Something, I think, Every GM/DM Should Read

[chaochou]

This quote, from pg. 7 of the 1E AD&D DMG, seems most appropriate for many of these posts...

"The danger of a mutable system is that you or your players will go too far in some undesireable direction and end up with a short-lived campaign. Participants will always be pushing for a game which allows them to become strong and powerful far too quickly. Each will attempt to take the game out of your hands (out of the DM's hands) and mold it to his or her own ends."

-E. Gary Gygax

The man knew what he was talking about.

Crucially, though - no he didn't.

Sorry if that's slaughtering some folks' sacred cows, but Gygax wrote this stuff in ignorance of the Threefold Model, GNS and later game theories which have developed and informed play since the early 90s.

So some of it is simply outdated, inherently assuming specific modes of play, social contracts and creative agendas which weren't necessarily true even in 1979 and certainly can't be assumed now.

Other sections of the DMG were pretty silly even back then - attacking 'problem players you deem worthy of saving' with ethereal mummies, bolts from the heavens and lowering their stats until they do what you say - and look, to me and others, both hysterically funny in their pomposity and terrible, dysfunctional advice.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Since this tangent arose from my post, I feel like you continue to paint my statement with the wrong brush, though I've elaborated on what I meant.

I'm sorry that you feel that way, as it certainly was not my intention. As mentioned upthread, I am no longer certain that your difference in this area is of kind (i.e., that you actually disagree with anyone's held opinion) but of language (i.e., that you disagree with the way said held opinion is expressed).

I could, of course, be wrong.


RC

 

[Raven Crowking]

I never said that it makes the GM a bad one.

No; I know that, and I did not mean to imply that you did.

In most of these discussions IME and IMHO you retain a moderate position, promoting the style you enjoy while being aware that others have other preferences. I appreciate that, actually!

Your post sparked the thought, but the thought was a response to the thread, not to you specifically.


RC

 

[Raven Crowking]

Crucially, though - no he didn't.

Six of one; half dozen of the other.

I still find that the 1e DMG has the best advice for GMing overall, of any product that I've ever read, and energized one for the task far more than every other edition's DMG to boot! "Threefold Model, GNS and later game theories" be damned -- Gygax knew people, and he knew games. IMHO, most of the problems of later editions occur because the designers failed to understand the earlier work, and tinkered without compensating for the knock-on effects that even broad-based balance has. Or, in some cases, they may not have understood the appeal (to some, not all) or function of broad-based balance.

OTOH, things like "attacking 'problem players you deem worthy of saving' with ethereal mummies, bolts from the heavens and lowering their stats until they do what you say" was bad advice even the day before it was written.


RC

 

[Ariosto]

I am inclined to agree with pemerton's assessment.

For me, this is one reason why 4e (in the words of the OP) "lends itself to being 'stale' and 'boring'."

 

[Ariosto]

I'll repeat an example I gave upthread: if a player has his/her PC knock a snake prone, and if the consensus at the table is that this means that the snake has been flipped onto its back and hence is at least moderately indisposed, then this has implications for the DC of a Perception check to notice any markings on the snake's back.

Are the implications

-- that it is easier because the snake is indisposed?
or
-- that it is harder because the back is not visible?

 

[Ariosto]

Sorry if that's slaughtering some folks' sacred cows, but Gygax wrote this stuff in ignorance of the Threefold Model, GNS and later game theories which have developed and informed play since the early 90s.

The only sacred cows on the chopping block from my perspective are your favored fads and fallacies. Ignorance of nonsensical or false claims and overbearing ideologies is hardly an impediment to offering sound advice from actual experience!

Your advice that's great for playing some other game would be pretty crappy for playing Gary's game -- that launched the hobby and industry, and is still played today. Just how that's a knock against him is a puzzle.

 

[Fifth Element]

Ignorance of nonsensical or false claims and overbearing ideologies is hardly an impediment to offering sound advice from actual experience!

Well, if you want to invoke experience, chaochou was talking about things developed from peoples' actual experience in playing RPGs for several decades after Gygax's words were written.

The DMG was published in what, 1977? We (as in, people involved in the hobby) have an awful lot more experience in playing RPGs in 2011 that we do in 1977. So if experience is all that matters, we have massive advantages over 1977-vintage Gygax. 34 years' worth of advantages.

 

[Thasmodious]

Isn't what is, in part, up for grabs in this discussion to what extent and in what ways the GM, in carrying out his/her responsibility, is obliged to adjudicate the rules?

I'll repeat an example I gave upthread: if a player has his/her PC knock a snake prone, and if the consensus at the table is that this means that the snake has been flipped onto its back and hence is at least moderately indisposed, then this has implications for the DC of a Perception check to notice any markings on the snake's back. In a mainstream game it is the GM who has responsibility for adjudicating this situation, and setting the DC (and I think this also relates to LostSoul's idea of "the moment of judgement").

But the GM having that particular adjudicative responsibility is quite consistent with the GM lacking any more general power to suspend the action resolution rules (eg by declaring unilaterally and spontaneously that a "knock prone" power won't work against a snake). And there is no reason to think that the GM lacking that more general power will, as a matter of necessity or even as a matter of course, deprive the GM of the capacity to deliver a fun game. Of course for certain gaming groups interested in certain sorts of fun, it might, but that turns on details about particular play experience desired (eg consensus vs immmersion vs coherent fiction vs etc, etc) and what sorts of understandings about who enjoys what authority will reliably produce that experience - which I believe to be a fairly subtle matter.

This is money, IMO (and couldn't xp you for it).

To the question first, that's what I've been arguing. The GMs ability to adjudicate comes into play when the rules don't expressly cover something or a corner case comes up where different rules conflict or are unclear. Adjudicating does not include the arbitrary overriding of established rules that the players are working off of as the basis for predictive interaction with the gameworld. The designers assigned the monsters immunities where appropriate (stone golems can't be sleeped or poisoned, etc), and on the spot assigning new ones affects player choice on the fly without player input.

For me, if the DM feels that 4e powers present situations which defy logic and he wants to overrule them when he feels that way, this is something that players should know before the game begins so they are informed of the modification to the source they have to base their expectations on (the rules). If I knew my DM hated Come and Get It because of the seeming mental domination aspect (an interpretation of the power I don't agree with), I just wouldn't take it in the first place.

I am not a RAW-uber-alles type at all. I modify the heck out of about any system I touch, but those modifications are presented to the players before the game begins and if I find a reason to tweak with elements of a system later, any changes are communicated with the group and voted on.

 

[Ariosto]

Well, if you want to invoke experience, chaochou was talking about things developed from peoples' actual experience in playing RPGs for several decades after Gygax's words were written.

The DMG was published in what, 1977? We (as in, people involved in the hobby) have an awful lot more experience in playing RPGs in 2011 that we do in 1977. So if experience is all that matters, we have massive advantages over 1977-vintage Gygax. 34 years' worth of advantages.

1979.

How can you miss something so obvious as that Gary was talking about playing his game -- ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS -- not about playing a Ron Edwards or Vincent Baker game?

I think the actual bit of advice actually in question, though, is probably not just applicable to their games but repeated by them. It has been most thoroughly taken to heart, indeed been the great rallying cry, of the majority of fans of 3e and 4e D&D, especially informing the assessment of "flaws" in the former to be corrected in the latter.

The Forge-ies have great advice about how to follow their ideologies, if that's your bag. They don't know (and don't want to know) jack about being a Dungeon Master, though.

It's like claiming that a great winemaker is handicapped by being ignorant of the religious beliefs of my tea-totaler grandparents!