Something, I think, Every GM/DM Should Read

[nedjer]

Between this and the minotaur's dick thread - enough with the dicks for one week

 

[Water Bob]

Between this and the minotaur's dick thread - enough with the dicks for one week

I understand. You're tired of getting dick.



This post edited for exceeding the maximum allowable Dick Per Post limit. - Rel

 

[The Shaman]

Ooooo. I've got to disagree here. When the DM asks, "What do you want to do?" And the Caller yells out, "The Usual"....man, that doesn't sound too far removed from, "Roll a Spot check. What'd you get? A 16? OK, you found the trap. Roll to deactivate it. What'd you get?"

Which is why a number of posters are calling what's in the Primer something of a false dichotomy. Dwarves and elves have had the ability to identify secret doors and such on a die roll since OD&D, without describing how they are searching, frex.

"Roll a Spot check" requires nothing more than consulting one's character sheet. Explaining how a character will use a ten-foot pole to detect trip wires as well as pressure plates is pretty much the opposite of that - in the first, the player is playing the character sheet, in the second the player is trying to imagine the game-world and describing her character's actions therein.

In my experience, roleplaying games have always been a blend of the two.

I believe it's on the referee's shoulders in traditional play-styles to turn rolling a skill check into something which makes the players' think: "Yes, you found the outline of what appears to be a covered pit of some kind, but there's no obvious means for disabling it - what do you do?" is an entirely valid response to, "I roll to deactivate." If the Primer teaches anything about old school play, it is that.

I find this shorthand disturbing and generally am not as accommodating as the Referee in the example, letting the players spell it out.

And I find it odd that a group of professional murder-hobos would not have a set routine for proceeding in an environment in which death can come from any direction and any moment in untold gruesome forms.

And I get tired of hearing the same things over and over again.

 

[Mark CMG]

And I get tired of hearing the same things over and over again.

I hear ya. Tough to keep it fresh.

 

[RainOfSteel]

When I started reading the first "zen moment" I experienced a zen moment of my own.

The author basically lives in a different universe than I. I found something to object to in almost every sentence.

The referee, in turn, uses common sense to decide what happens or rolls a die if he thinks there’s some random element involved, and then the game moves on.

The only thing about common sense is that it isn't.

The GM will make a call, and if it isn't what the players want to hear, the game will not move on, it will stop immediately for an argument that can only by won by excellent debate or more probably by, "Because I'm the GM!"

The issues caused for so many years in RPGs by not having rules to cover those situations is why rules were created to cover those situations, and it is my personal opinion (read, "common sense", </sardonic smile>) that this is by far the best situation.

Many of the things that are “die roll” challenges in modern gaming (disarming a trap, for example) are handled by observation, thinking, and experimentation in old-style games. Getting through obstacles is more “hands-on” than you’re probably used to.

Players frequently have no idea how to do what their character's abilities and powers allow. Asking for them to describe what they do off the cuff and then arbitrarily ruling on the described actions is not going to work most of the time, at least from most players' perspectives.


The "example" of "modern gaming" was hyperbole. When I think of my "old gaming" sessions back in the early 1980s, the given example is what I think of. Older gaming sessions weren't brighter and better, they were colder, more emotionless, and mechanical.

Old school to me: "You're at the Dungeon." "We go in and kill stuff." "You loot the last monster and then you're back in town."

I read further, but I kept running into continuing near-insurmountable levels of disagreement. I was unable to finish. I may try to get through it tomorrow.

And, that's probably a bad example. Turn it around. Two PCs are flanking an NPC badguy.

Player: "Does the NPC have Improved Uncanny Dodge?"

DM looks at his NPC notes. "Um...no."

In all the games I have ever GMed, I have never answered any questions about NPC stat blocks or capabilities to just a random question like that. Typically speaking, most GMs I know also wouldn't answer. Maybe it's a local thing. If a player had a specific capability that let them know, fine. Otherwise, at best, the player would get, "You have no way of knowing."

 

[Water Bob]

The GM will make a call, and if it isn't what the players want to hear, the game will not move on, it will stop immediately for an argument that can only by won by excellent debate or more probably by, "Because I'm the GM!"

