Rules for DMs -- again

[Tanarii]

Let's flip this around and think of what happens if the GM is less excited about the game than the players. F. ex. you're trying to hold a Realms game, but all your players are putting more work into knowing the setting than you are. How's that a better dynamic?

It's happened, and it's usually pretty great. There's always the danger of someone too wedded to the lore trying to correct me. But more typically, it means they get excited when I have references I've cribbed from a setting guide, and they set their own goals to go places and do things they're excited about.

[Cliff Sedge]

I like most of these. I won't nit-pick any yet. I see others doing a good job of that and the discussion is inspiring a lot of good thought.

I just wanted to point out that there is no Rule 34 on the list. It just seems like there is a hole there waiting to be filled.

[Lacco]

These rules were written for myself, for the way I run games. Not everybody agrees on how to run a game, and there's nothing wrong with that.

Some of them are serious, some are deliberately exaggerated for comic effect, but all of them are actual considerations when designing or running a world.

Feel free to offer critiques or suggestions. If you think a rule is wrong, feel free to say so. You may talk me out of it. Or you may show people your good way to play that's different from my good way to play. Either way, the discussion has value.

Nice set, I feel like the rules complement each other.

2. The DM cannot make the PCs more complex than the players do. No matter what the character sheet says, there are usually only three PC alignments – Lawful Snotty, Neutral Greedy, and Chaotic Backstabbing.

The advantage of GMing/playing other systems than D&D: alignments do not exist.

However, I'd agree with these as player alignments (I'd include True Dramatic and something like combat monster there).

3. What the players want today is a quick, easy victory. But what they will want tomorrow is to have brilliantly and bravely turned the tables to barely survive a deadly encounter where it looked like they were all about to die.

It's nice you managed to put this rule together to cover the experience I always had: my players would growl and bark when presented with deadly, dangerous and terrifying situations, but they will brag about them forever. Easy victories need to be had, but should not be the only thing present.

19. A backstory is like a sword. Some characters are incomplete without one, and others wouldn't use one even if they had it.

20. A player's backstory isn't your toy to destroy if you want; it's part of their toy. You can threaten their friends, family, or homes, but by the end of the adventure, the players should not feel abused. Use their family as hostages, but expect them to be rescued, and to come home with more than they started with. If you burn down their cottage, they should wind up with a castle. The players should be glad that the backstory was used, not sorry that they had a background.

I usually do not request a backstory from my players - some will deliver it nevertheless, and many view it as inmutable history that is objectively told and some even frown when GMs use parts of it in play.

And while I am fan of characters with history, I prefer if the cool stuff happens in game as opposed in the backstory.

What I usually do is search backstories for adventure/story hooks/plots and plot twists especially. You know how Snape became the heroic character? Well, that can happen in RPGs if the player is able to let go of the backstory.

I read a backstory, check for possible plots and plot twists and ask the player which parts are written from character's perspective and which one from player perspective. Player's perspective is objective (my character hates NPC XYZ) while character's perspective is subjective (my character, ABC, feels like NPC XYZ has been behind all their trouble and wants to repay him the favour).

I do not touch objective parts without discussion, subjective parts are fair game. Rule of thumb: NPCs are usually my domain. If I use part of a backstory as plot twist, it must be foreshadowed and telegraphed, but in the end I must ensure it ends in epic character moment the player will love, not irritation. And while some (most?) people will disagree, if you want an immutable story that goes exactly as you planned it when you created the character, you should learn to code & program yourself a video game.

The objective/subjective discrepancy goes well with my other rule:
I am not PC's heart or brain.

• I will not tell them they like someone or hate someone.
• I will not tell them they run away from someone in fear or to stand bravely when they want to do the former.
• I will not make a decision for them.

I am merely their eyes, their ears, their skin, their hair, their taste buds, their sixth sense and in some cases their memory. I will gladly tell them they feel their hair standing up from residual magic or that their stomach drops when they see the number of attackers.

And their senses may be faulty, manipulated or deceived.

