The first person to ever play a wizard. A short clip.

[Secrets of Blackmoor]

So, anyway, now that it's a 5 count time to step out of this and PM Jardr.

 

[pming]

Hiya!
[MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] After reading all that, I think we are actually not that far off as far as "general play style" goes. Where I think we differ isn't in experience (we have about the same), but how that decades of experience shaped our preferences for, hmmm, ..."expectation of play" with regards to how things come to be in our campaigns.

I think, overall, I could quite happily play in your game. I have no qualms about using published stuff as the 'default' for adding variety to a campaign...it's just not my preferred method. I can easily see your games as being full of interesting surprises and whatnot, even if most would be from various published sources. Where we differ is that, and this is just what it seems like to me, from your perspective a "published" addition isn't any better/worse from one that comes from the players/DM. I disagree with that. I think that stuff that comes from a player/DM is almost always preferable to looking for a published book that already has that 'idea' written down.

I guess it's kind of like "home cooked meals" vs. "restaurant meals". If someone has spent three and a half decades practicing and improving their cooking skills, I'd rather have that person cook me a meal than someone who may have similar experience, but be 'restricted' to particular brands of food, or amounts of spices, or some prescribed amount of foodstuff. Both meals may taste great...but I see greater value in having the 'home cooked meals' every day than having the restaurant ones. *shrug* Maybe it's got a lot to do with psychological preconceptions of "quality", who knows?

At any rate, I'll be quietly slinking back into the back here and just try and watch this thread. We pretty much seem to be at the infinite-loop part of a disagreement where I can keep putting out examples, and you can keep opposing them, then I put out different ones, then you put our opposing ones, then I oppose yours, then you mine, etc. For example, what I would say for "example" of 'bad' DM advice...pretty much all of 3.x/PF/4.x/5.x advice for "Encounter Building". I think the majority of that is just bad. It's got too many variables to be useful past the absolute bare minimum ("PC's are 4th level average, CR's of monsters should be around 1 to 5"). No, I'm not going to give specifics...because there aren't any. It's pretty much the entirety of that concept of "Balanced DM Encounter Building for Adventures". I think teaching newbie DM's that if they just follow these XP budges, and those CR limits, that their game will just "work". This teaches a DM to rely on numbers and 'outside' forces, as opposed to learning by trial and error, and just gaining experience behind the DM shield. Why aren't there any "PC Building Guides" in the books? Shouldn't there be entier sections devoted to Class/Race/Feat selections to create PC's that meet 5e's CR expectations? Why not? As it is, a player is expected to just read the books, and make characters. After enough time and experience they will get a feel for what particular combos fit in with their prefered method of play, as well as what 'works' in their DM's campaign. IMHO, a DM should learn the same way; just make encounters, adventures, and all that other stuff. Eventually they will figure out what works for them and their players. But when the DMG has specific sections denoting "If you take X, add for Y, and factor in Z...your encounter/campaign will be balanced" is... bad.

Too long a post now. I'll stop. No matter what...keep on playing by whatever means makes you (general you) happy!

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[pemerton]

what I would say for "example" of 'bad' DM advice...pretty much all of 3.x/PF/4.x/5.x advice for "Encounter Building". I think the majority of that is just bad. It's got too many variables to be useful past the absolute bare minimum ("PC's are 4th level average, CR's of monsters should be around 1 to 5"). No, I'm not going to give specifics...because there aren't any. It's pretty much the entirety of that concept of "Balanced DM Encounter Building for Adventures".

<snip>

when the DMG has specific sections denoting "If you take X, add for Y, and factor in Z...your encounter/campaign will be balanced" is... bad.

There are no sections in the 4e DMG that really fit what you describe here.

The advice in the 4e DMG is primarily descriptive - eg it tells you that encounters of a level more than two greater than the PCs will typically be hard, and will "really test the characters’ resources, and might force them to take an extended rest at the end" (p 104; see also pp 56-57). The experience of most 4e GMs that I've discussed the issue with is that these predictions are pretty accurate at Heroic Tier, but that at Paragon, and even moreso at Epic, you need to increase the level gap to really push the players to the extent suggested in the quoted passage. (I am currently running an upper-Epicl 4e campaign. To really push the players in the way described, I would use an encounter of level +8, ie 38th level for my 30th level PCs.)

