times they are a changen....

[Umbran]

I think not. I'm not going to comb through my DMG to find a passage to satisfy you, when I didn't even bring up "that passage" in the first place; I merely commented on it.

Well, thanks for doing so anyway. Who brought it up wasn't the issue. Having people claim "the book says <X>" without anyone saying where was the issue.

In short -- don't do games that are different than the One True Way that we have dictated that you play. Or else.

*shrug*. I know that the DMG doesn't include as many options as you'd like. However, you seem to be attributing more arrogance and malice to the text that is present. There's no "or else". There's no statement that "we speak the One True Way".

Additionally, I think you are taking it as advice on how to design worlds when it isn't intended as such. Note that the passage you quote is in the "Running the Game" section, not the "Campaign" or "World Building" section. If they wanted to say that you really couldn't muck with what they wrote, they could have made it painfully clear in those sections. The fact that they didn't suggests that they didn't intend to do so.

The very existance of Rule 0 as the most quotable game guideline stands pretty strongly against your belief that they are trying to tell you not to mess with things.

Let's remember that the DMG needs to have a lengthy section about using the rules as written. Before you can start talking about how to change the rules, you must understand how the original ones are designed to work, and how to be a good DM. The existance of a section that says, "this is how we intend these rules to be used" isn't a sign of arrogance. It's a sign that the authors realize that many of the readers aren't experienced DMs, and that the rules are complex and subtle, and DMing isn't easy, and that their advice and clarifications as to intent might be useful.

 

[TiQuinn]

It's a tendency for DMs (and module writers) to do everything mentioned in Step 1 and then systematically eliminate the possibility of the PCs using those abilities. If they have a clever trap in the adventure that requires the characters to be on the ground, they make it impossible to fly. That's lazy design."

and concludes by saying

"The whole point of these suggestions is to avoid punishing characters for being high level."

Which is kind of funny since part of the Epic Level Handbook discusses setting up challenges and encounters for high level characters by negating some of the abilities that they take for granted. Want the characters to have a tough time getting over the pit? Have a beholder floating in the pit ready to use his anti-magic beam on any flying characters!

I know Monte Cook didn't have write the ELH, but it does show that not everyone thinks along the same lines as Monte. Personally, I don't think it's lazy design to prevent characters from using tried and true spells and items to get around a problem, provided it's not done all the time. Let's face it: a lot of players are one track records when it comes to dealing with obstacles. If the DM can force them out of that rut by coming up with a different way to solve a problem, that's fine. Setting up an obstacle that negates certain abilities isn't the problem. Changing the obstacle midway thru the game because you suddenly realize the players thought of something you didn't is the problem.

 

[LokiDR]

Which is kind of funny since part of the Epic Level Handbook discusses setting up challenges and encounters for high level characters by negating some of the abilities that they take for granted. Want the characters to have a tough time getting over the pit? Have a beholder floating in the pit ready to use his anti-magic beam on any flying characters!

I know Monte Cook didn't have write the ELH, but it does show that not everyone thinks along the same lines as Monte. Personally, I don't think it's lazy design to prevent characters from using tried and true spells and items to get around a problem, provided it's not done all the time. Let's face it: a lot of players are one track records when it comes to dealing with obstacles. If the DM can force them out of that rut by coming up with a different way to solve a problem, that's fine. Setting up an obstacle that negates certain abilities isn't the problem. Changing the obstacle midway thru the game because you suddenly realize the players thought of something you didn't is the problem.

Fun traps are one thing, and I do like that beholder trick, but where is the line? Once in a great while is obviously fine, every session is obviously too much. Every other?

Assume a DM wants to challenge the party and uses things like antimagic fields. Wouldn't I want to play a fighter of some sort if every other session spells don't work in large sections of the dungeon? Obviously, it is different for every group, but in general.

This all sounds like a min-max sort of way to run a game, so maybe the min-max tendency has spread to DMs as well (just to try to stay to topic ).

 

[TiQuinn]

Fun traps are one thing, and I do like that beholder trick, but where is the line? Once in a great while is obviously fine, every session is obviously too much. Every other?

Assume a DM wants to challenge the party and uses things like antimagic fields. Wouldn't I want to play a fighter of some sort if every other session spells don't work in large sections of the dungeon? Obviously, it is different for every group, but in general.

This all sounds like a min-max sort of way to run a game, so maybe the min-max tendency has spread to DMs as well (just to try to stay to topic ).

Exactly! I'm not sure if this is what Cook intended to mean in his article, but the way I see it, an adventure can have encounters and locations where magic or skills work differently. That's great! It keeps people on their toes, and provides for a change of pace. Making it a major change for an entire campaign is another issue. And honestly, if the DM wants to alter the ability to scry...there shouldn't be a problem with it as long as the players wanting to run a spellcaster know about changes like this.

