Should a DM change an official NPC?

[Morrus]

I guess I shouldnt come here to chat about the value of "official" campaigns versus OGL campaigns, or "official rules clarifactions" versus home-brewed resolutions. It seems like the WOTC boards will provide better answers to such questions. I am going to post this very same topic at the official boards, and see what I get. I think the responses should be quite interesting.

Posting about WOTC at enworld.org is like posting a question about Jimmy Carter at the RNC messageboards. There is no point to it.

I don't understand the point of visiting a messageboard where you know everyone will agree with what you post. You sound like you just want affirmation that your opinion is correct, and that you will choose to go to the place where you're most likely to get that.

Your question, as you state, is about "the value of "official" campaigns versus OGL campaigns, or "official rules clarifactions" versus home-brewed resolutions." And you feel that you should only ask this at WotC's boards because that's where you feel you are guaranteed to get everyone saying "Yes, greymarch, you're right - official is better than homebrew"?

I'm kinda wondering why you even brought up the issue in the first place. You asked "Is it OK to change stats?", to which poeple answered "Yes"; to this you replied "It's not OK in my group". OK. Cool. That's absolutely fine.

I could understand it if the thrust of the thread had been along the lines of "This is how we do it in our group - I'm kinda interested in how everyone else does it, though", but, rereading the thread, I can't see that thrust in there at all. This whole thread just seems to have no reason for existing.

 

[S'mon]

Posting about WOTC at enworld.org is like posting a question about Jimmy Carter at the RNC messageboards. There is no point to it.

Ha, I reckon the general EN World opinion is pretty pro-WoTC, actually. They gave us 3e after all. More importantly, they gave us the OGL so we didn't have to use 'official material!

Seriously greymarch, I reckon the average WotC staff writer (if they have any left) would think your attitude a bit odd, although you're clearly a valued customer. RPGs are a game of the imagination, yet your group made a decision to exclude imagination from their game. WoTC writers are people too - and roleplayers too, I believe (unlike some hacks in the late TSR era). They're not cult leaders, AFAIK they're regular guys like us, and they probably find your approach as odd as we do.

One question: is your DM allowed to create new NPCs, plots, scenarios etc? Or only to run officially released adventures?

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

Another rule my gaming group follows is that the DM is not the final word on a subject. We prefer to use a much more democratic approach. If a rules question, or some other type of problem occurs, we take a vote. Majority wins, but the DM's vote counts as two votes, and all ties go to to the DM. We have followed this rule for 14 years, and have no plans on changing it. When you have a more democratic approach to problem-solving, it is more likely that all the players will abide by the rule, because everyone had a chance to be counted in the decision. If the DM in our campaign simply said "it's my way or the highway gentlemen" I can guarantee that my gaming group would immediately quit playing with that DM, and find someone else to replace him.

Odd, that. We take turns at GMing, and if there are general rules issues and other "meta-game" issues, we discuss it together (while it isn't as formal as an actual vote, it tends to end up as the same thing).

But while the actual adventure is running, the judgement of the GM (whoever he is at the moment) is final. This keeps down the number of argument within the game session and the adventure running smoothly. Lengthy arguments can occur after the session has finished, but only then.

We all have been GMs. We all know how difficult it can be. We accept the GM's judgement during an adventure because he has the biggest burden of all participants - and we see no reason to add to his troubles.

 

[S'mon]

Well, ok. It sure looked to me like you were trying to set yourself up as older, wiser and generally superior. That's why I posted about the education level of my players. I just wanted to demonstrate that if you want to call trump suit, you need to consider that someone else might be holding a higher card.

As it turns out, 'where you're coming from' is the same place as the rest of us, rendering it completely irrevelant.

Hey, I have a PhD! You must all listen to me and acknowledge my opinion as superior!

 

[IceBear]

Another thing, if a campaign starts at 1st level and the characters encounter Drizzit, and then at level 12 one of the fighters wants to face the "best swordsman in the Realms" don't you think Drizzit's stats would have improved as well? Maybe he won't have the 1st 12 levels worth of XP, but he'd probably be a higher level than what he was when the campaign started. I know this depends on what everyone wants, but if the fighter is expecting a challenge and you, as the DM, knows that things would be too easy as written, I don't see the harm in boosting Drizzit appropriately. The key to remember in any good campaign world is that the world isn't static - it's alive.

Also, you're telling me that the PCs - who are about to fight Manshoon - can pick up a book and look at his equipment and spell list so they can be optiminally prepared for the encounter? I mean, we're not going that far with the "don't modify NPCs" are we?

IceBear

 

[Zappo]

Weird. Personally, the worst campaigns I've played in have been those where, like greymarch's, the DM stuck to the setting as much as possible, AND those where an official setting was very heavily changed. The best ones, instead, were the homebrew from ground up, and official settings with some changes.

Right now I'm running (besides my Planescape campaign) a Dragonlance- mangled-beyond-recognition and I don't really like it. Some of the players do like it, though, so go figure.

 

[IceBear]

And if greymarch is still on this thread (which I doubt) I also don't think anyone is suggesting that you HAVE to change NPCs. All anyone is advocating is that if a particular NPC doesn't work for your campaign (like Orcus in the BoVD which is what started this thread) then it isn't a crime to change him, but that change should come before his/her stats and abilities have been revealed to the characters.

IceBear

 

[Florin]

What I think is really funny, is that most of the people that put out FR material would be appalled at Greymarch's groups' idea of an "authentic" FR campaign. I mean, for the last 2 years, WotC has had the mantra of "make it your own." Now, Greymarch, who claims to be pro-WotC, is totally flying in the face of that. We need to hook him up with some 24/7 Captain Planet cartoons. "The power is YOURS!"

 

[Tsyr]

What I think is really funny, is that most of the people that put out FR material would be appalled at Greymarch's groups' idea of an "authentic" FR campaign. I mean, for the last 2 years, WotC has had the mantra of "make it your own." Now, Greymarch, who claims to be pro-WotC, is totally flying in the face of that. We need to hook him up with some 24/7 Captain Planet cartoons. "The power is YOURS!"

Agreed. Unlike WW and their accursed metaplots (Exalted seems thankfully free of those, though), WotC has a pretty solid position on that... Their position is, buy the book, then do whatever you want with it. We don't care. It's yours now.

 

[RobNJ]

My gaming group came to the conclusion 14 years ago that you are not playing FR if you make any changes. Once you make a change, it is now a home-brewed campaign, and thus unnacceptable to us.

You ignored this the last time I asked it, maybe you will have the intestinal fortutide to answer a simple question this time. Please answer each of these questions:

Are you allowed to change the world as characters? Example, would you be allowed to defeat Thay as the end of a 20 level campaign?

If not, are you allowed to fight and possibly defeat any of the pre-statted NPCs?

What do you do if more than 1 set of official stats exists for an NPC?

Are you even allowed to interact with any of the existing NPCs? If you killed one, wouldn't you be immediately making it into a home brew campaign?