Something, I think, Every GM/DM Should Read

[TheAuldGrump]

Read it before, disagreed with it then.

Looked at it now, recognized it, and still disagree with it.

And I am old enough to be 'old school', so don't try to tell me how much better it was then. A good GM can run a good game with bad, incomplete, or just plain silly rules - this does not make them good rules, nor will playing with those old, bad, incomplete, or just plain silly rules make a mediocre GM a good one.

And a bad GM can run a bad game with the best of rules.

Giving a bad GM the option to make up things in an arbitrary fashion will not make him a good GM.

The Auld Grump

 

[chaochou]

Don't you find it a tad contradictory to insist that we must stick to the designer's letter of the law while arguing that we mustn't stick to other laws, e.g. consensus around the table?

Eh? I'm genuinely confused that you have read either of those arguments into what I wrote.

I haven't expressed an opinion on the letter of the law. The OPs assertion - that 'modern' rulesets have a 'rule for everything' and the result is 'boring' - implicitly assumes following those rules. I haven't insisted anyone does. But if the OP doesn't he has no basis to complain about the constraints they impose on gameplay, and his assertion falls to pieces.

I haven't argued against consensus at the table. Quite the opposite. I said I've played using group consensus in place of GM fiat for 25 years. If your group agrees to total GM authority, that's fine. Just don't tell me - as the OP has attempted to - that it is a prerequisite of 'interesting' play.

 

[Rel]

First up, let's keep our tone friendly and civil, folks.

Personally, I have no problems making rulings at the table as needed, no matter the rule system. However here's the thing for me: My creativity is not boundless and when I must expend it constantly to come up with methods to adjudicate situations in the game, it is probably causing a drain on my creativity in other places. I'd generally rather spend that creativity to make the emergent game world more interesting and fun than I would on adjudication.

Thus my "sweet spot" is games that have mechanics that are elegant and simple but are there when you need them. I prefer to have more rules than six stats, an AC and some Hit Points (though I've had a hell of a good time playing OD&D). And I prefer to have few enough rules that I don't have to crack a book to figure out ones that seem to crop up just often enough for me to forget the last time we had that situation (I'm looking at you, Grapple!).

I'll point to Savage Worlds as my current game of choice that sits in the middle of this sweet spot precisely because when I need to go to the system for an answer, that answer is almost always very obvious to me because it is a very tight system with little fat on it and a unified mechanic. I'll point to AD&D as a system that I have zero interest in running precisely because it has a lot of disparate sub systems that you either have to ignore, memorize or look up (I say this in full acknowledgment of the fact that I had a metric ton of fun with that game back in the day.).

The guys I game with trust me I think. Or else they've been putting up a really good front for the last 20 years. I think part of the reason it's been easy to maintain that trust (apart from the fact that we're all really close friends outside of gaming) is that I am happy to let the system handle most of the heavy lifting while I just nudge it once in a while with (hopefully fair) arbitration.

 

[Mercurius]

Here's the POINT of this thread, in a nutshell...

All of which I agree with, to an extent...I certainly can agree that the 3.x system went too far (for my tastes, at least) in the direction of "a rule for everything." 4E backed away from that in some ways--in terms of simplified skills and monster and NPC creation and stat blocks--but it essentially did the same thing with Powers, which negated the need to "try something out" or even really to come up with unique character actions.

The approach of both 3.x and 4E has been to play your character rather than be your character. I am wondering if this has something to do with 20+ years of video games, in which the gap between the player and the character (or avatar) is much more distant than it is in tabletop RPGs. Hmm....maybe this warrants its own thread. But the idea being, the player as puppetmaster and the character as puppet, rather than the player as actor and the character as role. This is unfortunate, imo.

 

[Oryan77]

GMs/DMs Something, I think, Every GM/DM Should Read

I never read anything. In fact, I struggled trying not to read the title of this thread.

First of all, I'm already the greatest DM to ever live. That's why so many players play with me, and then leave. They just can't handle how good I am and it intimidates them.

Second of all, reading another DM's opinion is only going to ruin my own skills, not improve them. One guy says to do this, then another guy says to do the exact opposite. Then both of them argue about it until their voices get so high pitched that it's hard to tell if they are speaking English. It's very confusing trying to figure out which way I should DM. So rather than trying to figure out who is right, I go download illegal Smurf snuff films. I figure it will all work itself out.

 

[TheUltramark]

so, if i got this correctly, 1e and 4e are different games designed to cater to different styles of play????
how shocking

[MENTION=6957]TheAuldGrump[/MENTION] - spot on

[MENTION=18701]Oryan77[/MENTION] - it will indeed work itself out

 

[Barastrondo]

I have yet to see a discussion of "player skill" that allows for the fact that telling the DM what he wants to hear, wheedling the DM into changing his mind, convincing all the players to follow your lead whether you're right or wrong, even stealing glances at the DM's notes or currying the DM's favor with careful use of cleavage or rippling biceps are all literally player skills. If a player manages to get his or her character to legendary status by flirting with the DM and gaining favoritism, that is a skill just as much as reading up on Grimtooth's Traps is. It's not fair, and shouldn't be endorsed, but it's a skill just as being eloquently persuasive and therefore excelling in roleplay or in talking the rest of the group into following your plan is a skill.

There is no player skill without context. If you have developed the skills to survive the Tomb of Horrors, and carefully check every 10' x 10' section of hallway with a 10-foot pole and a rented sheep, those skills may actively hinder you in a rollicking swashbuckler of a game. The skills that kept you alive in one game are making the rest of the players bored and restless, and the GM irritated. Similarly, the DM who asks for creative and florid description of actions will get different results on a day when everyone's well-rested and a day when people are tired, sleepy and kind of just want to blow off some steam.

Rules are there largely to minimize the effect context has on a situation. This is a problem if you use them to override every context, such as the players getting enthusiastic and creative and wanting to try stuff out of the box. This is not a problem if you use them to let the players know ahead of time what they need to roll if they're worn out from a long day's work and aren't as sharp as they were last week. A really skilled GM counts the ability to switch back and forth between "let's check the rulebook" and "I'll make a ruling": relying on only one or the other is just leaving possible solutions on the table.

 

[Umbran]

And because the DM is the rulebook, players have to trust him.

Using a specific rulebook and sitting behind the screen doesn't make you a trustworthy person. Generally speaking, you must *earn* trust. By the time you've earned it, what ruleset or style you're using is moot.

 

[Thasmodious]

Codswallop dude! All those rules were created by an arbitrary brain in the first place and the case you're making is that a set of arbitrary thoughts written down is in some way different from another set of arbitrary thoughts not written down.

No, they weren't. The actual rules of a game are not arbitrary decisions. Games are built and designed, not just a compilation of whatever popped into the author's head as a way to respond to a situation. Numbers are balanced, the interplay of the mechanics are considered, systems are playtested. A published ruleset is not a series of arbitrary thoughts, but a cohesive system developed over time. Pretty much the opposite of arbitrary. Yes, even old school games had these considerations. The adventure design guidelines for 1e explained the math behind the system, expected wealth, encounter design, and other expectations of the system. The difference today is that the math is usually in the GM guides rather than in-house memos or author guidelines.

 

[Thunderfoot]

While I do miss those "golden" era game days, I call BS. The flavor text is so inflated it just does nothing but try to say, my fun is better than your fun....

Even if I were to think ruling not rules was better (which I do) the example described is STILL bogus. It has more to do with DMing skill than rule sets.

I have no problem discussing differences, what one person says they like versus another, but, please, don't spread poop on my cake and call it icing.