gamegrene.com

"To a Gamemaster, there are two adventures in every session: The expected, and the unexpected. "

The first (the expected) ends the moment your players start talking and making choices. In my experience the "expected" part of the game means: "I expected the bastards to do... but instead they...."

So now, I expect them to surprise me and I create non-linear adventure where all that is prepared are locations, character profiles and some not so random encounters. The rest is all improvised on the fly and many rules get bent in the process because I don't know all the rules by heart yet.

The best GM's are those who can whip up the illusion of a cohesive adventure out of the chaos the players create out of what he/she "expected".

The gamebinder is a great tool. I will soon have to buy a palm for my job, guess what secondary use that little gizmo will serve?

Nice article by the way.

oh, BTW, I liked the analogy with the ghost :)

Sorry, I do mean gm. Not writer.
I must have done a froidian slip. I want to be a writer, artist, musician... but I'm not good at any of them (yet).
I wanted to ask Gamegrene writers if they had any organizing tips. Maybe if there is organizing computer programs or something.

Sorry for not responding right away, long weekend fro me.

God is in the details.

More players get a tangible taste of a locale through a simple throwaway line about what the weather is like (strangely GM's forget it), than they do in 5 pages of backstory that the players will never see. What season is it? Are there festivals? It's nice to do this because it gives a bit of local flavour for a campaign, and makes these places come alive. So much of the game is spent in the dungeon battling demons, it's nice to contrast the horror against the light, so players understand what they are fighting for.

I like to keep a list of NPCs too, and what they are like. If the party met Grillo the Skillet at the Saucy Wench Inn last time, I'd like to have him cooking his victuals there next time, with maybe a different story to tell.

Actually I use somewhat the same restrictions as Nephandus except I (underline the I) select what is taken from each book I allow (usually only the class books and the specific campaign books. No Ravenloft outside Ravenloft, same goes for Greyhawk, FR and Sword and Sorcery.

I don't allow the classbooks anymore. Kaput!

-I don't think they are balanced, either with monsters or with players who don't use class books
-they requiremore cross referencing, so I have to trade pace for choice
-there are already more combo choices in the core books already than we will ever be able to play
-nobody buys all the class books, so those who buy more end up getting advantages over those who don't
-nobody reads all the books, and if you do, it's way more rules than you need to know to play the game

I like to keep it simple. I'd rather everyone bought their own Greyhawk or FR supplement to help them get to know the setting, rather than wasting money on 'extra rules' in classbooks. I find players to be very tedious when they close the PH after the first enthusiastic read, using it only as a guide of what *not* to play.

My players have always had a range of investment in the game - both in time and money. I enjoy having a mix of people who are and who aren't familiar (actually, I prefer people who have little nostalgiac investment in previous editions - few arguments as people try to invoke outdated rules and habits).

As such, certain gung ho players are always more apt to be first to ask for the "extra books", to discover more options. In the past, when I've allowed them, the new abilities were at best grudgingly accepted by the other players, who were challenged enough just learning the core rules. In practice, despite the fact that the books were available to anyone for borrowing, most players agreed that we should all be playing the SAME game, and -especially for character generation - we should all have equal and simultaneous access to those rules. Loaning books out didn't cut it, and requiring people to buy them didn't cut it either.

As a DM, I want the fewest rules possible to make the game work, but I need them to be comprehensive enough to make it easy to rule on disputes. Extra books - filled with semi-playtested (if, at all) rules, grafted onto a meticulously crafted and sleek core system - it just isn't my bag. I don't have faith in them, and more importantly - I don't need them.

Are some of those mechanics good? I'll warrant that some may well be an improvement - but what do we have to trade to get to those nuggets? Cross-referencing, table searching, and rules arguments are a pace killer, and are more about redefining how to play a game, rather than actually just getting on with the playing.

I'd rather spend my precious finite time on a finely crafting a campaign, NPCs and adventures than spending it on learning extraneous mechanics. Seriously, they could go on ad finitum (and their business model says they will), grafting on new rules. At what point are you ready to say enough - we are happy with the game we've got?

