Question, RE: DM's wanting players "in the dark"
- Thread starter Tsyr
- Start date
SableWyvern
Cruel Despot
toberane said:
Grrr.
Ok. This argument doesn't seem to be going anywhere, so I'll leave it alone after this.
My whole point is that I have faith in my players as well. It just seems smart to me that if you can make it even easier for them to make in-character decisions, why not do so?
Zerovoid
First Post
The Grumpy Celt said:
We no longer game with this DM for these reasons. However, he was and remains, with-in the letter of the DMG in everything he did. Controlling which books a player may buy is a right of a DM as per the DMG. That is not to say the DM *should* be ordering players never to read the MM or DMG.
Also, all world leaders are despots - some are just in the closet, so to speak.
Rule 0 says that the DM can change the rules of the game as they see fit. It doesn't imply that the DM has some sort of OOC power over the players regarding what purchases they can make with their money.
In addition, players can leave any game at any time, since it is a consensual activity. Because of this, Rule 0 essentially boils down to: The DM and players may choose to play with whatever rules they want. If the DM changes things without the players' consent they will leave.
And, even if Rule 0 was not in the book, people would still be free to change the game rules if they wanted to.
333 Dave
First Post
To The Grumpy Celt:
In my experience, any game that boils down to Players vs DM is instantly over. For an example, there was a Foxtrot strip a while back where the kid gets his sister to make a character to play. The punchline of the strip? "You walk into a cave and a bolder falls on you. You're dead." "YOU MADE ME WASTE EIGHT HOURS MAKING THAT STUPID CHARACTER AND KILLED HER OFF IN THE FIRST FIVE SECONDS?!" Really, that could happen. But if it does its just being a jerk. We all know jerks aren't fun.
Blatant lying, like saying "I won't be using the vampire" then using it, isn't good DMing. Besides, the player should have sent the undead hunter anyway, considering the vampire's presence was character knowledge, and the vampire's absence was player knowledge. But anyhow.
To put it simple, most DMs are playing to have fun. If they get fun torturing players, well, then I agree you should leave. But that isn't fun to me, and I would place a large wager that most DMs on this board would find such a game not worth playing.
Sincerely,
In my experience, any game that boils down to Players vs DM is instantly over. For an example, there was a Foxtrot strip a while back where the kid gets his sister to make a character to play. The punchline of the strip? "You walk into a cave and a bolder falls on you. You're dead." "YOU MADE ME WASTE EIGHT HOURS MAKING THAT STUPID CHARACTER AND KILLED HER OFF IN THE FIRST FIVE SECONDS?!" Really, that could happen. But if it does its just being a jerk. We all know jerks aren't fun.
Blatant lying, like saying "I won't be using the vampire" then using it, isn't good DMing. Besides, the player should have sent the undead hunter anyway, considering the vampire's presence was character knowledge, and the vampire's absence was player knowledge. But anyhow.
To put it simple, most DMs are playing to have fun. If they get fun torturing players, well, then I agree you should leave. But that isn't fun to me, and I would place a large wager that most DMs on this board would find such a game not worth playing.
Sincerely,
Desdichado
Hero
The whole question is just frankly kinda amazing to me. In my most recent group, which has had a lot of turnover at time, we've had 4 DMs that, when they're not DMing the group, are playing in the group. You just have to trust that they're not metagaming.
KnowTheToe
First Post
Joshua Dyal said:
Do you make you DM/players get drunk before playing so they don't remeber the rules? I suggest doing this if they are ALL of the legal age for partaking in adult beverages.
I personally don't study the MM for purposes of learning the monsters. I have done some DMing but not more than a dozen adventures and only used the MM to find things I wanted to use. I like not knowing everything about a monster, but for many people, the monsters are a huge part of the hobby and they want to read, study and enjoy them. Enjoy I say.
I would like to point out some legitimate reasons why it would be good for a player to have the DMG and MM.
1) Item Creation feats and rules are found in the DMG. Assuming the DM doesn't change these rules a player who takes an Item Creation feat should know what possible magic items the character can create.
2) Animal Friendship - A druid should have stats for his animal comapnions.
3) Summon Monster - A spell caster should know the relative strengths and weakness of the monsters he can summon.
