JM1776's page

Do you use this method to inform a certain player about knowledge his or her character would have that others would lack, and let him or her choose to conceal or reveal it? Do you pass notes saying, "This means nothing ... just looking to get everyone a little paranoid"? Do you prepare certain notes so as to be ready when and if such events as you wish to inform but a single player occur in the game? Do you draw a player out of the room for a thirty-second conference on matters his character would know and to which the others would be oblivious?

If so, do your players enjoy this? Are they indifferent? Do they resent it, or even openly challenge its validity as a gaming tool?

What say you?

Did you once employ omniscient, all-competent GMPCs? Were you inflexible once you'd made a ruling and ignore any arguments to the contrary, no matter how reasonable? Did you not prepare for a session and then wing it when you're simply not Mr. Spontaneity?

What bad habits and inclinations have you left behind? How have you improved over the weeks, months, years and in some cases decades as a DM?

In another thread, RDM42 asked:

I just have to wonder how many players there are out there so married to one race or class that they just can't play anything else and enjoy themselves?

I'm being completely serious - is there anyone here who always and only plays one class or one race and nothing else?

I thought it both a bit off topic and an interesting question on its own, so ... here it is.

My answer below.

This is not a rant about self-entitled players ruining/having ruined the game. Instead, I'm curious as to what participants here think players are entitled.

Are players entitled to:

• A game world specifically designed to their specifications, or at least modified to suit their interests and goals?
  
• Play whatever character race or class suits their fancy, even it if doesn't fit thematically, so long as those options are available to all the players?
  
• Realization of their original and/or evolved vision for said character?
  
• Chronic and customary victory, in the sense that the GM tailors encounters so that they will very likely be victorious after what he/she perceives as a hard-fought battle?
  
• Survival (and even prosperity out) of even the most dangerous scenarios?
  
• Rapidity of advancement to more efficacious and (to them, likely) more entertaining levels of power?
  
• Flexibility from the GM to the point of impromptu rules emendations to serve any of the above purposes?
  
• Override the GM via, say, majority vote, and thus to an extent dictate campaign parameters and strictures?
  

I honestly don't think players are entitled to any of these. I do think a number of them are elements a good GM should be providing as a matter of course.

I'm curious to hear your opinions.

Here's a quick baker's dozen:

• Occasionally fudging die rolls, and reserving the right to roll behind a screen while requiring players to roll openly
  
• Employing prominent NPCs/GMPCs
  
• Disallowing (or even placing restrictions of any kind on) full casters
  
• Enforcing alignment in clear and definitive fashion
  
• Imposing an objective morality on paladins, such as disallowing prevarication for selfish gain, torture, baby- (including baby monster) killing and casual sex as inherently evil and/or chaotic
  
• Not providing the "required"/desired magical paraphernalia on schedule
  
• Believing the DM's role is benevolent autocrat rather than either gleeful tyrant or impotent fantasy tour guide
  
• Refusal to permit evil (or even chaotic neutral) PCs
  
• Disallowing classes that violate the campaign's established and specific tone
  
• Laying the smack down, hard, on abusive meta-gaming
  
• Requiring immersive role-play rather than simple recitation of mechanics
  
• Taking control of PCs who refuse to role-play honestly when charmed, dominated, etc.
  
• Retaining control over magical weapons, cohorts, mounts, animal companions, eidolons, etc.

Which of these do you espouse? Which are at least comprehensible to you, even if they're not quite your style? Which do you find abhorrent? Which of you think I should be found, shorn, tarred, feathered and run out of town? (Note that last may have nothing to do with this thread, but feel free to make your feelings known.)

... if a DM said to you, "OK, I'm not at all fond of meta-gaming ... and to me that includes dredging applicable fora for advice on your character's and/or party's predicament/situation between sessions. To me, it's tantamount to cheating, and you're on your honor not to do it"?

Would you:

• Agree, and follow his instructions
  
• Disagree, either respectfully or otherwise, but nevertheless follow his instructions
  
• Tell him you think his directive to be out of bounds and do as you like
  
• Say, "I understand," and hope he doesn't notice that you didn't agree to get on board
  
• Find a new game because he or she is a control freak jerk-wad
  
• Agree wholeheartedly, and then do as you like behind his or her back—i.e., lie your ass off
  

I'm wholly opposed to DMs saying, "Hey, we need a healer; play a cleric." To me, that's complete BS. Lack of balance on the party's part does not constitute sufficient reason for someone to play a class he or she despises.

