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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lord Zardoz" data-source="post: 3794350" data-attributes="member: 704">Here is a much more concise summary of the problem, with 2 perspectives.Problem:  Often, the players may come up with a solution to a problem that is not spelled out in the rules.  When there are no explicit rules, it falls to the DM to decide if an something possible.  That is the DM's power.DM's often make ruleings based on plot convenince.  Consider a cave guarded by a giant with a treasure inside.  A Dwarf player decides that rather than fighting the Giant, they should dig a tunnel, and bypass the giant.  With no rules for digging, the DM can simply say "No, it wont work.  You will be spotted / killed in a cave in."In 3rd edition, if that player had dumped a bunch of ranks into Profession, Miner and / or Knowledge, Engineering, and had some tools, he could tell the DM he wants to make a skill check to dig the tunnel.  The DM then has to allow the player to make the check, and possibly bypass several difficult fights.  It is also worth noting that while digging a tunnel may take weeks in game time, it may only take about 5 minutes at the table.  If the Dm had planned on running a 5 hour game with 4 of those hours taken up by encounters that are now avoided due to the tunnel, he is kind of screwed.And now my own thoughts on this.Players (in the sense of people who play D&D, not PC's) who complain about loss of DM power do not like it when extra rules diminish areas of the game where they are used to relying on Dm Fiat.  The added complexity can slow down the game due to looking up unfamiliar rules.  While arbitrary, Dm Fiat is about the fastest resolution to a given action.  Dm's also like Dm Fiat because they can use it to keep the players from doing things that make previous preparation a waste of time.Those who do not care for Dm Fiat like having rules in place for various situations.  It will often allow players to do things that are plausible for their characters regardless of how badly it screws the Dm.  It is also a measure of protection against Dm's who are inconsistent and generally unfair.  My own position leans away from Dm Fiat.  Even though I am a Dm, I prefer to avoid any situation where I might be accused of being unfair.  Being a higly tactical rat bastard DM rather than a 'story first' type, I tend to use the rules as written to create nasty situations.The best long term solution is to make the game less reliant on Dm prep time.  If preptime is kept to a minimum, then Dm's are less likely to use Dm Fiat to protect hours of Prep time and prevent players from doing entertaining, if inconvenient things.END COMMUNICATION</blockquote>

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