Roleplaying Is 3.X The "Player Vs. DM" Edition? [Archive]

gooddragon1

2017-04-24, 05:36 AM

I hope I don;t start a massive flame-war, but somehting has been on my mind for a while now:

3.5 is my preferred edition. I started out on AD&D 1E and Basic, then on to 2E, and after a break of a few years, into 3.5. We very briefly tried 4E, but didn't much like it. We have briefly played Pathfinder a couple of times, too. Some of my player's have heard good things about 5E, so we might give that a try at some point.

...anyhow, sometimes I feel like 3.X is the edition that fosters the most "DM vs. players" attitude of the editions I've played. Not so much at my own table, but from some of the things I read on forums.

The two main aspects of this I note are as follows:

1.) Player "entitlement": sometimes I feel an undercurrent of "the customer player is always right"; if the DM says no to anything, he is a bad DM; if the DM has a story arc that has a specific outcome in mind it's "railroading" (note: sometimes this is fairly unavoidable if you're DMing a pre-written adventure and don't have hours to re-wrote the story to accommodate alternate "endings"). Advice often seems to be along the lines of "Oh, your DM only allows core books? Build a brokenly powerful Druid and wreck the game LOL".

2.) Arms race mentality: the player's "discover" some game breaking build or combo (or vice versa, the DM does the same), and instead of coming to a "gentlemen's agreement" of not using that particular build or combo, it becomes an arms race. The DM has to start optimizing every monster or NPC encounter to the Nth degree to challenge the group; or if the show is on the other foot, the player has to research TO builds to keep up with the DMs killer encounters.

Now, what I'm wondering is this: is this an advent of 3rd edition; or is it more an advent of online forums and sharing character build and other info globally?

Or maybe I'm imagining the whole thing, and this has been happening ever since 1E, or doesn't happen much at all.

Cheers - T

I played in a massive 3.5 gaming group of about 100 people split into groups of 4 to 6. Originally it started out as about 8 people when I was there who showed up at different days. I was in this group for several years and at first I had the urge to create things like a thri kreen with punishing stance or even an anthropomorphic squid with punishing stance. As the game went on I learned that I didn't need to make a super powerful character to have fun. In all that time I think I only had 1 game I disliked (due to a DM appropriating player agency and handing out a fiat ruling (it was the crippling fiat ruling out of nowhere that I took issue with)).

If DM's are creative and don't take away player agency or hand down fiat rulings without negotiation, I've seen 3.5 work for a long time with a lot of different players. You just have to have a sort of gentleman's agreement.

I think it´s the aftereffect of too many bad gms in AD&D. They wanted to fix this by creating a rule for everything, negating the need for rulings/rule zero, but you see where that ended.

Oh yes. A straitjacketed game that belongs on a console or the PC where it would be more appreciated, have more content, better graphics, and certainly faster loading times.

Players will find a way in games that are flexible to abuse the rules, but working with them rather than taking out variety to curb abuse allows a more flexible game. If you want to curb abuse with a straitjacket, it's probably better to play an online game. They routinely make balance patches. Pencil and paper has the advantage over computer games in the way of flexibility. Sacrificing that takes away one of the best things a player gets out of it. The DM still gets to tell their story, but the player is left wondering why they even bother.

Zombimode

2017-04-24, 06:24 AM

Now, what I'm wondering is this: is this an advent of 3rd edition; or is it more an advent of online forums and sharing character build and other info globally?

Well yes, but forums also offer only an incredible skewed view of the playerbase.

The Portion of Players/DMs that visit Forums regularly is minuscule. And not every Person active on the Forum does actually Play D&D.

Darth Ultron

2017-04-24, 06:50 AM

Now, what I'm wondering is this: is this an advent of 3rd edition; or is it more an advent of online forums and sharing character build and other info globally?

It is a 3X thing for sure. The factions of Rules Lawyers, We must follow the All Mighty Rules, The DM is just a Lowly Player People, Optimization-build-munchkin Players and the Hostile This game is all about the Players vs. the DM have been around from the start of the game. Sadly, in about 2000 with 3X all of the above types of gamers were hired by Wizards to write the game. And they changed D&D into their ''homebrewed paradise'' system, and either arrogantly assumed that everyone automatically just thought like them as they are always right, or simply did not care if ''some'' people did not like it.

Now admittedly they did read the times well, as the vast majority of the new gamers after 2000 were of the above types of mindsets. Especially the ''video game builders'' who played all the RPG type video games where you build characters to beat the game.

The online aspect just added fuel to the fire. But amazingly, a lot of gamers even to this day, don't get online for any game related reason....other then to maybe be cool and hip and order a game book off Amazon. I know tons of players that just ''can't be bothered'' to get online for gaming reasons. I can e-mail them a link to a good Handbook that will really help them out....but they don't click on it.

4E, of course, went beyond the pale. 5E tried to reel it in a bit...and half succeeded....but the factions will never willingly give up the power and can't be reasoned with (as they are always right). They can't even agree to disagree, as, well, they are right.

Mordaedil

2017-04-24, 06:56 AM

The rules are pretty clear that there shouldn't be any fighting between DM's and players, but it also addresses the issues of D&D as a social game and provides constructive ways to consolidate them, but I think a lot of DM's and players skip those chapters or don't take the advice to heart and they end up arguing a lot.

A session I had a few years ago where I was a DM in Pathfinder, where I had the party explore a wizard's tower where I based the insides on the old Wizardry games (nothing as cruel, of course, I even allowed the players to solve a time-traveling puzzle room and use it to rest up) and because two of them were new to the game, they were kind of upset when I punished them for sleeping without guards or for not being patient enough to let the rogue do his thing and run through some traps, but the one where we ended up nearly yelling at eachother was when he grew frustrated with his options in combat, so I made a suggestion to flank to set up the rogue, but it ended up not mattering much and he wanted his action back and I had to insist strictly that you can't just take an action back just because it didn't work out like he had planned it.

That's something I didn't want to dwell on, so I just asked if we could move on, but he kinda refused, made it a big deal. Maybe conceding would have been the better idea, but that's usually how it becomes "player vs. DM". And honestly that can happen in ANY edition.

JNAProductions

2017-04-24, 07:40 AM

It is a 3X thing for sure. The factions of Rules Lawyers, We must follow the All Mighty Rules, The DM is just a Lowly Player People, Optimization-build-munchkin Players and the Hostile This game is all about the Players vs. the DM have been around from the start of the game. Sadly, in about 2000 with 3X all of the above types of gamers were hired by Wizards to write the game. And they changed D&D into their ''homebrewed paradise'' system, and either arrogantly assumed that everyone automatically just thought like them as they are always right, or simply did not care if ''some'' people did not like it.

Now admittedly they did read the times well, as the vast majority of the new gamers after 2000 were of the above types of mindsets. Especially the ''video game builders'' who played all the RPG type video games where you build characters to beat the game.

The online aspect just added fuel to the fire. But amazingly, a lot of gamers even to this day, don't get online for any game related reason....other then to maybe be cool and hip and order a game book off Amazon. I know tons of players that just ''can't be bothered'' to get online for gaming reasons. I can e-mail them a link to a good Handbook that will really help them out....but they don't click on it.

4E, of course, went beyond the pale. 5E tried to reel it in a bit...and half succeeded....but the factions will never willingly give up the power and can't be reasoned with (as they are always right). They can't even agree to disagree, as, well, they are right.

That sounds a lot more like your problem than a universal problem. Most players aren't jerks.

And I actually like 4E, for what it was-a much better tactical game than any other edition of D&D. There's still plenty of roleplay in 4E, but I do agree that it's quite different from any other edition of Dungeons and Dragons. That's not bad, though-just different.

Aetis

2017-04-24, 08:00 AM

but from some of the things I read on forums.

Yeah.. for all the terror stories out there, I haven't really ran into those kind of problems at my table.

I think things like that tends to be exaggerated on the net, so I would take it with a grain of salt.

ngilop

2017-04-24, 08:30 AM

1.) Player "entitlement": sometimes I feel an undercurrent of "the customer player is always right"; if the DM says no to anything, he is a bad DM; if the DM has a story arc that has a specific outcome in mind it's "railroading" (note: sometimes this is fairly unavoidable if you're DMing a pre-written adventure and don't have hours to re-wrote the story to accommodate alternate "endings"). Advice often seems to be along the lines of "Oh, your DM only allows core books? Build a brokenly powerful Druid and wreck the game LOL".

2.) Arms race mentality: the player's "discover" some game breaking build or combo (or vice versa, the DM does the same), and instead of coming to a "gentlemen's agreement" of not using that particular build or combo, it becomes an arms race. The DM has to start optimizing every monster or NPC encounter to the Nth degree to challenge the group; or if the show is on the other foot, the player has to research TO builds to keep up with the DMs killer encounters.

The above 2 points are for me at least only things I have ever seen recommended and in my opinion offered as advice in an alarming majority from these very forums. I have never seen, heard or experienced this style of gaming at all in real life from other's accounts or personal experience. Nor from any other RPG forum that I am a member of. GITP has that distinction alone.

You can look at any number of threads for supporting evidence if you feel that I am incorrect. People ask for feat help on a fighter and most just say "play wizard" but even that is not enough then people go on to say " elven generalist, divine oracle with precocious apprentice and cats 9s at 1st level"
Then you have have those posters who are completely and utterly beyond rude and inconsiderate. The op will post a thread and very clearly lay out that they want X and Y, but are unsure of taking either Z1 or Z2. And most responding posts completely ignore the OPs constraints and say 'Go A then B' then when the OP points out that is 100% not what they were asking the forums just loves to bandwagon jump on him for being dumb and a lot of other very disheartening things, ya know .. instead of just admitting they did not read and give advice based on what the OP actually wanted.

THEN on the same this forums has an almost absolute HATE of the DM telling the players No for any reason at all. I cannot find it now, but there was thread about the DM not having some sort of race (they were playing a higher level game or without LA) and in all honestly the response posts on that thread were literally how to build X race with templates and basically 'stick it to the DM' for saying No. I even got told very early on in my time here that I was a horrible DM for telling my druid player that he could not have a certain animal companion. The fact that we all ( myself and the players) agreed on a very specific setting and environment and said companion would never be found in that environment, let alone be able to survive.

You have to take into consideration that the population of GITP is a subset of a partical social group (roleplayers, wargamers, and the like) and even then probably a, for the most part, a subset of even that group. So what you experience o this site is not by any means what the majority of player's are going to experience. While I feel it is probably normal for most GiTPs to be running Near Tippy-verse levels of optimization, I do not believe that most players and DM roll like that whilst playing.

cogminded

2017-04-24, 08:31 AM

I see it very much as a pairing of circumstances.

3.5 has more splat books than any other edition. There are more than most people will ever own, and across that spectrum there are many options for things that people can break, because odd ability X in THIS obcure book combined with circumstance Y in THAT obscure supplement creates COMBO OF ULTIMATE DOOOOOM *cue laughter and lightning*

This is coupled with it being the fact that 3.0 and 3.5 happened to be the edition that was around at the time that chatting about D&D on online forums really rose in popularity (I'm not saying that people didn't before 2000, but not to my knowledge on the same scale) which gave people the option of comparing notes on how sure, that X creates a good combo with Y but if you add Z in as well then your laughter and lightning inducing combo goes beyond ultimate doom to.... MEGA ULTIMATE DOOOOOOM *lightning and laughter and.. I dunno an 80's montage? I didn't think this bit through, sorry*

So that gave people the idea of "well that seems fun as a pure theory but now I want to actually try it", and people competing online to create more and more ridiculous Kings of Smack, which can give people reading the threads a skewed perspective of what counts as "good".

I mean, there are some of the TO threads where characters designed are considered suboptimal because they only do enough damage per hit to kill a minor deity twice over. I mean, how lame is that?

Venger

2017-04-24, 08:58 AM

I hope I don;t start a massive flame-war, but somehting has been on my mind for a while now:

3.5 is my preferred edition. I started out on AD&D 1E and Basic, then on to 2E, and after a break of a few years, into 3.5. We very briefly tried 4E, but didn't much like it. We have briefly played Pathfinder a couple of times, too. Some of my player's have heard good things about 5E, so we might give that a try at some point.

...anyhow, sometimes I feel like 3.X is the edition that fosters the most "DM vs. players" attitude of the editions I've played. Not so much at my own table, but from some of the things I read on forums.

The two main aspects of this I note are as follows:

1.) Player "entitlement": sometimes I feel an undercurrent of "the customer player is always right"; if the DM says no to anything, he is a bad DM; if the DM has a story arc that has a specific outcome in mind it's "railroading" (note: sometimes this is fairly unavoidable if you're DMing a pre-written adventure and don't have hours to re-wrote the story to accommodate alternate "endings"). Advice often seems to be along the lines of "Oh, your DM only allows core books? Build a brokenly powerful Druid and wreck the game LOL".

2.) Arms race mentality: the player's "discover" some game breaking build or combo (or vice versa, the DM does the same), and instead of coming to a "gentlemen's agreement" of not using that particular build or combo, it becomes an arms race. The DM has to start optimizing every monster or NPC encounter to the Nth degree to challenge the group; or if the show is on the other foot, the player has to research TO builds to keep up with the DMs killer encounters.

Now, what I'm wondering is this: is this an advent of 3rd edition; or is it more an advent of online forums and sharing character build and other info globally?

Or maybe I'm imagining the whole thing, and this has been happening ever since 1E, or doesn't happen much at all.

Cheers - T
If anything, 3.x is the least DM vs the players edition, especially compared to older ones.

While a handful of legacies linger, such as the caryatid column, the prevailing design philosophy towards gotcha monsters and encounters like quicklings and nilbogs and whatnot has been lessened a lot since 1 and 2e.

Codifying actual rules to a lot of the game, like having a battlemap in place rather than it being largely freeform when it came to matters of distance and such for spell effects and related (from my understanding of earlier editions of the game) has if anything made it less possible for adversarial GMing to be the new norm. it's much more difficult for a gm to say "ha, gotcha! the monster's right behind you" when there are rules listed for movement, detection, etc.

I've never heard anyone complain about railroading when playing a module. That's just weird.

While your summary seems somewhat skewed, that is a real issue that does come up on the forum a lot. In my experience, the more complete picture is "My gm says our game is limited to core only, but not for reasons of access, but because he wants the game to be balanced and bans all new material because he heard someone on the internet say power creep was a thing" and then people come in and say core is very unbalanced, and a number of the worst effects are there such as druid, polymorph, etc. any advice for player or gm that is to "teach the other one a lesson" is inherently bad, but mostly when I see people mention druid20 in these threads, it's an example of how to explain to the gm that core is not inherently balanced rather than a neat trick on how to be a child and wreck his campaign for not understanding game balance.

3e doesn't in any way preclude the gentleman's agreement, so again, this is a player/group issue rather than a system one. the relative op level of a gm/player group isn't dependent on the system.

Zombimode

2017-04-24, 09:05 AM

While I feel it is probably normal for most GiTPs to be running Near Tippy-verse levels of optimization

It's just a (vocal) minority, even here. Have you ever noticed that whenever actual play experience gets relayed, be it Campaign Journals or something else, it is suspicously not on such a ridiculous optimization level?

The Journals of Saph or SilverClawShift offer a MUCH more accurate view on how D&D actually plays out for most people. That is to say: actually quite well.

Florian

2017-04-24, 09:22 AM

Yeah.. for all the terror stories out there, I haven't really ran into those kind of problems at my table.

I think things like that tends to be exaggerated on the net, so I would take it with a grain of salt.

Hm... how to best explain this? D&D and its wargaming roots are not very popular in germany, as our roleplaying scene and culture developed in quite a different way. People who´re into D&D/PF despite the marked difference on how roleplaying are understood here are a.... very special... breed, that´s why you´ll find a very high percentage of "jerks" that fit the GitP archetype here.

Fizban

2017-04-24, 09:41 AM

The Journals of Saph or SilverClawShift offer a MUCH more accurate view on how D&D actually plays out for most people. That is to say: actually quite well.
Not sure Saph's journal is the best example of typical. It's not DM vs player at all, but Saph was piloting a pretty highly optimized Sorcerer who engaged most of the bosses in single combat and equaled or bested them. A great example of how the caster being OP doesn't mean the rest of the party is irrelevant or not having fun, but I wouldn't beg that build or those bosses as typical.

Florian

2017-04-24, 09:54 AM

Not sure Saph's journal is the best example of typical. It's not DM vs player at all, but Saph was piloting a pretty highly optimized Sorcerer who engaged most of the bosses in single combat and equaled or bested them. A great example of how the caster being OP doesn't mean the rest of the party is irrelevant or not having fun, but I wouldn't beg that build or those bosses as typical.

Context is important here. D&D/PF changes a lot along the levels, you starting with Captain America and end up with Doctor Strange. That´s important as a lot of people seem to not be able to make that transition in tone and power. Saph shows "supernatural normal" here.

Psyren

2017-04-24, 10:03 AM

It's just a (vocal) minority, even here. Have you ever noticed that whenever actual play experience gets relayed, be it Campaign Journals or something else, it is suspicously not on such a ridiculous optimization level?

The Journals of Saph or SilverClawShift offer a MUCH more accurate view on how D&D actually plays out for most people. That is to say: actually quite well.

This, this, this. When you're in an echo chamber forum like GitP or BG where GMs are complaining about players and vice-versa, it's all too easy to forget that there's a reason you see complaining threads so often - it's because the folks with less to complain about aren't making threads. (At least, not nearly as many.) They are out actually playing the game and having fun instead.

This is not to say that negative experiences are somehow invalid or that there's nothing to learn from them, but you shouldn't make decisions or come to conclusions based on the notion that the negative experiences are somehow a majority.

Fizban

2017-04-24, 11:00 AM

Context is important here. D&D/PF changes a lot along the levels, you starting with Captain America and end up with Doctor Strange. That´s important as a lot of people seem to not be able to make that transition in tone and power. Saph shows "supernatural normal" here.
For the sorcerer- the rest remained Hawkeye and Black Widow (ranger and assassin) for the most part. If anything the fact that everyone had fun despite their disparate skill/optimization levels is the most important lesson. There were other casters who did castery things, and other characters died and went through a bunch of build versions in addition to the ranger and assassin: none really matched the level of Saph's sorc in terms of sheer tide-turning when the chips were down, but all seemed to have had fun.

Darth Ultron

2017-04-24, 12:05 PM

That sounds a lot more like your problem than a universal problem. Most players aren't jerks.

I disagree.

But maybe your just one of them people that only ever games with close personal friends, in a circle were you all agree about everything anyway. Try gaming with someone you just ''know their name'' or even a stranger.....and you will see what I'm talking about.

If anything, 3.x is the least DM vs the players edition, especially compared to older ones.

Odd....0E/1E/2E and such don't have the ''player vs Dm'' problem as: the DM wins, the end. So how do you even see a problem.

Just take any problem you see complained about on the boards where a player does something, and wonder why they did not happen in say 2E. The reason is, in 2E if a player acted up or did anything the DM did not like, the DM could just say ''nope it does not happen'' and the player would be all like ''ok''.

3X really, really, really brought up the silly idea that that ''rules are almighty '' and everyone, even the player called DM for no reason, must follow the almighty rules. Editions before 3X did not even have that idea. There were rules lawyers, yes, but they would only argue about the rules approved and applied and used by the DM.

Without the backing of the 3X rules, players can't go ''vs'' the DM, as they say ''the almighty rules on page 77 say you must do this!'' . See in 2E, if you said that to a Dm they would laugh and ignore you...the other players would laugh...and almost the whole of the gaming community would laugh too.

But then too players back in the day were before the ''me'' generation and had respect for the DM too....

Pleh

2017-04-24, 12:12 PM

I think it's worth pointing out that most people find these forums while troubleshooting some problem in their game and/or build.

We have a disproportionate share of the players who have had problems with the game and less of the players who have just enjoyed it and never thought twice about it.

Manyasone

2017-04-24, 12:14 PM

Hm... how to best explain this? D&D and its wargaming roots are not very popular in germany, as our roleplaying scene and culture developed in quite a different way. People who´re into D&D/PF despite the marked difference on how roleplaying are understood here are a.... very special... breed, that´s why you´ll find a very high percentage of "jerks" that fit the GitP archetype here.

Funny how that works, I'm from Belgium myself and; while I have a little experience with "Das Schwarze Auge" and my visit to Spiel some years ago made me realize that our neighbors indeed have a vastly larger market in P&P RPG; the only systems played here are D&D and White Wolf World of Darkness.
But Belgium is a desert concerning P&P rpg's in general, much to my chagrin

Venger

2017-04-24, 12:16 PM

Odd....0E/1E/2E and such don't have the ''player vs Dm'' problem as: the DM wins, the end. So how do you even see a problem.
Ha, you got me there

Just take any problem you see complained about on the boards where a player does something, and wonder why they did not happen in say 2E. The reason is, in 2E if a player acted up or did anything the DM did not like, the DM could just say ''nope it does not happen'' and the player would be all like ''ok''.
I would think of that as a bug rather than a feature when it comes to mechanical effects.

3X really, really, really brought up the silly idea that that ''rules are almighty '' and everyone, even the player called DM for no reason, must follow the almighty rules. Editions before 3X did not even have that idea. There were rules lawyers, yes, but they would only argue about the rules approved and applied and used by the DM.
I mean... yeah? If there aren't any rules, then we aren't really playing a game, we're just doing freeform, which is fine, but it's not really the goal of someone who's setting out to play D&D.

Without the backing of the 3X rules, players can't go ''vs'' the DM, as they say ''the almighty rules on page 77 say you must do this!'' . See in 2E, if you said that to a Dm they would laugh and ignore you...the other players would laugh...and almost the whole of the gaming community would laugh too.
I agree this is the fundamental difference in design philosophy between prior editions and 3.x. in 3.x, I think it's fair to say the role of the gm in 3.x is more like a judge in a courtroom, whose job it is to ensure the rules are being applied fairly and consistently for both pcs and monsters, while in earlier editions, the gm was more like a king who just said whatever he wanted.

I feel like we're agreeing on everything, but you think prior editions are good and 3.x is bad. Am I misreading your comment?

Necroticplague

2017-04-24, 12:17 PM

I disagree.

But maybe your just one of them people that only ever games with close personal friends, in a circle were you all agree about everything anyway. Try gaming with someone you just ''know their name'' or even a stranger.....and you will see what I'm talking about.

As somebody who has only ever gamed with complete strangers, I have to disagree with you: most people aren't jerks. They all come to game to have fun, why spoil it with a bit of needless jerkassery?

Psyren

2017-04-24, 12:42 PM

Without the backing of the 3X rules, players can't go ''vs'' the DM, as they say ''the almighty rules on page 77 say you must do this!'' . See in 2E, if you said that to a Dm they would laugh and ignore you...the other players would laugh...and almost the whole of the gaming community would laugh too.

But then too players back in the day were before the ''me'' generation and had respect for the DM too....

No need to wave that cane around, I'm getting off your lawn.

There are lots of rules that require GM adjudication for the game to work. I think you'll find that even in 3.x/PF, the GM still has a great deal of power - vested in him/her BY said rules.

Florian

2017-04-24, 01:08 PM

No need to wave that cane around, I'm getting off your lawn.

Why so meek?

Remember the what and why of rules: They are communication.

This is not a board game. This is collaborative Storytelling and what we do is use rules to adjust how player and gm input fit into the story.

Telonius

2017-04-24, 01:13 PM

Florian

2017-04-24, 01:25 PM

This is just my impression, having never played an edition before 3.0, but having heard quite a bit about it from the grognards. But; it seems to me that OD&D and AD&D were just as much player vs. DM; but the power was so heavily stacked on the DM's side that people didn't really notice it. With 3.0, players actually had some rules-based agency, and DMs suddenly realized that there was, in fact, a competition going on.

In older editions, the gm was tasked to pit the players against the game world and take on the role of a judge.
This stopped working once people wanted to experience more coherent stories like "Pharaoh" or "Dragonlance".

Psyren

2017-04-24, 01:53 PM

Why so meek?

I don't want to get struck by his cane. I thought it was obvious. :smalltongue:

Remember the what and why of rules: They are communication.

This is not a board game. This is collaborative Storytelling and what we do is use rules to adjust how player and gm input fit into the story.

I don't think we disagree that rules should take a backseat to story. But I don't think clear rules necessarily get in the way of collaborative storytelling either. For example, if the players are up against a serial killer who scries on his victims, that rule leads to an interesting puzzle for the players to solve. You can make narrative from mechanics in many ways.

Quertus

2017-04-24, 06:06 PM

No, 3.x represents a move away from the "players vs DM" mentality that dominated earlier editions.

Other than disliking 4e, I think I disagree with the rest of your assessment, too. I'll try to limit myself to a few key points.

Modules and Railroading

I don't think this really has much to do with what edition you're playing. This is a matter of the players going beyond the GM's prepared materials, and the GM being unwilling or unable to create new material to accommodate. Some GMs are good at improv, some aren't.

There's a lot of things the GM can do at this point, but, IMO, the best answer is for the GM to have an open, honest conversation with the players, explaining the situation, and figuring out where people want to go from there. I don't quite recommend one GMs style of, "do X, or there's no game", but that level of clear, unobfuscated communication.

Maybe the players will choose to go along with the script. Maybe they'll choose to bring new characters who will go along with the script. Maybe they'll suggest inventive ways to let the game continue down the path despite seemingly going off-script. Maybe they'll give the GM the time he needs to build new material. Maybe one of them will agree to DM this "off the rails" section. Or maybe they'll come up with some clever plan I've never encountered to resolve this dilemma.

Arms Race

If you're having trouble having a gentleman's agreement, well, that's a problem right there, independent of edition. But let me take a common gaming phrase, and stand it on its head: never get into am arms race with your players, because they cannot win.

That's right, the person who should stay out of it is the GM. You already mentioned running modules - that makes this even simpler. Simply don't change the module. Done.

If the players complain that they aren't being challenged, simply point out that that's on them. They need to build characters at the correct level of optimization to allow themselves to have fun.

This gets a little trickier when the players are new, and can't build characters competent enough to handle the module, but, since that's not your problem, well leave that discussion for another day.

Player Empowerment

Imagine a bunch of kids who have never played chess sitting down to a chess board, and one person just making up their own rules. Or imagine monopoly with no printed prices for anything, where the banker just makes up prices as he goes. Hopefully you can see how horrible that could be.

3.x represents a move away from that, with codified rules that allow for consistency between tables, and limits players from arguing with the GM about how much a hotel on Ventnor should cost because, look, it's printed right there on the card.

Core Only

I think we've proven many times on these boards that "core only" is about the dumbest thing to do in 3e. You're taking away one of 3e's biggest advantages - the breadth of options - while limiting players to the most broken options, from Wizard/Cleric/Druid (and most of the most broken spells in the game) to Commoner/Monk and Skill Focus / Toughness. So, yeah, don't do that.

Thurbane

2017-04-24, 08:00 PM

Core Only

I think we've proven many times on these boards that "core only" is about the dumbest thing to do in 3e. You're taking away one of 3e's biggest advantages - the breadth of options - while limiting players to the most broken options, from Wizard/Cleric/Druid (and most of the most broken spells in the game) to Commoner/Monk and Skill Focus / Toughness. So, yeah, don't do that.

I vehemently disagree with this point. "Dumbest thing to do in 3e" - really?

There are a number of reasons to play core only - availability of materials; not wanting to overwhelm new(er) players with too many options; (relative) simplicity of play and not needing to learn new subsystems etc.

Core-only games are not inherently worse than kitchen-sink games, at least in my opinion.

Heck, even if the DM does wants to limit to core only for balance reasons, it has some validity. Yes, you can most definitely build broken/overpowered characters in core. But can you honestly say you can't build a more OP cleric/druid/wizard once you throw in ACFs, extra spells, extra feats etc. from a number of other books? The brokenness level mightn't increase by much, but it still increases...

I should say, even in my defence of core-only games (which is often the case with games we play in my group), I do prefer more open-book games; but this is a personal preference, and I wouldn't say my preference is either "right" or "wrong" compared to core-only.

As a point of reference, my current group is 4 people, who's D&D experience ranges from playing for over 30 years since 1E; to having only ever played 3.5 for about 2 years or so. These days I only game with this group, that include friends I've known since childhood and my wife; so I'm not sure of some of the perceived issues I described in my OP are more related to casual get together groups who only know each other from online or the local gaming store...

Cosi

2017-04-24, 09:28 PM

If you're having trouble having a gentleman's agreement, well, that's a problem right there, independent of edition. But let me take a common gaming phrase, and stand it on its head: never get into am arms race with your players, because they cannot win.

I generally agree with this post, but this is particularly true. Players will never ever win an arms race with their DM. But that doesn't mean that they'll ever de-escalate either.

gooddragon1

2017-04-24, 11:09 PM

atemu1234

2017-04-24, 11:56 PM

Well yes, but forums also offer only an incredible skewed view of the playerbase.

The Portion of Players/DMs that visit Forums regularly is minuscule. And not every Person active on the Forum does actually Play D&D.

I feel kind of guilty because when I taught my players how to play the game, I taught them how to optimize, and then when one of them DMs for me, I bring a sub-op Rogue to the table and proceed to deal with most of the issues he hands me with diplomacy checks. Afterwards he explained to me that he expected me to show up with a Wizard/Ur-Priest Theurge or something.

I guess that while optimization doesn't necessarily hamstring roleplaying, playing high tier does limit the number of roles that exist fairly dramatically. I prefer to aim for t3ish, as the monsters tend to still be a challenge and even a monk, on occasion, can struggle to find use.

Quertus

2017-04-25, 12:23 AM

I vehemently disagree with this point. "Dumbest thing to do in 3e" - really?

No, not really. I suppose that wasn't exactly what meant to say. Preceding "for balance" with "Core only" has repeatedly been shown to be incredibly stupid on these boards, and is the dumbest thing I've ever heard anyone do for the purpose of balance in 3e. Better?

But can you honestly say you can't build a more OP cleric/druid/wizard once you throw in ACFs, extra spells, extra feats etc. from a number of other books? The brokenness level mightn't increase by much, but it still increases...

Which is greater, infinity, or infinity plus one?

No, adding other brokenness to a fully broken core caster generally serves to dilute the brokenness, by granting less broken options, rather than doing the impossible and perceptibly increasing the infinite.

Zanos

2017-04-25, 12:41 AM

I generally agree with this post, but this is particularly true. Players will never ever win an arms race with their DM. But that doesn't mean that they'll ever de-escalate either.
While a DM can simply declare rocks fall, many are bound by at least some degree of fair play, and I have seen at least two DMS give up because they couldn't deal with what a player was doing. Not me in either case; I prefer to play to the optimization level of the table rather than ruin the game for people who think fireball is the best third level spell.

Thurbane

2017-04-25, 12:42 AM

No, not really. I suppose that wasn't exactly what meant to say. Preceding "for balance" with "Core only" has repeatedly been shown to be incredibly stupid on these boards, and is the dumbest thing I've ever heard anyone do for the purpose of balance in 3e. Better?

Slightly better, but I still disagree a little.

Which is greater, infinity, or infinity plus one?

No, adding other brokenness to a fully broken core caster generally serves to dilute the brokenness, by granting less broken options, rather than doing the impossible and perceptibly increasing the infinite.

We may have to agree to disagree here: I don't fully accept the assumption that core = infinity. I think it's easier to get to "infinite power" TO builds the more sources you include. You can certainly break the game using core only though, I concede that.

I get your point, and yes, more options also allows for more "un-broken" options as well as broken ones.

gooddragon1

2017-04-25, 12:56 AM

Slightly better, but I still disagree a little.

We may have to agree to disagree here: I don't fully accept the assumption that core = infinity. I think it's easier to get to "infinite power" TO builds the more sources you include. You can certainly break the game using core only though, I concede that.

I get your point, and yes, more options also allows for more "un-broken" options as well as broken ones.

When you already have the option for infinity does adding more options matter? As a DM it means more things that you have to watch for when you add more books. It also means that infinity can be reached at lower levels. However, aren't you still basically saying no when it happens? Does the player have some ability to coerce you into allowing infinity? As said elsewhere: He know he done wrong.

The problem will likely be the intermediate area. Not infinity. Where players optimize and then outshine other players. That's where it takes a combination of finesse and players understanding what power level to aim for/actually working toward that power level. Micromanagement isn't pleasant, but it's not necessary if players approach the aspect of balance in good faith.

Thurbane

2017-04-25, 01:09 AM

Florian

2017-04-25, 01:14 AM

Darth Ultron

2017-04-25, 07:18 AM

I would think of that as a bug rather than a feature when it comes to mechanical effects.

Remember there were nowhere near as much ''mechanical effects'' in 2E.

I mean... yeah? If there aren't any rules, then we aren't really playing a game, we're just doing freeform, which is fine, but it's not really the goal of someone who's setting out to play D&D.

Good example of the mentality. The ''we all must follow the rules'' vs ''Whatever the DM says''.

I feel like we're agreeing on everything, but you think prior editions are good and 3.x is bad. Am I misreading your comment?

Nah, I like 3.5E and Pathfinder.

This is just my impression, having never played an edition before 3.0, but having heard quite a bit about it from the grognards. But; it seems to me that OD&D and AD&D were just as much player vs. DM; but the power was so heavily stacked on the DM's side that people didn't really notice it. With 3.0, players actually had some rules-based agency, and DMs suddenly realized that there was, in fact, a competition going on.

It is more accurate to say the DM was in charge and everyone agreed to this and played the game. So a player could ask the DM to do or not do a thing, but they could only ask. And keep in mind this is the classic way of asking were the person was a mature adult and just accepted the answer they got from the DM as final.

OD&D and AD&D were simple enough that you really did not have much chance for ''player vs DM'' as simply put there were few rules, and whatever the DM said was official. So if a character shot a fireball at a monster and it just bounced off, they would shrug and keep playing the game...as there were no rules for them to make their ''rant, whiney argument'' from : the DM just said that happened.

3X added a ton of rules to make everything much more exact and took away a lot of the DM's ''anything goes'' rulings. Sadly, this came along right as the ''Me Generation'' folks were old enough to game. And they brought the ideas to the front of ''the rules are almighty'' and the ''DM is just a player'' and ''The whole group votes'' and such things. So now in 3X, when a fireball does not do exactly what it says on page 7 of the almighty rules the player will stop the game and demand a in game reason that follows the almighty rules. And if the DM does not have a ''official rules explanation'' then the players will vote to ''ignore the dumb Player called DM fluff'' and the fireball will work ''as per the almighty rules''.

3X really started the Arms Race, and the Rules Race....and the really bad ''gottca!'' stuff. So you get players carefully trying to craft and build character ''in the rules'' or in the ''wacky interpretation of the rules'' and attempting to dominate, rule and ''win'' the game by out doing the DM, using the rules (mostly, with a couple ''interpretations'' and ''well all the optimizer player types think this says this or that..''). DM's in turn have to ''armor'' everything they do in the ''rule interpretations'' of whatever their players believe. So the DM can say ''well your player wacky rule interpretation is this, and I used it'' and the player would just hang their head and agree, as they had to and say ''all hail the all mighty rules''.

A lot (most?) of 3.X books feel like they are written in a vacuum, and take no consideration into account of how new feats, PrCs, items etc. interact with other such materials.

.

Worse is that a lot written in the books was not written by a savvy gamer person. A Ton of problems could have been avoided by just adding a word or two to a lot of things. Even more so a lot of ''legalese'' style writing of ''this ability does not stake with X'' or ''This does or does not do this''.

And this is worse as tons of 3X players ''interpret'' rules in their favor. So when a sentence somewhere says ''you may add a spell'', the ''interpreter players'' will leap up and say ''we can add ''a spell'' from Any spell list!

And really a ton could have been avoided, if like AD&D, the simple line of ''the DM has the final say'' or ''pending the DM's approval'' or such.

OldTrees1

2017-04-25, 10:38 AM

I have not witnessed any Player vs DM and I have only played 3rd edition.

I have witnessed many cases of the vocal minority complaining about one or the other. These abnormally visible accounts span all editions and I have not seen a bias towards one edition having more or less of these accounts relative to that edition's post rate.

So no, 3.x is not a Player vs DM edition.

The DM runs the game for everyone (including making the rules), and the Players choose which game to join with the goal of everyone's enjoyment.