What I want to see isn't extra rules. I want to see a quantum leap in the quality of materials for the adventures and settings themselves. I'd love to see campaigns that set adventures in sequential campaigns, starting small and ending big. I'd love to see 3 maps and illustrations in photrealistic quality. Remember the Tomb of Horrors? The gaming tokens are a great start. Let's see more of that kind of thinking. An initative tracker, modular player maps built to scale, displaying furniture and with the "secret parts" blotted out - anything that greases the pace by dropping downtime. Hell, even platicene molds to make Play-doh rats and kobolds, sold with the module they come with.

The problem is that they envision themselves as a publishing company, and not a gaming company. When 3e came out, they made a great deal about the philosophical idea of ripping out and deleting all the extra stuff and making the core stuff work better. My suggestions are right in line with that thinking.

Of course, new business pressures exist now - forcing them to publish more. The thing is, as a player and consumer, my duty is not to support WOTC and Hasbro; I'm here to play and to be entertained. It is their duty to support me in that endeavor. At the moment, I think they are supporting only collectors. I understand why they are pushing all this extra stuff, but that doesn't mean it helps me play better. On the contrary, I think it makes the game less fun, in the big picture.

But, as you say, each to their own.

Consistency is important, I think, but not quite as important as most GMs make it out to be. Nearly every inconsistency is recoverable, if the GM thinks quickly on his feet. For example, a dead NPC could be raised from the dead or been "mistakenly" determined to be dead. Spells can have variations or mitigating factors; weapons do different amount of damage based on the user's skill or lack of skill or some variation in the weapon manufacture. Wounds can appear very bad but later determined to have missed vital arteries. Most players will swallow quite a bit this nonsense, not even realizing that the GM made a mistake.

But, no doubt, binders and attempting to be consistent is very important. A game binder is certainly a good idea but your style will dictate whether it is large or small and what kinds of things you might have in it (although other comments have certainly provided good ideas). But a very consistent game does not necessarily mean a very enjoyable game.

I also think that many GMs over-emphasize providing uniform rules and approved books. An unorthodox alternative is to allow everything and just deal with the really heinous (or annoying) situations on a case-by-case basis. Lots of players have been GMs before; they will often police themselves. Players who have no sense of balance or are munchkins usually quit the game in a few sessions, anyway. Villains who are destroyed can easily be replaced and so on, too, if the munchkin disturbs the game. Again, it may not be for everybody but, generally, if players are told to use their own judgement, nothing bad usually happens. (Of course, a GM does give up some degree of control. He may not be pleased that some hither-to unknown class suddenly appears in his game and it is a little scary. But, a lot of times, these are false alarms. The unbalanced-looking rule may be unbalanced but doesn't cause much trouble because, often, individual PCs don't have as much power and influence compared with what the NPCs are doing, what the other PCs are doing and what the larger forces in your campaign world are causing.)

Hmm, good points. I am only saying, "There is an alternative which may or may not work for you." That is, I'd caution GMs not assume that there will be a problem and leap into creating a solution.

In my case, my campaign seems to avoid problems without using the solutions mentioned.

Perhaps I've been fortunate. Nearly every player that I've played with recently has said, "I don't want to be a rules lawyer but here's such and such rule. I just wanted to point it out to you. But you are the GM and your word is law so if you don't agree, please ignore me." And, I usually reply either, "Let's try it out and, if we have balance problems, I'll let you know" or "I tried it before and I don't think that it is a good rule." If the player insists even though they can tell that I don't like the rule, I say, "Ok, go ahead." And, usually, after a session or two, they say, "This feels like cheating. I'm going to change back." It seems that, by making rules lawyering and cheating easy, nobody wants to do it. They seem to want to feel like they are getting away with something. And, when people first join, they tend to be quiet and, when they see that nobody else is rules lawyering, they feel self-conscious about doing so.

When munchkins come to the game, they show up for a session or two and then leave voluntarily without being asked. If a person is a munchkin, it is a real drag to play with non-munchkins. Once again, easily getting away with the behavior seems to make the behavior much less fun.

Maybe, as a GM, I'm a bit crazy. Forget about approved books, I don't even have an approved edition; I let players use whatever edition of the game that they want. When PCs arrive at a door and try to open it, some roll d20s (2nd Ed. AD&D) and some roll d6s (1st Ed. AD&D). If the roll succeeds according to the corresponding edition, the door is opened. So far, it hasn't harmed the game which is finishing up its 2nd year.

