Monarchy or Democracy?

[User3]

Mod Edit: Split from the SoD thread so as to keep that thread on topic. Carry on. - fbmf

Edit again: I can spell. Really. I can. - fbmf

1088144901[/unixtime]]
In truth, yes. What I want is a roleplaying game with a War Game like feel.

WFRP? That's pretty much the archetype of "wargame as RPG" now that D&D's evolved so far away from Chainmail. It's probably a little more abstract than is ideal for this, but it's definitely a much different tone than D&D, combat-wise.

Hero, along the same lines, is very tactical and wargamey, offers a lot of richness of tactical options that's absent in D&D, and can still be very deadly if played under "normal human" character creation restrictions.

Riddle of Steel seems to be aiming for a gritty, realistic feel while trying to avoid being too wargamey -- I haven't studied it closely enough to know for sure. Maybe Rolemaster, if the players are really willing to be hardcore.

I'm thinking for a game like this you'd want a rich set of tactical options to select from (because otherwise giving the players plenty of time to think doesn't help much) and a good way to gauge what options are likely to work well in the current situation (otherwise, lots of options doesn't help much). You defend, defend, defend until either (a) it becomes clear that the enemy isn't in your class and you can go on the offensive to slaughter them, or (b) you figure out what their weakness is and exploit it. Hm ... now that I think about it, this kind of reminds me of the unarmed combat system for the old "Top Secret" game. There might be some exploitable ideas buried there.

--d.

[Username17]

You note that in D&D there is a high death toll on non-mook encounter. That could be changed. Generally, if combat goes on for longer, players are able to figure out their best tactical options. Meanwhile the DM plays the non-mook as someone caught in the midst of combat, with no time to analyze his best tactical options. The fact that the players are on a different time scale (real world time) for analyzing their moves gives them the advantage they need to be heroes.

So you want a game where the DM engages in immersive role playing in order to make the NPCs make suboptimal or stupid tactical decisions so that the Players can take full advantage of their god-like viewpoints and between-game time to write stuff ahead of time to allow the PCs to use metagame knowledge to donkey punch the NPCs right in their weak spots?



I mean, I've been known to rant against DMs pulling that kind of crap on PCs, but this is the first time I have ever heard someone suggest that the game should be set up for the PCs to do that to the DM. It's not necessarily a bad idea, mind, but based on the usual sort of GM/Player relationships people seem to expect I don't think you are going to find a lot of takers.

If done correctly, this would allow PCs to fight, say, a party of their same level, and all come out alive say... 95% of the time. Across 20 levels, that's only 1 dead person, the victim of truly foul luck.

Actually no, consider that you would normally have to take on 3 or 4 parties of your own level to go up a level. You don't actually adventure particularly once you hit 20, but you are still looking at about 62 such encounters over 20 levels - which means that you are averaging losing slightly more than three party members even at the flat ludicrous suggested survival rate of 95% and sending people through levels at accelerated rates... you are on average losing about as many PCs as you have PCs.

Problem? Hell yes you have a problem. High fatality systems either involve people not going into combat at all (CoC, Shadowrun), or running through characters at a fearful rate (CoC, Shadowrun). Really. There is no possibility of having a high fatality high combat system and having long term character continuity at the same time. It's just not possible on the face of it.

-Username17

[rapanui]

"Hero, along the same lines, is very tactical and wargamey, offers a lot of richness of tactical options that's absent in D&D, and can still be very deadly if played under "normal human" character creation restrictions."

I've been told to check this out before. I've heard it's very rules-heavy though. That might not be a bad thing.

"It's not necessarily a bad idea, mind, but based on the usual sort of GM/Player relationships people seem to expect I don't think you are going to find a lot of takers."

I know. Part of what I hate about D&D is the whole 'DM as an autocrat' thing. I understand why the whole "DM has the final word" thing got started, but everyone should admit it was a piss poor idea.

"Problem? Hell yes you have a problem. High fatality systems either involve people not going into combat at all (CoC, Shadowrun), or running through characters at a fearful rate (CoC, Shadowrun). Really. There is no possibility of having a high fatality high combat system and having long term character continuity at the same time. It's just not possible on the face of it."

OK, so maybe the advantage I came up with was unrealistic. But what about a more concrete form of advantage? Something like 3 strikes and you're out? Every hero character has 3 chances to live, and everytime something happens that would make the character die, he has his ass saved by DexM. Many heroes in movies and literature survive by utter luck sometimes, so maybe that could be the solution.

