What's tactics got to do, got to do with it.

[Cadfan]

Or even more important, what's wrong with unevenly distributed product services if that's the way the DM sees the town (or towns in a small region)?

I'd be happy to answer that!

What's wrong is this: If the DM is attempting to control game balance by adjusting the distribution of goods and services available for sale so that the PCs cannot purchase items he doesn't want them to have except when he wants them to be able to do so, it is very likely that he will eventually find himself in a situation where he cannot give a believable explanation for the unavailability of a particular good or service. At this point he will either have to allow the PCs to obtain the item, or he will rule that, in spite of a lack of plausible explanation, the item simply isn't available. If the former, the game balance he sought is lost. If the latter, his credibility as a DM takes a hit.

There are a few other options, but they are usually even worse- letting the PCs buy the item, then coming up with some plot twist out of left field that nerfs or destroys it, for example. Players see through those things.

Its the same problem you always get when you try to control game balance through plot. And while I suspect that a degree of this is inevitable in any game, it still isn't a good thing.

 

[LostSoul]

But it seems as though the DM who is coming up with reasons why the war dogs available for purchase do not actually suit the players' needs is not actually being impartial, he is engineering the game world to prevent the PC from making use of the game rules.

It's part of his job to present the players with a campaign world that makes sense even if it goes against what the rules say. (I wouldn't call an equipment list a "rule", more like a suggestion for a default setting.)

He must be impartial or he's not doing his job. If he's engineering the world to prevent the PCs from making use of the game rules - and the players never bought into this - then I don't think he's doing his job.

If the rules say that I can buy a trained war dog for X at any store that has trained war dogs, and I can make use of a trained war dog in manner Y, then I'm going to be awfully frustrated as a player if I find out that actually no store anywhere useful to me ever has trained war dogs, or if I find that the trained war dogs available to me always have some additional flaw, not specified in the rules though not disclaimed by the rules, which prevents me from using them.

Having an additional flaw not apparent at purchase (if my PC took the time to check out the dogs) would frustrate me. Assuming I didn't fail an Animal Husbandry check or something like that.

The former wouldn't bother me so much. If I wanted my PC to go get some war dogs, then I would have him go and look for a place where they had war dogs. The DM, being impartial, presenting a consistent campaign world, has a responsibility to include trained war dogs in the game. (I'm assuming it's a regular campaign world where humans have been training dogs for thousands of years.)

In general, the more of this that occurs during a game, the more the game world stops being believable and the more the game turns into a battle of logic between the players and the DM in which the DM comes up with plausible explanations for why the players' plans won't work and the players try to reason past those explanations, not as part of a problem solving exercise between the players and the gameworld, but as part of a debate exercise between the players and the DM.

I don't think that's true if the DM is doing his job - one aspect of which is being impartial.

But yeah, I get your point.

This assumes way too much though. Sure, if I happen to be in a particular location where I can't buy dogs, then fine. If I'm in the middle of a desert, I wouldn't explect to find trained attack dogs for sale. However, in a middling sized town, it's not unreasonable to think that I could find things that are on the PHB equipment list.

Yep, it's not at all unreasonable. If the DM doesn't have trained war dogs for sale in a good-sized town (any town, really), he better have a good reason for it. That reason had better not have anything to do with concerns about player power, or else he's not doing his job.

Again, it comes down to the DM simply over ruling the players. Why are there attack dogs, but none that are trained to be quiet? This is not a very strange thing to train an attack dog to do. Hunting dogs especially are trained to be quiet (well depending on what you are hunting). In a border town, where working dogs are often going to be used this way, I could probably reasonably expect to find dogs trained not to bark.

So, again, we're right back at dueling assumptions.

The DM has to overrule the players. (Well, not necessarily the DM, but someone has to have that authority. It could be the guy in the group who's a breeder in real life and knows a lot about the history of breeding dogs.) Someone has to make judgement calls about the fiction, or else (in my experience) the fiction takes on a gray, kind of pointless quality.

It is often the DM because part of his job is to be impartial, and the guy you want making rulings is the impartial one.

If the DM is doing his job well, you can trust him to be impartial and you know that he's doing his best to present a consistent game world. If this is the case, then you can always talk to him about your assumptions regarding the setting and his own.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Oh, and fair enough, but, let's be honest here, not the entire campaign is going to take place in some random mudhole. Presumably, the players are going to go someone, at some point in time, where they can buy what they want.

Absolutely. If the players in my example were exploring some ruins and there was no time constraint for the expedition and the fighter had his plate eaten by a rust monster, there would be a decision to make.

1) Head back to a larger town to get what is needed. This will take time and possibly resources if there are chances of an encounter along the way.

2) Get what crappy armor is available locally and make do for the time being.

Suppose there were other factors involved? If the PC's were aware that something terrible was going to come from the ruins and had to eliminate the threat before it happened, would not having armor available be screwing them? Not at all.

