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<blockquote data-quote="Hussar" data-source="post: 5353726" data-attributes="member: 22779">Beginning of the End - there is a fair bit of space between limiting the DM's role within the ruleset and eliminating it altogether.I totally agree that eliminating the DM is a very bad idea.OTOH, if you take the route, as 4e has done, of giving the players (including the DM) a ruleset that covers most of the expected actions that you're going to commonly run across, and then advise DM's to create content that fits within that ruleset and uses that ruleset, you gain some degree of standardization across tables.In other words, if (and that's a big if) a given DM does what he's advised to do, the game designers can be fairly sure that everyone at the table will have a good time.&nbsp; Maybe not a fantastic time, maybe not the time of their life, but, a good time.&nbsp; If, however, you give DM's a system like Mentzer Basic, which did not cover many common actions - no skills, no task resolution outside of combat, very, very limited scope (basically low level dungeon crawl) - the games success depends very heavily on the individual DM.&nbsp; Now, you and I stuck with it.&nbsp; But how many people didn't?&nbsp; How many people's first and possibly last experience with RPG's was very bad to the point where they dropped it entirely?&nbsp; Sure, great DM's bring in new players.&nbsp; But, do they bring in enough new players to replace those driven away by bad experiences?I have no idea.&nbsp; But, at a guess, I would say that 4e is attempting to ameliorate the experience so that people will stick around long enough to buy a couple of books, rather than trying it once and never looking at it again.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Hussar, post: 5353726, member: 22779"] Beginning of the End - there is a fair bit of space between limiting the DM's role within the ruleset and eliminating it altogether. I totally agree that eliminating the DM is a very bad idea. OTOH, if you take the route, as 4e has done, of giving the players (including the DM) a ruleset that covers most of the expected actions that you're going to commonly run across, and then advise DM's to create content that fits within that ruleset and uses that ruleset, you gain some degree of standardization across tables. In other words, if (and that's a big if) a given DM does what he's advised to do, the game designers can be fairly sure that everyone at the table will have a good time. Maybe not a fantastic time, maybe not the time of their life, but, a good time. If, however, you give DM's a system like Mentzer Basic, which did not cover many common actions - no skills, no task resolution outside of combat, very, very limited scope (basically low level dungeon crawl) - the games success depends very heavily on the individual DM. Now, you and I stuck with it. But how many people didn't? How many people's first and possibly last experience with RPG's was very bad to the point where they dropped it entirely? Sure, great DM's bring in new players. But, do they bring in enough new players to replace those driven away by bad experiences? I have no idea. But, at a guess, I would say that 4e is attempting to ameliorate the experience so that people will stick around long enough to buy a couple of books, rather than trying it once and never looking at it again. [/QUOTE]

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