On taking power away from the DM

[Thunderfoot]

<SNIP>
What some DMs do in 3e, I feel, is believe that the rules are law, and that they don't need to depend on anything else. They might not realize that the rules are kind of an equation, so if they reduce the amount of treasure per encounter for their campaign, they better remember that the game assumes a certain amount of money for the character, such that a certain CR at a certain point might not be an equivalent challenge anymore, for example.

You probably have a valid point, but I think in this argument it comes from the other direction, that the players expect the DM to follow the RAW only when it suits the party and then fudge the RAW when things go south. Of course, this is a gross generalization, and isn't directed at anyone in particular, but I have heard enough DMs complain about this kind of behavior that I am sure it exists in enough quantity to be verifiable.

 

[DragonLancer]

*blink blink*

So a party that decides, for whatever reason, to focus on save-or-dies effects will kill the BBEG on round X, of the DM's choosing, irregardless of the rules/dice. Huh. Lots of fun: try to survive until the DM gets bored. No point in using a scythe as opposed to a greatsword because an early round crit (largely equivalent to a failed save) will somehow gift the BBEG wthl bonus hp.

If a PC casts a save-or-die, the players is casting it to *kill*. He *wants* it to succeed. He *thinks* that would be fun. If a fighter chooses a scythe, he is choosing it for the rare, fight-ending crits.

If you, as the DM, are going to insist on the BBEG surviving until round X, that is a very significant house rule, with immense implications for character design and tactics. It is bad form to institute even the most minor of HRs without telling the players.

(it isn't as if players won't notice that BBEGs never seem to fail saves against save-or-die effects, or that huge early crits somehow don't seem to have the appropriate level effect. they eventually will, and many will be angry about having their "cool" stuff negated by DM fiat)

Ah, but you forget: the DM knows what the players want better than the players themselves.

LostSoul has it absolutely right. I'm not saying that the situation I spoke of is right for everyone and if I had a party of players who went for the first turn kill that would be a different situation entirely.

I'll give you an example of my player group. About 4 years ago I was DMing a campaign (our first under 3.5 IIRC) and we had a new player join us. He was a friend of everyone anyway so it wasn't like a stranger joining the table. He turned out to a dedicated powergamer once he had read the rules (I'm not putting down powergaming here, just making a point).
In the final scenario of that campaign, the party had tracked down the BBEG - a big nasty dragon in this case - and through his powergaming killed the dragon in one hit. I didn't fudge it, because like youself it better to let the dice roll where they may. Everyone else around the table (4 other players) got quite annoyed and quite rightly so informed said player that he had ruined the end of the campaign and wasted the last year of playing.

The point here is, at least as far as my group is concerned, that major encounters should be challenging life or death struggles. They want edge of the seat battles. Killing off the final baddie first turn is an anticlimax and thats not a good ending.

YMMV but every group is different and I know what my group would prefer.

 

[RFisher]

Does it say, in any edition, that the DM should fudge die rolls?

That is a very good question. I can't recall a specific instance of that, but I have an inkling there may have been one.

What I do know is that I wish an RPG had told me "don't let the dice ruin the game" a long, long time ago. Sometimes, you just have to recognize that the rules aren't working--aren't providing satisfactory results for anyone at the table. Whether it's a situation the rules didn't anticipate or just a misinterpretation of them.

I have a personal story that illustrates the strength/weaknesses of the DM power equation between 2e and 3e.

Nice post.

Thankfully, at my table, it tends to work like this no matter what system we're using: Player makes his point. The DM may or may not change his mind due to the player's point. The player accepts the DM choice. After the game: Good natured arguing, good natured arguing, good natured arguing.

 

[Geron Raveneye]

Does it say, in any edition, that the DM should fudge die rolls?

Just for completeness sake...

The dice included in this set are all you need to play DUNGEONS & DRAGONS games. Whenever two or more events could occur and a decision is needed, or whenever a variety of results is possible, dice may be used to randomly select a result. Experienced Dungeon Masters may select results instead of rolling dice.

Bolding mine.

