Should a GM be allowed to arbitrarily make things up as they go along?

[was]

..I do believe that there are a few times that the DM needs to make an arbitrary ruling. Particularly in situations that the book does not cover, or when the existing rules are illogical to the situation. Most DM's come to a fair compromise between the players desire's and the rules.
..However, I have also run into players who memorize all the rules to try and game the system. They delight in breaking the system and generally detract from the enjoyment of the rest of the group.

 

[Piratecat]

It bewilders me that this even came up. If I want to play a game that requires nothing to be made up, I'll play the board game Descent*. I have little interest in playing in a RPG where the GM can't arbitrarily make things up on the fly.

Then again, I trust my GMs.


* I don't actually like Descent.

 

[Henry]

It bewilders me that this even came up. If I want to play a game that requires nothing to be made up, I'll play the board game Descent*. I have little interest in playing in a RPG where the GM can't arbitrarily make things up on the fly.

Then again, I trust my GMs.


* I don't actually like Descent.

I try to avoid "me too" posts, but occasionally I fail my will save. If a campaign works for a given game group where NOTHING is decided on the fly, every response is scripted, and the players never come up with a solution the GM didn't think of beforehand, then I'm glad for them, but in 32 years of playing D&D I have rarely encountered a game that went off exactly as planned.

I've had games where players decided to bribe a life-sucking monsters with a bag of rats, polymorphed an official and stuck him in a cage to keep him safe from a murder plot ("what, this parrot? I've had him for months!"), and one where a player used a forge to smelt a bunch of gold coins into one huge gold lump to bribe a monster. I had one game were the PCs were playing government agents, and tasked with infiltrating a cult, and their response was to cordon off the rural road to the cult house, and firebomb every car that "looked suspicious". To say the least, I had not planned for that "approach".

None of these were predicted responses, and in the case of the lump of gold, I never considered how the Minotaur in the Caves of Chaos would react to a huge lump of gold as a bribe anyway. I had general ideas, but nothing pre-determined.

 

[Janx]

I try to avoid "me too" posts, but occasionally I fail my will save. If a campaign works for a given game group where NOTHING is decided on the fly, every response is scripted, and the players never come up with a solution the GM didn't think of beforehand, then I'm glad for them, but in 32 years of playing D&D I have rarely encountered a game that went off exactly as planned.

I've had games where players decided to bribe a life-sucking monsters with a bag of rats, polymorphed an official and stuck him in a cage to keep him safe from a murder plot, and one where a player used a forge to smelt a bunch of gold coins into one huge gold lump to bribe a monster. I had one game were the PCs were playing government agents, and tasked with infiltrating a cult, and their response was to cordon off the rural road to the cult house, and firebomb every car that "looked suspicious". To say the least, I had not planned for that "approach".

None of these were predicted responses, and in the case of the lump of gold, I never considered how the Minotaur in the Caves of Chaos would react to a huge lump of gold as a bribe anyway. I had general ideas, but nothing pre-determined.

And that's more of the kind of things I think of that rules/books don't cover that a human GM's arbitrary judgement is required.

It's arbitrary because the choice GM #1 makes may be different than GM#2 in the exact same situation (same players, dice rolls, etc) assuming both GMs are attempting to be fair, unbiased and rational in their decision.

They will still differ in their response. That's arbitrary.

 

[gamerprinter]

Lots of responses point to the fact "I run a module", but what if there was no module - I've run game sessions where there was no plot, no predefined monsters, nor a specific agenda that the players want to meet. All the players start out in a tavern, and totally based on what the players gain interest inot or bring to discussion. I might have a half dozen pre-generated NPCs in the tavern, each might have their own issues and agenda, and the party becomes introduced to each. Now depending on which NPC the PCs are most interested in, I could work a pre-planned mission involving the PCs and that NPC, however, what if the PCs show no interest in the NPCs I've devised. What if they leave the tavern and decide to roll bums, decide they want to go to another part of town, or leave town altogether? Now the players are going in directions I never planned ahead for. In these kinds of gaming sessions, the GM has make things up on the fly at a constant rate. Whenever an activity reflects something I can use with existing mechanics, I do so and don't need to make up rules. However, often players think of solutions to problems presented in gameplay that are creative solutions that make sense in the real world, but there doesn't happen to be a specific mechanic to handle the situation, so the GM decides (on the fly) several possible outcomes - now the player rolls a die to determine successful or failure, and you move on.