I'm largely opposed to DMs saying, "Look, the party is martial heavy, and we could really, really use a full caster. Why don't you play a [insert one of those]? I'll let you do as you like but ... take one for the team, will you?" Same reasoning as above, and in my opinion a DM applying pressure inappropriately.

I'm slightly opposed to DMs saying, "Hey, the party consists of a fighter, barbarian, ranger, bard, and rogue. Does anything besides those appeal to you?" If I have my heart set on playing a barbarian, there's plenty of opportunity for role-playing as the Conan-come-lately. In my opinion, a DM with imagination should simply adjust his or her thinking to accommodate the newcomer.

From where I sit (behind the screen), a new player should know nothing about party composition, because it's meta-gaming. They should instead be allowed to conceptualize in a relative vacuum, creating and fleshing out a concept regardless of the established group's complement. The only exceptions that spring to mind are:

• A character whose concept is diametrically opposed to the majority's make-up; i.e., forbid or strongly discourage a paladin in a group that consists of an evil cleric, wizard and anti-paladin
  
• A player who's truly OK with playing whatever

I think synergy and cooperation should come into play only after players have made their role-play choices. Otherwise, it's an unfair and unnecessary compromise.

Opinions?

"He is risen!" :-)

What I mean is this: You felt, years or even decades ago, that there was a lack/weakness in the game, and came up with a fix/house rule you felt improved play. Then, a later version of said game incorporated your very change as canonical.

In other words, which of the innovations you arrived at independently later found their way into D&D?

I myself, for example, came up with (among numerous others):

• Dead at negative constitution rather than -10 (this one more than 25 years ago)
  
• Specific combat styles that afforded situational bonuses
  

How about you?

... I'm curious: From what I understand, playing through one will get a 1st level character all the way through to 20th. How much gaming time, on the average, does this require from they players? In addition, how much time passes for the characters within the setting itself? Are these level advancements taking decades ... years ... months ... ?

GMs, how carefully do you screen players joining your group? Is there a pre-game interview? Are they on probation for a time after acceptance? Will you excise someone who's otherwise a great player and good person, but has a personality conflict with you or a long-standing player? Have you expelled someone from your game? If so, why?

Players, do you join any game with the idea that "it could be fun," or are you choosier, looking instead for a group and play style that meshes well with your own, and people that you like outside of the gaming environment? Do you pack it in for minor reasons, or would it take an act of God (or the DM) to get you out once you're in?

What I mean is this: When playing a game such as Pathfinder, are you more concerned with possessing a myriad of abilities such as high-level spells, eidolon or other creature summoning, multiple attacks, smites, etc., no matter what others around you may have—even if many of them are more powerful than you?

Alternately, do you prefer games in which you're acknowledged as an elite combatant/caster/creator, head, shoulders and chest above most of those around you, even though you're 5th level and most of them are 2nd?

Is it more important to be a complete bad-ass, or just be badder than most everyone else?

I've read a number of comments, in various threads both here and in other fora, with a common theme, implying if not explicitly stating that a DM's responsibility is to facilitate fun for the players—even if such requires that he or she has little to none of his or her own.

Is that the prevailing sentiment in the modern game? It seems to me that running a campaign the primary characteristics of which you cannot stand simply because the players are delighted makes impossible the old standard, "A good time was had by all."

As an example: Evil-dominated and/or triumphant campaigns. I cannot abide such, and would never oversee one. Does that make me unreasonable, if the players as one wish to "take a dip in the deep-raved end," as it were?

I've always found the best method of deciding on a campaign is to present the players with a handful of possibilities—say, five or six, of which a couple they themselves contribute—and letting them narrow it down to a few, then making the final selection from those three. This way, everyone's involved with the decision-making process.

Opinions?

Are there specific ones or even entire sections that you simply dispense with because you find them ponderous, convoluted, detrimental to flow, nonsensical, irritating or just effin' stupid? Do you rewrite, hand-wave, rule ad hoc, or ignore?

Please don't attack others' comments. Simply list those YOU dislike and why.

Feel free to give a one-line summary or provide something extensive and in-depth, as amuses you.

I read regularly here that the occurrence is at the very least not to be encouraged, and that other DMs have even gone so far as to expressly forbid it. I understand the impulse, as well as the reasoning behind it.

But is this not, without question, a removal of arguably vital player volition? It's one thing to say, "Hey ... your character is a 6th level samurai in service to Lord Yakashimi. You are a licensed board-certified surgeon. Your character does not know how to diagnose and subsequently removed a damaged spleen." That's ridiculously inappropriate meta-gaming, and we all know it.

