No Second Edition Love?

[tx7321]

To be brutally honest, it's nothing new. The Skill System concept, for example, have been in other RPGs during 1e and 2e eras.

Actually, I don't think its the skill system concept thats the problem, its the complexity of 3Es rules, and the "rule book is always right" mentality of its players quick to jump in and set things straight. This isn't really there fault however, but the writers who de-emphised the role of the GM (giving him little wiggle room as Gary did with his "nothings set in stone" mentality) and encouraging the players to know the rules as well as the GM takes that position of athority away from him (making the job that much less fun).
Anyhow (from personal experiance), I can not remember a game where the players questioned the GM so frequently and openly during game play as in 3E. The players keep the GM in his place, making sure he sticks to the rules of the book, everything is transparent, and house rules for the most part, don't exist. This IMHO hamstrings the GM and makes for a boring game. It brings the GM to the level of the player, but in his case he also has the burdon of running the game and keeping track of the monsters. No wonder we never had a stampede of people wanting to GM our 3E games.

 

[Hussar]

Actually, I don't think its the skill system concept thats the problem, its the complexity of 3Es rules, and the "rule book is always right" mentality of its players quick to jump in and set things straight. This isn't really there fault however, but the writers who de-emphised the role of the GM (giving him little wiggle room as Gary did with his "nothings set in stone" mentality) and encouraging the players to know the rules as well as the GM takes that position of athority away from him (making the job that much less fun).
Anyhow (from personal experiance), I can not remember a game where the players questioned the GM so frequently and openly during game play as in 3E. The players keep the GM in his place, making sure he sticks to the rules of the book, everything is transparent, and house rules for the most part, don't exist. This IMHO hamstrings the GM and makes for a boring game. It brings the GM to the level of the player, but in his case he also has the burdon of running the game and keeping track of the monsters. No wonder we never had a stampede of people wanting to GM our 3E games.

I would point to the very large number of Dragon articles from the earlier eras talking about precisely this sort of player activity. Rules lawyering is hardly a new thing.

As far as the idea of the DMG being off limits, well, until 2e, I never knew a player who wasn't also a DM at some point or other. I was pretty shocked to learn that there were groups out there that didn't share DMing duties.

If I could suggest, perhaps you hit a bad group with 3e? I know that I have run into bad players like you are talking about in the past. I've seen it in all editions as well. Heck, I think I was one of those players on occasion. All I know is that the arguing time about rules has dropped to almost zero in my 3e games, compared to spending almost entire sessions hashing out rules in 1 and 2e.

I strongly reject the idea that a DM must make up his own rules in order to have an interesting game. I'm fairly honest in my abilities to know that I am probably not as good at making up rules as people like Gary Gygax, Monte Cook or Ari Marmell. So, why would my game be better if I am rejecting the rules they wrote and substituting my own?

 

[Piratecat]

Anyhow (from personal experiance), I can not remember a game where the players questioned the GM so frequently and openly during game play as in 3E.

My experience is so different that this actually made me laugh. We had about x20 more rules arguments playing 1e and (to a lesser extent) 2e than we've had playing 3e. No question about it, the current iteration of rules has resulted in far fewer rules discussions and disagreements for us.

 

[tx7321]

Its possible when I was first playing 3E it was so fresh everyone was expressing their mastery of the rules outloud which gave me this impression. Perhaps once all the rules were pointed out, and the DM fell in line with them, things would have settled down. We never go that far though.

PirateCat,
We still have 1E players in our group who have never DMed (after over 25 years). To them the tables and how things work are still a mystery...litteraly. Some players just don't feel the desire to DM I guess. Anyhow, sometimes when we play we intentionally talk about the rules (esp. lately) to figure out as a group how there supposed to work. Once we figure those out we drop rules discussion altogether. When we get an outside player who doesn't agree with our interpretations, we shut them down by saying "well, thats how I see it, consider it a house rule" and the entire problem is defused. Rules lawyering is great when intentional, and can be alot of fun. When it sucks is when your starting new players into the game, trying to get them into the action, and some jerk starts interjecting how your doing this or that wrong. Not only does it break the momentum, it challanges the role of DM. These new players sit back and start wondering, just who is running the show? The DM...the players...no one? Again, this is just my personal experiance and not meant to be a sweeping comment.

 

[Remathilis]

TX7321,

I got two questions for you.

1.) What did a group do if you had multiple DMs in a group (aka multiple people with access to the DMG/MM?) It is quite possible for someone to DM one group and be a player in another.