Those pages in the 4e DMG also have some normative advice, but it is much more banal than what you describe:

It’s a good idea to vary the difficulty of your encounters over the course of an adventure . . .

If every encounter gives the players a perfectly balanced challenge, the game can get stale. . . .

The majority of the encounters in an adventure should be moderate difficulty - challenging but not overwhelming . . .

[M]ake sure to include about one [hard] encounter per character level. However, be careful of using high level soldiers and brutes in these encounters. Soldier monsters get really hard to hit when they’re five levels above the party, and brutes can do too much damage at that level.​

I think the advice about mixing things up is sound - though I think that story and mechanical variations (eg differences of NPC motivation, of combat range and terrain, etc) are ultimately more significant for 4e GMing than differences of encounter level.

I think the advice about avoiding too many high level soldiers is also sound (the advice about brutes I think is useful at very low levels but then the issue becomes less important as the mechanical parameters and hence dynamics of the game change).

The advice about the "majority" of encounters is probably not sound - I think that, on the whole, more "hard" encounters make the game better - but that's my own experience. I suspect others might disagree.

But in any event, I really doubt that this advice has done much serious damage to many games. Whereas I suspect that it has been helpful to some GMs (whether new in general, or new to 4e). It's certainly not the first advice I've read about paying attention to the mechanical threat posed by monsters or NPCs with whom the PCs are likely to come into conflict, although in earlier such discussions (I'm thinking Moldvay Basic, Gygax's DMG, early White Dwarfs, and similar sources) the emphasis is often on balancing risk against reward against dungeon level. Because 4e doesn't use a concept of dungeon level, the advice has to be a bit different in its details. But I think it is pretty similar from a big picture point of view.

I think that stuff that comes from a player/DM is almost always preferable to looking for a published book that already has that 'idea' written down.

I guess it's kind of like "home cooked meals" vs. "restaurant meals". If someone has spent three and a half decades practicing and improving their cooking skills, I'd rather have that person cook me a meal than someone who may have similar experience, but be 'restricted' to particular brands of food, or amounts of spices, or some prescribed amount of foodstuff. Both meals may taste great...but I see greater value in having the 'home cooked meals' every day than having the restaurant ones.

I'm not sure that the analogy to cooking really works, because I'm not sure that the main goal of RPGing is RPG design.

But anyway, I don't really follow your comment about "restrictions" - most Americans, for instance, I would guess are restricted to certain amounts of spices compared to the amounts that would be used by those whose cooking traditions originate in South Asia; and whether that's good or bad, I don't see quite how it relates to eating from a restaurant.

And even when it comes to home cooking - do you grow all your own vegetables? make your own pasta? Once I went to a colleague's place for dinner and the satay sauce came out of a jar.

Bringing it back to D&D - every time you build a dwarven fighter, or an elf F/MU, or write down +3 sword on your sheet, you're borrowing someone else's stuff. Borrowing stuff that was written and published more recently than the 1970s doesn't make it worse.

 

[Secrets of Blackmoor]

We posted some scans that we got from David Megarry. It is an original map of Blackmoor Town and a couple of detail shots relating to some of David's characters in Blackmoor.

You can find them here: https://www.facebook.com/blackmoorsecrets/posts/1228796163846563

 

[darjr]

Great article! Post it up in a separate thread!

 

[arjomanes]

Though it's deviated from the original topic some, I've enjoyed some of the conversation about the game's evolution and DMing.

I think the game has naturally changed as a result of some of the issues that come up in game play for a sophisticated game like D&D. For instance, there were examples in early modules and articles in The Dragon talking about how to provide good balance in the game (avoiding Monty Haul problems; creating balanced encounters that won't unnecessarily kill characters), whereas in later editions some of those ideas were codified with mechanics.

I think both ways are valid approaches. I don't think everyone who DMs can create a balanced monster, spell, class or item without good solid mechanics or examples. Now in some games, and for some gaming groups, unbalanced mechanics work well for the group. But some gaming groups I think want more codified and expected mechanics; others demand novel and unexpected results frequently.