But, on the other hand, if players have made clear that their characters' mutual dislike is completely unrelated to their real-world relationship (and are mature enough to handle with graciousness any fallout), they've been on a collision course for some time, and/or come to blows (whether literal or figurative) over something fundamentally insoluble due to their philosophical differences or conflicting objectives—they can't both marry the same (wo)man, to use a simplistic example—is it truly never appropriate to let them resolve the issue between them?

One of the most interesting events in the long history of my wholly self-created home-brew (vis-à-vis the quasi-historical one I usually mention here) involved a neutral (good) drow ranger/druid of Solonor Thelandira, whose acquisition of a certain magical item had put him on the road towards evil. His comrade-at-arms, a lawful good dwarven paladin/cleric of Moradin, had watched with dismay this close friend lose his way over the months, and finally confronted him in specific circumstances that required one of them to give way ... or a duel to the death would ensue.

Neither would back down.

I took them aside, and said something to the effect of, "You understand that if you two decide to take this the next step, I shall referee the combat with complete objectivity. If one of you manages to incapacitate the other, and then chooses to deliver the death blow, well, you both know that people don't usually return to life in my games ... and neither of your characters is an itinerant carpenter from Nazareth, so don't count on my largess."

The players were having a blast just discussing it.

"No, we know! We understand!"

"Gentlemen ... my name is Pontius Pilate."

Noah nodded, and said to Tim, "He washes his hands of the whole thing."

The battle was memorable, fought with courage and cleverness on both sides; the rest of the players rallied around one or the other, shouting encouragement throughout. It proved to be one of the most exciting and noteworthy events in that particular campaign.

During and in the aftermath, the entire group, myself included, discussed what had happened with the excitement and enthusiasm of eight-year-old boys watching a Godzilla film festival.

None of it would have occurred if I'd simply put my foot down and said, "No player vs. player, ever."

As a matter of practicality, from a DM's perspective, I'd not subsequently allow a single player to then decide on leaving a trail of others' characters in his or her wake, constantly saying, "We have a difference of opinion we cannot resolve. I want to roll for initiative." But in this circumstance, both players portrayed their respective characters with the utmost seriousness, and insisted to me, "Joe, this is what would happen!"

(Of course, I myself had played the drow's sword for over a year, whispering poison into the PC's ear. He'd early on decided that, rather than ignoring it [which I would have allowed], he'd give it heed, and played his descent into paranoia and near-malevolence with all the skill of a trained thespian.)

The choices by all were in-character, and well-motivated.

I have not an instant of regret in having let their friendship run its course. If I hadn't, I wager none of us would remember that game the way we do.

Would this always be appropriate? Of course not. But saying, "No, never," is to me too autocratic and arbitrary.

Opinions?

Do you:

• Pore through various core and splat books to create a devastatingly optimized build and then assemble a back story that compliments your mechanized ideal?
  
• Envision a character, then search high and low for the rules sets that will allow you to bring him or her to vibrant life?
  
• Just roll some dice then roll with what comes up, going with the flow and letting a personality form as a result of play?
  
• Allow a DM to assign you a character?
  
• Employ some other method I didn't mention?

I tend to go with two, myself.

Now don't get me wrong: I think this is an incredibly crappy thing to do in most circumstances. I had occasion to do so once, over 25 years ago, and without much justification at all other than my intense dislike of the character and a desire to have the player return to portraying his old one. It was wrong, as well as an extreme abuse of my power as DM; I eventually copped to it and apologized perhaps a few months to a year later.

Any of you done so? What were the circumstances?

Confession is good for the soul!

What's the justification for giving this class a d10 for accumulated hit points? It seems to me that the others that possess (or exceed) it—fighters, rangers, paladins, cavaliers, barbarians et al.—are all classes whose practice with non-firearms and other aspects of purely physical training and exertion would greatly surpass that of a gunslinger. I don't mean to be excessively flippant, but ... pulling a trigger ain't that freakin' tough. Would not a d8 perhaps be more appropriate?

... I hope you have a Happy Easter!

