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most gms i have seen on these boards have seemed to have grown pretty darn soft on thier players.
i have read and heard calls on many things that seem to show that GM's are becoming softer
i have seen ideas on these boards (other boards too) such as
no sundering
no stealing the wizard's spellbook,
no scenarios where the pcs are in prison cells without any equipment,
no sending excessively high CR opponents after the party,
no attacking resting pcs, no wandering monsters,
no city weapon restriction scenarios,
no tracking of encumbrance and supplies,
conveniently open magic marts everywhere
no circumstance bonuses or penalties of any kind such as higher prices for people that a particular npc salesman doesn't like or bonuses to influence people who like what they heard about you.
no henchmen or cohorts at all, and a complete banning of the leadership feat. i beleive a high level pc with amazing charisma should be able to pick up henchmen and potential cohorts
when a player does get an npc ally to thier name, whether it be animal companion, mount, pack mule, familiar, cohort or eidolon, control is passed on to the commanding pc who will treat these guys as mindless automatons. i beleive a GM should be in charge of these guys or at least have a say as should the player in question, and a middleground must be found.
clerics get to ask thier gods for whatever spells they want now. it used to be based on whatever spells the GM felt like giving you at the time.
point buy, your stats used to be left up to the dice
and
unlimited downtime.
my saturday gm tends to do most of things i mentioned that today's gms are too soft to do.
i'm not an old school Eurocentric first edition Grognard GM but i have played pathfinder games under one on saturdays. there are very few things on this list he conforms to, such as point buy, complete player control of npc "pets" and freeform cleric spell selection,
but he does track encumbrance/supplies like a hawk, he forces rolls of various kinds to even aqcuire a magic item from a magic mart substitute.
he applies penalties for npc racism or dislike and applies minor bonuses for positive standings
he limits downtime and occasionally sunders gear, he steals spellbooks and has locked up pcs in prison without any gear at all before, he has even sent high cr monsters against the party and ambushed thier camp with wandering monsters, major cities tend to restrict what weapons one may carry and require registration and license for each weapon.
he still doesn't allow cohorts and henchmen except as npcs controlled by the GM.
he is also the kind of guy that would send a pack of 24 4HD wolves against a first level party. at the same time too.
does anyone else also feel like that the GM's are getting softer?
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Yes but then I am a strong believer in killing them all and letting Pharasma sort them out. :)
Though joking aside, I am not so much sure it is GM's getting softer so much as the hobby has expanded beyond it's war gaming roots. Which focused on things being exceptionally hard. So early on you seen more people that enjoy that playing as that was the early focus. As the game has evolved and more games came out, to suit more play styles. You have more types of GM's.
So I don't think it is so much people get soft as, the game just caters to a much wider group of playing styles. Trust me, I'm a succubus. :)
another observation about the guy
he also creates special terrain that just screws people's concepts over. far worse stuff than Disgaea Geo Tiles. try evil mansions connected to that maelstrom that over enough exposure can totally rewrite your character once shaped by other beings. my swordsage's home monastery was formed out of a castle originally owned by the same lamashtu worshipping nobles who owned the mansion that rewrote her as an inquisitor. she had to make a will save to stay lawful neutral as Zon-Kuthon and Lamashtu were fighting over who got to mold her to thier whims. Zon-Kuthon had won the struggle. but Lamashtu could have molded anyone she desired in that plane. he also has never used featureless plains in the entire time i knew him. 55% of the time, there is enough cover to screw over archers and effectively turn rogues into shadowdancers. try being an archer when precise shot only reduces your -12 into a -8 and rogues suddenly gain enough consistent concealment to hide as well as massive stealth bonuses. and few people in the group dare to consider playing rogues with such frequently appearant terrain. and said terrain is also difficult terrain, which screws charging and hit/run builds, as well as many terrain based spells.
there are also many things he is willing to include that most GM's just won't touch. his Fiat can counter any cheese. i didn't like it at first but can now tolerate it.
It depends on what you want out of your Wednesday or whatever night.
I personally think that it is due to the fact that GM's are getting BETTER at the "game".
It used to be "the players live in my world and experience my story".
Now it is more along the lines of "I provide the backdrop of telling a really interesting story that the players live through."
There is still the the draconian GM syndrome out there. There are still some control freaks who are worried about "are the players cheating?" which is basically they have gotten the better of that person's ego. They set up the rules in PF for a reason-make it easy to play so more people will want to play the game.
Not trying to be confrontational, but I have been a player in enough games to now when a GM is trying to play "I am the boss". As long as the game is fun for both parties, however it plays out seems good to me.
I have GM'd since 1978 in the old school, track everything but I am okay with the players "winning" and not tracking every item unless the situation really warrants it.
I think GM's are becoming better...
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Well...
I suppose DMs are like any other creature, and to me it is DM ... GM is what u have in World of Warcraft or Everquest. DMs have a varied list of talents and in that regard some have more talents than others. Add to that the fact that there are people with 3 talents that use all three and those with 5 which use only two. Finally DMs are susceptible to the "Woes of the Real"; those things that happen to them in every day life that they have to carry about with them... baggage. If you add then the DM's capacity, output and psyche then you have a pretty good idea of what your experience will be when you show up at his house on a Friday afternoon to romp through the weeds.
I do not play as much as I want to any longer. Work and life ... excuses, excuses. I can tell you that when I run my games I make certain that everyone knows that I am in charge, to the extent that I will not let any one person ruin everyone else's experience. However, I have never had to make that point more than once to a newcomer because the veterans typically would protect their experience for themselves. So when you are starting up a new game you have to play the "dad", but after that it rather runs on solar power (it does not require you to be "draconian").
