New Legends and Lore: The Rules

[ExploderWizard]

I hate the continued enshrinement of Rule 0. It's such a poisonous, needless thing. No, the rules can't "force" the DM to play fair... any more than they can "force" the players to do so. But a game in which "the DM can just put Tiamat in the next room of the dungeon and slaughter the characters whenever he or she wishes"--in what way is that a good thing? Why not make such a dick move be against the rules? (Funny thing is, the structure for doing so is in 4e already, though it backpedals at the last moment by making encounter budgets guidelines rather than rules.)

"Why try to legislate some of the DM’s power while leaving huge, gaping holes elsewhere?" Why indeed, Mike? Why not close the huge gaping holes too, eh?

I think the answer may be that those in charge of D&D are at last beginning to realize that the game is not the rules and that the rules serve the game instead of the opposite.

It sounds like Mike wants to sail D&D in a direction that allows those playing to determine how intrusive the rules are to thier particular game and I appreciate the thought.

 

[the Jester]

Sounds like my feelings on Rule 0 would be more appropriate to a blog post than a forum, so I'll take that elsewhere.

I will correct one mistaken assumption I'm hearing in the replies to my post, though: I am the DM a good chunk of the time. I dislike Rule 0 from either side of the screen.

Don't misunderstand me- I do think it's worth discussing, I just disagree strongly that Rule 0 is necessarily bad. And I'm certainly not saying you have to be (or have had) terrible dms to feel the way you do. I'm saying that only if your dm is terrible is Rule 0 necessarily bad.

IMHO Rule 0 works better with better dms and better players- just like everything else. And I certainly recognize that different games have totally different levels of narrative control for the dm/gm/judge/etc. It's another dial, not a switch.

I'd even say it might be worth starting a thread of its own to discuss this.

 

[Waylander the Slayer]

I think the answer may be that those in charge of D&D are at last beginning to realize that the game is not the rules and that the rules serve the game instead of the opposite.

It sounds like Mike wants to sail D&D in a direction that allows those playing to determine how intrusive the rules are to thier particular game and I appreciate the thought.

Or sell rules expansions.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Same deal as last time: Ideally (perhaps an unattainable ideal...), complexity needs to scale at every possible decision point. I need to be able to start running a fiefdom and making alliances (or fighting combats) with simple rules, and be able to add complexity gradually, as I find my group is interested, or to scale it down gradually, as I find they're not. I'd also like to be able to hit different complexity levels for different players, so Bill can just roll d20's, but Laura can engage in complex facing and precise damage rules....

Again, perhaps unattainable, but that would sure be neat.

Without that, just being able to tone down 4e combat and ratchet up its exploration and roleplaying would be boffo for my own games.

Here's a Skip Williams interview from 2009 in which Mr. Williams discusses some of the same issues but - probably not surprisingly - takes a contrary position. Check down the comments area about halfway to see Mike Mearls' comment.

I'm with Skip in a few places. Like here:

It comes down to this: If you want to be in control of your character, you have to have some idea how anything you might try is going to come out. and you can't know that unless you have some idea of how the rules are going to handle the situation. If the GM is making capricious decisions about what happens in the game, you're always shooting in the dark and you have no real control over your character at all.

I think this is very true, and brings up some of the problems with "mother may I" gameplay and pure DM judgement calls. As a DM, I don't want to HAVE to make a thousand judgement calls. I want to be able to roll the dice and have the system tell me what happens. I don't want to have to decide if my NPCs are for fighting or for talking or recruiting as allies. I want to be able to do all of that with them, whenever I need to.

But I can see where a group with a DM with broader control can find that restrictive.

So the idea is that you can "turn it off if you want," which is Rule 0, which was a core rule in 3e, despite some DMs feeling like it didn't exist.

 

[Mark CMG]

No, but... when players come into a game with the expectation that rules are going to work a certain way, they often become upset when a DM tells them the rules work a different way. The particular 3rd edition situations I'm thinking about is where a player maps out his character build from level 1-20, picks all his feats, spells, what items he's going to have built, and so on. Then he gets into the game, only to find out that the DM has disallowed a feat or spell he's relying on for his build, or that for story reasons, he can't play an elf, and he's pissed. Those particular situations plagued me throughout the third edition cycle. The increased codification of the rules and the expectation that was created in players that "everything in every book is open to you" were big problems. 4e has some of the same problems.

