Legends and Lore - The Temperature of the Rules

[prosfilaes]

I certainly prefer universal guidelines on setting DCs ("15 is moderate") to a list for every situation.

As a player, I'm most comfortable when I know about how difficult stuff is. I want a 15 foot long jump to be a DC 15 check, not whatever the DM feels like at the time. Consistency in play doesn't negate the fact that I already put x number of points into Jump in creating the character, but it does let me judge future jumps. However, the DMs I've played under (and I'm far from arguing this is universal) haven't seemed consistent in rulings; "moderate" could vary from day to day.

 

[pemerton]

That said, a DM should be empowered to change the game as they see fit, as well.

<snip>

The player must accept the DM's authority. This is part of the social contract of the game. The DM's authority is absolute. A DM should absolutely take into account a variety of things -- from rules interactions to what people at their table like -- but without the trust of the players at the table, a DM who modifies things can't be authoritative, and won't be taken seriously.

When you say the player must accept the GM's authority, and that the GM's authority is absolute, what is the force of the "must" and the "is"? Are you saying - otherwise it would not be D&D? Or that, otherwise, the game won't work?

Although D&D has a strong tradition of authoritative GMs, I personally don't think that this is inherent to the game. And I certainly don't think that absolute GM authority is essential to the game running well. As Crazy Jerome points out, other games do things other ways:

If you introduce a new monsters in BW, by the RAW, then you write it up according to some extensive guidelines. And then before it is used in a game, it is "peer reviewed" by at least some of the other players. (And any player can so introduce--not merely the GM.) The deliberate expectation is that meeting the new creature is not an "on no" surprise over capabilities, but rather "oh no, you brought that thing out!"

As Crazy Jerome said, I don't have any strong view on whether the BW way of doing things is better than the D&D way. But at least is shows that other ways are viable.

And there is at least one respect in which I think 4e ought not to be houseruled unilaterally by the GM, namely, in the setting of DCs, ACs, damage etc by level. These codifications of the system scaling are part of what ensure the mechanical balance of the game, and hence provide the players with the assurances they need to confidently take risks with their PCs. They are the device for avoiding tedious, turtling, Tomb-of-Horrors-flying-thief-on-a-rope-style play. A GM who changes these is changing these fundamental elements of the system is really changing the nature of 4e as a situation-based, player-driven game, and I don't think that's something a GM should or needs to enjoy unilateral authority to do.

 

[S'mon]

Yeah, I'm going to agree with S'mon here. I don't want to play amateur game designer just to play the game. I want a game that will work right out of the box. If I want to change how things work, I would like the rules to be as transparent as possible and maybe sidebars from the designers on how to possibly achieve different fairly common results.

For example, it wouldn't hurt for the core game to present a pretty concrete experience, but also include methods for dialing up or down from that baseline. And, really, I think many games are far more similar than different. If they weren't then modules would never sell. The fact that you can make generic modules and expect people to use them in their game means that the baseline has to be fairly common.

D&D, IMO, is not a generic gaming system. Trying to make it so by starting the baseline at zero and then expecting the DM to build from there is taking D&D in the same direction as Savage Worlds. Not necessarily a bad thing, but, for a game as weighty as D&D, going that route makes things so complicated.

That's how I feel - I don't like generic systems, which force me to do a bunch of 'amateur game design' work to play the game. Of Monte's alternatives I definitely prefer Mearls' approach - the dial is set to X, here's how you can adjust the dial. I don't want to be slapped in the face with 'now create the rules for your game' before I can GM.

OTOH I don't like over-fiddly rules that require endless references to the rule books. I could tolerate looking up unusual spells in 1e-3e because often the casting of the one spell could be a game-changing 'I win' button, sufficiently dramatic a pause in the action could be ok. But I hate looking up specific skill DCs for task resolution, I would much rather have a simple generic chart for easy/moderate/hard DCs, which I can then use for every skill and adjust as necessary.

