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

[JiffyPopTart]

Well, the "house" in house rule is the DM's house. Players are welcome to ask or suggest that a particular house rule be added or removed, but the decision must be the DM's alone IMO. When a DM, even out of a desire to appease and ensure that everyone feels heard, allows the ship to be pushed and pulled too much by the players, the ship runs aground and sinks. It may not feel democratic to ever silence debate, may leave a bad taste in one's mouth, but it's necessary. We can try to imagine it otherwise, try to manifest something better and more evolved, but we're only fooling ourselves when we do.

I could not disagree more with this take. I want to run the game that fits exactly what my players want to play. I want my adventures to feature what they want to explore. I want the story to come from their desires.

I could care less during character creation of players mix and match pretty much anything to fit their character concept. Want your druid to have magic missile, why not? Want your fighter to have the stealth skill, go for it!

I literally control the entire rest of the world..and can temper it to match shape to the puzzle pieces the layers have given me to interact with.

I LOVE my narrative style of campaign...and my players l9ve to show up every week digging more and more into the cooperative storytelling project we are embarked upon as a team.

I'm not in charge of anything. I'm not a voice of authority. I have a vote and it's one of many at the table.

From this comes a story remembered so much deeper and more intimately than back in the day if mapping dungeons, counting arrows, and clearing rats from basements.

That's why I'm on this thread....I've been playing a LONG time but I don't really have any rose colored glasses for "old school". It's hard for me to understand the mindset of those who still find joy at that +1 sword after 40 years of finding them.

 

[Hussar]

Because it doesn't work. Same reason movie productions, theater plays, businesses, classrooms, militaries and militias, and governments always have a clear leader.

You do you, though.

It's interesting you pick those examples. In every example, the leader has a specific task (or set of tasks) that need to be completed that have very little to do with the enjoyment of those under that leader. A movie or theater production director doesn't care if the actors are having fun. Militaries are pretty renowned for not really caring about the feelings of those under command. So on and so forth. And, while a classroom at the elementary level may have a clear leader, by secondary and certainly higher learning, that goes very much by the wayside.

If your model of a game table is a military or a government or a business, I really have to question why. None of those organizations give the slightest care about the feelings of the people doing the job. And all the people in those organizations are producing things for other people. None of those are creative endeavors.

 

[kermit4karate]

I could not disagree more with this take. I want to run the game that fits exactly what my players want to play. I want my adventures to feature what they want to explore. I want the story to come from their desires.

I could care less during character creation of players mix and match pretty much anything to fit their character concept. Want your druid to have magic missile, why not? Want your fighter to have the stealth skill, go for it!

I literally control the entire rest of the world..and can temper it to match shape to the puzzle pieces the layers have given me to interact with.

I LOVE my narrative style of campaign...and my players l9ve to show up every week digging more and more into the cooperative storytelling project we are embarked upon as a team.

I'm not in charge of anything. I'm not a voice of authority. I have a vote and it's one of many at the table.

From this comes a story remembered so much deeper and more intimately than back in the day if mapping dungeons, counting arrows, and clearing rats from basements.

That's why I'm on this thread....I've been playing a LONG time but I don't really have any rose colored glasses for "old school". It's hard for me to understand the mindset of those who still find joy at that +1 sword after 40 years of finding them.

Again, you do you. I've DM'd more than 1,000 hours over 40+ years and have never had a single person walk out of one of my games -- not one.

Two of my best friends in life -- people I'm closer with now than my own siblings -- became my friends at my table, through our games.

Pretty sure folks are enjoying themselves.

Don't confuse "having a clear leader" with a malevolent dictatorship.

 

[kermit4karate]

A clear leader facilitates objectives. That's a leader's job. They don't have to be the smartest, the strongest, the most creative or the best at anything. They simply have to wield the role.

So, high level, what are the objectives of a D&D game?

Super high level?

1. Ensure that everyone has fun.
2. Prevent chaos (see: #1 above).

Now, if we drill down a bit, what are some lower-level objectives that I've found over the course of 53 years of happy life and hundreds of D&D games?