Another way to handle things would be 4 mook encounters and 1 boss encounter per character level, therefore a level 20 character would have fought 20 bosses.

Does any of this make sense?

And yes, I know we're getting pretty far from D&D here, I'm just trying to see if my ideas are even theoretically feasible, nevermind practical.

[Josh_Kablack]

1088222528[/unixtime]]"Hero, along the same lines, is very tactical and wargamey, offers a lot of richness of tactical options that's absent in D&D, and can still be very deadly if played under "normal human" character creation restrictions."

I've been told to check this out before. I've heard it's very rules-heavy though. That might not be a bad thing.

I've heard it said that HERO and 3.x D&D are of equal complexity, but D&D breaks things down so you as a player can learn them level-by-level wheras HERO expects you to know everything before chargen. I don't disagree with this analysis.

As for lethality, HERO tends to work as D&D would if you house ruled that the "Dying" condition ended not at -10, but at negative your Con plus your level plus the number of people in your party, plus your shoe size.

Now I'll run some numbers to show you what I mean:
Now in HERO, there are two types of damage, Stun (bumps, bruises and fatigue) and Body (broken bones, damaged organs, life-threatening stuff). You heal back Stun damage pretty much every time you turn around, so it's there again next fight, but you only heal a small amount of Body per month - For baseline normals this is 2, for hardcore action movie types it might be as high as 10, but that's pushing superhuman.

The typical baseline human has 2 PD - that's Physical Defense (nonresistant), 20 Stun and 10 Body. A "normal" human action movie hero (but not superhuman) type guy might have as much as 11 PD (3 resistant due to combat luck) 50 Stun and 20 Body. To compute the damage for a killing attack, you first roll X number of dice of body - only the target's resistant PD applies against this, and then you roll another die for a Stun multiplier - all of the target's PD applies against the Stun, but they always take a minumum amount of Stun equal to the Body they took from the attack. At zero or lower stun you are KO'd but unless you reach -31 or lower you won't be out for long. At zero or less Body you are dying and you bleed one additional Body per Turn - that's 12 seconds and you get from 2 to 8 actions per Turn depending if you are Perry White or The Flash. until you reach negative your starting Body or someone makes a sucessful Paramedics roll on you (with penalties for how wounded you are).

Now a normal shmoe with a knife or a .38 special does 1d6+1 Body with a 1d6-1 Stun Multiplier. A .44 Magnum, a 5.56mm assault rifle, or a .410 shotgun deals 2d6 Body with a 1d6 Stun Multiplier. A LAW rocket does 4d6 Body with a 1d6 stun multiplier

This results in a system where non-armored characters really don't want to get shot at, but Louis Lane stills has a 96% chance of surviving a direct hit from a LAW rocket provided that Clark can get her to the ER in the next 12 seconds. You'll also note that it is extremely likely for even normals to be walking around with a couple of bullet holes in them.

Thus the only real ways for someone to die in HERO are:

1: Grossly Overkill Attacks (like using that LAW against Aunt May, who is elderly and therefore has lower physical stats)
2: Using the optional hit locations table, which slows combat to a sub-crawl, but which has a 14/216 chance of doubling the Body dealt by an attack.
3: Continued attacks. Odds are the first shot will put him down, but if you really want to finish Jimmy Olsen off for good it's gonna take two more .50 cal rounds.
4: Going down a long way from help.
5: Starting a fight already wounded. This is entirely possible due to the length of time Body healing takes under normal circumstances. It also doesn't help that the current rules for Healing powers are based around a half-assed legacy patch of previous infinite loops and therefore highly likely to be houseruled somehow.

[Crissa]

Frank forgot to note that he makes stuff up all the time whether we're playing combat heavy or combat light D&D.

-Crissa

[RandomCasualty]

1088222528[/unixtime]]
I know. Part of what I hate about D&D is the whole 'DM as an autocrat' thing. I understand why the whole "DM has the final word" thing got started, but everyone should admit it was a piss poor idea.

Isn't this pretty much a standard in any RPG?

And I really don't see how it's a piss poor idea. You gotta have somebody acting as a referee. The DM is the logical choice.

[rapanui]

Dictatorship: Bad.
Democracy: Good.

