Maybe I don't understand the problem...

[Oryan77]

6. Know your audiance (players)
7. Use #6 to keep them involved - little things, like giving the only girl in the group a vorpal bunny because she's a Monty Python fan and likes small furry things. Sure, most of the time it does 1 dmg, but every once in a while it'll take a head off - and those times are precious.

I agree with #6, but it shouldn't always be geared towards the individual. You still need to think about the group as a whole sometimes.

For example, I don't like playing in games where things like vorpal bunnies are introduced. I certainly wouldn't use something like that in my own game regardless if a player would like it. As a player, I wouldn't care if another player is a Monty Python fan, if she got a vorpal bunny, I would not be ok with that. It's a hard situation to deal with & figure out how to juggle. Player A wants it, player B doesn't, so who does the DM cater to?

8. Give them what they want, but don't give it to them in the way they expect.
9. Give them what they want, but make them earn it.
10. Let them do what they want, but make sure there are consiquinces for doing what they want - sometimes, very, very bad consiquinces

These points relate to what I mentioned earlier. I don't think not giving players what they want necessarily makes you a bad DM (or a better DM if you do give in).

If I'm trying to run a certain style of game with a setting that has a certain flavor to it, I don't think a DM needs to give players what they want if the DM doesn't want to. It may not make any sense for the PC to get what the player wants. The DM may also think what a player wants or wants to do is extremely lame and childish; which goes against the style of game he is trying to run.

Remember rules #1 & #2 (cause I agree with those). They apply to the rules I quoted above. If the DM says, "no" when a player wants something, then the player needs to deal with it.

(I should add that although I think the DM is always right, he can be wrong. I have no problem if a player questions the DM once about something. But whether or not the DM agrees, his answer is the right answer and the player should not argue about it.)

 

[Hussar]

On the whole "Don't let the rules rule your game" thing.

My group includes at least one serious game designer and one very, very mechanically oriented player. And, I tend to be fairly interested in the mechanical side of things as well. So, for us, the rules are important. Skipping over the rules actually detracts from our enjoyment of the game.

Add to that, my own personal experience where the vast majority of problems at the table has been the result of either the players or the DM being ignorant of the rules and then "ruling from the gut" (typically to the detriment of the player) and I actually come down very strongly on the side of RTFM.

I'm more than willing to bet that someone who writes rules for a living, full time, probably has given more thought to why the mechanics work the way that they do, particularly in any game printed post 2000, than I have in the thirty seconds since whatever issue has come up.

Not that the game designers are always right. That's true. They do make mistakes. But, IMNSHO, many DM's make rulings that are far worse (and, again, almost universally ruling against the players) when they rule from the gut.

 

[Glade Riven]

@Oryan77: #6 & 7 do not necessarally have to tailor to an individual, nor does said bunny have to be vorpal. If you were in my campaign, I wouldn't do that. #8 through #10 is more a personal style - I like to use player's and PC desires against them just to mess with my players. Curve balls are fun.

@PapersAndPaychecks: #6.

@kitsune9, [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION]: #5 is more to keep arguments about rules from slowing down the game. Sometimes something comes up where it's some rule that isn't used all the time (like how trip works when in a party that hasn't used trip in the last 5 levels) and I (and often other players) don't remember how it works off the top of my head. Rather than let the pacing be thrown off, I'll handwave a solution and move on, then look it up after the session. In the future I try to remember what the rules say on it (trip attacks, in the case of the example). If a player knows how it work and I don't, it's not uncommon for me to just run with it and doublecheck it later.

 

[kitsune9]

@kitsune9, [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION]: #5 is more to keep arguments about rules from slowing down the game. Sometimes something comes up where it's some rule that isn't used all the time (like how trip works when in a party that hasn't used trip in the last 5 levels) and I (and often other players) don't remember how it works off the top of my head. Rather than let the pacing be thrown off, I'll handwave a solution and move on, then look it up after the session. In the future I try to remember what the rules say on it (trip attacks, in the case of the example). If a player knows how it work and I don't, it's not uncommon for me to just run with it and doublecheck it later.

Sometimes I would like to handwave such kinds of rules, but my players wouldn't let me. They would want to look it up and get it resolved, but for the most part, my players and I know where to go to the rules fairly quickly so we're not flipping through the books. Since I run my games from my laptop, it really helps to have the books as PDF and I use the find function. Makes rule look ups go by really quick!

 

[TheAuldGrump]

The dice would probably be very happy to game without humans.

No, sorry. I asked my dice and they told me they don't roll that way....

The Auld Grump, mind you, it is probably because my dice like making humans suffer....

 

[Diamond Cross]

Dying is easy. Roleplaying axe crazy psychopaths is hard.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

If the rules are causing problems and you need to throw them out, isn't that kinda proof that the game is heavily flawed?

The answer then is to discuss those flaws so they can be remedied in the next game or the next edition or what have you.

 

[Ariosto]

4. Use rule 0 through 3 to make sure people are having a good time.

What if we have a good time when we're allowed to get on with playing a game, not when the referee is always cheating?

11. Trying to kill PC only seems to make it easier for them to survive
12. Trying not to kill PCs usually leads to death

Nonsense, unless one were a paragon of incompetence.

However, "fudging" to save a character from a due demise does mean that if ever any character dies it has become your fault -- for not "fudging" again.

 

[Ariosto]

The only way for there to be no problems in the first place, ever, is for no humans to be involved.

"To err is human, but to really foul things up you need a computer."
- Paul Erlich

“The best thing about a boolean is even if you are wrong, you are only off by a bit.”
- Anonymous

 

[Dice4Hire]

The more I look at the OP's long list of rules, the more I think that is too many rules.