Take the GM out of the Equation- A 3e design philosophy

[Majoru Oakheart]

The d20 mechanic is elegant. Stacking rules, AoOs, advanced combat etc are additions that take elegance into a dark alley with a crowbar and murderous intent.

Actually. It's these exact things that MAKE the system more consistant and manageable. When I ran 2nd edition D&D, I spent nearly every session arguing with my players about rules.

They'd say "Ok, so I have X magic item, X magic item, and X spell on me. That means I need 2s to hit and do 30 points of damage."

I'd say "What? How can you possibly have that high bonuses?"

They'd then explain to me that since they had a vast array of magic items and spells and none of them said they didn't work with one another, they were an indestructable god right now.

Either that or:
Player: "So I want to grab him and drag him to the ground".
Me: "Ok, make me a strength check and tell me how much you succeed by."
Player: "A strength check? But I'm so agile, I figured I could roll under his feet and trip him. Can't I make a dex check instead?"
Me: "Hmm. The book doesn't have any rules on grappling or tripping. Sure, I guess that makes sense, you can use dex to do it."
Other Player: "What? You told me I had to use strength last week!"
Me: "Did I? I don't remember that."
Other Player: "You certainly did, remember, with the Troll?"
Me: "Oh, that was different, you said you were planning on tripping him, that takes strength."
Other Player: "But HE'S trying to trip this guy, what's the difference?"
Me: "It just IS ok, stop arguing!"
Other Player: "This is stupid, you just like him better!"

Or pretty much every time I ruled on anything, it would cause an arguement as everyone in the group started discussing the realism of my ruling.

My favorites are still:
"No one can run that fast in real life, look, I pulled out the Guiness Book of World Records."
"Swords aren't designed to do that, if he tried that, he'd be cutting off his own arm."
and on and on.

Now, I can say "He makes a trip attempt, can you make a strength or dex check whichever is higher and tell me what you get." and no one argues.

I can say "Look, he's an Ogre, he's got a base move of 40, he's a barbarian, and he has boots of striding and springing. He's fast, alright." and no one spends forever lecturing me on it being impossible for anyone to move that fast. It's in the rules, so I'm obviously not making it us.

I used to come away from nearly every session I DMed in 2nd edition with a headache and wanting to shoot some of my friends. Now, I can play with them and have fun. It even gives me a basis for rules variations as long as they are close to the ones that are written in the book. For instance, "all you can see is his eye, I'm going to give him +8 to his AC as he has more than usual cover." and no one argues.

Yes, it takes more prep time...well it does if I go for customer monsters or the enemies being PC classes. Otherwise, it's even easier than it was before. In 2nd ed, I'd spend forever when I was running an on the fly adventure looking through the Monsterous Manual searching through monster stats thinking "Will this enemy totally kill them or will it be too easy?" Now, I go to the end of the book, look up their average party level and choose an enemy from the list at their CR or close to it if I feel like it being hard. I then run it with no changes, directly out of the MM.

It makes everything so much easier.

 

[Nisarg]

Yeah, but then you're back to DM's Fiat. It's a viscious cycle, really.

There's nothing wrong with GM fiat. I never stat out a single character in my game, I never worry about whether its "legal" for an NPC or monster to have x ability or feat or class, I often never even bother to figure out what classes they have. Sometimes I get them to battle without actually having determined what their combat bonuses are, or how many hit points they have.

It doesn't matter. What matters is how well I present the action, and how entertaining my pcs find the game. They don't know that I don't stat it all out, they just know they're in for a vicious sack beating if they question me on an NPC's power or stats, or question me in general.

The way to go is: "less rules for the DMs, more vicious sack beatings for the players".

That is the route to fun for the whole family.

The idea that the DM must follow the rules, when in fact the DM is god, is an absurdist concept borne of the very same people who think God must follow certain rules or be the way they want. Who can harness the unstoppable force that is the DM?

To try to insist on doing so is infantile. Its pathetic children whining that "its not fair" that they don't get to be Superman, or Santa Clause.

It might be important, for a group of 13 or 14 year olds playing D&D, but really its an idea that has to be removed as early as is humanely possible if you want to create a true DM out of someone, and not just a rules-spouting automaton who's adventures have no soul.

Nisarg

 

[hong]

Are you on the sauce again, Nisarg?

 

[Faraer]

It's certainly nice to have these design principles stated outright.

Although this one was always fairly evident. For myself, I wouldn't want to play under a DM whose judgements were no better than what a rigid ruleset provided, and I agree with Nisarg above. I think it's unfortunate that some d20 advocates can't admit that, for many players and many styles of play, optimizing the rules for less competent groups harms their value for more competent groups. And philosophically, I think improvisatory DMing is easier than rules-memorization -- it's using intuitive knowledge of how stories work that everyone has, as opposed to the learned ability of rules adjudication -- except when you present the latter as the norm and the former as something difficult, which has been very harmful to the RPG culture.

 

[hong]

It's certainly nice to have these design principles stated outright.

Although this one was always fairly evident. For myself, I wouldn't want to play under a DM whose judgements were no better than what a rigid ruleset provided, and I agree with Nisarg above.

Nisarg: "The players can't be Superman, because I'm the DM and I bags wearing underpants on the outside".

Strangely enough, you can have flexibility without also having a big head. Because that's MY schtick, and people keep coming in and STEALING MY SCHTICK.

I think it's unfortunate that some d20 advocates can't admit that, for many players and many styles of play, optimizing the rules for less competent groups harms their value for more competent groups.

If these groups really are more competent, they'll know how to pick and choose the bits they want to keep without whinging about it on online forae.

 

[Faraer]

This is self-evident stuff. Yes, with perfect awareness, rules-thinking ability, and time you can twist any ruleset to make it work for you. Yes, system does matter and systems can be discussed as they are written and as they *tend* to work in play without ad-hominem talk of whinging.

 

[Nisarg]

You rang?

I think the basic point here is the design challenge of something like the D&D core system, where you're trying to write something for the brand-new-to-the-game 12 year old player and the been-playing-since-before-electricity experienced player (like I'm sure most of ENWorld's readership is). If we erred, we probably erred on the side of the new guy, assuming that the experienced players will just strip out or overrule anything they don't like.

Precisely. The only problem is some of those ancient-DMs having a lapse of reason and for some asinine reason thinking the rules apply to them when it should be blatantly familiar to them that if you are a real DM, made of the real stuff, then no rules apply to you, ever!

Of course, increasingly the other problem is hapless witless young guys who only ever grew up Dming D&D3e thinking that DMs actually do have to follow these rules, they're like sad domesticated lions unaware of their true jungle heritage; and whiny little players who've grown up on 3e thinking they can make demands of real DMs the way they do of these young eunuchs of theirs... a few vicious sack beatings sort these kids out pretty quick.

Nisarg

 

[hong]

Goddamn, IHBT.

No more beer at 1 am for me!

 

[diaglo]

Goddamn, IHBT.

No more beer at 1 am for me!

stop hitting my homebrew stock.

i told you the stuff was potent.

diaglo "i'mpotent" Ooi

i don't think that came out right.

 

[Nisarg]

The question, now, is: How does a DM reattain his power but still play 3E? Is it possible?

Vicious Sack Beatings.

Nisarg