Storytelling vs. The Rules

[The Kool]

I've struggled for a long time with being rules-accurate in as much as I possibly can as a DM, but recently I've made a realization: My favorite DM of all time, and the favorite of many fellow players of mine, didn't adhere strictly to the rules. Many quotes of great DMs are about times they bent the rules to tell a dramatic and satisfying story. Some of my best moments are when I've done the same. So my question is, how do you balance this? As a player, are you willing to accept the rules being bent if it makes sense and makes for a dramatic and fulfilling story? As a DM, how much do you need to stick by the rules to run an effective and fair game? Will I be crucified for small inconsistencies?

Here are some examples: Cursed items: everyone identifies everything, so you have to bend the rules if a curse is to be meaningful and memorable. Detect magic/alignment: I've been known to detect vague faint auras, like a faint aura of pulsating magic if they're near the hidden cultist ritual and just need a sign. What are some examples you have where bending the rules has gone well? What are some examples of when it hasn't?

[JNAProductions]

My advice? Talk to your players. Tell them something like this:

"So, while I will do my best to stick to the rules, there are times when the rules get in the way of having fun. If that happens for a small thing-like, say, Detect Evil technically not being able to detect something it should probably be able to-I'll err on the side of fun rather than RAW. For larger things-like, say, unintentional character deaths-I'll talk to you guys OOC and see what you want to be done."

Now, here's something that is a little bit of a red flag to me-you call it storytelling. That's NOT your job as a DM. You're not writing a book, you're playing a game. Now, there's every chance that's just a poor choice of words, in which case, s'all good, but don't railroad players.

Overall, though, I'd definitely say that that style is fine. I'm much more a 5E DM than a 3.5, but I've done things like that and, so long as I was open and honest with my players, never had issues.

[The Kool]

Now, here's something that is a little bit of a red flag to me-you call it storytelling. That's NOT your job as a DM. You're not writing a book, you're playing a game. Now, there's every chance that's just a poor choice of words, in which case, s'all good, but don't railroad players.

It was the most convenient condensation of the concept I could think of. Dramatic scene-setting, dynamic player application of tools, using NPCs who have numbers that aren't actually sensible if statted as characters, things like that. I fully agree about 'telling a story' as a DM being laying rails and looking for the minecart to put players into, but I use the term here in the 'collaborative storytelling' sense, where everyone (yes, even the DM) is pitching in.

Curious, what do you think about bending rules to make an engagement more interesting? If your players are experienced veterans familiar with monsters and encounters and know what to expect and how to handle it, how much are you willing to bend in order to add dramatic tension back into an encounter?

[Boci]

My advice? Talk to your players. Tell them something like this:

"So, while I will do my best to stick to the rules, there are times when the rules get in the way of having fun. If that happens for a small thing-like, say, Detect Evil technically not being able to detect something it should probably be able to-I'll err on the side of fun rather than RAW.

The obvious question here is "fun for who?" Some player will find it logical that there are more ways to foil detect evil than the rules list. Others will hear "Lol, your abilities don't work, because I say so".

So yes, I do believe DMs should change rules when it makes for a better story, but they should be careful it does in fact make for a better story and not just a cheap gotcha for players, and you also need to accept that this distinction will often vary from group to group.

[JNAProductions]

Give me examples. It's really kinda a case-by-case thing.

A recent example I can think of, is when I was running a fight against an Orc (the first fight, actually) who exploded in poison upon death. That ended up killing a PC. It was PbP, so I went to the OOC thread and said something along the lines of "This was your first dang fight, and [PC NAME] only died because I rolled high. How would you feel if I just let them be at 0 HP and dying, instead of actually dead?" The players all said "Yeah, we'd appreciate that," and so it happened.

Recently, in a meatspace game, I had a PC who picked up a powerful dark artifact feel a rush of dark power when he first touched it. That's nowhere in the rules, but it helped indicate that this is something powerful and dangerous.

One thing I think I can say, off what you said, is that for most fights? Let them play out naturally. Let's say you have an encounter with your PCs, a direwolf, and four wolves. This is supposed to be a HARD FIGHT. And the players steamroll it. That's fine-it'll happen, but it's fun for the players to feel powerful, at least some of the time.

I can understand fudging a little for the BBEG, but even then, for me personally, I like to keep fudging to a minimum.


The obvious question here is "fun for who?" Some player will find it logical that there are more ways to foil detect evil than the rules list. Others will hear "Lol, your abilities don't work, because I say so".

