|
1 year ago ::
Apr 05, 2012 - 7:49PM
#321
|
|
|
When a 35 year old man jumps up, points his finger and says, "No you can't do that, and your character wouldn't have done that in these circumstances anyway," what else do you call it but a tantrum? (that was about 10 years ago when I was about 32 for the record).
Max did not follow my lead, he forged his own path.
Yes, you just described (as you did before) immature, childish behavior. Max just attached the appropriate name to it. He wasn't being condescending in any way, particularly not to you.
Reflavoring: the change of flavor without changing any mechanical part of the game, no matter how small, in order to fit the mechanics to an otherwise unsupported concept.
Retexturing: the change of flavor (with at most minor mechanical adaptations) in order to effortlessly create support for a concept without inventing anything new.
Houseruling: the change, either minor or major, of the mechanics in order to better reflect a certain aspect of the game, including adapting the rules to fit an otherwise unsupported concept.
Homebrewing: the complete invention of something new that fits within the system in order to reflect an unsupported concept.
Default module =/= Core mechanic.
|
|
1 year ago ::
Apr 10, 2012 - 7:37AM
#322
|
Date Joined:
May 26, 2005
|
ALright, let me see if I get the argument here and I apologize if I am wrong. The main argument of the anti-DM empowerment crowd seems to be that making the game (as written) subject to the DMs whims to alter and twist and remake as they see fit also leads to a mindset where the DM tends to take the view that they are not accountable to the players and will thus power trip or act abusive to said players.
This may also be what leads some to argue that a more stable and properly written rules system protects players from a bad DM, as they do not need to alter the rules and thus can avoid the 'a god am I' potential problem, yes?
The issue though is that a bad DM is likely a bad DM with or without the rules modding stuff written in. Almost every game tells you to only use what works for you and your group, and some games even give you toolkits so you can custom build your own stuff after getting context from the designers creations. In fact that was an issue I had in 4th, trying to modify the system was a lot harder due to a lack of tools and because there was no clear context for what made Monster A a level 8 threat and monster B a 10th level, and for that matter if I wanted to mess with things, say increase damage and lower HP I didn't have any good ratios to study so anything I did would more likely cause chaos than improve the games flow, which was my goal.
The DM saying, "I'm the Dm, I say so, that's why" I say it has to depend on the context as to whether or not it was a tantrum. If we have a situation where it might mean the difference between a character death or survival, or the same for a big NPC, I will pause and we check the rules. If it's relatively minor, then I make a quick ruling and we either look it over more closely during dinner or after the game. There might be a few exceptions (IE if my grapple ruling ends up messing up someones design then I look at it more closely) but part of it is also that you can get people that will get a wild hair up their ass and complain about something fairly viciously (I admit to being guilty of this myself at times) or the amount of time necessary to work it out is far more than the situation warrants. I kind of view the DM 'override' thing as something that is best used sparingly and only when necessary.
|