 

[S'mon]

As a player, I'm most comfortable when I know about how difficult stuff is. I want a 15 foot long jump to be a DC 15 check, not whatever the DM feels like at the time. Consistency in play doesn't negate the fact that I already put x number of points into Jump in creating the character, but it does let me judge future jumps. However, the DMs I've played under (and I'm far from arguing this is universal) haven't seemed consistent in rulings; "moderate" could vary from day to day.

The DC on a 15' jump may well vary due to circumstances - lighting, floor surface, wind et al. I think for jumps & similar the solution is (a) the book can say "Moderate - 15'; jump' and (b) for the DM to tell you the DC before you attempt the jump, which is functionally equivalent to the DM deciding how wide the jump is in the first place.

 

[S'mon]

A GM who changes these is changing these fundamental elements of the system is really changing the nature of 4e as a situation-based, player-driven game

It sounds like by 'situation based, player driven game' you mean static balanced encounters waiting for the PCs to come along and kill them. That is how WotC adventures are written, but I don't think it's a good or necessary approach and it's certainly not how I run my game. I like 'player driven' in the sense of players actually setting the direction of the game - where they go, what they do - which requires a very different approach and tools that facilitate improvisational GMing. But this is IMO more player-empowering, not less.

 

[LurkAway]

And there is at least one respect in which I think 4e ought not to be houseruled unilaterally by the GM, namely, in the setting of DCs, ACs, damage etc by level. These codifications of the system scaling are part of what ensure the mechanical balance of the game, and hence provide the players with the assurances they need to confidently take risks with their PCs. They are the device for avoiding tedious, turtling, Tomb-of-Horrors-flying-thief-on-a-rope-style play. A GM who changes these is changing these fundamental elements of the system is really changing the nature of 4e as a situation-based, player-driven game, and I don't think that's something a GM should or needs to enjoy unilateral authority to do.

I agree that it would be safer if a 4E DM got player consensus to change rules if that would alter the expected playstyle.

In 5E, we don't know which playstyle(s) will be supported. I would be curious to know why Monte and Mearls are talking about complexity dials and temperatures of the rules -- is this mostly about making a lite D&D vs complex D&D, or is this also about rules that are modular for a certain playstyle (4E style or Tomb-of-Horrors-flying-thief-on-a-rope or simulationist-immersionist).

There are irreconcilable differences between at least 2 opposing perspectives on the ideal D&D roleplaying experience. CrazyJerome suggested that sidebars explaining the rules would help. I'm not so sure it's worth the effort and pagespace. i.e., you could explain to me until you're blue in the face why all spells cause damage+effect in 4E, but I'll still want to rip out the entire magic system and substitute for a different one without the bloat and "sameness" and hope that it's fair using a different mundane-magic balancing track.

From what I understand of Umbran's perspective, D&D is inexorably evolving in a gamist/complex/tactical direction. OTOH, some people have accused Monte of being nostalgic for the old days.

For the split between the wannabe-amateur-game-designer vs play-as-is-out-of-the-box, I don't know if it's as divisive (well, maybe it is, who can predict) and good clear presentation may alleviate that one way or another.

Anyway, it's great to talk about *how* the rules are changeable from a default, but I think what matters more is *why*. Figure out the exact purpose first, and I assume the method will follow more naturally.

 

[pemerton]

It sounds like by 'situation based, player driven game' you mean static balanced encounters waiting for the PCs to come along and kill them. That is how WotC adventures are written, but I don't think it's a good or necessary approach

It's a crap approach. And I think most of the WotC modules I've seen for 4e are not very good.

By "situation based, player driven game" I mean the general indie RPG approach: the players build PCs with hooks built into them; the GM, instead of building encounters that are intended to hook essentially story-less PCs, builds encounters that suit the hooks the players have built into their PCs; the players engage those encounters via their PCs; the fiction that results from that engagement then changes the PCs' hooks; new encounters are built by the GM around those new hooks; etc, etc. Eero Tuovinen calls this "the standard narrativistic model" of RPG play. Obviously 4e is not as hardcore in its narrativism as the serious indie RPGs, but equally obvious, I think, is the influence of those indie designs on 4e's approach to PC building, encounter building etc.

