The rules should serve the game, not vice-versa

[FireLance]

Sorry to split hairs, but it depends on what you mean by "The rules should serve the game." If you mean that the DM has license to apply the rules inconsistently, I must disagree. There should be no "rule-breaking" NPCs like an 5th-level fighter with 8 ranks of Spot because he had received "special training". Either give that character some ranger or rogue levels, give him a set of Eyes of the Eagle, or allow PC fighters to take Spot as a class skill, too.

However, if you mean that the DM has the right to change the rules to create a particular flavour to his world, then I heartily agree. If you want to remove multiclass restrictions on paladins and monks in your world, go ahead. If you want to make a coup de grace less deadly, go right ahead. Of course, you should ideally discuss these rules changes with your players first, unless you *want* them to find out the hard way .

 

[Bendris Noulg]

Either give that character some ranger or rogue levels, give him a set of Eyes of the Eagle, or allow PC fighters to take Spot as a class skill, too.

Versatile (Rokugan, AEG) or Cross-Class Learning (Netbook of Feats, FanCC, although I renamed it "Aptitude" to reduce clunkiness) would allow this as well.

 

[Thotas]

... and along the lines Bendris states, Traps & Treachery called the feat "Signature Skill", one of my fave feat ideas. "Cosmopolitan" from Forgotten Realms goes to far, though.

 

[scourger]

The rules define the game

is how I prefer to think of it. It's 50/50 rules/story. As long as the application of rules is consistent, the story flows. Players only understand the game through an understanding of the rules.

My recent analogy was to Monopoly. A lot of people play with money in free parking. It's not in the rules, but it can be fun (as it has been for me many times). As a player, I don't mind such rule changes as long as I get them too. In other words, I don't want to be the only one who can't collect the money on free parking. I usually see another player crying "story" when the clear application of the rules has an unfavorable result for his character.

As a DM, I run a core game. I have since 2nd edition when I took the game back to the core after the brown books got out of control. After that I was much happier; and I took that concept to 3e. In fact, I don't even use prestige classes. The players only need the player's handbook. And for games based on D&D (i.e. Judge Dredd), I find the core book for the variant game presents more than enough new options to enable the game. Again, players usually cry "story" when the rules result unfavorably for their characters.

 

[ManicFuel]

I always took Psion's sig as meaning that the rules are things to be referred to when they are needed to clarify something going on in the story. His Diplomacy example works for this. Do you really need a rule to determine whether your arch-villain will be talked out of his nefarious plans? Not really. If you set a DC and start making Diplomacy rolls anyway, then the game is serving the rules. If the villain simply laughs at the PCs naive attempts to sway him, then the rules are serving the game.

I don't make my players roll an Appraise check to see that a rusted sword is useless. I don't make my spellcasters make a Spellcraft check to recognize a cantrip they know themselves. Sometimes a fudge rolls to improve the action. Sometimes I fudge DCs and ACs so the players can be heroic. I use the rules to make my game better, but I do not feel any compulsion to use every rule every time if I think it will impede the game in some way. That's my take on it.

 

[Psion]

Sorry to split hairs, but it depends on what you mean by "The rules should serve the game." If you mean that the DM has license to apply the rules inconsistently, I must disagree. There should be no "rule-breaking" NPCs like an 5th-level fighter with 8 ranks of Spot because he had received "special training".

I hardly think plummeting the PCs into a kangaroo court is "serving the game."

That said, I do mean to say some situational tweaking is appropriate.

Here's one that might be on the outside of what I would do. There was an NPC that went down in the last adventure. The PCs left him for dead. I decided that he would come back for revenge. I added a few levels to him and will be bringing him back in a few adventures. Training up faster than the PCs so he can be a stand alone challenge might be on the outside of reasonable, but it's still possible. So why not... the end result will be interesting.

And there will be no backstabbing with a balista for my party.

 

[Snoweel]

You might want to read this article by Mark Rosewater:

Thanx d00d.

Um... I'm not sure that people are quite understanding my sig.

No dude, I understand it and have always agreed (and still do) like I said in my initial post.

But like others have alluded to, it can be taken to mean different things, which I realised when I had my epiphany. My thinking was "Maybe I can be more decisive in my creativity if I try to keep to the core rules as written when designing my homebrew" which led to me thinking "Wow, that'll be kinda like letting the game serve the rules. I've gotta share this with ENWorld!"

And your .sig is still my own mantra because I am still thoroughly unable to use the core rules as written, and on top of that, I've always been a rules-lite kinda DM.