To new players, I try to stress that I have limited time: I can spend time improving plots/action or I can spend time organizing/approving/debating rules. I'd rather make the game good and let each player patrol himself. Dealing with a few troublesome rules after the fact is a good trade for the time that I save.

But, then again, maybe I've just been lucky.

I can really imagine those scenarios occurring. I don't know why they do not occur in my group.

I can only offer a few more details and hope that we can figure out why I have not needed the same solutions.

In general, I do emphasize that players should not concern themselves with other players particularly. If some other player "cheats", it helps the party, right? I ask. What does it matter to you if so-and-so does this or that? The point, I continue, is for the party to work together, not compete against one another. Don't look at it as "so-and-so did this" but as "here's my PC; what am I going to do?"

Some players do spend a lot of time on tactics. Tactics are still possible, although they often are common sense tactics than rules-based tactics. Many things can still be counted on. For example, a PC with great strength will more likely open a stuck door than a weak PC, even if rules from editions are different for each PC.

Could you give me a tactic that requires precise rules and that you want to encourage in the game? (I add the "you want to encourage" clause because tactics that rely on precise rules can involve heady calculations and protractors which are not exactly desirable in a game.) If I'm inhibitting my players by allowing lots of rules flexibility, I'd like to know.

I have to say that I've drifted more and more towards Nephandus' point of view over the years. As DM, I'll use any and all of the books that I own. However I tend to limit my players to the core books. I've spent to much time over the years with players asking if they can play x class from y book that can only be found at z store on the continent of Atlantis between the hours of midnight and one am on nights of the full moon when the wind blows from the south.

Dmhoward: If some other player "cheats", it helps the party, right? I ask. What does it matter to you if so-and-so does this or that? The point, I continue, is for the party to work together, not compete against one another.

Nephandus: I see the benefit of taking the wide-view on this, but perhaps I take wider view than is immediately apparent. Whenever a player exploits a cheat or a loophole to gain an advantage, rather than applying his tactical skill toward the scenario – using what is available to him, that it cheapens the victory for everyone (just as if a DM blatantly fudged or revoked a roll). It stamps a giant asterisk and fine print beside everything we do as a group. As with any game, does the pleasure of playing it come from simulating the end condition or appearance of a victory such as a puck in the net, a dead ogre, checkmate, no matter how it is achieved? Or does more pleasure come from the process of testing one’s self or one’s team against a challenge, even if one loses?

But the point you made above is a valid one, shared by many players including me to some extent. Most players want to have a special and unique contribution in a group, with an equal and valuable contribution. This is what teamwork in the game is to me. When some players are afforded more choices or advantages than others, I find that it upsets the team dynamic, causing some players to play second fiddle. Asking someone not to be upset about this is as futile as asking them not to laugh at a funny joke. It is how they feel.

Also, when two newbies joined our experienced group, they became frustrated because “fast and loose” rules style affords even more advantages on the experienced players. As she put it, it can be fun to cheat at a game of Euchre, but only if everyone is cheating and having a good time with it. If you are a new person learning the game, it’s frustrating because really – nobody is actually playing Euchre – they are playing another meta-game that has the appearance of Euchre. Really, the enjoyment of the new activity or game is to get away with as much as you can carry without being caught, and that isn’t fair to a new player. Nor is it fair to those who are investing a lot of time into playing it “straight”

Dmhoward: Some players do spend a lot of time on tactics. Tactics are still possible, although they often are common sense tactics than rules-based tactics. Many things can still be counted on. For example, a PC with great strength will more likely open a stuck door than a weak PC, even if rules from editions are different for each PC. Could you give me a tactic that requires precise rules and that you want to encourage in the game?

Nephandus:
I believe the game mechanics should have some approximation of the story elements it is attempting to represent. In your example, the stronger person should be able to open the door. Or the larger creature should have a longer reach than the smaller one.

