Unearthed Arcana Light, Dark, Underdark - November's Unearthed Arcana

Interesting stuff.

 

[Sacrosanct]

I guess I'm the only one who remembers the days when it was explicitly called out that the DM is a referee--someone who is impartial and fair, and does not change the outcome to either help or harm the players. In fact, the DM was originally called a referee before DM came about. It's not my job as the DM to keep a PC alive. That's the players' job.

And I still hold to my belief that if there is no real risk and the outcome is pretty much predetermined, why play at all? Doesn't matter if you have 5 HP or 5000 HP if you never have to worry about losing all of them. It's just an illusion of risk that isn't really there, and I'd find that terribly boring.

"There is no victory at bargain basement prices." Dwight David Eisenhower

 

[TwoSix]

I guess I'm the only one who remembers the days when it was explicitly called out that the DM is a referee--someone who is impartial and fair, and does not change the outcome to either help or harm the players. In fact, the DM was originally called a referee before DM came about. It's not my job as the DM to keep a PC alive. That's the players' job.

And I still hold to my belief that if there is no real risk and the outcome is pretty much predetermined, why play at all? Doesn't matter if you have 5 HP or 5000 HP if you never have to worry about losing all of them. It's just an illusion of risk that isn't really there, and I'd find that terribly boring.

"There is no victory at bargain basement prices." Dwight David Eisenhower

Well, you have to remember that adventure path play is very common. And in an adventure path, even if you die, is there any real risk? You make a new character and keep going through the adventure. The only real risk is to story continuity.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Apples and oranges. You might as well say that unless you play Ultra Hardcore D&D Tourney Mode! (TM), no one actually gets hurt playing the game since players are different than their PCs. That's why when I talk about PC risk, I talk about risk to that PC. I suppose you could go Gamers II and play cookie cutter PCs of the same character over and over, but most people I know don't do that.

 

[DEFCON 1]

OK, so you're calling me stupid, as I did it. Because it was a completely naturally way to run it in the circumstances. I then had a conversation with Mike Mearls about it, and he said it was intentionally and expected it would happen in dungeons with some frequency. So I disagree, and please don't call me stupid for it. I suspect when you run into the right situation, you'll see it as well and understand why it makes complete sense.



Raid swarm attacks are realistic. If your societies main advantage is numbers, swarming a single foe to try and hit them (when they're hard to hit) and then flee back makes perfect sense. Indeed, this is the tactic most pack animals use in the surround and harass. I don't know why you think it's unrealistic and stupid, but it's not.

I didn't call *you* stupid... I called the method for running the monsters that way stupid (in my opinion). Your intelligence has nothing to do with it. Lots of intelligent people (including myself) sometimes do stupid things-- or at least things that other people would say were stupid. I've texted while driving-- something monumentally stupid. And if someone called me out on it, said that was a stupid thing to do... I wouldn't ipso facto think they were calling me a stupid person, just that I did a stupid thing. There's a difference there. But if you took my statement as a slam against your intelligence, then I am sorry. I was not. I was slamming the tactic of running 20 goblins up one at a time to the fighter and then running back to avoid getting hit, as opposed to an actual "swarm" wherein 8 or more goblins all run up and surround the guy all at once.

And frankly, I don't give a rat's ass if Mike said it was intentional for the rules to work that way. Lots of rules get written that I think are stupid. And thus... I change them or ignore them. If other people are happy to run them that way, then great! More power to them! If you like the idea of a line of goblins all running up one at a time in a big circle to bonk the fighter on the head and then run back to safety... have a grand old time! But I'm also not going to pretend like I think what you're doing is in any way something I'd ever want to run in my game, because even just visualizing it makes my eyeballs twitch.

And as far as the actual tactics of pack animals and such... that'd be all well and good if real life combat actually mimicked the D&D rules. But they don't. Which is why we get a situation where the fighter (without this Tunnel Fighter style) only gets to whallop the first guy while the next 19 get to move up and then move back with no consequence because he only has one "Opportunity Attack". Wheras in "real life" that fighter would be whacking probably at least half of them as they ran up and then ran back. Especially considering there's not a single goblin at the very least staying up in the fighter's grill to draw the focus of the fighter away from the other 19 while they were doing it.

