D&D General [rant]The conservatism of D&D fans is exhausting.

[AlViking]

I'd be curious* to know what you think the percentage of bad musicians are. Or bad artists. Or bad football players. Or bad authors. My wager is that whatever that number is, it's about the same as bad DMs and it's going to be significantly higher than 2.5%.

* Actually, I'm not. its rhetorical.

I may not care for the music from a death metal band so it's bad music for me, but they have their fans. In the meantime a truly bad musician, much like a truly bad DM, won't have an audience for long.

 

[AlViking]

Almost all rpg rules limit what a GM can do, whether things like how many hp a PC has before can be taken down, how spells cast by or against DM controlled characters etc work, how AC works, how classes, subclasses, levels etc work.
But a GM can then house rule any of those if they want.
I dont see how a line saying how a DM is expected to run a particular game is any different, yes jt limits it, but can still be house ruled away if wanted.
It feels like there is this idea that any rules listed that bind on a player are okay, and can be changed from players expectations through house rules and that's okay, but anything that only binds on the DM isn't okay, even if can still be changed.
I do get that it can feel different, and not be something that want, but at same time to me it feels like the attitude is that players can be treated however, but DMs are sacrosant and must be given as much leeway as possible by the rules, and at heart I don't see why that is the case.
I don't think that 25% of DMs are bad, or that rules need to try and prevent bad DMs (a losing proposition i feel, as they are ones most likely to ignore advice anyway), but I also dont seem harm in putting a firmer idea of how the DM is expected to run a game as a baseline, to then deviate from if needed. Much like I feel it is easier / cleaner to house rule a spell away knowing what the original intent of spell was as able to highlight the differences, I think easier to explain to players why moving away from default DM expectation knowing what that expectation was.

So you want the rules to offer guidelines? Like the ones we already have where the DMG has a section on ensuring fun for all, having mutual respect and setting expectations? It's all good advice. Unfortunately no matter what we write in text, the problem is that bad GMs are going to treat it like the pirate code...

 

[bloodtide]

. I think your 2.5% estimate is far closer to reality than 20% but even if it were 1% there are some people who will just be unlucky.

I'd say more like 45%. But I do cast a large net.

I could DMs that just sit there and let the players do anything as "bad" DMs. I think the DM must be the voice of reason in the social group.

I also count DMs that are hostile to their players as "Bad".

And I see so many DMs that don't know how to do pacing too, so I count that as "bad" too. Watching a "game" where the PCs just sit around in town and players complain the game is no fun, and the DM just sits there....

 

[AlViking]

I'd say more like 45%. But I do cast a large net.

I could DMs that just sit there and let the players do anything as "bad" DMs. I think the DM must be the voice of reason in the social group.

I also count DMs that are hostile to their players as "Bad".

And I see so many DMs that don't know how to do pacing too, so I count that as "bad" too. Watching a "game" where the PCs just sit around in town and players complain the game is no fun, and the DM just sits there....

So case in point. You decide that any DM that doesn't run an exciting game to your expectations to be "bad". Which is fine, it's a completely subjective measurement and that's your opinion which just happens to differ from mine. But this originally came up in the context of DM making the final call on rules and the "proof" that a lot of DM's are abusive or misuse that capability was the fact that around 20% of people on a 15 year old survey thought at least half or more of their DMs were bad.

 

[Faolyn]

@Enrahim basically covered it. And furthermore, as I've said above a lot of games seem to take their rules pretty seriously, and don't look to leave a lot of explicit space for houseruling or even playing with a different style. By including rules that govern GM behavior you are telling your readers not to run the game in a way other than that prescribed, even if you could.

What I'm reading from you is that you happen to agree with a lot of these rules, and don't see a problem because you think they should be generally followed.

Except that (A) if you read these other games, there's very often many things that can be houseruled (I've yet to read a game that is "perfect" or "complete" right out of the book), and (B) very often, those GM behavioral rules are actually simply advice--something you have said is OK. But you don't see the word advice because the advice comes in the form of bullet points.

The original Apocalypse World said its GM agendas and principles are rules. Basically every other PbtA game, at least the ones I've read, uses words like "advice," "guidelines," and "try to." Many narrative games I've seen don't even have that: the new Discworld game talks about how Pratchett handled touchy topics and that's it; the rest of the GM section is on how to prep adventures. But you're kind of tarring them all with the same brush and making broad, but often incorrect, assumptions about them all.

And yes, I do think that the guidelines are good ones. Let me pull up the GM stuff from Root, a PbtA game I haven't played or run, but want to. Because who doesn't want to play a cute little anthro woodland animal engaged in vicious guerilla warfare?