Using core rules only isn't any more or less imaginative than using all the bells and whistles available.

Yes it is! And low magic is better than high magic.

Sadly I have a player in my group who fully believes that the rules of any RPG are set in stone, and sadly dispite everything my group and I have tried to tell him, fails to get through.

My first group after the release of 3.0 consisted mostly of girls - my wife and her friend, and two of my mates and their girlfriends/fiances/tickets to residency.

Anyway, all were n00bs except one of the guys who had played M:tA back in Spain.

So with me being rules-lite and nearly everybody being n00bs, we played a fairly rules-lite style with minimal combat and a lot of exploring and problem-solving.

However, the guy who had never played before bought his own PHB (in English though it was his second language) and made this super-optimal human fighter. Now, I've been a gamer for years and I've never really been able to turn min-maxing into an artform so this guy must've really made an effort and he was obviously disappointed that the party didn't get into more fights.

But thankfully he was a true gentleman and never complained. Because I think I would have had trouble challenging him tactically.

Sorry to split hairs, but it depends on what you mean by "The rules should serve the game." If you mean that the DM has license to apply the rules inconsistently, I must disagree. There should be no "rule-breaking" NPCs like an 5th-level fighter with 8 ranks of Spot because he had received "special training". Either give that character some ranger or rogue levels, give him a set of Eyes of the Eagle, or allow PC fighters to take Spot as a class skill, too.

I gotta disagree with you d00d. Vehemently.

How did the PCs even know what class the NPC was? Secondly, how did they know how many ranks of Spot he had? These are all metagame concepts.

Thirdly, what's stopping the DM from making an NPC class which is basically the fighter with Spot as a class skill and some negative to balance. How about a negative that makes the class unbalanced (ie. weaker than a regular fighter) such that PCs won't want to take the class?

The DMG gives plenty of hints on tweaking the core classes.

 

[Elephant]

And there will be no backstabbing with a balista for my party.

ROFL

Classic, simply classic. I salute you.

 

[Drifter Bob]

Sorry to split hairs, but it depends on what you mean by "The rules should serve the game." If you mean that the DM has license to apply the rules inconsistently, I must disagree. There should be no "rule-breaking" NPCs like an 5th-level fighter with 8 ranks of Spot because he had received "special training".

I don't mean to be rude, but I think this is a rather horrible mentality, wihch is IMO exactly the sort of thing which really ruins a lot of rpg's in general and D&D especially in particular. First of all, the game is really about storytelling, it is not a competition between the players and the DM. Second of all, the players really have no business knowing that much of what is going on 'behind the curtain', such as all the minute details of how the NPC got his or her skills.

The players have a reasonable expectation of some consistency in the rules, but the rules DO serve the game, they are there to resolve the conflicts which inevitably emerge in any game of 'lets pretend'. But when the obsession with the rules is taken to such a degree that every player is a rules lawyer bickering about every single issue, it detracts from and can frequently derail the game, which at it's best is a fun shared storytelling experience.

I feel that too many D&D players these days have come to fetishise the "logic" behind the core rules in particular to a degree which is far, far beyond the actual internal consistency of the rules themselves. I mean, come on, we are talking about combat systems with double bladed axes. 'Realism' doesn't even enter the picture, and internal consistency is really just a barely maintained patina which overlays the development of the game. They did a good job making 3.x more rational in general, but lets face it, there is a lot more rationalization than logic in there as far as I'm concerned.

Generally these days when people are looking to join RPG's that I'm running, I tend to screen out a lot of very experienced players, because too many of them are these munchkin rules lawyer types. Give me either a newby or an old-school player who values imaginatoin, role playing (remember that folks?) and having fun over bickering about rules any day.

I will add, I think this actually a wierd male thing. I like to have a lot of females in my groups, and I find that they don't get as hung up on canonical debates about the rules and the bloody underying philosophy. Men have seemingly always had this tendency toward a form of autism, where they draw comfort from endlessly analyzing unto death statistics and minute irrelevant details about some favorite subject matter... the kinds of guys who might have known baseball statistics in a different part of the world now obssess on D&D rules.

I think this is a turnoff to a lot of women and frankly, to non-geeks. D&D is not meant to be such a complicated game, all those rules are there to guide you in case you can't think your way out of some conundrum ... it's a bunch of worst case scenarios and cover-all-cases hand holding. Try using your imagination, you'll find it can soar high above those rulebooks....

Anyway, thats the way I see it.

DB

 

[Snoweel]

/me stands and applauds.