The Migration of Information Across the Screen

[wingsandsword]

Personally, I don't see the DM having a bunch of secret rules as a good thing.

At least to me, a good game does not come from the players being ignorant of the rules and DM's making ad hoc rulings because they can get away with it because the PC's don't know better.

The rules are the basic tools by which the players and DM describe the world and their actions in it. I do see maybe some "back in the day" nostalgia for when you didn't know the rules quite as well but the DM did and you trusted what the DM said about the rules (I remember that from when I was starting in the AD&D era as well).

You can run an excellent campaign within the RAW (especially when you can get creative with the RAW), and if the PC's are mature enough to roll with it when the DM sees the need to step outside them then so much the better.

 

[Jack7]

To me the real problem with it (what Reynard describes) is not regarding the rule set at all. I agree with the general thrust of distributing work-load among all participants, players and DM alike.

My problem with the idea is one of information redistribution.

If the players know every detail of the game-world beforehand, know every spell and monster stat, even those they have not yet encountered, then it becomes nearly impossible to surprise, delight, and truly challenge them.

Or even to challenge them with any type of novelty. That means the only type of challenge left to them is one of an "unbalanced encounter." It becomes then less a game of role play and one more of "tactical information gathering." It is preliminary Intel work done at the gaming level. And if your Intel is flawless, because your source material information is perfect, then much of the surprise and real challenge of any game setting instantly evaporates.

So yes, I'm all for more equal work load distribution, I'm all against Intel and information equality.

My players will find out what the monster or NPC can do when they encounter that monster or NPC. They won't be reading faultless Intel reports beforehand (you don't even get that kind of thing in the modern real world with far superior means of information sharing) out of a book that wouldn't really exist in that world. Though I have nothing against DMs developing complex rumor systems, or even in-world books that might describe certain aspects of the world that the players could consult. But it is hard to imagine such in-world books being "perfect" or absolutely complete.

For instance in a setting there might be a Tacticon (there is a Tacticon in my setting, which the players add to every now and then as they learn more or gain their own experiences), which gives advice on how to fight certain enemies, or even a Monstercon, telling you how to fight certain monsters.

But such in-world information sources should not be like telling the players, "Hey, go read the Monster Manual and you'll know exactly how many hit points damage you need to do to kill Orcus."

That's pure gamism and makes for no kind of interesting in-game challenge to me.

 

[Plane Sailing]

One way in which giving this information to the DM was good was that the DM handled the mechanics of the adventure, and the players got immersed in the adventure itself. This was the default setup of OD&D in many ways, and it made a brilliant introduction to the game in my experience.

That isn't about "making the DM god" or some such. It was enhancing the players ability to get immersed in the game without worrying about the mechanics.

Nowadays the mechanics are a large part of the adventure itself, which may be one of the reasons why you see more mechanics in the players handbook.

Cheers

 

[Jack7]

That isn't about "making the DM god" or some such. It was enhancing the players ability to get immersed in the game without worrying about the mechanics.

Nowadays the mechanics are a large part of the adventure itself...

and setting and adventure immersion sometimes suffer correspondingly...

I couldn't give you XP PS, but excellent observation.

 

[ppaladin123]

Will a later 4E book give the players monster stats (say, "The Summoner's Guidebook" or some such thing)?

If this does happen, I am fairly certain that the monsters players can summon will bear little relation to the monsters in the monster manual. 4e is pretty dedicated to the idea that players and npcs/monsters play by different sets of rules. In this instance then, the DM still has access to exclusive information in the form of "antagonistic monster stats," (unless the players read the MM and DM, which they could do in any edition).

Actually that's a big difference between 4e and 3e. You can't assume that anything you know about your character mechanics applies to the monsters/npcs you encounter. That may give DMs more narrative control/fudge room. Of course this is relative...player mechanics are still just as explicit if not more so (i.e. the increasingly transparent math).