In reference to limits, I refuse to set boundaries rather I let the milieu set the boundaries. I have the luxury of having writen over 200 modules for my own world and in addition to that I have eight 2 inch binders full of narratives on towns and villages that people have played in since 1976. The game systems change and I change the core rules, but I always play in the land that I know. This one rule is what I believe has made my adventures so successful over the years. If the DM knows the place - and I mean REALLY knows the place - then he does not need to provide "random" encounters. I know that when you travel from Beaver Claw to the Fatted Calf Inn that there is 30% likelihood that you will run into a solitary undead creature in the first stages of that scenario and an 80% chance in the final stages. I know because I have ran 5 or 6 different groups through that thing over the years. But then limits were the topic so I like to let people decide the place in which they want to campaign. If your party is in the ruins of Bastian Abbey at level 5 then I am totally OK with that and will not try to steer you off. However I will leave little clues in the first stages of this level 18 campaign, like a level 12 party destroyed gear strewn about the entry courtyard to the city. If you are smart then you grab the stuff you see and sell, leave and sell that on the road to some other adventure. If you are not then in a few months another party comes across the corpses of a group of adventurers that certainly were unprepared to enter the confines of this wretched place. Bottom line: In real life we make choices and face challenges based on laws that can be interpreted and expected to perform according to experiences that we have previously encountered. No one fears that a bunny will attack and kill them while they are hunting squirrels, so don't pull that Monte Python trick on your people if you are the DM, it is only funny to you.
People stay with THEIR DM (they become possessive of a good DM) because they determine that the world that this person weaves has rules, challenges, excitement and intrigue, but most of all it is a place that they feel they have a chance to live or die on their own merits and not that of a die roll.
no sundering
no stealing the wizard's spellbook,
Depends, if there is a point to it or not. Making someone go on a quest to gain an item or knowledge, only to then take it away seems a bit assine. Also if it done "legally", having super thief that can't be stopped, sneak in and steal the book is just douchebag behavior. Having a legitimate challenge where success isn't guaranteed by GM fiat is not.
no scenarios where the pcs are in prison cells without any equipment,
Were they legitimately caught or was it just, "You wake up in a prison cell, you have no idea how your level 15 characters got there."
no sending excessively high CR opponents after the party,
This is where the game part of the RPG comes in. Yes a CR 20 dragon could drop down on a party of level 5 characters, but at that point, were is the fun in playing such a game?
no attacking resting pcs, no wandering monsters,
The biggest reason I've seen to drop these is they just slow down the story. As a married adult working full time, my gaming time is precious. If I am playing/running a campaign, I am more interested in getting on with the story than just wasting valuable game time on meaningless encounters. Combat takes the same length whether the fight is relevant or not.
no city weapon restriction scenarios,
They seem a bit silly when you think about magic and monks. But mostly magic.
no tracking of encumbrance and supplies,
Boring stat work, see above for why gaming time can be precious to some.
conveniently open magic marts everywhere
"Let's get on with the story already! Nobody cares about store shop owner #28. So he doesn't like dwarves? Does he like gold, then maybe he should shut it and get on with things."
no circumstance bonuses or penalties of any kind such as higher prices for people that a particular npc salesman doesn't like or bonuses to influence people who like what they heard about you.
See above.
no henchmen or cohorts at all, and a complete banning of the leadership feat. i beleive a high level pc with amazing charisma should be able to pick up henchmen and potential cohorts
More characters involved slows down game play. Also see below.
when a player does get an npc ally to thier name, whether it be animal companion, mount, pack mule, familiar, cohort or eidolon, control is passed on to the commanding pc who will treat these guys as mindless automatons. i beleive a GM should be in charge of these guys or at least have a say as should the player in question, and a middleground must be found.
Many GMs don't feel like running a bunch of other NPCs on top of running everyone else that is not part of the party. Also a player running a "follower" kind of roboticly may actually indicate that they are more "incharacter" with their PC and find it difficult to step out and into another character quickly. A "character actor" versus a "one-man show" mentality.
clerics get to ask thier gods for whatever spells they want now. it used to be based on whatever spells the GM felt like giving you at the time.
Time consuming, worries of metagaming, worries of being accused of gimping the party, etc. Just isn't really worth the bother. If a GM wants that kind of control, he really should be writing a book and not running a game.
point buy, your stats used to be left up to the dice
Yes, we now have better game design choices.
unlimited downtime.
Considering how people often complain that a character can go from 1st to 20th in a span of a month in game, I don't see this as a bad thing. In fact, I would suggest that more down time be used by groups. Say a year or more between different modules/adventures.
I have toyed with the idea, that you have to train a number of months equal to the level you going up to, e.g. 10 months to go from 9th to 10th level, etc.
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You know, maybe it's players getting softer and GMs adjusting? That fits my 31 years experience a bit more accurately.
We live in an instant gratification age. Rapid level advancement, on demand magic items, by the book encounter design that doesn't actually threaten character lives, just a percentage of their resources.
Now, "rocks fall, everyone dies" is more or less gone, which is nice, but the game isn't set up to be nearly as deadly.
I'm sure the fact it used to take ten minutes to make a character rather than over an hour has something to do with this, but I also think we just live under different expectations of what makes a good game.