24. The purpose of wandering monsters is to prevent the game from bogging down. If the players spend over five real minutes in useless discussion, then it's ghoul o'clock.

a. Be careful with this. Not all discussion is useless.
b. There should be encounters that have nothing to do with the main quest, or there is no world – just a party and a quest.

Big fan of Chandler's Rule of Ghouls!

When used well, this may be an additional clue, confirmation of their theory, red herring, plot twist, callback to their character backstory/history...

...or they are good tool for ensuring 5-minute adventuring day does not happen. Binds well with rule 9c. If your game has wandering monsters, think well before removing them.

26. When you design a scenario, you should be firmly on the players' side, trying to produce encounters in which they have every legitimate chance to succeed (and that poor play and bad decisions can still let them fail). But when running the scenario, you need to be a fair and neutral judge of the PCs' actions.

Be their best fan, but don't let them know it for sure until the end.

I just wanted to point out that there is no Rule 34 on the list. It just seems like there is a hole there waiting to be filled.

...ooh... I see what you did there

[Drascin]

Heh. I get the feeling you and I run tables very differently and for very different players (for example, not only do I not recognize rule 2, I don't think I've had a player that would be qualified as "backstabbing" since I was fifteen, some seventeen years ago, and I've had a total of like two that might be characterized as "greedy". Hell, in my current group we have exactly one character that even cares about possible rewards at all, people just shrug and use the gold to subsidize the party wizard).

But even so, a good half of these seem very reasonable advice to me. The other half... eeeeeeh, not so much. You and I probably would have a clash of preferences real quick if we were sitting in the same table .

[Cluedrew]

I'm going to reply to some of the highlights and lowlights as hitting them all would take too long. Actually if I didn't say anything about a point it is probably mildly positive.

2. The DM cannot make the PCs more complex than the players do. No matter what the character sheet says, there are usually only three PC alignments – Lawful Snotty, Neutral Greedy, and Chaotic Backstabbing.

I have two problems with this:

• I have seen plenty of "True Character" aligned characters (even ones that clearly/completely fit into one of the 9 alignments).
• What is the actual suggestion here? What is the four-five sentence version of this read like?

5. Never let a player roll a die unless it is reasonable to roll a 20, and reasonable to roll a 1.

a. If there's no way to fail, don't roll. If there's no way to succeed, don't roll.
b. PCs should not roll for common or obvious knowledge. If the world has three moons, then they don't have to roll to remember it. They've lived under that sky all their life; they don't even have the idea of a world with only one moon.
c. If it doesn’t matter, then don’t roll dice; summarize. Rolling dice for mop-up combat is as pointless as rolling dice for tying your shoes.

I like this one, I might say the best roll and worst roll to be generic but it is an idea I liked put very well.

8. A role-playing game is run by rules. But it isn't made out of rules; it's made out of ideas, characters, and imagination.

This one is a nice reminder and it just sounds nice.

9. The more completely you know the rules, the better you can be at ignoring them when necessary.

a. "When necessary" means it should be rare, forced by an unusual situation, and non-intrusive. [And some people believe it should not happen even then.]
b. Applying the rules is like eating food. That should always happen. Ignoring the rules is like taking medicine; it's only a good idea if something is wrong.
c. Never change a rule unless you know why it was written.

I know this is DM rules but I would like to but I have a personal one I would like to add anyways:

d. The most important house rule is your choice of system.

Just as a reminder to everyone who has only ever played D&D, there are other systems out there and they might be what you are looking for.

27. As far as possible, interact with the characters, not the players.

a. The player is asking about the rules. The character is asking about the orcs. Don’t confuse the two.

I don't get this one. Rather I can think of a bunch of things this could mean and I don't know which you are referring to. Could you elaborate?

[Telok]

On the "lawful snotty, neutral greedy, chaotic backstabbing":

1. Add "amoral lol-random stupid".

2. I'm GMing for a play who, with rather impressive moral gymnastics, manages to hit all three at once.