The level of detail or “realism” used in that approximation should be mitigated by factors of playability. While in 3e, they explored heady calculations for firing missiles into melee, they ultimately chose a simpler, faster penalty to represent the difficulty they wanted to acknowledge, knowing that gamestopping calculations were not appropriate for the context in which it would be used. Even if mechanics have a tenuous relationship to the real world equivalents (ie hit points), the mechanics themselves should have a strong and consistent relationship to each other. For example, in 3e the game mechanic for avoiding a dragons’ fire is consistently one single rule. In the older method, arguments could be made for Save vs dragon breath, roll under your reflex, and even some others, with wildly different results. The new and simpler fireballs we found work better, and help us avoid breaking out calculators to perform volumetric measurements of spherical and unusual spaces at a time when our story goal is a flash-bang resolution.

Character advancement in D&D rewards achievement through incremental improvements in abilities. These improvements vary wildly between editions of the game. If you value the idea of character advancement at all, then it should be important to make such advancements less arbitrary, with all characters moving up by the same scale.

As for tactics with precise rules, we’ve already addressed saving throws (which help a player weigh the risk of a situation against her characters abilities.) I can think of tactics that might involve swimming, bull rushing, intercepting someone who is trying to get past you, disarming, fighting defensively for oneself, or for another, non-lethal combat, using cover, elevation, available space, cooperating to divide an opponent’s attention, surprise and many, many more situations, in an infinite number of combinations. Without consistency in the base elements and actions, players have no reasonable way to anticipate how their decisions will affect the tactical scenario, especially since most game actions (in previous editions and new ones) don’t bear a direct correlation to how similar actions would be performed in real life. Players can’t play to their strengths if it all is basically up to the whimsy of the DM.

Dmhoward: (I add the "you want to encourage" clause because tactics that rely on precise rules can involve heady calculations and protractors which are not exactly desirable in a game.) If I'm inhibitting my players by allowing lots of rules flexibility, I'd like to know.

Neph: You and your players are the best judge of the activity you are doing, and whether it meets the needs your entertainment needs. A strong argument could be made that you’ve really transcended the game itself and you are now doing a form of moderated group storytelling. Many “gamers” regard this as a more challenging and more laudable activity. If this is your goal, then I would never characterize your style as an inhibition.

But I do submit that you are not playing a game, though it may have the appearance and semblance of one. At best, might say that each of you is playing a different game – like a combination football, soccer, and lacrosse. Many of the elements are similar enough that they might make some sense to a casual observer or even to the teams, providing a ref was arbitrating every play, throw, tackle, kick, hand-off, check, off-side, kick-off, goal, in real time, letting the players know who won each conflict, because they’d never be able to make sense of it on their own. Good mechanics make sense in context – consistency in results.

Precise rules needn’t rely on lengthy calculations, at all, as the 3rd edition proved. In fact, 3e is much more streamlined on the calculations during combat than any previous edition. Precise rules are just that – specific language about what you can and can’t do, so you can spend more time on developing a lush setting and characterizing your character’s actions, and much less time with the calculator, while still having a result that is much less arbitrary and ruled by the DM’s whimsy.

Nor do precise rules mean that characters should feel “boxed in” in terms of actions they take. A comprehensive rule set such as 3e allows players quite a wide latitude of actions, while removing some of the whimsical adjudication power of those actions from the DM.

More consistent rules = less arbitrariness and DM judgement calls, which means more opportunity for a player to exert influence through his character, to participate in the action. In essence, players get better control over their character.

DMs can spend more time preparing the story and the setting. Fewer hours wasted on negotiation how to play instead of actually engaging the scenario.

Just to reiterate, it *can* upset the team dynamic but it may not. (In my group, since players know that they can exploit loopholes at any time, they seem to make a great effort to behave responsibly and avoid doing it.)

Your mileage may vary.

Nepahandus you wrote:
"But I'd stress overall that rules consistency and game logic are only important if you are playing a game. If you are doing an improv or group storytelling session, they may well get in the way of the most desirable dramatic results - which perhaps are best when they come from a moderator."