 

[CapnZapp]

Up until 3E I definitely agree with the OP's theory.

And for player characters, I agree this trend is continued by 4E.

But you're forgetting a major reversal here: 4E monsters.

In 4E, the DM can tell his players a monster is breaking even the most fundamental rules and they can't do anything about it. Because it might be the DM's house creation, or it might be a core monster ability.

(Now we're kind of assuming the DM isn't expected to just make stuff up. In groups who place their trust completely in the hands of their DM this entire thread is of course a non-issue)

But to return to my point: for PC statistics, probabilities and such; yes, 4E is more transparent than ever.

If 4E was a PvP game, the players could pretty much run it all by themselves. Which I guess is your point. But that's much less important to the overall play experience than the simple fact there isn't any transparency when it comes to monsters.

And 4E is decidedly a PvE game. So monsters (and NPCs) is everything.


(And just saying the PCs can memorize the MM by heart doesn't help either. The DM can make up his own critters, using the MM monsters as precedents for breaking all kinds of rules)

The players can't simply second-guess a monster's abilities in the "it just did this, so now it needs to do that" sense.

(Except for the rare monster-as-a-full-PC-class monster of course. But those seem to be exceptionally rare bordering on non-existent as far as I understand it)



(By the way: all this is good in my view )

 

[Lanefan]

The idea of players becoming DM co-processors is fine, *except* that it really cannot happen without a serious loss of mystery; and particularly when dealing with new players this is a Bad Thing. The bigger issue is that the system has become complex enough to overload the DM's own processor abilities, giving the mechanically-minded players a significant advantage over those who are not so; or at least a lot more of an advantage than when using a mechanics-lite or mechanics-hidden system.

Lanefan

 

[Keldryn]

In reading through and examining the PHB and DMG of each edition, I notice that there is a consistent movement of information from the DM's side of the screen to the players' side and very little flow back to the DM.

Perhaps the most obvious example is hit probability. In 1E, the DMG contained the combat matrices. While the players were told the relative combat skills of the various classes, the actual numbers were the province of the DM -- and not just the basic probability, but many of the affecting modifiers as well.

Even back when I was playing 1st Edition, I had always thought that the combat matrices, saving throw tables, and turning undead charts felt like they were missing from the PHB. At the time, I just assumed it was because the three core books had been released about a year apart from each other (MM 1977, PHB 1978, DMG 1979) and the game system wasn't actually finished being written until the DMG's release in '79. Given that the books weren't released at the same time, I guess it was assumed that players would supplement the "new" AD&D books with their original D&D rules... I don't know, because I didn't start playing until 1987 when I was 13.

But it always felt to me like those tables belonged in the PHB, not the DMG, and I just chalked it up to the system still being under development when the PHB came out. Thus, additional notes on spells were in the DMG because of issues that came up after the spell descriptions in the PHB had been written. Made sense to me at 13, anyway. I'm sure that some of it was done to preserve a sense of "mystery," but some of it was probably also because the system was still being developed.

As a DM I'm glad to have that sort of mechanical info in the hands of the players, as it offloads some of the number-crunching work that I have to do when running the game. And I always prefer it if the players aren't reading the MM, DMG, and other booked intended for the DM, but most players I know also DM at times, and it's not a realistic expectation. However, I always do (politely) insist that players not consult the DMG and MMs during play. Didn't seem to be much of an issue for me in 1e and 2e games, but Summon Monster spells in 3e really started to annoy me after a while. Something about using the Monster Manual as an in-game spell catalogue rubbed me the wrong way.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

I'd make this an even longer, better organized post, but it's getting late so I'll just put up some random notes I jotted down while reading the thread.

Concerning where the combat matrices were in 1E - just being in the DMG doesn't mean that players weren't still given that information as a matter of course. Saying that the DMG is for DM's and players should keep their busybody noses out of it didn't mean that all the info in there was "forbidden knowledge". It meant that the players should be letting the DM run the game, not having the players run the DM.