Evolution. Can't really do much about it.
another observation about the guy
he also creates special terrain that just screws people's concepts over. far worse stuff than Disgaea Geo Tiles. try evil mansions connected to that maelstrom that over enough exposure can totally rewrite your character once shaped by other beings. my swordsage's home monastery was formed out of a castle originally owned by the same lamashtu worshipping nobles who owned the mansion that rewrote her as an inquisitor. she had to make a will save to stay lawful neutral as Zon-Kuthon and Lamashtu were fighting over who got to mold her to thier whims. Zon-Kuthon had won the struggle. but Lamashtu could have molded anyone she desired in that plane. he also has never used featureless plains in the entire time i knew him. 55% of the time, there is enough cover to screw over archers and effectively turn rogues into shadowdancers. try being an archer when precise shot only reduces your -12 into a -8 and rogues suddenly gain enough consistent concealment to hide as well as massive stealth bonuses. and few people in the group dare to consider playing rogues with such frequently appearant terrain. and said terrain is also difficult terrain, which screws charging and hit/run builds, as well as many terrain based spells.
there are also many things he is willing to include that most GM's just won't touch. his Fiat can counter any cheese. i didn't like it at first but can now tolerate it.
The day I need fiat to handle players is the day I hang my hat up.
As for the first post a lot of the things he does not make him a more difficult DM, just a more annoying one, and a lot of it has nothing to do with softness, but I do agree with some of your points.
Yes, GMs are "softer" these days than they used to be.
1st edition D&D had traps that killed you outright. No save. Just a random chance that you set off the trap and then, bye.
2nd edition D&D got rid of all of those traps that killed you outright, no save. Now almost all of them (I never ran into one, but I haven't read every module ever produced) allowed a save. You still died if you failed it though.
3rd edition D&D shed some more of those. Traps weren't as lethal. You certainly never lost a limb. (Again, haven't read every 3E adventure.)
Pathfinder, of course, got rid of all save or die effects.
It's not really that the GMs are getting softer. It's that the games themselves are being less lethal to player characters. They (and by extention, the GMs who run them and the players who play them) are embracing a more story-oriented approach, rather than the tactical/simulationist game that Gygax envisioned, and likely ran. This entails the same level of "softness" that you decry.
(Rules have also been clarified and injected and universalized in order to protect players from tyrannical GMs. Greater player knowledge of the rules - IE, system mastery - has been actively encouraged by the designers, as well, taking some of the power away from GMs.)
Is this bad? I certainly don't think so. And I say this as both a player and a GM. I do still have some idiosyncrasies - we roll for stats in my games (unless it's a quick one shot where I can't supervise people's rolls), I'll probably keep save or die spells (haven't played a game that's gotten that high level). I certainly have no compulsions against sundering equipment, stealing equipment (I once kidnapped all of my PCs and took away all of their equipment. They were in the upper teen levels, so that was a lot of equipment, which they didn't get back), use random encounters, use random encounters at night, and I don't feel like I'm doing my job if I don't kill a party member by the time the group is 5th level. (After 5th level, you're all fair game - raise dead is cheap.)
most gms i have seen on these boards have seemed to have grown pretty darn soft on thier players.i have read and heard calls on many things that seem to show that GM's are becoming softer
no sundering
IF PLAYERS CAN DO IT, ENEMIES CAN DO IT!
no stealing the wizard's spellbook,
OK THAT ONE'S KINDA MESSED UP AND RENDERS A CHARACTER ESSENTIALLY USE LESS UNLESS RESOLVED IN A DAY. WHICH CAN MAKE FOR A GREAT RACE AGAINST THE CLOCK
no scenarios where the pcs are in prison cells without any equipment,
ONE OF THE BEST CAMPAIGNS I EVER RAN STARTED THIS WAY WITH THEM AS SLAVES IN THE HOLD OF A SHIP
no sending excessively high CR opponents after the party,
no attacking resting pcs, no wandering monsters,
I'VE HAD PARTY MEMBERS DIE IN THEIR SLEEP BECAUSE OF WANDERING MONSTERS JUST ASK ONE OF MY PLAYES WHO FREQUENTS THESE BOARDS ABOUT WOLVES
conveniently open magic marts everywhere
NOPE
no circumstance bonuses or penalties of any kind such as higher prices for people that a particular npc salesman doesn't like or bonuses to influence people who like what they heard about you.
CHARACTERS HAVE BEEN BANNED FROM MAGIC SHOPS OR HORRIBLY RIPPED OFF BECAUSE OF STUPID DECISIONS. THEY'E ALSO BEEN SOLD CURSED ITEMS OFF THE BACK OF A CART.
no henchmen or cohorts at all, and a complete banning of the leadership feat. i beleive a high level pc with amazing charisma should be able to pick up henchmen and potential cohorts
BY THE END OF THE AFORE MENTIONED CAMMPAIGN PLAYERS HAD A SMALL ARMY THANKS TO A BARD WITH LEADERSHIP.
clerics get to ask thier gods for whatever spells they want now. it used to be based on whatever spells the GM felt like giving you at the time.
NOW THAT'S JUST POINTLESS
point buy, your stats used to be left up to the dice
HELL YEAH!
Let's see:
Of course not. It just isn't fun, and we're in this to have fun.
(Plus, I do want to get out of the session alive and without any major injuries. Attacking PCs' gear is a surefire way of getting hurt/killed ;-))
Well, it's so rarely in the APs, and I tend to run APs. Plus, if you overdo this sort of thing, you're not a hard-ass, you're just lazy/too dumb to come up with original challenges.
Sending them after the party? No. Not usually.
But them encountering one of those critters? Totally. The important thing is to always leave a way out for the party. That means that the critter's original intention is not to attack the party, or that escape is possible.
Setting the party up into a fight they can't win, can't avoid and can't escape is the equivalent of saying: "I'm such an insignificant little worm that I must arbitrarily kill you now to feel good." And I spot on people like that.
Hee hee hee. Of course that stuff happens. Especially if they didn't select their resting place with care.
City weapon restriction? Nah. That would discourage adventurers from coming to that city, which for the typical RPG city means that the city's income from trade has just been cut down to less than 1% of what it could have expected if it didn't discourage adventurers.