If there was no initial time constraint and the DM decides to add one specifically to prevent the smart decision to get new gear, then yes the DM is screwing the players.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

And, we're right back to the arms race thing. "I'm the DM, I win". I don't like this solution because it is far too passive/aggressive for me. Boning the players because they thought of an exploit instead of dealing with the underlying issues just doesn't seem productive to me. Unfortunately, the advice you're giving mirrors far too many gaming advice columns over the years. "If the players get too big for their britches, screw them over" sorts of modules, particularly from the pen of Gary Gygax are prime examples of this.

Thank you for the compliment. Gary ran the kind of game I caould only aspire to run, and if some small slice of my game mirrors his, I'm doing it right.

But it's hardly "screwing them over." It'simply setting the standard that we are playing D&D, not rules lawyering and loophole finding.

 

[billd91]

I'd be happy to answer that!

What's wrong is this: If the DM is attempting to control game balance by adjusting the distribution of goods and services available for sale so that the PCs cannot purchase items he doesn't want them to have except when he wants them to be able to do so, it is very likely that he will eventually find himself in a situation where he cannot give a believable explanation for the unavailability of a particular good or service. At this point he will either have to allow the PCs to obtain the item, or he will rule that, in spite of a lack of plausible explanation, the item simply isn't available. If the former, the game balance he sought is lost. If the latter, his credibility as a DM takes a hit.

I suppose it depends on what sort of balance he's really looking for. If the balance issue is really case of some exploit being too powerful, then his job is to house rule it until it balances. If it's a question of PCs just trying the trick too often, then running out of excuses for the goods to be scarce and allowing the PCs to purchase them isn't really a problem. Reducing their use of it via product scarcity has done its job, and will do it again when they deplete local resources again.

If the PCs, for example, make heavy use of war dogs for a while, the DM should be able to raise the prices and make the dogs scarce in the region until stocks can be replenished. That's pretty reasonable. Same with alchemical products like alchemists fire. Or if there were never good petrolium-product stocks or trained alchemists in the first place...

 

[gizmo33]

If the PCs, for example, make heavy use of war dogs for a while, the DM should be able to raise the prices and make the dogs scarce in the region until stocks can be replenished. That's pretty reasonable. Same with alchemical products like alchemists fire. Or if there were never good petrolium-product stocks or trained alchemists in the first place...

Your construct here seems to make too many assumptions that go beyond the OPs original problem (and that seem to violate basic economic principles). First of all, you're assuming that you can confine this problem (and the PCs actions) to a certain "region". And that the region would have some sort of scarcity of trained dogs. And how does waiting to "replenish" your army of dogs solve the original problem? - because obviously the PCs must *have* an army of dogs to begin with in order for anything to need "replenishing", so the problem AFAICT is not really solved.

Or take your alchemist's fire example. Supply and demand would suggest that *some* quantity of alchemist's fire is available for 10 gp a flask (let's say that's the PHB cost). Suppose 10 flasks represent the normal "demand". The PCs buy the 9th flask and the shop keeper decides to sell the 10th for 1 million gps? (I think we'd agree - no). But maybe he sells it for 15 gp. Now the alchemists in the neighboring town discover that there's a market for alchemist's fire at 150% of what they're getting locally. It's in their interest to ship their goods to this market as long as the price supports the cost of transport. In the long term this 150% price is going to support the training of more alchemists, procurement of raw materials, etc. until the supply of alchemist's fire meets the demand. And this assumes that the PCs don't simply walk to the next town and buy it's stock of alchemist's fire.

But in fact a "realistic" feeling game world would have already assumed that many NPCs had trod this path before the PCs. That means the price would have already stabilized to meet the demand/usefulness and the availability of materials. Local fluctuations are one thing, but PCs aren't typically constrained to a certain region in the game, and they have an inordinant amount of wealth to spend on average. DMs who assume they can use economics to stop PCs with pockets full of astral diamonds from buying dogs aren't playing the same DnD that I am.

This example IMO illustrates that the suggestion is just not using basic economic principles in a fair and complete way. It seems that they're only applied in a very narrow way as a way to justify a conclusion that the DM already wants to come to for reasons that have nothing to do with simulation and everything to do with challenging the players (and perhaps wanting to see them use certain technologies instead of others).

 

[MichaelK]

First of all Gizmo, let me apologize if I've offended you. It's not my intention.

"Common sense" is a misnomer because that's all culturally dependant. If the sense here really was "common" then there would be no reason to explain it to the players.

The phrase "Common Sense" is an idiom. The meaning is not derived from either word or their logical combined whole, instead it is determined by a traditional meaning assigned by the majority of english speakers.

I'm not referring to some commonly held ideal, well... not directly anyway. But sufficient wisdom to realize that if a particular interpretation of the rules seems too good to be true, then it probably shouldn't be interpreted that way.

"Too good to be true" is such a cliche, that I feel it falls under the bracket of "Common Sense".

I apologize if my choice of words was offensive, but that's how I see it.

I may of course be wrong.

The fact is that the DM has a certain *opinion* about how a rule ought to be used, and it's his job (as the DM) to make sure that this opinion is incorporated into the game.

I disagree a little with your choice of words there myself actually.

