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1 year ago ::
May 29, 2012 - 11:53AM
#1
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Reading posts around here might make someone think there are two kinds of DMs: good ones and bad ones. Sometimes simple categorization like this is harmless. Usually though, I see this simplistic perspective used to justify whatever the writer prefers. "You don't need those rules if your DM is any good at encounter design." "Any DM worth his salt knows how to balance his own game." "In my 30 years of D&D experience, I've only ever seen bad DMs deny this option, and those DMs are beyond the help of the rules."
If we're more honest with ourselves, I think we'll see that we're all bad at something. Some DMs are bad actors or bad strategists or bad optimizers. Some DMs forget the rules too often or cannot remember particular rules no matter what. Some DMs are much worse at giving clues than they think they are. Some DMs are too adversarial in social challenges or are too resistant to improvisation in combat. Some DMs are too stingy with treasure or too finicky about alignment or too hard on one player who is an old friend or too easy on another who is attractive. Almost everyone does something bad decently often.
It's pretty silly to pretend that everyone who DM's must fit into the "good" or "bad" box. Sure, there are a few of us who are consistently awesome or awful. Some DMs are creepy elf fetishists on a permanent power-trip, while others are gifted with a talent for poetry, a dramatic flair, unimpeachable fairness, astounding mathematical insight, and eidetic memory. The overwhelming majority of us have talents we can build and weaknesses we can shore up, and so **the rules should help us**.
Rules can't be written just for perfect people, and "I've never had that problem" isn't an excellent reason not to address the problem. D&D should not be designed around the assumption that everyone can find a perfect DM for a perfect group, all of whom are willing to endure a decade-plus learning curve while the DM "earns his stripes." D&D does need to make some assumptions about the people involved and the experiences they are trying to create, but beyond that the game should make a reasonable attempt to make sure that imperfect people can create the experiences they want.
Ed_Warlord, on what it takes to make a thread work: I think for it to be really constructive, everyone would have to be honest with each other, and with themselves. Quotation of the moment
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Areleth: How does this help the problems we have with Fighters? Do you think that every time I thought I was playing D&D what I was actually doing was slamming my head in a car door and that if you just explain how to play without doing that then I'll finally enjoy the game?
Quotation of ALL moments
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TD: That's why they put me on the front of every book. This is the dungeon, and I am the dragon.
A word of warning though: I'm totally not a level appropriate encounter.
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1 year ago ::
May 29, 2012 - 12:01PM
#2
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Date Joined:
Mar 14, 2009
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May I applaude you, Sir ?
I'll just add that DMs are people, and so can have bad or good days.
There are days where I am too tired to be very imaginative. Days where I could improvize a whole world-changing campaign without effort. Days where I don't know what to do. Days where I seem unable to motivate my players, and days where they are riveted to their seats by the suspense.
That's why I like game with good rules. Because when I feel good, I can improvize all I want, and in bad day, I know the designers have provided something I can use. And it's also true when I am a player.
It easier to bypass rules than to improvize them.
Remember Tunnel Seventeen !
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1 year ago ::
May 29, 2012 - 12:07PM
#3
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Indeed, this is so true.
That is not dead which may eternal lie
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1 year ago ::
May 29, 2012 - 12:31PM
#4
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Date Joined:
Aug 21, 2009
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That makes perfect sense, but I'm not sure how it pertains to D&D Next. Is it meant to counter the 1E and 2E assumption that you need a good DM in order to have a fun game, because you don't have a lot of rules to fall back on, and therefore D&D Next is facing the same problem?
If so let me suggest that in 1E you really did need someone that was a good DM in the broadest sense because very few people understood what they were doing. I can remember DMing a session where I introduced some adamantite castle or something, the players weren't buying it and let me know after the game that it wasn't really believable.
With E2 though, TSR brought out a whole bevy of books on 'how to' do this and that, including optional rules for just about everything, from dungeneering to the complete wizards handbook. All very useful for turning anyone and everyone into at least an ok DM.
The game really isn't made more fun or not by the rules per se. The rules just provide a framework for having that fun. It is the DM, and their supporting books and papers and maps and props that make for a good game. In fact I would perhaps turn the argument on it's head and argue that a game such as D&D has been well served by having an open, light, mismatch set of rules.
Who even designs a game with d4, d6, d8, d10, d12, d20? Unless your just trying to add a little flare or style to the game.
The cover of the 1st edition Player’s Handbook by artist D.A. Trampier. A motley crew of adventurers, the bloodied bodies of lizard men, the hint of arcane malevolence surrounding the idol, the daring thieves prying the jewels from the statue. This is arguably the most iconic piece of art in all of RPGdom.
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1 year ago ::
May 29, 2012 - 12:55PM
#5
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Date Joined:
Jul 17, 2004
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And this is why the call for a return to more DM Fiat in 5e is a "worse" system-design-idea than the (perhaps overly) Codified Rules style of 3.X and 4e.
The more you leave up to DM Prerogative, the less "objective" system-based adjudication you have to rely upon.
I've had fantastic DMs, but I've probably had more less-than-fair DMs, especially in older editions of D&D, and particularly in Public Games where the quality of DMs can be very hit-or-miss and you cannot "handpick" your DM from your friends.
Even in this initial playtest, the 6 of us who played are all GMs of multiple games and multiple systems, most of us have been playing since forever, yet there were times when we each had, and would have very different takes on what was "within the rules" as written for the Playtest, and each of our "DM Fiat" rulings and understandings would have been very different.
Light Rules may suit some DMs and some groups better than Heavy Rules, but overall, you get much more inconsistency with Rules Light over Rules Heavy games--things that may have been OK under DM Bob's Fiat may not be OK under DM Jim's Fiat, and that makes gaming (overall) less fun since you never know what to expect when you sit down at the table.