So yes, I do believe DMs should change rules when it makes for a better story, but they should be careful it does in fact make for a better story and not just a cheap gotcha for players, and you also need to accept that this distinction will often vary from group to group.

Either you misread me or I mistyped.

I meant Detect Evil does NOT detect [PHENOMENA], when it really SHOULD be able to. And the DM then letting it detect the phenomena.

Not the other way around.

[The Kool]

Recently, in a meatspace game, I had a PC who picked up a powerful dark artifact feel a rush of dark power when he first touched it. That's nowhere in the rules, but it helped indicate that this is something powerful and dangerous.

This is much more along the lines of what I'm thinking with this thread. Fudging numbers just comes with the territory, it's a shame it's so difficult in PbP. I understand there's players out there who demand DM honesty and they'll take the hits square on the jaw, but if I ever fudge the numbers it's to make things better for the overall experience. One example: *rolls 24 damage, winces* "How many HP do you have left? 7? You're at -5..." Another: One player was the only one to successfully save against a pit trap that opened into what could be the next section of the dungeon; everyone else was down there, so I dramatically narrated his almost-success and had them on the edge of the seat until they heard the result, then the entire party remained together.

But yeah, things that are just outside the realm of the rules. Rushes of dark power, detect magic/evil feeling a pulsating aura from the edge of town despite the range being 60ft, etc.

[137beth]

Have you considered whether another rule system would be better for you? I think that the rules and story should be working together. If they kind of story you want in your game requires you to fight against the rule system, then that is possibly a sign that you have chosen the wrong system and that you should see if there is a suitable alternative.

[Pippa the Pixie]

What are some examples you have where bending the rules has gone well? What are some examples of when it hasn't?

Don't get so hung up on the rules.

The rules cover mostly combat...and a small thing or two. ANYTHING else in the game is all on you the DM to make up and use however you want. You can even call them ''rules" if you want too.

World rule reality creation is a big job of the DM, just like Storytelling and Babysitting.

Though really you don't need to ''change the rules", you can just add to the game. And your addations have no effect on the rules.

So just leave the ''rules" alone. Then the hostile players can clutch the rule book in the corner and say ''Mine!" all they want. It does not matter. So, if the ''rules" on page 111 say a magic item does something, just leave it at that and change nothing.

But feel free to add hundreds of things to the game, and just ignore the ''rules". And you never really want to do the ''all the X" are ''Y", just some of them. For example:

Weapons made in the elven kingdom of Songaae are OFTEN made as dancing weapons(the kind that float and fight on their own, per the bland rules on page 111, blah, blah, blah) that are ONLY activated by the right elven song, and will stay 'dancing' as long as the song is sung.

So see this has NO effect on ''all" the weapons in the world. The hostile player can still clutch the rule book and say ''my plus one sword does plus one damage just like page 88 says!". But the weapons from Songaae...might...have a cool magic ability triggered/powered by a song.

Remember to watch out for the hostile exploit players. Never say ''the elven song weapons do 100d100 damage and can be activated by singing just one note....or anything silly like that. If fact, you'd want to make them so that ''type" of player can't even use them.....like saying it takes at least 10 ranks in Perform(elven song) to use such a weapon and it's a full round action.

If it makes for a good story and good game: just do it.

[Crake]

Recently, in a meatspace game, I had a PC who picked up a powerful dark artifact feel a rush of dark power when he first touched it. That's nowhere in the rules, but it helped indicate that this is something powerful and dangerous.

Not to burst your bubble, but there are actually rules for this in book of vile darkness, under lingering effects of evil, page 35.

[The Kool]

If it makes for a good story and good game: just do it.

This is what I'm trying to get better at. I'm really looking for anecdotes from others, a place for people to share their takes and opinions on where the balance lies at their own table.

[Florian]

I've struggled for a long time with being rules-accurate in as much as I possibly can as a DM, but recently I've made a realization: My favorite DM of all time, and the favorite of many fellow players of mine, didn't adhere strictly to the rules. Many quotes of great DMs are about times they bent the rules to tell a dramatic and satisfying story. Some of my best moments are when I've done the same. So my question is, how do you balance this? As a player, are you willing to accept the rules being bent if it makes sense and makes for a dramatic and fulfilling story? As a DM, how much do you need to stick by the rules to run an effective and fair game? Will I be crucified for small inconsistencies?