Necroticplague

2017-04-25, 11:05 AM

In my own experience, the more consistent rules actually decreases arguments. After all, before, the fact the fireball did nothing could have just been the DM screwing you over with fiat, which is something to argue over. With a more extensive rules in place, there are quiet a few ways that could have happened, all of which can be played around and accounted for. Could be immunity to fire, could be SR, could be evasion+successful save. Either way, no reason to try and argue, because there's good reason to believe he's not just f***ing you over. Somebody who stops the game to act exactly why is an a*****e who would be a problem, regardless of system. The problem about arguing to know why something happened is an issue about trusting the DM, not anything related to the mechanics of the system.

Darth Ultron

2017-04-25, 12:35 PM

The problem about arguing to know why something happened is an issue about trusting the DM, not anything related to the mechanics of the system.

Very true, as I said 3X just gives fuel and an excuse. The untrusting adversarial ''Me'' jerk type player has been around forever, 3X just let them come out of the shadows and hide as an ''Almighty Rules Worshiping Player''.

JNAProductions

2017-04-25, 12:57 PM

Very true, as I said 3X just gives fuel and an excuse. The untrusting adversarial ''Me'' jerk type player has been around forever, 3X just let them come out of the shadows and hide as an ''Almighty Rules Worshiping Player''.

No, jerks are jerks, no matter which way you slice it.

Solution: Don't play with jerks. If someone sneaks into your table under the veneer of niceness and turns out to be a jerk? Stop inviting them to the sessions.

If for some reason you can't, ask yourself if it's worth playing anymore. If it's not fun, you'd be better off doing something else.

Piedmon_Sama

2017-04-25, 01:31 PM

OP: I think your first point could really exist in any edition---go back to the very first edition of D&D, I mean the three booklets + Greyhawk and Blackmoor, and I'm sure there was some guy who was mad that his DM wanted to keep only the original three classes (Fighting Man, Cleric, Magic-User) and not adopt this crazy new class called "the Thief." (Heck there are some OD&D aficionados out there who accuse the Thief of being the beginning of Everything Wrong With D&D...)

Your second point though, about the arms race mentality---yeah I think you can lay some of that at Third Edition, or probably very late 2nd Ed. AD&D was the beginning of it. The thing about it was Third Edition was when WotC adopted this strategy of craaaaanking out product, after product, after product. "Power Creep" was inevitable for the same reason why in the millionth printed Wolverine comic him getting riddled with bullets isn't a big deal anymore---that's well-worn ground. Eventually you want to play something other than a dude with a halberd and Improved Trip. Hence Tome of Battle and "3.75." You want to make new sub-games (like, there's the combat game, the skill game and the spell game and the spell game has a comparative embarrassment of riches) to keep it interesting. And then you have a Paladin, a Hexblade, a Duskblade and a Warblade in the same party and those latter two are going to make the other two feel like they're driving a Model T vs the other guy's sports car (maybe---from my experience it's actually p. easy to play the Tome classes badly and suck with them, but generally speaking).

Because Third Edition is like seventeen years old now and has gone through so many evolutions just to stay fresh, even when you're just running 3.5 you're really looking at several different games of rising complexity, and they do not mix well unless you are kinda careful about it. Like, I love 3.5, but trying to play it with Anything Goes and a group of players who have different levels of optimization skill and inclination/interest to peruse all those expensive honking books is a recipe for bad games and hurt feelings.

The way to think of it, IMO, really is to think of 3.5 as several closely related but distinct games. I'm not as experienced with Pathfinder (even though that's the actual game I actually run...) but it probably applies there too. So like, when you "build" your game you decide what parts to use, like picking a bunch of parts for your engine that will make it do different things. Maybe you want souped-up and deep melee characters so you bolt on the Tome of Battle subsystem. Maybe you throw in the combat facing option from Unearthed Arcana because you really really like Dark Souls. Maybe you don't want the headache of having to keep the Wizard player honest about how many spider legs and pinches of guano he's carrying so you just ban that class. When you think of d20 in all its iterations as a chassis that begs to be tweaked, stripped, tricked out, etc. it's basically My Favorite Game, but the hard part is getting people to take that leap with you. Most players I know, when they shell out for the latest splatbook, they want to use that book so they don't feel like their money was wasted.

Crake

2017-04-25, 02:05 PM

This, this, this. When you're in an echo chamber forum like GitP or BG where GMs are complaining about players and vice-versa, it's all too easy to forget that there's a reason you see complaining threads so often - it's because the folks with less to complain about aren't making threads. (At least, not nearly as many.) They are out actually playing the game and having fun instead.

This is not to say that negative experiences are somehow invalid or that there's nothing to learn from them, but you shouldn't make decisions or come to conclusions based on the notion that the negative experiences are somehow a majority.

I think it also has to do with a level of schadenfreude on this forum. People love to talk, discuss and rant about bad DMs, players and experiences, and such threads will go on for pages and pages, but you try to start a thread about good experiences, cool things that happen, and so on, the threads die without even hitting page 2.

Why? Because drama is more interesting to read than a story about sunshine and harmony. Probably.

Psyren

2017-04-25, 02:29 PM

I think it also has to do with a level of schadenfreude on this forum. People love to talk, discuss and rant about bad DMs, players and experiences, and such threads will go on for pages and pages, but you try to start a thread about good experiences, cool things that happen, and so on, the threads die without even hitting page 2.

Why? Because drama is more interesting to read than a story about sunshine and harmony. Probably.

Indeed, and I have no problem with anecdotes like that being popular - interesting stories need conflict after all. What I have a problem with is the assumption that those anecdotes somehow represent a trend or majority experience.

No, jerks are jerks, no matter which way you slice it.

Solution: Don't play with jerks. If someone sneaks into your table under the veneer of niceness and turns out to be a jerk? Stop inviting them to the sessions.

If for some reason you can't, ask yourself if it's worth playing anymore. If it's not fun, you'd be better off doing something else.

Agreed - a game being rules-heavy is not a license for a jerk to be a jerk.

NomGarret

2017-04-25, 03:23 PM

What makes 3.x different from other editions in this respect is how much there is both freedom and incentive to focus on building the character. Previous editions, and to an extent 5e has returned to this, had a higher role of chance in character creation and progression. There is less of a point to trying to build a character just the way you want it because there are fewer decision points over which you have control. While 3.x and 4e are both very conducive to focusing on builds, the number of decision points and prerequisites for future decisions makes 3.x stand out that extra step further.

Dagroth

2017-04-25, 03:55 PM

That's another good point: there more extra sources you add in to the mix, the greater the chance of an OP combo appearing that the DM or other players may not already be aware of.

A lot (most?) of 3.X books feel like they are written in a vacuum, and take no consideration into account of how new feats, PrCs, items etc. interact with other such materials.

Like I said earlier, my personal play-style preference is a more open book approach; but I feel like there is a place out there for core-only games.

Most books were "written in a vacuum". The writers could not assume that anyone who purchased a given book would have any other books beyond the Core books. Some writers threw in stuff, but only when there was really good synergy (Complete Scoundrel & Complete Adventurer), it was a small piece (there's some small bits for Hexblades scattered about, but no new spells for Duskblades), or it fit thematically (there's a little bit about Dragon Shamans in Dragon Magic).

There's a ton of new spells in the Spell Compendium... but no references as to which ones should be added to the Wu Jen, Shujenja, WarMage, Beguiler, Dread Necromancer, Duskblade, etc. lists. That's kinda sad.

And really a ton could have been avoided, if like AD&D, the simple line of ''the DM has the final say'' or ''pending the DM's approval'' or such.

"Rule Zero" is an actual thing, and is in the DMG.

Psyren

2017-04-25, 04:05 PM

Most books were "written in a vacuum". The writers could not assume that anyone who purchased a given book would have any other books beyond the Core books. Some writers threw in stuff, but only when there was really good synergy (Complete Scoundrel & Complete Adventurer), it was a small piece (there's some small bits for Hexblades scattered about, but no new spells for Duskblades), or it fit thematically (there's a little bit about Dragon Shamans in Dragon Magic).

There's a ton of new spells in the Spell Compendium... but no references as to which ones should be added to the Wu Jen, Shujenja, WarMage, Beguiler, Dread Necromancer, Duskblade, etc. lists. That's kinda sad.

It's another reason I prefer Pathfinder - with the whole system being OGL, they don't have to know which titles their audience is or isn't likely to have. No matter what class you like, you can always be surprised by new toys for it, like we saw with the Fighter getting Advanced Weapon Training recently or Prestigious Spellcaster launching who knows how many builds.

"Rule Zero" is an actual thing, and is in the DMG.

Indeed:

DMG pg. 6
CRB pg. 4

Segev

2017-04-25, 04:39 PM

I personally think 3e marked a move away from the paradigm of "Players vs. DM," simply by virtue of advocating actively for a "cooperative storytelling" mode of play as an option. Sure, the classic adversarial "DM controls the enemies" model is still in effect, but for some reason, when the rules are "the DM wins" and there's no rules for players to rely on to inform them of anything other than "hope the DM agrees with me today," there's a mentality that the DM has to keep proving he's the boss-man.

Quertus

2017-04-25, 07:01 PM

@Quertus:

What is "core" D&D gameplay? You get a good combat engine and everything you need to do a decent dungeon crawl, that´s basically it. Keep in mind that the recommend character generation option is 4d6 drop lowest and loot is also done using random tables. There´s also no real shopping as you lack the means to generate the shops themselves - or anything outside of a dungeon.

The proper use of the DM's phenomenal cosmic power is to fill in the gaps in the system. So, back in Y2K, when 3rd edition first hit the shelves, and all there was was "core only", the DM's job was to fill in these missing details.

Now that WotC has filed in those blanks, it's generally "reinventing the wheel" level of foolish not to just use the rules provided, unless you are explicitly changing something for your campaign.

But, yes, in a strict adherence to core only RAW, at the level of pedantic that disallows shops, the "dead" condition is not defined as preventing you from taking actions. So... it's a very different game.

J-H

2017-04-25, 09:00 PM

One oft-overlooked detail is that DMG pg 174 says to modify base classes to fit your campaign, and even gives an example of how to do so.

Most of us call it "Homebrew" and either dislike it (I am LG and like to have good documentation) or use it heavily but don't think of it as part of the core game...when it is.

Incidentally, the Witch spell list on the following pages is an early prototype of Beguiler/DN/Warmage style casting.

Thurbane

2017-04-26, 03:18 AM

"Rule Zero" is an actual thing, and is in the DMG.

Indeed:

DMG pg. 6
CRB pg. 4

I sometimes feel like Rule Zero is held in even wider general contempt than the multiclassing XP penalty rules.

gooddragon1

2017-04-26, 06:45 AM

I sometimes feel like Rule Zero is held in even wider general contempt than the multiclassing XP penalty rules.

In my opinion, Rule 0 should be used only with flagrant violations like pun pun, infinite combos, and tier 0 classes. Lesser situations should involve negotiations. The balance of the negotiations should depend upon the severity and nature of the situation.

TheIronGolem

2017-04-26, 10:27 AM

I sometimes feel like Rule Zero is held in even wider general contempt than the multiclassing XP penalty rules.
I think that if you really examine the statements that give you that impression, in most cases you'll find that the contempt is not for Rule Zero, but for its [ab]use by insecure GMs as an intellectual bomb shelter.

In my opinion, Rule 0 should be used only with flagrant violations like pun pun, infinite combos, and tier 0 classes. Lesser situations should involve negotiations. The balance of the negotiations should depend upon the severity and nature of the situation.

There are other valid uses, too. For example, a quick-and-dirty ruling to resolve an uncertainty in the rules in the interest of minimizing interruptions - "You fail your Fort save and begin to drown" "How does drowning work again? Hand me that DMG, wouldja?" "You know what? For now we'll just say you take 1d6 nonlethal damage per round, after the game we'll look up the 'right' way for future reference."

OldTrees1

2017-04-26, 10:29 AM

I sometimes feel like Rule Zero is held in even wider general contempt than the multiclassing XP penalty rules.

In which context?
In defense of a developer releasing sloppy content? No, rule 0 does not excuse easily avoided developer mistakes.

In attempts to having a single premise for internet discussion? Varies from forum to forum. This forum (much to my chagrin) does seem to prefer discussing a standardized fiction than discussing myriad real cases.

In use in an actual campaign (the context relevant to your overall question)? While some do dislike unreasoned use of Rule 0, it is a very rare sighting to see someone that inherently dislikes rule 0. Almost everyone would agree that Rule 0 is why my game of D&D is better than blind RAW.

Psyren

2017-04-26, 10:51 AM

In my opinion, Rule 0 should be used only with flagrant violations like pun pun, infinite combos, and tier 0 classes. Lesser situations should involve negotiations. The balance of the negotiations should depend upon the severity and nature of the situation.

And no one's saying you can't negotiate, but in the end a final arbiter is needed to keep things moving, even if just in the short term ("we'll table this until later, but for now here's how it's going to work.") Nobody wants to devote their entire evening of free time to an endless stalemate.

In which context?
In defense of a developer releasing sloppy content? No, rule 0 does not excuse easily avoided developer mistakes.

Clearly it does excuse them or these games wouldn't be commercially successful in spite of their flaws, which is ultimately the only metric that matters (game developers needing to eat, and all.) The existence of Rule Zero hasn't caused any mass boycotts of the product that I could see, the majority of playgroups are fine with it.

Developers do correct their mistakes over time - that being the entire purpose of constructs like FAQ and Errata - but until they do, Rule Zero allows those mistakes to be addressed on a local basis so that people can get out there and play. You can dismiss these very human mistakes as "sloppy content", maybe they even are, but it's a reality of this medium that we're going to have to accept regardless, at least until physical rulebooks can be patched on the fly like video games can.

Segev

2017-04-26, 11:13 AM

Venger

2017-04-26, 11:26 AM

intellectual bomb shelter

I'm never calling it intellect fortress (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/intellectFortress.htm) again

OldTrees1

2017-04-26, 11:52 AM

Clearly it does excuse them or these games wouldn't be commercially successful in spite of their flaws, which is ultimately the only metric that matters (game developers needing to eat, and all.) The existence of Rule Zero hasn't caused any mass boycotts of the product that I could see, the majority of playgroups are fine with it.

Developers do correct their mistakes over time - that being the entire purpose of constructs like FAQ and Errata - but until they do, Rule Zero allows those mistakes to be addressed on a local basis so that people can get out there and play. You can dismiss these very human mistakes as "sloppy content", maybe they even are, but it's a reality of this medium that we're going to have to accept regardless, at least until physical rulebooks can be patched on the fly like video games can.

The following is mostly off topic in this thread. The point of that section of my post was to say that "criticism of trying to use rule 0 as a shield against game design critique of other parts of the game" is not hate towards the use of Rule 0 (a nearly essential rule for RPGs) by DMs.

I believe you misunderstood what I said so I will try to say it better(Segev was closer, although I was speaking more broadly). In the first context I never said anything close to rule 0 detracting from a product. Merely that the inclusion of rule 0 to a product does not make that product instantly have maximum theoretical quality regardless of the quality of the content sans rule 0.

Consider if I handed you a game that was page 1 of the PHB and Rule 0. Clearly I offering a terribly designed product even if the user can fix it to be what they want.

What if I handed you a game that was Nup Nup, Pun Pun, and Rule 0. Again, while a DM could use rule 0 to make a perfect game in that system, I (the developer) provided a low quality product.

Finally what if I handed you a nearly flawless game that also had rule 0. Would that product be flawless or nearly flawless? It would be a great product either way and at your table you could use rule 0 to make it a flawless game. However that does not change the fact that I only offered a nearly flawless game. The last bit of perfection should be credited to the DM and not to the developer.

The content released for D&D 3rd edition is flawed, but still good enough. So one would expect it to be commercially viable. If the content were not good enough, the presence of Rule 0's infinite potential for fixing the game would not make it commercially viable.

In other words, the existence of Rule 0 does not negate the critique of the content released.

All of which is mostly off topic in this thread. The point of that section of my post was to say that "criticism of trying to use rule 0 as a shield against game design critique of other parts of the game" is not hate towards the use of Rule 0 (a nearly essential rule for RPGs) by DMs.

Florian

2017-04-26, 12:18 PM

Re: Rule Zero.

This is not a board game and possible actions are not limited by the rules but rather by our imagination. It´s impossible to codify everything into rules, so this is why we have to fall back on using Rules Zero.

Psyren

2017-04-26, 12:41 PM

I think OldTrees1 is more saying that Rule 0 doesn't excuse content being poor "by design" (in truth or as a bug-to-feature-PR-conversion). One of the more common criticisms of 5e is that it is an "incomplete game" that they used "rulings, not rules" (i.e. Rule 0) as an excuse to leave unfinished and with gaping holes and jarring inconsistencies. I could be mistaken, but it is that kind of thing - and any defense of a flaw in the system or rules as "you can just Rule 0 it" - to which I think he's referring.

Yes, Rule 0 lets you fix it. But that doesn't make what you're fixing not a flaw.

Consider if I handed you a game that was page 1 of the PHB and Rule 0. Clearly I offering a terribly designed product even if the user can fix it to be what they want.

The content released for D&D 3rd edition is flawed, but still good enough. So one would expect it to be commercially viable. If the content were not good enough, the presence of Rule 0's infinite potential for fixing the game would not make it commercially viable.

In other words, the existence of Rule 0 does not negate the critique of the content released.

Yeah yeah, I'm well aware of Oberoni :smallsigh:

Nobody is "negating critique." The problem is that it often goes beyond mere critique - the specific term Thurbane used was "contempt," and he's right. It's very easy in hindsight, and with the benefit of thousands of playtesters. to declare that an imperfect product is "sloppy" - or that out of hundreds of rules, the mistakes that exist should all have been "easily avoided." But the real truth is that nobody sets out to make a buggy game. And I'll take a buggy game with rule zero (especially one that still gets errata and clarifications) any damn day of the week over one that is so playtested to hell and back that it never sees release. Nor would I take it over one that cops out with a "rulings, not rules" approach. (Which is not a knock against 5e - I enjoy it too - but I'm glad that someone is both trying and succeeding to make a commercially viable rules-heavy game, warts and all.)

I believe you misunderstood what I said (Segev was closer, but I was speaking more broadly). In the first context I never said anything close to rule 0 detracting from a product. Merely that the inclusion of rule 0 to a game does not make that game instantly have maximum theoretical quality.

What I'm saying is that "maximum theoretical quality" is an unrealistic standard to expect from any product of human endeavor, and especially one with as many moving parts as a rules-heavy simulationist game.

Florian

2017-04-26, 12:56 PM

@Psyren:

Answering that is not that easy. You know that you want rules to cover the ordinary and than extrapolate from there to cover the extraordinary or supernatural.

Segev

2017-04-26, 01:39 PM

What I'm saying is that "maximum theoretical quality" is an unrealistic standard to expect from any product of human endeavor, and especially one with as many moving parts as a rules-heavy simulationist game.

Agreed. As long as the criticism is accepted as valid where it is valid, I don't think OldTrees1 is objecting to anything. I think all he's objecting to is the notion that using Rule 0 to say "that isn't a flaw" is valid.

Which, as you mention, is the Oberoni fallacy (I had to stop and remember which one that was when you mentioned it). I do believe we're all on the same page, here.

Actually, I think OldTrees1 was a step beyond that: he was saying that Rule 0 is not a problem, and is a part of good, well-designed games. That Oberoni is not a reason to hate Rule 0, nor be suspicious of it.

(Again, I'm not OldTrees1, so I could be misreading him.)

Twurps

2017-04-26, 01:57 PM

Now, what I'm wondering is this: is this an advent of 3rd edition; or is it more an advent of online forums and sharing character build and other info globally?

Or maybe I'm imagining the whole thing, and this has been happening ever since 1E, or doesn't happen much at all.

Cheers - T

I've only ever played 3.5. And only ever with friends (as this seems to matter too) so I can't comment on earlier editions.
I do feel however that this forum (fun as it is) is a world away from 'real' d&d.

Arms race?: In our group, people actively seek a power balance with other players, and explicitly to a degree of power/optimization that all players can handle. Though my d&d experience is limited to this specific group, I find this is true for just about any game I play. (MtG being the most obvious example.) So it's pretty universally applicable.
Also: We talk (OOC) about our games a lot (it being a mutual interest and all). Doing that seems to prevent most 'problems' before they are ever worthy of that title. Never has anybody thought it a good idea to 'Build CoDzilla and show the DM how wrong he really is', or any of the other passive aggressive advices I read here a lot. I guess 'talk to your DM' is an advice that gets boring after a while, sound as it may be, and so the more exotic solutions seem to prevail on this forum.

Also: What Quertus said:

Arms Race

If you're having trouble having a gentleman's agreement, well, that's a problem right there, independent of edition. But let me take a common gaming phrase, and stand it on its head: never get into am arms race with your players, because they cannot win.

If the players complain that they aren't being challenged, simply point out that that's on them. They need to build characters at the correct level of optimization to allow themselves to have fun.

Railroading?: We've never needed hard rails, because we're all willing to humor our DM when he drops a hint. DM-ing is time consuming enough without him having to prepare for every eventuality, and the story is usually the better for it.

Core only: I've never understood the hate for 'core only'. Why is that bad, whilst 'no dragon allowed' is generally accepted? To play a game with a group, you need to make sure everybody plays by the same rules. With the vast amount of books available, some sort of boundary doesn't just seem logical, its a necessity. (Heck: I play chess in an organized way, nowhere near as many rules ad d&d, but even there some amount of 'setting ground rules' is required.) I don't see why 1 particular boundary would be 'worse' than another. Haven't ever encountered this discussion IRL though, so I'm not sure it's really an issue outside this forum.

JNAProductions

2017-04-26, 02:02 PM

The issue is "Core Only, 'cause it's more balanced". Core only, because I want a simpler game is fine. But saying it's more balanced, well, that's just incorrect, and shows a lack of understanding in the system.

OldTrees1

2017-04-26, 02:13 PM

Yeah yeah, I'm well aware of Oberoni :smallsigh:

Nobody is "negating critique." The problem is that it often goes beyond mere critique - the specific term Thurbane used was "contempt," and he's right. It's very easy in hindsight, and with the benefit of thousands of playtesters. to declare that an imperfect product is "sloppy" - or that out of hundreds of rules, the mistakes that exist should all have been "easily avoided." But the real truth is that nobody sets out to make a buggy game. And I'll take a buggy game with rule zero (especially one that still gets errata and clarifications) any damn day of the week over one that is so playtested to hell and back that it never sees release. Nor would I take it over one that cops out with a "rulings, not rules" approach. (Which is not a knock against 5e - I enjoy it too - but I'm glad that someone is both trying and succeeding to make a commercially viable rules-heavy game, warts and all.)

What I'm saying is that "maximum theoretical quality" is an unrealistic standard to expect from any product of human endeavor, and especially one with as many moving parts as a rules-heavy simulationist game.

:smallsigh:

I disagree with Thurbane in that I don't see contempt or even dislike of Rule 0.

I was pointing out that rule 0 exists in different contexts and by doing so I was separating those cases.

The first context was statements pointing out the Oberoni Fallacy. It would be erroneous to characterize these as dislike of Rule 0 (not to even speak of contempt). All the dislike in those statements is aimed at the fallacy. I pointed this out as counterevidence against Thurbane's concerns.

--entering off topic part of the conversation--

Now your post demonstrates you do not perfectly understand the Oberoni Fallacy (but holding out for perfection is an unreasonable expectation). It makes no sense to compare an imperfect game with rule 0 to a "perfect" game without rule 0 if you are talking about Oberoni. Instead compare two games of different quality that both also have a rule 0. Which one was better designed? The Oberoni Fallacy is claiming that both games have equal quality due soley to both having rule 0. This is not about holding perfection as the expected standard, it is pointing out that games with rule 0s can differ in quality just as much as games without rule 0s can differ in quality.

So would you take D&D with Rule 0 over a game half as good that still has Rule 0? I presume yes?

--leaving off topic part of the conversation--

So statements about the Oberoni Fallacy (whether you agree with them or not) are not contempt for Rule 0. They are not even dislike of Rule 0.

So I listed 3 contexts where I saw rule 0 mentioned in conversation. Based on what I have witnessed in these 3 contexts, I do not see any sizable contempt or dislike for Rule 0.

Agreed. As long as the criticism is accepted as valid where it is valid, I don't think OldTrees1 is objecting to anything. I think all he's objecting to is the notion that using Rule 0 to say "that isn't a flaw" is valid.

Which, as you mention, is the Oberoni fallacy (I had to stop and remember which one that was when you mentioned it). I do believe we're all on the same page, here.

Actually, I think OldTrees1 was a step beyond that: he was saying that Rule 0 is not a problem, and is a part of good, well-designed games. That Oberoni is not a reason to hate Rule 0, nor be suspicious of it.

(Again, I'm not OldTrees1, so I could be misreading him.)

As usual Segev is reliable for accurately and precisely parsing a good chunk of what I am saying.

In addition to everything Segev just said I said,

Thurbane is concerned there might be contempt for Rule 0. One third of my reply to Thurbane was saying "discussions about Oberoni might be mistaken as dislike for rule 0, but they are not".

Psyren

2017-04-26, 02:37 PM

Agreed. As long as the criticism is accepted as valid where it is valid, I don't think OldTrees1 is objecting to anything. I think all he's objecting to is the notion that using Rule 0 to say "that isn't a flaw" is valid.

Which, as you mention, is the Oberoni fallacy (I had to stop and remember which one that was when you mentioned it). I do believe we're all on the same page, here.

Actually, I think OldTrees1 was a step beyond that: he was saying that Rule 0 is not a problem, and is a part of good, well-designed games. That Oberoni is not a reason to hate Rule 0, nor be suspicious of it.

(Again, I'm not OldTrees1, so I could be misreading him.)

Your interpretation of what he wrote is quite charitable - because again, I still recall phrases like "sloppy" being thrown around, which is in fact the very antithesis of "good, well-designed game."

I do feel however that this forum (fun as it is) is a world away from 'real' d&d.

This has certainly been my experience as well.

Now, I'll grant you that the only "real D&D" I can speak to is the D&D I've played, so it's quite possible that the flaws do present themselves quite strongly in other groups. In which case, all I can do is be thankful that I haven't had to deal with that myself.

OldTrees1

2017-04-26, 03:15 PM

Your interpretation of what he wrote is quite charitable - because again, I still recall phrases like "sloppy" being thrown around, which is in fact the very antithesis of "good, well-designed game."

Double check the nouns those adjectives were being applied to and the author in each case.

Sloppy was in context of an undefined sloppy game (that also has Rule 0) so it was not calling Rule 0 sloppy. The author being some undefined discussion on this forum about the undefined sloppy game.

Just 2 paragraphs down was an arbitrary DM crediting Rule 0 as the reason their game was better than RAW.

-then your first post-

-then my 2nd post-

There the author is myself. First I say that Rule 0 is an essential rule for RPGs. (aka a good, well designed game will also have Rule 0)

Then I am saying that Rule 0 can be used to run a perfect game using an imperfect product (that I hypothetically designed in the hypothetical example).

Then I repeat that Rule 0 is an essential rule for RPGs.

-then your 2nd post-

-then Segev's restatement of what they thought I was saying.-

-then another of my posts-

I don't know why you think Segev is being "quite charitable". I was practically worshiping Rule 0 in those posts.

Psyren

2017-04-26, 03:40 PM

OldTrees1

2017-04-26, 03:46 PM

If I misread you then we're in agreement - perfection is not reasonable to be expected, but decent rules + rule zero is the best we're likely to get from a practical standpoint.

And for the record, no, I would not be fine with a page of rules and rule zero.

We agree.

Back to the high level
A few posts back you said that you think there is some contempt for Rule 0. I will ask you the same question I asked Thurbane: In what context have you observed/expect to observe some contempt for Rule 0?

Of the 3 areas I can think of where Rule 0 is mentioned, only the 2nd (the forum tending towards wanting standardized premises for discussion) could be classified as some kind of contempt (and I think that is forum specific).

Quertus

2017-04-26, 08:33 PM

Also: What Quertus said:

:biggrin:

Core only: I've never understood the hate for 'core only'. Why is that bad, whilst 'no dragon allowed' is generally accepted? To play a game with a group, you need to make sure everybody plays by the same rules. With the vast amount of books available, some sort of boundary doesn't just seem logical, its a necessity. (Heck: I play chess in an organized way, nowhere near as many rules ad d&d, but even there some amount of 'setting ground rules' is required.) I don't see why 1 particular boundary would be 'worse' than another. Haven't ever encountered this discussion IRL though, so I'm not sure it's really an issue outside this forum.

"Core only, because balance" is like "nitroglycerin armor, because safety".

But I hate on "core only" beyond "for balance", so I'll say more on the subject.

One of the biggest strengths of 3e is the breadth of options. Core only, as should be obvious, kills that strength. It's a step backwards, like rewriting the rules in Gygaxian pros, and reinstating THAC0, Save vs Obfuscation, good numbers going both up and down, and rolling high and low and high without going over and... No. Just no.

I may have been willing to tolerate "core only" several hundred characters ago, but now it's just... boring. Like the umpteenth time I was forced to play someone who knew nothing about the world they lived in, and had to ask the crazy old hermit / village idiot how to harm a werewolf (hint: it's silver, as most any 5-year-old in this world, whose life doesn't depend on that knowledge, can tell you).

Also - the general mindset of "core only" is a red flag for me, as it usually, in my experience, denotes a rather, shall we say, uncreative DM. Mind you, I'm fine with running a module straight out of the book, but, IME, this kind of DM often cannot adapt to their game (say, "OMG, Monks are too OP"), and bails. Or, when they do try to adapt, and a) attempt to use their lack of understanding of the rules to tailor encounters to the party, but b) can't grasp that metamagics increase the "cost" of spells, so c) has 5th level NPC wizards throwing Quickened Maximized Twice-Empowered Magic Missiles out of their first level spell slots to deal with those OP Monks... Yeah, no.

Also, IME, "core only" tends to be espoused by DMs who have a tendency to create lots of game-changing rules on the fly.

Also, character creation is the players' first act of the game. When a DM attempts to limit player agency before the game has even started, it sets a bad tone for the rest of the game. It's a bad sign, for me, that we're in for some rails.

So, actual reasons to hate on core only: poor balance, limited options / boring, and goes against one of the biggest strengths of 3e. Behaviors I associate with core only: railroading, ridiculous prolific mid-game house rules, and a general inability to run a game.

Necroticplague

2017-04-26, 09:11 PM

To be fair, that's showing a pretty consistent pattern of behavior: if they can't even bother to learn all the rules in Core, there's no way they'd be willing to learn all the relevant rules outside Core as well.

NomGarret

2017-04-26, 09:27 PM

Yeah, if I want that kind of Core-only game, I'm probably just going to play 5e.

Starbuck_II

2017-04-26, 10:29 PM

Remember there were nowhere near as much ''mechanical effects'' in 2E.
.

Um, did you read the phrethla of mechanical effects in 2E:
Psionics (everyone gets a free roll)
Complete Elves, etc
All the other options

Did you read the 2E Cleric, it officially wants you to make an alternate Cleric that uses swords suggesting the blunt one is just generic one.

I see Core Only for Balance as silly. Core Only for expectations is more reasonable, but still not truly necessary.
Now, Core only +1 book (like my current Sunless Citadel) is reasonable.
They players will of, course, grab a different book, but then you know which books to look through for what they might do.

Sadly, the more balance is banning PHB, and use Complete books and PHB 2.
While there is still variance (Complete Warrior is rather low power: Hexblade, Samurai; Ninja is as well), Champion and Mage are a little strong (granted mostly due to strengthening Core casters), but Spellthief, Ninja, Scout cover trapfinding if no rogue.
Now, this does limit unarmed combat, but Monk can be exception if really want it (seriously, no one says Monks are too OP in their games).

Lorddenorstrus

2017-04-27, 12:04 AM

Arms Race

If you're having trouble having a gentleman's agreement, well, that's a problem right there, independent of edition. But let me take a common gaming phrase, and stand it on its head: never get into am arms race with your players, because they cannot win.

That's right, the person who should stay out of it is the GM. You already mentioned running modules - that makes this even simpler. Simply don't change the module. Done.

If the players complain that they aren't being challenged, simply point out that that's on them. They need to build characters at the correct level of optimization to allow themselves to have fun.

This gets a little trickier when the players are new, and can't build characters competent enough to handle the module, but, since that's not your problem, well leave that discussion for another day.

I really like this. It shows an important perspective to the varying degrees of power that 3rd can offer. Some players simply aren't looking to be challenged in combat. I've run political esque games before and it creates it's own set of unique challenges that the players can tackle. I have had the misfortune of having some poor DMs who think the entire game is supposed to just be a challenging combat simulator though.

Thurbane

2017-04-27, 02:34 AM

Core only: I've never understood the hate for 'core only'. Why is that bad, whilst 'no dragon allowed' is generally accepted? To play a game with a group, you need to make sure everybody plays by the same rules. With the vast amount of books available, some sort of boundary doesn't just seem logical, its a necessity. (Heck: I play chess in an organized way, nowhere near as many rules ad d&d, but even there some amount of 'setting ground rules' is required.) I don't see why 1 particular boundary would be 'worse' than another. Haven't ever encountered this discussion IRL though, so I'm not sure it's really an issue outside this forum.

I pretty much agree with your entire post, but wanted to expand on this point in particular.

As a point of explanation, most (all?) people in this thread are saying core only should only be criticized when cited to be "for balance purposes". My experience on these forums is any game listed as core only is roundly criticized, even if no balance reasons are mentioned. There is a sentiment among many here that "core only" = "wrong", regardless of any reasons.

"If your DM won't allow ToB you should leave the game!" (or paraphrasing of same) is something I have seen in many thread replies in my close to 10 years on this forum.

Twurps

2017-04-27, 05:19 AM

As a point of explanation, most (all?) people in this thread are saying core only should only be criticized when cited to be "for balance purposes". My experience on these forums is any game listed as core only is roundly criticized, even if no balance reasons are mentioned. There is a sentiment among many here that "core only" = "wrong", regardless of any reasons.

"If your DM won't allow ToB you should leave the game!" (or paraphrasing of same) is something I have seen in many thread replies in my close to 10 years on this forum.
that has been my experience too. with the exception in this thread being:

:biggrin:

"Core only, because balance" is like "nitroglycerin armor, because safety".

But I hate on "core only" beyond "for balance", so I'll say more on the subject.

..........

So, actual reasons to hate on core only: poor balance, limited options / boring, and goes against one of the biggest strengths of 3e. Behaviors I associate with core only: railroading, ridiculous prolific mid-game house rules, and a general inability to run a game.

I think we're all in agreement on the nonsense that is: core=balance, so I'll skip that one. On to the other points:

Limited options/boring: I very much like the near endless options 3.5 has to offer, and for that reason, I'm not a big fan of 'core only'. I don't feel the need to push that opinion on anybody else though. So it shouldn't be a reason to hate it on this forum. Also: I find that no matter how many books are allowed, the number of builds that are actually recommended here as being viable, is rather limited.
examples:
- 'Wanna play a monk?: Don't! Play (unarmed)swordsage instead.' isn't giving more options, it's still just 1 option, only from a different book.
- 'Ranger? Go planar ranger, take sword of the arcane order, and take every ACF you can' again isn't more options.
- best example is maybe 'natural spell' on a druid. This is core, I know, but imagine it wasn't core: Then adding the book it was in wouldn't add options, it would more or less eliminate your lvl 6 feat choice, thus removing options. Abjurant Champion does the same for gishes.

I get the feeling hate for core is more out of laziness/being creatures of habit from the posters on this forum. Many have a standard set of builds ready, using all 1st party books. So If you ask: How can I optimize a ranger using all 1st party books? the above advice pops up in no time. If you ask for a ranger in core, people:
1) don't register the restrictions due to poor reading of the question, give the planar ranger SotAO advice anyway, and go 'core is lame' to save face once they've been pointed to the restrictions.
2) Do read the restrictions, but don't want to put in the time to review their 'standard' build advice and go: 'core is lame, ask for all books you need and go SotAO'.
If we're all such capable optimizers as we say we are, we should relish the challenge to build something with a different rules set once in a while. (And I know we can, as demonstrated by the iron chef e.a. threads.)

