can ground out the frankenstien monster using his neckbolts.

Not one single one of these did I get from DND.

Not one of them exists to be a real life and death issue in my world.

In school i was shown films about fire prevention, drop-n-roll, safe street crossing, first aid, and even sex ed with diseases and such and in some schools there are gun safety courses.

In my campaign world, where BY THE BOOK, these things ('cept frankie) EXIST and are a threat to life and limb, churches sell holy waters AT COST because of the good they can do against various evils.

In my campaign world, legends, folk tales, and rountine teaching about survival tips against creatures that exist and plague people for centuries and millenia are not uncommon.

Why would there be legends about silver working against werewolves and not about magic when magic, including spells works just fine?

A GM needs to make a point of letting his players understand what the differences are between their players knowledge and their character's knowledge FROM THE GET GO. The players will often make a routine assumption... that their characters know the way things work in the world. The Gm does IMO in a part of his "playing fair" a duty to describe the differences.

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Does this mean he can not pull a "altered monster" out... not at all. A troll showing up that is only stopped regenerating by cold is a great thing. It should stand out to the players and their characters as an unusual thing or even a sign of an evolution or a new threat. It should be considered a clue that something special is going on.

It should not be thought of as "well Bob has probably just changed the rules on us again without telling."

The latter is what you get when you make rules changes without telling the players. There is a huge difference between finding a group of wererats that are not affected by magic weapons, when other wererats are, and in finding that all those stories and legends that the Gm did not inform the players of... that magic beats silver... like you know, magic spells do... are not actually present in this world.

Sitting down with a new group of players, telling them you are running a DND 3.0 game, and then actually running house rules you don't tell them about is IMO a bad GM moment.

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I find things work much better when in play my players encounter something that doesn't work right and deduce that as a clue that something unusual is going on IN CHARACTER and react accordingly. That means i can be subtle and rely on them to figure out things.

If instead i TEACH THEM in practice that it might just be that i have changed the game rules again... I lose a lot.

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Of course i can use custom monsters. I can even at first glance have them appear similar to "regular monsters" and then have the differences come out in play. That is not a problem, although, like any technique, if overused loses its specialty.

What i should not do is simply change the rules so that the "normal monster" is different and not tell the players that difference in their character's understanding.

There is a dramatic and huge difference between those two things.

YMMV and clearly does.

 

[blackshirt5]

House rule are of course part of the game, but in my experience people are told that they exist otherwise it make it much more difficult to follow them.

Agreed. If you don't tell the players your house rules(such as using the 3.5 DR) then it turns from D&D/D20 into "Calvinball D20".

 

[JacktheRabbit]

Agreed. If you don't tell the players your house rules(such as using the 3.5 DR) then it turns from D&D/D20 into "Calvinball D20".

Calvinball was calvinball because the rules continually changed. One minute you played one way and the next minute it was different.

Are you suggesting that I am changing the rules in my campaign continually so that what is true one day for my players is false the next day?

 

[Bran Blackbyrd]

This, IMO, is meta gaming. The existence of a game mechanics is unknown to the characters.

"DR (or in the PC's mind, "can't be harmed by normal weapons, because if they could, their vulnerability wouldn't be so darn special)."
I didn't write it twice because I didn't feel like it, and I have a feeling that no one felt like reading it twice either.

He specified that it was a new campaign and newbie PCs with no previous experience with lycanthropes (or creatures with DR ?).
They had no reason to react on a game mechanics basis.
As for MW (or GMW) loosing value, it might only bother me if a sorcerer planned to select it as a known spell.
it's still useful for/against sundering attempts, and gives some bonuses.

Hey, they were informed of a possible weakness. As I said before, I think almost anyone with knowledge of Magic Weapon would know that, chief among it's benefits, is the ability to put the hurt on stuff that normally can only be hurt by specific materials. Thus, not meta-gaming. You're just going to have to disagree. Imagine that.
If I can't hurt my enemy using my weapon, even after casting Magic Weapon on it, having it sundered would be the least of my worries and I certainly wouldn't waste a slot on a spell for the express purpose of avoiding a sunder.

I disagree about " a PC should know every implications of its spell use", and I'd never consider that every time a 1st lvl cleric learns "bless" he's given a notice with "- Usefull against rakshasa" for instance. The sames goes for not having the knowledge "MW helps beating any DR that can be beaten with special materials".

I never said that a PC should know EVERY "implication" of its spell use. If the PC isn't familiar with Rakshasas, he certainly won't have learned of them from Bless. Although, he may have a hunch that if the creature is evil, Bless can only help his situation. That's not meta-gaiming, that's what we call common sense. Besides you're talking about a specific and rather rare creature, while I am talking about DR, which many creatures have. You're comparing apples to durian fruit.
(And when I say DR let it be clear that from a PC's point of view that means anything that can't be hurt through normal means. For all of the meta-gaming gestapo members out there.)

