D&D 5E Resting and the frikkin' Elephant in the Room

[billd91]

My pursuit notes usually read something like this for example: "Will pursue 75% of the time if it appears they have overwhelming force, as long as Izek survives." So your "What ifs" would already be addressed. But remember - DM Light is not against making decisions that need to be made - he just tries to avoid doing so as much as possible. For example, what if the fleeing PCs cast an audio illusion to the far side of the cave that sounds like the cavalry is coming to save them? In a case like that I would typically say to my players -

"OK guys, how about on a low number, say 6 or less, they focus on the illusion instead of you? Sound good? Ok, I rolled a 2 - they bit HARD!! Now I'll roll to see whether they adopt an offensive or defensive posture against the percieved threat - how about low they are offensive, high they are defensive? What's that George - oh you think they should be more likely to be offensive because of the cult they are in? OK good point, how about 13 or less? Great! I rolled a 2 AGAIN lol!!!!! Ok, they sound the charge bugle and all go running off to fight the "cavalry!!!!"

So in other words, when I DO have to make rulings, I try to (assuming there are no spoilers or secret info they dont know about) do it as a team - players and DM Light together. Again the point is to avoid Big DM interjecting himself between player-generated cause and effect.

Clearly a difference in play preferences, but as a player, a GM constantly dithering with the players about what the NPCs he controls are going to do would really irritate me. I'm OK with GMs (or when I'm GMing) describing some decision-making method, a player chiming in with some nuance, and then the GM adjusting if it seems an relevant nuance. But constantly? I'd be asking "Why am I being asked to play my PC and co-GM this game? That's your responsibility. Mine is to get into my PC and what they're doing, not what your NPCs are doing (particularly since I don't know them or their motivations)."

 

[Caliban]

WHAM WHAM WHAM WHAM. Break's both Caliban's kneecaps. WHAM! WHAM! WHAM!. Breaks Caliban's ribs and tosses him down the steps.
Jasper," Caliban, I think you are feeling great pains and feeling mighty low!"

Nope, I'm fine. Woke up feeling fresh and relaxed, showered and ready to start the day.

Oddly enough, text on a screen doesn't actually cause me any physical pain.

The abuse of caps lock and using an exclamation mark and a period together did cause me some emotional stress, but I'm dealing with it.

 

[Caliban]

Why was it decided that the person telling the story is also the one running the game? Telling a good story and having a good understanding of game mechanics are two different skillsets. I don't believe this needs to be the same person.

I'll repeat:

Please, try your approach in real life, with a real DM whose game you are going to be a player in. I'm curious to hear how it works out.

 

[hawkeyefan]

That surprises me, I would have thought your number would be lower - our number is probably 70%.

Well, this is mostly because combat in general is the most time consuming part of the game. There are sessions where combat makes up a much lower percentage of the time, but overall I think it balances out to about 65%.

I'd like it if it took a little less time, as much as we enjoy combat.

I would say combat 50%, player non combat decisions 20%, PC skills and their use 30%.

The importance is where mine is lower. I like a variety of elements to contribute to PC success, so i try to keep it somewhat even, and give them alternative approaches to success.

I always use XP budgets and strive to make each adventuring day challenging. I have no use for really weak encounters that don't tax PC resources (like many of those in the castle), nor for encounters where the PCs are expected to run, unless it is reaallly obvious that the baddies are OP. So always level appropriate at my table.

I actually prefer a variety of encounters. I don't tend to think in the "level appropriate" mindset, which is why I ditched the XP budget and so forth. I design encounters by feel and what makes sense for the story. This is not to say that I don't keep party strength and encounter difficulty in mind, it's just not my primary concern. I find a variety of encounter types, easy to very difficult, helps to make combat a bit more surprising. Some fights should be easy. Some should be impossible. However, in those cases I make sure to provide other paths to success.

This is more on my own encounters and content rather than a published module like Curse of Strahd. With those, I used what was in the book as a base and made a few modifications based on the party's strength. Most of this consisted of adding Strahd's "brides" to some encounters, who were tougher than vamp spawn but not quite true vampires. That kind of thing.

 

[outsider]

I'll repeat:

Please, try your approach in real life, with a real DM whose game you are going to be a player in. I'm curious to hear how it works out.

Sometimes it works. Other times it doesn't. Other times the DM actually -is- the member of the group who's most knowledgeable about the rules. The DMs who react most negatively to the concept that somebody understands the rules better than they do are DMs I don't want to be playing under anyway.

You don't walk in to an existing group as a newbie and tell the DM that you know the rules better than they do. If it becomes clear over time that somebody in the group -is- more knowledgeable about the rules than the DM is though, the subject should be broached.

 

[Caliban]

Sometimes it works. Other times it doesn't. Other times the DM actually -is- the member of the group who's most knowledgeable about the rules. The DMs who react most negatively to the concept that somebody understands the rules better than they do are DMs I don't want to be playing under anyway.

You don't walk in to an existing group as a newbie and tell the DM that you know the rules better than they do. If it becomes clear over time that somebody in the group -is- more knowledgeable about the rules than the DM is though, the subject should be broached.

See? That's all I was asking for.

 

[outsider]

See? That's all I was asking for.

And all I'm asking for is for people to ponder whether "story teller" and "rules adjudicator" should always be the same person.

 

[Ilbranteloth]

I'm not sure I want the DM making the house rules either, if he's not the most knowledgeable about the rules. He can handle design, leave development up to the rules guy, if that makes sense?

As far as why the DM is often not the most knowledgeable about the rules, it's because he has to dedicate his non-session D&D time to story, adventures, settings, etc. A mechanically minded player is going to spend that time reading rules, researching what people do with them, etc. If the DM is substantially more dedicated to D&D than any of his players, then yes, he might be more knowledgeable. That's often not the case though.

In my experience I'm the only one at the table with the skills and knowledge to manage the rules and write the house rules. I'm also probably the only one who cares.

In part this probably has to do with the fact that I've been doing it for so long, along with having a lot of new players in my campaigns. But, nothing is unilateral. I'm always looking for ideas and input, a change might be somebody else's idea, and if we don't like something, either RAW or house, we change it.

I would love to have somebody else to help more with that. I've had co-DMs too, but usually to handle the acting style role playing that I don't do well. None that have been into the campaign building, rule writing, rules adjudication camp.


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[Caliban]

And all I'm asking for is for people to ponder whether "story teller" and "rules adjudicator" should always be the same person.

In my case? I'm the DM and also the one most knowledgeable about the rules. I'm correcting some of my players all the time because they can't be bothered to remember how their own characters work. (One of my players is a DM, and I also play in his campaign. We correct each other on rules all the time, and some things we simply rule differently in our own games.)

I became a DM partially because I was tired of other DM's not knowing the rules or making calls I disagreed with, and partially because I wanted a campaign that focused on the characters and how their decisions and actions impacted the game world. Plus, I wanted to rewrite the cosmology of existence from the ground up and base a new campaign setting around that.

So for me, the two are inextricably intertwined - I created the story and the setting, and the game mechanics that affect things behinds the scenes, which also inform many of the house rules for my game.

Plus, I have a massive ego and no treasure grubbing murder hobo is going to tell me how to run my game.

 

[outsider]

I'm also probably the only one who cares.

That's actually kindof unfortunate. I find that the game runs more smoothly and enjoyably for everybody(including the DM) when the players are ultra dedicated and knowledgeable about the game.

Co-DMs are a thing that should probably be done more, especially in large groups. Have one person handling story, the other handling rules, and they split the monsters in fights and such.