In many situations it is correct and fun to have the players dice such things as melee hits or saving throws. However, it is your right to control the dice at any time and to roll dice for the players. You might wish to do this to keep them from knowing some specific fact. You also might wish to give them an edge in finding a particular clue, e.g. a secret door that leads to a complex of monsters and treasures that will be especially entertaining. You do have every right to overrule the dice at any time if there is a particular course of events that you would like to have occur. In making such a decision you should never seriously harm the party or a non-player character with your actions. "ALWAYS GIVE A MONSTER AN EVEN BREAK!"
...
Now and then a player will die through no fault of his own. He or she will have done everything correctly, taken every reasonable precaution, but still the freakish roll of the dice will kill the character. In the long run you should let such things pass as the players will kill more than one opponent with their own freakish rolls at some later time. Yet you do have the right to arbitrate the situation. You can rule that the player, instead of dying, is knocked unconscious, loses a limb, is blinded in one eye or invoke any reasonably severe penalty that still takes into account what the monster has done. It is very demoralizing to the players to lose a cared-for-player character when they have played well. When they have done something stupid or have not taken precautions, then let the dice fall where they may!

Bolding mine.

Interestingly enough, I couldn't find a similar quote from the 2E DMG. Maybe somebody else can supply it.

So, as you can see, most editions of D&D not only accepted it as a DM's purview to overrule any dice roll when he saw fit, they also gave out advice about when to do it and when not, and what risks he should look out for if he did.

 

[Kraydak]

LostSoul has it absolutely right. I'm not saying that the situation I spoke of is right for everyone and if I had a party of players who went for the first turn kill that would be a different situation entirely.

I'll give you an example of my player group. About 4 years ago I was DMing a campaign (our first under 3.5 IIRC) and we had a new player join us. He was a friend of everyone anyway so it wasn't like a stranger joining the table. He turned out to a dedicated powergamer once he had read the rules (I'm not putting down powergaming here, just making a point).
In the final scenario of that campaign, the party had tracked down the BBEG - a big nasty dragon in this case - and through his powergaming killed the dragon in one hit. I didn't fudge it, because like youself it better to let the dice roll where they may. Everyone else around the table (4 other players) got quite annoyed and quite rightly so informed said player that he had ruined the end of the campaign and wasted the last year of playing.

The point here is, at least as far as my group is concerned, that major encounters should be challenging life or death struggles. They want edge of the seat battles. Killing off the final baddie first turn is an anticlimax and thats not a good ending.

YMMV but every group is different and I know what my group would prefer.

And as such, your group is well served by house rules eliminating save-or-die spells (the only reason to load them is if you intend to use them as early in the combat as possible), and warn players NOT to play smite-charging paladins, scythe barbarians, or any other build dedicated towards huge spike damage. Because giving BBEG 1st round plot immunity to death *does* have huge HR type implications. At which point you wouldn't have to fudge die rolls.

 

[Lord Zardoz]

In many situations it is correct and fun to have the players dice such things as melee hits or saving throws. However, it is your right to control the dice at any time and to roll dice for the players. You might wish to do this to keep them from knowing some specific fact. You also might wish to give them an edge in finding a particular clue, e.g. a secret door that leads to a complex of monsters and treasures that will be especially entertaining. You do have every right to overrule the dice at any time if there is a particular course of events that you would like to have occur. In making such a decision you should never seriously harm the party or a non-player character with your actions. "ALWAYS GIVE A MONSTER AN EVEN BREAK!"
...
Now and then a player will die through no fault of his own. He or she will have done everything correctly, taken every reasonable precaution, but still the freakish roll of the dice will kill the character. In the long run you should let such things pass as the players will kill more than one opponent with their own freakish rolls at some later time. Yet you do have the right to arbitrate the situation. You can rule that the player, instead of dying, is knocked unconscious, loses a limb, is blinded in one eye or invoke any reasonably severe penalty that still takes into account what the monster has done. It is very demoralizing to the players to lose a cared-for-player character when they have played well. When they have done something stupid or have not taken precautions, then let the dice fall where they may!

Interesting find, at the risk of being pedantic, I will point out that it says "You do have every right to overrule the dice", not "You should over rule the dice". I would say the intent is to not let the dice ruin the game, obviously, with an eye towards nerfing the dice to prevent a player TPK. It is good advice, which I follow. I may score a TPK from time to time, but as a rule, I try not to permanently kill kill off a PC when the player still wants to play the character. I will drop him like a sack of hammers in the fight, but if he has an action point, he can auto stabilize even if I blast him down to -57.