I always tell my players: Setting first, mechanics second, the mechanics are just the interface to the in-game reality and can't cover anything. That's the job of the GM.

[Crake]

This is what I'm trying to get better at. I'm really looking for anecdotes from others, a place for people to share their takes and opinions on where the balance lies at their own table.

Well, there's a difference between outright breaking existing rules, vs creating rules to cover things that you don't want to try and adapt other rules for. Custom magic items fit in this greatly, but plenty of other things can as well, for example, ominous feelings, or abilities that enemies might have that you gave them simply because it was thematically appropriate.

Personally, as a DM, I adhere to rules where they already exist, but I'm more than happy to make up rules for the games I'm running where I either a) can't find existing rules to cover what I'm trying to do, or b) can't be bothered trying to squish together the rules I want from various sources. An example of b) for me would just be outright ignoring pre-requisites for NPCs in various circumstances. I, for example, have an NPC that's gestalted paladin of slaughter (CE) with druid (needs Neutral), normally wouldn't work, but hell if I care. As a GM, you have absolute control over what you can deem "special circumstance" that allows characters to be however you want.

[King of Nowhere]

I can tell a couple of times I did it that were well received.

1) during a fight with a big bad, the party rogue realizes his hit bonus is too low to hit realiably. he asks if he can try to steal a magic item from the villain.
this is not covered in the rules; sleight of hand does not specify combat uses, and I don't think a DC 20 check should let you automatically steal something from an opponent you're fighting.
However, the rogue really wasn't giving much contribution to the fight (that's actuallly because he forgot to count his buffs, I discovered later), and he had a maxxed sleight of hand that he rarely got a chance to use. So I let him try. He rolled a natural 20, relieving me from the burden of figuring out an exact DC if he rolled mediocre. I declared that he stole one of the villain's magic rings, which I rolled randomly. Turned out to be the rign of freedom of movement.

However, everyone can fudge in favor of the players and get away with it. I managed to establish a precedent for doing it for villains too in the next example.

2) My campaign reached now the point where disjunctiion is used. In fact, it's pretty much the guaranteed opening salvo from the villains, since the party is so heavily equipped that they are virtually invulnerable otherwise.
However, rolling the saving throw for each and every item in the possession of an 18th level party that's well above wbl? that alone would take a whole session. So I decided to only roll for items that were immediately relevant to the fight. The villains were casters, so I asked to roll for those items that gave boost to saving throws, and ignored the others.
As the players also started to use disjunction on villains, I applied a similar strategy for them, in that I roll a handful of items and ignore most of them.
As it streamlines the game and is applied equally, nobody complained.
Note that this is not a houserule: I did not say "in this campaign, disjunction affects up to 5 items of the caster's choice".

There is also a time when a character was flying while holding a cleric with antimagic field (the wings were an artifact that ignores antimagic). The character could not approach the enemies because the antimagic would make their fly fail as long as it was within the field, and so they would fall down. The character asked if he could throw the cleric like a basketball so that it would fall vertically along with the villain and both him and the villains would fall to the ground, with the villain still within the antimagic.
I decided that since the character had a STR welll above 30, he could toss a regular person like a basketball without particular problems. Since a person has a much more irregular shape than a basketball, I decided that the DC for it was 20, and since the character has no specific basketball training, I declared it to be a DC 20 dexterity check.
the character got less than 20 but more than 15, so I declared that the toss was failry accurate, both the cleric and the villain fell to the ground and took falling damage, but they rolled on different sides during the "landing", so that the villain was now on the ground but outside of antimagic.

In general, whenever someone tries to do stuff that's not explicitly in the rules, but makes sense regardless, I try to come up with a DC.
Also, the less the ation impact the greater plot, the more I am willing to run on rule of cool.

EDIT:

Well, there's a difference between outright breaking existing rules, vs creating rules to cover things that you don't want to try and adapt other rules for. Custom magic items fit in this greatly, but plenty of other things can as well, for example, ominous feelings, or abilities that enemies might have that you gave them simply because it was thematically appropriate.

Personally, as a DM, I adhere to rules where they already exist, but I'm more than happy to make up rules for the games I'm running where I either a) can't find existing rules to cover what I'm trying to do, or b) can't be bothered trying to squish together the rules I want from various sources. An example of b) for me would just be outright ignoring pre-requisites for NPCs in various circumstances. I, for example, have an NPC that's gestalted paladin of slaughter (CE) with druid (needs Neutral), normally wouldn't work, but hell if I care. As a GM, you have absolute control over what you can deem "special circumstance" that allows characters to be however you want.