GM Agenda

• Always say what the principles demand. That means follow the principles. See below.
• Always say what the rules demand. That means that if there's a rule (whether in the book or a houserule) that says X, and you agree that X is a good rule, don't suddenly deviate it because you feel like it.
• Always say what honesty demands. That means that if the PC should know or see something, don't hide it from them. Don't do that "you didn't say you were checking every floor tile" thing that antagonistic GMs like to pull.
• Always say what your prep demands. That means that you're going to prep stuff, like saying a foe has two injury boxes. Don't make it three injury boxes because the players downed them too easily when it was two.

GM Principles

• Describe the world like a living painting. I assume you don't have a problem with giving descriptions to your players.
• Address yourself to the characters, not the players. "Vormuth, you've been stabbed" versus "Bob, your fighter has been stabbed."
• Be a fan of the vagabonds. And no matter what you claimed, this doesn't mean to give into the player's every demand or make life easy for them. It means let them do things that are interesting, fun, and challenging. If they find resource management like counting every arrow boring, don't make them do it. If they like to go against foes way above their CR, let them do that sometimes.
• Make your move, but misdirect. This one is badly named, I'll admit, but what it means is describe what's going on instead of using the names of the mechanics or the actual intent. Don't say "the monster uses the grapple maneuver" Instead, say "the monster grabs onto you in a strong bear hug."
• Sometimes, disclaim decision-making. This one means if you don't know what to do, let the dice (or other mechanics) decide for you. It's OK to not always have an immediate answer.
• Make the factions and their reach a constant presence. You have antagonists. They should be doing stuff. Some of that stuff will be stuff that affects the world and even the PCs.
• Give denizens drives and fears. Make NPCs alive instead of cardboard cutouts.
• Follow the ripples of every major action. The PCs do things. There are repercussions.
• Call upon their station and reputation. This one is setting-specific, and basically says, the PCs are both part of some of the factions, but are also apart from them, and thus those factions are going to change their opinion of the PCs based on the PC's actions and their Notoriety and Prestige, which are mechanically-determined numbers. If your PCs do things their factions don't like, the faction may turn on them
• Bring danger to seemingly safe settings. The world isn't safe. Keep that in mind.

Most PbtA/BitD games have similar lists.

I think this is all great advice. It's even great rules. I've seen all of this repeated countless times across the decades, including in D&D books and Dragon magazine. It's advice I'm sure you follow, or at least some of it.

So tell me, what here is objectionable to you?

Do you think gaming books shouldn't say "don't cheat"? Do you think it's bad for books to say that NPCs, at least important ones, shouldn't be nameless and interchangeable? Do you think that people are really going to say you're a bad GM if you sometimes forget to describe an action and instead use the mechanical term?

 

[kermit4karate]

I'd be curious* to know what you think the percentage of bad musicians are. Or bad artists. Or bad football players. Or bad authors. My wager is that whatever that number is, it's about the same as bad DMs and it's going to be significantly higher than 2.5%.

* Actually, I'm not. its rhetorical.

Maybe I just don't think of things in those
terms? Why the need to judge and label it?

When kids play flag football, do you think, "Wow, those kids are really bad"?

When you go out to dinner one night and there's a live band. They're good...for a local band. Do you think, "Wow, they're bad"?

When your spouse creates a painting of the flowers in the front yard, do you think, "Wow, she's a bad artist"?

Etc., etc.

I don't think the evaluation matters most of the time.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

That's likely the disconnect you are having with a lot of us here. Bad DMs are the ones who abuse authority, railroad, etc. Boring ones aren't good, but they aren't bad, either. If you are including that type, it's no wonder you encounter so many more than us.

When each side is using different definitions, it makes really hard for the conversation to make much sense.

And I'd counter with the idea that for me the most important thing at a table is to have a fun time.

I'd rather a railroady GM who constantly flubbed rules and had a series of NPCs they used to self insert in a fun adventure than a boring session.

Now the chance it would be fun with all those negatives probably isn't very high ...but boredom is a higher magnitude failure for me in a way that other traditional aspects of a bad GM reach.

I've had fun in a game and stick around despite the bad GM. I've also tapped out of perfectly normal GMs campaigns that I didn't engage with.

I'm gonna level the "bad GM" label at any GM that isn't in touch with how the players are enjoying the content...and adjusting from feedback.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Except that (A) if you read these other games, there's very often many things that can be houseruled (I've yet to read a game that is "perfect" or "complete" right out of the book), and (B) very often, those GM behavioral rules are actually simply advice--something you have said is OK. But you don't see the word advice because the advice comes in the form of bullet points.

The original Apocalypse World said its GM agendas and principles are rules. Basically every other PbtA game, at least the ones I've read, uses words like "advice," "guidelines," and "try to." Many narrative games I've seen don't even have that: the new Discworld game talks about how Pratchett handled touchy topics and that's it; the rest of the GM section is on how to prep adventures. But you're kind of tarring them all with the same brush and making broad, but often incorrect, assumptions about them all.