I still like the example of an earlier post by Kraydak, of the end result of his building a caster around Save or Die spells, and how the spells never seemed to work in the early rounds of combat against BBEG. I have no problem with a DM removing such spells if they decide they do more harm to the game than good. I do have a problem with a DM that will let the player build such a character, but change the rules on how those spells work in the early rounds of combat, or start throwing masses of creatures immune to such effects to get around the character abilities.

END COMMUNICATION

 

[Varianor Abroad]

If you, as the DM, are going to insist on the BBEG surviving until round X, that is a very significant house rule, with immense implications for character design and tactics. It is bad form to institute even the most minor of HRs without telling the players.

Good preparation avoids obviously fudged BBEG death. If you want your villain to last, have a list of spells cast for the BBEG's benefit and potions consumed. (A potion of sturdying from Arcana Evolved, for example, adds +30 hit points. Makes a big difference for evil wizards.)

Another excellent method is to roll dice on the table. Yes, a few specific numbers get out, but the players' comfort level rises when they see honest play from you. If a bad roll kills someone important, so be it.

House rules, obviously, should be discussed with the players.

At the end of the day, I think the ways the rules handle things in 3E empower DMs more than in previous editions. If, and this is the big if, you learn the rules well and how to apply them. That's where I see the 4E simplification of rules argument. Now I wait to see how it's been implemented before passing judgment. Who knows what it will really do?

 

[DragonLancer]

And as such, your group is well served by house rules eliminating save-or-die spells (the only reason to load them is if you intend to use them as early in the combat as possible), and warn players NOT to play smite-charging paladins, scythe barbarians, or any other build dedicated towards huge spike damage. Because giving BBEG 1st round plot immunity to death *does* have huge HR type implications. At which point you wouldn't have to fudge die rolls.

Not at all. This isn't something that happens in every encounter. In fact it is very few and far between because obviously my players know what they do and don't enjoy.

They rarely use save or die spells anyway. Probably for that reason.

 

[buzz]

I so often see comments about how the latest edition of D&D has "taken power away from the DM."

When faced with such commentary, it's best, IMO, to nod politely and then walk away.

Anyway...

I think the only thing that's really happened over the course of the various editions of D&D w/r/t to the thread topic is that the rulebooks have steadily gotten better at explaining a default mode of functional play, with better rule support. E.g., Merric's comment above about appropriate treasure.

The whole "power" discussion seems more rooted in overall trends in the hobby itself, and reaction to said trends.

I mean, imagine the continuum of distribution of game-authority seen in RPGs produced to date as, say, a ribbon 5' long. One end represents RPGs with authority strongly concentrated in one role, such as a GM. The opposite end represents RPGs where no one role has more authority than any other.

Marked on this ribbon, every edition of D&D would likely fall within a 3" wide grouping somewhere towards the former end. There's variance, but not really significant in the grand scheme of things.

The real difference is that now we know better.

Sure, you can lump certain behaviors under "jerk DM" and question why anyone would play with one. There is, however, tons of anecdotal evidence all over gaming fora that show people do play with jerk DMs and that they did not (or even do not) know that gaming wasn't supposed to work that way.

But now you can commonly find people talking about trust at the table, social contract, and identifying behaviors that make for bad play—at the least, make for play they personally don't enjoy. Better yet, RPGs themselves are talking about it, D&D included. This is awesome.

Ergo, I don't think there's a whole lot in current D&D that genuinely diminishes the DM's authority over the play experience w/r/t to previous editions. Sure, there's a lot more bits that are codified now, but that's not power-management... that's good design. In the end, the DM is still the final authority in D&D. IMO, 3.5 simply does the best job (so far) of advising DMs of how to use that authority for enjoyable play.

Now, that some of this advice may dissuade DMs from using certain techniques, thus honking off people who see no issues with said techniques is just, well... tough noogies for those people. There is a certain amount of craft to RPG'ing, and crafts (ideally) evolve and improve. Such is life.

 

[Geron Raveneye]

Sure, you can lump certain behaviors under "jerk DM" and question why anyone would play with one.

That's easy...he was my best friend. The fights we had were epic. Ah, puberty...