(Before I start another flame war on this: I do see a distict difference if the OP makes a effort in his post, and gives a detailed description of playstyle, background, flavour wanted etc. that usually generated much better thought through advice, deviating from the standard/norm.)

-behaviours associated with core only: railroading, ridiculous prolific mid-game house rules, and a general inability to run a game.
I don't have this association. For the sake of argument though, let's say there's a correlation between 'core only' and the associated behaviours. That still isn't a reason to hate on core only. It's a reason to hate on the correlated behaviours. There are many DM's exhibiting the associated behaviours without using 'core only', as I'm sure there are quite a few good DM's exhibiting none of them. People just aren't that vocal about them, because why would you? So lets give people a chance before labeling them 'Bad DM' for using core only. (NOT saying you do this, but I do see it on this forum.)

Darth Ultron

2017-04-27, 06:41 AM

Um, did you read the phrethla of mechanical effects in 2E:
Psionics (everyone gets a free roll)
Complete Elves, etc
All the other options

Did you read the 2E Cleric, it officially wants you to make an alternate Cleric that uses swords suggesting the blunt one is just generic one.

I love 2E psionics...one of my favorite things about 2E.

But, really, take The Complete book of Elves vs Races of the Wild in mechanical crunch content....guess the book that has more? In 2E a ''Kit'' (aka a ''Prestige Class'') was lucky to give you two or three very weak or subtitle mechanical abilities, on top of the very few ''core'' mechanical abilities.

And a 2E ''specialty'' priest did not get a ton of mechanical abilities...even the best alternative classes were full of ''bonus spell like abilities''.

Svata

2017-04-27, 06:48 AM

Remember there were nowhere near as much ''mechanical effects'' in 2E.

Good example of the mentality. The ''we all must follow the rules'' vs ''Whatever the DM says''.

Eh, the rules mentality makes it so that the DM can't (easily and without consequence) just arbitrarily screw the players over. "Whatever the DM says" is a more dangerous mentality, and one that leads to a worse overall gaming experience in my opinion.

Nah, I like 3.5E and Pathfinder.

I find the veracity of this statement... questionable.

It is more accurate to say the DM was in charge and everyone agreed to this and played the game. So a player could ask the DM to do or not do a thing, but they could only ask. And keep in mind this is the classic way of asking were the person was a mature adult and just accepted the answer they got from the DM as final.

Right. Just accepting whatever arbitrary, likely skewed against you response is the responsible and mature thing to do. Sure.

OD&D and AD&D were simple enough that you really did not have much chance for ''player vs DM'' as simply put there were few rules, and whatever the DM said was official. So if a character shot a fireball at a monster and it just bounced off, they would shrug and keep playing the game...as there were no rules for them to make their ''rant, whiney argument'' from : the DM just said that happened.

And you're saying this is not a "DM vs Players" mentality? Is that only because the DM can just say "Rocks fall, everyone dies" at any point if they feel the players are getting uppity and wanting to make choices and decisions that matter?

3X added a ton of rules to make everything much more exact and took away a lot of the DM's ''anything goes'' rulings. Sadly, this came along right as the ''Me Generation'' folks were old enough to game. And they brought the ideas to the front of ''the rules are almighty'' and the ''DM is just a player'' and ''The whole group votes'' and such things. So now in 3X, when a fireball does not do exactly what it says on page 7 of the almighty rules the player will stop the game and demand a in game reason that follows the almighty rules. And if the DM does not have a ''official rules explanation'' then the players will vote to ''ignore the dumb Player called DM fluff'' and the fireball will work ''as per the almighty rules''.

But the DM is just one of the players. He just plays all the NPCs and enemies. His job is to arbitrate the rules (fixing any obvious holes in them, like drown-healing) and create the world/campaign/enemies for the players to triumph over, not to say "no, sorry, I don't want your character doing that, so instead of doing 1d6/level damage in a 30' radius, fireball does 1 damage to a targeted creature.

3X really started the Arms Race, and the Rules Race....and the really bad ''gotcha!'' stuff. So you get players carefully trying to craft and build character ''in the rules'' or in the ''wacky interpretation of the rules'' and attempting to dominate, rule and ''win'' the game by out doing the DM, using the rules (mostly, with a couple ''interpretations'' and ''well all the optimizer player types think this says this or that..''). DM's in turn have to ''armor'' everything they do in the ''rule interpretations'' of whatever their players believe. So the DM can say ''well your player wacky rule interpretation is this, and I used it'' and the player would just hang their head and agree, as they had to and say ''all hail the all mighty rules''.

TO is not meant for actual play. And of course the players build characters that are meant to survive and win the campaign. Its a cooperative story-telling game, and its hard to get attached to a story if the heroes are replaced every ten minutes.

Worse is that a lot written in the books was not written by a savvy gamer person. A Ton of problems could have been avoided by just adding a word or two to a lot of things. Even more so a lot of ''legalese'' style writing of ''this ability does not stake with X'' or ''This does or does not do this''.

A lot of the abilities that aren't meant to stack don't do so. Most of the ones that people do stack are explicitly called out as stacking with each other, and were obviously intended to do so.

And this is worse as tons of 3X players ''interpret'' rules in their favor. So when a sentence somewhere says ''you may add a spell'', the ''interpreter players'' will leap up and say ''we can add ''a spell'' from Any spell list!

And really a ton could have been avoided, if like AD&D, the simple line of ''the DM has the final say'' or ''pending the DM's approval'' or such.

Well, yes, of course people interpret it that way. I assume you're talking about the sorcerer ability, ( These new spells can be common spells chosen from the sorcerer/wizard spell list, or they can be unusual spells that the sorcerer has gained some understanding of by study. ) here. If it didn't mean you could learn off-list spells, the line would be entirely meaningless, and do absolutely nothing.

Also, as has been said, rule 0 still exists, players are just more likely to call you out on it if you overuse or abuse it. They've gathered to play D&D 3.X, after all, which comes with certain expectations. If you were to go to play shadowrun and it turn out you're playing Cyberpunk 2020, I think you'd be a little annoyed too, and call it out as not what you signed up for, even if the product is somewhat similar.

Pugwampy

2017-04-27, 08:55 AM

1.) Player "entitlement": sometimes I feel an undercurrent of "the customer player is always right"; if the DM says no to anything, he is a bad DM; if the DM has a story arc that has a specific outcome in mind it's "railroading"

The DM,s will be done .

He has the right to railroad and say no . Its his game , he is doing the most work and most important its his comfort zone .

In theory a DM has the power of the universe . Does not matter if he says yes to everything or lets players shape the story outcome .
The DM is also human and some people cannot handle that kind of "pressure."

Kudos to DM,s who allow everything and anything . Its possible but not easy and certainly not worth having a possible meltdown . I am the proverbial YES DM and i have also had one or two meltdowns too . Most of the time I enjoy the challenge . Perhaps a few limits would have negated those meltdowns ? I dont know .

2.) Arms race mentality: the players "discover" some game breaking build or combo (or vice versa, the DM does the same), and instead of coming to a "gentlemen's agreement" of not using that particular build or combo, it becomes an arms race.

Whats good for the players is also good for DM . Its pretty cool when new players want to dig through books and try to fine tune their PC,s . I dont wait for PC,s to find anything I usually tell em where to look for most broken feat.

WarKitty

2017-04-27, 09:18 AM

Honestly, the good groups I've played with have had kind of a gentlemen's agreement about plot and railroading. The players understand that I, as a DM, have a certain general direction planned, and that they're likely to have a much better time going along in the direction where the encounters are.

Quertus

2017-04-27, 11:21 AM

I think we're all in agreement on the nonsense that is: core=balance, so I'll skip that one. On to the other points:

Limited options/boring: I very much like the near endless options 3.5 has to offer, and for that reason, I'm not a big fan of 'core only'. I don't feel the need to push that opinion on anybody else though. So it shouldn't be a reason to hate it on this forum. Also: I find that no matter how many books are allowed, the number of builds that are actually recommended here as being viable, is rather limited.
examples:
- 'Wanna play a monk?: Don't! Play (unarmed)swordsage instead.' isn't giving more options, it's still just 1 option, only from a different book.
- 'Ranger? Go planar ranger, take sword of the arcane order, and take every ACF you can' again isn't more options.
- best example is maybe 'natural spell' on a druid. This is core, I know, but imagine it wasn't core: Then adding the book it was in wouldn't add options, it would more or less eliminate your lvl 6 feat choice, thus removing options. Abjurant Champion does the same for gishes.

I get the feeling hate for core is more out of laziness/being creatures of habit from the posters on this forum. Many have a standard set of builds ready, using all 1st party books. So If you ask: How can I optimize a ranger using all 1st party books? the above advice pops up in no time. If you ask for a ranger in core, people:
1) don't register the restrictions due to poor reading of the question, give the planar ranger SotAO advice anyway, and go 'core is lame' to save face once they've been pointed to the restrictions.
2) Do read the restrictions, but don't want to put in the time to review their 'standard' build advice and go: 'core is lame, ask for all books you need and go SotAO'.
If we're all such capable optimizers as we say we are, we should relish the challenge to build something with a different rules set once in a while. (And I know we can, as demonstrated by the iron chef e.a. threads.)

(Before I start another flame war on this: I do see a distict difference if the OP makes a effort in his post, and gives a detailed description of playstyle, background, flavour wanted etc. that usually generated much better thought through advice, deviating from the standard/norm.)

-behaviours associated with core only: railroading, ridiculous prolific mid-game house rules, and a general inability to run a game.
I don't have this association. For the sake of argument though, let's say there's a correlation between 'core only' and the associated behaviours. That still isn't a reason to hate on core only. It's a reason to hate on the correlated behaviours. There are many DM's exhibiting the associated behaviours without using 'core only', as I'm sure there are quite a few good DM's exhibiting none of them. People just aren't that vocal about them, because why would you? So lets give people a chance before labeling them 'Bad DM' for using core only. (NOT saying you do this, but I do see it on this forum.)

Well, IIRC, this is more of a "personal red flags" thread, so my statements weren't meant to represent Universal Truth. Also, red flags are, IMO, pretty much by definition high levels of correlation between one event and another. While the "bad behavior" is railroading, and not all railroading DMs go core only, I've seen a high percentage of core only DMs railroad, so it's a red flag, for me.

Hmmm... Ok, maybe 3 categories?

Universal reasons to hate on core only: balance.

Universal red flags: what it represents for a DM to suggest core only for balance.

My personal reasons to hate on core only (feel free to adopt them, too): limited options / boring.

Reasons core only is a red flag for me: behaviours associated with core only IME: railroading, ridiculous prolific mid-game house rules, and a general inability to run a game.

Unsure how to categorize: kills one of the biggest strengths of 3e.

Darn Spanish Inquisition. Counting is hard. :smalltongue:

As to the "few actual builds"... on forums, people are usually asking for optimization help / trying to build something that works. So only seeing a few of the "best" options is fairly reasonable / predictable behavior.

For myself, I enjoy a huge array of characters. I don't really like "builds", as I get... Bored?... after about 4 words / phrases, but I enjoyed making, say, an Elven Druid / Arcane Archer for a friend for her first character.

EDIT:

Honestly, the good groups I've played with have had kind of a gentlemen's agreement about plot and railroading. The players understand that I, as a DM, have a certain general direction planned, and that they're likely to have a much better time going along in the direction where the encounters are.

When the GM explains ahead of time how he'd like the game to go, I can pick a character who will help make the game go in that direction. That's fine, usually. But trying to force the good party (with a paladin, no les!) to assassinate the lawful ruler of the land, and expecting them to ignore their personalities and go along with the plot is just bad, never mind the rails.

zergling.exe

2017-04-27, 11:24 AM

Well, IIRC, this is more of a "personal red flags" thread, so my statements weren't meant to represent Universal Truth. Also, red flags are, IMO, pretty much by definition high levels of correlation between one event and another. While the "bad behavior" is railroading, and not all railroading DMs go core only, I've seen a high percentage of core only DMs railroad, so it's a red flag, for me.

Actually, this is the Player vs. DM thread, not the red flag thread.

Quertus

2017-04-27, 11:26 AM

Actually, this is the Player vs. DM thread, not the red flag thread.

Whoops! I got confused. Darn explaining the same thing in multiple threads...

zergling.exe

2017-04-27, 11:29 AM

Whoops! I got confused. Darn explaining the same thing in multiple threads...

That's okay, with the myriad of similar threads it's surprising anyone can keep them straight.

WarKitty

2017-04-27, 11:44 AM

When the GM explains ahead of time how he'd like the game to go, I can pick a character who will help make the game go in that direction. That's fine, usually. But trying to force the good party (with a paladin, no les!) to assassinate the lawful ruler of the land, and expecting them to ignore their personalities and go along with the plot is just bad, never mind the rails.

I was honestly thinking of more mundane times. Like, "hey guys, the plot hook is IN THE CAVE. If you really want to explore the woods around you, that's fine, but be aware that I have no maps and absolutely nothing prepared in terms of encounters or treasure."

Florian

2017-04-27, 11:47 AM

I was honestly thinking of more mundane times. Like, "hey guys, the plot hook is IN THE CAVE. If you really want to explore the woods around you, that's fine, but be aware that I have no maps and absolutely nothing prepared in terms of encounters or treasure."

You now that this does not work out well - ever. So why do you try?

Pex

2017-04-27, 12:05 PM

A DM saying no is not a problem. A DM saying no to everything is a problem. Edition is irrelevant. The player has his own responsibility. He should not be trying to win D&D. If the campaign has a theme he should not go against the theme. He needs to learn to live with disappointment.

WarKitty

2017-04-27, 12:05 PM

You now that this does not work out well - ever. So why do you try?

As a DM, there's only so much prep time I have. I cannot make a detailed plan for every direction the players might go. I can pull something out, but it's probably not going to be super interesting because I had to come up with it on 5min notice. It's more fun for everyone if we head in the direction where there's something planned - and my players generally realize this.

Twurps

2017-04-27, 12:09 PM

You now that this does not work out well - ever. So why do you try?

Why wouldn't that work? YMMV, but ik works fine for our group. Our hints are usually a lot more subtle, and it still works fine.
DM: to the left you see *insert vivid description here*, to the right.... nothing of interest... plains mostly.
Player: 'We go left'

Or anything along those lines works fine.

Darth Ultron

2017-04-27, 12:09 PM

Eh, the rules mentality makes it so that the DM can't (easily and without consequence) just arbitrarily screw the players over. "Whatever the DM says" is a more dangerous mentality, and one that leads to a worse overall gaming experience in my opinion..

The mentality that players are perfect and always right is just so odd.

And you're saying this is not a "DM vs Players" mentality? Is that only because the DM can just say "Rocks fall, everyone dies" at any point if they feel the players are getting uppity and wanting to make choices and decisions that matter?

In a good game, player shave no power.

But the DM is just one of the players. He just plays all the NPCs and enemies. His job is to arbitrate the rules (fixing any obvious holes in them, like drown-healing) and create the world/campaign/enemies for the players to triumph over, not to say "no, sorry, I don't want your character doing that, so instead of doing 1d6/level damage in a 30' radius, fireball does 1 damage to a targeted creature.

Wow...even you admit the DM's job is sure a lot more then ''just to play a single character'', um, even by your own admission sounds like ''DM'' and ''Player'' are very, very different.

A lot of the abilities that aren't meant to stack don't do so. Most of the ones that people do stack are explicitly called out as stacking with each other, and were obviously intended to do so.

Sadly the 3x rules are full of bad editing, over sights, poor wording, mistakes and down right craziness. And the bad players try an exploit this by interpreting things in their favor, if not just bending or breaking the rules.

Well, yes, of course people interpret it that way. I assume you're talking about the sorcerer ability, ( These new spells can be common spells chosen from the sorcerer/wizard spell list, or they can be unusual spells that the sorcerer has gained some understanding of by study. ) here. If it didn't mean you could learn off-list spells, the line would be entirely meaningless, and do absolutely nothing.

A couple things give a character the ability to add a spell to a list or cast or spell or such...and some of them are poorly worded and the exploit player will say they can cast a spell off ''any spell list'', as it does not say a single spell list.

So...in your homebrew rulings interpretation of the game, your one of the players that thinks a sorcerer can add a cleric spell to their spell list?

Also, as has been said, rule 0 still exists, players are just more likely to call you out on it if you overuse or abuse it. They've gathered to play D&D 3.X, after all, which comes with certain expectations. If you were to go to play shadowrun and it turn out you're playing Cyberpunk 2020, I think you'd be a little annoyed too, and call it out as not what you signed up for, even if the product is somewhat similar.

The expatiations of the exploit players are not common, but like most fads it has faded away. Plus as the exploit players must be ''cool and hip'' they have moved to 5E as they must play the newest edition to have ''street cred''. And amazingly when they do came back to 3X, they have lost their crazy exploit insanity, maybe as they can't do it as much in 5E.

TheIronGolem

2017-04-27, 12:20 PM

The mentality that players are perfect and always right is just so odd.
That's because it's a strawman argument you made up, not a position that has ever actually been advanced by any real person you've ever encountered.

In a good game, player shave no power.
If they don't have any power, they're not a player, they're a spectator.

Necroticplague

2017-04-27, 12:25 PM

The mentality that players are perfect and always right is just so odd. It's also a mentality i have never seen, except when thrown about as a strawman by you or your sockpuppets.

In a good game, player shave no power.
A person with no power isn't a player, they're an audience. At the least, a player has control over their character.

Segev

2017-04-27, 12:26 PM

That's because it's a strawman argument you made up, not a position that has ever actually been advanced by any real person you've ever encountered.

If they don't have any power, they're not a player, they're a spectator.

I am reminded, when I read posts by Darth Ultron, of the German character in The Producers.

"You are the audience! I am the author! I OUTRANK you! Stop laughing! This is not a funny scene!"

Florian

2017-04-27, 12:34 PM

@Segev:

I´m impressed.

Dagroth

2017-04-27, 01:13 PM

I really like this. It shows an important perspective to the varying degrees of power that 3rd can offer. Some players simply aren't looking to be challenged in combat. I've run political esque games before and it creates it's own set of unique challenges that the players can tackle. I have had the misfortune of having some poor DMs who think the entire game is supposed to just be a challenging combat simulator though.

In all honesty, when we want political games or games that rely on the character's skills and player's wits more than combat... we play other systems (typically GURPS).

D&D started out as an individual combat simulator from a game of large & small-scale combat simulations.

Then it became a role-playing game... tacked on to a combat simulator.

D&D just lacks the finely detailed skill system needed to readily simulate a non-combat environment for long.

I'm not saying you can't do it... just that there are much, much better game systems if you don't want a "challenging combat simulator". There's a reason that 90% of all character options are related to combat.

Honestly, the good groups I've played with have had kind of a gentlemen's agreement about plot and railroading. The players understand that I, as a DM, have a certain general direction planned, and that they're likely to have a much better time going along in the direction where the encounters are.

This is so important, I can't imagine a table working without it.

Svata

2017-04-27, 02:06 PM

The mentality that players are perfect and always right is just so odd.

Never said that. Never even implied it.

In a good game, player shave no power.

WROOOOOOONG!!

If the player has no power, then they are not playing. They're watching you play with dolls they made.

Wow...even you admit the DM's job is sure a lot more then ''just to play a single character'', um, even by your own admission sounds like ''DM'' and ''Player'' are very, very different.

Never said they "just play a single character". Their role is different, but they are just a player.

Sadly the 3x rules are full of bad editing, over sights, poor wording, mistakes and down right craziness. And the bad players try an exploit this by interpreting things in their favor, if not just bending or breaking the rules.

Not untrue. But I acknowledged this. "It is part of the dm's job to patch obvious holes in the rules, like drown-healing."

A couple things give a character the ability to add a spell to a list or cast or spell or such...and some of them are poorly worded and the exploit player will say they can cast a spell off ''any spell list'', as it does not say a single spell list.

So...in your homebrew rulings interpretation of the game, your one of the players that thinks a sorcerer can add a cleric spell to their spell list?

As they can already add spells off of their list, what else could that line of text mean?

The expatiations of the exploit players are not common, but like most fads it has faded away. Plus as the exploit players must be ''cool and hip'' they have moved to 5E as they must play the newest edition to have ''street cred''. And amazingly when they do came back to 3X, they have lost their crazy exploit insanity, maybe as they can't do it as much in 5E.

Then why are you still complaining about it?

Quertus

2017-04-27, 02:24 PM

As a DM, there's only so much prep time I have. I cannot make a detailed plan for every direction the players might go. I can pull something out, but it's probably not going to be super interesting because I had to come up with it on 5min notice. It's more fun for everyone if we head in the direction where there's something planned - and my players generally realize this.

This is so important, I can't imagine a table working without it.

Well, my preferred way is to, at the end of the season, ask the players what we're doing next time, and spend my limited prep time fleshing out that area / scene / whatever.

Full player agency, player laid rails. :smallcool:

atemu1234

2017-04-27, 05:11 PM

Well, my preferred way is to, at the end of the season, ask the players what we're doing next time, and spend my limited prep time fleshing out that area / scene / whatever.

Full player agency, player laid rails. :smallcool:

Me, I got my players to follow the rules of improv, and I do the same typically with my NPCs. I'm good at running with tangents and finding ways to loop them back into the overarching plot if need be.

Graysire

2017-04-27, 06:04 PM

I'm relatively new to actually reading the forum, I've always had more than just core books, so I can't speak for core only very much.
What I can say is that most of the builds suggested here don't seem to equate with table play very much, even when not called out as TO they seem to have a much higher power level than anything I've seen in play at any table. My table does consider Fireball a great spell, we do enjoy the monk as is, we don't use ToB and like martials the way they are. It's possible and easy to have fun like this, in fact every play I've introduced to D&D under this has loved it, and I've wanted to keep new players separate from the optimizers because I felt the level of metagaming that sometimes happens there and the level of min-maxing just doesn't fit in the fun game everyone wants to play. So, if the purpose of a game is to have fun, why do so many people rant on and on about how some class is bad or some optimization is good when often neither really matters to the fun experience of the game(outside of TO which is basically a minigame in itself)?

Doctor Awkward

2017-04-27, 06:45 PM

I hope I don't start a massive flame-war, but somehting has been on my mind for a while now:

3.5 is my preferred edition. I started out on AD&D 1E and Basic, then on to 2E, and after a break of a few years, into 3.5. We very briefly tried 4E, but didn't much like it. We have briefly played Pathfinder a couple of times, too. Some of my players have heard good things about 5E, so we might give that a try at some point.

...anyhow, sometimes I feel like 3.X is the edition that fosters the most "DM vs. players" attitude of the editions I've played. Not so much at my own table, but from some of the things I read on forums.

The two main aspects of this I note are as follows:

1.) Player "entitlement": sometimes I feel an undercurrent of "the customer player is always right"; if the DM says no to anything, he is a bad DM; if the DM has a story arc that has a specific outcome in mind it's "railroading" (note: sometimes this is fairly unavoidable if you're DMing a pre-written adventure and don't have hours to re-write the story to accommodate alternate "endings"). Advice often seems to be along the lines of "Oh, your DM only allows core books? Build a brokenly powerful Druid and wreck the game LOL".

2.) Arms race mentality: the players "discover" some game breaking build or combo (or vice versa, the DM does the same), and instead of coming to a "gentlemen's agreement" of not using that particular build or combo, it becomes an arms race. The DM has to start optimizing every monster or NPC encounter to the Nth degree to challenge the group; or if the shoe is on the other foot, the player has to research TO builds to keep up with the DMs killer encounters.

Now, what I'm wondering is this: is this an advent of 3rd edition; or is it more an advent of online forums and sharing character build and other info globally?

Or maybe I'm imagining the whole thing, and this has been happening ever since 1E, or doesn't happen much at all.

Cheers - T

All right, kids. Gather 'round...

Way back in the Halcyon Days of YoreTM, the original Dungeons and Dragons adventure set, which was written by E. Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, and first published by TSR, Inc. in 1974, featured almost no rules at all.

Yep.

There were three classes (fighting-man, magic-user, and cleric), four races (human, elf, dwarf, and hobbit), and three alignments (lawful, neutral, and chaotic). The rules just assumed that players owned, or had previously played, the miniatures wargame Chainmail, and were familiar with that game's combat and measurement system, which it used liberally. It also assumed that the players owned the Outdoor Survival board game, which was published by Avalon Hill in 1972, and used that game's rules for wilderness exploration. Unsurprisingly, TSR got into a fair amount of legal trouble for cribbing rules systems from other games, not to mention liberally using terms directly from Tolkein's mythos such as "hobbits" and "ents" in the original print run (which were changed to "halflings" and "treants" in subsequent releases). When the Greyhawk supplement was released a year later, it removed the game's dependency on the Chainmail rules, and introduced the thief class. Subsequent supplements such as Blackmoor, Eldritch Wizardry and so on each added additional rules, character classes, monsters, and spells. Further optional rules were published in the gaming magazine, The Strategic Review, and it's successor, Dragon.

In 1977, when TSR was still developing Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, they were approached by John Eric Holmes, who was a gigantic fecking nerd, writer, and D&D enthusiast. He offered to rewrite and re-edit the rules from the original set and the Greyhawk supplement into an introductory edition known as D&D Basic. TSR agreed, seeing it as an easy way to bring in new players as well as drum up anticipation for their soon-to-be-released Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. It was here that most of the old guard players experience their first introduction to Dungeons and Dragons, as the game was deliberately made to be easily accessible to people who had no prior experience with miniatures games, and in most cases did not make use of maps at all.

When Advanced D&D was released later that year, it was essentially nothing but a huge number of previous supplements and magazine articles that were re-codified into three core books: The Player's Handook, The Dungeon Master's Guide, and the Monster Manual. Over the next ten years, that edition also expanded into several additional rulebooks, including three collections of monsters (Monster Manual, Monster Manual II, Fiend Folio), and two books governing character skills in wilderness and underground settings.

Further articles and publications were then collected again into the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 2nd Edition books (most often referred to as 2E) which was first published in 1989. Numerous mechanical changes are introduced; THAC0 replaced class to-hit tables (an optional rule from the 1st Edition DMG), dragons were given a major boost in power to push back against the perceived weakness of the game's titular monster, classes were divided into four major categories: warrior (fighter, paladin, ranger), wizard (mage, specialist wizard), priest (cleric, druid), and rogue (thief, bard). Assassin and monk were removed, though would return in later supplements, and Psionics was removed from the Player's Handbook and placed in its own book.

Then in 1995, the Player's Options series of books was published, which introduced even more optional rules for things like tactical combat, additional non-weapon proficiency's, and the point-buy system for ability score generation, allowing players to play whatever class they wanted.

All of the things published in these books were at one point optional rules listed in a supplemental source or a Dragon Magazine article.
...Are we sensing a pattern yet?

Then, finally, in 2000, Wizards of the Coast acquired the rights to all material owned by TSR and went on to publish their own system, officially named Dungeons and Dragons 3rd Edition, as the basis for a much broader role-playing system designed around 20-sided dice, called the d20 System. This system uses a much more unifed mechanic than previous editions, resolving nearly single action with a d20 die roll plus appropriate modifiers, which included ability score bonuses that followed a standardized formula.

The second major change was a huge expansion of the combat system based on the... yep, you guessed it... optional rules first printed in Player Options: Combat and Tactics. These were incorporated into the core game to encourage the use of miniatures and tactical combat.

The third major difference between 3E and previous editions was the use of the Open Game License. WotC based 3E around a modular character design system, with the idea that they could massively boost the usage of the system by allowing anyone to print and publish material for the game without their oversight (though sometimes with various levels of editorial approval). That portion of the plan succeeded spectacularly, with countless supplemental rulebooks being published the length of run for 3E and 3.5. In practice however, unlike previous editions, the quality level of these books varied greatly. Some of them were good, and others were very, very bad. Also in departure from previous editions, the books were often written independently of each other and sometimes gave conflicting information, and had various effects on the metagame that the various authors did not intend when combined together.

So! With everything that we have now learned:

-Did 3E foster the DM vs. Player mentality?
Not really. In one sense, the game was fundamentally designed as a contest between the players and the DM. The DM provided the challenge, and the players provided the combatant. The relationship between the DM and the players was always somewhat complex. But one unintended consequence of the earliest printings was occasionally people took that relationship to be antagonistic. You can see this with the Tomb of Horrors, one of the very first published modules. That adventure was designed to make the DM into a gigantic raging ****. It was expressly designed to "humble mighty players who thought that their characters were invincible." To teach them a lesson. Put them in their place. It is a literal representation of all of the wrong, backwards thinking that people have about being a DM.

-Did 3E advent the optimizing and the "arm's race"?
Nah. Optimizing did exist in the earliest editions. In AD&D, weapons had a speed factor. The lower the number, the more times you could attack in a round (also modified by class). Darts were a thrown ranged weapon that had a very low speed factor. There was another rule that said you applied your strength modifier to damage rolls made with thrown weapons. Thus a fighter who specialized with darts could pump out obscene amounts of damage every round. Grandmaster Weapon Specialization, a proficiency exclusive to fighters, could lower the speed factor of a weapon even more. Additionally, lower speed factor weapons went earlier in the combat round than slower ones, thus you would likely beat your enemy to the punch, and it allowed you to jackhammer an enemy wizard and blow out his defensive spells (like Stoneskin, which fell after a certain number of attacks). Finally, Darts also left you the option of using a shield.
It was rarely so rarely heard about for a couple of reasons. For one, gaming shops didn't really exist back then. If you wanted table-top roleplaying materials, you went to a regular hobby shop with model planes and boats and whatnot, where the D&D stuff would be tucked way in the back far from the sight of God and man. Those shop owners rarely knew what the products even were, much less had advice on how to play them. The second was that a lot of the time the most overpowered options were baked directly into the rules: A thief's backstab multiplied the entire result of a damage roll (including bonus damage dice for weapon enhancements like flaming or dragonsbane) and the Assassin class kit increased his multiplier to a maximum of x7-- then double that again if you rolled a natural 20 and were using optional rules for a critical hit. AD&D Psionics were notorious for their superiority to nearly the entire rest of the game (You could have Psionic Disintegrate at level 3-- or level 1 with receptacle abuse-- which was a Save vs Death at a -5 or die; a typical level 3 character would succeed only on an 18 or higher (http://i585.photobucket.com/albums/ss297/Ashdate/torment04/savingthrows.png~original)). The gaming rags back then were also far more interesting in getting subscriptions by publishing additional supplemental rules than experimenting with and examining old ones.

So far as the idea of an arm's race, I believed I addressed the basic notion behind that with regards to the OGL. The other reason is that, as you see, there are simply far more rules that exist in the core of 3E than there ever were in earlier editions. Decades of compounded gaming experience that were disseminated, collected, and re-collected. So the difference between this edition and previous editions is the advent of the OGL. The idea that there is a central mechanic around which the game is based which, theoretically, should be uniform at each gaming table. This is a massive departure from previous editions, where the rules could, and often did, vary greatly from one table to the next (some day I'll tell you about my horror story with the DM who was convinced that casting Detect Magic made all magic items in the radius visibly glow, like a lantern, for everyone to see.)

-Various other terminology.
You'll see lots of words thrown around-- like railroading or banned material-- in the context of a discussion of being a bad DM. This is also not an advent of 3E, as supplement books existed for everything (I have other stories, like the time I was at a table with a drive-by comment of, "Oh you guys don't use Fiend Folio? Lightweights"). These antagonistic people have also existed as long as the game as existed. They operate on the same misunderstanding as the idea that the relationship between the DM and the players is supposed to be antagonistic.
But the world we live in today enables people to share these stories much more easily than they did in the past. Not to mention information about the game itself. With so many different minds examining the same problem from different angles, you are going to discover far more things than any smaller group of people ever would. And there are more platforms than ever before to share that information, which causes it to spread to more tables than it would in the past.

Starbuck_II

2017-04-27, 07:36 PM

So...in your homebrew rulings interpretation of the game, your one of the players that thinks a sorcerer can add a cleric spell to their spell list?

Nah, must be arcane, but Bards have most of the cure spells if you wanted to learn that.
However, this be due to the study text, I assume you need to find a Bard scroll of it (sometimes this will be same price, but sometimes more expensive as bards are delayed worse than Sorcerors caster wise when reaching a new spell level).

Even than, need to wait till get new spells by level. But hey, you have an extra scroll after learning it.

Crake

2017-04-27, 07:58 PM

Nah, must be arcane, but Bards have most of the cure spells if you wanted to learn that.
However, this be due to the study text, I assume you need to find a Bard scroll of it (sometimes this will be same price, but sometimes more expensive as bards are delayed worse than Sorcerors caster wise when reaching a new spell level).

Even than, need to wait till get new spells by level. But hey, you have an extra scroll after learning it.

To be fair, a lot of dragons have access to the cleric list to pick their spells known from, and cast those spells as arcane spells. I'd say, if you meet the right person, learn the right thing, make a quest out of it, why not let the sorc learn a cleric spell here or there?

Quertus

2017-04-27, 08:25 PM

So, if the purpose of a game is to have fun, why do so many people rant on and on about how some class is bad or some optimization is good when often neither really matters to the fun experience of the game(outside of TO which is basically a minigame in itself)?

Well, I suspect it's because the classic party is fighter, mage, cleric, thief. That means that, at your average table, you've got 2 tier 1 characters adventuring alongside 2 non-casters. Further, I fear, at most tables, if you aren't pulling your weight, people get upset. So there's impetus to min-max power game be all that you can be, so as not to ruin people's fun.

But the result of "playing nice" as a tier 1 is that the poor muggles just can't keep up. Thus all the complaints about the martial / caster divide.

Now, at my table, like yours, the answer is to somewhat downplay the capabilities of the tier 1 casters, through such tactical ineptitude as loving fireball and other direct damage spells, or by focusing on things like BFC or buffing the mundanes.

But, at other tables, the answer is to call anything that can't hang with a well-played tier 1 rubbish, and to therefore encourage only sufficiently optimized builds.

Truth be told, I'd love to play at a table where I could give it my all, and play a tier 1 caster full throttle, without diminishing anyone else's fun.

Venger

2017-04-27, 08:39 PM

(On the Origin of PCs by Means of Tactical Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Experience)

mfw that post (http://i3.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/001/034/999/1de.gif)

wow, that was super interesting! I always like hearing about the history of what would become 3.x. where might I learn more like this? are there any books you recommend? I'd also love to hear any of the stories you alluded to in there, they sound like a laugh and a half

Svata

2017-04-27, 09:34 PM

To be fair, a lot of dragons have access to the cleric list to pick their spells known from, and cast those spells as arcane spells. I'd say, if you meet the right person, learn the right thing, make a quest out of it, why not let the sorc learn a cleric spell here or there?

That sounds fun, actually. Means the Sorc is a viable choice over the wizard, as they can learn off-list things and aren't strictly worse anymore. emergent gameplay

Amphetryon

2017-04-27, 09:56 PM

Why wouldn't that work? YMMV, but ik works fine for our group. Our hints are usually a lot more subtle, and it still works fine.
DM: to the left you see *insert vivid description here*, to the right.... nothing of interest... plains mostly.
Player: 'We go left'

Or anything along those lines works fine.

Happy for you that this approach works. It's called 'railroading' and decried in my experience.

@Tonymitsu: interesting, as my understanding was that the Cleric, not the Thief, was the 4th Class to be introduced, necessitated by a module that proved nigh impossible without Turn Undead and healing magic.

WarKitty

2017-04-27, 10:01 PM

Happy for you that this approach works. It's called 'railroading' and decried in my experience.

In my experience there has to be a balance between "railroading" and the GM's time. Most GM's (myself included) simply aren't going to come up with as interesting an exciting a story on the fly as with prep time, and very few GM's have the prep time to figure out everything the characters might possibly do. You're just going to have more fun if you go to the area where I already have a detailed map and a bunch of nuanced encounters than if you go off in a random direction where you're getting whatever I can pull of the SRD onto a basic plot.

Amphetryon

2017-04-27, 10:51 PM

In my experience there has to be a balance between "railroading" and the GM's time. Most GM's (myself included) simply aren't going to come up with as interesting an exciting a story on the fly as with prep time, and very few GM's have the prep time to figure out everything the characters might possibly do. You're just going to have more fun if you go to the area where I already have a detailed map and a bunch of nuanced encounters than if you go off in a random direction where you're getting whatever I can pull of the SRD onto a basic plot.

