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<blockquote data-quote="Felon" data-source="post: 1434621" data-attributes="member: 8158">Sounds like you are. Be careful--it's all too easy to take good players for granted sometimes.This smacks of the very &quot;DM-elitism&quot; that I was referring to. The designers should not structure the game based on the assumption that every DM out there is up to par, having dilligently taken his night classes in order to qualify for his DM'ing license. To design a system without a regard to fault tolerance because you place all responsibility for smooth operation on the thousands of end-users' shoulders is an impractical, ill-considered design strategy. Rather, they should structure D&amp;D under the much more realistic assumption that there are quite a few folks who wind up wearing the DM mantle that don't have a full grasp on how the nature of the game changes over time, and are not intimately familiar with how every high-power spell works (along with every feat, magic item, class ability, and so forth) and furthermore that a good many of these less-than-ideal DM's can actually be overwhelmed by all of the responsibilities they have to deal with, along with all of the curveballs the players can throw at them. Bearing that assumption in mind during the design process will keep D&amp;D alive and healthy, as opposed to a closed-system mentality that dismisses overwhelmed DM's as being unworthy of their exalted position. It's the overwhelmed DM's that the designers should spend their time looking out for.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Felon, post: 1434621, member: 8158"] Sounds like you are. Be careful--it's all too easy to take good players for granted sometimes. This smacks of the very "DM-elitism" that I was referring to. The designers should not structure the game based on the assumption that every DM out there is up to par, having dilligently taken his night classes in order to qualify for his DM'ing license. To design a system without a regard to fault tolerance because you place all responsibility for smooth operation on the thousands of end-users' shoulders is an impractical, ill-considered design strategy. Rather, they should structure D&D under the much more realistic assumption that there are quite a few folks who wind up wearing the DM mantle that don't have a full grasp on how the nature of the game changes over time, and are not intimately familiar with how every high-power spell works (along with every feat, magic item, class ability, and so forth) and furthermore that a good many of these less-than-ideal DM's can actually be overwhelmed by all of the responsibilities they have to deal with, along with all of the curveballs the players can throw at them. Bearing that assumption in mind during the design process will keep D&D alive and healthy, as opposed to a closed-system mentality that dismisses overwhelmed DM's as being unworthy of their exalted position. It's the overwhelmed DM's that the designers should spend their time looking out for. [/QUOTE]

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