I think both games are D&D. Examining both OD&D and 4e side-by-side not only documents the evolution of the game, but also examines gameplay in different ways. Some modern D&D publishers like Lamentations of the Flame Princess, Satyr Press, and Goodman Games purposely address an "old-school" game style focused more on a philosophy of gaming and a DIY aesthetic that is interesting, but is certainly not the only way to play the game.

 

[Lanefan]

I didn't say that encouragingh homebrew among players is exercising a high level of control. I said that complaints about players not being creative enough because they wanti to use published material seems to me often to be a GM wanting to exercise a high level of control over the game.

If a GM won't let a player use option XYZ that has (for the sake of argument) been playtested and published by a reputable RPG studio, is that GM really going to let the players go wild with their homebrew ideas? I'm not seeing it.

Whereas I'm far more likely to give a decent hearing to something a player came up with on his own for one simple reason: that player is thinking in terms of this campaign, this setting, this (or these) character(s), right now - meaning his ideas are more likely to be designed to suit it than something that came out of a book thought up by Author X in Game Y with no reference at all to the game I'm running here and now.

Never mind I'd prefer to encourage original independent thinking and inventiveness among the players.

Lan-"and the DM should be in control of the game, much like the referee is in control of a hockey game"-efan

 

[Lanefan]

And have also reached 5 posts! Without too much spamming. (EDIT: only 4 - apparently my counting/reading sucks.)

I show him/her/them at 6, so all is well.

I wasn't a gamer in the 1970s - I first played D&D in 1982 - but I did read history when I was 14. The first academic history text I remember reading (as opposed to histories written for non-adult readers) was East Asia: The Great Tradition (later combined with its successor volume into a one-volume abridgement called East Asia: Tradition and Transformation). This significantly informed my development of an Oriental Adventures campaign as a 14-year old.

Which is cool, but there's another way of approaching it: take what little you know of the historical culture, whether accurate or not, and fill in the rest with whatever you can dream up that's at least vaguely consistent. That's kind of how I've been doing it for nigh-on 35 years now.

For example: I'm well aware that the Norse and Greek gods were probably quite a bit different in the actual cultures than how I depict them in my game. But so what? I'm out to generate a playable fun game, not give a history lesson.

A player who wants to play a certain sort of character (say, a wizard of the High Tower) and who reads a supplement that gives ideas on how a wizard of the High Tower might be implemented into the game (mechanically, fictional conceits, etc) is engaging with the game. And is not just asking the GM to "provide a song and dance".

When the GM says "no", or complains about "player entitlement", I don't think that that is encouraging the player to engage further.

When the DM says "no" that's fair game; not everything is going to fit into every campaign no matter how hard you push. And your example points to a player who seems on the surface to be trying to make it fit by specifically reading up on mechanical and flavourful ideas as to how; the argument here I think is more against the player who doesn't even try to make it fit but just says "it's published, therefore I can use it", leaving it in the DM's lap to somehow make it fit in.

I would say that it sounds condescending. You're are extending a courtesy to yourself - you can take ideas from rulebooks, like +3 swords and INT as a stat and % chances of stat loss or stat gain, without being damaged as a RPGer - while accusing contemporary players who want to use ideas and mechanics that they find in books of doing it wrong.

It's a matter of trusting the source. Doubtless [MENTION=45197]pming[/MENTION] trusts his friend Chris because they know each other etc., and thus exchanging ideas makes loads of sense (I'm in a similar situation myself). And while I trust TSR/WotC to develop the core of the game I long ago learned not to trust their later add-ons and splats (the 1e Unearthed Arcana taught me that lesson!) and this has been re-proven with each passing edition up to 5e...which somewhat amazingly they haven't managed to butcher yet.

You prefer a game in which there are random chances of stat loss, or other unexpected mechanical degradation to PCs, and in which - presumably - that can be undone (given that you imagine a player planning how to get his/her INT back). But even back in the 1970s and 1980s there were people who weren't too keen on that particular approach to D&D play...

To speak bluntly: that's their problem, not mine.

...see eg Lewis Pulsipher writing critically about "lottery D&D" in White Dwarf c 1977 - and its relative absence today isn't a sign that players suck.

No, but it's a sign of some other things; none of them good.

Has a player ever - EVER - complained on getting an unexpected benefit to their character: a level out of nowhere, a permanent stat gain, a random magic item that just shows up for no reason? If yes, I'd be surprised.