Clearly, our experiences differ in regards to what the Players expect and/or complain about.

oxybe

2017-04-27, 11:13 PM

I grew up on 2nd ed in the late 90's and IME the experience was probably some of the worst player VS GM gaming I was privvy to.

Not because of an arms race, but because of attitude in both the writing in the books/modules and GMs in question.

There are many instances of "Can't do this" or "Can't do that" in the rules (2nd ed's "you can't hit this monster without a +X weapon" or even the more obvious racial class limits, for example) and many modules, monsters and traps are built with a "gotcha!" mentality (the rot grub monster, tomb of horror's sphere of annihilation mouth, etc...) where you basically had to distrust everything the GM said or put in front of you, else get caught unaware by something.

In addition the writing in the books were very vague at times and open to interpretation (by design) and when you felt it should mean X but the GM sees it as Y, especially in a situation where your character's life is hanging in the balance, it can seem rather unfair.

The end result, from a player's perspective, is that the GM is out to get you and trying to scrounge and leverage for an advantage is entirely to your benefit. Worst case scenario is that the character dies anyways, so nothing to lose, right?

This lingering mentality that "the gm is out to get you", plus the internet boom that started around the time 3rd came out meant players felt incentivized to share and document information and forums like Enworld, GitP & WotC's own board were more then happy to lend service. Finally the more thorough mechanics gave players a shared language they could discuss about, rather then simply assume the game was a bunch of different houseruled mess held together with duct tape, players could basically assume with greater comfort that "X works like X in all games unless the OP posts that it was houseruled as not".

In shot: players now a game they could discuss about in addition to sharing stories of play.

Pex

2017-04-28, 01:06 AM

For me the DM vs Player mentality is the fault of 2E. The DMG told the DM to say no to everything and anything a player wanted. It's where the Stormwind Fallacy originated though Tempest Stormwind hadn't coined the term yet. I was arguing about it way back then. The argument was mostly about ability scores and how tyrannical DMs were saying characters with an 18 was a munchkin and cared nothing about roleplaying. I was on ye olde rec.games.frp.dnd newsgroup continuously promoting the idea of High Stats != Bad Roleplaying.

The spark to end the conflict began with the Player Options series. Players were given more freedom in creating their character and once given that freedom did not want to give it back. The series wasn't universally welcomed, even by non-tyrannical DMs. There was legitimate concern of characters being too powerful. I was personally successful in creating a cleric that had everything a paladin did except the mount which I didn't care about and be more powerful than a standard 2E paladin. Since it was only an "option", the series was just used by those who liked it.

True liberation came with 3E. Players had complete control of character customization. DMs had complete control of what sourcebooks could be used and Rule 0. The DMG taught DMs to cooperate with the players. It was still ok to say no, but it wasn't the default go to answer. It was the DM's campaign, but it was everyone's game. The power creep at the end of 3E's run did have the DM say no a little bit more than before in 3E, but it was not at 2E levels. 4E reinforced the DM was suppose to cooperate with players. 5E does too. Those who know me know I have issues with 5E that threaten to bring back tyrannical DMing, but that's not relevant to this thread. 5E does not teach it or condone it.

Dagroth

2017-04-28, 01:35 AM

mfw that post (http://i3.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/001/034/999/1de.gif)

wow, that was super interesting! I always like hearing about the history of what would become 3.x. where might I learn more like this? are there any books you recommend? I'd also love to hear any of the stories you alluded to in there, they sound like a laugh and a half

It's not out yet, but there's this... https://www.amazon.com/Rise-Dungeon-Master-Gygax-Creation/dp/1568585594/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1493360913&sr=8-1&keywords=gary+gygax

And this... https://www.amazon.com/Dice-Men-Dungeons-Dragons-People/dp/145164051X/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

Florian

2017-04-28, 01:48 AM

So, if the purpose of a game is to have fun, why do so many people rant on and on about how some class is bad or some optimization is good when often neither really matters to the fun experience of the game(outside of TO which is basically a minigame in itself)?

Used like this, "fun" is a word devoid of meaning. I use different RPG systems, because they have their individual weak and high points and I can easily point at what exactly the "fun" with it is, as well as what activities I better do with other systems. For example, if I wanted to do "Samurai Drama", I´d not do it with D&D, as the systems doesn´t provide anything that has to do with the "fun" here.

I´m into D&D/PF because of the great combat engine and the cooperative combat, going up against a series of challenging encounters. That´s my "fun" reason for using this system and it´s why "balance" is an important issue here. Now Quertus pointed out the main problem when classes have a vastly different power level bottom and ceiling. When your "fun" using a system is based on beating challenging encounters, it´s annoying for both sides, players and gm, when the disparity between characters mean some can´t contribute, other have to throttle back their contribution....

oxybe

2017-04-28, 02:25 AM

For a lot of people discussing game design is fun.

I love discussing game design, but i'll also admit at this point in my life i do dislike many aspects of D&D's design and do feel they haven't aged well, even though i still like the concept of D&D so I don't mind discussing how to use D&D as a baseline and change that to fit something I would have less issues with, while still being familiar enough for me to wrangle others to play in.

This is part of the fun for me and something that keeps drawing me back to the TTRPG/D&D community.

Now, the idea that specific X or Y game element is broken is something that can be discussed and is a good discussion to have. Usually it comes about because someone noticed that a game element is either failing to do what it's trying, or is too good and eclipses other similar options and is looking for ways to bring it back in line with other options rather then just ban it.

The 3.5 tier list is an example of putting those discussions into practice and practical use. It helps give a quick overview of a class's potential compared to other classes and idea of the scope it can affect within you game. It doesn't mean all wizards are borked beyond belief, but the right spell selections can cause potential issues that some GMs may not be immediately aware of, but don't want to outright ban, so with some foreknowledge it might be a discussion a GM may want to have with their players on what's an appropriate power level for the game.

Or not. It's a YMMV situation.

On a more personal level, for me, "fun" in a TTRPG does have a mechanical, gameplay element. I like making characters and having choices in how to build those characters, not just at the start of the campaign, but as the campaign progresses. I like getting feedback from the game that helps me gauge how well I'm doing and gives me an idea on how to respond in-character. it's a nice feedback loop where the game gives me and my character consistent and measurable responses, knowing how things interact, is able to make consistent choices.

The more "storygame" a TTRPG is, the more often and heavily it relies on "the narrative" as the answer to "why?", the less fun it is to me, because it's often missing some gameplay elements or feedback I find enjoyable. It doesn't mean I can't have fun, but a lot of time i'm having fun despite the game (ie: more because i'm socializing with friends) then because of it. Some concessions to genre, themes and tropes are expected, naturally, but leaning too much on them makes it less of a "game" to me and more just an exercise in theatrics with some dice rolled in because why not.

One of the reasons I quit the D&D group I was with for over a decade: my taste in games changed to where I didn't care for what they wanted to play (they wanted to continue with paizo's adventure paths, something I... out of fear of mod-based retribution, i'll keep it to the more subdued "dislike") and rather then stay half-heartedly with them, staying entirely for the chance to socialize during breaks in play, I let my spot open for someone who would be more excited to play that kind of game.

Florian

2017-04-28, 03:50 AM

@oxybe:

I don´t know if I can fully agree with you here. I´m with you concerning the point that a game system that forces you to make permanent choices based on discrete rules elements should not alter how those work based on "the story". I mentioned "drama play" because that balances "failure" and "success" independent of "the story" and keeps the control firmly in the players hands.

Darth Ultron

2017-04-28, 06:43 AM

For me the DM vs Player mentality is the fault of 2E.

That was not my experience at all, with the hundreds I gamed with back in 2E. I all most never encountered the ''vs'' mentality, until 3X when all the younger ''me generation'' players came along (and dragged the older ones that were hiding in the back out). Just about all 2E players were fine with the idea of ''the DM is God'', even if they did not like it. They had a level of respect and professionalism: they came to have fun playing a game and agreed the DM was god, and all was good.

The Players Option stuff was mostly a joke....but luckily, 2E in it's Old Infinite Wisdom made those books ''optional'', as 2E did not have the culture of worshiping the almighty rules. And even if the books did not say they were optional, in 2E the DM's word was absolute law, so what they said is what was what. So if a 2E player came to a game and said ''I'm using this rule from this book and page 35 says so'' the DM would just laugh and say ''no your not''. The other players would laugh. And if the player made some kind of problem the DM would just have rocks fall on their character and say ''well guess your not using that book..or even gaming with us tonight."

How could you have a ''vs'' mentality when a player would say ''my character does this as per page 101 of the rules'' and the DM would laugh and say ''no, this is what happens'' and the player had no choice but to hang their head down and say ''ok'.....

danielxcutter

2017-04-28, 06:52 AM

In short, Your Milage May Vary. A lot.

ijon

2017-04-28, 07:15 AM

That was not my experience at all, with the hundreds I gamed with back in 2E. I all most never encountered the ''vs'' mentality, until 3X when all the younger ''me generation'' players came along (and dragged the older ones that were hiding in the back out). Just about all 2E players were fine with the idea of ''the DM is God'', even if they did not like it. They had a level of respect and professionalism: they came to have fun playing a game and agreed the DM was god, and all was good.

The Players Option stuff was mostly a joke....but luckily, 2E in it's Old Infinite Wisdom made those books ''optional'', as 2E did not have the culture of worshiping the almighty rules. And even if the books did not say they were optional, in 2E the DM's word was absolute law, so what they said is what was what. So if a 2E player came to a game and said ''I'm using this rule from this book and page 35 says so'' the DM would just laugh and say ''no your not''. The other players would laugh. And if the player made some kind of problem the DM would just have rocks fall on their character and say ''well guess your not using that book..or even gaming with us tonight."

How could you have a ''vs'' mentality when a player would say ''my character does this as per page 101 of the rules'' and the DM would laugh and say ''no, this is what happens'' and the player had no choice but to hang their head down and say ''ok'.....

do you actually believe what you say?

"oh, the DM had complete authority to slap down the players' ideas and deny them agency whenever he damn well felt like it, and there's nothing the player could do about it. but nope there's no adversarial element in there at all nosiree"

your hypothetical DM is the one that ends up in your typical "DM horror stories" threads; who would ever agree to play with someone power tripping so hard?

danielxcutter

2017-04-28, 07:18 AM

Mordaedil

2017-04-28, 07:37 AM

Gnaeus

2017-04-28, 07:50 AM

Well, my preferred way is to, at the end of the season, ask the players what we're doing next time, and spend my limited prep time fleshing out that area / scene / whatever.

Full player agency, player laid rails. :smallcool:

Fully agree. Or if the players don't have an idea, throw out a couple of options and let them pick, then preplan the one they picked.

Some DMs are much better with preplanned than with off the cuff adventures. More than that, many DMs enjoy the planning, and do not enjoy the panic of trying to spontaneously engage the party with challenging but not overwhelming encounters.

Personally, I'm more than willing to say "ok, you do that. Now let's all put our books up and play a boardgame and I'll tell you what happens after you plane shift out of the prepared dungeon into another part of multiverse when we come back next week.

Segev

2017-04-28, 09:51 AM

Happy for you that this approach works. It's called 'railroading' and decried in my experience.

@Tonymitsu: interesting, as my understanding was that the Cleric, not the Thief, was the 4th Class to be introduced, necessitated by a module that proved nigh impossible without Turn Undead and healing magic.In my experience, as long as the DM is not doing this constantly, an honest OOC "I don't have anything prepared over there, and no idea how to wing it" is going to tend to fly a lot better than passive-aggressively IC "hinting" that the players are not doing the one allowable option.

In addition, if the players say, "Yeah, but we really don't like what you have offered us," it is far less objectionable for the DM to step back and figure out what the players WOULD like to do. Of note: players who pick random directions with nothing in mind other than "testing" the "rails" are generally going to find themselves quite bored in most games, even sandboxes, because they're the kind that does what Darth Ultron does and assumes that any hook, any preparation by the DM constitutes "rails." So if there's something prepared where they go, they make the mistake of assuming that means the DM "tricked" them into going there, so they have to "dodge the rails" by going somewhere where nothing is planned.

There's nothing wrong with rails when the players have agreed to them. The rails of the form "the preparation for the game is over here" is generally acceptable.

Where railroading becomes unacceptable is when it isn't, "There's nothing interesting in the woods; please go into the cave," so much as when, "There's nothing interesting if you don't specifically choose to kill the dragon rather than negotiate with it."

How could you have a ''vs'' mentality when a player would say ''my character does this as per page 101 of the rules'' and the DM would laugh and say ''no, this is what happens'' and the player had no choice but to hang their head down and say ''ok'.....
Well, for one, nothing in 3e or PF or 4e or 5e changes the truth value of that situation. At any given table, the player has exactly the same options when a DM says "haha no we're ignoring that rule; this happens" in any edition. He can either accept it, argue with it, or leave the game.

Frankly, your notion of a game where the DM just arbitrarily makes things up doesn't sound like something people go to "to have a good time." It sounds like something people go to to be beaten up if they aren't ready to read the script the Director provides them. Actors get paid for that kind of thing, you know.

That you don't think that's adversarial is revelatory of a bias. "It's not adversarial because I don't let anybody else play, so I always win."

Would Football not be an adversarial game if the home team got to appoint its coach as the sole referee?

Necroticplague

2017-04-28, 10:32 AM

Naw, Darth Ultron is pretty much the textbook example of a grognard; the differences stated are attributed to an element outside of the game and he's just besserweissing everybody elses experience with his own, insisting it is the truth from all perspectives.

"Hundreds of games" is what he gives as credential. So if somebody claims they had thousands, they trump that etc. It's not really indicative of anything besides that he has fond memories of when the game was new and when the game changed it introduced a pool of players he didn't particularly liked. That isn't actually the games fault. It's his perspective on how it went.

I should know, I went through the same until I learned to embrace all the variations for what they did well and recognize what they did poorly.

I'd actually be quiet concerned about 'hundreds of games' as a data point. Given how incredibly long a full game can be (a month at the shortest, from my own experience), that means there isn't enough time for 'hundreds of games' within a human lifespan. The only ways that would be possible is if A: you count each session in a campaign as a different game, which is disingenuous in nature, or B: you run nothing but weekly one-shots, which aren't horrifically representative of the game as a whole, and chop of several elements of the game by their nature. So either the 'credential' is nonexistent, or it's not representative. Either way, it's just a meaningless point to mention.

Quertus

2017-04-28, 10:35 AM

I'd actually be quiet concerned about 'hundreds of games' as a data point. Given how incredibly long a full game can be (a month at the shortest, from my own experience), that means there isn't enough time for 'hundreds of games' within a human lifespan. The only ways that would be possible is if A: you count each session in a campaign as a different game, which is disingenuous in nature, or B: you run nothing but weekly one-shots, which aren't horrifically representative of the game as a whole, and chop of several elements of the game by their nature. So either the 'credential' is nonexistent, or it's not representative. Either way, it's just a meaningless point to mention.

Well, over the past 30+ years I've been playing D&D, my record is 6 sessions a week with 6 different groups...

So how the math works out may differ, depending on a lot of things.

Zanos

2017-04-28, 10:39 AM

I'd actually be quiet concerned about 'hundreds of games' as a data point. Given how incredibly long a full game can be (a month at the shortest, from my own experience), that means there isn't enough time for 'hundreds of games' within a human lifespan. The only ways that would be possible is if A: you count each session in a campaign as a different game, which is disingenuous in nature, or B: you run nothing but weekly one-shots, which aren't horrifically representative of the game as a whole, and chop of several elements of the game by their nature. So either the 'credential' is nonexistent, or it's not representative. Either way, it's just a meaningless point to mention.
I know a guy who runs 3 sessions a week for three different groups. I think he's been playing since 2nd edition came out in 1989, so that's 28 years. Assuming "hundreds" is the minimum of 200 that's 7 games a year, which doesn't seem impossible if you run for multiple groups at once.

Considering how...dedicated Ultron seems, and the likely rate at which he hemorrhages players and games collapse, that number of games isn't impossible.

Necroticplague

2017-04-28, 10:49 AM

Cosi

2017-04-28, 11:17 AM

Florian

2017-04-28, 11:20 AM

O.k, nevermind then. I was assuming a once-weekly sessions with one group, and that a game took a minimum 2-months worth of sessions. The idea of being in multiple groups never occurred to me (on account of seeming like a terrifying amount of effort).

Thats funny. When growing up, Germany was a divided and occupied country and the quarter of Munich we lived in was more or less walled off and had the U.S. army base and an offshoot of the University of Maryland attached to it. Both, the army personal as well as their kids were pretty much self-isolated so D&D was a big thing for them, being a diversion and all that. During my school days, some parents always hosted a game in the afternoon to occupy the kids with. You can imagine how brutal it is when some Vietnam vets are gm and how the rulings turn out to be. I actually miss those times. Looking back, the sheer amount of gaming was pretty krass, I haven´t had a T-Bone Steak since then and I´d kill for Chester Cheetos.

@Cosi:

I think you´re lacking experience on that topic. In Germany, DSA is the 800 pound gorilla but it´s build around the setting being a "living" one, meaning that there´s a lot of feedback between the playing groups and the authors and we´ve collectively shaped that setting for more than a quarter of a century by now. Going this route, you know the actual rules for what can and can´t be done with the setting, what to touch and what is impossible to touch because it´s reserved to the authors. That means you play heroes, but not big damn heroes, but you can switch groups as you wish and still participate in the same campaign.

WarKitty

2017-04-28, 11:32 AM

Pex

2017-04-28, 11:56 AM

That was not my experience at all, with the hundreds I gamed with back in 2E. I all most never encountered the ''vs'' mentality, until 3X when all the younger ''me generation'' players came along (and dragged the older ones that were hiding in the back out). Just about all 2E players were fine with the idea of ''the DM is God'', even if they did not like it. They had a level of respect and professionalism: they came to have fun playing a game and agreed the DM was god, and all was good.

The Players Option stuff was mostly a joke....but luckily, 2E in it's Old Infinite Wisdom made those books ''optional'', as 2E did not have the culture of worshiping the almighty rules. And even if the books did not say they were optional, in 2E the DM's word was absolute law, so what they said is what was what. So if a 2E player came to a game and said ''I'm using this rule from this book and page 35 says so'' the DM would just laugh and say ''no your not''. The other players would laugh. And if the player made some kind of problem the DM would just have rocks fall on their character and say ''well guess your not using that book..or even gaming with us tonight."

How could you have a ''vs'' mentality when a player would say ''my character does this as per page 101 of the rules'' and the DM would laugh and say ''no, this is what happens'' and the player had no choice but to hang their head down and say ''ok'.....

That is the DM vs Player mentality or rather tyrannical DMing.

TheIronGolem

2017-04-28, 12:01 PM

That was not my experience at all, with the hundreds I gamed with back in 2E. I all most never encountered the ''vs'' mentality, until 3X when all the younger ''me generation'' players came along (and dragged the older ones that were hiding in the back out).

If you didn't see the "me generation" stuff back when you were playing 2E (side note: it's adorable how you think playing 2E makes you the jaded veteran), it's because you were the "me generation" gamer that the grognards of the day were whining about. Damn kids with their THAC0's and their distances-measured-in-feet, etc. Whether or not you noticed it at the time, it was happening.

And here's the thing: Every generation thinks the one that follows it is "the me generation", and every generation is wrong. The term was coined in regards to the Baby Boomers (for most people reading this that means your grandparents), but it was by no means a new sentiment. It's a cycle every generation goes through: rage at the "clueless" old-timers, grow up, rage at the "clueless" kids who are doing all the same things you did. The gaming-specific version of this nonsense works on a slightly faster cycle, but it's otherwise the same hypocritical, lacking-in-self-awareness garbage being trotted out over and over by people who damn well ought to know better.

Dagroth

2017-04-28, 01:15 PM

Longest game I ran... every weekend for over two and a half years. Then, I and one player moved to a different city and I got a new group into the same game world for another year.

A typical game for the groups I've been with will be almost every weekend for 5-8 months. Games back in High School & Junior High tended to go quicker, so I'd say every 2-4 months.

So I think I could easily say I've been involved in well over a hundred "complete" games... and another two hundred or so "incomplete" games that only lasted a session or two.

In all that time, there's always been the general agreement of "the DM/GM is telling a story and the players are the characters in that story helping to tell that story." There was no "well, Frodo decides he's going to take the Ring and head to the Northlands despite the fact that the only way to destroy the Ring being throwing it into Mount Doom. Because I think there should be a volcano in the Northlands despite the DM saying there aren't any there." or "There's a Dragon terrorizing the countryside? Well, my character is going to hunt Bugbears, because he hates Bugbears even if the DM says that the Goblin Lands are mostly civilized and also see the Dragon as a threat."

I will freely admit that my long game ran so long because I made sure there were always multiple things going on for the characters to do... but I also made it clear that if the characters didn't deal with certain situations, there wasn't anyone else who could. Sure, there were more powerful individuals in the world... but they almost always had their own problems to deal with. If the King said "I need you to investigate the rumors of Demons in the North", it was because there wasn't anyone else he could send that could deal with Demons if the rumors were true.

Some people talk about "being railroaded" as being this horrible thing... yet most guides to good DMing tell you to "create a good story" and "keep things on track".

"Going off the rails" is a phrase meaning crazy, bad things are happening.

Most of the games that I've been in that have failed, failed because the players just started doing their own things rather than even try to follow any of the plots or stories the DM provided.

Darth Ultron

2017-04-28, 11:58 PM

do you actually believe what you say?

"oh, the DM had complete authority to slap down the players' ideas and deny them agency whenever he damn well felt like it, and there's nothing the player could do about it. but nope there's no adversarial element in there at all nosiree"

your hypothetical DM is the one that ends up in your typical "DM horror stories" threads; who would ever agree to play with someone power tripping so hard?

Except it is not a horror story, it's a good story.

Your thinking like a innocent, doe eyed player would walk up to a DM and say, in a soft voice, can I play a gnome fighter character with red hair(a very reasonable request)?'' And like the Dm says ''No, hahahahahahahahah!'

But I'm talking about; Player sits down and says ''my characters dad was a god and gave him a super special sword +1000''. Then yes, the DM would say ''no''.

When you have a normal, level headed DM and inhuman jerk players, it is not adversarial.

Frankly, your notion of a game where the DM just arbitrarily makes things up doesn't sound like something people go to "to have a good time." It sounds like something people go to to be beaten up if they aren't ready to read the script the Director provides them. Actors get paid for that kind of thing, you know.

That you don't think that's adversarial is revelatory of a bias. "It's not adversarial because I don't let anybody else play, so I always win."

Would Football not be an adversarial game if the home team got to appoint its coach as the sole referee?

Well, making things up is the DM's job.... If a player has a character, say, slaughter a whole tavern full of townsfolk, the DM decides (aka ''makes up'') what happens after that. If a player comes to the game and says ''my awesome character made a 0 level free action to cast spell that does 1000 points of damage'', the DM can say ''no, you can't use that spell in my game''. and so on.

It's not about ''not letting someone play'', it's about ''not letting people get away with being a jerk''. Like if you were DM running a 1st level adventure and Jerk Josh came with his 40th level epic character..you'd just be like ''ok-day'' ?

Well, football is not a good example as you have two competing teams. A better example might be a bingo game. Jerk Josh brings a piece of paper with a single blank square, writes down the first number called in the square, puts a token (or pen mark) and the square and says ''Bingo!''. So do you as the Bingo Game runner say ''ok day, you won, here is your prize" ?

I'd actually be quiet concerned about 'hundreds of games' as a data point. Either way, it's just a meaningless point to mention.

Well....2 games a week for a year is already 104. Even just counting 3X, that was 17 years ago or so....like 1,800. But lets just take half of the number for 600 or so. Well, note that is six hundred games. And that is only counting 3X. Now add in 10 years of the 90's playing 2E and some years in the 80's playing 1E. And that only counts real life games. Adding Online would add so many more.....I sure do miss the early days of 3.0 when Wizards had a live D&D chat game room...I ran so many games...even long campaigns there...the allies of Calgaunt, dowhar traders, wish shenanigans and the great Fang. Ah them were the days.....

I guess for a disclaimer I have run ''lots'' of pick up games and games by request at Game/Hobby/Comic stores. In the Ye Old Days, we had The Keep...the gamer store owned by WotC..that was found in Malls. That was the best as they had tables and such set up in the ''mall hallway''... good times.

Sure I guess you could say that ''one shot'' game does not ''count'' as a game...for no reason other then to make what you want to be true to be true, but why does not ''a game'' count as ''a game''? what would you do next, say ''it is only a game if you roll a d20 75 times?''

If you didn't see the "me generation"

Note the Me Generation is a thing....feel free to goggle it.

OldTrees1

2017-04-29, 12:34 AM

Except it is not a horror story, it's a good story.

Your thinking like a innocent, doe eyed player would walk up to a DM and say, in a soft voice, can I play a gnome fighter character with red hair(a very reasonable request)?'' And like the Dm says ''No, hahahahahahahahah!'

But I'm talking about; Player sits down and says ''my characters dad was a god and gave him a super special sword +1000''. Then yes, the DM would say ''no''.

When you have a normal, level headed DM and inhuman jerk players, it is not adversarial.

You present yourself, knowingly or not, as the former and not as the latter. Your insistent strawmen make the audience doubt your own ability to recognize what kind of a DM you are. Thus the rational action is to treat you as an unreliable narrator. In that light the similarity between you and the former case are unmistakable.

Sun Elemental

2017-04-29, 12:45 AM

Your thinking like a innocent, doe eyed player would walk up to a DM and say, in a soft voice, can I play a gnome fighter character with red hair(a very reasonable request)?'' And like the Dm says ''No, hahahahahahahahah!'

But I'm talking about; Player sits down and says ''my characters dad was a god and gave him a super special sword +1000''. Then yes, the DM would say ''no''.

How is this an argument for 2e? You're acting like religious adherence to 'the rules' will somehow allow players to... cheat? Any 3e DM will rule 0 an unbalanced character.

It's not about ''not letting someone play'', it's about ''not letting people get away with being a jerk''. Like if you were DM running a 1st level adventure and Jerk Josh came with his 40th level epic character..you'd just
be like ''ok-day'' ?

I like how you make 2e sound balanced and fair by talking about how characters were so easily exported between campaigns, which by definition, would be wildly varying campaigns because of how 'freeform' DMs could make rulings.

Note the Me Generation is a thing....feel free to goggle it.
Just did. It's not people young enough to start playing D&D at 3e. It's baby boomers. Guessing by how grognardy you act, that's you. If you're 50-70 years old, you are a Me Generation baby.

If you're gonna insult me by calling me something, call me an Aldritch-accursed Millennial like I actually am!

TheIronGolem

2017-04-29, 12:48 AM

Note the Me Generation is a thing....feel free to goggle it.

Yes, it's a thing. Specifically, it's what I already told you it is - one more iteration of an empty meme that people have been repeating forever. Googling the term only confirms that.

oxybe

2017-04-29, 12:57 AM

In all that time, there's always been the general agreement of "the DM/GM is telling a story and the players are the characters in that story helping to tell that story." There was no "well, Frodo decides he's going to take the Ring and head to the Northlands despite the fact that the only way to destroy the Ring being throwing it into Mount Doom. Because I think there should be a volcano in the Northlands despite the DM saying there aren't any there." or "There's a Dragon terrorizing the countryside? Well, my character is going to hunt Bugbears, because he hates Bugbears even if the DM says that the Goblin Lands are mostly civilized and also see the Dragon as a threat."

I will disagree with your statement that they're here to tell the GM's story. The players are here to tell their story within the GM's world.

If all a GM want to do is tell a story and have me, the player, basically just follow their cues...

Well, there's a reason I quit my group of 10+ years. It's call Paizo Adventure Paths and they are the single most boring way to play IMO. Your character is incidental to the narrative. You could replace Thargarth the Bold with a Big Mac on a stick with some spock ears taped to it and the adventure will continue as normal. There is a thing going on, and your character is the one to solve the thing, but you can swap out characters at a moment's notice and it would, in the end, change nothing.

The first time was neat. I never played them. It was like a super-module. The second time was actually a more condensed experience of the first (the first stopped at level 21, the second we played stopped, i believe, at around 15). It kinda lost the uniqueness of it all, but whatever. I wanted D&D and hanging out with my friends. The third time was basically a repetition of the same "You need the plot coupon to go further" repeated time and time again and i grew bored and left. It also didn't help that it had some really boring hexcrawling and a bad city-building minigame stapled onto it. They managed to wrangle me back in when those two parts of the campaign were done and it was... ok. again: i was there to hang out more then anything, but that we could drop and re-add my old character without missing a beat says a lot about how those modules are constructed not around the characters, but some other narrative.

Finally came the straw that broke the camel's back. The last one I played in I was apprehensive in joining, but they sold me on the premise... but the follow-through was so linear and boring I left at the first module's end.

I refuse to play in those type of scenarios. I would rather play a laggy, stuttering match of TF2, where at least I know my presence can affect the narrative of that match, if only because I can play Engineer and drop a sentry by the intel while my wifi kills my latency and maybe get a few kills that way. It may be narratively boring with a story flatter then a day old pepsi left out in the open, but i did things and i helped shaped the flow of if we won or lost. I contributed to the narrative and probably changed things.

Or you know, watch some of the new spring 2017 anime or a few episodes of Arrow (i still need to catch up...) or something. Sure, I may not have any control over the narrative but i'm doing this on my time, when I feel like it and if I don't like it can just drop it or pause it or something. I'm only as invested as I want to be.

Sure I miss hanging out with my friends, but to be honest, not playing D&D is better then playing bad D&D.

If I wanted to hear someone's story, write a book, direct a play, film a movie and let me digest it on my terms. I play RPGs so I can play my character and shape their narrative within the world presented.

If a dragon suddenly attacks a town... why would my character reasonably want to go and attack this thing that can clearly level a town?

Not every character is of the heroic "save everyone" type. Some just do the best they can with the circumstances at hand and expecting those types of characters to jump at a chance at being dragon kibble because that's the only thing you planned (as opposed to planning two things: [save the town] & [escape the countryside]) shows a potential lack of respect to the characters and players.

I'm more then willing to jump at hooks and move things along as long as it's in character to do so, but when the only reason things are being done is "well it's what the GM prepared for tonight" I can only excuse that for so long. After a while why am I even playing? The GM clearly only needs me to fill a seat. If the game doesn't revolve around the characters interacting with the world and more about "stuff happens, feat: 5 guys", count me out.

Yes it's selfish, but it's also pretty selfish to ask people to just sit down and "play" a game where rather then focusing on their exploits and desires, they're kinda just along for the ride.

Florian

2017-04-29, 01:28 AM

A Paizo AP is a tool. It gives the gm a setting, a story, a bunch of npc and encounters. You´re right that using it out of the box in this way creates a railroad-y game that needs a gentlemens agreement that everyone present simply follows along and fills in the blanks. That has the benefit of reducing the amount of prep work for the gm and even an inexperienced gm can handle it quite fine.

But I agree that it can also be a shallow experience, especially for an experienced player who knows how a game can develop when there´s good interplay between players and gm and you know a shared narrative control over the game world works.

Necroticplague

2017-04-29, 04:24 AM

Well....2 games a week for a year is already 104. Even just counting 3X, that was 17 years ago or so....like 1,800. But lets just take half of the number for 600 or so. Well, note that is six hundred games. And that is only counting 3X. Now add in 10 years of the 90's playing 2E and some years in the 80's playing 1E. And that only counts real life games. Adding Online would add so many more.....I sure do miss the early days of 3.0 when Wizards had a live D&D chat game room...I ran so many games...even long campaigns there...the allies of Calgaunt, dowhar traders, wish shenanigans and the great Fang. Ah them were the days..... As I said before, counting session amount as game amount is disingenuous in nature.

I guess for a disclaimer I have run ''lots'' of pick up games and games by request at Game/Hobby/Comic stores. In the Ye Old Days, we had The Keep...the gamer store owned by WotC..that was found in Malls. That was the best as they had tables and such set up in the ''mall hallway''... good times.

Sure I guess you could say that ''one shot'' game does not ''count'' as a game...for no reason other then to make what you want to be true to be true, but why does not ''a game'' count as ''a game''? what would you do next, say ''it is only a game if you roll a d20 75 times?''

I don't consider one-shots and similar things of less than campaign length 'games' for the same reason I don't consider myself an experienced cook. I may have cooked thousands of times, but the simplicity and low-effort nature of my cooking have been of such that you can't really say it counts for much, because of how many elements it misses out. Similarly, one-shots and other short experiences lack elements of progression that I feel are central to the game of DnD.

That's also in addition to the fact that it's impossible for any of your statements to be verified, so any credentialism is pointless. Points will stand on their own merit, regardless of who makes them.

Dagroth

2017-04-29, 04:25 AM

If I wanted to hear someone's story, write a book, direct a play, film a movie and let me digest it on my terms. I play RPGs so I can play my character and shape their narrative within the world presented.

If a dragon suddenly attacks a town... why would my character reasonably want to go and attack this thing that can clearly level a town?

Not every character is of the heroic "save everyone" type. Some just do the best they can with the circumstances at hand and expecting those types of characters to jump at a chance at being dragon kibble because that's the only thing you planned (as opposed to planning two things: [save the town] & [escape the countryside]) shows a potential lack of respect to the characters and players.

I'm more then willing to jump at hooks and move things along as long as it's in character to do so, but when the only reason things are being done is "well it's what the GM prepared for tonight" I can only excuse that for so long. After a while why am I even playing? The GM clearly only needs me to fill a seat. If the game doesn't revolve around the characters interacting with the world and more about "stuff happens, feat: 5 guys", count me out.

Yes it's selfish, but it's also pretty selfish to ask people to just sit down and "play" a game where rather then focusing on their exploits and desires, they're kinda just along for the ride.

So, it's the DM's job to make dozens of new possible adventures every week for each and every player character separately... After all, why should the players be expected to have characters with goals or desires that are similar or even compatible, right? That takes away their "agency".

Do you also believe that a DM shouldn't be able to tell the players "hey, I want you all to make pirate characters who are all signing on as crew on a new ship."

My group loves the challenge of building characters to fit into a specific narrative. It's the essence of improv. I ran the Savage Tide adventure path and there was always the feeling in the group of "if we don't save the day, horrible things will happen!"

But then... unless we're specifically running a villain campaign, we're always playing characters who are heroic and who want to save the day.

oxybe

2017-04-29, 06:18 AM

@ Dagroth

shrug.

I was going to fire off more snark in response, but I'm done here.

I've said my part.

I'll let you take away whatever you want from my post.

OldTrees1

2017-04-29, 11:02 AM

So, it's the DM's job to make dozens of new possible adventures every week for each and every player character separately... After all, why should the players be expected to have characters with goals or desires that are similar or even compatible, right? That takes away their "agency".

Do you also believe that a DM shouldn't be able to tell the players "hey, I want you all to make pirate characters who are all signing on as crew on a new ship."

My group loves the challenge of building characters to fit into a specific narrative. It's the essence of improv. I ran the Savage Tide adventure path and there was always the feeling in the group of "if we don't save the day, horrible things will happen!"

But then... unless we're specifically running a villain campaign, we're always playing characters who are heroic and who want to save the day.

It is a system of compromises that work together to make a harmonious whole.

There is a compromise between what each player(including the DM) wants for the story.
There is a compromise between the above compromise and the limitations the DM has on their ability to prep material.

A skilled DM will be better able to craft these compromises into a higher quality game.

Excessive number of adventures created every week would be a poor compromise with the factors that limit the DM's ability to prep.

The DM communicating the campaign premise before the players join the game is a good way to establish expectations and align desired.

Your group loves how you run it, then as long as you also love it, that is a sign that it is a good balance for that group. Other groups may require different balances.

For example: My group has a bit more diverse player (including DM) wants so I want to craft a campaign, within the limits of my ability to prep, that maximizes the group enjoyment. Part of the complexity is that I, even as a DM, want lots of player agency. So I preface the campaign by saying the characters need to be self motivated and I need to know those motivations. Then my prep involves some towards the main event, some related to the actions the motivated PC have made towards their own goals, and a tiny bit of prep around the rest of the prep so that I can be better prepared with my improv if they surprise me.