I like 'player driven' in the sense of players actually setting the direction of the game - where they go, what they do - which requires a very different approach and tools that facilitate improvisational GMing. But this is IMO more player-empowering, not less.

The tools in 4e that facilitiate this sort of GMing are precisly the scaled DCs, the standard damage expressions, the monster guidelines, etc. These are what give everyone at the table the assurance that an unexpected choice by the players won't suddenly bring the game to a screaming, TPK-induced halt. (Or some lesser form of game-ending disaster.)

 

[pemerton]

Anyway, it's great to talk about *how* the rules are changeable from a default, but I think what matters more is *why*. Figure out the exact purpose first, and I assume the method will follow more naturally.

Agreed.

But I think WotC is in a hard place. If they head back towards Gygaxian gamism with a strong simulationist chassis they'll have to compete with Pathfinder. If they stick with indie-influenced 4e-ish design they'll keep getting hammered by ex-fans. And D&D has never really been a strong system for simulationist-immersionist, has it? Ars Magica, Pendragon, Runequest etc seem to do that much better.

Where are WotC going to go? And are they going to be brave enough to be up front about it, thereby in effect informing a good number of potential customers in advance that they might not like the destination?

 

[Mark CMG]

(. . .) the players build PCs with hooks built into them; the GM, instead of building encounters that are intended to hook essentially story-less PCs, builds encounters that suit the hooks the players have built into their PCs; the players engage those encounters via their PCs; the fiction that results from that engagement then changes the PCs' hooks; new encounters are built by the GM around those new hooks (. . .)

Internal PC hooks rather than external setting hooks.

 

[S'mon]

It's a crap approach. And I think most of the WotC modules I've seen for 4e are not very good.

By "situation based, player driven game" I mean the general indie RPG approach: the players build PCs with hooks built into them; the GM, instead of building encounters that are intended to hook essentially story-less PCs, builds encounters that suit the hooks the players have built into their PCs; the players engage those encounters via their PCs; the fiction that results from that engagement then changes the PCs' hooks; new encounters are built by the GM around those new hooks; etc, etc. Eero Tuovinen calls this "the standard narrativistic model"of RPG play. Obviously 4e is not as hardcore in its narrativism as the serious indie RPGs, but equally obvious, I think, is the influence of those indie designs on 4e's approach to PC building, encounter building etc.

The tools in 4e that facilitiate this sort of GMing are precisly the scaled DCs, the standard damage expressions, the monster guidelines, etc. These are what give everyone at the table the assurance that an unexpected choice by the players won't suddenly bring the game to a screaming, TPK-induced halt. (Or some lesser form of game-ending disaster.)

OK, so you're talking about Narrativist play. I don't see how the 4e tools scaling off PC level facilitate narrativist play at all, really, though I think there are elements that can assist with dramatic story-creation.

I think now what you're saying is that 4e as written makes random character death or TPK less likely; the PCs should be able to go around (according to their own motivations) and not get killed because the world always scales to them Oblivion style? And this facilitates non-turtling play.

I think that makes sense. OTOH a status quo world can also facilitate non-turtling play: it enables the players to make a good threat assessment, they can make a good estimate of the risk and avoid overly risky ventures. IME 1e worked like this, with its 1 hd orcs, 4+1 hd ogres, 8 hd hill giants etc.

Also in 1e, PCs became very robust after a few levels, they gained very high survivability in absolute terms, even against same-level threats. This encouraged increasing boldness; the players had assurance their PCs were very unlikely to die in the normal course of adventuring.

Really turtling players is the result of either over-cautious players, or an overly adversarial GMing style. In either case it's dysfunctional play. But there are several solutions, hard scaling to PC level is just one of them. A predictable status quo world, and PCs that become more robust relative to likely threats as they level up, are viable alternatives.