Rule 0 and DM/player balance of power.

[Nikroecyst]

Mark, I dissagree. Despite my best efforts and neutral standing when dming, I find that at least one pc tends to look at the DM as the BBEG and not a storyteller. Even when I have a guest come in and roleplay out villians and npcs they still look at me as another play that they are playng against.

And its not just my games, I have played with these very same players in other dm's games ranging from d20 future, dnd, board games, ect.

I beleive that some people are just "programed" that way when it comes to playing.

 

[Squire James]

Yes, and if you "defeat" such a player's character in combat you must have "cheated".

Competitive urges are everywhere... I admit I feel a bit unhappy at times when I make a tactical blunder that causes the PC's to walk all over my BBEG's but I try not to let it get to me. Similarly, I run into situations where I see a "sure kill" solution (monster has Blasphemy at will and matches party level, plus minions to kill them in all those dazed rounds) that I have to hold off from.

It's one reason I stopped playing Magic the Gathering... the more I cared about it the bigger a sphincter muscle I became. Then I ran into a player for whom their DCI rating was their main drive in life, and tried to play a casual game with them. We're talking a guy advocating Pro Tour rules enforcement on multiplayer casual games here! The worst part was, this carried into his D&D play, and tried to exploit every grey area he could find...

"He said he was readying an attack to disrupt spellcasting... my five foot step doesn't trigger it, and I cast the spell. He's out of reach, so his readied action has no effect!"

 

[Kerrick]

But then, I'm not a big fan of Rule 0. It probably has its place, somewhere for some people. And that's cool. But I'd rather rulesets actually work, and work properly.

The rules can't cover every single eventuality, no matter how finely tuned they are, nor should they. The 3.x rules seem to be deliberately vague in several places (setting DCs for skills checks, e.g.), probably to give the DM greater latitude in making his own decisions. This is where Rule 0 comes in. I'm all for making clear, concise rules that cover the things that most often come up in a game, but leave it at that and leave something for the DM to do - the RAW and Rule 0 should work hand-in-hand, not at odds with each other.

 

[howandwhy99]

The rules, including all dice rolls, are really just game aids for the DM to run the game. The players control their characters, the DM controls the world as a neutral party.

 

[Creamsteak]

I agree with all the points so far but have noted an increasing tendancy, the longer I have played 3.5E, for players to dislike any DM fiat, even when it is in the interests of keeping the game fun and balanced.

That sounds more like the players than the game really. I have a similar problem from time to time, but in my case at least it doesn't seem like changing the game would have made any difference.

 

[Korgoth]

There have always been problems with "rules lawyers" who don't realize that the rules are there to help the DM make a fun and challenging game.

I think the internet has made this worse. People sit around lovingly crafting weird, morbid stories with an undercurrent of self-loathing about the horrid behavior of other gamers and DMs. From all of this you would get the idea that there are only 2 or 3 actually sane and functional people who game, and they must desperately cling to the Unyielding Laws given to them by WOTC on golden tablets as their only defense against the vomitous hordes of subhumans calling themselves "gamers".

Whereas in my decades of gaming I have only seen a few people who were truly boorish at the game, and that was easily solved by just not gaming with them again. I have never had to desperately cling to written rules as though they were a life preserver.

The DM has the hardest job: he makes the world, he makes the scenario, he makes up everybody in the world/scenario, he sets all of the situations, he is responsible for everything being challenging but allowing for a successful resolution (a finer balance than one might think), and if the whole mess, into which he has invested many thankless hours, doesn't turn out to be fun in play, it is the DM who will be blamed (even if they acted like donkeys the whole time: "But my elf doesn't wanna go to the Pits of Mordecore - they sound scary!"). If the rules were so absolute that even the DM was not allowed to monkey with them, it would be a worthless job indeed. But if the DM employs the rules as his ally, there's actually a chance that he might be able to make the game fun for everyone, and have fun himself in the process.

Then I suppose there are those people who don't have the "gamers are scum, except me" pathology, but who are simply so stuck in Information Age metaphors that they think they think of the rules as "code" and think of the DM as the rectangular box with the big button on the front that they push when they want to make a raid on "Forge of Fury".

DM /= computer.

 

[SavageRobby]

Mark, I dissagree. Despite my best efforts and neutral standing when dming, I find that at least one pc tends to look at the DM as the BBEG and not a storyteller. Even when I have a guest come in and roleplay out villians and npcs they still look at me as another play that they are playng against.

And its not just my games, I have played with these very same players in other dm's games ranging from d20 future, dnd, board games, ect.

Interesting. Why play with them again if you don't like the style? I don't RPG with those kind of players more than twice - once to diagnose, the second time to confirm - and if I'm the DM, I might not bother to confirm it. (Board games are another matter, since that is usually the idea.)



As for rule 0, I try to make sure that my players know that I exercise it quite a bit, usually to make things "make sense" (ie, the Diplomacy example above, or to cover things where the rules are nonexistant or wonky), sometimes to enhance the story/plot/game, sometimes on accident ("oh crap, thats what the rule said?"), and never specifically to hose them.

However, I also tend to run systems that are looser in structure than d20, with fewer explicit rules and more general resolution systems. I do see more rules-lawyering mindsets with the d20 system itself than with other systems, and I don't know if the system promotes it or attracts it (or I just notice it more).