If this is true, then you play with players who do not trust the GM. Bottom line is that players have to accept the GM's call as final. They may object or suggest something different if they disagree with the GM, and a good GM will listen to what they have to say. But, if the GM doesn't agree with the player, the players have to accept that, right or wrong in their opinion, the GM's word is law. Let's move on.

I ran a 7 year campaign back in the 90's, with five players, and a decent dose of GM arbitrary rulings. It was one of the best, most interesting campaigns I've ever run. Remarkably, in the entire 7 years, we didn't have one argument. Not a single argument.

Did we have some disagreements? You bet. Did the players always agree with my calls 100% of the time? Nope. But we just had a great group of guys who realized that the game needs a strong GM, and by playing, they accept the Ref's rulings.

In short, I had their trust.

Sometimes I'd change my arbitrary call based on some objection, and sometimes I wouldn't. I ran the game as fairly as I could, and it was fantastic. We still talk about that campaign today.

I've got some different players today, and one in particular is a "loud complainer" when he doesn't see things are going the way he would Ref the scenario. His "loud complaining" sometimes influences the other players, and I've got to keep him in check.

And, when it comes down to it, he doesn't trust me.

I'm trying to figure ways to earn his trust and have him accept Me AS RULEBOOK rather than just the guy who intperprets all the 3.5 printed rules.

If I'm not successful in getting him to trust me, I'm going to have to boot him from the group.

And, I really hate doing that because he's a great role player who really "gets into" the game.

 

[nedjer]

I understand. You're tired of getting dick.

Don't want to go all Dickensian on you, or dicktate what gets posted in forum.

But thanks, I'll be more than happy if I haven't spotted another dick all day long.

 

[Scurvy_Platypus]

So someone left the comment:

Discussing play styles is useful, advocating one over others is not.

Discussing player styles _can_ be useful. The problem is that it doesn't ever actually stop at discussing; you get this thread. Arguing. The difference between a discussion and an argument being defined by me as "A discussion is an exchange of ideas. Additionally, a discussion sometimes also contains a possibility of one person influencing another.

An argument is one or more people (possibly forcefully) stating how their opinion is correct and attempting to get others to acknowledge it, while not being interested in having their opinion changed."

Discussions, I dig. Arguments... *shrug*... I've got a cat.

This thread? I really don't see anything positive coming from it. Just folks gettin' all het up about nothin' and ever more firmly entrenched in their opinions about how the earlier days of rpgs sucked/rocked.

One quick thing before I go...

That is indeed cool. But it's not actually part of the rules, right?

If I understand both what (Psi)SeveredHead was talking about and what you asked...

Yeah, actually what Piratecat appeared to be doing _is_ explicitly covered by the rules. His specific implementation of it is his own, but when the discussion already is about whether or not a GM is making the rules their own, it seems like a bit of a funny quibble.

But the effects seem to be relying straight off page 42 of the 4E DMG, which explicitly says, "Actions the Rules don't cover". It discusses use of a Circumstance bonus, DCs for a check depending on the level and whether the GM determines whether it's Easy, Moderate, or Difficult, Improvised Damage (book explicitly offers stumbling into a campfire or a vat of acid as an example) and whether to use a Normal or Limited damage expression; the normal and limited expressions are explicitly mentioned as being comparable to a monster's At Will (normal) or a monster's special powers (limited).

Page 42 is a singularly fantastic tool for a GM to use in 4E. Having played and GMed D&D from Basic up through 4th, I gotta say that it's one of the greatest little tools a 4E GM has. It allows for a GM to both be a rules keeper as well as an adjudicator or whatever you wanna call it. It lets a GM both reward player creativity, as well as ensure that they have a _consistent_ approach to how that creativity is rewarded, and as a bonus it's explicitly set up so that it's on-par with what other effects (attack, checks, whatever) are doing too.