EDIT: In general. I agree with Voltaire's notion that a good King (aka benevolent dictator) can really make a difference in things. The hard part is finding one.

There is more than 1 person at the table, they should be able to all play by the same rules and play fairly. When a new situation comes up, the DM should be able to come up with a rule that handles it appropriately, and that is agreed to by the players.

Besides, I think this is basically how it works in most tables anyhow. When a player doesn't think a call was appropriate he consults with the other players and DM and they discuss it. Maybe I've just been very fortunate to play with amazingly well-adjusted people.

[RandomCasualty]

The problem with democracy is it's painfully slow. I can't imagine bringing a game session to a halt to have a vote of some kind, with all the debating and everything. If you want to do that then let it be done out of game. I find things run smoother when you just have a monarchy.

Otherwise it's total chaos, it's like trying to let the coaches and players in a football game vote and argue it out when the official wants to make a call. You're wasting time for no reason.

[Username17]

Monarchy is frustrating bullshit. Seriously.

The rules should be agreed upon by everyone, whether it is by acclamation or compromise. Anything less is completely unsatisfying for all parties involved. The purpose of a game is to enjoy yourself, and if you bust loose with rules that not everyone agrees to enjoyment generally does not flow.

It's like playing foursquare when somebody suddenly interjects into the middle of the game that we are playing with "do overs" now. Is that fun? Hell no! It's terribly frustrating and feels cheap to everyone involved.

Now, if your problem is that getting everyone on board for a rules addition is slow, remember that that's the whole purpose behind using a static rules system in the first place. If you all agree to use the rules out of a book, then you can make that agreement at the start of the game, and takes less time than it does to actually think of a character you want to play or describe the town that the game starts off in.

If you find that changing game systems is cumbersome to perform during play - don't do it. But in order to make that work you'll need to find a game system that actually does what you want it to do.

And if what you want is a game system that does not include gaining and losing life-threatening conditions like a hot potato, one in which you don't constantly put on and take off death like an uncomfortable hair piece - then you are playing the wrong game system.

The solution isn't to be a total dick and tell everyone else to shelve their input while you go on a red-line rampage, the solution is to find some other game system that actually does what you want it to do right out of the box.

Because any time you want to adjust a game system it requires either you being an asshole or you getting cooperation and input from the other people at the table. No exceptions.

-Username17

[The_Hanged_Man]

1088437012[/unixtime]]The rules should be agreed upon by everyone, whether it is by acclamation or compromise. Anything less is completely unsatisfying for all parties involved. The purpose of a game is to enjoy yourself, and if you bust loose with rules that not everyone agrees to enjoyment generally does not flow.

IMO, the rules must be agreed by everyone, at least in important ways. Otherwise, eventually you don't even have a game. The guys that disagree will leave. If you want that, great. But I play w/ people I like, so I'd rather compromise.

[rapanui]

"Now, if your problem is that getting everyone on board for a rules addition is slow, remember that that's the whole purpose behind using a static rules system in the first place."

Yes, exactly. But when the ruleset sucks hard, you either have to:
a) Draft up a billion house rules and get them approved by every one at the table
b) Choose a different game (which can take even more time than option 'a' if the other players don't know the mechanics, not to mention that there is no guarantee that the newly chosen game system will be any better)
c) Change rules as you go along. This is best accomplished by a democracy at the table. Hence my original point.

This is getting slightly off-topic though. We were trying to come up with a viable alternative to meaningless death without destroying the heroics inherent to D&D.

Josh: Hero sounds interesting. I'd have to take a long look at the magic system first, and I'm not sure if I like the fact that the players have to know so much straight out from 1st level.

[RandomCasualty]

1088437012[/unixtime]]
Now, if your problem is that getting everyone on board for a rules addition is slow, remember that that's the whole purpose behind using a static rules system in the first place. If you all agree to use the rules out of a book, then you can make that agreement at the start of the game, and takes less time than it does to actually think of a character you want to play or describe the town that the game starts off in.

But rules arguments during the game still take time, and you'll hear plenty of dissention, and some of them are total crap and shouldnt' be wasting time from the game. Sometimes you've just got to say you're the DM and you're right and to take it up after the game. I don't want to waste 10 minutes during a battle looking up rules to contradict a player who thinks the shield spell stacks with his existing shield. I just don't, I'm just going to tell him he's wrong and that's the way it goes.