Plus, there might be an outbreak of monsters or villains or something like that, and the city's very survival might depend on the heroes springing into action immediately, not after 20 minutes of tracking down their weapons in some guardhouse or city gate.
Of course not. It's heroic fantasy, not elven accounting. Boring stuff is banned in our games.
It also works both ways: If I enforce those rules, the players might start (and keep) asking about these things with the NPCs I make.
Sure, why not? I can challenge my players without artificially limiting their gear. They're not magic mega stores, and exotic requests will probably have to be done by bespoke trade (or the characters themselves), but I don't have to make my players jump through hoops for a +1 sword.
I keep that at a minimum, because I can think this through: Introduce a system where NPC relations can significantly influence prices and you can be sure that the players make sure that at least one of them is extra likeable so their chances to get better-than-average prices will be quite high.
If they want that sort of thing, they can have it. No problem. Plus, would banning Leadership not be something a hardliner GM does?
Of course there has to be a middle ground. Companions are not aboulic! They will not do everything the player wants (things like "Prostitute yourself to these orcs to earn enough for my +1 sword" or "You sacrifice yourself so we can flee" will not work), but at least during combat, they have to control their companions themselves. I'll veto actions that are out of line, but I have enough work to do without taking care of their zoo and fanclub.
Of course. Again, I don't feel so insignificant that I need to exert some petty control over my players' characters' life like that to feel important.
Plus, if they have to choose their spells for themselves, they have a much better chance of messing up their selection!
Ask my players about see invisibility. But only while you are behind bullet-proof glass! :D
Of course point buy (or, rather, purchase).
I follow the philosophy of "you don't get to b&%&~#@% yourself or anyone". In this case, when people ask for the "random option" (i.e. rolling dice), they really ask for a good chance of ridiculously high attribute scores with very little chance of bad stats.
You know, stuff like "Roll 5d6, drop the two lowest dice; do so six times for each attribute. If you don't get an orgasm by merely looking at your attributes, you get to roll again", or other things that ensure that sub-par rolls are discarded.
Few people are prepared to do something like. "4d6, drop lowest, 6 rolls. These are your six attribute scores for this campaign. You can distribute them however you like for each character, but these 6 numbers are final. No rerolls because you think they're too low. No rerolls if your character dies.
Plus, my personal experience is that even relatively reasonable rolling methods will produce a party that is all over the place: A couple of guys will have acceptable stats, one or two more will have decent ones, and one lucky bastard will have an array you'd swear was cheated if you hadn't tested the dice yourself and watched him roll with Argus Eyes.
Allow me to tell you a story about our 1st 3e campaign.
That was quite early in 3e, I was the only guy in the group with any real RPG experience, and that was with 2e and guys who were very old-fashioned with a lot of stuff. So I only really knew rolling the dice.
So we rolled dice: 4d6 drop lowest, roll 7 times, drop lowest, and then increase one of the numbers by 1. Not bad, but not too insane.
We had three players, and two of them (me included) rolled decent stats.
The other guy basically got 2 18s, and the rest wasn't to be sneezed at, either. The guy played a half-elf druid, 18 wis, 18 con. He had more HP than my warrior (though that was an elven bladesinger, so not really a champion on the con department), and could survive punishments that would have probably killed the other two characters.
The next campaign with that group started a couple of years after (the other campaign went from 1 - 30, though we did skip a couple of levels in the early 20s), and it was a Stargate campaign played with d20 Modern rules.
I asked, nay, begged the DM to switch to point buy, because it was the better system, it had predictable results, and look at how that druid was basically indestructible (single indestructible druid?)
He stuck to his old system. And of course, we had another character who managed to get 2 18s plus assorted nice stuff.
This time, it was my character! I played a soldier (strong hero/soldier, with a level of tough thrown into the mix for some resistances) and put the 18s into dex and con. If you don't know d20 modern, its base classes were tied to attributes, or, rather, to the attributes' strong points. Strong heroes had decent HD (but not quite the best, that was for tough heroes), and, most importantly, full BAB. So I was a really tough, really agile warrior using heavy firearms.
Combined with my understanding of the rules, that character scythed through the opposition.
The campaign after that, we used point buy :D (The GM had apparently hoped that by rolling the dice, the stats would not be that high, especially mine, so it would off-set my better proficiency with the rules)
This week we learn that the best way to make a point is to simply show people what can go wrong :)
Usually not. It all depends on the campaign. Sometimes, it's the party who has to go and actively hunt for quests, and they can just ignore the notices outside city hall and let others take care while they relax. Other times, time is their biggest enemy.
I think it best to stay somewhere between.
To make a personal observation:
Hardliner GM doesn't mean good GM, and not minding stuff like encumbrance, downtime or how easy it is for characters it is to get the gear or spells tehy want doesn't mean the GM is soft.
I do think that those who have to rely on petty nonsense like that to challenge the party should hand in their GM hat and stop playing altogether, at least until they have done penance, went on a real-life quest and seriously improved themselves.
The true GM knows how to challenge the players without such petty harassments.
And the true Evil GM knows how to torture his players without that petty stuff, without trivialities like making them calculate their gear's weight to the milligram or track lesser expenses like food and lodging. No, the true EGM gives his players every choice, allows every comfort. That way, the players know that they themselves got them into this mess. They can't comfort themselves by saying "We had no chance, he just let a great wyrm dragon hunt us down when we were level 3 - we couldn't defeat it, we couldn't avoid it, we couldn't escape it. He's a real tosser, we should beat him up to show him we're still boss."
The real EGM will have his players cower in fear, cry in despair, shake in humiliation - and begging him for more EGMing!
In my opinion the issues raised by the OP are not GM's getting soft, but rather not being lazy. In particular I have issues with a GM regularly stealing spellbooks, destroying divine foci, sending rust monster after rust monster against the armored fighter, or specifically targeting the alchemist's supposedly glass vials time after time.