Don't read too much into the lack of organization and coordination between the 1E PH and DMG. As Gary stated therein this was all very piecemeal stuff being pulled together from various existing sources as well as new added stuff. That is to say that Gary and other DM's had been using a lot of it. But then again, he later admitted that some parts he definitely did NOT use and were included only to appease others who DID want such information. The fact that some stuff that probably SHOULD have gone into the PH instead went to the DMG only indicates that the release of the MM, PH, and DMG were each a YEAR apart - the game was being written AS it was being released.

The downside of the game being handed over to the players is... the game is being handed over to the players - which means it is gradually being taken OUT of the hands of the DM, in whose hands it had been SOLIDLY placed in previous edtions. With 3E I believe the pendulum swung too far over the course of its printed lifetime from DM to player control, with the DM being seen as subservient to the rules and held IN CHECK by the players manipulation of the rules. In older editions (OD&D and 1E especially) the DM was for practical purposes a "codesigner" who was fully expected to add, modify and delete as he saw fit. It wasn't until the players were presented with practical realities (if not open statements) to the effect of, "These are the OFFICIAL rules, accept no substitutes," that I personally started to chafe as a DM against the shift towards the players.

In the old days players DID have a different experience when playing the game. By being denied UPFRONT information from the MM and DMG they HAD to approach play from a learn-as-you-go standpoint, and don't expect things to always remain the same. As of 3E it started to become a matter of, these are the rules, the rules do not change, you may as well have access to the lot from the get-go. I feel that much information that has been given over to players IS better left as a mystery to be revealed to them by the DM through active play. That means players should be expected to NOT have access to the MM and DMG.

If nothing else the downside to the players is that they are OVERWHELMED with information that they are expected to master if they want to be considered as being "good players". I've come to see a lot of complaints from players on the boards about their fellow players ability to "play a fighter PROPERLY" or words to that effect. There isn't supposed to be right/wrong way to play D&D - until there IS because someone wants it to be so.

A lot of the discussion could be summed up as the continuing struggle of D&D as a rules-heavy game versus D&D as a rules-light game. Both approaches have been tried. The same approach does not work for everyone.

Rules laywers were a pox on 1E DM's. It only became worse when WotC started treating the rules for D&D in exactly the same way they treated the rules for the competitive game of M:tG. Rules lawyers were given the training, legal precedent, and tacit approval to insist that the DM is not, in fact, ultimately in charge of the game - the rules are.

I nonetheless have encouraged DM's to be transparant with their rulings and what they do behind the screen. When players know WHY the DM is ruling as he does they have less/no reason to object that he does indeed make the rules.

The discussion has reminded me that in 1E we came to refer to the PH as, "The Book of Common Knowledge." Mostly it was just as a reminder that players do still need to have a reliable source to refer to that their characters operate under, and it was the one thing the DM couldn't tell them not to look at. At the very least if a DM was going to change/omit information from it there should be a hard copy for players to refer to.

In 3E the players and DM eventually came to be expected to be held strictly to the same set of rules - which I hold to be total bunk.

I'm also reminded that during the big runup to the release of 3E and just after I said (a LOT) that 3E should be judged according to how 3E did what it did, not according to how 2E or 1E did it. That is, just because it did things differently didn't make it either superior or inferior. Judge each version of the game by its OWN merits, by what IT purports to do (or doesn't purport to do but does.)

Lastly, yes it's true in any edition that the DM can make up his own monsters, but that's one of the great fallacies. The DM shouldn't HAVE to make up his own monsters due to the players being GIVEN complete access to monster data.

I otherwise agreee with Jack7 and Plane Sailing.

 

[Plane Sailing]

and setting and adventure immersion sometimes suffer correspondingly...

I couldn't give you XP PS, but excellent observation.

Thank you very much. I'll add them to my "virtual" tally