 

[Desdichado]

*shrug*. I know that the DMG doesn't include as many options as you'd like. However, you seem to be attributing more arrogance and malice to the text that is present. There's no "or else". There's no statement that "we speak the One True Way".

Yeah, I've mentioned that before, haven't I? Perhaps I'm reading it wrong, but that was my first thought, and subsequent readings haven't really given me any reason to think otherwise. Although perhaps I have a predisposition to find that particular fault, so it stood out to me without doing so to others.

Additionally, I think you are taking it as advice on how to design worlds when it isn't intended as such. Note that the passage you quote is in the "Running the Game" section, not the "Campaign" or "World Building" section. If they wanted to say that you really couldn't muck with what they wrote, they could have made it painfully clear in those sections. The fact that they didn't suggests that they didn't intend to do so.

And yet, the advice is still: don't do that kind of adventure. You're better off just ignoring that type of thing entirely and doing something else. In my opinion, that's bad advice: as Forrester states, a cop-out rather than a solution.

The very existance of Rule 0 as the most quotable game guideline stands pretty strongly against your belief that they are trying to tell you not to mess with things.

I don't know what the presence of "Rule 0" proves, if anything. It's pretty standard language in any RPG, not some innovative new thing to 3e. It may be the most quotable, but I don't think it's the most quoted.

Let's remember that the DMG needs to have a lengthy section about using the rules as written. Before you can start talking about how to change the rules, you must understand how the original ones are designed to work, and how to be a good DM. The existance of a section that says, "this is how we intend these rules to be used" isn't a sign of arrogance. It's a sign that the authors realize that many of the readers aren't experienced DMs, and that the rules are complex and subtle, and DMing isn't easy, and that their advice and clarifications as to intent might be useful.

Yet oddly enough, there is very little in 3e that gives basic RPG concepts any discussion. There isn't even a standard "What is an RPG?" summary! And this is the book to introduce rookie DMs to basic concepts, like "don't change the rules that you don't like?" I'm not sure the message you're reading into it is consistent enough to really hold water across the core rulebooks. Not that mine is either, but as I said, I may be hyper-sensitized to that kind of thing, in part from bad D&D experiences before my "Dark Ages" and reconversion with the launch of 3e.

 

[LokiDR]

Exactly! I'm not sure if this is what Cook intended to mean in his article, but the way I see it, an adventure can have encounters and locations where magic or skills work differently. That's great! It keeps people on their toes, and provides for a change of pace. Making it a major change for an entire campaign is another issue. And honestly, if the DM wants to alter the ability to scry...there shouldn't be a problem with it as long as the players wanting to run a spellcaster know about changes like this.

I'm very glad we agree on that.

Where is the line for campaigns though? If Cook was only talking about adventures, what would be his concept of changing whole campaigns for annoying spells to DM, like commune or scry? I would guess he wouldn't have a problem with a change of campaign concept. Isn't that what all the other setting publishers do?

I still don't full agree with "DM wants to alter the ability to scry" because it is the group's game, but I think your statement has more consideration for players at least. I both run and play D&D, so I can look at both sides. Maybe that is why I like a say in game I play, because I presume I know something about running

 

[Desdichado]

I still don't full agree with "DM wants to alter the ability to scry" because it is the group's game, but I think your statement has more consideration for players at least. I both run and play D&D, so I can look at both sides. Maybe that is why I like a say in game I play, because I presume I know something about running

I do. It's the DM's campaign world. If you're enjoyment (as a player) comes solely from having access to a specific spell or class ability, then that seems like a pretty shallow type of game to play in, IMO.

 

[LokiDR]

Yet oddly enough, there is very little in 3e that gives basic RPG concepts any discussion. There isn't even a standard "What is an RPG?" summary! And this is the book to introduce rookie DMs to basic concepts, like "don't change the rules that you don't like?" I'm not sure the message you're reading into it is consistent enough to really hold water across the core rulebooks. Not that mine is either, but as I said, I may be hyper-sensitized to that kind of thing, in part from bad D&D experiences before my "Dark Ages" and reconversion with the launch of 3e.

Do you believe that people won't mess with the rules? I think there is enough variation in how the rules are interpreted to make two different "by the rules" games very different. I don't see the rules as ever something that weren't going to be changed. So you can see the "don't change the rules" lines as premtive to wild changes by those who don't know the rules in the first place. There are numerous passages in the DMG about changing the technology level, campaign in the middle of a war, ect. Isn't more space devoted to this than "don't chang it"?