1) Item Creation feats and rules are found in the DMG. Assuming the DM doesn't change these rules a player who takes an Item Creation feat should know what possible magic items the character can create.
2) Animal Friendship - A druid should have stats for his animal comapnions.
3) Summon Monster - A spell caster should know the relative strengths and weakness of the monsters he can summon.
toberane
First Post
A couple of other good reasons to have the DMG:
--The Leadership Feat is detailed in there
--The prestige classes are detailed there. Even if you wanted to keep your players from reading this information, there are only like, what, six PrCs in the DMG. There are dozens in Dragon Magazine, the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting, the splatbooks, etc. Most, if not all, of these books have information that is geared toward the players, not just the DMs, and therefore are books that players are likely to read.
(Don't want to sound like I'm picking on you, SableWyvern!
I see your point. I have just been gaming for so long and spent hundreds if not literally thousands of dollars on gaming supplies over the last 20 years. I would hate to have a DM that told me I couldn't read some of those books. Reading the sourcebooks is a large portion of the fun of the hobby, in my opinion.
If you are dealing with a group of new players, I can see your point. But that sense of mystery you are trying to create will only last for so long before they have discovered most of the rules in the DMG and have a good idea of the base stats of the monsters in the MM. Once they've played for a few years, the mysteries of the game world are what have to draw the players in, because they've memorized most of the rules by that time.)
At any rate, if the DM doesn't want the players to read certain books and the players are fine with that, then everything's peachy. If the players aren't fine with that, then someone else needs to be DM or the disgruntled ones need to find another group. I firmly believe that the type of DM illustrated by the Grumpy Celt in his earlier posts is in the minority, simply because most groups of experienced players would kick him out pretty quick, and he would either find himself without a group to DM or learn to change his attitude to fit into groups better.
Most DMs use Rule '0' to make the game more fun for everyone, and the few that don't aren't fit to be DMs.
There. I think that covered everything.
--The Leadership Feat is detailed in there
--The prestige classes are detailed there. Even if you wanted to keep your players from reading this information, there are only like, what, six PrCs in the DMG. There are dozens in Dragon Magazine, the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting, the splatbooks, etc. Most, if not all, of these books have information that is geared toward the players, not just the DMs, and therefore are books that players are likely to read.
(Don't want to sound like I'm picking on you, SableWyvern!
I see your point. I have just been gaming for so long and spent hundreds if not literally thousands of dollars on gaming supplies over the last 20 years. I would hate to have a DM that told me I couldn't read some of those books. Reading the sourcebooks is a large portion of the fun of the hobby, in my opinion. If you are dealing with a group of new players, I can see your point. But that sense of mystery you are trying to create will only last for so long before they have discovered most of the rules in the DMG and have a good idea of the base stats of the monsters in the MM. Once they've played for a few years, the mysteries of the game world are what have to draw the players in, because they've memorized most of the rules by that time.)
At any rate, if the DM doesn't want the players to read certain books and the players are fine with that, then everything's peachy. If the players aren't fine with that, then someone else needs to be DM or the disgruntled ones need to find another group. I firmly believe that the type of DM illustrated by the Grumpy Celt in his earlier posts is in the minority, simply because most groups of experienced players would kick him out pretty quick, and he would either find himself without a group to DM or learn to change his attitude to fit into groups better.
Most DMs use Rule '0' to make the game more fun for everyone, and the few that don't aren't fit to be DMs.
There. I think that covered everything.
SableWyvern
Cruel Despot
toberane said:(Don't want to sound like I'm picking on you, SableWyvern!
If you are dealing with a group of new players, I can see your point. But that sense of mystery you are trying to create will only last for so long before they have discovered most of the rules in the DMG and have a good idea of the base stats of the monsters in the MM. Once they've played for a few years, the mysteries of the game world are what have to draw the players in, because they've memorized most of the rules by that time.)
It's all cool.
Note that I mentioned earlier a new campaign I'm about to start, where I know that at least one player will get more enjoyment out of reading through the DMG and MM at leisure than from not knowing what's in then. So I'm running with virtually everything available to the players.
Similarly, anyone who wants to keep a player who also DMs from reading the DMG outside of that campaign is just dumb.