So no... I've read enough of your posts to know you are not a stupid person, Mistwell, and am not calling you stupid. I just think one of the tactics you use as a DM is. But then again... if you saw how I run my games, I'm fairly sure you'd find dozens of things I do that you'd think the same thing about. So we're both on equal footing here.

 

[Orlax]

I guess I'm the only one who remembers the days when it was explicitly called out that the DM is a referee--someone who is impartial and fair, and does not change the outcome to either help or harm the players. In fact, the DM was originally called a referee before DM came about. It's not my job as the DM to keep a PC alive. That's the players' job.

And I still hold to my belief that if there is no real risk and the outcome is pretty much predetermined, why play at all? Doesn't matter if you have 5 HP or 5000 HP if you never have to worry about losing all of them. It's just an illusion of risk that isn't really there, and I'd find that terribly boring.

"There is no victory at bargain basement prices." Dwight David Eisenhower

There is definitely a chance your character dies but the game is rigged for that to be the lesser chance and as the DM I'm supposed to play into that fact not get pissed when the players always succeed.

 

[Sacrosanct]

There is definitely a chance your character dies but the game is rigged for that to be the lesser chance and as the DM I'm supposed to play into that fact not get pissed when the players always succeed.

Who gets mad when the players succeed? You seem to making some assumptions here. Not making sure PCs always succeed =/= actively against them or a reason to get mad when they succeed. This is an equally bad of an assumption as the earlier one where you said if PCs die that means the DM messed up.

As a DM, I'm impartial. I'm neither against or for the PCs. I don't cater to them and make sure they always win, nor do I get upset when they beat encounters, nor do I get happy when they lose to an encounter. On the contrary, I actually get quite pleased to see them overcome challenges in creative ways.

 

[Mistwell]

I was slamming the tactic of running 20 goblins up one at a time to the fighter and then running back to avoid getting hit, as opposed to an actual "swarm" wherein 8 or more goblins all run up and surround the guy all at once.

Again - choke point. Can't do that. Only thing they can do to the guy is attack him from one direction - hence "tunnel fight". We seem to be talking about different situations.

And frankly, I don't give a rat's ass if Mike said it was intentional for the rules to work that way. Lots of rules get written that I think are stupid. And thus... I change them or ignore them. If other people are happy to run them that way, then great! More power to them! If you like the idea of a line of goblins all running up one at a time in a big circle to bonk the fighter on the head and then run back to safety... have a grand old time! But I'm also not going to pretend like I think what you're doing is in any way something I'd ever want to run in my game, because even just visualizing it makes my eyeballs twitch.

Why? What about it isn't making sense to you. You keep declaring it's a stupid thing as if it's self-evident. It's not. If facing a foe in a choke point, why do you think it's stupid for goblins to run in, hit the guy, and then run back? What is so weird about hit and run tactics to you in that scenario?

And as far as the actual tactics of pack animals and such... that'd be all well and good if real life combat actually mimicked the D&D rules. But they don't. Which is why we get a situation where the fighter (without this Tunnel Fighter style) only gets to whallop the first guy while the next 19 get to move up and then move back with no consequence because he only has one "Opportunity Attack". Wheras in "real life" that fighter would be whacking probably at least half of them as they ran up and then ran back.

Right. Which is what this ability does. So we're all on the same page now, right? You get it now?

Especially considering there's not a single goblin at the very least staying up in the fighter's grill to draw the focus of the fighter away from the other 19 while they were doing it.

Can't. Choke point.

So no... I've read enough of your posts to know you are not a stupid person, Mistwell, and am not calling you stupid. I just think one of the tactics you use as a DM is. But then again... if you saw how I run my games, I'm fairly sure you'd find dozens of things I do that you'd think the same thing about. So we're both on equal footing here.