Because any time you want to adjust a game system it requires either you being an asshole or you getting cooperation and input from the other people at the table. No exceptions.

I disagree. It's no different from saying "I'm running a D&D 3.5 game, you want to join?"

When you're the DM, you've got the campaign idea and pretty much you pick what game system you're playing. Whether it's a published game system, a modified version of a published game system or your own homebrew system, it makes little difference really. So long as you tell the players what you changed, it really doesn't matter. And this isn't a democratic process, it's a dictation.

If you want to tell a story a certain way, then you should feel ok changing rules to suit that flavor, and you don't necessarily need to make sure it's ok with your PCs either (though you should inform them of the change).

And as for finding new systems, there are plenty of reasons why you'd want to modify D&D in some way, like making death less common, and I don't think the answer is immediately "find a new rules set", because I think you'll be looking quite a long time sometimes to find a system you like. A lot of people like D&D in general, granted they may have a problem with a few topics, but in general they like it. Most PCs would prefer house rules to a system they know to learning a new system anyway.

I think it's certainly worthwhile to try to find ways to change around things you don't like in the system, like making death and resurrection both less common.

[The_Hanged_Man]

It does matter. Telling people you're changing Rule X, becuase you want to, end of discussion, sucks. If the players are unhappy with the New, Improved Rule X, do you really want to make them play a way they hate?

D&D, at least, isn't a dicatatorship. "The DM is always right" refers to specific rule calls in the middle of the game, and exists so that the game doesn't degenerate into rules arguments, name calling, and throw pizza. House Rules are a matter of give and take, or else there won't be a house to rule for long.

[RandomCasualty]

You can't make everyone happy, so you might as well just make yourself happy as DM. Almost every rules change is going to be met with some kind of agreement and disagreement anyway. Unless a good majority of my players hate the rules change with a passion, I'm not going to care too much.

I trust my own judgment over any written rule. After seeing how badly they overpowered the druid in 3.5 I don't feel any guilt in overriding what the rule book says. I will freely say that I think I could have done a better job writing the 3.5 rules than the revision team.

Sometimes I'll make a mistake now and then by overnerfing something or making something too powerful, but I can quickly fix it, and none of the mistakes that I made are on the scale of making natural spell a core feat and allowing druids to walk around with 8 in all their stats and be permanently wildshaped. To ask me to play RAW with that crap is like accusing me of being retarded.

[Username17]

You can't make everyone happy, so you might as well just make yourself happy as DM.

That's bullshit. I mean, I'm astounded that anyone would even write that down it's such bullshit.

You can't make everyone happy all the time, but if you can't make everyone happy you simply shouldn't even be running a game. I mean, when you run a game, it's your job to make everyone happy as much as possible.

-Username17

[RandomCasualty]

1088462490[/unixtime]]
That's bullshit. I mean, I'm astounded that anyone would even write that down it's such bullshit.

You can't make everyone happy all the time, but if you can't make everyone happy you simply shouldn't even be running a game. I mean, when you run a game, it's your job to make everyone happy as much as possible.

Fighter thinks forcecage, MDJ, polymorph any object and maze are overpowered and broken, mage thinks they're fine. You keep them the same, then the fighter gets disappointed, you nerf them then the mage gets disappointed.

Druid thinks his class is totally balanced, everyone else is whining it's broken. You nerf him, he gets upset, everyone else is happy.

You just can't keep everyone happy when there is any controversy at all. Someone is going to think you're making a mistake if you act and some people will think you're making a mistake if you don't act.

No good DM always goes with the popular decision. It just shows you lack any confidence, and that's certainly not the person I want running my game. If you're willing to admit Ed Stark is smarter than you are, you might as well completely give up anything with any kind of intellectual element whatsoever.

I just don't see how it went from "DM is god" to "DM is a spineless peice of shit who must make sure not to upset anyone". What ever happened to making the decision you thought was best instead of making the most politically correct decision?

Having confidence is a good thing, and when you sit down to DM you have to believe that you know what you're doing. If you sit down there thinking you're an incompetent moron who might as well play it safe and do exactly what the book tells you regardless of consequences, then you might as well not be DMing. It's also this stupid style of DMing that leads to blatant favoritism like the DM's best friend having all the uber magical items. As soon as you let your game become a matter of politics then this is what kind of stupid shit happens.