Dagroth

2017-04-29, 01:15 PM

For example: My group has a bit more diverse player (including DM) wants so I want to craft a campaign, within the limits of my ability to prep, that maximizes the group enjoyment. Part of the complexity is that I, even as a DM, want lots of player agency. So I preface the campaign by saying the characters need to be self motivated and I need to know those motivations. Then my prep involves some towards the main event, some related to the actions the motivated PC have made towards their own goals, and a tiny bit of prep around the rest of the prep so that I can be better prepared with my improv if they surprise me.

So you build a campaign world based on the characters, rather than building a campaign world and having the players create characters that fit in it... is that what you're saying?

I've tried that... sometimes it works, but usually it ends up with characters that just can't be a team. You might as well be running 4-5 solo adventures every week.

Take, for example, a short campaign based on the movie "The Magnificent Seven". Yes, the characters (in the movie) had different motivations... but they could all be guided towards one goal. But character design would have to have specific limitations or you could easily end up with characters who either wouldn't bother saving the village or might even join the bandits.

Quertus

2017-04-29, 01:55 PM

Amphetryon

2017-04-29, 02:22 PM

In my experience, as long as the DM is not doing this constantly, an honest OOC "I don't have anything prepared over there, and no idea how to wing it" is going to tend to fly a lot better than passive-aggressively IC "hinting" that the players are not doing the one allowable option.

In addition, if the players say, "Yeah, but we really don't like what you have offered us," it is far less objectionable for the DM to step back and figure out what the players WOULD like to do. Of note: players who pick random directions with nothing in mind other than "testing" the "rails" are generally going to find themselves quite bored in most games, even sandboxes, because they're the kind that does what Darth Ultron does and assumes that any hook, any preparation by the DM constitutes "rails." So if there's something prepared where they go, they make the mistake of assuming that means the DM "tricked" them into going there, so they have to "dodge the rails" by going somewhere where nothing is planned.

There's nothing wrong with rails when the players have agreed to them. The rails of the form "the preparation for the game is over here" is generally acceptable.

Where railroading becomes unacceptable is when it isn't, "There's nothing interesting in the woods; please go into the cave," so much as when, "There's nothing interesting if you don't specifically choose to kill the dragon rather than negotiate with it."

I agree that this is one definition of railroading. Similarly, it is one potentially valid example of the point where railroading becomes unacceptable.

In neither case have I personally found them to be 'generally' true or acceptable.

WarKitty

2017-04-29, 02:45 PM

The DM can pitch a campaign premise; the players can accept or reject said premise. The DM cannot (generally) mandate a premise.

Depends on what you mean by "mandate a premise." I tend to start my games a bit more in media res, with the action about to start - so the players either have already accepted the quest or are in a situation where they have to. So my latest campaign, I started by telling players "You're all slaves in the city, about to be sacrificed at a great festival. It is entirely up to you how your character got into that position, but that's where you are."

OldTrees1

2017-04-30, 12:11 AM

So you build a campaign world based on the characters, rather than building a campaign world and having the players create characters that fit in it... is that what you're saying?

I've tried that... sometimes it works, but usually it ends up with characters that just can't be a team. You might as well be running 4-5 solo adventures every week.

Take, for example, a short campaign based on the movie "The Magnificent Seven". Yes, the characters (in the movie) had different motivations... but they could all be guided towards one goal. But character design would have to have specific limitations or you could easily end up with characters who either wouldn't bother saving the village or might even join the bandits.

Abstract comment:
The campaign world gets created, by the DM, at the meeting of motivations of the players (The DM is a player). The obvious difference between players (including the DM) and PCs is probably clear to you.

So the campaign world is created long before the characters, although one can expect the characters to be made to fit the campaign world.

My table in particular as a tiny subset of the above:
I, as a DM, spend my prep time extending the prepared adventure material based on the characters' interaction with the campaign world and the main event(stuff that follows from the campaign world).

So I would not characterize it as a world that is created to fit the characters (unless you mean the discussion about player desires rather than PC motives). Rather it is a world that already exists but sections are loaded in as a response to the characters' interactions.

Your concerns are hazards of the self motivated PC + Player agency. However my group has not experienced those hazards. I don't run solo sessions, the session follows the party, and players want to play with their characters, thus their PC follows the party. That informal guideline has prevent the issues from arising at my table. I don't know how much of that is influenced by the particular players I have had vs how much to credit the guideline's impact on character creation.

Personally I like to think of it as #PCs + 1 mutually compatible victory objectives that one team of PCs sets out to achieve/advance. That last one is a result of the main event (escape, survive, thrive, remain sane, etc).

Meta Comments:
The Abstract is discussing how I see healthy DM - other player interactions in this group activity.

The part about my table in particular is giving an example that is further filtered through my own person desires for my table. A different group would be a different situation.

Pex

2017-04-30, 12:54 AM

Snippage for brevity

Finally came the straw that broke the camel's back. The last one I played in I was apprehensive in joining, but they sold me on the premise... but the follow-through was so linear and boring I left at the first module's end.

I refuse to play in those type of scenarios. I would rather play a laggy, stuttering match of TF2, where at least I know my presence can affect the narrative of that match, if only because I can play Engineer and drop a sentry by the intel while my wifi kills my latency and maybe get a few kills that way. It may be narratively boring with a story flatter then a day old pepsi left out in the open, but i did things and i helped shaped the flow of if we won or lost. I contributed to the narrative and probably changed things.

Sorry to hear you had a bad time. In my Pathfinder group we have played through some modules, but the world still mattered we were there. Things were added or changed to reflect our characters' experiences. When we go onto the next adventure the world remembers who we are and what we did before. Modules inherently can't do that because everyone's game is different. Even in the 5E forum I'm reading of players' experience with Lost Mine Of Phandelver and what happened in their game was different than with my group. Just recently one player got a familiar from the Flaming Skull. In my group we befriended two goblins who joined our party, one becoming a Fighter who is essentially my cohort. I doubt either scenario was written into the module. It would be the same thing for Pathfinder. It is up to the DM to adapt the written word of the module to what is actually happening and not just stick to the script. The DM has to make the world remember you.

Crake

2017-04-30, 01:08 AM

So you build a campaign world based on the characters, rather than building a campaign world and having the players create characters that fit in it... is that what you're saying?

I've tried that... sometimes it works, but usually it ends up with characters that just can't be a team. You might as well be running 4-5 solo adventures every week.

Take, for example, a short campaign based on the movie "The Magnificent Seven". Yes, the characters (in the movie) had different motivations... but they could all be guided towards one goal. But character design would have to have specific limitations or you could easily end up with characters who either wouldn't bother saving the village or might even join the bandits.

I have tried on multiple occasions to do what Oldtrees1 does as well, but my players simply seem to be incapable of self motivation. There's one player who is, and whenever I make "self motivated games" it basically becomes "that one player and co adventures" because of it, so I've basically had to create guided adventures to accomodate my players, and that one player usually does additional stuff away from the table to achieve his own goals.

I would love more players like that, and like oxybe, because I feel like it would actually make my job EASIER, but alas, we have to work with what we've got.

As a player though, I've pretty much only exclusively played in modules, because none of the other DMs are interested in running open world games, but I gotta say, I agree with Pex's comments in the previous post, even my novice DM friends can make the modules we run memorable by bending the module to what we do. We run our games in persistent, custom worlds, so things that we do in the modules, win or lose, however we go about them, will affect the game world as a whole. For example, we're running way of the wicked, but our DM decided that there was no undead in his campaign up until this point. One of our players is literally the progenitor of undead in the setting, and has become a lich, the first lich even. Upon reading a little bit further into the standard pf setting, and another DM running curse of the crimson throne (about 500 years down the line from way of the wicked, just to allow for the propagation of undead, because the DM didn't want to re-work every undead encounter), we realised just how perfectly that wotw lich character fitted into Urgathoa's shoes, so it's been officially stated that in our campaign, any mention of urgathoa is actually that character instead.

If that doesn't make you feel like you have impact on the world, I dunno what can.

OldTrees1

2017-04-30, 01:48 AM

I have tried on multiple occasions to do what Oldtrees1 does as well, but my players simply seem to be incapable of self motivation. There's one player who is, and whenever I make "self motivated games" it basically becomes "that one player and co adventures" because of it, so I've basically had to create guided adventures to accomodate my players, and that one player usually does additional stuff away from the table to achieve his own goals.

I would love more players like that, and like oxybe, because I feel like it would actually make my job EASIER, but alas, we have to work with what we've got.

I was mostly using my group as an example in how I did prep to enable & handle high player agency. I did this to alleviate Dagroth's concerns about the prep time required to satisfy players like oxybe.

I slip into and out of your position Crake. I have had a campaign or two where none of the players I had could not make self motivated PCs. I am a bit too slow to fall back on easily marked trails (an area I have room to improve), but that is what those players tend to want.

As for ease, yes part of why I like those kinds of PCs is because it makes my job easier. I don't need to be nearly as creative if my players are muses of inspiration. That frees me up to focus on the implementation.

Another DM prep note:
I have not encountered the following but there are players that are really unpredictable such that it seems highly likely they will run into "I am sorry but I do not have content for that area yet" more than once in a campaign. A trick I found for such players (beyond attempts to predict them) is to use what I would call a hologram or derived campaign world. The basic premise is that you construct your world such that you can derive unprepared content from prepared content. If I give you the pattern 1, 1, 2, 3, 5 then you might reason that the next number is 8. The exact details on how to construct intuitive worlds depends on your intuition. For me it works best if the world is structured in a top-down section->multiple subsections pattern. A word of warning: On the spot derivations might be fast and consistent under this system but they are unlikely to be detailed. (I use this system not because I have those kinds of players, but rather because my memory is poor and derivation is easier than memorization)

In summary: Do what works for the group as a whole (and that will differ from group to group).

Thurbane

2017-04-30, 03:34 AM

Never said they "just play a single character". Their role is different, but they are just a player.

Bolding mine. This is a mentality that I have a massive issue with. Yes, the DM is also a player. But a player who invests hours, days, weeks or even months of their spare time to populate and create a world with which your characters can interact.

The DM is a player, yes; but he is also a author, researcher and referee, among many other things. I personally believe this entitles him to a level of respect, and the power of a deciding vote when a mutual agreement can't be reached.

For the record, let me state that I don't agree with a DM dictatorship where the players have no say in the game and their characters are little more than the DMs pawns.

But honestly, if you think the DM is should just be a mute arbiter with no real input in the game, and whose only role is to be a yes-man for the players, then you're not looking for a DM; you're looking for a CPU. Maybe a CRPG would be more suitable for this than a tabletop game.

Why wouldn't that work? YMMV, but ik works fine for our group. Our hints are usually a lot more subtle, and it still works fine.
DM: to the left you see *insert vivid description here*, to the right.... nothing of interest... plains mostly.
Player: 'We go left'

Or anything along those lines works fine.

http://i67.tinypic.com/2z99l6e.jpg

So, it's the DM's job to make dozens of new possible adventures every week for each and every player character separately... After all, why should the players be expected to have characters with goals or desires that are similar or even compatible, right? That takes away their "agency".

Do you also believe that a DM shouldn't be able to tell the players "hey, I want you all to make pirate characters who are all signing on as crew on a new ship."

My group loves the challenge of building characters to fit into a specific narrative. It's the essence of improv. I ran the Savage Tide adventure path and there was always the feeling in the group of "if we don't save the day, horrible things will happen!"

But then... unless we're specifically running a villain campaign, we're always playing characters who are heroic and who want to save the day.

Speaking for myself, between real-life demands and other interest and hobbies, I put a LOT of my spare time into generating a (mostly) home-brewed adventure path for the party.

My players know this, and if I drop subtle (or even not-so subtle) hints that they are wandering out of an area where I have stuff prepared, they try to get "back on track". I don't need to threaten or bully, they WANT the fully fleshed out story I have worked on.

The way I incorporate player desires into the campaign is generally between sessions and when planning the story arc. I will approach players at the start of the game and ask them for hopes, goals, drives etc. and do my best to build it into the game. Also, if they express an interest in something I hadn't anticipated during play-time, I'll do my best to incorporate it into an upcoming session.

I'm not saying this is the only right way to game, but it is certainly the right way for my group (I do the same when I am a player: some of the DMs in our group get less prep time than me, so I generally try to have my character act and interact within the framework of the prepared adventure(s).

I often tend to find "player agency" a bit of a loaded term. Some of the time I see it used in response to DM horror stories, where the DM is very obviously a power-tripping tyrant who has little to no interest in the satisfaction or enjoyment of his players. But I also often see it used in cases of extreme player entitlement, where for the DM to have any control over used material, player builds or story arc seems to be a sin.

OldTrees1

2017-04-30, 03:46 AM

Bolding mine. This is a mentality that I have a massive issue with. Yes, the DM is also a player. But a player who invests hours, days, weeks or even months of their spare time to populate and create a world with which your characters can interact.

The DM is a player, yes; but he is also a author, researcher and referee, among many other things. I personally believe this entitles him to a level of respect, and the power of a deciding vote when a mutual agreement can't be reached.

For the record, let me state that I don't agree with a DM dictatorship where the players have no say in the game and their characters are little more than the DMs pawns.

But honestly, if you think the DM is should just be a mute arbiter with no real input in the game, and whose only role is to be a yes-man for the players, then you're not looking for a DM; you're looking for a CPU. Maybe a CRPG would be more suitable for this than a tabletop game.

I don't think Svata disagrees with you as much as you think. Additionally I think your emphasis + the meaning you inferred ended up changing the statement in a misrepresentative manner.

I think both of you would agree on the following 3 statements:
The DM is a player, not merely a mute arbiter.
The DM is not a dictator, they are a player.
The DM is a player, but their role is different than that of running a PC and that different matters.

Their role involves being the referee. This is not a perk. They get the deciding vote as a result of being given that job as part of the role. Their role involves lots of prep work. Optimizations can be made to the amount of effort expended in preparing, but it is still work. Everyone at the table deserves respect, but anyone doing this extra work is also worthy of gratitude.

There are many messages one can take out of that comic strip. I believe the effort and disappointment are clear enough. However if one changes the phrasing of panel 3 the meaning of the DM's reaction in panel 4 changes. I have been in those shoes but while gaming with better players. I spent hours on a dungeon and they skip it for 3 IRL months (6 sessions). If the dungeon had not been related to another they never would have gone back. These are disappointments that come with the territory. Just as DMs are not CPUs running a CRPG, Players are not Actors hired to perform a story. Sometimes prepared content will be wasted.

On the other hand, the players should be seeking to work with the DM out of gratitude for the effort & out of common courtesy in a cooperative endeavor. Here I return to that comic strip's panel 3. While I could write less ambiguous dialogue to match the author's intentions, I think it is clear that the author intends us to read panel 3 as a bunch of players that are not seeking to work with the DM. Avoiding content is a valid answer but the author intends to convey this group tends to avoid content. The DM is already putting in more time than the other players, if the players tend to avoid content then the ratio of time invested increases further (through shorter sessions, more missable content created per session, or railroading during a session).

I often tend to find "player agency" a bit of a loaded term. Some of the time I see it used in response to DM horror stories, where the DM is very obviously a power-tripping tyrant who has little to no interest in the satisfaction or enjoyment of his players. But I also often see it used in cases of extreme player entitlement, where for the DM to have any control over used material, player builds or story arc seems to be a sin.

I am surprised. I usually only see the term in more neutral toned DM discussions (like your intentions for this thread) or when those turn into DM horror stories(unlike this thread). While the term's meaning is a continuum, I believe it stops well short of that second category. Your own description of your DMing style includes soft reminders about where the adventure is. My own DMing style is more of a sandbox. Both styles allow the player to be a participant in the group activity rather than a spectator.

Svata

2017-04-30, 04:05 AM

This is a mentality that I have a massive issue with. Yes, the DM is also a player. But a player who invests hours, days, weeks or even months of their spare time to populate and create a world with which your characters can interact.

The DM is a player, yes; but he is also a author, researcher and referee, among many other things. I personally believe this entitles him to a level of respect, and the power of a deciding vote when a mutual agreement can't be reached.

For the record, let me state that I don't agree with a DM dictatorship where the players have no say in the game and their characters are little more than the DMs pawns.

But honestly, if you think the DM is should just be a mute arbiter with no real input in the game, and whose only role is to be a yes-man for the players, then you're not looking for a DM; you're looking for a CPU. Maybe a CRPG would be more suitable for this than a tabletop game.

I didn't quite mean it that way. I'm sorry that I phrased it in such a way that it was easily misinterpreted.

I often tend to find "player agency" a bit of a loaded term. Some of the time I see it used in response to DM horror stories, where the DM is very obviously a power-tripping tyrant who has little to no interest in the satisfaction or enjoyment of his players. But I also often see it used in cases of extreme player entitlement, where for the DM to have any control over used material, player builds or story arc seems to be a sin.

I get you. I like having a story arc that was planned out, whether playing or DM-ing. But, I also like to be able to decide that maybe killing the mature adult dragon sounds like it'd be a touch difficult for me at level 6, and to go do something to get a bit stronger before coming back to it when I feel like I can handle it. (note: "I/me" here refers to the party as a whole, or at least my vote within it.)

I don't think Svata disagrees with you as much as you think. Additionally I think your emphasis + the meaning you inferred ended up changing the statement in a misrepresentative manner.

I think both of you would agree on the following 3 statements:
The DM is a player, not merely a mute arbiter.
The DM is not a dictator, they are a player.
The DM is a player, but their role is different than that of running a PC and that different matters.

Their role involves being the referee. This is not a perk. They get the deciding vote as a result of being given that job as part of the role. Their role involves lots of prep work. Optimizations can be made to the amount of effort expended in preparing, but it is still work. Everyone at the table deserves respect, but anyone doing this extra work is also worthy of gratitude.

Pretty much this. I only meant that the DM is not the absolute authority and god of the table. They do have those privileges, because, as I mentioned, part of their role, is to run the world.

Honestly, as long as the DM keeps in mind rule -1 and tries to live by the Tao of Peter Parker, they should be fine. Hell, I even get fiat-ing something sometimes because it doesn't quite work how you need it to for the story so you tweak it. So long as you're not doing things to screw over your players for no good reason, or springing hidden rules on them out of the blue (and especially if you talk it over with them so they understand and you come to an agreement) you're fine.

FatR

2017-04-30, 04:13 AM

Remember the what and why of rules: They are communication.

This is not a board game. This is collaborative Storytelling and what we do is use rules to adjust how player and gm input fit into the story.

This is just factually untrue. And specifically for DnD. It is obvious that most of the fanbase considers the boardgame aspects equally important with any sort of "collaborative Storytelling", and perhaps more important, given what sorts of pre-made adventures people vote for with their money. Non-spoiler: from the A series to the latest PF adventure paths it is dungeoncrawls (there was somewhat of a break from this tradition in AD&D times, but 3.0 returned to form).

Returning to the OP's question. The difference between 3.X and earlier editions was that in 3.X the boardgame got something like actual complete rules, and reduced the frequency of situations that needed adjudicating by GM's fiat to a reasonable amount. (These rules also were geared towards providing fun boardgame experience to the detriment of setting consistency, but this is largely a separate issue.) This naturally incensed every terrible player-killing, game-railroading DM out there (as this thread still evidences). They did not like the exact fact that their inputs were now at least partially adjudicated by the game too. 3.X did not start the adversarial mentality, but merely made more obvious what it was.

Florian

2017-04-30, 04:14 AM

So you build a campaign world based on the characters, rather than building a campaign world and having the players create characters that fit in it... is that what you're saying?

In some systems, that´s the only feasible way to do it.
Take a look at L5R for an example, as it´s very pronounced here. During character creation, players buy their connection to the game world, as well as plot elements they will want to experience for that character. As gm, you can only start working on the campaign once the player characters are fully flashed out, so you know what to incorporate. Sure, you will always have to propose the general campaign framework and outline.

Pex

2017-04-30, 09:56 AM

This is just factually untrue. And specifically for DnD. It is obvious that most of the fanbase considers the boardgame aspects equally important with any sort of "collaborative Storytelling", and perhaps more important, given what sorts of pre-made adventures people vote for with their money. Non-spoiler: from the A series to the latest PF adventure paths it is dungeoncrawls (there was somewhat of a break from this tradition in AD&D times, but 3.0 returned to form).

Returning to the OP's question. The difference between 3.X and earlier editions was that in 3.X the boardgame got something like actual complete rules, and reduced the frequency of situations that needed adjudicating by GM's fiat to a reasonable amount. (These rules also were geared towards providing fun boardgame experience to the detriment of setting consistency, but this is largely a separate issue.) This naturally incensed every terrible player-killing, game-railroading DM out there (as this thread still evidences). They did not like the exact fact that their inputs were now at least partially adjudicated by the game too. 3.X did not start the adversarial mentality, but merely made more obvious what it was.

Interesting point. There are DMs who hate it when a PC can't fail a skill check in 3E. They'll exaggerate with things like jumping to the moon, but the concept of not failing at all irks them. "Where's the challenge. Where's the fun?" they cry. The challenge comes in because the character didn't start out that way. It took real world time and effort and game mechanics resources spent leveling to finally achieve the moment of succeeding on a Natural 1. Having reached that achievement the fun is enjoying the fruits of that labor. A few of these DMs even cry against Take 10 and Take 20. They don't accept a PC can just be that good at something. However, the DMs of the game do have a point that you can't jump to the moon regardless of your roll. The king will not give you his crown whatever your diplomacy. The player has his own responsibility not to demand the absurd.

TheIronGolem

2017-04-30, 12:16 PM

Interesting point. There are DMs who hate it when a PC can't fail a skill check in 3E. They'll exaggerate with things like jumping to the moon, but the concept of not failing at all irks them. "Where's the challenge. Where's the fun?" they cry. The challenge comes in because the character didn't start out that way. It took real world time and effort and game mechanics resources spent leveling to finally achieve the moment of succeeding on a Natural 1. Having reached that achievement the fun is enjoying the fruits of that labor. A few of these DMs even cry against Take 10 and Take 20. They don't accept a PC can just be that good at something. However, the DMs of the game do have a point that you can't jump to the moon regardless of your roll. The king will not give you his crown whatever your diplomacy. The player has his own responsibility not to demand the absurd.

More than that, such DM's are typically missing a more important point, which is that they have failed to create an appropriate challenge in the first place.

Suppose the DM wants to challenge the party by putting a chasm in their path. There's an extendible bridge on the other side, but you have to pull a lever to extend it. The Rogue has a high enough Acrobatics skill to easily jump across the chasm. So he does that, pulls the lever, and the chasm is no longer a problem. The DM created a challenge that can be easily solved with one skill that's easily and commonly optimized - the equivalent of putting a 10th-level fighter in a cage match with a single goblin and being upset that the goblin didn't last two rounds.

A DM who learns the correct lesson from this mistake will make the next chasm a more involved challenge. That might involve making the chasm wider so the Acrobatics check isn't a gimme, but it doesn't necessarily need to - and that isn't a complete solution anyway. Instead, they might place the lever on a small platform with a guard who has easy access to cover from ranged attacks. That way the party has to solve multiple problems - they need to get someone over there, and they need to deal with the guard. The Rogue can jump across easily, but are they sure he can take the guard? The Fighter could probably handle him, but he can't make the jump. And they can't just snipe the guard thanks to the cover. The party can still solve these problems, of course; it's just that they'll need more than a single reliable skill check to do so. The DM has successfully created an encounter that accounts for the party's abilities and challenges them appropriately because it requires them to use those abilities. The chasm doesn't stop being an obstacle just because one person can easily cross it.

A DM who learns the wrong lesson from this mistake will just make the chasm wider. They're not solving the problem with their encounters, just deferring it by slathering on the Big Numbers. Either the Rogue's skill check will catch up (leaving the DM to face the same problem they punted on earlier) or the DM will just keep widening those chasms (which strains disbelief and effectively punishes the Rogue for being good at their job). The DM is still thinking of encounters as Must Roll X To Pass signs, rather than problems the party can solve with their own resources.

A DM who doesn't learn anything at all from this mistake will throw up their hands, cry "Where's the challenge?", and blame the game system, the Rogue's player, and the lizard men from Mars before they'll consider that they might be responsible for their own failure to challenge their players. They, too, are thinking of encounters as Must Roll X To Pass signs, but also getting mad at the players for making sure they can consistently roll X.

Segev

2017-04-30, 02:11 PM

To a degree, the simplistic nature of D&D's skill system can be blamed for the notion that a "challenge" for skill-based encounters is "must roll high enough to pass," and the natural conclusion to draw if one does not examine one's assumptions from that is that "challenge" means "a chance to fail," rather than "a problem to solve."

There is, to D&D 3e's credit, a lot of text devoted to explaining how to design challenging encounters. Unfortunately, while one can glean this meaning from it, it never comes out and states that the paradigm for a good encounter is that it is a problem to solve, not a skill check to pass. 4e actually makes the assumption worse, because its efforts to make "skill challenges" amounted to "roll skills a bunch of times and get the DC enough times to pass."

Heck, I am not 100% positive that I'd ever framed it the way I did in the first paragraph of this post before then. So maybe it's inobvious, and I just finally drew the conclusion. (Or maybe it's obvious, and I'm slow enough to only just now draw the conclusion. :smallredface:)

Regardless, TheIronGolem's "DM who learns from this mistake" has made a big step towards demonstrating that paradigm.

Successful skill checks should be to a "skill-based" encounter what successful attack rolls are to "combat-based" encounters. And, when you get even better at this type of paradigm, there need not be specified "skill-based" vs. "combat-based" encounters. There are just encounters, and the players determine (perhaps not entirely on purpose) whether they solve them with combat or skill or something else. But most of the time, the problem is something more in-depth than a single skill roll - or even a single spell - can resolve. And, if it's not "this time," so be it. Just keep that in mind for the next encounter you design.

Crake

2017-04-30, 03:31 PM

More than that, such DM's are typically missing a more important point, which is that they have failed to create an appropriate challenge in the first place.

Suppose the DM wants to challenge the party by putting a chasm in their path. There's an extendible bridge on the other side, but you have to pull a lever to extend it. The Rogue has a high enough Acrobatics skill to easily jump across the chasm. So he does that, pulls the lever, and the chasm is no longer a problem. The DM created a challenge that can be easily solved with one skill that's easily and commonly optimized - the equivalent of putting a 10th-level fighter in a cage match with a single goblin and being upset that the goblin didn't last two rounds.

I had a DM like this once. His solution was to apply the +10/-10 rule to skill checks, claiming that it was an official variant (even though I pointed out on multiple occasions that its only supposed to apply to attacks/saves, and is meant to replace the auto success/fail on a natural 20/1 for those rolls). We used to make jokes about olympic level swimmers drowning in swimming pools.

ross

2017-04-30, 10:35 PM

That was not my experience at all, with the hundreds I gamed with back in 2E. I all most never encountered the ''vs'' mentality, until 3X when all the younger ''me generation'' players came along (and dragged the older ones that were hiding in the back out). Just about all 2E players were fine with the idea of ''the DM is God'', even if they did not like it. They had a level of respect and professionalism: they came to have fun playing a game and agreed the DM was god, and all was good.

it's incredible how blatantly unaware of their nostalgia bias people can be

Also after reading the rest of the thread, I find it kind of sad how most people assume they have to do all the work on their own as GM; my group occasionally plays pre-written modules, but the rest of the time we write our own, together, and use our sessions essentially to "playtest" them; last time I GM'd, we stayed on what we'd wrote for about twenty five minutes, and the remaining six hours I basically just made stuff up, but keeping in the general vein of the adventure and plot.

So pointless personal anecdotes aside, my point is that if you're sick and tired of coming up with the equivalent of the LOTR trilogy from scratch, by yourself, every couple months, just to have it thrown in the trash, maybe try not doing it by yourself? And if your players don't want to put in that effort, maybe they just don't want to play badly enough to come to your house and eat your food, too?

Dagroth

2017-05-01, 01:38 AM

In some systems, that´s the only feasible way to do it.
Take a look at L5R for an example, as it´s very pronounced here. During character creation, players buy their connection to the game world, as well as plot elements they will want to experience for that character. As gm, you can only start working on the campaign once the player characters are fully flashed out, so you know what to incorporate. Sure, you will always have to propose the general campaign framework and outline.

That sounds like a mess... At my table, the GM (a few of us take turns) proposes a game setting/storyline they've been working on and provides basics on what type of characters (in systems like GURPS, it's much more important to do so) would work.

For example, one of us might say "I've got a game idea... the characters will be pirates who are signing on to a new ship. D&D 3.5, Level 5 characters, no Lawfuls, no Chaotic Evils." Everyone would spend the week creating characters and presenting them before the first game session. Some players will work together to make sure various party roles are covered (knowing I'm probably playing the Cleric-type and Don's probably playing the Rogue or Rogue-Sorcerer). Then we get together and play.

Or one might say "125pt GURPS characters, the year is 1935. No magic, no psionics, no super powers. You need to make the kind of characters who would be hired to go rescue some engineers at an emerald mine deep in the jungles of South America." Again, we all build our characters and submit them before the first game session. Maybe one gets denied because the 55 year old literature professor from Cambridge wouldn't be hired for this kind of thing.

Then we get together and play.

it's incredible how blatantly unaware of their nostalgia bias people can be

Also after reading the rest of the thread, I find it kind of sad how most people assume they have to do all the work on their own as GM; my group occasionally plays pre-written modules, but the rest of the time we write our own, together, and use our sessions essentially to "playtest" them; last time I GM'd, we stayed on what we'd wrote for about twenty five minutes, and the remaining six hours I basically just made stuff up, but keeping in the general vein of the adventure and plot.

So pointless personal anecdotes aside, my point is that if you're sick and tired of coming up with the equivalent of the LOTR trilogy from scratch, by yourself, every couple months, just to have it thrown in the trash, maybe try not doing it by yourself? And if your players don't want to put in that effort, maybe they just don't want to play badly enough to come to your house and eat your food, too?

The problem, especially with "shared world" ideas, is that if I as a player come up with a bunch of the background... or, heaven forbid, some of the lurking villains and the like... it takes away from the discovery for me as a player.

When the characters go into the Emerald Jungle and discover the Lost Temple... I want to experience just as much of the mystery and the unknown as the rest of the players.

When the Queen "shows her true colors" and throws the Prince in prison upon the death of the King, I want to be just as surprised as the rest of the players. I want to have the same opportunity as everyone else to discover that the King actually faked his death.

If I'm not the DM, I might play the treacherous Royal Guardsman who stabs the King in the back... but I shouldn't have to be the one who creates that storyline if I'm not playing that character.

Now... I will admit that, as a DM, I have engaged in "retroactive continuity"... where I listen to what the players think is happening behind the scenes and decide that it works even better than parts of the story I've been creating in the background. There's nothing wrong with that. I've been called out on it a few times, too... and, once the story is resolved I'll usually cop to it.

But it's still the job of the DM to craft the setting and the story.

At least, if you want to have a memorable narrative IMHO.

Florian

2017-05-01, 03:41 AM

@Dagroth:

L5R is "Samurai Drama", so the basic concepts what is deemed as a good story and how challenges should work and feel are a bit different. You´ll also have a higher focus to developing the actual character/persona of your samurai along the way, reflecting the consequences of choices made during gameplay. (They really butchered the most important aspects with the d20 conversion).
So it´s actually quite ok when players know some "secrets" or create some of their own, it´s more interesting what happens with the secrets and what the aftermath will be.

Thurbane

2017-05-01, 04:18 AM

Their role involves being the referee. This is not a perk. They get the deciding vote as a result of being given that job as part of the role. Their role involves lots of prep work. Optimizations can be made to the amount of effort expended in preparing, but it is still work. Everyone at the table deserves respect, but anyone doing this extra work is also worthy of gratitude.

I agree that all players deserve respect, but I'm firmly of the opinion that the role of DM deserves a little extra respect. Even deference. But maybe that's a result of playing for over 30 years (i.e. an old fashioned mindset).

Just as DMs are not CPUs running a CRPG, Players are not Actors hired to perform a story.

Agreed 100%. Horror DM stories are just as disturbing to read as jerk player stories.

I am surprised. I usually only see the term in more neutral toned DM discussions (like your intentions for this thread) or when those turn into DM horror stories(unlike this thread). While the term's meaning is a continuum, I believe it stops well short of that second category. Your own description of your DMing style includes soft reminders about where the adventure is. My own DMing style is more of a sandbox. Both styles allow the player to be a participant in the group activity rather than a spectator.

There are a wide variety of DMing (and player) styles, for sure. So long as the group as a whole is having fun, whatever works for a particular group is fine.

I didn't quite mean it that way. I'm sorry that I phrased it in such a way that it was easily misinterpreted.

I get you. I like having a story arc that was planned out, whether playing or DM-ing. But, I also like to be able to decide that maybe killing the mature adult dragon sounds like it'd be a touch difficult for me at level 6, and to go do something to get a bit stronger before coming back to it when I feel like I can handle it. (note: "I/me" here refers to the party as a whole, or at least my vote within it.)

Apologies if I misread of misinterpreted your meaning.

I have seen people use similar statements to mean what I assumed you were getting at, but in this case, it looks like I jumped to a conclusion.

This is just factually untrue. And specifically for DnD. It is obvious that most of the fanbase considers the boardgame aspects equally important with any sort of "collaborative Storytelling", and perhaps more important, given what sorts of pre-made adventures people vote for with their money. Non-spoiler: from the A series to the latest PF adventure paths it is dungeoncrawls (there was somewhat of a break from this tradition in AD&D times, but 3.0 returned to form).

That's a very good point.

There is a percentage of people on this (and other) D&D forums that consider anything that isn't a sandbox game "badwrongfun".

Pre-written adventures exist for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that some DMs (and groups in general) have almost zero prep time, and little-to-no improv talent. There isn't anything inherently wrong with an adventures that either partially or fully herds the party down a particular path. It's just a different play style than sandbox games.

There's a guy in my group who run's his own business and has young(ish) children. He has virtually no time ti run a sandbox campaign, so when he runs a pre-written module we're all totally fine with it and try not to "break" the adventure with our own whacky character goals and solo adventures. We roleplay our characters in the confines of the adventure as presented.

Also after reading the rest of the thread, I find it kind of sad how most people assume they have to do all the work on their own as GM; my group occasionally plays pre-written modules, but the rest of the time we write our own, together, and use our sessions essentially to "playtest" them; last time I GM'd, we stayed on what we'd wrote for about twenty five minutes, and the remaining six hours I basically just made stuff up, but keeping in the general vein of the adventure and plot.

I know this was a reply to a specific poster, but I want to add my comment: that's fine, but different play styles work for different groups with different group dynamics. See above.

Darth Ultron

2017-05-01, 06:46 AM

That sounds like a mess... At my table, the GM (a few of us take turns) proposes a game setting/storyline they've been working on and provides basics on what type of characters (in systems like GURPS, it's much more important to do so) would work.

Not even close to what I get.

First off, everyone else refuses to even try Dming...they just want to play. Second they don't really care much about what they will be playing, and will just say ''ok'' to whatever I say. It is a small miracle to get everyone to even agree on something even vague like ''lets be pirates''. In general they just want a ''fantasy game''.

The vast majority of my player might have a character they want to play, but they don't feel the need to bend and warp the setting as a DM to make that character something in some ''collaborative worldbuliding'' or ''shared DMing'' or such.

In general, the players don't want to do a session 0 and ''create characters together'', as they don't know or more like me, don't believed in all the video game like myths of ''this or that'' or ''you must have or do this or that''.

Though I have always done a lot of stranger games too: where strangers ask me to DM a game for them.

danielxcutter

2017-05-01, 07:23 AM

Not even close to what I get.

First off, everyone else refuses to even try Dming...they just want to play. Second they don't really care much about what they will be playing, and will just say ''ok'' to whatever I say. It is a small miracle to get everyone to even agree on something even vague like ''lets be pirates''. In general they just want a ''fantasy game''.

The vast majority of my player might have a character they want to play, but they don't feel the need to bend and warp the setting as a DM to make that character something in some ''collaborative worldbuliding'' or ''shared DMing'' or such.

In general, the players don't want to do a session 0 and ''create characters together'', as they don't know or more like me, don't believed in all the video game like myths of ''this or that'' or ''you must have or do this or that''.