As the game is put together, there are more than ample ways to challenge a party without eliminating their simple ability to function. Used very sparingly, such tacticts on the GM's part can offer a new twist, something fresh to entertain the group. However, used consistently, all they do is breed frustration on the party of the players. Why create a wizard/cleric/fighter/alchemist/whatever if the GM is going to routinely prevent me from using the abilities of that class?
I also have a significant problem with the "you awake in a jail cell stripped down to your underwear." A while ago, I was in a group that ran through the 2ed Slave Lords campaign revised for 3.5. Not once, but twice, the party ended up imprisoned despite anything and everything we did to avoid it. In my mind, this is GM fiat taken to a ridiculous level. I understand that these modules were written for convention play, but it is ridiculous for the GM to assume that, despite any and all measures the players might take, they will be subdued and captured. Again, this smacks of laziness for me.
I have the same sentiment for vastly overpowering encounters being sent against the party. If the GM is forced to specifically send a much higher CR adversary against the party, there is something wrong going on. Realistic challenges are good, simply spanking the party with an encounter that is beyond their capabilities is not so good.
Finally, I'd like to weigh in on the Leadership feat, animal companions, and caster familiars. These are either class abilities or feats that a character has "purchased." Unless the GM is willing to exhibit a high degree of control over other class abilities or feat selections, they should use a very, very light hand on followers. As I see it, the GM attempting to control a cohort or animal companion to any significant degree is the exact same as a GM dictating when a character can choose to use their Power Attack feat or ordering a ranger as to which favored enemies they can choose. As with any other ability or feat, any rampant abuses should be adjudicated by the GM, but otherwise, let the player use the feat or class ability choices they have chosen.
Having played the game for a long time (much longer than I'd like to admit), I see it as having evolved from a highly adversarial system of GM vs. player to a collaborative effort to have a good time, experience some challenging encounters, progress the AP, story or whatever, and have a good time. Going out of your way to gimp your players is not the best way to go about these goals.
Challenge your players. Absolutley. Go out of your way to screw with your players. Not so much.
"These days" have little to do with it. I've had hardcore GMs recently and softies 20 years ago.
Trust me, I'm a succubus. :)
Oh, okay then.
*waves to everyone*
We're done here!
Greg
most gms i have seen on these boards have seemed to have grown pretty darn soft on thier players.i have read and heard calls on many things that seem to show that GM's are becoming softer
no sundering
IF PLAYERS CAN DO IT, ENEMIES CAN DO IT!
no stealing the wizard's spellbook,
OK THAT ONE'S KINDA MESSED UP AND RENDERS A CHARACTER ESSENTIALLY USE LESS UNLESS RESOLVED IN A DAY. WHICH CAN MAKE FOR A GREAT RACE AGAINST THE CLOCK
no scenarios where the pcs are in prison cells without any equipment,
ONE OF THE BEST CAMPAIGNS I EVER RAN STARTED THIS WAY WITH THEM AS SLAVES IN THE HOLD OF A SHIP
no sending excessively high CR opponents after the party,
no attacking resting pcs, no wandering monsters,
I'VE HAD PARTY MEMBERS DIE IN THEIR SLEEP BECAUSE OF WANDERING MONSTERS JUST ASK ONE OF MY PLAYES WHO FREQUENTS THESE BOARDS ABOUT WOLVES
conveniently open magic marts everywhere
NOPE
no circumstance bonuses or penalties of any kind such as higher prices for people that a particular npc salesman doesn't like or bonuses to influence people who like what they heard about you.
CHARACTERS HAVE BEEN BANNED FROM MAGIC SHOPS OR HORRIBLY RIPPED OFF BECAUSE OF STUPID DECISIONS. THEY'E ALSO BEEN SOLD CURSED ITEMS OFF THE BACK OF A CART.
no henchmen or cohorts at all, and a complete banning of the leadership feat. i beleive a high level pc with amazing charisma should be able to pick up henchmen and potential cohorts
BY THE END OF THE AFORE MENTIONED CAMMPAIGN PLAYERS HAD A SMALL ARMY THANKS TO A BARD WITH LEADERSHIP.
clerics get to ask thier gods for whatever spells they want now. it used to be based on whatever spells the GM felt like giving you at the time.
NOW THAT'S JUST POINTLESS
point buy, your stats used to be left up to the dice
HELL YEAH!Caps lock is cruise control to cool.
i didn't say that i liked these things, just that i have learned to tolerate them. he doesn't follow all of these hardmode guidelines, just a fairly big portion of them, some of these he stopped following a while ago after years of molding.
i've also listed things i've mentioned that i saw on other boards that DM's allegedly stopped doing.
my GM doesn't do all the bad stuff on the list
i won't say what he does. but some of the stuff he stopped, other he spent the last year working on
he includes difficult encounters when he wants to capture, but something makes these encounters easier later. i edited out a wall of text.
he still makes you have to jump through hoops to get that +1 weapon, it's just that those hoops require A, a crafter, B, a treasure horde, or C, a really high diplomacy check and a percentile roll of 10 or less.
I don't think DMs are getting softer. I think what's happened is that, over time, players, DMs, and game designers have learned what does and does not make a game fun, and in general, the things you've listed aren't fun. For example, I remember a game where I decided to have a bunch of hired thugs kidnap the party and force them to compete in an underground, gladiatorial arena. To ensure that the party wouldn't escape, I made the thugs' CR twice the level of the party. I also decided that the thugs would attack the party with saps while they slept, so that they wouldn't have any armor. My hope was that this combat would prove to be challenging, but ultimately overwhelming for the party. In reality, though, it just turned into a one sided pummeling. My players didn't have any fun, because they felt like there was nothing they could do to defend themselves, and I didn't have any fun, because the players weren't exactly shy about voicing their discontent.