In regards to the bolded section from the quote above . . . Seriously, who does this when they haven't even experienced the campaign or world enough to know what is useful, what opportunities the character might have in-world to gain such knowledge, etc.? This seems like the expectation of a player who doesn't have any interest in a specific DM or his campaign, merely in having someone run monsters for them, with a sprinkling or attaboy campaign rewards/moments. No, thank you. Not running that game.

 

[FATDRAGONGAMES]

I think the answer may be that those in charge of D&D are at last beginning to realize that the game is not the rules and that the rules serve the game instead of the opposite.

QFT (was trying to think of a way to say exactly that!)

 

[delericho]

I think this is very true, and brings up some of the problems with "mother may I" gameplay and pure DM judgement calls. As a DM, I don't want to HAVE to make a thousand judgement calls. I want to be able to roll the dice and have the system tell me what happens. I don't want to have to decide if my NPCs are for fighting or for talking or recruiting as allies. I want to be able to do all of that with them, whenever I need to.

Yeah.

As a DM, I want the rules to do as much of the heavy lifting as possible. But I also want the scope to be able to change something.

As a player, I want the confidence that there is a consistent ruleset in use, so I can make meaningful decisions. So, while I don't mind the DM changing things, I want those house rules written up and announced in advance. If I create an Illusionist, choose a bunch of spells, and only later find that the DM has secretly house ruled to nerf illusions, I'm walking.

I'm in favour of stating "Rule 0" explicitly in the rulebooks, if only to cut down on rules lawyer players. But I do think it should maybe be expanded to say, "If you don't like something, change it. But do so carefully and with forethought, and be sure to let your players know what you've changed!"

(Of course, when saying that, I do mean changing the rules. Obviously, if the DM introduces a variant monster with slightly different powers, that shouldn't necessarily be informed up-front - only the 'famous' changes to monsters should be communicated!)

 

[Jhaelen]

Here's a Skip Williams interview from 2009 in which Mr. Williams discusses some of the same issues but - probably not surprisingly - takes a contrary position. Check down the comments area about halfway to see Mike Mearls' comment.

Thanks for the interesting link. As a software designer I don't really agree with Mr. Mearls analogy, though:

Writing RPG rules to counter bad DMs is like writing software to fix a broken computer.

I'm sympathetic to the idea, but human society has existed for thousands of years and has yet to find a solution for jerks. I don't think RPG rules are going to solve that.

Broken hardware _can_ be 'fixed' by writing software to a certain degree. Does anyone remember the various hardware problems in satellites or planetary drones that made it into press?
Quite a few of them could be compensated by updating the software, allowing the device to do it's job almost as well as if the hardware had worked flawlessly. Redundancy and versatile hardware components are the key.

Knowing that you cannot fix broken hardware will guide its overall design and improving the software to make the most out of what still works is definitely highly desirable.

So, returning to the topic of roleplaying games, I think game designers should make every effort to write guidelines and provide rules to counter 'bad' DMs and hopefully help them to become 'good' DMs.

 

[ExploderWizard]

So, returning to the topic of roleplaying games, I think game designers should make every effort to write guidelines and provide rules to counter 'bad' DMs and hopefully help them to become 'good' DMs.

Solid DM advice is always appreciated but hardcoding a straightjacket for the DM in the rules is going to have one major effect; everyone is going to want to play and no one will want to DM.

As a player in a tightly structured rules heavy environment you generally know the odds of success, get to plan for your character and make decisions. The DM, meanwhile largely gets the task of preparing material which is largely proscribed by formula and serving as rulebook parser and die roller for the monsters. Awesome, where do I sign up?

 

[Osgood]

It sounds to me like Mearls is trying to build a game that is all things to all gamers, which is not realistic. I do think that having varying levels of complexity in the same game is possible, but this seems too modular. While an established gaming group wouldn't have too much trouble determining what rules modules to use, it would be a nightmare trying to bring in a new player (regardless of their experience) or running a game at a con.

Its one thing to have a basic or advanced version of the game, but imagine trying to explain which of the 10 different rule options are being used could be daunting... "Our game uses miniatures, social combat, and pack mules, but not non-combat skills, alliances, or feats. We use type 1 and 2 classes, but not type 3 or 4, and we are using class A and C race types with ability modifier package G. The Polearm complexity module is turned on... oh and I'm using a homebrew critical table." *


* Exaggerated for effect (I hope)