Though I have always done a lot of stranger games too: where strangers ask me to DM a game for them.

As I've said before and will likely say again, YMMV. Each table and each player has different experiences, after all.

Segev

2017-05-01, 11:11 AM

There is a percentage of people on this (and other) D&D forums that consider anything that isn't a sandbox game "badwrongfun".

I'm not sure that's a fair assessment. I've seen people rail against railroads, but that's not quite the same as saying non-sandboxes are "badwrongfun." Heck, people can be just fine with a railroad...if they signed up to ride a train.

Well-run modules may have to stay on the tracks, but will still have ways that PC choices make a difference. Even if it's just that Bob the Barbarian they were supposed to kill might instead be their friend and put in a good word for them when they meet his tribe later.

Thurbane

2017-05-01, 05:25 PM

I'm not sure that's a fair assessment. I've seen people rail against railroads, but that's not quite the same as saying non-sandboxes are "badwrongfun." Heck, people can be just fine with a railroad...if they signed up to ride a train.

Well-run modules may have to stay on the tracks, but will still have ways that PC choices make a difference. Even if it's just that Bob the Barbarian they were supposed to kill might instead be their friend and put in a good word for them when they meet his tribe later.

I'm not saying it's a large percentage, but from my perception, this attitude does exist.

Railroad is generally considered a dirty word, but to some degree, all pre-written adventures have to do so. A module that contained material written to cover every conceivable PC action would make Rappan Athuk look like a novella. Also, as I've stated a couple of times now, not every DM has the ability and/or time to come up with engaging improv.

A good/experienced DM can generally accommodate unexpected PC actions to a degree. But sometimes as DM, I just have to drop subtle or not so subtle hints that PCs are wandering off into an area where the best they can probably expect is some random encounters.

My group games for the social aspect as much as the gaming aspect. While it may work for some groups, halting our weekly session to say "Hey guys, I don't have anything prepared if you take that course of action, but give me a week to furiously scribble down a plot arc in all that spare time I don't really have and we'll pick up again next week!" is not what any of us want.

I suppose the moral of the story is that different play styles work for different groups.

But it irks me when some people imply or outright state that if your DM can't accommodate Snowflake the Druid's vision quest in the middle of a race against the clock to stop a portal to the Nine Hells from being opened, he is a bad DM.

Mordaedil

2017-05-02, 04:12 AM

Maybe it's because I play with other people who DM for other people, but we have a habbit of discussing our long-terms goals before we play so that the DM at the time can have something to work us towards and work on weaving story and goal together, but we've also had people come on board who don't do any of that, but they can get a tad distant when they don't really accomplish anything since they aren't talking about what development they'd like to see.

I think it's a collaborative effort to make a game and I wish more people embraced that. You can surprise the DM in the short term, but I think being clear together on long-term goals is important.

Darth Ultron

2017-05-02, 06:37 AM

Gnaeus

2017-05-02, 07:40 AM

Though a good DM can just ''crank the DC's up'' too. If the player is going to make a huge bonus character, the DM as per ''the official things should be a challenge rules'' can just increase the DCs and skill ranks of the world. And after 5th level or so, assuming the players are not doing things like way below their challenge level, things do balance out a bit as the DM can add in lots of stuff to balance out the characters exploits.

I guess it is fun, only for some players, to make the game a pointless cake walk where they don't even need to roll any check and just automatically do anything. That is never fun for a DM, and really makes the game pointless.

Really? I've never taken any joy in saying "hahaha! Your master thief can't pick this lock or climb this wall! Sucks to be you! Whoops! Your pirate just rolled a 1 and drowned at the bottom of a still pond!" Yeah, I could arbitrarily jack DCs so they need to roll, but I don't have the slightest problem as a DM having PCs auto succeed in normal tasks in which they are specialized, and I don't think I would enjoy a game in which the DM thinks the chance of failing to make skill checks is what makes the game fun for him.

Necroticplague

2017-05-02, 08:40 AM

It's possible to create a challenging game, even if the PCs auto-succeed every dice roll. After all, that doesn't alter the fact that they have finite resources that they have to expend. They can't be everywhere they might need to be at once, they don't know which task succeeding at would necessarily help the most....'challenging' isn't intrinsically tied to failing rolls.

That's of course, ignoring the reality of the situation, where the same resource concerns (i.e, finite spell slots, time, party members, gold, misc. fungible resources, ect.) means they will only ever be at the level of 'auto-suceed' for certain tasks.

The half-goristro might auto-suceed any reasonable climb, swim, jump check, or check to break through walls, but that won't help him remotely when there's an invisible enemy attacking him, unless he gets creative. The rogue could take 20 to find every trap, but the party doesn't have time to have him take two minutes with every 5 feet. The cleric could speed this up with Guidance of the Avatar, but spell slots are finite, and there's a lot more squares than spell slots.

Segev

2017-05-02, 10:12 AM

People who complain about "railroads" when they encounter a DM who is running a module that assumes the PCs are interested in pursuing the module are just whining. If they didn't want to play the module, they shouldn't have made a character they injected into the game it was being run in. (Or the DM should have communicated more clearly what he was doing, if the player did so thinking it would be something else.)

Where railroads start to be reasonable to gripe about is when they either a) assume that the PCs will make specific choices about HOW to do things, or b) simply obviate the importance of PC decisions entirely to ensure that the almighty NPCs keep the plot on the rails. One leads to PCs-as-actors-playing-the-DM's (or module's)-script; the other leads to PCs-as-spectators.

The Witchblade Trilogy of Iron Kingdoms infamy is the latter sort. At one point, it's so egregious that the module gives the PCs a choice: give a macguffin-of-the-moment to an evil lich or an evil sorceress! ...if they give it to the sorceress, she likes them enough to let them have a front row seat to her next evil plan. If they give it to the lich, she overpowers him and takes it from him so she can use it, and now she hates the PCs.

Either way, nothing important changes. The PCs just have a slightly harder time getting a front row seat to watch the plot unfold.

There are no meaningful choices. The PCs are essentially an audience for the module's real villain protagonists, and have periodic combats and traps they have to solve to earn the right to witness the next cutscene where people who actually matter do things.

That is the kind of thing that makes for a bad railroad.

As a DM, you can avoid this by making sure that your NPCs don't have critical roles to play such that they MUST be empowered to do specific things at specific times, and by making sure that you don't have any point where you assume the PCs will make a particular choice (beyond "keep pursuing a goal they're already after, and that hasn't had a paradigm shift revealed"). If you have a point where the PCs can make a "wrong" choice - one that either derails the adventure or which you build in a "correction" that they can't prevent - you're railroading in a bad way.

I find few people who aren't deriving their enjoyment simply from sequence breaking have issue with a mostly-linear plot, as long as their PCs' actions make a difference and playing a different character could have resulted in it resolving differently.

This is not true, with tricks, builds and exploits a player can make a character that can't fail at something easily.That's irrelevant to the point you seem to be trying to refute. The point being made is that insisting on a minimum % chance of failure at any given roll doesn't introduce challenge. Challenge stems from how the players come to a solution. "You only have a 50% chance of making that jump," doesn't change that, if the coin flip comes up in their favor, they just bypassed the jump with no "challenge." And, if the coin flip comes up in their disfavor, they now have an insurmountable obstacle unless there's another, more challenging way across the chasm.

The mistake the DM made was in offering the 50% chance to bypass the challenge.

If the players surprise you by having a one-skill-roll solution, so be it. Do better in designing your next obstacle. You intended that chasm to be something they'd have to problem-solve to get around; next time, create issues that aren't solved if they happen to have one person who can trivially leap across it. (If they had to spend one or more spells "trivializing" the encounter, then it did its job. It depleted resources, making future challenges harder.)

Really the only defense a DM has is a the game start where they can say ''low magic world'' and deny the player all the magic tricks and exploits.Nonsense. The DM can obviously just declare that they fail no matter how well they do. That's what a good----wait, you actually say that later. :smalleek::smallmad::smallsigh:

Seriously, though, the DM's "defense" against this is not having any one roll obviate their encounters. A challenge that is, "roll 10 skill checks, and succeed on at least 5 of them," isn't a challenge; it's roulette. A challenge actually allows the players to make interesting, meaningful choices.

Take combat. The reason why combat engines allow for combat encounters to be such a go-to is because they have a lot of choices to be made. Tactical decisions in battlefield control, attack priority, who to defend and who to focus on, positioning, etc. all make the individual "to-hit" rolls and damage rolls not so boringly dull as "roll. Success? Move a tick closer to victory. Failure? Move a tick away from victory."

The relatively simple chasm with a drawbridge on the far side becomes an interesting challenge by adding a guard with a bow and cover. It isn't one roll and done. It isn't even "make a sequence of rolls." What rolls are to be made depends on how the party chooses to approach the solution. And none of it requires telling the Rogue with +45 to jump checks that it's a DC 55 just to make it "a challenge." If he can't fail to leap it, more power to him; that's step one. Maybe he doesn't WANT to make the jump with the guard on the far side. Maybe the party takes other actions first to prepare for it. Maybe it is step one to several more interesting choices.

The fact remains that it's interesting as a challenge because the players have the opportunity to innovate a solution. Whether or not any given part of it "automatically" succeeds is irrelevant. Especially with the enemy actor who also has stats.

Though a good DM can just ''crank the DC's up'' too. If the player is going to make a huge bonus character, the DM as per ''the official things should be a challenge rules'' can just increase the DCs and skill ranks of the world. And after 5th level or so, assuming the players are not doing things like way below their challenge level, things do balance out a bit as the DM can add in lots of stuff to balance out the characters exploits.:smallsigh: Yeah, here's where you claim in seriousness what I was saying sarcastically.

He can. But that's actually what uncreative, insecure, or just plain bad DMs do. Bad DMs think that high DCs equate to challenge. They assume that chance-for-failure is all you need to make things interesting.

Frankly, I don't want to play "slot machine, the RPG." I prefer to have more meaningful choices than whether or not I pull the lever and hope the numbers come up in my favor. And if I happen to have numbers such that I always "win" when I pull the lever, hey, so what? A good DM has designed the encounter such that that only helps me get to a true solution; pulling the lever and "winning" the jackpot isn't going to solve the problem on its own.

I guess it is fun, only for some players, to make the game a pointless cake walk where they don't even need to roll any check and just automatically do anything. That is never fun for a DM, and really makes the game pointless.It is fun to be competent. To be supremely competent. A good DM is able to take his PCs' supreme competence into account, and create challenges where being awesome at jumping is useful without it being the only thing you need.

A bad DM assumes that he just needs to ramp up the chance of failure, and that "oh, you failed" is enough to call it a challenging encounter. Rather than merely a dead end that now requires him to deus ex machine a new solution in order to push the game along.

Real challenge means that the PCs are desperately hoping the random number gods let them do something without the DM's NPCs swooping in to save them from their own incompetence, right?

Zanos

2017-05-02, 10:44 AM

Since I mentioned something negative about railroads either, I'll expand a little bit.

If the DM says I'm running module X or pre-written adventure, I can accept the railroading. I don't think prewritten adventurers are really where the tabletop medium shines, or what it should focus on, and I don't prefer to play them, but they can be fun from time to time. If the DM doesn't mention they're running something prewritten and tries to shove me back into his almighty script, I start to fray. Tabletops I think are at they're best when the DM comes up with a loose skeleton of possibilities and improvs the rest. And as someone mentioned "what do you guys want to do next week" is a good way to poll your players if you absolutely must have prep time. If you wanted to write a specific story, you should have written a book, not decided to play a game where the the main characters are controlled by other people. This is why I agreed that "I want to turn this campaign into a book when it's over" is a red flag in the other thread, because it indicates at least at some part that the DM has something in mind that he will not allow the players to deviate from.

I think a lot of DMs get into the hobby with the idea that it is very much like writing a book, and I have bad experiences with those people. Suddenly when you cast dimensional anchor on the recurring villain who's teleported away before, the DM panics and starts to pull stuff out of their ass so they don't have to throw out 30 pages worth of notes on what was "supposed" to happen. Or when you decide you've finally had enough from a particularly rude NPC and kill them and the DM just starts to invent more and more arcane reasons as to why they don't die when they are killed.

Or, like in Cthulhutechs DM "advice", where it's abundantly clear that nothing you do actually matters. Here are some examples I actually experienced:

In the first scenario, my vampire recovered an artifact and returned into to one of the most magically secure locations in the setting. The original owner of the artifact wants it back. Their proposed deal is "give it back to me for some information you already know." I decline. The original owner breaks into one of the most magically secure locations in the setting, warded by powers she doesn't understand with nobody seeing her and without triggering any of the wards, takes it, and leaves, because us having the artifact wasn't part of what he had already written.

In the second scenario, one of the vampire clans is fixing to leave our faction of the vampire government. The head of that clan gives a big speech in public to most of the clan. I in turn give another speech, crushing the extremely difficult roll to convince the clan to stay. Despite my insane success on the roll, this convinces only 1/4 of the clan to stay. Another 1/4 is convinced by an NPC. I suspect that had I failed the roll, the NPC would have just convinced 1/2 of them to stay. None of this matters, and indeed, none of that session actually mattered, because every single member of that clan is killed by a werewolf attack that night, because them still being around was not part of the plot.

In the third scenario, I am trying to convince a large audience of fellow vampires I am innocent of assassinating another vampire. A representative of the vampire government is arguing that I should give myself up. After crushing every single social check and making an impassioned speech that I wrote down before hand, I manage to convince only 1/4th of the crowd that I don't deserve to be arrested, and am arrested anyway. Then, surprise, the government guy is actually on my side and just lets me go after mock arresting me, so even if I stood up on stage and slobbered on the microphone, everything would have been the same.

In a high level game, our PCs were "recruited" by the Epic Wizard king to be his bodyguards as he walked through a forest, for some reason. Apparently he has nobody else to guard him. He is assassinated by the Epic Ranger enemy of the kingdom. Except he isn't, because he tried to teleport next to him, and I had delay teleportation up. Except he still did, because he actually teleported outside the range of my delay teleportation and surprised us. Except he didn't, because I have blindsight. Now he has darkstalker. Then I reminded the DM that we aren't in natural terrain because we were in a keep's courtyard, so the ranger can't hide in plain sight. Now the ranger is invisible. I have see invisibility. He has mind blank. Ok, fine, the king dies. I use wish to bring him back to life. Except I don't, because the ranger teleports back again and casts an 9th level wizard spell to bind the king's soul so I can't wish him back, literally as I'm doing it. How'd he get the actions for that? To this day, I have no idea, and neither does the DM.

Apparently the wizard king dying was the trigger to a war he had planned, so us doing anything to keep him alive, despite being his bodyguards, was not allowed, and he would retcon what his NPC did as much as he liked to ensure that he died. He later had the audacity to tell us we could have saved him if we had been better prepared.

Now I'll agree with one sentiment in this thread, the DM does absolutely get to dictate the premise of the game. If the DM says we're playing a game about a dwarven clan in the mountains fighting against giant invaders, so everyone is a shield dwarf fighter, I'm not going to complain that I have to play a shield dwarf fighter. That's the premise of the game. When he retcons the giant king 30 times because he didn't expect us to bash his head in four sessions in, that's dumb. When every single possible approach to a scenario is either prevented by invisible walls or leads to the exact same conclusion, that's dumb, and I could just go play Mass Effect 3.

Darth Ultron

2017-05-02, 11:57 AM

If the players surprise you by having a one-skill-roll solution, so be it. Do better in designing your next obstacle. You intended that chasm to be something they'd have to problem-solve to get around; next time, create issues that aren't solved if they happen to have one person who can trivially leap across it. (If they had to spend one or more spells "trivializing" the encounter, then it did its job. It depleted resources, making future challenges harder.)

This is the core of the DM vs. Players in 3X right here. The players start with the jerk move of over optimization, so then the DM has to over optimize the world to get some balance back. Then they players look for sneaky tricks, exploits and interpretations to get their over optimization back, and then the DM....

The fact remains that it's interesting as a challenge because the players have the opportunity to innovate a solution. Whether or not any given part of it "automatically" succeeds is irrelevant. Especially with the enemy actor who also has stats.

I know it is fun for the players to play their character in 'god mode', like a video game where everything is an easy cakewalk....but explain why that is fun for the DM?

Why even have anything happen in the game if the characters will just over come it in a couple rolls?

Combat is an odd example as even the most crazy players will say they should face harder/tougher/more powerful monsters at higher levels. Yet the same players will whine and cry that DC's are too high for their demi god character. Like when a 12th level character finds a DC 35 lock on say the royal treasure vault they whine and cry and say ''how come this is not like a DC 12''.

It is fun to be competent. To be supremely competent. A good DM is able to take his PCs' supreme competence into account, and create challenges where being awesome at jumping is useful without it being the only thing you need.

A bad DM assumes that he just needs to ramp up the chance of failure, and that "oh, you failed" is enough to call it a challenging encounter. Rather than merely a dead end that now requires him to deus ex machine a new solution in order to push the game along.

Real challenge means that the PCs are desperately hoping the random number gods let them do something without the DM's NPCs swooping in to save them from their own incompetence, right?

Again, this makes the game ''Player vs. DM''.

And if doing things and DC and such are meaningless, then why do many players automatically go for the over optimization exploits? Why can't the players, somehow, role play a complaint character without that character being a hard roll playing mechanical demi god? Seems like players might have a bit of a disconnect?

noob

2017-05-02, 12:23 PM

I remember one gm saying:"Your team always find solutions that are not even vaguely correlated with the solutions I could imagine so I gave up on planning to make something that is possible and just tried to make the npcs do the best they can"
So basically in dnd 3.X you have an overwhelmingly huge number of possibilities to solve problems(it is not the only game with that from what I heard in shadowrun it seems that in shadowrun there is tons of possibilities to mess up with the universe) the gm can not plan anything and then the players nearly always come up with ways to win.

Segev

2017-05-02, 01:06 PM

This is the core of the DM vs. Players in 3X right here. The players start with the jerk move of over optimization, so then the DM has to over optimize the world to get some balance back. Then they players look for sneaky tricks, exploits and interpretations to get their over optimization back, and then the DM....Actually, you're just revealing your biases, since you aren't parsing what I said and are instead inventing your own straw man.

I said that the solution is to have encounters that aren't reliant on a single thing that could potentially be solved by one successful skill check. You read that to mean the DM is having to come up with "tricks" to "over optimize the world" to get "balance back" from players who've done a "jerk move of over optimization."

At best, you've got an argument that a player optimized to achieve a high enough bonus to be able to make a skill check.

You ignore the point that the DM is deluding himself if he thinks that it's a "challenge" just because a minimum % chance of failing a single roll exists. It isn't a challenge when the success/failure is resolved by one roll; if it were, combat would be resolved with a single "fighting" roll to see if the PCs win or lost the fight.

I know it is fun for the players to play their character in 'god mode', like a video game where everything is an easy cakewalk.Actually, even in video games, it's rarely "god mode." And, if you take the advice I gave in the prior post and reiterated in this one, it's not a cakewalk even if the PCs can trivially make several kinds of skill checks.

You miss this because you're too busy trying to prove that the style of bad DMing where the DM doesn't bother actually doing anything other trying to claim that a particularly bad style of DMing is the only "good" way to run a game, and that anything other than the DM "winning" by telling the players to shove it is "adversarial Player Vs. DM" play. Utterly missing the irony that you advocate for the most hostile form of player vs. DM play imaginable.

...but explain why that is fun for the DM? If the DM is playing vs. the players, in an adversarial game, then I can see where you might ask this question. That you ask it, therefore, tells me that you LIKE "DM vs. Player," but that you want the DM to be in god-mode and just auto-win against the players, so that they only have a chance to play if they run according to his dictates.

The real answer is that a competent DM designs encounters that are challenges, not chances for him to force die rolls and gleefully cackle when the players fail to roll high enough.

But you're not likely to respond to the substance of what I'm writing, given past evidence of how you assign straw men to people who post detailed responses.

Regardless, if you want to be a good DM, design encounters where there are multiple things working together to make it a challenge, and where you haven't planned a solution in particular. Just let the players figure out what tools they have to overcome it. If you discover a tool that's reusable and which trivializes it, remember they have it in the future and don't create obstacles that can simply be overcome if that tool is successfully implemented.

Note: If you have a PC who can jump chasms, it doesn't matter if you make the chasm so wide that they fail 50% of the time; you've not made it challenging when they just have to flip a coin to see if they succeed. Instead, you need to find ways to make it so that simply jumping the chasm successfully isn't enough by itself. It can be part of a valid solution, but it had better not be all there is to it. (If you ARE going to insist on widening it until the PCs have a high chance of failure, you'd also better have ways they can overcome the challenge without making that jump. "Haha, you failed, now the challenge is insurmountable" is actively worse than "oh, you can't possibly fail the one check needed to overcome this."

Why even have anything happen in the game if the characters will just over come it in a couple rolls?That's a very good question! The answer is: don't. Instead, have things in the game which are more interesting than that. i.e., be a good DM, rather than a bad one.

Combat is an odd example as even the most crazy players will say they should face harder/tougher/more powerful monsters at higher levels. Yet the same players will whine and cry that DC's are too high for their demi god character. Like when a 12th level character finds a DC 35 lock on say the royal treasure vault they whine and cry and say ''how come this is not like a DC 12''.Combat against tougher opponents gives you, well, bigger and better and interesting-in-different-ways monsters.

"I need to jump across the ever-widening chasm that always leaves me with a coin-flip's chance of success" isn't interesting.

Advancement means old challenges become trivial. New challenges become doable. But all these challenges need to be interesting in their own right. They should be multi-faceted. Not "there's one DC 9000 lock that only UBerthief has even a 5% chance of opening." No. The lock is just part of it. With the lock perhaps being one way to get through one part of it.

Perhaps there's a key, as well, which could be obtained by theft or trickery.

Regardless, the situation needs to be more than "I, the most brilliant DM ever, have placed this skill check in your way. Roll at least an 11 on the d20 to continue!" Because whining when they prove they can succeed on a 1 is actually the BETTER outcome, since the alternative is, "Hah! My challenge was too challenging, and you have failed! Now you cannot continue until my NPC comes in and shows you how pathetic you are for not being awesome like he is!"

Again, this makes the game ''Player vs. DM''. Only in your imagination.

And if doing things and DC and such are meaningless, then why do many players automatically go for the over optimization exploits?Because they like playing competent heroes who can do cool stuff, and then use that ability to do cool stuff as part of solving complex and interesting challenges that normal people can't?

The trouble still seems to be that you can't get past the notion that "you have a 50% chance to fail; flip a coin!" isn't a challenge worth having. A challenge worth having has numerous options for skills and other abilities to come into play, and can't be solved even if the players have a key skill they can always succeed on, because there's more to it than the one skill.

But since your mindset is that anything that isn't "The DM automatically wins against the players, who can only do something if they beg and plead to be allowed to know the proper rituals to appease the DM's almighty plot" is "DM vs. Players," all the while ignoring that you're setting up the most adversarial kind of "DM vs Players" where the DM gets to god-mode everything and the players just get to watch and hope the DM lets them pretend to play.

Why can't the players, somehow, role play a complaint character without that character being a hard roll playing mechanical demi god?Stormwind Falacy, 15 yard penalty.

Seriously, DU, what makes you think that role playing a competent character doesn't require that the character actually be competent at what he does?

Should my character have only a 50% chance of doing anything successfully, but I can "role play" him as "competent" because, um, I'm such a good actor that I can pretend his 50% failure rate doesn't impede his competence?

Seems like players might have a bit of a disconnect?The disconnect is between your head and reality.

I remember one gm saying:"Your team always find solutions that are not even vaguely correlated with the solutions I could imagine so I gave up on planning to make something that is possible and just tried to make the npcs do the best they can"And thus he took a big step towards becoming a great DM.

So basically in dnd 3.X you have an overwhelmingly huge number of possibilities to solve problems(it is not the only game with that from what I heard in shadowrun it seems that in shadowrun there is tons of possibilities to mess up with the universe) the gm can not plan anything and then the players nearly always come up with ways to win.It's less that the GM can't plan anything, and more that what your GM said is important: build the challenges based on what the creatures/NPCs/environment/etc. would do to achieve the goals they have. Then let the players figure out how to overcome it using the tools they have.

Dagroth

2017-05-02, 01:18 PM

On the "writing a book" comment.

I once had the idea of writing a book, and a gaming supplement, based on my longest running game.

But it wasn't that I had the idea of writing the book before I ran the game... it was that I had the idea of writing the book after a year of running the game. I and two of the players habitually kept detailed notes of what was going on (lots of political stuff, lots of social stuff, lots of stuff involving the gods, etc.).

One player and I started working on what might need to be changed... how to highlight specific characters better... etc. While his character would be the narrator, he wouldn't be the "hero" of the story... one of the other characters was.

I agree, having the "story" already finished before the game starts is a bad thing... but not having even the outline of a story makes it harder (for me at least) to run a game.

I have a completely different "horror story" involving V:TM. I created a character for a game that got started... and then got put on hiatus. I kept figuring out more and more of the characters story in the mean time. Until it got to the point where I had already "finished" the characters story on my own. In my own mind, the character's story was complete and I couldn't imagine playing that character any more.

So now, I'm careful not to create characters with too strongly set goals & motivations. The DM should provide a world that has things in it that will inspire goals and motivations.

atemu1234

2017-05-02, 01:51 PM

Florian

2017-05-02, 02:06 PM

I once had the idea of writing a book, and a gaming supplement, based on my longest running game.

Interesting. You know, I´m a "people person". I´m good at reading and manipulating others and I need an audience to be creative, because I need their immediate feedback.
So "plots" I come up with are "there has been a suicide. It has been a mind-magic enforced sucide to cover up something". The story, details and NPC I can do when working with actual players is great and what develops from it is really creative. But for the love of god, it´s out of my mind the moment the story is told.

Dagroth

2017-05-02, 04:10 PM

Interesting. You know, I´m a "people person". I´m good at reading and manipulating others and I need an audience to be creative, because I need their immediate feedback.
So "plots" I come up with are "there has been a suicide. It has been a mind-magic enforced sucide to cover up something". The story, details and NPC I can do when working with actual players is great and what develops from it is really creative. But for the love of god, it´s out of my mind the moment the story is told.

It helps to have written notes before each session and a player or two who keeps detailed notes. :smallwink:

Crake

2017-05-02, 06:31 PM

Psyren

2017-05-02, 07:46 PM

All right, kids. Gather 'round...

*snip*

You'll see lots of words thrown around-- like railroading or banned material-- in the context of a discussion of being a bad DM. This is also not an advent of 3E, as supplement books existed for everything (I have other stories, like the time I was at a table with a drive-by comment of, "Oh you guys don't use Fiend Folio? Lightweights"). These antagonistic people have also existed as long as the game as existed. They operate on the same misunderstanding as the idea that the relationship between the DM and the players is supposed to be antagonistic.

But the world we live in today enables people to share these stories much more easily than they did in the past. Not to mention information about the game itself. With so many different minds examining the same problem from different angles, you are going to discover far more things than any smaller group of people ever would. And there are more platforms than ever before to share that information, which causes it to spread to more tables than it would in the past.

Brilliant post, and I'm glad I read all of it - thank you.

Why wouldn't that work? YMMV, but ik works fine for our group. Our hints are usually a lot more subtle, and it still works fine.
DM: to the left you see *insert vivid description here*, to the right.... nothing of interest... plains mostly.
Player: 'We go left'

Or anything along those lines works fine.

Yeah unless your players are being deliberately contrary I don't see why this wouldn't work.

Darth Ultron

2017-05-02, 11:31 PM

I said that the solution is to have encounters that aren't reliant on a single thing that could potentially be solved by one successful skill check. You read that to mean the DM is having to come up with "tricks" to "over optimize the world" to get "balance back" from players who've done a "jerk move of over optimization."

I don't really understand your point of ''ok, make like 100 things for the players to pointlessly cakewalk through and ignore''.

If the DM is playing vs. the players, in an adversarial game, then I can see where you might ask this question. That you ask it, therefore, tells me that you LIKE "DM vs. Player," but that you want the DM to be in god-mode and just auto-win against the players, so that they only have a chance to play if they run according to his dictates.

See, this is the big separation of DM and Player, and why people can't be ''both''.

A DM does things in the game to make it fun and a challenge, but have no vested personal interest. Players do things in games only for pure selfish interest. When a player makes a demi god character they are not thinking ''wow, this will make the game great and wonderful for everyone'', they are thinking ''this will make the game great for me.

The real answer is that a competent DM designs encounters that are challenges, not chances for him to force die rolls and gleefully cackle when the players fail to roll high enough.

I'm not sure I get your dislike for using game mechanics. Unless your just saying a ''good DM in your view'' is one that just decides things on a whim? Now, to me that is the worst sort of railroad...

The trouble still seems to be that you can't get past the notion that "you have a 50% chance to fail; flip a coin!" isn't a challenge worth having. A challenge worth having has numerous options for skills and other abilities to come into play, and can't be solved even if the players have a key skill they can always succeed on, because there's more to it than the one skill.

Again what is the point of having 100's of pointless checks?

And nothing is a challenge to a over optimized jerk character, they automatically do anything. Why even look for a key when your character can open any lock?

But since your mindset is that anything that isn't "The DM automatically wins against the players, who can only do something if they beg and plead to be allowed to know the proper rituals to appease the DM's almighty plot" is "DM vs. Players," all the while ignoring that you're setting up the most adversarial kind of "DM vs Players" where the DM gets to god-mode everything and the players just get to watch and hope the DM lets them pretend to play.

As DM I think the 50% rate is the best....characters can effortlessly do about half the things they try about half the time. That just does not fit with the jerk player idea of ''my character is so great that they must do everything all the time''.

Seriously, DU, what makes you think that role playing a competent character doesn't require that the character actually be competent at what he does?

Should my character have only a 50% chance of doing anything successfully, but I can "role play" him as "competent" because, um, I'm such a good actor that I can pretend his 50% failure rate doesn't impede his competence?

The disconnect is between your head and reality.

Because it is a game? Is checkers fun if one player says ''ok, all my pieces start off as 'kings' and when you 'jump' over my pieces, I don't take them off the board.'' Is Chess fun when one player says ''All my pieces can move just like a Queen and even if you 'take' one of my pieces, it will not be removed from the board"?

Why is it so hard for a player to role play ''I'm good at somethings, but not yet a super awesome demi god overload master of all things''?

And thus he took a big step towards becoming a great DM.
It's less that the GM can't plan anything, and more that what your GM said is important: build the challenges based on what the creatures/NPCs/environment/etc. would do to achieve the goals they have. Then let the players figure out how to overcome it using the tools they have.

This is just the old ''hiding trick'' for the more weak Players the call themselves DM and rollover for the All Powerful Real Players. Like when the players get the idea to rob the royal vault and the DM hides under the table and says ''um, it makes sense that vault door based on common sense and all, would have a high DC''. And the players laugh and pick the DM up off the floor and say ''it's ok, guy we just call DM, we agree with you this one time only so you can make that vault DC high and we will still be friends afterwards."

A real DM can just say I made the DC X, lets game on. And not try to constantly convince the players that, er, somehow they are not saying anything and er, stuff is just happening that makes sense, somehow...but they are not doing it.

Zanos

2017-05-02, 11:42 PM

Lorddenorstrus

2017-05-03, 01:14 AM

Characters who succeed 50% of the time in their specialized roll will likely be dead before the day is out.

50% is an okay benchmark for some combat stuff. Roughly a 50% chance to hit or get hit or make a save or for an enemy to fail a save is normalish. A 50% chance for a wizard to identify a spell or a fightet to jump a pit or a rogue to disarm a trap or a bard to sway a barkeep is pretty terrible. Why do the same tasks become harder as the PCS improve? Why even bother getting better at anything? Hell, why bother with dice? Pennies are much cheaper. You can crit if it lands on its edge.

I agree. Why even bother using dice if he's just going to be that lazy and make everything 50/50. Give them coins heads they succeed tails they fail. Wait that doesn't sound like D&D? Yeah because it's not, neither is the DM cheating and increasing the DC on something just to make it 50/50 for everyone.

Scenario; "Jump the chasm." Players 1-3 only have a +5 ish bonus and it's a DC lets say 15. 10 and up succeed. 9 and lower fail. Then player 4 who made a Tiger Claw Warblade has a +20 to his jump. He automatically passes this jump check. Wait a moment automatic success for something he's specialized in? HERESY. I must increase the DC for him for no reason what so ever even though he's attempting the exact same challenge as everyone else. Yeah only a god awful DM would do that. This is what's being described. See this is a failure as a DM to understand the function of the skill system of the game, specialization and scaling as players improve. Yes the character who is GOOD AT JUMPING will succeed with out doubt while the people with 0 divested resources in it will have a risky moment. It's called letting the specialized player have their moment. Shocking realization I know. If you have no idea how to challenge the players other than cheating the DCs of checks to make everything 50/50. Anyone that thinks that.. needs to actually learn how to DM at all.

OldTrees1

2017-05-03, 01:45 AM

Why is it so hard for a player to role play ''I'm good at somethings, but not yet a super awesome demi god overload master of all things''?

Players do that all the time. You don't let them. 15th level character specialized in jumping wants to jump a 10ft pit? Nah Darth Ultron wants this 15th level character to fail 50% of the time vs this lvl 1 challenge. Do you make 15th level characters lose 50% of the time vs a CR 1 monster?

Mordaedil

2017-05-03, 01:53 AM

I don't really understand your point of ''ok, make like 100 things for the players to pointlessly cakewalk through and ignore''.

See, this is the big separation of DM and Player, and why people can't be ''both''.

A DM does things in the game to make it fun and a challenge, but have no vested personal interest. Players do things in games only for pure selfish interest. When a player makes a demi god character they are not thinking ''wow, this will make the game great and wonderful for everyone'', they are thinking ''this will make the game great for me.

I'm not sure I get your dislike for using game mechanics. Unless your just saying a ''good DM in your view'' is one that just decides things on a whim? Now, to me that is the worst sort of railroad...

Again what is the point of having 100's of pointless checks?

And nothing is a challenge to a over optimized jerk character, they automatically do anything. Why even look for a key when your character can open any lock?

As DM I think the 50% rate is the best....characters can effortlessly do about half the things they try about half the time. That just does not fit with the jerk player idea of ''my character is so great that they must do everything all the time''.

Because it is a game? Is checkers fun if one player says ''ok, all my pieces start off as 'kings' and when you 'jump' over my pieces, I don't take them off the board.'' Is Chess fun when one player says ''All my pieces can move just like a Queen and even if you 'take' one of my pieces, it will not be removed from the board"?

Why is it so hard for a player to role play ''I'm good at somethings, but not yet a super awesome demi god overload master of all things''?

This is just the old ''hiding trick'' for the more weak Players the call themselves DM and rollover for the All Powerful Real Players. Like when the players get the idea to rob the royal vault and the DM hides under the table and says ''um, it makes sense that vault door based on common sense and all, would have a high DC''. And the players laugh and pick the DM up off the floor and say ''it's ok, guy we just call DM, we agree with you this one time only so you can make that vault DC high and we will still be friends afterwards."

A real DM can just say I made the DC X, lets game on. And not try to constantly convince the players that, er, somehow they are not saying anything and er, stuff is just happening that makes sense, somehow...but they are not doing it.

I don't know what game you are playing, but it doesn't sound like D&D.

Look, if you make a chasm and the players decide to jump over it, great. Now you have a party of people trying to cross it, but can all of them succeed? Clearly the acrobat in the group should be able to do so effortlessly, but should the cleric? Should the fighter, in his heavy armor? Should the wizard without the assistance of magic be able to cross? The answer to these questions is "probably not" and thus you have the challenge; getting these other players across. And that isn't player vs. DM or anything, that's playing the game.

DataNinja

2017-05-03, 01:54 AM

A DM does things in the game to make it fun and a challenge, but have no vested personal interest. Players do things in games only for pure selfish interest. When a player makes a demi god character they are not thinking ''wow, this will make the game great and wonderful for everyone'', they are thinking ''this will make the game great for me.

I just wish to address this point, the underlined part in particular, with regards to any system. This may have been your experience, but I've found that the people I play with tend to want to have a good time as a group. And we discuss things, making sure that everyone, from players to the DM, is having fun.

