New Legends and Lore: The Rules

[Balesir]

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.

There may very well be some GMs who won't want such rules, but I run 4E as close to "by the book" as it gets and I'm very happy doing so, so I don't think "no one will want to DM" is entirely accurate.

It depends heavily on the style of game I want to run. D&D has always, to my mind, been primarily suited for "challenge play". This is a little like setting a crossword for the players to solve, I think - the challenge is there for the players to take up and beat by their own skill and fortune.

Crosswords (and similar things, like sudoku, chess puzzles etc.) are set by "GMs", and yet they have very fixed rules. As a crossword designer, I would get to pick and choose words as I liked and set clues according to my own imagination and tastes, and yet if I broke the myriad rules (e.g. if I used a made-up word, if I set the word "palimpsest" to fit in five spaces, if I gave a clue for "15 Accross" in a puzzle with only 12 horizontal words, etc., etc.) I would be (rightly) flamed for my dreadful crossword setting.

I see D&D (as opposed to other RPGs that suit other styles, such as GURPS, Savage Worlds, Call of Cthulhu and so on), especially 4E D&D, as very fine for this focus of play. When running 4E I get to choose the monsters, the terrain, the overall situation (how the challenges fit together and what the overarching goals are) and the monsters' tactics during play - but I don't get to choose how the player characters' powers work, or how the combat rules work, and so on. This works very well, and I have great fun doing it.

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?

If you choose to play monsters without selecting them, without designing the terrain and without using any coherent tactics or injecting any personality into the foes the PCs face, that's your prerogative. I do none of these things and it seems to work fine. Even though I restrict my choices in-game to matters of tactics and characterisation, I seem able to carry on without undue feelings of powerlessness.

 

[Skyscraper]

My perspective on the question of DM power vs. rule structure comes down to one word: balance.

It's clear that DMs choose a lot of things to base the story on, from the environment to the encounter design. Once the challenge is set, it's not a far stretch to allow for some on-the-scene DM fiat also. However, if the DM pulls this off too often for the taste of his players, they won't like it. So really it's a question of balance, where player and DM intuition and mutual understanding is key.

As an example, as DM in 4E, I had a juggernaut (construct) charge a PC and end its move next to a fire-trapped wall behind that PC. I decided that the charge actually included the juggenaut running into the wall and triggering the fire trap. The trap attacked both the juggernaut and a couple of adjacent PCs (and left a fire zone for the encounter for the players and monsters to use with forced movements). Another example: in another battle, a wizard PC casts a Scroching Burst against an enemy archer standing on crates filled with oil flasks. Result: the crates exploded, sending bodies flying.

This was DM fiat. This is not something I'd do all the time, because players would get bored and just wonder when the next Jack-out-of-the-box would spring on them. But I feel that sprinkling a bit of this kind of stuff around makes for interesting outcomes. The players tell me they like it, so our group is defininely on par on that topic which is of course very important. In fact, my players sometimes aim to have stuff like the above happen. For example, the same wizard recently put a rooftop on fire with his Scorching Burst, where archers were firing from.

The option of strictly refusing to deviate from RAW (no on-the-scene decisions like described above, consequently) IMO takes away some potentially very fun elements both during battles but also outside of battle.

So it's a question of balance. Too much DM fiat (or use of rule-0) and the players don't know where to stand. On the other hand, a rigid rules structure confines you within a box, and what RPG game designer can boast to have foreseen all potential outcomes in any given RPG situation? None that I've seen up to now in the many game systems I've tried.

About the statement that bad DMs will abuse flexibility if any is allowed. I'm with Mearls on this one. I think that this kind of situation takes care of itself: either players will talk to their DM and discuss their dislike of his approach; and if he persists the players will simply not play for him. I don't feel that a game needs to be so strictly structured to allow people that lack judgement to be able to play the same as others. (And I don't feel that the game's role is to teach judgement to people with bad judgement, either.)