I look at the argument like the abstinence argument. "Don't have sex. It will lead to lots of problems. There will now be a condom dispencer in the locker room." Ok, maybe an extreem comparison, but I think they both follow a similar concept.

 

[TiQuinn]

I'm very glad we agree on that.

Where is the line for campaigns though? If Cook was only talking about adventures, what would be his concept of changing whole campaigns for annoying spells to DM, like commune or scry? I would guess he wouldn't have a problem with a change of campaign concept. Isn't that what all the other setting publishers do?

I still don't full agree with "DM wants to alter the ability to scry" because it is the group's game, but I think your statement has more consideration for players at least. I both run and play D&D, so I can look at both sides. Maybe that is why I like a say in game I play, because I presume I know something about running

I really don't think there IS a line, to be honest. It just needs to be thought out in advance of the campaign getting underway. Sure, you can identify a problem and go back and fix it for a later campaign. But I think there are problems with fixing or altering something retroactively in an existing campaign. If I don't like the way Haste works, do I change the spell in the middle of a game? I wouldn't. But if a new campaign is getting underway, and I want to alter the spell before hand...why not? Heck, even other WotC game designers have pointed out spell abuses that they have house rules for. 3rd edition was well tested, but not every potential problem was caught, and I don't think we can expect it to be perfect.

We may have made a mountain out of a molehill, particularly when we started looking at Cook's comments. Take a look at Ravenloft! That game turned tons of spells on their ears! And a lot of folks hate the detect evil/good/law, etc. spells. That's a pretty common change for a lot of campaigns. What I think it comes down to is the novice DM problem of arbitrarily not letting a spell or action work simply because it throws a wrench in the works at that one particular point in time. It's a typical knee jerk reaction, and I think every DM has done it at some point in time.

 

[WizarDru]

Yet oddly enough, there is very little in 3e that gives basic RPG concepts any discussion. There isn't even a standard "What is an RPG?" summary! And this is the book to introduce rookie DMs to basic concepts, like "don't change the rules that you don't like?" I'm not sure the message you're reading into it is consistent enough to really hold water across the core rulebooks. Not that mine is either, but as I said, I may be hyper-sensitized to that kind of thing, in part from bad D&D experiences before my "Dark Ages" and reconversion with the launch of 3e.

That's what the PHB is for, not the DMG. The 3E DMG is, IMHO, the first one to actually discuss how to run a game effectively. I consider it a monumental success in actually giving out salient advice (particularly coming from veterans who've had combined decades of experience on the topic). The DMG is not an island, it the second of three books, and should be regarded as such.

I'm curious, though, on whether Joshua and Forrester are considering Epic games, and if so, how they plan to approach them. Whlie I see nothing wrong with the current approach that they are advocating, I'm curious when players get to open some of the forbidden fruits, if ever. If a 20th level cleric can't get a direct line to his diety, who can?

I guess I see some of this as a splitting-hairs kind of issue. There are so many things in D&D that don't hold up under scrutiny, that you have to draw a line at some point and say 'this is a balanced game, not a simulation of an alternate reality', and sacrifice some degree of verisimilitude. I know Forrester and I have already agreed to disagree over some such topics, such as the availability of magic items, for example. I suppose this will be another. I've yet to see spells like Commune unbalance my game or even help the players as much as you might think. Part of this may have to do with the fact that they are more reluctant to 'take one for the team' xp-wise. I know my wizard is feeling the pinch now, being a level behind almost everyone else, due to item creation. The cleric has little to desire to use the ability, especially given it's vague and sometimes unhelpful nature.

As for the 'commune' game (and I realize we're talking about more than this single spell, mind you, I'm just using this for an example): the reason it's unreliable for prediction into the future is that it's too general, and a god cannot forsee the results of the intervention of another god, IMC. If they could, then they entire game would be a preplayed chess game, which would be frustrating for the players. If you assume that the gods know exactly what WILL happen, then we're back to those 'where do you draw the line for verisimilitude' issues.

Recently, my players used Commune to ask if performing a certain action would protect a certain location from attacks for two particular enemies. Confident from the 'yes' answer, they're about to discover the limitations of that answer, and of the mechanic of commune itself.

For me, it seems like removing these spells is taking candy away from the players. When a character claws his way up to 16th level, he should be scarily powerful, IMHO. A 16th level cleric is a living saint, AFAIC, and if he can't get the attention of a Solar for a little advice, then who can?

I don't have a problem with folks running their game differently, or feeling that the core rules got it wrong. My only contention is with any belief that the core rules don't work without making this change, when it's clear that they do.