And, sometimes, the optimization does make the game more fun. In one particular group I was in, we were mostly built towards non-combat options. So, the one person who really wanted to optimize for combat? That was great! It meant that we were that much less likely to die, while everyone still had fun doing what their characters were built for.

In another game, one hyper-Jack-of-all-trades character was planning to take some options that would make him almost as good at another character's specialization as she was. The solution? We just sat down, talked about it, and he took something else that we were lacking.

The most important thing a group can do is to talk with each other.

Why even look for a key when your character can open any lock?

Sure, your thief can open any lock. If that's what he's decided to hyper-specialize him, reward him for doing that, but challenge that character in other ways. How does he best the golem behind the Vault door, for instance?

Let the players feel like how they advance matters.

This is just the old ''hiding trick'' for the more weak Players the call themselves DM and rollover for the All Powerful Real Players. Like when the players get the idea to rob the royal vault and the DM hides under the table and says ''um, it makes sense that vault door based on common sense and all, would have a high DC''. And the players laugh and pick the DM up off the floor and say ''it's ok, guy we just call DM, we agree with you this one time only so you can make that vault DC high and we will still be friends afterwards."

I just want to ask you, honestly, because I've seen you state things like this before...

What is the difference between a DM who has never been a player, and one who has?

You give off the impression that as soon as someone has rolled up a PC, they are somehow 'unclean', and unfit to be a 'true DM'. Why is it that DMs that were once players are 'weak'?

Genuinely, I want to know how often you've seen the scenarios that you've described, or if you're just creating absurd exaggerations. Because I have never seen anything like them in all my years of gaming. What I have seen is Dungeon Masters becoming players, and helping out if a new DM starts to flounder. I've seen players take up the DM mantle, and help introduce new people into the hobby.

Even if - in some part of the hobby - what you say has truth to it, painting every player with the exact same brush is frankly insulting to the individuals who partake in this. There are storytellers, there are people who want to roll dice, there are munchkins, there are people who have a vision in mind, there are optimizers, there are people who come to have fun with friends. There are so many types of players, and none of them are mutually exclusive.

danielxcutter

2017-05-03, 02:12 AM

I don't really understand your point of ''ok, make like 100 things for the players to pointlessly cakewalk through and ignore''.
Except that's not what he said. He said that encounters should be more than just rolling a d20 to see if you make a check.

Because that's the entire point of TRPGs. There's always a lot more freedom than that.

See, this is the big separation of DM and Player, and why people can't be ''both''.

A DM does things in the game to make it fun and a challenge, but have no vested personal interest. Players do things in games only for pure selfish interest. When a player makes a demi god character they are not thinking ''wow, this will make the game great and wonderful for everyone'', they are thinking ''this will make the game great for me.

Get your head out of the sand. Not everyone who rolls up a character tries to ruin the game for the lulz. Maybe that's what you've seen, but I believe that countless people beg to differ. How many times do I have to say that different tables have different experiences, for the love of Gygax?

If you think that all players are munchkin jerks who only play to make the others worthless, then why the heck are you playing with them in the first place?

I'm not sure I get your dislike for using game mechanics. Unless your just saying a ''good DM in your view'' is one that just decides things on a whim? Now, to me that is the worst sort of railroad...

Having a vague plan that you can change if the players come up with something you didn't expect is completely different from railroading. What Segev means that if an assassin the BBEG sends fails his Will save against Sleep, the next assassin that the BBEG didn't dump his Wisdom score or has a ring of protection against good. Railroading is when the DM says "no, the assassin had a ring of mind blank, and yes I know that he shouldn't have had one but I say so anyways, so it doesn't work on him, and you fail your save against the assassin's Death Attack, even though you're a Warforged Incarnate with 20+ Con and a Cloak of Resistance because you should."

Again what is the point of having 100's of pointless checks?

And nothing is a challenge to a over optimized jerk character, they automatically do anything. Why even look for a key when your character can open any lock?

Most people don't optimize that hard. Plus, the point of having ranks in Disable Device and having Trapfinding as a class feature is so you don't have to look for a key. You should make challenges so that the Wizard has to supress the Explosive Runes(for example; I don't think you can actually do that), the Fighter holds off the kobolds attacking the party from the rear, and the Cleric alternates between healing the other party members and helping the Fighter thanks to buffing himself with Divine Power, while the Rogue makes a Disable Device check. Here's what you don't do: give them a lock to pick and then smite them with falling rocks if the Rogue somehow manages to make the DC 9001+ check just because he rolled a natural 20.

As DM I think the 50% rate is the best....characters can effortlessly do about half the things they try about half the time. That just does not fit with the jerk player idea of ''my character is so great that they must do everything all the time''.

All of the time? No. Most of the time? Yes. In combat, a 50% chance of hitting a monster isn't too bad, because if you miss, you can make more attack rolls next round, and the other players can too. Out of combat, if a player fails a skill check, they either die, take massive damage, or otherwise are affected negatively in a way that severely hampers their ultimate chances of taking out the BBEG. You don't make it so the only way to beat the BBEG is to be lucky, you should make it so that the players will be able to beat him, but they had to actually pay attention and really try to win.

Because it is a game? Is checkers fun if one player says ''ok, all my pieces start off as 'kings' and when you 'jump' over my pieces, I don't take them off the board.'' Is Chess fun when one player says ''All my pieces can move just like a Queen and even if you 'take' one of my pieces, it will not be removed from the board"?

Why is it so hard for a player to role play ''I'm good at somethings, but not yet a super awesome demi god overload master of all things''?

Maybe your players don't play like that. Or maybe you don't play like that. But many people do play characters that are strong, but not overpowered. It's called "letting the other players have fun".

This is just the old ''hiding trick'' for the more weak Players the call themselves DM and rollover for the All Powerful Real Players. Like when the players get the idea to rob the royal vault and the DM hides under the table and says ''um, it makes sense that vault door based on common sense and all, would have a high DC''. And the players laugh and pick the DM up off the floor and say ''it's ok, guy we just call DM, we agree with you this one time only so you can make that vault DC high and we will still be friends afterwards."

A real DM can just say I made the DC X, lets game on. And not try to constantly convince the players that, er, somehow they are not saying anything and er, stuff is just happening that makes sense, somehow...but they are not doing it.

...what? Of course the DM says that "the next challenge is to get past the door". The players' job is to figure out how to make the DCs. If the Rogue doesn't have enough ranks to make it, then the Warblade could smash it down with an Elder Mountain Hammer. Or maybe the Bard could make a Bluff check to convince someone to hand over the keys. Or the Wizard greater teleports them to where the keys are kept, and the Rogue steals them.

Look, you seem to think that if the DM doesn't have absolute power of the game and everything that happens in it, and if you don't then the players will "win", and their fate is decided by flipping a coin, not by their choices, skill, and abilities.

But players have a role, and DMs have a role. DMs make the world the game is in, and presents multiple challenges to the players. Players figure out how to solve these challenges. The challenges should be passable if the players manage to figure them out or find an alternative way of solving them, not a flat "flip a coin to see if you pass; if you don't your character dies and falls in to the deepest part of hell because I say so."

The job of the DM is to make sure the players have fun.

Florian

2017-05-03, 02:27 AM

Wasn't "a challange stays a challenge" one of the core concepts behind the scaling DCs and Monster Stats for 4E?

Svata

2017-05-03, 02:32 AM

Yeah. And that's one thing that bugs me about 4/5e. Something that's a challenge at level 1 shouldn't still be a challenge at level 18. Otherwise what's the point of gaining levels, if you're not getting measurably stronger?

Dagroth

2017-05-03, 02:34 AM

Wasn't "a challenge stays a challenge" one of the core concepts behind the scaling DCs and Monster Stats for 4E?

Not the point.

Something that was a challenge for a level 3 character shouldn't continue to be a challenge for a level 9 character.

When the party arrives at the Evil King's Palace at level 5, the Royal Guard should look intimidating and the party should know they wouldn't have a chance fighting them.

When the party returns to the Evil King's Palace at level 18, the Royal Guard should look like a distraction during the fight with their Commander & the King's Wizard.

A Level 2 Bard trying to earn a few coins in the Inn is a challenge. The Level 16 Bard in the same Inn has everyone's attention from the moment he starts to perform.

Florian

2017-05-03, 03:14 AM

I meant that the DC of a check or challenge progresses along with the level range of the characters, not that you retroactively change the DC of an earlier challenge when encountered again.
So you will always have the same change of success across the whole level range. That´s unlike the (mostly) fixed DCs in 3.5, where you can build a character to auto-sucked at certain tasks.

Thurbane

2017-05-03, 03:39 AM

Where railroads start to be reasonable to gripe about is when they either a) assume that the PCs will make specific choices about HOW to do things, or b) simply obviate the importance of PC decisions entirely to ensure that the almighty NPCs keep the plot on the rails. One leads to PCs-as-actors-playing-the-DM's (or module's)-script; the other leads to PCs-as-spectators.

The Witchblade Trilogy of Iron Kingdoms infamy is the latter sort. At one point, it's so egregious that the module gives the PCs a choice: give a macguffin-of-the-moment to an evil lich or an evil sorceress! ...if they give it to the sorceress, she likes them enough to let them have a front row seat to her next evil plan. If they give it to the lich, she overpowers him and takes it from him so she can use it, and now she hates the PCs.

IIRC, some of the 1E Dragonlance modules had similar issues.

I may be misremembering, but I'm pretty sure one says something along the lines of "If PCs don't proceed on this exact course, they encounter an army and die", or similar.

Not good module design.

Yeah unless your players are being deliberately contrary I don't see why this wouldn't work.

Some people would label that as "subtle railroading" or similar, though.

@Darth Ultron: while on one level I agree with some of your concerns about player entitlement, even I have to say that a lot of your replies in this thread make you look quite heavy handed, even draconian.

Does the general feedback you get from your players indicate they enjoy your games?

Also, out of interest, what's the mortality rate on their characters like?

Darth Ultron

2017-05-03, 06:24 AM

Do you consider "max ranks and a +5-15 bonus magic item" overoptimization? Because I don't. [QUOTE]

I guess you don't think ''doing everything possible to get the highest plus possible'' is optimization? Kind of odd, but, ok, if that is not optimization, what is then?

[QUOTE=danielxcutter;21976038]
Having a vague plan that you can change if the players come up with something you didn't expect is completely different from railroading. What Segev means that if an assassin the BBEG sends fails his Will save against Sleep, the next assassin that the BBEG didn't dump his Wisdom score or has a ring of protection against good. Railroading is when the DM says "no, the assassin had a ring of mind blank, and yes I know that he shouldn't have had one but I say so anyways, so it doesn't work on him, and you fail your save against the assassin's Death Attack, even though you're a Warforged Incarnate with 20+ Con and a Cloak of Resistance because you should."

Well, this is railroading, plain and simple. It is the DM doing things so the game goes his way. Sure the DM can ''defend himself in the imaginary D&D court'' and get lots of players to ''agree'' with him that ''a high level assassin has magic items'', but it does not suddenly become ok just as you fool the players with lots of words.

Your going with the odd ''it's only railroading if it's super duper extreme'', so like if it is just an elf assassin (immune to sleep) then it's ''ok'', but a ''ring of mind blank'' is just too powerful.

All of the time? No. Most of the time? Yes. In combat, a 50% chance of hitting a monster isn't too bad, because if you miss, you can make more attack rolls next round, and the other players can too. Out of combat, if a player fails a skill check, they either die, take massive damage, or otherwise are affected negatively in a way that severely hampers their ultimate chances of taking out the BBEG. You don't make it so the only way to beat the BBEG is to be lucky, you should make it so that the players will be able to beat him, but they had to actually pay attention and really try to win.

Why are you thinking every skill check is like the last couple minutes of a Michael Bay movie? Like characters ''only'' make skill checks while dangling from a rope over a canyon filled with lava while they are on fire and orcs are shooting arrows at them as the moon falls out of orbit.

Look, you seem to think that if the DM doesn't have absolute power of the game and everything that happens in it, and if you don't then the players will "win", and their fate is decided by flipping a coin, not by their choices, skill, and abilities.

But players have a role, and DMs have a role. DMs make the world the game is in, and presents multiple challenges to the players. Players figure out how to solve these challenges. The challenges should be passable if the players manage to figure them out or find an alternative way of solving them, not a flat "flip a coin to see if you pass; if you don't your character dies and falls in to the deepest part of hell because I say so."

The job of the DM is to make sure the players have fun.

I'm an absolute power kind of guy. Things happen in the game as I say they happen, period. It does not change the player driven ''player vs DM'' mindset. As DM I'm making a fun and challenging game. The players are attempting to personally attack the DM and ''one up him'' with the rules, stroke their egos and want to be called ''better then the DM''.

ErebusVonMori

2017-05-03, 06:33 AM

The problem Darth is that that attitude alone justifies every attempt to undermine you. I've only ever done it once before but a DM like you it would be 'players vs DM' and we are 'better than you' in your words, you work by DM fiat that heavily and every decision you made I would record and use to force you into plot holes and rulings that contradict until your game collapses. And frankly that's the only sane response other than just walking away and warning every other player I knew to never touch your games with a barge pole on the basis that you're a lunatic on power high.

Sorry for the ad hominems but that is the reaction you provoke. The problem isn't players, the problem is you and has always been you.

Edit: It all comes back to the gentleman's agreement, you rule fairly, we don't undermine you. You go full idiot in the name of 'absolute power', we undermine you at every turn. The only reason your games have an 'us vs you' mentality is because you create it.

Crake

2017-05-03, 07:12 AM

I guess you don't think ''doing everything possible to get the highest plus possible'' is optimization? Kind of odd, but, ok, if that is not optimization, what is then?

Uhh, putting max ranks into a skill you use frequently isn't optimization, it's common sense, and getting an item to do it even better is hardly "optimization". That's not even close to "everything possible". There is way more you can do, quite easily starting with spells, guidance of the avatar, divine inspiration, improvise, hell, depending on the skill, polymorph can even help you out by getting racial bonuses.

Max ranks and a standard +5/10/15 item is literally the start. Combine that with mid to high levels and a decent ability score, and you have a character that is quite capable of auto-passing things that would normally be siginficant challenges for most people. I bet you hate rogues that get skill mastery and can take 10 on their specialized skills, don't you.

Mordaedil

2017-05-03, 07:31 AM

Optimization isn't maxing out skill ranks. Optimization is taking a certain class because it circumvents the use of skills.

Maxing out Open locks doesn't mean you are optimizing. Taking three levels in wizard so that you can use Knock indiscriminately (and invisibility for that matter) and put zero points towards lockpicking is optimizing.

danielxcutter

2017-05-03, 08:33 AM

[QUOTE=Crake;21974891]Do you consider "max ranks and a +5-15 bonus magic item" overoptimization? Because I don't. [QUOTE]

I guess you don't think ''doing everything possible to get the highest plus possible'' is optimization? Kind of odd, but, ok, if that is not optimization, what is then?

You can get much higher bonuses than that, even with the SRD alone. What you say is "optimization" is really the bare minimum characters should have to be good at their job.

Well, this is railroading, plain and simple. It is the DM doing things so the game goes his way. Sure the DM can ''defend himself in the imaginary D&D court'' and get lots of players to ''agree'' with him that ''a high level assassin has magic items'', but it does not suddenly become ok just as you fool the players with lots of words.

Your going with the odd ''it's only railroading if it's super duper extreme'', so like if it is just an elf assassin (immune to sleep) then it's ''ok'', but a ''ring of mind blank'' is just too powerful.

Saying that the assassin was an elf out of nowhere would be BS, I'll admit that much. But if the players are still using sleep, a very low-level spell, then sending them enemies with mind blank, an 8th-level spell, is even more BS.

Also, changing your plans is not railroading. Railroading is when you force PCs to act in a specific way. DMs have a general story, but players may solve problems in a way that wasn't expected. A good DM says, "Okay guys, good plan, but I didn't expect that. So I'll have to figure out how to progress the campaign beyond this - can we call it a day?" A railroading DM warps reality so that whatever the PCs did won't work.

Why are you thinking every skill check is like the last couple minutes of a Michael Bay movie? Like characters ''only'' make skill checks while dangling from a rope over a canyon filled with lava while they are on fire and orcs are shooting arrows at them as the moon falls out of orbit.

Because if you fail a skill check, it sucks for the players. Fail a Disable Device check? Boom, you activated a fire storm. Fail a Bluff check? Congratulations, the king saw through your lies and has you executed for lying to his face. Even in situations far less dire, most challenges are designed so that the PCs should get past them if they made the proper choices. When you DM, however, a Fighter who should be able to jump over castle walls according the rules will struggle to lift his feet without tripping over them, because you just upped the DCs so that they only have a 50% chance to succeed whatever they do.

I'm an absolute power kind of guy. Things happen in the game as I say they happen, period. It does not change the player driven ''player vs DM'' mindset. As DM I'm making a fun and challenging game. The players are attempting to personally attack the DM and ''one up him'' with the rules, stroke their egos and want to be called ''better then the DM''.

One, most players don't play like that. Maybe yours do, but not at the tables most people have been at. Two, I'm not surprised your players try to spite you, if you keep warping reality so that the PCs suck no matter how good they are.

Segev

2017-05-03, 11:24 AM

Since DU doesn't actually respond to what he quotes me as writing, but to something that is a straw man of his own invention, I won't bother quoting him.

I will, however, go ahead and say that, DU, you've missed the point entirely of every single thing you quoted and then wrote text apparently meant to respond to it.

The primary point I wish to re-iterate, because I'm honestly curious if you're capable of wrapping your brain around the concept, is that I am not suggesting many pointless rolls, nor am I suggesting that everything should be a "cakewalk." I am suggesting that it should take more than a single roll to resolve an encounter. It is a canard that player characters will all be able to beat every check without rolling, but it is a mistake to just have a series of N rolls they must pass, as well. The challenge is not made up as you go along, despite your straw man about the vault door somehow being changed as the DM decides what "makes sense" as the players progress. Quite the opposite: the DM designed the challenge on what made sense to him based on the builders' purpose and resources. It is fixed by the time he introduces it to the players' characters, and the players' characters then approach the challenge of it however they like.

Designed well, it isn't just a single lockpicking check, because there's more to the vault door than a single lock. There's more to it than just the vault door. There're the carytid columns that are disguised as relief art on the door itself. There's the fact that the chamber is flooded with water unless the lock is opened the proper way. There's the guardian water elemental in that water. Perhaps more; this is what I came up with in 3 minutes of thought. Sure, you might have a rogue who can best that lock with a 1 on the d20 check. But he still has to contend with those guardians. Or with disarming the trap of the flooded chamber by figuring out how to drain it out (or fool the mechanism into thinking the lock was undone properly).

The chasm with the guard behind cover who wields a bow and guards the drawbridge-lowering mechanism is another good one. So what if the rogue can leap that chasm without a chance of failure? He still has that guard to contend with. So what if the fighter could beat up that guard pretty easily? He isn't over there to do so. So what if the mage trivilailzes the whole thing by flying across and charming the guard? That's two spells he's expended on this challenge alone!

The mistake you're making is having it be just a chasm with a DC 30 jump check to cross, and only one PC needs make it to let everyone across. The mistake you're making is having the vault door only require a single DC 45 disable device check to unlock. The mistake you're making is thinking that having the drawbridge mechanism locked with a DC 45 disable device check and the chasm to leap to it require a DC 30 jump check is what I'm talking about when I suggest having it require more than a single roll to resolve a challenge.

And I think you're making this mistake semi-deliberately, because you're ignoring what I'm saying and substituting straw men that allow you to claim that it's all solved by a DM who sets DCs that make skill ranks meaningless and that that's good DMing. And worse, the delusion that setting it up so that the PCs only win if the DM deigns to not arbitrarily tell them they failed makes it a non-Player-vs-DM situation. It does exactly the opposite: it makes it very much a player-vs-DM situation as it's about as adversarial as it can get. The DM, to use your analogy, has decided that the PCs are playing checkers, but that they can't move their pieces except how he tells them to lest he spawn a King piece and take 5 turns to move and capture their pieces so they don't have it be "a cakewalk."

Quertus

2017-05-03, 03:05 PM

What thread are we in again? :smallconfused:

Right. So, to determine whether 3.x fosters a player vs DM mentality, we need to debate what qualifies as such a mindset.

Personally, I'm from the school of thought that says the DM runs the world, independent of the PCs. Things are what they are. The "best" adventures are, for all intents and purposes, a module, pre-written and set in stone before the PCs even exist.

To back peddle slightly, a snapshot of the world as of the start of the module is set in stone; the future is written in wet clay. The world will respond to the PCs actions, and evolve accordingly. A rash of thefts may cause the mayor to decide to upgrade his locks, for example. Of course, if that was the PCs plan all along, the locks might now be DC 5, thanks to a friend in the industry.

Point is, the GM shouldn't change things based on the characters' builds, but based on their actions.

I adhere to this philosophy because I want the choices I make to matter. And that includes the choices I make in creating / picking a character. If I bring my signature character, Quertus, the tactically inept worlds-famous author, I want the game to play out differently than if I brought someone else. I don't want the spellcraft DCs to artificially inflate to make things "a challenge", I want Quertus' performance to be logically consistent with the fact that Quertus has "bested" the gods of magic on multiple worlds at knowledge of the craft. Similarly, I don't want the monsters to magically develop vulnerabilities to Quertus' seemingly random selection of spells to make things the "right level" of challenge, I want Quertus' performance to be logically consistent with the fact that he is quite bad at the tactical side of actually using magic.

I believe the best games are the ones that tell the story of how these characters responded to The Plot / The World, and what happened because of that.

This school of thought is opposed by the school of thought that believes that all encounters should be tailored to the PCs.

Under this alternate paradigm, one does not create a challenge of a lever on a narrow ledge on the other side of a chasm, guarded by an archer under cover, unless that is something that the party can handle. Otoh, if the party could handle it too easily, perhaps the ledge is covered in oil, the guard is a Troll Warlock, and there's a river of lava at the bottom of the chasm.

For this school of thought, the point of the game, if I understand correctly, is to have fun at just the right level of challenge.

I suspect that DU follows the second school of thought, attempting to force the encounters to be challenging to the PCs.

If I'm remembering correctly, I believe DU made a comment that got ignored regarding swinging from a rope firing arrows in the middle of combat, and wanting that to be "a challenge".

If I understand correctly, DU wants any narrativly interesting roll made in any level appropriate encounter (that doesn't just get glossed over, because, yeah, you put your pants on, the DCs not even worth rolling, moving on) to be about a 50% chance of success.

Again, if I understand correctly, DU doesn't like that there are set DCs, and players have the option to hit those DCs consistently - or, I suppose, miss those DCs consistently - thus invalidating his narrative DCs.

If I'm understanding correctly, this isn't "player vs DM", this is a clash of play styles. Or, to use the hatred words, simulationist vs narrativist gaming.

Darth? Am I close?

Personally, I'm hoping I'm not, because then I'd get a chance to learn something. I'm just selfish that way. :smallwink:

Dagroth

2017-05-03, 03:45 PM

I agree with pretty-much everything Quertus said... but I believe you need to allow for a bit of wiggle room.

If the "module" you're running has a bunch of traps... but none of the players made a character with any kind of trapfinding... I believe it's reasonable to swap out some (not all... the players should realize that their group has some deficiencies) of those traps with other types of encounters... be they logic puzzles, monsters or other types of skill challenges.

ErebusVonMori

2017-05-03, 03:56 PM

DU told us exactly what he meant when he used the words 'I'm an absolute power kind of guy. Things happen in the game as I say they happen, period.'

Dude, the tale of Old Man Henderson exists for a reason.

Florian

2017-05-03, 04:08 PM

So, to determine whether 3.x fosters a player vs DM mentality, we need to debate what qualifies as such a mindset.

I think it got mentioned earlier upthread: Actually, it´s "Players vs. System" with the gm tasked to be arbiter and make adjustments.

We´ve got three very distinctive components to it:

1) The rules should interconnect in such-and-such a way that it´s possible to create a "balanced" encounter. So party of 4 at level x with WBL for x against EL x means balanced. (Yeah, I know, but let´s stick with the original thoughts, k?)

2) The system is centered on attrition of resources. There´re no subsystems like death spiral, madness, corruption, so basically nothing bad happens until you´ve depleted your resources, than it´s three strikes and out. (The basis of why WotC had such a problem with at-will-classes)

3) The game is cooperative as well as competitive. Each character should fill a niche, but should also overall contribute.

That´s the crux of the matter. The gm should create a set of challenges in accordance with the rules and pack them somehow into a narrative context/scenes, with the players then trying to beat them.

Departing from this basic principle is possible, we´re talking about an RPG after all, but leads to rules that become wonky fast.

Thurbane

2017-05-03, 04:17 PM

jdizzlean

2017-05-03, 05:34 PM

Amphetryon

2017-05-03, 06:20 PM

The primary point I wish to re-iterate, because I'm honestly curious if you're capable of wrapping your brain around the concept, is that I am not suggesting many pointless rolls, nor am I suggesting that everything should be a "cakewalk." I am suggesting that it should take more than a single roll to resolve an encounter. It is a canard that player characters will all be able to beat every check without rolling, but it is a mistake to just have a series of N rolls they must pass, as well.

<snip>

Designed well, it isn't just a single lockpicking check, because there's more to the vault door than a single lock. There's more to it than just the vault door. There're the carytid columns that are disguised as relief art on the door itself. There's the fact that the chamber is flooded with water unless the lock is opened the proper way. There's the guardian water elemental in that water. Perhaps more; this is what I came up with in 3 minutes of thought. Sure, you might have a rogue who can best that lock with a 1 on the d20 check. But he still has to contend with those guardians. Or with disarming the trap of the flooded chamber by figuring out how to drain it out (or fool the mechanism into thinking the lock was undone properly).

It is not my intention to create strawmen (or support those created by other posters in this thread), but can't the scenario you describe be accurately depicted, out of game, as a series of N d20 rolls the party must pass?

danielxcutter

2017-05-03, 07:13 PM

Quertus

2017-05-03, 11:36 PM

It is not my intention to create strawmen (or support those created by other posters in this thread), but can't the scenario you describe be accurately depicted, out of game, as a series of N d20 rolls the party must pass?

No.

It's a logic puzzle the players have to solve.

We have this particular party, with these particular capabilities. Exactly who are we sending over, exactly what resources are we burning to do so, what will that leave us with, what are our backup plans if this turns ugly / fails / the rest of the party gets attacked while we've committed the cardinal sin of splitting the party etc etc etc.

It's a puzzle and a choice for the players. The dice are secondary.

I agree with pretty-much everything Quertus said... but I believe you need to allow for a bit of wiggle room.

If the "module" you're running has a bunch of traps... but none of the players made a character with any kind of trapfinding... I believe it's reasonable to swap out some (not all... the players should realize that their group has some deficiencies) of those traps with other types of encounters... be they logic puzzles, monsters or other types of skill challenges.

Eh, depends on the traps. Some traps are more fun when you don't have a trap finder in the party. And some parties like using player skills / 10' poles / summoned monsters / undead minions for that purpose.

I once ran a character, name of Vinnie, totally disreputable sort, leather armor jacket, the works. Party asked him to check for traps. He thought for a moment, then raced down the hall, full speed. Got to the end, turned around, and yelled, "no traps!"

Segev

2017-05-04, 12:30 AM

It is not my intention to create strawmen (or support those created by other posters in this thread), but can't the scenario you describe be accurately depicted, out of game, as a series of N d20 rolls the party must pass?

As Quertus said, it's more a puzzle to solve. Yes, ultimately, there will be a series of rolls, which may or may not involve non-d20s (mainly if it devolves to combat), but WHICH rolls have to be made will depend on player choices and how they choose to approach it. Do they expend resources to obviate certain rolls? ("I cast fly on the fighter to send him over to beat up the guard and lower the drawbridge.") What do they learn and what do they choose to do with that knowledge?

Two different parties coming to the same challenge would potentially roll entirely different things, in different orders and at different times. They may roll different numbers of checks, depending on how many things they need to check for.

If they can find a way to achieve it without making any checks they don't auto-pass, good for them. They still had to figure out how to do this (unless the DM messed up and relied on a barrier which, if overcome, obviates the challenge entirely).

Even if the PCs "cakewalk" through the challenge when it comes to execution, the real focus of the gameplay was figuring out how to set up to do it. And more than likely, they won't be able to "cakewalk" through it, but will potentially need to come back and try it another way, or find a way past different challenges, if they fail. But "challenge" isn't about "chance for failing a die roll." That can be part of it - weighing odds of success in determining what approach to take - but it isn't the challenge in and of itself. Ramping up DCs, or throwing more d20 rolls in the way to increase the odds of failure, doesn't make it more challenging. It just makes it more die rolls.

Do you really feel a sense of accomplishment if your challenge to overcome was to see if you could flip "heads" on a coin 20 times in a row?

Thurbane

2017-05-04, 03:03 AM

this should just be a sticky post.

Yeah, I've had experience with those kinds of people too. I asked if there were any ways to make a viable 3.5 version Soulknife build without using Kensai or Soulbow, and at least one guy kept saying that I should just use the PF version. And when I said, no, that's not what I'm looking for, he kept being rude by saying that I should.

It's gotten to the point where I ask for build advice, I feel I have to put about three bolded lines of bolded disclaimers about what I don't want.

"Just use XYZ from Pathfinder" is a pet peeve. I'm usually very specific that I'm looking for 3.5 build advice. I don't mind if people suggest it in a friendly manner "OK, I know you said no Pathfinder, but there's this one class that does EXACTLY what you are trying to achieve - maybe you should check it out for ideas". Too often it's along the lines of "Wizards had no clue when they designed that class, and either do you if you want to play it!".

And yes, to the original point: I die a little inside every time I read "Play a Wizard/Cleric/Druid instead" when the request is specifically asking for a non-caster option.

weckar

2017-05-04, 03:16 AM

Quertus

2017-05-04, 06:59 AM

Not having read the whole thread (apologies, it is getting long), I DO think there is a very definite VS mentality that draws players to this system. With 4 (5?) Monster Manuals - or Books with ways to destroy your players - it is hardly any wonder really.
But I don't think it is a bad thing. Sometimes you want a little competition. If not, you play something else?

As we're once again left attempting to define what "player vs DM" means, and what the root causes are, in order to determine whether, as the thread posits, 3.x promotes this mentality.

If I'm understanding correctly, you are promoting the PvDM mentality, and claiming that the sheer number of books of monsters provides evidence that the DM is supposed to compete against the players. Is that a correct statement of your position?

weckar

2017-05-04, 07:04 AM

That is an accurate description of my position, yes. Although I admit my books argument may be inherently falacious, and really a shorthand for the options provided throughout ALL the books.

Crake

2017-05-04, 07:05 AM

As we're once again left attempting to define what "player vs DM" means, and what the root causes are, in order to determine whether, as the thread posits, 3.x promotes this mentality.

If I'm understanding correctly, you are promoting the PvDM mentality, and claiming that the sheer number of books of monsters provides evidence that the DM is supposed to compete against the players. Is that a correct statement of your position?

From his post though, it sounded like he meant the more sportsmanship, competitive idea of "player vs DM", rather than the adverserial, negative version that a lot of people seem to imagine when they see the term.

weckar

2017-05-04, 07:08 AM

Let me put it like this: The greatest flaw any DM can have in my opinion is having his creatures hold back for the sake of having the players 'win'.

Quertus

2017-05-04, 08:51 AM

So... by having lots of books of threats... 3.x encourages sportsmanship and cooperation?

I think we can safely rule this as not a vote for 3.x as the "player vs. DM" edition, unless I'm mistaken about the definition of "vs" in this context.

Zanos

2017-05-04, 09:04 AM

Not having read the whole thread (apologies, it is getting long), I DO think there is a very definite VS mentality that draws players to this system. With 4 (5?) Monster Manuals - or Books with ways to destroy your players - it is hardly any wonder really.
But I don't think it is a bad thing. Sometimes you want a little competition. If not, you play something else?
I don't think that's a good metric, all the additional Kingdom Death material is just more monsters, but that game doesn't even have a DM. I feel like creating more rules for enemies actually reduces the personal touch the DM has to have when threats are presented to the player, making it more player vs environment than player vs the DM.

Thurbane

2017-05-04, 05:24 PM

From his post though, it sounded like he meant the more sportsmanship, competitive idea of "player vs DM", rather than the adverserial, negative version that a lot of people seem to imagine when they see the term.

That is pretty much my stance, yes.

As part of the DMs role is to run monsters (in any edition), there is always going to be some DM vs. players aspect to the game.

What I was referring to was indeed sportsmanship, and an adversarial mindset between the DM and players at the table, rather than the PCs and monsters/NPCs being adversaries.

Mordaedil

2017-05-05, 01:59 AM

I thought the game had 4 monster manuals because they wanted to sell minis, I mean they wanted cool flavorful monsters that are just the same monsters with a different dressing.

Sagetim

2017-05-05, 02:08 AM

The above 2 points are for me at least only things I have ever seen recommended and in my opinion offered as advice in an alarming majority from these very forums. I have never seen, heard or experienced this style of gaming at all in real life from other's accounts or personal experience. Nor from any other RPG forum that I am a member of. GITP has that distinction alone.

You can look at any number of threads for supporting evidence if you feel that I am incorrect. People ask for feat help on a fighter and most just say "play wizard" but even that is not enough then people go on to say " elven generalist, divine oracle with precocious apprentice and cats 9s at 1st level"
Then you have have those posters who are completely and utterly beyond rude and inconsiderate. The op will post a thread and very clearly lay out that they want X and Y, but are unsure of taking either Z1 or Z2. And most responding posts completely ignore the OPs constraints and say 'Go A then B' then when the OP points out that is 100% not what they were asking the forums just loves to bandwagon jump on him for being dumb and a lot of other very disheartening things, ya know .. instead of just admitting they did not read and give advice based on what the OP actually wanted.

THEN on the same this forums has an almost absolute HATE of the DM telling the players No for any reason at all. I cannot find it now, but there was thread about the DM not having some sort of race (they were playing a higher level game or without LA) and in all honestly the response posts on that thread were literally how to build X race with templates and basically 'stick it to the DM' for saying No. I even got told very early on in my time here that I was a horrible DM for telling my druid player that he could not have a certain animal companion. The fact that we all ( myself and the players) agreed on a very specific setting and environment and said companion would never be found in that environment, let alone be able to survive.

You have to take into consideration that the population of GITP is a subset of a partical social group (roleplayers, wargamers, and the like) and even then probably a, for the most part, a subset of even that group. So what you experience o this site is not by any means what the majority of player's are going to experience. While I feel it is probably normal for most GiTPs to be running Near Tippy-verse levels of optimization, I do not believe that most players and DM roll like that whilst playing.

Hehehehe, "Your animal companion has suffocated" "We Just Started!" "You Have A SHARK as a companion in what is explicitly a DESERT, Land Locked Campaign. Even if your bag of holding is full of water for your shark to swim in, it runs out of air within 10 minutes and suffocates. Just pick a companion out of things that exist in the desert, or at least things that could survive there." "I pick....a shoe!" "that's not an animal, try again." "Bullete? " "You're not high enough level, try again." "Camel?" "That is a viable option, are you sure you want a Camel?" "...yes. And I will have him spit on the wizard." "What? I have no part in this!"

To talk about the actual subject though: I think 3.5 was one of the less DM Vs Player editions up until that point. I wasn't born when 1e was still current, and I didn't really get into pnp until after 3e hit, but from what I've heard of 2e games, it seemed like the most player vs GM edition. Not necessarily because the rules were set up that way, but rather because the rules required some amount of house ruling to make them work. I tried running a Birthright campaign at one point, operating with rules as written being the initial idea. That idea had to be thrown out as inconsistencies with phrasing leant different interpretations to the same rule between books. And if a GM has to start ruling on the baseline rules of the game just to make them function consistently, then it doesn't seem that far a stretch for a GM to feel encouraged by that perceived failing of the rules to start acting like a tin pot dictator. I remember seeing at least one 2e game being hosted on Open RPG (back when that was a thing) and the GM for it was most definately of the 'GM Vs the Players, The GM Is The Lord Your God' school of thought. As if it were my job as the player to study a bunch of house rules most intently, perfectly memorize them, never ask questions, and be ready for my characters to die repeatedly for his amusement. And that apparently wasn't a very unusual mind set, from stories I've hear of people recounting their experiences with 2e. Or in particular, the reason they Stopped playing DnD, and either dropped pencil and paper entirely, or fled to a different system that they became fantastically loyal to.

