The Guards at the Gate Quote

[Reynard]

Not with you here. I don't scale things (a gate guard is typically just a gate guard), but I'd be annoyed at this behavior.

I was being intentionally hyperbolic to underscore the importance of the game world responding to the PCs. That isn't to say that the PCs should be the center of the world, but their actions often impact many people around them and the setting should reflect this.

 

[S'mon]

I did read the 4e DMG, which seemed very much a mix of good advice that was never built upon and advice that ran counter to my experience.

The good generic GMing advice was copy/pasted from 3.5e Dungeon Mastering for Dummies. The bad advice was 4e-specific.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

The good generic GMing advice was copy/pasted from 3.5e Dungeon Mastering for Dummies. The bad advice was 4e-specific.

Ow. Just, ow.

How was the Essentials books in that regard? (Despite being a PFRPG GM I wanted Essentials to do well....)

The Auld Grump

 

[Reynard]

The good generic GMing advice was copy/pasted from 3.5e Dungeon Mastering for Dummies. The bad advice was 4e-specific.

Joking aside, I wonder what the 4E D&D for dummies says, or whatever counts for the Essentials DMG. Was this line of advice just Wyatt's or does it hold throughout the line?

 

[Wiseblood]

Encounters with James Wyatt quotes aren't fun so I skipped them.

 

[Jhaelen]

I don't really understand why this quote is so objectionable that it keeps coming up years later. To me it seems like common sense. Time is a relatively scarce resource when gaming, so why not spend it on pivotal encounters, and handwave the mundane?

Well, I can understand it if you look at the first two sentences in isolation. Taken in context with his other examples I tend to agree:

An encounter with two guards at the city gate isn’t fun. Tell the players they get through the gate without much trouble and move on to the fun. Niggling details of food supplies and encumbrance usually aren’t fun, so don’t sweat them, and let the players get to the adventure and on to the fun. Long treks through endless corridors in the ancient dwarven stronghold beneath the mountains aren’t fun. Move the PCs quickly from encounter to encounter, and on to the fun!

The problem is simply that a guard encounter is not a very good example of something that should be skipped (always). Isn't it telling that it's called an encounter?

In my experience players are usually quite grateful for the change of pace that encounters with mundane npcs bring about. Dealing with city guards, merchants, innkeepers, farmers or urchins can be fun to roleplay even if (or precisely because) there's nothing important at stake.
It's also an excellent means to provide some setting background and feedback regarding the pcs' adventurous exploits.

Of course you can overdo it and an entire session spent going shopping and talking about the weather will be boring.

The rest of the examples are better, imho. Taken with a pinch of salt, the advice is good.

 

[Reynard]

The rest of the examples are better, imho. Taken with a pinch of salt, the advice is good.

Well, the second example is a little better because it includes the modifier "usually" -- which is still off the mark, I think, but closer to what should have been "might not be" or something similar. The last bit just blows my mind -- in D&D, exploring the dungeon isn't fun? Really?

In the end, how any group plays their game doesn't really matter (unless I happen to end up at the table with them) but how the information is presented by the authors/designers, does. Wyatt making an effort to badwrongfun certain playstyles is endemic of lots of things about 4E that are, IMO, wrongheaded and the reason it is -- again, IMO -- a terrible version of D&D.

Granted, I have not looked at a 4E book since the initial set (exception: the monster vault, as I flipped through the book after getting the tokens) so maybe the game, and the game's "attitude" has changed.

 

[S'mon]

Joking aside, I wonder what the 4E D&D for dummies says, or whatever counts for the Essentials DMG. Was this line of advice just Wyatt's or does it hold throughout the line?

I wasn't actually joking - get hold of a copy of the 3.5e Dummies book and you'll see what I mean. It is literally copied word-for-word. And like I said, that is the part of the 4e DMG that is good, sensible advice.

I don't have the Essentials DM's Kit so I don't know how it compares.

 

[S'mon]

Well, I can understand it if you look at the first two sentences in isolation. Taken in context with his other examples I tend to agree:

>>An encounter with two guards at the city gate isn’t fun. Tell the players they get through the gate without much trouble and move on to the fun. Niggling details of food supplies and encumbrance usually aren’t fun, so don’t sweat them, and let the players get to the adventure and on to the fun. Long treks through endless corridors in the ancient dwarven stronghold beneath the mountains aren’t fun. Move the PCs quickly from encounter to encounter, and on to the fun! <<

The problem is simply that a guard encounter is not a very good example of something that should be skipped (always). Isn't it telling that it's called an encounter?

In my experience players are usually quite grateful for the change of pace that encounters with mundane npcs bring about. Dealing with city guards, merchants, innkeepers, farmers or urchins can be fun to roleplay even if (or precisely because) there's nothing important at stake.
It's also an excellent means to provide some setting background and feedback regarding the pcs' adventurous exploits.

Of course you can overdo it and an entire session spent going shopping and talking about the weather will be boring.

The rest of the examples are better, imho. Taken with a pinch of salt, the advice is good.

The only reasonable bit IMO is the third sentence: "Niggling details of food supplies and encumbrance usually aren’t fun, so don’t sweat them, and let the players get to the adventure and on to the fun". It's reasonable because (a) food supplies and encumbrance are not inherently exciting and (b) it's equivocated with 'niggling' and 'usually', leaving open the possibility of times when they may be important/dramatic.
Whereas both city gate guards, and trekking through Moria-typed ruined dwarven fortresses, are classic elements of D&D, and using them as unequivocal Not Fun was really poor advice IMO.

 

[S'mon]

Was this line of advice just Wyatt's or does it hold throughout the line?

The DMG2 advice is much more nuanced, a lot of it is generic - good - stuff by Robin Laws, who I doubt plays 4e D&D. My only big criticism of the DMG2 advice is that its advice on campaign structure only allows for linear pre-plotted campaigns, like a published Adventure Path. This is a poor approach to individual campaign design IMO because the GM has already 'written the story' and, even though his players may be happy, the GM may suffer from boredom and burn-out - he's already seen the campaign, so there's nothing new/exciting from running it. That's what happened to Wyatt's 'Greenbriar Chasm' campaign - many months planning it in Dungeon Magazine from levels 1-30, with the 'good stuff' planned for Paragon Tier, then he burned out on it after 2 levels, got bored and stopped running it. IMO that's a huge danger with that approach.