Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 5583925" data-attributes="member: 82106">Right, and just to clarify...I don't think much of the whole "DM's will be control freaks" notion. I've played a lot of RPGs with a lot of GMs (though honestly I probably 'trained' a lot of those GMs) and I haven't really seen a whole lot of that issue. I've seen situations where the players and the DM needed to get their heads in the same space regarding what sort of game it was, but the answer to that wasn't to put all the responsibility on either one side of the table nor the other. Regardless of what the rules say both sides have to work out a way to get on the same page. While I can certainly imagine, and have heard plenty of stories about, DMs who can't manage that and try to just impose their way of doing things by fiat, I find that to be pretty rare in reality. However, each side of the table has different dynamics driving their approach to the game. It CAN be helpful to have the DM be able to define the options the players will be exposed to. I don't think having the DM need to go through the entire item list and decide at the start what is and isn't going to show up as player resources is very practical. Sure, in theory you can go through CB and check checkboxes, but no DM is going to know ahead of time exactly what all that list needs to be. I find that the default limited accessibility policy is a good idea. It relieves the players of the temptation to meta-game so much. I find all the talk of 'doggie biscuits' and 'mother may I' to be hmmmm, I'm not sure what the proper adjective is. Lets just say I'm unimpressed with that. RPGs are a collaborative effort. Granted there are people who don't understand that, but whether or not items are a resource the players simply have control of or that the DM has control of isn't going to really change anything about that. If rarity can fix some issues with the mechanics of the game, which I believe it does, then it is a good idea. You can say 'players can police themselves' but my experience is they are always tempted to play the optimization meta-game, and I think it is largely a meta-game. The DM OTOH is generally not subject to the same temptations.</blockquote>

Verification