Not every RPG session requires a module, nor a set story to follow. Often your players are creating the story themselves, based on how they react to the scene and other participants of a given situation. It's the GMs job to adjudicate how the players choices and actions change any situation. There is always some percentage of the game that is being generated on the fly, no matter how much pre-planning (game prep) has occurred.

 

[Balesir]

Responding to the OP, I absolutely do understand your friend "Billy"'s concerns/objections and I think that "Billy" puts it very well when he says "I don't like the idea that the GM that can arbitrarily change the rules of the game".

I have highlighted what I consider the key points, there. If I was being picky I might add "during play" to the end of the sentence. Many folks responding seem to have taken this to mean "the GM should not make anything up"; I strongly disagree with this interpretation.

Making up dungeons, encounters, settlement details or even creatures and characters for the game world does not constitute "changing the rules of the game", IMO. Making a judgement call or impromptu rule to cover something that the rules simply don't cover is not "changing the rules of the game" - the rules did not exist to be changed!

The reason I would add "during play" is that I don't think "house rules" are really a problem - unless they are added mid-session and without warning.

The reason - at least, one major reason - for this is that rules are the shared model of the world's "physics". They stand in for the characters' implicit understanding of how the world works - what they expect to happen based on living and growing up in the world since birth - in the minds of the players. To change that without a darned good reason in mid game is about as destructive a thing to the equilibrium of play as I can imagine a thing to be.

 

[Janx]

Responding to the OP, I absolutely do understand your friend "Billy"'s concerns/objections and I think that "Billy" puts it very well when he says "I don't like the idea that the GM that can arbitrarily change the rules of the game".

I have highlighted what I consider the key points, there. If I was being picky I might add "during play" to the end of the sentence. Many folks responding seem to have taken this to mean "the GM should not make anything up"; I strongly disagree with this interpretation.

Making up dungeons, encounters, settlement details or even creatures and characters for the game world does not constitute "changing the rules of the game", IMO. Making a judgement call or impromptu rule to cover something that the rules simply don't cover is not "changing the rules of the game" - the rules did not exist to be changed!

The reason I would add "during play" is that I don't think "house rules" are really a problem - unless they are added mid-session and without warning.

The reason - at least, one major reason - for this is that rules are the shared model of the world's "physics". They stand in for the characters' implicit understanding of how the world works - what they expect to happen based on living and growing up in the world since birth - in the minds of the players. To change that without a darned good reason in mid game is about as destructive a thing to the equilibrium of play as I can imagine a thing to be.

I might read your points as being that Billy's objection is that a GM could be changing the rules on the fly. For example, though there's published swimming rules, the GM opts to ignore them and just flip a coin to see if you drown or succeed.

I think that in most people's cases, they'd object to instances like that as well. Within reason, we expect the main rules to be followed barring an exception (like nobody knowing the swimming rules and we need to get the game going). And in those exceptions, we expect a reasonable quick implementation like make a swim check vs DC ## to see if you succeed or drown, even though the actual rule may not be so simplistic. The difference between a straight coin flip and the simple DC check is that the coin flip completely ignores any standard handling of generic skill checks. Whereas the simple DC check accomodates skill points the PC may have spent, and at least follows the general pattern of less complicated skills.

As such, a candidate player, who objects to a GM Behavior pattern that most people would agree is not acceptable is still deciding their refusal to play based on a behavior that doesn't typically occur, except in bad GMs.