If you're about to make an unpopular decision you should probably consider it a bit harder than you would a popular one, but still if you think it's the right choice, then you have to be able to make it anyway. That's what DMing is all about.

[Desdan_Mervolam]

That doesn't mean you hand out blowjobs like a drunk highschooler at a frat party. The DM needs to be reasonable, of course, but the DM still needs to be firm.

Playing in a D&D game requires that the player trust the DM. Trust him that the rulings are made for the good of the whole game, because only the DM knows where all this is going. This requires the occasional defeat, short-term suckage and and periodic hard times that the players have to get through. This is conflict, and it makes the game all the more fun when you finally do figure out how to solve the plot.

And as long as you keep out of the DM vs Party mindset this works pretty well there. Remember that just because the DM gives you an encounter that you can't beat with a straight up fight, negates some of your party's abilities, or puts you otherwise in an unplesant situation, it doesn't mean he's beating you with his dick, it just means he's giving you a challenge. Long as you don't do that every time, and don't do it the same way every time (That is, maybe this time the party faces a homebrew construct with Tremorsense to vex the sneak-attack themed Rogue, and next time you have an enemy who has a high SR and saves to make the magic users less of an issue), you're staying quite out of the "asshole" area.

-Desdan

[User3]

That doesn't mean you hand out blowjobs like a drunk highschooler at a frat party.

Although the chair would state for the record that we totally support this kind of behavior.

-Username17

[RandomCasualty]

1088463770[/unixtime]]
Playing in a D&D game requires that the player trust the DM. Trust him that the rulings are made for the good of the whole game, because only the DM knows where all this is going. This requires the occasional defeat, short-term suckage and and periodic hard times that the players have to get through. This is conflict, and it makes the game all the more fun when you finally do figure out how to solve the plot.

Exactly.

What surprises me most is the latest trend of not trusting your DM. Most of the PC versus DM thing IMX seems to be coming from the player side. And I think part of trying to take away the DM's power makes him appear incompetent. Either you trust the guy to run a good game or you don't. If the latter is the case, then I wonder why you're at the table in the first place.

[User3]

Trust has to go both ways, and if the DM isn't willing to agree to a hard set of rules before hand, he obviously doesn't trust you the player.

Once you've agreed to the set of rules, then going back on that is cheating, regardless of whether it is done by the player or the DM. Those rules can have spaces for open endedness, but to the extent that they exist at all they are in the rules that have been agreed to.

Otherwise there is absolutely no point whatsoever in having a set of rules or mechanics in the first place. It would save time to dispense with the entire process and simply have the "DM" tell a fvucking story. Periodically the "players" could interject something which the "DM" would be free to include or ignore.

Your nightmare of having the game run on a simple DM popularity basis is attainable only if the rest of the players have no say - which is a unique facet of your proposed DM autocracy. A democratic approach to the rules restricts or eliminates that problem by definition.

-Username17

[RandomCasualty]

1088477600[/unixtime]]
Your nightmare of having the game run on a simple DM popularity basis is attainable only if the rest of the players have no say - which is a unique facet of your proposed DM autocracy. A democratic approach to the rules restricts or eliminates that problem by definition.

No it doesn't.

Democracy is great for political parties and deals.

"Vote with me and I'll give you cool magic items." or
"Lets all unite against the DM, that way whenever something bad happens to one of us PCs we agree to help the other guy out and the DM can't do a thing."

So now you get the DM making deals with PCs to try to win votes, and PCs hosing other PCs because they don't like them much. And that's all you need is the DM and his best friends teaming up against the rest of the players.

Democracy is a popularity contest, and it tends to elect the most incompetent fools who win because they are willing to concede various crap just to get elected. I see Bush in office and that is a blaring siren saying "democracy doesn't work." Who you like as a person and who would make a good DM are two different things.

As for rules sets, we have to accept that you can't have a rules set that is going to cover everything, and there will be loopholes. You either allow the loopholes and your game becomes ruined, or you have someone there to say, "that's fvcking stupid and I'm not allowing it." That someone should be the DM.

Nobody is omniscient and new abuses become uncovered all the time. So there's no such thing as blindly saying "we are going to follow this rules set no matter what." Because you have no idea what you're agreeing to. If you're going to allow something that you know to be broken simply because you agreed to "follow these rules"... well then you really need to grow a pair. If you ever expect people to respect you, you need to prove you're willing to use your power and influence.