Now that's not to say that you can't make scenarios like these fun. You just need to make your players feel like their choices can affect the outcome of the game. For example, if you force the players to check their weapons at the city gates, don't pit them against a bunch of thugs with longswords. Instead, have the thugs come at the PCs with fists, bottles, and rocks. Such a combat gives your players an opportunity to learn the rules for unarmed combat and improvised weapons without feeling like they are at a disadvantage. Meanwhile, the uniqueness of the combat will make the game feel interesting and entertaining for everyone involved.
I tend to describe it as "player-entitlement," but it is much of the same. There's a whole lot of causes, some good, some bad, some just the time we live in. I feel, somewhat, that the
no stealing the wizard's spellbook,
...discussions largely exemplify it.
Greater magic vestment, Greater magic weapon, haste, Keen edge, Bulls strength, Bears endurance, Owls wisdom, Cat's grace, Resistance, stoneskin, and enlarge person (all extended at CL 16th) all at the same time for for an additional 50% price of all the potions combined.
This seems like fiat to me since nothing supports combining potions. I understand you got to keep the potions, but if such things can be combined then my characters should have known about them ahead of time.
these 4 "minmaxed" npc "advanced" (same rough template idea) 8th level orcish barbarians who used it and captured us hit like the hulk, were tough as the juggernaught, and even if you did hit them, it did very little. if you tried to run away, they would charge you from 140 feet away and this one type of uber potion was all of the wealth they had (and they had only a single one each) and they used it up to capture us. so fighting them a 2nd time was a lot easier. we were supposed to be sacrificed to bring back thier shaman leader and the other orcs were all but a single HD. these uber barbarians were only uber because of a potion they had used against us.he still makes you have to jump through hoops to get that +1 weapon, it's just that those hoops require A, a crafter, B, a treasure horde, or C, a really high diplomacy check and a percentile roll of 10 or less.
They were at least a combined CR 12 so without knowing the party level I don't know how much credit he gets here either. Any DM can make an encounter hard if they want too. IMHO it is how you do it that determines your skill level.
I tend to describe it as "player-entitlement," but it is much of the same. There's a whole lot of causes, some good, some bad, some just the time we live in. I feel, somewhat, that the
...discussions largely exemplify it.
no stealing the wizard's spellbook,
+1
A reflection of the modern society we live in.
we had a party of 8 6th level pcs (EL10)
we didn't get to keep those potions on the orcs, we got to find thier stash of those potions (same thing) when we got our stuff back as well as "potions" of true ressurection. the second time fighting those orcs was a lot easier, we had regained our stuff, beat the snot out of them and found thier secret potion stash. we also beat the snot out of an 18th level "advanced" orc shaman as we gained 2 levels off of a combination of the orcs and previous XP the DM was originally holding back until chapters end, it was a long adventure. the "Shaman" was a CR 18 and had a large tribe of single HD orcs, we used the last of the potions to kick the shaman's arse and mow through his minions. not counting the true ressurection ones, we used those for oh crap buttons.
i realize that maybe my DM isn't so bad after all. he has been getting better about it. at least he gives us a chance to avoid being captured or robbed. an initial slim chance but success usually leads to slightly upgraded stuff (same thing entirely, just slightly improved) and a novelty experience as well as some rather exotic items. like those potions we used against the shaman (the barbarians used them against us) but the barbarians were not so nasty the second time around. second time around they didn't bother with those potions, and each had 1/4 of a map written on thier backs that led to the mostly used stash. there were exactly 8 of those uber potions left. just enough to take on the "shaman". the casters used AoE to take out the orc mooks while everyone else focused on the shaman. he dropped in 6 rounds. it's like you get your stuff back, but it's better and fully repaired. the potions were merely an assisting narrative device.
i still tell stories (that were true at one point) at my saturday Dm's expense and enjoy the posters reacting about the guy. he has changed in the last year, especially since august. he is still his grognard self, he just tries to be hardmode in less annoying ways and has reasons for giving higher point buy allotments. he has been also working to mesh player characters with his settings. and sometimes allows the crafting of npcs by players that may become potential backup characters. in many months, he hasn't hijacked an animal companion at all, but he has killed quite a few. he now likes to gaurantee that he drop a minimun of 2 pcs per fight (but not neccessarily kill) and that story with the orcs and the potions was from a few years ago. we have a 6th level party again (with 8 pcs) and he is trying a full scale war approach this time. he now sometimes pulls punches, but only when it makes sense to him for the monster in question. and his pulled punches are downplayed monster tactics.
I've had a DM tell me that my ranger's wolf animal companion wouldn't attack because it just didn't make sense for an animal to attack an armed and armored person...so I like having control of my own animal companions and familiars and such.
I've had a DM tell me that my ranger's wolf animal companion wouldn't attack because it just didn't make sense for an animal to attack an armed and armored person...so I like having control of my own animal companions and familiars and such.