And yes, I do think that the guidelines are good ones. Let me pull up the GM stuff from Root, a PbtA game I haven't played or run, but want to. Because who doesn't want to play a cute little anthro woodland animal engaged in vicious guerilla warfare?

GM Agenda

• Always say what the principles demand. That means follow the principles. See below.
• Always say what the rules demand. That means that if there's a rule (whether in the book or a houserule) that says X, and you agree that X is a good rule, don't suddenly deviate it because you feel like it.
• Always say what honesty demands. That means that if the PC should know or see something, don't hide it from them. Don't do that "you didn't say you were checking every floor tile" thing that antagonistic GMs like to pull.
• Always say what your prep demands. That means that you're going to prep stuff, like saying a foe has two injury boxes. Don't make it three injury boxes because the players downed them too easily when it was two.

GM Principles

• Describe the world like a living painting. I assume you don't have a problem with giving descriptions to your players.
• Address yourself to the characters, not the players. "Vormuth, you've been stabbed" versus "Bob, your fighter has been stabbed."
• Be a fan of the vagabonds. And no matter what you claimed, this doesn't mean to give into the player's every demand or make life easy for them. It means let them do things that are interesting, fun, and challenging. If they find resource management like counting every arrow boring, don't make them do it. If they like to go against foes way above their CR, let them do that sometimes.
• Make your move, but misdirect. This one is badly named, I'll admit, but what it means is describe what's going on instead of using the names of the mechanics or the actual intent. Don't say "the monster uses the grapple maneuver" Instead, say "the monster grabs onto you in a strong bear hug."
• Sometimes, disclaim decision-making. This one means if you don't know what to do, let the dice (or other mechanics) decide for you. It's OK to not always have an immediate answer.
• Make the factions and their reach a constant presence. You have antagonists. They should be doing stuff. Some of that stuff will be stuff that affects the world and even the PCs.
• Give denizens drives and fears. Make NPCs alive instead of cardboard cutouts.
• Follow the ripples of every major action. The PCs do things. There are repercussions.
• Call upon their station and reputation. This one is setting-specific, and basically says, the PCs are both part of some of the factions, but are also apart from them, and thus those factions are going to change their opinion of the PCs based on the PC's actions and their Notoriety and Prestige, which are mechanically-determined numbers. If your PCs do things their factions don't like, the faction may turn on them
• Bring danger to seemingly safe settings. The world isn't safe. Keep that in mind.

Most PbtA/BitD games have similar lists.

I think this is all great advice. It's even great rules. I've seen all of this repeated countless times across the decades, including in D&D books and Dragon magazine. It's advice I'm sure you follow, or at least some of it.

So tell me, what here is objectionable to you?

Do you think gaming books shouldn't say "don't cheat"? Do you think it's bad for books to say that NPCs, at least important ones, shouldn't be nameless and interchangeable? Do you think that people are really going to say you're a bad GM if you sometimes forget to describe an action and instead use the mechanical term?

The PbtA game with which I'm most familiar is Apocalypse World, the grandaddy of them all, which as you say does frame it's ideas as rules, and comes out of a tradition of very strongly held opinions not generally presented as such, so I'm gunshy about that sort of thing.

 

[kermit4karate]

Your post is exactly the energy I'm talking about. In 1989 we killed a pile of kobolds and then when searching in their haybale beds we would find "a +1 dagger, a potion of invisibility, 3sp". There was no fanfare....the excitement about the dagger was that number went up.

Now, in my games, if a kobold had an awesome magical dagger it's going to be wielding it, and I'm going to customize its power to somehow be appropriate to the kobold. It's gonna be +1 to hit and damage but maybe this one has a unique ability to slightly shrink the user allowing them to squeeze through tight corridors without a penalty...or whatever unique idea I want to attach to it. During the combat the power is going to be used to show off what it does. Then, as treasure, the item will remain unique and not just a commodity to be tossed at a vendor when a +2 dagger becomes available.

Bravo. Love the way you described this.

 

[bloodtide]

So case in point. You decide that any DM that doesn't run an exciting game to your expectations to be "bad". Which is fine, it's a completely subjective measurement and that's your opinion which just happens to differ from mine. But this originally came up in the context of DM making the final call on rules and the "proof" that a lot of DM's are abusive or misuse that capability was the fact that around 20% of people on a 15 year old survey thought at least half or more of their DMs were bad.

Half is close to my 45%, so I agree.

I'd say half of that 45% are not "bad" intentionally. There is the huge half of DMs that are just bad through inexperience, misjudgements and not thinking things through.

And most of the rest.....well, power does corrupt in nearly everything. This happens to people a lot....