What does a DM owe his players?/ Are the rules written in stone?

[Thaniel]

I felt I should chime in on the other side.
In my current game (playing, not DMing), the characters were made using Forgotten Realms guidelines, as that's where we were. We were made with standard wealth guidelines. We also knew that the game would revolve around exploring a new world. We had no idea what this meant really - sailing an ocean? down in a deep cave? planeshifting?

As it turns out, we were hired by some big-time wizard (after rounds of tests against 100s of other 'applicants') to explore this world that he had found through a cave. It was a complete other world (some sort of plane-jumping thing in the cave). As it turned out, the government of this world had outlawed magic in all its forms. The higher-ups weilded magic for themselves, and also to frighten the rest of the populace.

Though it was not in our original charter, we've decided to take it upon ourselves to "fix" this problem. We're currently searching for allies in this pursuit, to help give magical power back to the people.

However, being as magic is illegal, magic items are pretty hard to come by. We've come across a few, but we're now 8th level characters with little more magical equipment than we had at 5th level (the level we made our characters at).

Regardless of this, the game is running quite smoothly. The fact that we seem underequipped ( even though we're not - we would be underequipped on Faerun, but not here) has come up once or twice, but it's quickly passed over and the game goes on. Everyone still has fun. If anything, the less emphasis on our equipment has allowed us to put more emphasis on character-building (in the roleplaying sense).

We're having fun even though a) we don't have as much magic as we thought we should, and b) we weren't told about this beforehand. In my opinion, knowing about this beforehand would have drastically changed the types of characters we made. It's often fun to play characters trying to deal with being not in their element.

Oh, and for the record, here's the character roster:
Elven Scout (me)
Human Barbarian/Sorcerer
Human Cleric (npc)*
Human Luck-Fighter-or-something (custom class, I haven't asked specifics, none of my in-character business)
Elven Monk (I think. Again, haven't asked.)
Human Ranger (I think. See above.)

* She's the "leader" of the group, as far as our big-time wizard patron is concerned. She doesn't force her will on the rest of us though, like some DM's npcs (so i've heard) can do.

 

[FireLance]

I find that players for the most part don't create histories of their items. They tailor the items they buy to fit their character. Now, granted, the items they have won and earned for the most part fit their character. But none of them are overpowered or overtailored.

That might be a taste mismatch right there. If the players are not interested in creating histories for their items, they probably won't really appreciate the effort you put into giving their items more back story either. That effort might be better directed at giving the players something they do want. And instead of guessing or trying to figure it out yourself, you might just want to ask them what it is, or ask them to take the Robin Laws Game Stye Quiz.

 

[shilsen]

The players have always known how I run and what kind of world I run, so expectations should not have been a problem.

So all of the complaining players had played with you as DM before? If not, knowing in theory what sort of game you run doesn't matter, since the experience of it can be quite different. And even if they'd played with you before, some explicit statement of assumptions and discussion of expectations never hurts. Conversely, as your experience proves, a lack thereof can hurt.

 

[Numion]

From a recent experience of mine, I was very surprised to see from several players dismay that I would not give them the so-called appropriate level of magic items/gold piece value (whatever that chart says) for 10th level characters.

I did not give them the option to purchase what items they wanted because then you end up with players tailoring their characters abilities and the items for a complete synergy. Had the characters been played from 1st level, they would have totally been upto the mercy of what I, or another DM, had given them. You could also end up with a player buying a game breaking item ( but this is rare).

Well, in your example you had given a Paladin a friggin' Holy Avenger at 10th level, but you don't want other player with items that bring synergy? HA and a Pally is pretty much instant-synergy.

IMO that is unreasonable.

And my answer to your question "What does DM owe to players?" is:

To be reasonable.

Allowing characters to buy whatever isn't reasonable either; but ending up with situation that the players feel their characters were robbed is usually no good.

It depends though - if everyone starts with no equipment at 10th level, that might feel reasonable if it was an escape scenario, for example. They were all captured etc .. but then it would be nice to get their stuff back, too.

IMHO the rules are more like guidelines.

I agree on this one. Just combine that with fairness (about the same for all) and taking your earlier decisions into account when designing adventures.

I know that one Hobbit got an artifact at 1st level, but a book does not a good game make

 

[LadyThorne]

A Player's Due

The only thing (speaking as both DM and Player) that you owe your players is A GOOD TIME!!

THat said, the best way to ensure that is to be up front about what kind of game you want to run (ie, low magic, high story, dungeon crawl) and what you will and will not allow. Then ask what they want to see, what they think makes a game fun and compromise from there. It's what's worked for us!

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

http://home.earthlink.net/~duanevp/dnd/manifesto.htm

 

[The Shaman]

I know that one Hobbit got an artifact at 1st level, but a book does not a good game make

Yeah, but didn't a DMPC steal it back in the end?

 

[FireLance]

Yeah, but didn't a DMPC steal it back in the end?

I think it went something like this.

 

[gizmo33]

I don't give my players a wealth contract when they come to play in my game. Next week I might run a scenario where some bad circumstances and dice rolls results in everyone being captured and losing their stuff. Those are the breaks. Making guarrantees that those sorts of things won't happen, IMO, is against the spirit of the game. You might open a door and realize the monster you are facing is too tough, and you have to run. Or you might find a secret door that leads to someones hoard of 3 million gps and not have to fight anyone for it. That's life IMC. I think using EL and wealth guidelines to determine the future is going against the spirit of how they were intended.

 

[BlackMoria]

A question to the OP. Is this the same game mentioned in another thread in which the game is starting off at 10th level and some players are using existing characters with their equipment (I believe the Paladin character had a Holy Avenger) and the new characters created at 10th aren't allowed to pick their items?

If that is the case, what you as the DM owe the players is fairness. Having existing 10th level characters with their original equipment starting a game along side newly created 10th level characters who are not allowed to select their magic items based on wealth quidelines is, to put it frankly, blatantly unfair to the new players.

Either everyone starts off the game with magic items based on a value you have set or noone does. To do otherwise is to disadvantage the new characters in relation to the existing characters.

I would imagine that the players that are complaining are the one's with the new character, right? And rightly they should. Unless you could assure me as a player that I would be getting a whole lot of loving shortly into the start of the campaign, I would be offended that I could not pick my magic items and would be under equiped to the wealth guidelines and the party's paladin gets to keep his shiny Holy Avenger and god knows whatever items he has.

Further, if the game is the same one in the other thread, you do yourself a disservice to start this thread and not come clean on all the details when you ask your question. The responses you have gotten so far may be considerably different had the fact that existing characters keep their original equipment and new characters get to fight with whatever scraps you as DM deem to give them at campaign start.