This, also. I did not consider this part as relevant, but I also homebrew a lot. I want a villain to have a special ability? I give them the ability. A player wants to be able to do a special stuff? I try to give him a way to do it.
Chances are, there are RAW ways to do the same, but really, I don't see why I should sift through 50+ books of content to get something that may not even really be what I was looking for.
And is "making something up" really that different from "using stuff that someone else made up"? Playtesters have to consider interactions with other rules and options to break the game, but I can just handwave them away since it only applies to my campaign so I need less strict balance.

But since we're talking about balance, and you also asked for things that failed, well, I have example

3) A ccleric at my table stated that his goal was to be as though as possible. he focused mostly on defensive items. He rarely cast offensive spells, even when given the chance, preferring to heal and buff his allies. I decided that it was not going to be a problem if I gave this guy some overpowered defensive ability, since he wasn't contributing much to the fight. So I made this suit of armor that was to be his reward at high levels.


armor of unwavering dedication
can only be worn by a good character striving to fulfill a good quest/geas (basically, you place a quest/geas on you when wearing it) can't be removed before the quest/geas is over except by miracle/wish. Can be slept in without penalties.
Type: adamantium full plate armor
Inventory: armor slot
properties:
+8 AC (nonmagical, full plate)
+2 supermasterwork bonus
counts as medium for encumbrance (supermasterwork bonus)
raise max dex to +5 (supermasterwork bonus)
+8 enhancement bonus
spell resistance 30
damage reduction 30/- against all elements, negative energy and magic damage
damage reduction 15/
regenerates 10 hp/round
immunity to fear, mind control, death effects, level drain
freedom of movement, true sight always active
zone of truth centered on it always active (DC 25, 3 meters)
+8 to will and fortitude saving throws
unwavering dedication

unwavering dedication: if the wearer is killed, he returns as a ghost, wearing this armor, until his quest/geas is fulfilled. During that time, he cannot be resurrected (basically the soul is trapped by the armor) and the armor cannot be used by anyone else (it becomes a ghost armor)

(to my defence, I can say that it's not the first overpowered artifact I made. this tops them all, though)

Now the world is under threat by an army of vecna-adoring liches. Since it is a dire threat, the character was entrusted with the armor. Since those liches are casters, he is practically completely impervious to them, as he is basically immune to damage and to all status effects. Even the big bad himself could not kill him if he tried. there are a couple of martial characters in the world that would be able to consistently hit his 58 AC and overcome his damage reduction 15/- and eventually kill him, after he runs out of healing.
Also, since he's a level 18th cleric, he can go spam mass heal. and quickened mass heal with a metamagic rod. the dire threat to the entire world vaporizes in front of this guy and is utterly unable to hurt him.
And I can't even take the armor away from him, it would look like a jerk move.
So that's definitely a time where catering to a player's wishes got carried too far and didn't work.

[Crake]

3) A ccleric at my table stated that his goal was to be as though as possible. he focused mostly on defensive items. He rarely cast offensive spells, even when given the chance, preferring to heal and buff his allies. I decided that it was not going to be a problem if I gave this guy some overpowered defensive ability, since he wasn't contributing much to the fight. So I made this suit of armor that was to be his reward at high levels.


(to my defence, I can say that it's not the first overpowered artifact I made. this tops them all, though)

Now the world is under threat by an army of vecna-adoring liches. Since it is a dire threat, the character was entrusted with the armor. Since those liches are casters, he is practically completely impervious to them, as he is basically immune to damage and to all status effects. Even the big bad himself could not kill him if he tried. there are a couple of martial characters in the world that would be able to consistently hit his 58 AC and overcome his damage reduction 15/- and eventually kill him, after he runs out of healing.
Also, since he's a level 18th cleric, he can go spam mass heal. and quickened mass heal with a metamagic rod. the dire threat to the entire world vaporizes in front of this guy and is utterly unable to hurt him.
And I can't even take the armor away from him, it would look like a jerk move.
So that's definitely a time where catering to a player's wishes got carried too far and didn't work.

If this is a current issue that you have, might I suggest a means of taking the armor away from him that doesn't feel like a jerk move? Have a meaningful bad guy disjoin the armor, but call it an artifact, and have the disjunction blow back and kill his casting, essentially crippling him and defeating him.