It's like saying you won't eat at a restaurant because you hate food poisoning and food poisoning happens at restaurants. When in reality, everybody hates getting food poisoning, and generally speaking, it doesn't happen at most restaurants. The key point being is that a rational informed person doesn't refuse to ever eat at restaurants because they understand this. A uninformed or irrational person can't reach this same conclusion and thus they choose a rather extreme position.

 

[Balesir]

I might read your points as being that Billy's objection is that a GM could be changing the rules on the fly. For example, though there's published swimming rules, the GM opts to ignore them and just flip a coin to see if you drown or succeed.

That would be an egregiously extreme, dare I say exaggerated, example of what I mean, yes.

A more nuanced example - and one that I have seen in practice - might be with the 4E D&D rules on rendering a target prone. 4E makes no specific exception to the rules on being "prone" for ochre jellies and the like, but some GMs certainly have taken it upon themselves to rule that they "obviously" cannot be discombobulated in a way that might be described as "prone" and thus they cannot be rendered prone in this game.

This is the equivalent of saying that the character involved in making the attack has grown up for ten years (or possibly much longer) in a world where ochre jellies can be discombobulated by a heavy blow landed just right, only for the same effect to be rendered impossible as of just now. The world has changed, because - well, just because.

Count the same with sneak attacks against undead (which "obviously" can't have vulnerable spots like spines or central ganglia) and so on.

In other words it's a concern which does happen, and it's not always in obviously abusive ways (as in, not obvious to everybody).

 

[Sunseeker]

..I do believe that there are a few times that the DM needs to make an arbitrary ruling. Particularly in situations that the book does not cover, or when the existing rules are illogical to the situation. Most DM's come to a fair compromise between the players desire's and the rules.

But that's not really arbitrary is it? There's a good reason for a ruling in those sorts of situations.

I have to say I think "Billy" must have heard some real horror stories if he thinks DMs running around making rules up or changing them for no reason at all. Not that those people don't exist, but I don't think they're the majority.

 

[athos]

That would be an egregiously extreme, dare I say exaggerated, example of what I mean, yes.

A more nuanced example - and one that I have seen in practice - might be with the 4E D&D rules on rendering a target prone. 4E makes no specific exception to the rules on being "prone" for ochre jellies and the like, but some GMs certainly have taken it upon themselves to rule that they "obviously" cannot be discombobulated in a way that might be described as "prone" and thus they cannot be rendered prone in this game.

This is the equivalent of saying that the character involved in making the attack has grown up for ten years (or possibly much longer) in a world where ochre jellies can be discombobulated by a heavy blow landed just right, only for the same effect to be rendered impossible as of just now. The world has changed, because - well, just because.

Count the same with sneak attacks against undead (which "obviously" can't have vulnerable spots like spines or central ganglia) and so on.

In other words it's a concern which does happen, and it's not always in obviously abusive ways (as in, not obvious to everybody).

Wow, you are actually addressing the concerns of "Billy" in the OP, instead of just saying he sucks because he doesn't want to play an RPG. I think there are probably a LOT of people that avoid games because of a lack of trust, to me it isn't silly, it is something we as gamers must address to make people more at ease if we want them to try our games.

Any time you ask the question "should", there is a problem. Should the gm be "allowed" to pull stuff out of the air? Of course. Are there times when using the rules is a better idea than making up new rules on the fly, just because you are ignorant and don't want to be wrong? Yes. For me, when I GM, I try to stick to the game at hand unless there is a very important reason to deviate from the rules, and I generally expect some griping when it happens and players are surprised by it. It's a natural response.

I think the rules were written for a reason, if noone at the table knows a rule, then it's not a big deal if it isn't used. If a person is expecting their sneak attack to work, because the rules say it will, and you arbitrarily say it won't, you are going to have a rebellion on your hands pretty quick. Players have as much of a right to tell a GM to get lost as a GM has to tell a player to get lost. It has to be a two way street for the game to work.