Older D&D liked having those benefits be out there...but also wanted to temper them with the existence of the opposite: penalties, losses, degradation. No reward without risk. Players, of course, complained about the bad side while gleefully accepting the good, so in the long run the good gets baked into the system (see: automatic stat bumps by level in 3e and onward) while the penalties slowly disappear. Ridiculous.

And here's my rant in reply: a GM who never reads serious works of literary criticism, who can't tell the difference (from the literary point of view) between LotR and Dragonlance; or between REH's Conan and Thundarr the Barbarian; will never be a great GM, or really even a good one. Competent, sure, nothing wrong with just playing D&D to discover what piece of geography the GM stuck in the next hex. But to become a "real" GM - ie one who can actually frame the players (via their PCs) into gripping and thematically engaging scenes; who can tell when it is time to dial back the pressure and when it is time to push things harder than the players ever thought would happen; who can create a campaign with its own drama, its own meaning, with moral weight that makes the players sweat, and swear, and think that they wouldn't have had just as much fun reading an atlas or an encyclopedia? Not gonna cut it. Such a GM needs to engage with all that "boring" philosophy and literature and criticism and stuff and then apply it to his/her own creative muse.

Also a more practical point: if GM flexibility and improvisation is so important, then why would I bother to work out all the quirks, secrets, pitfalls etc in advance? I'll introduce the necessary story elements when I need them; when they make sense from the point of view of theme, drama, pacing, focus of player attention, etc. (And it also saves on carrying around folders of notes.)

What about a DM who *can* tell the difference between LotR and Dragonlance, but just doesn't care? Is that a "real DM, by your - I really have to say rather pretentious - definition?

If so, I guess I've been a fake all these years.

Lan-"the difference between Game of Thrones and Xena: Warrior Princess - much like LotR and DL - is that X:WP has a sense of humour, making me far more likely to use it for my game"-efan

 

[pemerton]

I've enjoyed some of the conversation about the game's evolution and DMing.

<snip>

Examining both OD&D and 4e side-by-side not only documents the evolution of the game, but also examines gameplay in different ways. Some modern D&D publishers like Lamentations of the Flame Princess, Satyr Press, and Goodman Games purposely address an "old-school" game style focused more on a philosophy of gaming and a DIY aesthetic that is interesting, but is certainly not the only way to play the game.

The only LotFP book (well, PDF) that I own is Death Frost Doom - the main schtick of this adventure is actually taken from an old (late-70s, I think) White Dwarf adventure called The Lichway, although the LotFP version is overall more interestingly and cleverly done.

That's one way to DIY!

Reading [MENTION=6866478]Secrets of Blackmoor[/MENTION]'s Facebook post, my favourite bits were "This map shows the history of many of the players. . . . The map is alive with activity that is created by the players; in Blackmoor things change according to what the players do."

The idea that the shared fiction (be it a map, or a political situation, or whatever) should change according to what the players do seems to me pretty fundamental to RPGing. (The exception would be "one-off" style CoC or other investigation scenarios, where the point for the players is to enjoy immersion in the situation rather than to really change it.)

But I see this as pretty orthogonal to who designs the mechanical game elements.

 

[Secrets of Blackmoor]

Just for a twist on this twisted topic. What about EP for not fighting, or just plain spending a lot of time talking to NPC's.

I was in a game several years ago and to get to the place we go and adventure we'd always come to this one place where there were troll guards on the road. I thought it would be fun to negotiate our passage with the monster, and it demanded one of our horses as payment. Not that I really cared about EP, but I asked the DM if we could get EP for resolving the situation and he said that because we did not kill it, we didn't. I stopped playing with that group a short time later because the players were basically murdering their way through everything and even torturing captives; not my kind of game, not to mention that it was Path Finder which I refer to as Rule Finder. (If I want fiddly combat I'll play civil war minis. )

--- The above criticism of Path Finder is merely an opinion. If you feel a need to fire a salvo, do so knowing full well that the hook has been baited and you may get trolled on the line a bit. ---

Oh yeah, the next time they played I could not make it, so they killed the Troll anyway. I had grown rather fond of my troll friend even if it wasn't real.

My new group has 2 novices and we play OD&D. On their first session they spent about 40 minutes talking to the innkeeper. Every group of players is so different.