2.) The idea was to not "ruin the surprise" What did you do to keep the surprise past the second encounter with a monster. You know they exist, you (presumably) learned its weakness. Now, your next 1st level PC runs across them. What now?

I realize these questions aren't edition specific, but they would be enlightening nonetheless.

PS Thanks to everyone for keeping this conversation civil.

 

[tx7321]

TX7321,

I got two questions for you.

1.) What did a group do if you had multiple DMs in a group (aka multiple people with access to the DMG/MM?) It is quite possible for someone to DM one group and be a player in another.

2.) The idea was to not "ruin the surprise" What did you do to keep the surprise past the second encounter with a monster. You know they exist, you (presumably) learned its weakness. Now, your next 1st level PC runs across them. What now?

I realize these questions aren't edition specific, but they would be enlightening nonetheless.

PS Thanks to everyone for keeping this conversation civil.

#1
That is the situation we are in with 1E. We just let each other know the rules we are using before we start. For instance, I use 1E surpise (as BTB as possible) and don't usually use weapons speed, another DM in our group limits surprise to 1 seg, and always uses WSF, another doesn't use either. With major things (like when does the first arrow go off, on the role or on seg 1, or how does charge work) we come to a conclusion and try to all agree on it.
-Anyway, yeah. When you have PCs floating between DMs I think the DMs need to put their heads together and make sure there's nothing that would confuse the players from one DM to the next.

#2
Honestly, I think thats a weakness with the game. This is even worse for the really unique monsters. I think some monsters are expected to become common and cliche'd (the smaller giant class (orcs, goblins, kolbolds, etc), giant centipedes, wolves etc.) and in a way help establish the setting (just as running into goblins and orcs a bunch of times helped develop the Tolkien setting in LOTRs.

Thats why you need alot of new fresh monster books coming in that are thoughtful in the monsters they present.

3E actually had a cool idea with fine tuning monsters, though I think this should be the exception, and I really thought they shouldn't have used the PC arthetype templates (like ranger orcs). I realize some of you guys like that, its just not my cup of tea.

 

[Ranger REG]

Actually, I don't think its the skill system concept thats the problem, its the complexity of 3Es rules, and the "rule book is always right" mentality of its players quick to jump in and set things straight. This isn't really there fault however, but the writers who de-emphised the role of the GM (giving him little wiggle room as Gary did with his "nothings set in stone" mentality) and encouraging the players to know the rules as well as the GM takes that position of athority away from him (making the job that much less fun).
Anyhow (from personal experiance), I can not remember a game where the players questioned the GM so frequently and openly during game play as in 3E. The players keep the GM in his place, making sure he sticks to the rules of the book, everything is transparent, and house rules for the most part, don't exist. This IMHO hamstrings the GM and makes for a boring game. It brings the GM to the level of the player, but in his case he also has the burdon of running the game and keeping track of the monsters. No wonder we never had a stampede of people wanting to GM our 3E games.

Dude, that's your group problem.

Don't blame the rules. That's like blaming religion for all the problems in the world (and that's all I'm going to say because this is just an analogy).

AFAIK, the 3e mentality starts with Rule 0 (Consult With the DM). All my players in my group agreed to that, especially when it's one of their turn to DM.

 

[Psion]

I've had one actual 3e rules argument with my players. One.

And it wasn't really an argument... they accepted my ruling, they just took it as a house rule. Until I showed them, no, you really can't flank with a missile weapon.

Indeed, to illustrate the sort of DM trust I've seen: I have a house rule in my game where if you take half of your remaining HP in one hit, you must roll a fortitude save or suffer an injury. We went to go play at another DM's place. The player automatically rolled the dice, as if it were a written rule. I explained to the player that was my house rule, but the DM thought the rule was cool and stuck with it.

 

[tx7321]

Dude, that's your group problem.

Don't blame the rules. That's like blaming religion for all the problems in the world (and that's all I'm going to say because this is just an analogy).

AFAIK, the 3e mentality starts with Rule 0 (Consult With the DM). All my players in my group agreed to that, especially when it's one of their turn to DM.

RangerREG, good for you and your group, but what does that have to do with written rules. Imagine for a moment that 3E was your first experiance of an FRPG. How long would it have taken to figure out you all needed to agree the DM is the final say on the rules (whats used and how their interpreted). And even if your group was smart enough to do this, that doesn't mean others would be. Thats like saying you should automatically know you need to take $200 for passing go every turn even if its not written down in the rules.

BTW I like that "Rule 0". Has a ring to it.

 

[Ranes]

Good grief. 3.5 DMG p6, under Adjudicating: "You're the final arbiter of the rules within the game."