Now, that's not to say that there aren't games in 3.5 with a GM vs Players mindset. But the rules, generally speaking, are consistent in their wording and do not require you to house rule them just to make the system function. But I think 2e is still king of tinpot dictators of GM's, even if there were fewer total GM's and Players in that edition of the game. As for 4th edition, well, it set out to capture a casual audience and it made it's rules simple and that included making the GM side of things very straight forward. You could cookie cutter out an adventure with so many encounters and so many minions and so many dangerous opponents and so many rest points and when it was all said and done...it just rubbed me the wrong way. That's not to say it's a bad edition. It isn't. And it did what it needed to: It drew in new players, casual players, people from the mainstream. The people who don't consider themselves nerds, which is a good thing. It may not be our cup of tea, but it's still tea an it gets people familiar with the flavor even if they don't appreciate the finer points of the more esoteric teas. Come to 5th edition and we have a system built to appeal to both new players and old hands. It functions, and the damage might not look that high, but it works out. It took some of the better balancing lessons from 3.5 psionics an snuck them into magic by making you have to pay more resource to get more damage or oomph than baseline. It took 2e's idea that saving throws aren't attached to spell level, which made keeping track of casting much easier, and it wrangled wayward ability scores back down from the infinities and into the realm of, let's say, somewhere under 30 if you're really pushing it.

But that's getting into more of an edition comparison than answering the question. If you missed it, I think 2e was the DM vs Players edition rather than 3.0 or 3.5. Also, 3.0 was the edition where they started building the system to model reality, which seems a bit different than the edition where you needed the gm's permission to use your main class feature of backstabbing due to not having facing rules, requiring you to be behind the person, and not requiring models or a grid or any indicators of where said back would be to stab it. I remember someone (Was it Spoony?) bitterly complaining about never getting to back stab, ever, because the gm would always give the party thief some bs about not being behind the person even when they put the effort into doing exactly that.

Segev

2017-05-05, 08:54 AM

I thought the game had 4 monster manuals because they wanted to sell minis, I mean they wanted cool flavorful monsters that are just the same monsters with a different dressing.

3.5e got up to monster manual V, though IV and V (but ESPECIALLY IV) did have a lot of that "we're reprinting the same monster, but giving it a tribe or something to excuse spending word count on how they're (not mechanically) different from the base creature printed in the MMI."

Though if you don't count the MMII as a 3.5 book (as it was definitely printed in 3.0), then 3.5 did only get up to 4 MMs.

Darth Ultron

2017-05-05, 12:13 PM

That is pretty much my stance, yes.

As part of the DMs role is to run monsters (in any edition), there is always going to be some DM vs. players aspect to the game.

What I was referring to was indeed sportsmanship, and an adversarial mindset between the DM and players at the table, rather than the PCs and monsters/NPCs being adversaries.

Well, except a good DM is doing more of Monster/Foe vs the Player Characters. Not the DM vs the Players. The two are very much separate. The vast majority of foes should want to kill or at least harm the PC's and act like it, but it should not be the DM ''trying to prove he is a better gamer by killing the PCs'' or something like that. If the characters are in a dangerous place full of hostile monsters, having a monster attack a character is not ''DM vs player''. When the DM is ''I don't like you Bob, a dragon attacks your character'', that is DM vs. player.

Unlike the players, and one of the big, huge thing that separates DMs from players (and something players often don't understand) is that the DM wants to loose challenges and is OK with it. Players, of course, just want to win, win and win some more. But a DM is able to step back and say ''you defeated my monster, good work''. But you will never, ever get a player to say ''you defeated my character, good work." It is a huge difference.

Cosi

2017-05-05, 12:37 PM

Zanos

2017-05-05, 12:40 PM

Fiendish Codex I/II are pretty much monster books as well.

Again, not that I agree that volume of monster content indicates the game is a competition between the players and DM.

Necroticplague

2017-05-05, 12:44 PM

OldTrees1

2017-05-05, 01:06 PM

I always felt that the PCs winning wasn't the DM losing. The DM doesn't as so much play the encounters, as report their actions as separate entities. A DM is a referee between the two sides, but he is neither side.

This analogy seems to make an incomplete account.

As a DM I share in the success of each group of actors*. Obviously one of those groups in the party of PCs which the Players are invested in. (Although I should note that the Players may be invested in the success of a non PC group of actors as well) So while the DM does act as a referee (as a direct responsibility from their role in setting up the game the groups of actors play), I feel that ignores some important nuance about the DM's motives that lie outside of the referee role.

*Actor not in the job sense but in the shakespearean sense of "All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players;" as it applies to notable NPCs and PCs alike.

Florian

2017-05-05, 01:17 PM

This analogy seems to make an incomplete account.

No, it´s pretty accurate for the problem a gm has when running d20.
A) Be a fellow player that enjoys the game with the rest
B) Create challenging and "balanced" encounters to pitch the players against
C) Run those encounters as hard as the challenge dictates, but keep them still fun and engaging.

It´s... stupid....

Svata

2017-05-05, 01:38 PM

Well, except a good DM is doing more of Monster/Foe vs the Player Characters. Not the DM vs the Players. The two are very much separate. The vast majority of foes should want to kill or at least harm the PC's and act like it, but it should not be the DM ''trying to prove he is a better gamer by killing the PCs'' or something like that. If the characters are in a dangerous place full of hostile monsters, having a monster attack a character is not ''DM vs player''. When the DM is ''I don't like you Bob, a dragon attacks your character'', that is DM vs. player.

This may be the first time I have 100% completely agreed with you on something in this thread. You're making sense here.

Unlike the players, and one of the big, huge thing that separates DMs from players (and something players often don't understand) is that the DM wants to loose challenges and is OK with it. Players, of course, just want to win, win and win some more. But a DM is able to step back and say ''you defeated my monster, good work''. But you will never, ever get a player to say ''you defeated my character, good work." It is a huge difference.

And right back to denigrating players as somehow lesser people than the DM. Just couldn't quiiite hold it together for a full post there, could ya?

VisitingDaGulag

2017-05-06, 03:31 PM

Since you're still reading this thread thurbane, here are the answers

1) Yes players should have more agency than DMs. However all agency has to take place within the kind of sandbox the DM is comfortable with: certain mapped locales in pre-written adventures, G vs PG-13 campaigns, not allowing CN clepto-rogues, not allowing PvP, No tier 1 or 2 classes, No LA+0 races, etc.

DMs should never railroad players mid-campaign: all railroading should be up-front. "Before we start, if you're planning to kidnap the princess instead of save her, I'm not a good enough DM to stat up all the NPCs that you will make your enemies." or "So this town will be whatever you want, but the next one does have a bit of an unfair story element to it. I'll let you know when it comes. Sorry, it's in the adventure. The third area has way more freedom, I promise." Never should a DM say "You're casting shivering touch on the dragon? I wanted it to fly away! Yeah I remember that on your character sheet but I'm banning it now." or "You have to do what Orcus says because you're an orc."

If players want to play a totemist or whatever and the DM "only allows core" then there should be a reason for this. Is this a players' first game? Is there a non-core game afterward? Does the DM not own enough books? Does the DM just ignorant of 90+% of D&D which takes place out of core? The first two are fine but the latter two can imply a bad DM. If your DM can't handle a decently built Tier 5 CW samurai because its "outside core" then he shouldn't be DMing. Often bad DMs will get defensive and try to justify their position by insisting that the thing they are comfortable with must be the most balanced. If such a DM won't listen to well presented information, the only way he will learn is the hard way: druid 20.

2) There is no arms race in 3rd edition itself after you balance the game (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=16929) because by definition everyone will be close in power (that's tier 3 or 4 under normal conditions). It is true that a player could purposely "build dumb" (or play dumb) and although it is fun to do, its not what players normally do while expecting balance.

Pre-written adventures are not the entirety of the edition (most all campaigns are homebrew), so they can still be "built" stupidly. DMs should match adventures with the level of optimization among the players. Don't bust out elder evils when you party all thinks its acceptable to have Weapon Focus (Whip) on the party bard. Use a lower powered adventure like Sons of Gruumsh. Whips are cool, but not acceptable in a team game where party members expect allies to pull their own weight. Conversely, don't use Fields of Ruin against a veteran Wizard, Cleric, Druid and Erudite party unless you want your players to stomp it and laugh at how unoptimized it is. There are still ways to help balance these adventures with broad strokes (again, see link), but they are out of the scope of the balance problems inherent in 3e.

tl;dr answer to OP question: 1) is unrelated to the internet but 3e has stayed popular precisely because players know and expect that they could make an invisible, flying cat that shoots laser beams if they wanted to. 5e just can't do that. 2) would never have been well remembered much less fixed & shared without the internet.

Darth Ultron

2017-05-06, 06:07 PM

This may be the first time I have 100% completely agreed with you on something in this thread. You're making sense here.

:)

And right back to denigrating players as somehow lesser people than the DM. Just couldn't quiiite hold it together for a full post there, could ya?

Not ''lesser'', but different....yes.

A Good DM does not become attached to anything in the game world or care about them a lot. If a monster or NPC dies, a good DM does not care....that is part of the game. The DM moves on and creates more monsters and NPC (and really can even have that dead one came back as a ghost or something too, wink, wink). Yes, the DM acting as that non player character can fight to stay alive and even escape..but if does come down to an unavoidable death blow, the DM just lets go.

Now a Good Player, will keep their one and only character alive at all costs and become very attached to their character and care about them a lot. So, right there, that is very different. But not ''lesser''.

It does become a problem when you have a bad player that is like ''DM Bob hates us all personally: that is why when we walked into the Forbidden Zone monsters attacked us! The DM is playing DM vs player...because he had monsters attack our characters! For no reason! (other then our characters when into the Forbidden Zone)''

Thurbane

2017-05-06, 06:13 PM

3.5e got up to monster manual V, though IV and V (but ESPECIALLY IV) did have a lot of that "we're reprinting the same monster, but giving it a tribe or something to excuse spending word count on how they're (not mechanically) different from the base creature printed in the MMI."

As a sidenote, a lot of people seemed to really hate this about MM4 and MM5.

Personally, as a DM who is often very strapped for time, I LOVED the idea of taking standard enemies like gnolls, ogres, drow etc. and having premade stat blocks for them with various class levels and/or templates applied, at a variety of Challenge Ratings.

Although, I think this might have been better done if it was confined to it's own book, like Elite Opponents or something similar.

Since you're still reading this thread thurbane, here are the answers

I respectfully disagree with you on most of your points.

1) Yes players should have more agency than DMs. However all agency has to take place within the kind of sandbox the DM is comfortable with: certain mapped locales in pre-written adventures, G vs PG-13 campaigns, not allowing CN clepto-rogues, not allowing PvP, No tier 1 or 2 classes, No LA+0 races, etc.

While I (mostly) agree with the second part of that, what exactly do you mean by player "agency" here. It's become a real buzzword recently, so I'd like to fully understand it. My current understanding (and it may be flawed) is that it's code for saying players have more "right" to enjoy the game than the DM does; and that the massive amount of work that the DM contributes to a game is barely worthy of recognition, much less respect.

DMs should never railroad players mid-campaign: all railroading should be up-front. "Before we start, if you're planning to kidnap the princess instead of save her, I'm not a good enough DM to stat up all the NPCs that you will make your enemies." or "So this town will be whatever you want, but the next one does have a bit of an unfair story element to it. I'll let you know when it comes. Sorry, it's in the adventure. The third area has way more freedom, I promise." Never should a DM say "You're casting shivering touch on the dragon? I wanted it to fly away! Yeah I remember that on your character sheet but I'm banning it now." or "You have to do what Orcus says because you're an orc."

A DM shouldn't be a jerk about it, but if a player has an ability or combo that the DM feels is disruptive to the game (say, by making encounters too easy), the DM is (IMHO) within his rights to ask the player to remove it, or use rule 0 to say "That doesn't work that way in my game". Notice that I prefaced that with the DM not being a jerk. If a certain ability is key to a player's character concept, then hopefully the DM and player can work together to find a way for it to be less disruptive to the game.

For my own DMing style, I don't feel I should have to completely re-write an entire series of encounters or random encounter tables because a player has an ability that would make those encounters a boring cakewalk. To give a (flawed) example: a player has stumbled upon a mind affecting spell that ends encounters with little chance of the opponent being able to resist. I don't want to have the world react like it has some giant immune system response, and for some mysterious reason now a ton more random encounters are undead or constructs, even if they are totally inappropriate to the setting or location. To me, a far more reasonable response would be me taking the player aside and having a word about either toning down or removing the spell in question.

One thing we agree on is DMs telling a player how to roleplay their character. To me, this is by far and away the worst thing a DM can do. I have left games over this in the past. "Your character wouldn't do that" is the greatest single alarm bell that can ring for me as a sign of a bad DM.

If players want to play a totemist or whatever and the DM "only allows core" then there should be a reason for this. Is this a players' first game? Is there a non-core game afterward? Does the DM not own enough books? Does the DM just ignorant of 90+% of D&D which takes place out of core? The first two are fine but the latter two can imply a bad DM. If your DM can't handle a decently built Tier 5 CW samurai because its "outside core" then he shouldn't be DMing. Often bad DMs will get defensive and try to justify their position by insisting that the thing they are comfortable with must be the most balanced. If such a DM won't listen to well presented information, the only way he will learn is the hard way: druid 20.

I've already commented on this earlier, but this paragraph sums up most of the issues that led me to post this thread in the first place.

It shows (again, IMHO) a massive lack of respect (and to a degree, understanding) for what the DM does. The whole paragraph screams "If the DM doesn't do things exactly my way, he is wrong, and a bad DM to boot". :smallfrown:

The fact the last sentence is essentially saying "I'm willing to wreck a game just to prove a point" is a sentiment I see on the forums all too often. :smalleek:

2) There is no arms race in 3rd edition itself after you balance the game (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=16929) because by definition everyone will be close in power (that's tier 3 or 4 under normal conditions). It is true that a player could purposely "build dumb" (or play dumb) and although it is fun to do, its not what players normally do while expecting balance.

I really, really dislike the teir system.

What it was made for is, in and of itself, fine. It's a ranking system.

However, too often I see a sentiment of playing below/above a certain tier, or mixing tiers, is "playing the game wrong".

You know what? I've played D&D for over 30 years. While I'm no optimization guru, I like to think I have a certain degree of system mastery. I have been in 3.5 games where a Dragon Shaman (me) played alongside a Monk, Druid, Beguiler and Fighter, and no one particularly felt outshined or useless. I know it's a tired cliche, but I have no issue playing Wolverine in the same party where someone else is playing Phoenix. Or Frodo alongside Gandalf. Either do the rest of the group I play with. Maybe we are an anomaly?

Pre-written adventures are not the entirety of the edition (most all campaigns are homebrew), so they can still be "built" stupidly. DMs should match adventures with the level of optimization among the players. Don't bust out elder evils when you party all thinks its acceptable to have Weapon Focus (Whip) on the party bard. Use a lower powered adventure like Sons of Gruumsh. Whips are cool, but not acceptable in a team game where party members expect allies to pull their own weight. Conversely, don't use Fields of Ruin against a veteran Wizard, Cleric, Druid and Erudite party unless you want your players to stomp it and laugh at how unoptimized it is. There are still ways to help balance these adventures with broad strokes (again, see link), but they are out of the scope of the balance problems inherent in 3e.

I have no issue acknowledging there are balance issues inherent to 3E.

I don't like the "pull your weight" argument (another I see very often) because it assumes a certain type of play style. See my Wolverine/Phoenix comment above.

tl;dr answer to OP question: 1) is unrelated to the internet but 3e has stayed popular precisely because players know and expect that they could make an invisible, flying cat that shoots laser beams if they wanted to. 5e just can't do that. 2) would never have been well remembered much less fixed & shared without the internet.

Even though I disagree with a lot of what you say, I do appreciate the answer and you sharing your views.

Doctor Awkward

2017-05-06, 10:53 PM

OldTrees1

2017-05-06, 11:20 PM

While I (mostly) agree with the second part of that, what exactly do you mean by player "agency" here. It's become a real buzzword recently, so I'd like to fully understand it. My current understanding (and it may be flawed) is that it's code for saying players have more "right" to enjoy the game than the DM does; and that the massive amount of work that the DM contributes to a game is barely worthy of recognition, much less respect.

Disclaimer: I do not agree with VisitingDaGulag's claim that Players should have MORE agency than the DM. I disagree with such a restrictive claim for a variety of reasons that will become apparent while I define agency.

While agency is a spectrum and thus has donned a vagueness similar to buzzwords, it is not code for "players have more/less "right" to enjoy the game than the DM does" nor is it code for "the massive amount of work the DM contributes to a game being barely worthy of recognition/respect".

So to back that up I will now define agency both in the general sense, the player agency sense, and the impacts that has on the game itself, and finally the usage of the word "agency" in discussions on forums like this.

Agency is:
All characters in the game world have some non negative amount of agency. Agency is a measurement of the ability that character has to influence their situation/their environment. Imagine all the NPCs of importance in your last adventure. They all had motives but they all had limitations in their ability to satisfy those motives. Perhaps the Evil Advisor can impose laws but only through their delicate control over the King. Perhaps the Exiled Prince is unable to unseat the BBEG and thus turns to others for assistance.

Player Agency is:
Player Agency usually refers to the Agency the PCs have (although in games that don't use PCs ...). Again it is a neutral measurement of the PCs ability to influence their situations/their environment. It can range from 0 agency (the Players are only allowed to have their PCs do what the DM scripted) to infinite agency (the Players can say anything and the DM will say "yes, that happens"). Obviously both of those extremes are crazy. So let's talk about 2 more sensible endpoints regions:

There are 2 DMs (each is running a different game).

The first DM wants to run the Expedition to Castle Ravenloft. That module has a 3 act structure. The PCs have some agency in that they can make meaningful decisions during each act, but the game cannot sensibly progress if the PCs do not complete each of the 3 acts and the adventure always ends with the BBEG's death (or TPK). The DM might help the players out by nudging them back on track if they lose the scent of the plot.
The second DM wants to run a sandbox. They create a world and fill it with lots of neat places for the PCs to go, and groups of NPCs with motives that the PCs can encounter. The PCs have lots of agency in that they can decide what to do and where to go. However the endeavors they can succeed at are limited by the strength of the opposition those endeavors invoke.
This is a rather broad range and has lots of variations in between. However I chose both of these endpoints because I would be willing to DM them or play in them. Obviously these were merely examples of those endpoints. In reality these endpoints are a bit fuzzy.

What does this mean for DMs and Players?:
Finally how does this impact the game:
People have myriad reasons they play D&D and different people may play for different reasons. However everyone that plays a group game should value the enjoyment of the other people in the group game. Obviously this means both a player and the DM equally deserve to enjoy the game.

The Players want to play their characters. This includes having the opportunity to make meaningful decisions. However you can see that a huge range of DM playstyles (from yours to mine) allow for some degree of meaningful decisions.

The DM puts in effort creating content as an investment because they hope to enjoy when the game encounters that content. The more player agency the higher the risk an individual piece of content will not be encountered. Different DMs are disappointed different amounts if content were to be missed.

The DM is in control of how much player agency to allow in the campaign they are running. A good DM will value the enjoyment of everyone playing the game (including the DM's enjoyment). So a good DM will strive to strike the ideal balance for the mixture of people engaged in this group game.

How the internet talks about agency:
Last and least how the term "agency" is used on internet forums like this one.

The most common (all frequencies are based off my memory) usage of "agency" is to contrast games with 0 or near 0 agency vs whatever agency balance the poster prefers. Aka "agency" is usually used in discussions to describe the evidence that the DM in question is not respecting the group nature of the group game.

The next most common is in talks about railroading. Railroading is the extent to which the character cannot control their own actions/decisions and thus has an inverse relationship to character agency. Just as agency is a spectrum, so to is railroading. Discussions about railroading are split into 2 categories. Either they can be discussing dislike for extreme railroading(see previous use of "agency") or they can be discussing the nature of railroading in a more neutral tone. Here you would see people talking about how to move their game closer to that ideal balance, or how further increase enjoyment even once they are at their group's ideal balance.

In summary:
Agency is a spectrum that measures how much the DM allows the PCs (and thus the players) to influence their situations/their environment.
It is not code for the Players deserve enjoyment more than the DM.
It is not code for disrespecting the work and effort the DM put into creating content. Although it is a detail about one of the reasons players enjoy the game and thus why DMs allow some content to be missable. This deserves more, not less, respect & gratitude. People who value the agency they have should also value and be grateful for the extra work the DM did in order to create that agency.

Thurbane

2017-05-07, 01:18 AM

Thank you both for very informative answers regarding agency. :smallsmile:

Twurps

2017-05-07, 09:04 AM

Happy for you that this approach works. It's called 'railroading' and decried in my experience.
I've tried to voice my disagreement with this statement before, but wasn't quite able to do so. however:

Thank you both for very informative answers regarding agency. :smallsmile:
Indeed.

Railroading is a spectrum, just as player agency. And just as 0 agency and infinite agency are obviously crazy, So are 0 railroading and infinite railroading.
So by definition: yes my example contained some measure of railroading, just like every other game of d&d ever played that wasn't obviously crazy. Having realized that, I've asked myself why then do I still feel disagreement with the opening statement?

a little sidestep:
This forum has some very smart/wise people on it, whom I respect greatly for all the advice I've gathered from them. Some of the wisdom has been captured in fallacy's or Laws. Some of it is now regarded common knowledge. These people have also offered some great SITUATIONAL advice/wisdom on many things, among which most relevant to this discussion: the power of wizards and the negative aspects of too much railroading/removing player agency.

What happens however with a medium like the internet and the great masses of people it attracts, is that we tend to generalize this great wisdom, and try to apply this to every other discussion/situation we encounter.
At first: people will refer to the very solid (but situational) logic/arguments behind the original pieces of wisdom offered, and because it's not very popular to go against these wisdoms, they 'win' there discussions, even in situations where they perhaps shouldn't have. 'winning' arguments then gain a sort of snowball effect, where they become more popular, are used more and more, and countered less and less. This way: advice given with the best intentions at first slowly turns into a habit or 'culture'. And it's where people blindly follow culture that things start to go wrong.
At this point TO drown healing or PunPun are being suggested as good PO solution when facing trouble with your DM. At this point 'Play a wizard' becomes the standard optimization advice or anything regardless of context, and at this point 'railroading' becomes BadWrong regardless of the situation or the scale of it on the spectrum from 0 to infinite.
(Sidestep to sidestep: Funny thing about culture: It's very hard to change culture (As any management consultant can tell you) . Even when a majority of people no longer supports it, culture can remain virtually unchanged)
[/END SIDESTEP]

So what bothered me about this reply? 2 things:
1)This forum has a culture of anti-railroading that has gone a bit overboard.
2)the response is a fully culturally dictated response. It relies on everybody adhering to this same culture for validation, as it offers absolutely no argumentation in and of itself.

Amphetryon

2017-05-07, 09:24 AM

I've tried to voice my disagreement with this statement before, but wasn't quite able to do so. however:

Indeed.

Railroading is a spectrum, just as player agency. And just as 0 agency and infinite agency are obviously crazy, So are 0 railroading and infinite railroading.
So by definition: yes my example contained some measure of railroading, just like every other game of d&d ever played that wasn't obviously crazy. Having realized that, I've asked myself why then do I still feel disagreement with the opening statement?

a little sidestep:
This forum has some very smart/wise people on it, whom I respect greatly for all the advice I've gathered from them. Some of the wisdom has been captured in fallacy's or Laws. Some of it is now regarded common knowledge. These people have also offered some great SITUATIONAL advice/wisdom on many things, among which most relevant to this discussion: the power of wizards and the negative aspects of too much railroading/removing player agency.

What happens however with a medium like the internet and the great masses of people it attracts, is that we tend to generalize this great wisdom, and try to apply this to every other discussion/situation we encounter.
At first: people will refer to the very solid (but situational) logic/arguments behind the original pieces of wisdom offered, and because it's not very popular to go against these wisdoms, they 'win' there discussions, even in situations where they perhaps shouldn't have. 'winning' arguments then gain a sort of snowball effect, where they become more popular, are used more and more, and countered less and less. This way: advice given with the best intentions at first slowly turns into a habit or 'culture'. And it's where people blindly follow culture that things start to go wrong.
At this point TO drown healing or PunPun are being suggested as good PO solution when facing trouble with your DM. At this point 'Play a wizard' becomes the standard optimization advice or anything regardless of context, and at this point 'railroading' becomes BadWrong regardless of the situation or the scale of it on the spectrum from 0 to infinite.
(Sidestep to sidestep: Funny thing about culture: It's very hard to change culture (As any management consultant can tell you) . Even when a majority of people no longer supports it, culture can remain virtually unchanged)
[/END SIDESTEP]

So what bothered me about this reply? 2 things:
1)This forum has a culture of anti-railroading that has gone a bit overboard.
2)the response is a fully culturally dictated response. It relies on everybody adhering to this same culture for validation, as it offers absolutely no argumentation in and of itself.

Not sure how to use this response to the Players I have known in real life who complained about railroading. It was their response I was reporting, after all.

WarKitty

2017-05-07, 10:26 AM

Quertus

2017-05-07, 12:00 PM

I've tried to voice my disagreement with this statement before, but wasn't quite able to do so. however:

Indeed.

Railroading is a spectrum, just as player agency. And just as 0 agency and infinite agency are obviously crazy, So are 0 railroading and infinite railroading.
So by definition: yes my example contained some measure of railroading, just like every other game of d&d ever played that wasn't obviously crazy. Having realized that, I've asked myself why then do I still feel disagreement with the opening statement?

a little sidestep:
This forum has some very smart/wise people on it, whom I respect greatly for all the advice I've gathered from them. Some of the wisdom has been captured in fallacy's or Laws. Some of it is now regarded common knowledge. These people have also offered some great SITUATIONAL advice/wisdom on many things, among which most relevant to this discussion: the power of wizards and the negative aspects of too much railroading/removing player agency.

What happens however with a medium like the internet and the great masses of people it attracts, is that we tend to generalize this great wisdom, and try to apply this to every other discussion/situation we encounter.
At first: people will refer to the very solid (but situational) logic/arguments behind the original pieces of wisdom offered, and because it's not very popular to go against these wisdoms, they 'win' there discussions, even in situations where they perhaps shouldn't have. 'winning' arguments then gain a sort of snowball effect, where they become more popular, are used more and more, and countered less and less. This way: advice given with the best intentions at first slowly turns into a habit or 'culture'. And it's where people blindly follow culture that things start to go wrong.
At this point TO drown healing or PunPun are being suggested as good PO solution when facing trouble with your DM. At this point 'Play a wizard' becomes the standard optimization advice or anything regardless of context, and at this point 'railroading' becomes BadWrong regardless of the situation or the scale of it on the spectrum from 0 to infinite.
(Sidestep to sidestep: Funny thing about culture: It's very hard to change culture (As any management consultant can tell you) . Even when a majority of people no longer supports it, culture can remain virtually unchanged)
[/END SIDESTEP]

So what bothered me about this reply? 2 things:
1)This forum has a culture of anti-railroading that has gone a bit overboard.
2)the response is a fully culturally dictated response. It relies on everybody adhering to this same culture for validation, as it offers absolutely no argumentation in and of itself.

Ok, maybe we're defining "railroading" differently. I define it as "removing player agency to force the DMs predetermined story (etc)", where "player agency" is defined, not just as the ability of the player to make meaningful choices, but for whatever choice the player makes (within the rules and capabilities of the character) to have logical results according to the rules of the world and the capabilities of the character.

So, are you using a different definition of those terms? If not, please try to convince me that "0" is an unacceptable amount of railroading.

Crake

2017-05-07, 12:22 PM

Quertus

2017-05-07, 12:59 PM

In my personal experience, the game floundered when I didn't provide pretty consistent tracks for the players to follow. I actually wanted to run a more open-world, sandbox game. I found quickly that the game became too unfocused, with the PC's kind of poking around wondering what they should do next. Everyone seemed to be happier when I provided a nice set of rails to follow, or at least a short list of pre-determined options.

I think this is less about railroads and more about plot oriented games vs sandbox games. I wouldn't call giving the players a direction to move in rails, but rather just that, a direction. Rails is more about forcing a set path in that direction.

Well, this is an interesting point. "Here's a direction you must move in, but you can move that way however you want" is technically (some rather wide) rails, but not something I'd call badwrongfun if the GM got player buy-in ahead of time. "So here's the pitch: we're playing undead pirates, whose goal is to collect..." Sure. Fine. Starting a game in media res is another great example of acceptable rails. Session 0 and the social contract are yet more examples of really bloody useful rails that even I rarely acknowledge as such.

However, once we've agreed on a premise and a set of ground rules, I personally chafe at random restrictions on capabilities and actions "for the plot". Other people like those kind of rails... I can't say that they're wrong, just that I don't get the appeal.

-----

Now, this is a separate issue from the "White Room" syndrome, where the players don't have anything to interact with. Personally, I prefer to run a sandbox where there's far more going on than the players could ever possibly interact with, and letting them choose what their characters want to do. Where "open a taco stand" (ie, do something completely unrelated to everything going on in the world) is a completely valid answer.

So, to return to the railroading metaphor, I suppose one could call it lots of pre-built track stubs and scenery, while handing the players their own pile of track, and letting them build what they want to.

Crake

2017-05-07, 01:42 PM

Now, this is a separate issue from the "White Room" syndrome, where the players don't have anything to interact with. Personally, I prefer to run a sandbox where there's far more going on than the players could ever possibly interact with, and letting them choose what their characters want to do. Where "open a taco stand" (ie, do something completely unrelated to everything going on in the world) is a completely valid answer.

I think warkitty, and myself as I noted earlier in this thread somewhere, were suffering more from the players having all the options available, but suffering from shellshock at the bombardment of choices, and eventually deciding on nothing, causing the game to grind to a halt. In my case, there was one player that took the reins, but he quickly got sick of basically being the driving force behind the whole game from the player's side of the screen, and I can understand that, so I've shifted away from sandbox games (I actually tried one last time, but the game fell flat before it even started, because it was a more solo oriented game, where each player would go about doing their own thing away from the table, then come together at the table and work together for their various common goals, but again, only that one player actually managed to come up with and pursue personal goals, so it's actually just become a single player game that we do between our other table games), and I'm running a more plot oriented game, with almost literally a quest giver, since it's an oriental game, one of the players is playing a samurai (oriental adventures, not complete warrior, don't worry! :smalltongue:), and his lord is gonna basically be the source of (most of) their plot, though if they surprise me and take some initiative, I won't complain :smallbiggrin:

Thurbane

2017-05-07, 04:23 PM

At this point TO drown healing or PunPun are being suggested as good PO solution when facing trouble with your DM. At this point 'Play a wizard' becomes the standard optimization advice or anything regardless of context, and at this point 'railroading' becomes BadWrong regardless of the situation or the scale of it on the spectrum from 0 to infinite.

1)This forum has a culture of anti-railroading that has gone a bit overboard.

This has been my experience too. I've never (until maybe this thread) seen the term railroading used with anything but completely negative connotations.

In my personal experience, the game floundered when I didn't provide pretty consistent tracks for the players to follow. I actually wanted to run a more open-world, sandbox game. I found quickly that the game became too unfocused, with the PC's kind of poking around wondering what they should do next. Everyone seemed to be happier when I provided a nice set of rails to follow, or at least a short list of pre-determined options.

This comes back to one of my main beliefs: there is no "one size fits all" game style that works for all groups.

While this may seem to be obvious to most, many posters on this and other D&D forums will vocally howl down anyone who says that something they have a personal issue with works at someone else's table. Badwrongfun.

Personally, I prefer to run a sandbox where there's far more going on than the players could ever possibly interact with, and letting them choose what their characters want to do. Where "open a taco stand" (ie, do something completely unrelated to everything going on in the world) is a completely valid answer.

Honest question: how do you find the time to run this type of game? How many hours/week do you spend in prep work?

I'd like to run a game more like this, but between work, family and other commitments, I simply don't have enough hours.

I've recently changed roles at work which involves learning a whole new set of skills, and I'm seriously considering stepping down as DM this week because I don't have the time to properly invest. :smallfrown:

Twurps

2017-05-07, 05:21 PM

Ok, maybe we're defining "railroading" differently. I define it as "removing player agency to force the DMs predetermined story (etc)", where "player agency" is defined, not just as the ability of the player to make meaningful choices, but for whatever choice the player makes (within the rules and capabilities of the character) to have logical results according to the rules of the world and the capabilities of the character.

So, are you using a different definition of those terms? If not, please try to convince me that "0" is an unacceptable amount of railroading.
Well: removing player agency to force the DM story is exactly what I mean by railroading. So I guess I have to convince you. However:

Well, this is an interesting point. "Here's a direction you must move in, but you can move that way however you want" is technically (some rather wide) rails, but not something I'd call badwrongfun if the GM got player buy-in ahead of time. "So here's the pitch: we're playing undead pirates, whose goal is to collect..." Sure. Fine. Starting a game in media res is another great example of acceptable rails. Session 0 and the social contract are yet more examples of really bloody useful rails that even I rarely acknowledge as such.

However, once we've agreed on a premise and a set of ground rules, I personally chafe at random restrictions on capabilities and actions "for the plot". Other people like those kind of rails... I can't say that they're wrong, just that I don't get the appeal.

Bolding mine. like I said, It's a spectrum. In it's mild form, we might not even call it railroading, but it's there, and it's not 0. So maybe we do agree on this after all.

After that: I agree I like as little rails as possible. I have found however that my fellow players in my current gaming group need a little more 'guidence' or rails if you like.

side step again: At one point I realized I was making all the choices. I felt bad for this, as it's not nice to hog the spotlight, but changing this appeared difficult. After discussing with my DM we did a little 'social experiment'. From the start of that session, I didn't make any choices. Last session had left us at the entrance of a temple ground. We literally remained there for 45 minutes of mind numbing RL time with the other players: 'looking around', 'discussing what to do', asking for decriptions of the temple (again) looking for clues if it was safe etc. without anybody moving in/away or anywhere meaningfull at all. The group sure has come a long way since then! /END SIDESTEP

So my ideal game with my ideal gaming group might have very little rails
my practical game with my current group have rails/guidence close to what WarKitty is describing. I prefer to call this 'guidence' instead of rails. Because rails tend to associate with railroading, and we've just established this is to get the story back to the DM's plan. Guidence can be given by the DM even if he's not trying to get the story back to 'his' tracks, but just to help the players along to realize the goals they have expressed themselves.

What I was objecting too however, was my original example of following a DM hint as both railroading and wrong.
For reference:

DM: to the left you see *insert vivid description here*, to the right.... nothing of interest... plains mostly.
Player: 'We go left'
Or anything along those lines works fine.
No meaningful amount of player agency has been removed. We can go right if we want. We can go back home if we want. The example is too limited to deduct whether these choices have meaningful consequences, but that's no reason to assume they don't. It's just a hint about what the DM has prepped for, and what not. Sometimes I like to follow those hints, as the game gets the better for it. Is this a signal the DM is 'getting the story back to his pre-determined storyline? From my personal experience following the hints usually gets me to the guy I have 'gathering information' about for the last 2 sessions, so we as PC's can include him in our plan to prevent 'plot'.

And just as the DM uses hints, so do I as a player. Why do I 'gather information' for 2 sessions on a person? It's not because I don't have faster ways of getting to him. It's so the DM is fully aware of who I want to find and why, so when I do find him and unfold my plan I don't get a hollow NPC followed by: 'well this is beyond what I had prepared, lets call it a day' I get a fully fleshed out NPC, with emotions and motivations I can work with, who can help me bring my plan to an exiting end.

Not sure how to use this response to the Players I have known in real life who complained about railroading. It was their response I was reporting, after all.
So is it your players complaining this is both railroading and 'bad' (or at least: something to complain about, I don't want to put words in your mouth), or is this your opinion? And especially if the latter: would you mind explaining what it is you don't like about it.