To be fair it doesn't make sense for just any animal, but an animal companion is trained for some things, represented by its tricks, and if it was trained to attack it should have regardless of the opponent. Now if the context was having the wolf attack the plate mail armored guy while the rest of the party stood back and shot it from range while the wolf was killed, or having the wolf play Horatio at the bridge and fight while the party runs away, that's different. I've seen players try to do that before with cohorts, hired followers, or animal companions before to eliminate the risk to the player characters at the loss of some "expendable" assets, and that I don't and won't allow.
most gms i have seen on these boards have seemed to have grown pretty darn soft on thier players.i have read and heard calls on many things that seem to show that GM's are becoming softer
i have seen ideas on these boards (other boards too) such as
no sundering
no stealing the wizard's spellbook,
no scenarios where the pcs are in prison cells without any equipment,
no sending excessively high CR opponents after the party,
no attacking resting pcs, no wandering monsters,
no city weapon restriction scenarios,
no tracking of encumbrance and supplies,
conveniently open magic marts everywhere
no circumstance bonuses or penalties of any kind such as higher prices for people that a particular npc salesman doesn't like or bonuses to influence people who like what they heard about you.
no henchmen or cohorts at all, and a complete banning of the leadership feat. i beleive a high level pc with amazing charisma should be able to pick up henchmen and potential cohorts
when a player does get an npc ally to thier name, whether it be animal companion, mount, pack mule, familiar, cohort or eidolon, control is passed on to the commanding pc who will treat these guys as mindless automatons. i beleive a GM should be in charge of these guys or at least have a say as should the player in question, and a middleground must be found.
clerics get to ask thier gods for whatever spells they want now. it used to be based on whatever spells the GM felt like giving you at the time.
point buy, your stats used to be left up to the dice
and
unlimited downtime.
my saturday gm tends to do most of things i mentioned that today's gms are too soft to do.
i'm not an old school Eurocentric first edition Grognard GM but i have played pathfinder games under one on saturdays. there are very few things on this list he conforms to, such as point buy, complete player control of npc "pets" and freeform cleric spell selection,
but he does track encumbrance/supplies like a hawk, he forces rolls...
Yeah sorry, there was a big DM meeting back right before 3.5 came out where everyone got together and decided D&D would be more popular if the DMs made the game fun.
Something about how my DM is better because he does things most people consider assinine, cheap, or unnecessary
Remind me never to play with you. Or your DM. Or any DM you've gamed with.
Michael Moorcock did that to his characters CONSTANTLY. Send them across the multiverse to get the MacGuffin, have them use the MacGuffin and then have it reclaimed by whatever Power the Eternal Champion was serving in his current life.Depends, if there is a point to it or not. Making someone go on a quest to gain an item or knowledge, only to then take it away seems a bit assine.no sundering
no stealing the wizard's spellbook,
Right. Those types of plot lines are fine for novels. Probably should be kept there as well.
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The internets have changed everything. There are millions of discussions on bad game-play and how to properly GM. Many of the things you have mentioned have been argued thoroughly. I would say there is a thin line between fun and no fun on several of those topics. I believe GMs are erring on the side of caution these days.
Houston D has a good point about the new generation and it's entitlement issues. I have a player in one of my groups who believes the PCs must be good and always heroes. Nothing bad should ever happen to them, ever. If something does it better be leading to them saving the day awesomely or he starts to whine. Shoe fits the other foot too though. Nobody wants to spend game night being a human dice roller while a GM tells their story.
In the end it comes down to trust. If a GM wants to lay on the restrictions and come down hard, I need to be able to trust them. There are more ways to game then ever. Home, Society, pbp, FLGS, internets, etc etc... Since games are forming at the drop of the hat, a GM doesn't always have the luxury of knowing their players; amirite?
The internets have changed everything.
I agree with this statement 100%, but I have a different conclusion. Mostly, I think that in Ye Olde Days (before the popularity of the Internet) people figured that most DMs were like their own DM.
Now they go to an Internet message board and reason: "Ye cats! There are lots of DMs that are different from those I had when I was young. Ergo, DMs have changed!"
A similar case in point: We had a thread recently where someone complained about the sudden rise in GMs asking questions about the rules. Then I pointed out a 30-year-old comment in Dragon magazine about how they got such a "great volume of mail" to the Sage Advice column that they could no longer keep up with replies.
Plus ça change...
In my experience its more a matter of shared experiences. When I first started playing with AD&D, the DM was the DM and the players were the players. They were different people, with different ideas of what they wanted from the game. In high school, we had our one dm, he was always the dm.
Now, most of my group has been on both sides of the screen in one fashioin or another. And we have all felt the pain and joy of both sides. When you always dm or always play, it's easy to get antagonistic, or overly focuse on "Your Game" and forget there are other people around that are most likely your 'friends'. After being on the wrong side of control freak DMs, or physcopathically greedy and violent players, some of those behaviors we engaged in 'back in the day' for me at least seem less appropriate.
We have also come a long way from those humble begginings 'back in the day'. We have all told dozen's of stories, created many memorable and interesting characters, and we have a host of new tools at our disposal. Useful CR systems, tons of advice in magazines, on line and it books like the GMG means DMs are better informed then we could have possibly imagined way back in 'the old days'.
It is far more possible to challenge a party without excessive risk of a tpk, and it is also possible to challenge them without disabling them. For me that is always the goal. We are after all playing a game, and stealing spellbooks, sundering weapons etc is akin to saying, 'hey you, bob, dont play for a while', the rest of us are gonna have fun over here. With all the tools and experience we have its far less needed to go to the 'old tricks' to keep a party in check.
We also have far more experience in story telling. I have read quite a few books and played in a whole lot of games since junior high. What I found awesome then and what I find awesome now in terms of a story is not the same. Waking up with amnesia in a prison in a loincloth is no longer an exciting start to an epic quest, its a tired cliche. I want something new.
I think there also has been a general shift in the game mentality. As we gain experience in the game nad in life, a certain desire for fairness in our recreation occurs. Sometimes this means replay challenges in football games, and sometimes it means 'balance' in our RPGs. Its hard to say the original game was fair or balanced. The power curve was all over the place, and it was full of arbitrary restrictions. In the current game, fairness is a serious concern, just ask everyone in the playtest forums who talk about balance, and about not stepping on other peoples toes in game. So practices by the DM that are categorically unfair (abitrary death traps for instance) are avoided by most.
i have read and heard calls on many things that seem to show that GM's are becoming softer
There's good reasons for any of those things, none of which have to do with softness, per se.