It seems to me there's a broad spectrum of opinion on this subject, covering a veritable gantlet of interpretation:

• "I just happen to be sitting behind the screen and/or in front of the printed text, but cannot make or even necessarily enforce policy ... and if the weight of opinion on a certain matter is largely against me (even if it's just 51-49%), I adjust my thinking until the majority is content, or in many cases let them hash it out themselves; arguably, I'm essentially an adventure tour guide, with virtually no actual power of decision" (1)

• "It's my job to present the scenario and describe the situation, then implement the RAW as impartially as I may (moderated by whatever house rules, if any, are in place)—remembering always that I have little real authority other than to initially interpret those rules ... and have, regrettably, the final say after lively debate because someone has to do it, and I happen to be in that position today; I'm really just a primus inter pares—a tiebreaker/speaker of the house, if you would" (3)

• "I make decisions as necessary and desired, but remain out of play's way if possible; I settle disputes and interpret the rules; I smooth ruffled feathers and clarify uncertainty, but otherwise do my level best to be noticed only as the narrator and voice of NPCs; in short, I'm the referee" (5)

• "DM is an initialism for dominus maximus, and while I'm certainly happy (or at least content) to listen if players disagree with one of my rulings, my word when I've given it is final, even if it seems to somehow subtly subvert (or not so subtly set at relative naught) RAW and/or house alterations; I'm the judge, (or even the constitutional monarch), with broad but still finite latitude to act as I've deemed just and best" (7)

• "I'm Trelane: 'It's my game, and my rules'; I may alter them at my will or even whim, and my power is absolute should I choose to wield it; I may rule summarily via fiat, overturn any statute of the game no matter how fundamental, fudge or re-roll dice to my black heart's content, end any challenge or discussion on a matter of contention with a word (or even, if players know what's good for them, a glare), and generally reshape the cosmos as pleases me nanosecond to nanosecond; deal with it ... and best you do so with groveling, libations and other sacrifice" (9)
  

While I'm sure there are gradations between (and even before or beyond) these five broad categories, I'm just curious as to what the contemporary player not only expects, but thinks is proper.

Note the bracketed numerals following each description. If you can when responding, give me one of your own that represents where along the spectrum you come down—i.e., if you think a DM should act similarly to what I described above as "a tour guide," you'd write, "1" ... and if instead you prefer what I've labeled "referee," but perhaps a little stricter and more authoritative, you'd write "6"—along with any observations and comments you think topical. (I'd find either 0.x or 9.x truly frightening, to be honest.)

I look forward to reading your various takes.

We all have one ... or more. You know, the ones you listen to when no one else is around, for fear of relentless razzing if the truth were revealed.

Leif Garrett, "I Was Made for Dancing"

Shut up.

Next?

Does anyone employ one or more (such as those supplied with Conan and/or Iron Heroes) in their D&D/Pathfinder game, rather than using the material provided? Have you instead extensively house-ruled the 3.5/3.75 framework into something of which you now approve, or at least better tolerate?

If so, why did you choose to go that direction? Does Vancian magic make you cringe? Are D&D casters too powerful/not powerful enough for your liking? Did you and/or your players simply prefer a system better suited to your style?

Lastly, how are your decisions working out? Is your campaign a popular and engrossing one? Do players complain about spell-casters having been nerfed/buffed?

I'm making no judgments here. Having been out of the game-mastering loop for quite some time, I'm just curious as to why some of my peers made the decisions they did, and whether one of these other possibilities might appeal to me.

Note that if you're satisfied with what's been provided by 3.5/3.75, there's no need to post either in their defense, or to inform me/anyone else that they should be using another game if this one's magic system doesn't suit. I'm not looking to engage in a debate over subjective takes on 'superiority', 'realism' or the proper level of magic in a campaign. This is simple information gathering.

Thanks in advance to all who participate.

I've been for all intents and purposes off this train for a long time: I played and DM'd extensively from 1982 until just before the onset of 3rd Edition, and only a handful of times since. Thus, I'll ask the gallery's indulgence if my inquiry seems a little ignorant.

The Pathfinder Core Rulebook states, on page 63, "At 17th level, a paladin gains DR 5/evil," and then a few lines later, adds, "At 20th level ... DR increases to 10/evil." Am I reading this correctly? I infer from the above that the paladin receives damage reduction against physical attacks from all sources—that is, except the one against which it would most benefit him or her. Would it not make more sense for a paladin to have damage reduction against evil only? Was it decided that such was somehow detrimental to game balance? I'm really having trouble wrapping my mind around the idea that a devil would find it easier to hurt a high-level paladin than would, say, a couatl. [Of course, I'm sufficiently old school to still be irritated paladins no longer radiate Protection from Evil, so ...]