The 2e games I played were always so heavily enmeshed in DM Fiat that we'd sometimes have to abandon games simply because of "Bad DMs" who were running so inconsistently or so unfairly that the games were no longer fun.
One of the things I liked best about 4e--especially for public games--is the notion that most times most DMs will run the games more-or-less the same so the experience is not so widely variant that some groups at Table X are having massive fun while the other groups at Tables A, B, and C are all suffering under "Bad" DMing and arbitrary rulings.
"I'm just killing time, since it's killing us."
--Cyon Fal'Duur, Pathfinder Chronicler: Rogue Ascendant
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1 year ago ::
May 29, 2012 - 12:58PM
#6
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Date Joined:
May 17, 2009
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My name is Pashalik Mons, and I approve of this message.
Seriously, though, you should check out the PbP Haven. You might also like Real Adventures, IF you're cool. | Knights of W.T.F.- Silver Spur Winner | |
4enclave, a place where 4e fans can talk 4e in peace.
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1 year ago ::
May 29, 2012 - 1:05PM
#7
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Date Joined:
Aug 28, 2007
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You need a reasonably competant dm that is as as fair, logical, and consistant as possible.
You can't have a rule for all possible actions.
Rules as written do not always make sense in the context of what is happening in the game.
It all comes back to the dm.
There is 'bad' arbitrary, and 'good' arbitrary.
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1 year ago ::
May 29, 2012 - 1:08PM
#8
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That makes perfect sense, but I'm not sure how it pertains to D&D Next. Is it meant to counter the 1E and 2E assumption that you need a good DM in order to have a fun game, because you don't have a lot of rules to fall back on, and therefore D&D Next is facing the same problem?
If so let me suggest that in 1E you really did need someone that was a good DM in the broadest sense because very few people understood what they were doing. I can remember DMing a session where I introduced some adamantite castle or something, the players weren't buying it and let me know after the game that it wasn't really believable.
There are always posts about how something isn't a problem unless the DM is bad. Since the playtest packet was released, I've seen a LOT of these posts. And I think they are really simplistic and silly. I'd like people to question the assumption that they or their DMs are not in need of any help from the rules. I'd like people to stop replying to all concerns about rules with, "It's not vague at all! Obviously this interpretation is intended, as any good DM would tell you!" or "This isn't a problem for me, and I can't see how it could ever be a problem in a group with a good DM," or "It's not worthwhile to make a rule for that, because the real solution is to replace the bad DM who would allow that situation."
I just don't think this is terribly constructive thinking. I get that not everyone wants to read a lot of rules. I get that some people see D&D as having a tradition of a substantially different game at every table. So maybe we need a simple, vague core that lets some people continue to have that experience. But I also think there should be conversation about the rules that will satisfy other needs. As a 20-something year veteran of D&D, I still learn a lot by reading and re-reading rules, and especially by reading posts. I think just about all of us have at least something to learn or some way that better rules and systems can add to our games. I don't want DDN to be too focused on mythical perfect people, yet some posters seem intent on steering the conversation that way.
Ed_Warlord, on what it takes to make a thread work: I think for it to be really constructive, everyone would have to be honest with each other, and with themselves. Quotation of the moment
Show
Areleth: How does this help the problems we have with Fighters? Do you think that every time I thought I was playing D&D what I was actually doing was slamming my head in a car door and that if you just explain how to play without doing that then I'll finally enjoy the game?
Quotation of ALL moments
Show
TD: That's why they put me on the front of every book. This is the dungeon, and I am the dragon.
A word of warning though: I'm totally not a level appropriate encounter.
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1 year ago ::
May 29, 2012 - 1:10PM
#9
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Date Joined:
Jun 27, 2004
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I'm not sure why so many of these hypothetical "good dms" are incapable of ignoring rules once they're put to paper. But we've had that discussion before. I was flat-out told, by one poster, that you can't just ignore the rules. Why? Because they are rules.
Yeah. So, in the face of that blinding logic, the only solution for "good dms" is to not have rules. At all. Screw any dms that aren't "good dms".
Because a "good dm" can improvise a wonderful, magical, super-awesome world of happiness and adventure and coolness... but he can't ignore a written rule to do so.
Feedback Disclaimer
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Yes, I am expressing my opinions (even complaints - le gasp!) about the current iteration of the play-test that we actually have in front of us.
No, I'm not going to wait for you to tell me when it's okay to start expressing my concerns (unless you are WotC).
(And no, my comments on this forum are not of the same tone or quality as my actual survey feedback.)
A Psion for Next (Playable Draft)A Barbarian for Next (Brainstorming Still)My 4e Projects
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1 year ago ::
May 29, 2012 - 2:00PM
#10
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You need a reasonably competant dm that is as as fair, logical, and consistant as possible.
You can't have a rule for all possible actions.
Rules as written do not always make sense in the context of what is happening in the game.
It all comes back to the dm.
There is 'bad' arbitrary, and 'good' arbitrary.
Sure, DMs have always had to think about whether particular rules served their games well. That's why we should have more conversation about the kinds of rules that create the right situation in a healthy number of games, instead of trying to quash conversation because it somehow leads to rules that inhibit good DMing.
Ed_Warlord, on what it takes to make a thread work: I think for it to be really constructive, everyone would have to be honest with each other, and with themselves. Quotation of the moment
Show
Areleth: How does this help the problems we have with Fighters? Do you think that every time I thought I was playing D&D what I was actually doing was slamming my head in a car door and that if you just explain how to play without doing that then I'll finally enjoy the game?
Quotation of ALL moments
Show
TD: That's why they put me on the front of every book. This is the dungeon, and I am the dragon.
A word of warning though: I'm totally not a level appropriate encounter.
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