Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Noumenon" data-source="post: 5803022" data-attributes="member: 70102">I've seen game designers define "core mechanic" like this before:That's how I took it -- that Monte meant saying "I want to X" and waiting for the DM to respond was what you're supposed to do in D&D. It's D&D's equivalent of Halo's "30 seconds of fun."Situation 1: "You can't jump 30 feet here because you're in orbit, and wearing magnetic space boots." A-OK with me.Situation 2: "You can't jump 30 feet because I don't play with a battlemat, or because I rule that jumping provokes AoOs that stop you and knock you prone and also causes falling damage whenever you land."I'm not happy with this, the book promised me jumping 30 feet and didn't say it would be worthless.Basically, as a control freak, I want to know beforehand whether something is going to work (barring fun surprises), and not have to ask the DM.The Dragon Age: Origins DM is better than most DMs I've seen. It's certainly better than me. It has a hugely detailed campaign world and fits your character into those details, it provides encounters based on what parts of the story you found interesting, it provides all kinds of meaningful choices (especially in regard to your NPC companions, who you can leave to die if you want, gradually coax into sharing their story, or influence their perspective till they've totally changed their outlook on life). The DA:O DM lets you go wherever you want way better than human DMs can, keeps the challenge level balanced, lets you talk your way through some encounters instead of fighting, lets you influence politics, and all kinds of other stuff good DMs are supposed to do. It's really good.When I DM, being the math coprocessor is one of the things that's fun for me. Story and exploration are more work, so I like to run modules. I also like imagining how the adventure is going to go beforehand. I don't feel like I'm giving up my chance to be a hero, it's more like I get to play five or six different character sheets each session (and be guaranteed their abilities will actually work).The DM is a player, and a friend, but the game doesn't consist of interacting with him that much. It's like Settlers of Catan -- you interact while playing Settlers, but interacting is not a big part of gameplay. DMing itself is pretty interactive, though, as it's all focused on what the players will enjoy the most based on what they're thinking right now. If Monte had phrased his quote from the DM's perspective, I might have seen no problem with it. If he had said,That matches a lot better the way I like to play, even though it replaces interaction with just action.</blockquote>

Verification