I don't think that the DM's job is to enforce their opinions upon the game. The DM is an elected official, of a sort, entrusted by a group of players with authority and responsibility to adjudicate the rules on their behalf.

Although the players choosing them as DM can be seen as a mandate of sorts to run the game style the DM wants, ultimately I think they're responsible to the group and should be running the kind of game everyone can enjoy and get behind.

Calling that opinion "common sense" IMO is patronizing and insulting to the players.

I don't.

I think that practised spellcaster should benefit warlocks. I introduce this as a house rule in games that I run.

This does not mean that I think anyone who disagrees or finds the 'spellcasters only' argument more persuasive lacks "common sense".

But if someone says (as an extreme example. This is not meant to typify your viewpoint as a strawman, or to invoke some kind of slippery slope argument. This is for illustrative purposes only)...

As I was saying, if someone says "But it never says you can no longer take actions after you die, therefore my character can", then I would describe that as lacking "common sense".

This may be a subset of disagreeing with my opinion, but it is not the entirety.

Many of the suggestions I've seen in this thread would not fly in any group I've ever DMed for.

I agree and feel the same way.

However as my comment was merely addressing the reason why rule changes are introduced to cover problematic rules, I fail to see the relevance.

My players are not under the impression that our differences in opinion stem from their lack of "common sense", and I would expect them to be rightfully offended at the suggestion.

Nor are mine. In fact as I specified at the end, I've never encountered this problem in real life.

While we disagree, sometimes a great deal, it is not because they lack common sense... at least not in my opinion. We merely have different ideas.

Some ideas though seem to me to lack common sense.

 

[aboyd]

I'd never tell my players they couldn't pursue any tactic or exploit they so desired, or could devise. Quite the opposite, I invite innovative cunning. But over time I would counter those tactics with tactics of my own forcing them to develop ever fresher and more clever tactics, while I do likewise.

I hate games where the DM allows anything but undermines it in-game. "Sure, you can use flaming oil. Oops! They shot it out of your hand. Tee hee!"

I'm afraid I'd rather go the rules route than what you advise.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Since game rules determine what happens in the game world are there any good tactics at all that are not dependent of rules knowledge?

The distinction I'm wanting to make is between tactics which would be good in the real world, and those that are only good because of the rules. An example of the former would be fighting at a choke-point (such as a doorway or corridor) when the party is greatly outnumbered, rather than in the middle of a great hall which would allow the enemy to encircle the party. This is a sound tactic according to the rules but it would also, imo, be a sound tactic in the real world. Flaming lantern oil otoh only works because the rules say it does.

I feel that purely rules knowledge tactics aren't praiseworthy. Others may disagree and say that knowledge of the rules is an admirable thing.

 

[Ariosto]

I am mainly of what I'll call a "simulationist" temperament. (Whatever the currency of Ron Edwards' neologisms, I am not keen on calling any aspect of my preferred approach "pervy".)

AD&D ratings of normal animals (and of critters more generally in Monster Manual II, which is another subject) often seem to me a bit pumped up. Fighting power of 2+2 for war dogs or wolves is an example of that, but I can take it in stride.

My impression is that dogs might be characterized in a sense as very "lawful"; they respond well to order, and tend to become unpredictable -- perhaps dangerously so -- in confusing environments. They are very sensitive to social order and disorder, and to emotional cues.

(Please henceforth assume that "from what I have seen and heard", etc., is implied even if not continually restated, and that I know I am no expert on the subject.)

The (for want of a better term) personal relationship between dog and master is critical. The training of a guard or attack dog (and those are distinct types) is best begun while the dog is a puppy, and with the same trainer throughout. As with all such intense bonds, it is generally impractical to cultivate many at once.

Over the years, dog and master earn each other's trust and loyalty. A relationship based on hierarchical domination via fear breeds resentment that can easily backfire as soon as the opportunity presents itself. (Jack London's White Fang comes to mind, a favorite book of my boyhood.)

Ideally, a dog and new master should train together under the tutelage of the former master. Not only trust need be built, but also the vocabulary of communication.

Even more than with a guard dog, it is essential with an attack dog to identify friend from foe. A "target rich environment" is likely to induce very frequent threat presentations, from growling on up. Sounds and scents beyond the range of human perception can set off a dog; a momentary event a mile away can lead to a prolonged frenzy.

There's great potential for chain reaction and synergy when multiple dogs are in proximity, as anyone ever awakened to a whole neighborhood's howling in response to a passing car's backfire can attest.

I doubt that fighting dogs en masse would be as tractable as a team of sled dogs -- and even that might be faint praise. Living in agricultural country, I am acquainted with the phenomenon of previously well behaved dogs "following a pack" to wreak senseless carnage on sheep and chickens. Periodically, one reads of a child mauled by such a wilding mob, not trained combatants but normal domestic specimens swept up in atavistic feral craziness.

Again, I am no expert. I welcome any input from people better acquainted with the subject. My point is simply that I think there are very good reasons why we don't see battalion-columns of Rin Tin Tin very often in the real world.