It's more, I would say, that people who have matured as gamers realize that the game isn't the GM vs. the players and that obvious GM fiat is very rarely fun for anyone.
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In the right GM's hands, it's possible for any of these to be fun. But it's way too easy to screw them up, and many of them are things that GMs *think* could be fun and try to do without realizing how easily they can go south. I see that as worth bringing up, even if the discussion threads tend to spin off into horror stories about how the thing in question was handled very badly.
I don't know if the game is more "fun" or whatever than it used to be. We used to talk about our adventures and whatnot. Now, when I go to Cons or the FLGS, everyone talks about their builds and whatnot...
My buddies used to gab about how cool their characters were in Ye Olde Days, too. But since characters were simpler back then, there were many fewer things to brag about. You were pretty much limited to your character's level, stats and magic items.
E.g. "I play a twelfth-level fighter with 18/93 Strength and a Nine Lives Stealer, he's awesome!"
There are as many GM styles as there are of player types. Some would throw you into the Tomb of Horrors with nothing but a knife, a hunk of cheese, and a 10 foot pole, and others would let a player play a RIFTS Glitterboy in a 1st level Pathfinder game. It's been that way for a long time, and will be to come.
Good GMs and good players follow the ancient, pithy adage, "Don't be a dick."
That's to say, if it's fun and interesting and exciting, yay! If it makes a player---or a GM, for that matter---feel manipulated, stepped on, mocked, or otherwise frustrated on a long term basis, it's not good.
Not being a jerk does not mean "be soft." After all, being soft suggests there is no challenge, and that's not fun, interesting, exciting, or yay.
Something like sundering a weapon or stealing a spellbook can be a jerk move, or it can be a cool story element---it all depends on how you play it and what other options are provided the characters.
Some GMs may struggle to find this kind of balance---it is difficult, and the best thing the player can do is provide mature, critical feedback to the GM in question.
Making blanket statements about what "GMs are like these days" however is unlikely to be very productive in the long term, with all due respect to Shuriken.
As an aside, I have difficulty seeing how restricting cohorts is "soft."
As a second aside, I ask my players to play their companions and cohorts because I don't want an umpteenth character to track. I have to be the whole world and everything in it; the players can handle one pet.
Trust me, I'm a succubus. :)Oh, okay then.
*waves to everyone*
We're done here!
Greg
"This chick has wings. Your argument is rendered invalid."
i didn't say that i liked these things, just that i have learned to tolerate them.
That's the wrong approach. Today you accept stuff like that, and tomorrow you sign over your free will to the corporates that will rule the worlds.
Or something similarly dramatic.
Anyway, if someone is doing a bad job, you should tell him, and try to get him to improve. Not just suck it up and let him continue to blow big baby chunks.
I tend to describe it as "player-entitlement," but it is much of the same. There's a whole lot of causes, some good, some bad, some just the time we live in. I feel, somewhat, that the
...discussions largely exemplify it.
no stealing the wizard's spellbook,
Well, call it what you will, but players are "entitled" to fun while playing, and a GM who does a good job.
i didn't say that i liked these things, just that i have learned to tolerate them.That's the wrong approach. Today you accept stuff like that, and tomorrow you sign over your free will to the corporates that will rule the worlds.
Or to gold dragons.
Remind me never to play with you. Or your DM. Or any DM you've gamed with.
Something about how my DM is better because he does things most people consider assinine, cheap, or unnecessary
Hm... assuming that summary is correct, put me on CC, thanks.
Michael Moorcock did that to his characters CONSTANTLY. Send them across the multiverse to get the MacGuffin, have them use the MacGuffin and then have it reclaimed by whatever Power the Eternal Champion was serving in his current life.Depends, if there is a point to it or not. Making someone go on a quest to gain an item or knowledge, only to then take it away seems a bit assine.no sundering
no stealing the wizard's spellbook,
Might explain why I couldn't get myself to read those Elric stories.
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i didn't say that i liked these things, just that i have learned to tolerate them.That's the wrong approach. Today you accept stuff like that, and tomorrow you sign over your free will to the corporates that will rule the worlds.
Or something similarly dramatic.
Anyway, if someone is doing a bad job, you should tell him, and try to get him to improve. Not just suck it up and let him continue to blow big baby chunks.
I don't have time for a bad game. Games are supposed to be fun. So, +1
Might explain why I couldn't get myself to read those Elric stories.
I look at all of this as cyclic, in a few years, Paranoia games will make a comeback, Tomb Of Horrors style mods will be the norm. People will brag about how many characters they went through in one night. Come to think of it, I may just check my local used book store for an old copy of Paranoia...I could use a lil' old fashioned GM versus PC's action again.
Greg
Is it really about the toys then? Do the toys represent the be all and end all? Have you never turned down a powerful magic item?Right. Those types of plot lines are fine for novels. Probably should be kept there as well.Michael Moorcock did that to his characters CONSTANTLY. Send them across the multiverse to get the MacGuffin, have them use the MacGuffin and then have it reclaimed by whatever Power the Eternal Champion was serving in his current life.Depends, if there is a point to it or not. Making someone go on a quest to gain an item or knowledge, only to then take it away seems a bit assine.no sundering
no stealing the wizard's spellbook,
It is more about your efforts meaning something. There being some reward for your time, not having it all turn to dust and ash the moment you finally reach your goal.
Y'know, in the old games when your character was little more than a chess piece and you could roll up a dozen in ten minutes, quick death was not so big an issue.
These days, having a character step on an insta-death pressure plate means twenty minutes of lost game. Not fun.
-The Gneech