Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Enchanted Trinkets Complete--a hardcover book containing over 500 magic items for your D&D games!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="ExploderWizard" data-source="post: 5089892" data-attributes="member: 66434">The advice is generally sound but Hussar had some good points about its implementation within certain group dynamics. First and foremost has to be what the players are interested in. If there isn't anyone at the table who cares what world the adventure is in or about any events that might be important in it the DM creating it all is doing needless unappreciated work.  A disconnect between the DM and players about this kind of thing can lead to more frustration than just about anything else.  There isn't anything inherently wrong with a lighthearted slaughter, pillage, level up, repeat type of game. We played a lot of those type of games (and still do at times). I can't help but see those kinds of games as more adversarial than a typical campaign though.  Here is the reason IMHO: The worldless, plotless game gives the DM less creative substance to chew on. The players each have a character to build and develop through play. For the DM, this "character" consists of the campaign world and the events within it. Without a world context of some sort the DM is merely judging a series of generic challenges for the players. This is why that type of game seems more adversarial to me. In effect since the DM doesn't have a character (world) to portray the game becomes largely a direct confrontation between the DM and the players.To reverse things a bit it would be like having the players play different characters every session. There would be no continuity,lasting sense of accomplishment, or feeling of progress being made.  The evolution of tighter, more precise rulesets seem very connected to this style of play. I wonder how many groups play worldless generic adventures and rotate the GM spot so often because its an unwanted role? The idea of a complex rule system combined with strict guidelines on what is "fair" seem to support a "us vs them" more readily than a looser lighter set of rules more open to interpretation and subject to more human judgement.  Overall the players and the DM need to be at least within a few pages of each other in the book when it comes to the game world and its importance to the game. I wouldn't have much interest in running a sustained campaign for a group of players uninterested in anything outside the dungeon. The campaign environment is my character that gets to develop and grow along with the players' characters. It is what keeps me wanting to continue running campaigns.</blockquote>

Verification