Yes exactly. But who's to say that you can't do both? I mean a normal game will oscillate between the two right? So why not permit lotsa stuff that only has cosmetic effects on game mechanics (especially combat) but makes the storytelling sooooo much better? So what if your elven prince is ageless it won't have any impact on the game "effects", except maybe age inducing magic but it will add depth to the character. What if the DM decides all elves have 5 ranks in perform and elven history? What if all dwarves have 5 ranks in 1 craft skill? What if all characters have Knowledge Local (home region) as a class skill? Will it really change the game other than colour it a bit more?

Quirks and hobbies should be part of the game.

Your fortune teller analogy reminds me of a nice piece of roleplaying dimension I added to one of my characters. The guy carried around a Tarot Deck made of Magic the Gathering Cards. Every so often I'd check if we had the Gods' blessing in doing such and such. It got really weird when the actual players wanted me to consult the cards before some decisions were taken. It eventually made my character into a menace for the other players' superiors who were starting to see me as way too influencial on their underlings and ordered me eliminated... but it was nice while it lasted.

Instead of extra XP's I sometimes give free ranks in certain skills to my PC's it tends to keep a better ballance between the players and make the rewards more linked to the actions that produced them.

Chaos be with you.

Really, there are two approaches. The most popular one is "nothing is allowed except what is spelled out in my house rules (or core rules or whatever)." The other is "everything is allowed from any source except what is explicitly forbidden by house rules (because, at some point, it was tried and caused a problem)." I've had good experience with the latter version and less success (but longer experience) with the former one.

Whoops! Or rather, you haven't had consistent D&D rules until everyone was using core 3e rules, in my opinion.

Not that this next bit applies to you, but it is an interesting difficulty I noted for some people with the 3e. Our old DM was very steeped in the dogma of the first editions - and it made it very difficult for him. Because they were incomplete, he was forced to improvise any "curves" in the tactical scenarios - which he did readily (actually, I think it was a point of pride). Players could also entreat him for "extra special" attacks, which he would dispense at his leisure.

By applying his discretion so generously to the tactical scenario - for both his own NPC actions and for the PC actions, he was able to manage an appearance of close calls, while assuring the story turned out the way he wanted it to turn out.

The switch to 3e made it incredibly difficult for him because most of the "curves" he'd offered previously at his leisure (ie effectively cleave, bull rush etc), were now codified, balanced, and playtested in the rules, for everyone to use, rather than just him. There were more tactical parameters in play now, and less to negotiate and beg for (it is rude to beg for an ability you haven't paid for). When players began using the equal playing field in fights, his lack of tactical knowledge and preparation was very apparent. Where formerly he'd have managed the outcomes of these scenarios by forcing a discretional story outcome, players were now asking that he roll the dice - just as they had to, and that they get to use the abilities that they'd paid for in character creation. He ignored the new tactical considerations in favour of the old "attritional clash" model where combatants just stand and slug each other and his combatants were found wanting.

As a specific example (though virtually any combat can work), his monk villain chose to fight a climactic battle in the middle of a room, rather than on a narrow staircase which would have given him the advantages of 1 on 1 fighting, elevation, balance, jumping, tumbling, and would have prevented yours truly from inflicting a devastating flanking sneak attack. His Big Bad was down in 2 rds, with nary a point taken from anyone else. It wasn't our genius - it was his poor tactical sense and planning - which is heightened in the new game.

If you'd ask him, even today, he'd blame the lack of challenge in that encounter on the fetters of the "too specific" rules, which deprived him of the discretionary authorship he felt he needed to manage the story to a pleasant outcome. The level of his manipulation on the plot was never apparent until the 3e highlighted it so starkly. Whatever he was doing, which felt OK before, felt like bad gamesmanship in the new game.

As the 11:45 poster above indicated - we wanted BOTH game and story, and his manipulation just felt like cheating, like the "game" portion simply didn't exist even though he felt he was doing it for our benefit.

PC death was also interesting under his style. One player who left complained that nobody could die. I also encouraged the DM to kill - but because he knew only he decided the outcomes of these things, the activity was too personal for him. Overall players preferred my DMing style and that of another DM in our group. The games were more fun, with personal sniping non-existant, because the when bad things happened in the game, they were not personal.

It's interesting (to me). It's rare to get such diametrically opposite styles in the same group, with such an articulate group overall. It certainly made for a good learning experience (though I'd have traded it for fun any day).