I doubt I'd call any choices you make as a DM stupid just because I wouldn't run it that way. Particularly in a scenario I hadn't actually run up against in a real game before.

 

[Orlax]

Who gets mad when the players succeed? You seem to making some assumptions here. Not making sure PCs always succeed =/= actively against them or a reason to get mad when they succeed. This is an equally bad of an assumption as the earlier one where you said if PCs die that means the DM messed up.

As a DM, I'm impartial. I'm neither against or for the PCs. I don't cater to them and make sure they always win, nor do I get upset when they beat encounters, nor do I get happy when they lose to an encounter. On the contrary, I actually get quite pleased to see them overcome challenges in creative ways.

It wasn't so much an assumption about you, it's just a consistent problem I've seen with some DMs. Not realizing that players are supposed to win often. I think every DM likes seeing their players overcome challenges in unexpected ways, but at the same time no player likes sitting there and watching as 20 goblins beat the crap out of their character while they can do nothing to stop it.

I will say Impartiality is a complete farce, no person has ever been truly impartial ever. No matter what there is an internal opinion when confronted with a situation. Being impartial just means ignoring your base wishes for the situation at hand, and going with what the rules say. When the thief botched an easy climb check and fell 60 feet I still dealt the 6d6 damage to him that he was supposed to take. That is me acting as an "impartial" arbiter of the rules. Me not being impartial would be to say well I don't want you to die so let's break the rules and say no falling damage. I did the impartial thing and handed him his damage. However I wasn't actually impartial to the situation I wanted him to have little enough damage from the fall that he didn't die. I then rolled 3 6's with my first roll of three dice and then 3, 4, 2 with the second roll (missed killing him by 9 health). Like I said sometimes there is nothing that can be done and random chance decides they die (seriously it was a DC 5 climb check and he got a reflex save to grab a ledge on the way down and he botched both). If that player had died I would have considered it a failure on my part, because iI put the climbing hazard 60 feet up rather than 40 or 50 feet up which would have been the level appropriate falling distance. However as the DM it isn't my job to try to kill them in combat encounters. This means that sometimes the enemy conserves limited resources, or makes strategically faulty moves in combat (moves they make given a lack of understanding of the player's capabilities).

 

[jgsugden]

I guess I'm the only one who remembers the days when it was explicitly called out that the DM is a referee--someone who is impartial and fair, and does not change the outcome to either help or harm the players...

Yes and no - you're a referee meant to resolve rules ambiguities and manage the NPCs, but you also set the table by deciding on the monsters, etc... If a first level party runs into 8 beholders, you're not going to be able to argue you were impartial - you were a PC killer that stacked the deck against them.

The DMs job is to make sure the players have a memorable experience they will enjoy. If a player doesn't mind a story ending in a blaze of glory, then the DM is more free to challe nge that PC with deadly encounters. If the players are going tpo be miserable if their PCs die and just want to be above all challenges put before them, then the DM should keep the kiddie wheels on the encounters. It is all about making the best game for the players.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Yes and no - you're a referee meant to resolve rules ambiguities and manage the NPCs, but you also set the table by deciding on the monsters, etc... If a first level party runs into 8 beholders, you're not going to be able to argue you were impartial - you were a PC killer that stacked the deck against them. .

I don't think you know what impartial means. Because it is entirely possible for that first level party to run into 8 beholders if those beholders were part of whatever area they were found in regardless of what the players did. Now, I have never seen an area with 8 beholders, so I think you're resorting to hyperbole to try to make a point. So I'll use a more realistic example. That dragon, or clan of hill giants that live in the mountains? They've always been there, and don't care if the party is level 1 or level 20. If the level 1 party decides to go explore those mountains where a dragon or giants are known to reside, then yes, I am an impartial DM to keep them there even when the party shows up at level 1. In fact, I would not be impartial if I changed the encounter and living game world to cater to the player choices.

I fully admit that a lot of DMs aren't impartial, for good and for bad. But that does not mean that you can't be impartial as a DM, or that impartial DMs don't exist. We're out there, and our groups have been having fun in our games for decades.