 

[ExploderWizard]

About the statement that bad DMs will abuse flexibility if any is allowed. I'm with Mearls on this one. I think that this kind of situation takes care of itself: either players will talk to their DM and discuss their dislike of his approach; and if he persists the players will simply not play for him. I don't feel that a game needs to be so strictly structured to allow people that lack judgement to be able to play the same as others. (And I don't feel that the game's role is to teach judgement to people with bad judgement, either.)

Couldn't XP you at the moment but yeah, this is it. Game balance is always ultimately going to come from those playing. People who are out to be mean and spoil the fun of others will not be stopped from doing so by anything in a book. This is purely a social issue and it will be handled by the people involved.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Couldn't XP you at the moment but yeah, this is it. Game balance is always ultimately going to come from those playing. People who are out to be mean and spoil the fun of others will not be stopped from doing so by anything in a book. This is purely a social issue and it will be handled by the people involved.

Disagree. Game balance is also a handling time issue, which means that it is always a trade between handling time for resolving balance issues versus handling time working around any other issues caused by rules designed for balance.

If I have to make a ruling on what weapons a Basic D&D wizard can use, in order to preserve the niche of the fighter, as decided by us at the table (the social part), then it takes time. If I have to make enough such rulings, we'll enshrine those rulings into house rules to save that time. Enough people do this, such rules might make it into an official version. OTOH, if those rules about who can do what start to impede what we want to do (e.g. our social contract says we can recreate Gandalf approximately, but the balance rules say we can't), then we have to spend time working around that.

I'm sure certain tables spend a hugely disproportionate time on one side or the other, but that doesn't change the nature of the trade off for a published game system.

 

[Mark CMG]

(. . .) in order to preserve the niche of the fighter (. . .)

I find the mechanics that restrict to preserve, rather than offering opportunities to allow a class to excel and garner self-preservation, problematic.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Disagree. Game balance is also a handling time issue, which means that it is always a trade between handling time for resolving balance issues versus handling time working around any other issues caused by rules designed for balance.

If I have to make a ruling on what weapons a Basic D&D wizard can use, in order to preserve the niche of the fighter, as decided by us at the table (the social part), then it takes time. If I have to make enough such rulings, we'll enshrine those rulings into house rules to save that time. Enough people do this, such rules might make it into an official version. OTOH, if those rules about who can do what start to impede what we want to do (e.g. our social contract says we can recreate Gandalf approximately, but the balance rules say we can't), then we have to spend time working around that.

I'm sure certain tables spend a hugely disproportionate time on one side or the other, but that doesn't change the nature of the trade off for a published game system.

So it seems time is spent either way. IMHO it is easier to add to a simple core than try and remove elements you dislike to get the game you want.

 

[Balesir]

About the statement that bad DMs will abuse flexibility if any is allowed. I'm with Mearls on this one. I think that this kind of situation takes care of itself: either players will talk to their DM and discuss their dislike of his approach; and if he persists the players will simply not play for him. I don't feel that a game needs to be so strictly structured to allow people that lack judgement to be able to play the same as others. (And I don't feel that the game's role is to teach judgement to people with bad judgement, either.)

This I agree with also, but I think Mike's comment misses the point.

If the purpose of the tight rules is to "control" bad DMs (or bad players, for that matter), you might as well just give up. You're wasting your time.

But, for me, that's not what the tight rules are for. They are for enabling the challenge - for making the "crossword" work. They are part of the communication that ensures that all of the players (including the GM) have a common vision of how the game setting works. The characters have lived in this world all of their lives; to suggest that the way the world works should be mysterious to them seems curious and unlikely, to me.

For other styles of roleplaying than "challenge based" this communication can be done in a different way. But just as a crossword would lose its point if the words could be chosen by the person doing the puzzle, with challenge-based roleplaying requires that the GM rather than the players must define the situation and setting. To keep things fair and comprehensible by the players requires rules.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

So it seems time is spent either way. IMHO it is easier to add to a simple core than try and remove elements you dislike to get the game you want.

