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The Neutral Referee, Monty Haul, and the Killer DM: History of the GM and Application to 5e
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<blockquote data-quote="overgeeked" data-source="post: 8706997" data-attributes="member: 86653"><p>I think what you're missing is that the game isn't limited in that sense. There aren't only stealth or diplomacy or whatever missions the PCs can pick up and engage with. They also wouldn't have complete enough knowledge of the future to know whether only those kinds of things would come up when taking on any given quest, etc. It's like thinking that because the door of a dungeon is locked all you need is a lockpick to complete the dungeon. Not so much.</p><p></p><p>The whole point is to have a living, breathing world that's running in the background. Independent of the PCs and their skills. The world doesn't care what the PCs are good at. The neutral referee doesn't only put things in the world that the PCs will have a good chance of succeeding at. The neutral referee creates a world and lets the PCs interact with it however well, or however badly, they choose to.</p><p></p><p>So the PCs are focused on stealth and they only try to complete quests, missions, etc they think are tailored to their skills, great. <strong><em>The world isn't designed around that assumption</em></strong>. The world keeps on moving and changing regardless of what the PCs do. It will change and react to the PCs' actions, of course, but if they ignore a problem it doesn't go away. Which means if they ignore the necromancer raising an army of the dead to march on the valley the PCs live in...their home will be overrun with undead. If they try to stealth their way through that and fail...okay, now they're stuck in a massive fight they aren't prepared for because they focused on stealth and not combat.</p><p></p><p>The notion of "the PCs are good at stealth so only put in stealth missions" isn't how this style of running games works. It's the almost opposite of that. Not hammering on the PCs' weaknesses, but the world is what it is...</p><p></p><p>The world exists independently of the players <em>and their characters</em>.</p><p></p><p>If the PCs are bad at combat and they get into a combat, they're toast. If the PCs are bad at stealth and they need stealth, they're toast. This is where the notion of <strong><em>needing</em></strong> a well-rounded party comes from. If they can't handle something, they're going to get hammered there. Not because the referee is targeting their weaknesses, rather because <em><strong>the neutral world inevitably includes all those things they're no good at</strong></em>. But they still have to face those obstacles regardless. So they either have a well-rounded party, ignore a lot of problems (thus letting them get worse), or they flail at problems they're not equipped to handle.</p><p></p><p>The referee winds up the world and lets it tick away. The players interact with the world however they want. Then the referee reacts accordingly as the world would. You stop the goblin bandits and empty out their lair...then a few weeks or months later something else moves in. You slaughter a cult and bury their bodies under the rubble of their desecrated church...only for a necromancer to come along and raise them...then she uses them to rebuild the church as her new headquarters. You ignore a fire, it continues to burn until put out...if it's near your house, and you do nothing about it, your house burns down. It doesn't matter if you're a firefighter or not.</p><p></p><p>Not at all. A neutral adventure is the opposite of one tailored to the PCs.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="overgeeked, post: 8706997, member: 86653"] I think what you're missing is that the game isn't limited in that sense. There aren't only stealth or diplomacy or whatever missions the PCs can pick up and engage with. They also wouldn't have complete enough knowledge of the future to know whether only those kinds of things would come up when taking on any given quest, etc. It's like thinking that because the door of a dungeon is locked all you need is a lockpick to complete the dungeon. Not so much. The whole point is to have a living, breathing world that's running in the background. Independent of the PCs and their skills. The world doesn't care what the PCs are good at. The neutral referee doesn't only put things in the world that the PCs will have a good chance of succeeding at. The neutral referee creates a world and lets the PCs interact with it however well, or however badly, they choose to. So the PCs are focused on stealth and they only try to complete quests, missions, etc they think are tailored to their skills, great. [B][I]The world isn't designed around that assumption[/I][/B]. The world keeps on moving and changing regardless of what the PCs do. It will change and react to the PCs' actions, of course, but if they ignore a problem it doesn't go away. Which means if they ignore the necromancer raising an army of the dead to march on the valley the PCs live in...their home will be overrun with undead. If they try to stealth their way through that and fail...okay, now they're stuck in a massive fight they aren't prepared for because they focused on stealth and not combat. The notion of "the PCs are good at stealth so only put in stealth missions" isn't how this style of running games works. It's the almost opposite of that. Not hammering on the PCs' weaknesses, but the world is what it is... The world exists independently of the players [I]and their characters[/I]. If the PCs are bad at combat and they get into a combat, they're toast. If the PCs are bad at stealth and they need stealth, they're toast. This is where the notion of [B][I]needing[/I][/B] a well-rounded party comes from. If they can't handle something, they're going to get hammered there. Not because the referee is targeting their weaknesses, rather because [I][B]the neutral world inevitably includes all those things they're no good at[/B][/I]. But they still have to face those obstacles regardless. So they either have a well-rounded party, ignore a lot of problems (thus letting them get worse), or they flail at problems they're not equipped to handle. The referee winds up the world and lets it tick away. The players interact with the world however they want. Then the referee reacts accordingly as the world would. You stop the goblin bandits and empty out their lair...then a few weeks or months later something else moves in. You slaughter a cult and bury their bodies under the rubble of their desecrated church...only for a necromancer to come along and raise them...then she uses them to rebuild the church as her new headquarters. You ignore a fire, it continues to burn until put out...if it's near your house, and you do nothing about it, your house burns down. It doesn't matter if you're a firefighter or not. Not at all. A neutral adventure is the opposite of one tailored to the PCs. [/QUOTE]
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The Neutral Referee, Monty Haul, and the Killer DM: History of the GM and Application to 5e
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