Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="Korgoth" data-source="post: 3764540" data-attributes="member: 49613">@ OP:What you outlined is not bad DMing.&nbsp; It can be a component of perfectly good DMing.&nbsp; I'm firmly in the school that says that the rules are there to be bent and molded to the exigencies of the particular game the DM is running.&nbsp; If your players agree to have you at the helm as the DM, then it is implied that you are trusted to make these decisions.&nbsp; If the game starts to flop, that can be addressed down the road (and could have to do with any number of factors, only some of which apply to the DM).I would urge to you to make your applications of special rules and restrictions consistent.&nbsp; That's not to say that you can't disallow certain things to the PCs but allow them for the NPCs.&nbsp; That is acceptable.&nbsp; But apply your rulings consistently as much as possible.&nbsp; One example I can think of from my own gaming: a 3.5 DM thought I was wasting his monsters too fast with my (non-empowered, bog standard) &quot;Scorching Ray&quot; spell.&nbsp; So he ruled that I couldn't target individual monsters with more than one ray (you get more as you gain level); I was forced to split them.&nbsp; I later had to move away.&nbsp; When I spoke to him about how the game was going later on, he related how my replacement was impressing everyone with his optimized sorcerer who was doing over 100 damage with his tricked-out scorching ray spell.&nbsp; Obviously that didn't have any effect on the game itself (it did irritate me somewhat) since I was already gone, but if that inconsistency had appeared in-game it would have been a problem (assuming I understood what he was saying correctly).&nbsp; So if you say &quot;No PC Elementalists&quot; that's fine, but if you say &quot;Bob can have an Elementalist but Rupert cannot&quot;, then those rulings start seeming arbitrary.The DM is like a judge (and has been called &quot;the Judge&quot; in some products... like from Judge's Guild).&nbsp; It's generally accepted that a particular judge can always impose a stiff sentence, say, on a particular offense that he thinks represents a manifest social ill in his community.&nbsp; But if said judge gives everybody the maximum except one particular guy, people are going to start wondering what's up with that.&nbsp;&nbsp; <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile&nbsp; &nbsp; :)"&nbsp; data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Of course, it's also acceptable to say &quot;I thought it over, and changed my mind&quot;.&nbsp; That is also normal.&nbsp; But when you change your mind, that should simply usher in a new application of judicious consistency.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Korgoth, post: 3764540, member: 49613"] @ OP: What you outlined is not bad DMing. It can be a component of perfectly good DMing. I'm firmly in the school that says that the rules are there to be bent and molded to the exigencies of the particular game the DM is running. If your players agree to have you at the helm as the DM, then it is implied that you are trusted to make these decisions. If the game starts to flop, that can be addressed down the road (and could have to do with any number of factors, only some of which apply to the DM). I would urge to you to make your applications of special rules and restrictions consistent. That's not to say that you can't disallow certain things to the PCs but allow them for the NPCs. That is acceptable. But apply your rulings consistently as much as possible. One example I can think of from my own gaming: a 3.5 DM thought I was wasting his monsters too fast with my (non-empowered, bog standard) "Scorching Ray" spell. So he ruled that I couldn't target individual monsters with more than one ray (you get more as you gain level); I was forced to split them. I later had to move away. When I spoke to him about how the game was going later on, he related how my replacement was impressing everyone with his optimized sorcerer who was doing over 100 damage with his tricked-out scorching ray spell. Obviously that didn't have any effect on the game itself (it did irritate me somewhat) since I was already gone, but if that inconsistency had appeared in-game it would have been a problem (assuming I understood what he was saying correctly). So if you say "No PC Elementalists" that's fine, but if you say "Bob can have an Elementalist but Rupert cannot", then those rulings start seeming arbitrary. The DM is like a judge (and has been called "the Judge" in some products... like from Judge's Guild). It's generally accepted that a particular judge can always impose a stiff sentence, say, on a particular offense that he thinks represents a manifest social ill in his community. But if said judge gives everybody the maximum except one particular guy, people are going to start wondering what's up with that. :) Of course, it's also acceptable to say "I thought it over, and changed my mind". That is also normal. But when you change your mind, that should simply usher in a new application of judicious consistency. [/QUOTE]

Verification