To a point. That is definitely how I'd break ties, and I'd favor the simpler version many times. But the whole nature of a trade off is that you can't go all the way and usually get what you want.

Here's a simple core: Every time a dispute arises in game, state what you want. The DM states the opposing view. Roll a d6. If you get 4+, you get your way. Otherwise, the DM does.

That's going to require a whole lot of time making judgments, for most groups. But what really nails this kind of trade off is that, "Obvious Restrictive Thing Y that never bothers you at all and save you some time," could easily be, "Terribly Intrusive Thing Y that I constantly have to work around." And vice versa.

 

[Skyscraper]

[MENTION=27160]Balesir[/MENTION]: sure, rules are desirable. Like I said, some balance needs to be struck. I have the impression that 4E went too far into the rules realm, where it becomes tedious to play with players that have not at least 20 sessions behind their belt because the rules system is burdensome. Not necessarily complex, mind you; just burdensome. The (relatively) structure-light AD&D, on the other hand, allowed for more DM intervention and leaned perhaps too much in the other direction.

[MENTION=54877]Crazy Jerome[/MENTION]: Sure, balance is what you want to aim for. If some rule obstructs play, take it out and have the DM (and/or players) decide on the outcome; and if the absence of a rule poses a problem, include a (hoefully easy to use) rule or structure to support what you want. Preferably, a game system is well thought out and this kind of balance doens't have to be worked out by houserules or decided on the fly, it's inherent to the system. And of course, different systems cater to different tastes on the spectrum of flexibility vs predictability.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

@Balesir : sure, rules are desirable. Like I said, some balance needs to be struck. I have the impression that 4E went too far into the rules realm, where it becomes tedious to play with players that have not at least 20 sessions behind their belt because the rules system is burdensome. Not necessarily complex, mind you; just burdensome. The (relatively) structure-light AD&D, on the other hand, allowed for more DM intervention and leaned perhaps too much in the other direction.

But I think in the case of 4e the situation is a bit different. 4e is fundamentally a fairly simple RPG. You have stats, defenses, skills, and powers, and a d20 mechanic, and then you have various general combat rules (action system, LoS/LoE, etc). Then there are a few other rules (a few exploration rules, more general cases of resolution, SCs, a few others). Where you have complexity and sheer scale is in the number of elements that use that core, and the way those elements can combine (which they can only do BECAUSE the core is uniform and simple).

Contrast with 1e AD&D, which had a MORE complex core in many respects. Many things were not done in consistent ways, there were lots of strange fiddly combat rules that practically nobody ever understood, etc. It wasn't BIGGER than the 4e core, but it was certainly more complicated to use. OTOH in terms of game elements it was much smaller. There were never more than 10 classes, around 300 spells, nothing like feats, etc.

AD&D actually has a surprisingly large number of rules, you can adjudicate MANY things in 1e that are simply not even mentioned in 4e. It wasn't that in 1e you had less to work with and had to intervene more, it was more like you had to apply lots of duct tape to 1e to keep all the parts working when things got outside of what was written. In 4e OTOH its d20 mechanic 'just works'.

@Crazy Jerome : Sure, balance is what you want to aim for. If some rule obstructs play, take it out and have the DM (and/or players) decide on the outcome; and if the absence of a rule poses a problem, include a (hoefully easy to use) rule or structure to support what you want. Preferably, a game system is well thought out and this kind of balance doens't have to be worked out by houserules or decided on the fly, it's inherent to the system. And of course, different systems cater to different tastes on the spectrum of flexibility vs predictability.

Hmmm, yeah, I think basically the thing is you cannot generalize about 'rules'. As Mike stated in his article there are different types of rules. Some are proscriptive, some are prescriptive, some are advisory, some are structural, and some are just ideas. Also it depends a lot on the type of system. In 4e you have a strong general resolution mechanic that is used uniformly, so you can attach many specific situational rules to that which are mostly prescriptive. You can have loads of them, and still have flexibility because you can just fall back to basic d20 mechanics whenever it makes sense. That isn't true of all systems.