That's MY opinion. Opinions are, after all, what the original request was for.
The DM deserves to have fun and the players should respect the work he/she's put into the campaign by not trying to derail things. The DM should understand though, that the small amount of authority they've been given is not a license to play iron-fisted dictator. There should be mutual respect. I work hard on my campaign, but that doesn't make me their lord and master, my every whim a command. I'm just a glorified poker dealer. I decide what cards go where, but that's no reason to treat my friends like they're there to serve me.

BTW, I didn't post the second quote in your post.

Yeah, that was me cutting and pasting tags after over 24 hours of continuous conciousness. It's been fixed.

 

[JacktheRabbit]

As I said before, I think almost anyone with knowledge of Magic Weapon would know that, chief among it's benefits, is the ability to put the hurt on stuff that normally can only be hurt by specific materials. Thus, not meta-gaming. You're just going to have to disagree.

If it was a chief benefit then it would be in the spell description. It is not there. The only thing remotely close is the final part that says if cast by a cleric the weapon becomes a holy weapon.

 

[Joseph Elric Smith]

Calvinball was calvinball because the rules continually changed. One minute you played one way and the next minute it was different.

Are you suggesting that I am changing the rules in my campaign continually so that what is true one day for my players is false the next day?

I suppose the question isn't are you, but how would any one know. Since you don't; feel the need to let your player know what house rules you are using how would anyone know if you are changing them?
I think it is just a case of fundamental difference of opinion. You don't; feel you need to let the player know what house rules you have, because you think it makes your world dynamic and exciting, where as many of us feel tht it is important to let the players know that there are house rules, if in fact there are any.
I myself fall in the latter camp, and I try to either post my house rules to a web site, write them up or discuss them with the players. i also inform them that all house can be subject to further change as things progress in the campaign, like the changes I made to the sorcerer for my last campaign there was the opportunity for abuse, and so I let the one sorcerer know that if as game play progress there was a need for change we would talk about it.
House rules tend to change all the time, as what seems like a perfectly good correction or modification on paper may not survive contact with the party or game. I just prefer to be up front and tell my player about it, but then again my players don't; give me a lot of Player knowledge character knowledge issues.


ken

 

[Lord Pendragon]

Unfortunately most of the complainers in this thread appear to be players who probably cannot separate the two while playing to save their life.

Doc, this isn't the first time you've posted a message with a scenario asking for opinions, only to insultingly bash everyone in the thread with a different opinion from yours. I was never sure, though, if you were just trolling or actually looking for honest opinions. Thank you for at last making it abundantly clear to me.

I guess that, like the players in your game, it's simply up to me to live with the abuse or walk away. I choose to walk away.

Good gaming, Doc.

 

[JacktheRabbit]

I suppose the question isn't are you, but how would any one know. Since you don't; feel the need to let your player know what house rules you are using how would anyone know if you are changing them?
I think it is just a case of fundamental difference of opinion. You don't; feel you need to let the player know what house rules you have, because you think it makes your world dynamic and exciting, where as many of us feel tht it is important to let the players know that there are house rules, if in fact there are any.
I myself fall in the latter camp, and I try to either post my house rules to a web site, write them up or discuss them with the players. i also inform them that all house can be subject to further change as things progress in the campaign, like the changes I made to the sorcerer for my last campaign there was the opportunity for abuse, and so I let the one sorcerer know that if as game play progress there was a need for change we would talk about it.
House rules tend to change all the time, as what seems like a perfectly good correction or modification on paper may not survive contact with the party or game. I just prefer to be up front and tell my player about it, but then again my players don't; give me a lot of Player knowledge character knowledge issues.


ken

I too use a website. There all of the house rules are posted that the characters would know about or could affect them.

The only ones that are not there are the ones their characters won't know about and the players will only notice if they have read the DMG or MM.

 

[Bran Blackbyrd]

If it was a chief benefit then it would be in the spell description. It is not there. The only thing remotely close is the final part that says if cast by a cleric the weapon becomes a holy weapon.

But using that information would be metagaming, wouldn't it?

Calvinball was calvinball because the rules continually changed. One minute you played one way and the next minute it was different.

Are you suggesting that I am changing the rules in my campaign continually so that what is true one day for my players is false the next day?

Rather than speak for blackshirt5, I'll give my own interpretation. Calvinball was not even a remotely fair game, mainly because no one was informed of a rules change until the effect of the change had already been made manifest. If the rules changing did continue with no warning, the comparison would be quite apt. Meta-game knowledge is one thing, but PCs are built with certain rules taken into consideration. Change too much and this falls apart.

I think you know what he meant though.
I also think you are simply trying to be difficult. Either that or you are lashing out because you honestly didn't expect anyone to disagree with you. Either way, you should know better.