1. Make people feel special, important and appreciated...because humans (myself included) are inherently insecure, self-obsessed, fearful little meat bags, despite aaaaaaall of our objections to the contrary.
2. Reward, protect and cultivate kindness, sincerity and humility whenever you find it.
3. See: #1 above.

Rulebooks are mostly irrelevant. Game mechanics are mostly irrelevant (although fun to debate). Cool artwork is critical. (Ha! It's true though.)

 

[AlViking]

I may not state my preference using the exact same wording as @kermit4karate, but I think the game works best when the DM makes the final call whether I'm playing or running. I've had some people want to do wacky stuff - like contract lycanthropy without all the penalties so that they were immune to virtually all weapon damage. They viewed getting cursed as a major power-up as long as they could have their buddies lock them up when the moon was full (which of course would always be true as far as they were concerned). There was no way I was going to allow that, if you want to play a werewolf there are other games built around that.

Not all suggested house rules are that bad, but as DM I have to think about balance and what is going to work best for everyone at the table and that includes me. There will always be the potential for a player that wants things that I, or other players, don't want in the game but if you don't have a DM you don't have a game.

 

[Maxperson]

Individual-strike damage reductuion (DR) brings with it a host of corollary problems, the biggest of which is it completely shuts down foes who, while skilled, don't do much damage with any one blow and instead do their killing as death by a thousand cuts.

I don't see a problem with this. Have that person hack at a 1 inch thick flat rock and he is not going to do much. Have someone who has a greatsword and leverages it with great strength and there's a good chance that he's breaking the rock.

It's just more important for the death by a thousand cuts warrior to find a weapon that is sufficient to get through the DR.

 

[kermit4karate]

I may not state my preference using the exact same wording as @kermit4karate, but I think the game works best when the DM makes the final call whether I'm playing or running. I've had some people want to do wacky stuff - like contract lycanthropy without all the penalties so that they were immune to virtually all weapon damage. They viewed getting cursed as a major power-up as long as they could have their buddies lock them up when the moon was full (which of course would always be true as far as they were concerned). There was no way I was going to allow that, if you want to play a werewolf there are other games built around that.

Not all suggested house rules are that bad, but as DM I have to think about balance and what is going to work best for everyone at the table and that includes me. There will always be the potential for a player that wants things that I, or other players, don't want in the game but if you don't have a DM you don't have a game.

"I may not state my preference using the exact same wording..."

YES!!! Score one for the frog!

 

[Maxperson]

That's the key right there. That's the whole enchilada. It's good enough to be good enough.

It feels like a lot of folks on here would recreate all the rules of real life if they could find a print-on-demand place that could bind a million-page book.

I don't get that impression from anyone here. We just tend to follow the Gygax thought on the matter.

"ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS is first and foremost a game for the fun and enjoyment of those who seek to use imagination and creativity. This is not to say that where it does not interfere with the flow of the game that the highest degree of realism hasn‘t been attempted, but neither is a serious approach to play discouraged."

Realism is enjoyable to us, until it isn't. When it bogs down the game and becomes unfun, it has gone too far. Nobody here is advocating for a million page book to mirror real life. We just want generally more realism than D&D provides by default, and there's plenty of room for improvement on that score WITHOUT bogging down the game and it becoming unfun(for those of us who like realism).

 

[kermit4karate]

I don't get that impression from anyone here. We just tend to follow the Gygax thought on the matter.

"ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS is first and foremost a game for the fun and enjoyment of those who seek to use imagination and creativity. This is not to say that where it does not interfere with the flow of the game that the highest degree of realism hasn‘t been attempted, but neither is a serious approach to play discouraged."

Realism is enjoyable to us, until it isn't. When it bogs down the game and becomes unfun, it has gone too far. Nobody here is advocating for a million page book to mirror real life. We just want generally more realism than D&D provides by default, and there's plenty of room for improvement on that score WITHOUT bogging down the game and it becoming unfun(for those of us who like realism).

OK, but that's not what I see. Have you actually read all 2262 pages...of this thread?? I see some militantly pedantic ruleism.

Yes, I just coined that phrase, but you can borrow it.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Breaking down the problem with them, and possibly helping them do a work-around that isn't dependent on the GM houseruling.

Like what? What "workaround" can you do that isn't a houserule? Like I said I really don't understand what you're asking for.