Page 42 is the sort of thing that _all_ rpgs ought to have and almost none of them do; I'd say "none" but there probably is at least one other somewhere, I just am not aware of it. If all else fails and a GM isn't sure quite what to do with something... page 42 it baby. It might not seem like much for old hands at GMing but for folks new to it or new to the system? That's a mighty comforting tool to have.

I now return this thread to its regularly scheduled program.

 

[RainOfSteel]

If this is true, then you play with players who do not trust the GM.

Attempting to frame the discussion as one of trust for the GM is incorrect.

When players have to "trust" the GM, this is really saying that players have to accept negative rulings based solely on an arbitrary GM decision, especially when it might not make any sense, and when it is almost certainly going to be different the next time around, and also be affected by favoritism. I don't call it trust. I call it surrender.

If Gandhi were running the RPG session, I might trust him. But the reality is that most gamers are genuine geeks and nerds, and social grace isn't found at the surface or core of our beings. In my experience, anti-authoritarianism also tends to run strong among gamers. These things do not lend well to trusting anyone, nor establish one to be placed into a position of trust.

The following situation: "I shot you!" "Nuh, uh! I shot you!" "Nuh, uh!" ...is why the rules exist in the first place. When you remove those rules, you have one person making all the decisions. I want nothing of it because I want my own degree, no matter how small, of control over the story myself.

A classic maxim of GM advice is to avoid being be the adversary of the players, to present a world and its challenges, but not to personally fight against the players. A very rules light primarily-trust game environment encourages the adversarial relationship by placing too much in the hands of the GM.

Those who wish to play Amber RPG-style games can do so. I will avoid them.

What is "common sense" to one person isn't to another. Rules exist to smoothly bridge the gap.

 

[Water Bob]

Don't want to go all Dickensian on you, or dicktate what gets posted in forum.

But thanks, I'll be more than happy if I haven't spotted another dick all day long.

LOL!

Dickensian, huh?

As Oliver said, "Please, sir, may I have another?"

Discussing player styles _can_ be useful. The problem is that it doesn't ever actually stop at discussing; you get this thread. Arguing. The difference between a discussion and an argument being defined by me as "A discussion is an exchange of ideas. Additionally, a discussion sometimes also contains a possibility of one person influencing another.

It all depends on how you read the thread, I guess. I'm not heated or trying to argue things--just simply stating my case.

I do notice that some come back a bit forceful, and some seem to take my comments as "argument". But, I think that's the nature of a forum.

Especially when you're talking about something people feel strongly about.

Discussions, I dig. Arguments... *shrug*... I've got a cat.

My sentiment exactly, except I've got a dog. My dog loves me. My cat is dead.

Page 42 is a singularly fantastic tool for a GM to use in 4E.

If you have to say that the GM has power because it says so on pg. blah blah of the rulebook, then you are missing the point of this thread.

If I had to sum down the point of this thread into as few words as possible, I'd do it in just one sentence: The GM IS THE RULE BOOK.

That's the point of this thread.

Get that. Get the thread.

When players have to "trust" the GM, this is really saying that players have to accept negative rulings based solely on an arbitrary GM decision, especially when it might not make any sense, and when it is almost certainly going to be different the next time around, and also be affected by favoritism. I don't call it trust. I call it surrender.

Then you don't understand the point of this thread, either.

You've got to play with a GM that you know will treat you fairly and won't be subject to favoritisim. (I can't figure how playing with a GM under any style of play can be fun and good if your GM is playing favorites.)

If Gandhi were running the RPG session, I might trust him.

Good lord! You'll never trust your GM!

I think that's more your problem based on this statement.

But the reality is that most gamers are genuine geeks and nerds, and social grace isn't found at the surface or core of our beings.

Good gosh, brother, who are you playing with? My group isn't any of those things. I wouldn't characterize us with any of the terms you use.

I'll say that we are very aware that there is a stigma about role players out in the world, and my group tends to hide what we do from the world. I work for a large financial firm downtown. Nobody has a clue that I game. One of my other players actually hides it from his wife.

Some people embrace it, I know, but I've been down that road before and lived to be sorry for it.

It's a shame, though, that me and my group have decided to "stay in the closet" so to speak.