The moment you start giving that power away to some democracy, well then you look really spineless and not confident in your abilities. Why would any competent DM do that? He wouldn't. The only reason someone would do that is because he doesn't have confidence in his own decision making abilities and is afraid of making an unpopular decision and losing players. Of course by doing this, now the players come in not having confidence in him either. If you're going to play as the DM, you've got to represent strength and competence, because when you're weak everybody is gonna walk all over you.

I've seen democratic games. They were a joke. Was the most favoritism based game I'd ever seen and the rules seemed to change based on if it favored the players or not and the DM was just sitting there getting his game abused. It was the lamest excuse for a D&D game I'd ever seen. I'll take some Gygaxian asshole over that guy anyday.

[User3]

1088485202[/unixtime]]
So now you get the DM making deals with PCs to try to win votes, and PCs hosing other PCs because they don't like them much. And that's all you need is the DM and his best friends teaming up against the rest of the players.

If a game does not, ultimately, give the players what they want, they will leave the game. That's why all games are ultimately democratic -- well, all games not run by Kim Jong-Il, anyway. If the players don't agree with the way the game's being run, they'll leave, and eventually you will have, by default, a game where everyone agrees on the rules. So this talk about the DM always being right is nonsense; the DM is right exactly as long as the players will tolerate what he's doing, and any DM who doesn't take that into account when he runs a game is:

a) deluding himself, and

b) not likely to run many extended campaigns.

That doesn't mean that the game has to disintegrate into some kind of half-assed anarcho-syndicalist commune where every decision in the game has to be ratified by an immediate vote. I have yet to meet a group that isn't willing to let the DM adjudicate unclear rules while the game is in progress and argue about it after the session's over, but maybe I'm just lucky.

--d.

[Oberoni]

I'd much rather just say "it's the DM's call" and then discuss anything after the game, rather than have an open-table discussion every time there's a rules dispute.

[The_Hanged_Man]

Heck, as DM I often just roll the dice when we have a call disagreement. Like for instance the last game we played. I couldn't remember whether you could charge through friendlies at the time. We could look up the rule, but I just rolled for it (1-3 yes, 4-6 no). The dice said yes, the guy charged, and did 3x damage. Game went on, about 10 minutes late someboedy found the rule. So I was wrong. BFD.

No one's upset, b/c it wasn't *me* making a bad call, it was the dice. The rule isn't *that* important. That's 99.99999% of the rules. They really, really, really don't matter - as long as everybody's OK with how the rules turn out.

Democratic gaming is the only way to make sure everybody's OK w/ the rules. End of story.

[Username17]

The dice said yes, the guy charged, and did 3x damage. Game went on, about 10 minutes late someboedy found the rule. So I was wrong. BFD.

You weren't wrong if you were playing by the 3.5 rules as written in the book, and you were not wrong if you play by the 3rd edition rules. Most people play that you weren't wrong.

The key here is the overrun action. You simply declare a charge through anybody, then the person being charged through decides if he wants to stop you or not. If they decide not to stop you, you charge right through and it doesn't matter if the guy was friendly or afraid. If they decide to stop you, they get an attack of opportunity (unless you meet a tumble DC of 25), and then they have to defeat you in an opposed strength check or fall down and let your charge through anyway (if they win, your charge is stopped).

Since a friendly is presumably not intending to stop you, you can charge through them all day long.

--

Now errata exists to the PHB to the effect that overrun essentially does not exist, part of Andy's three part plan whereby using Ride By Attack is technically illegal under all circumstances. However, in my personal experience that errata is universally scoffed at and the overrun sub-action is still legal in every game I have ever played.

So no, the dice made the right call.

--

Which gets me to another thing:

Shield does stack with shield bonuses, presuming that you use the 3rd edition Player's Handbook. Shield, in that setting, provides a cover bonus, and shields of course provide a shield bonus. So they stack. That's not brain surgery or anything, that's the honest to goodness actual rule in the 3rd edition PHB.

So if somebody is claiming a stackage between Shield and a shield, that's not people being stupid, and that's not easily dismissable. That's someone looking it up in the 3rd edition player's handbook and reading the actual text provided therein.

If somebody's doing that, simply saying "They don't stack, shut up" and moving on isn't helpful. Chances are, the character in question went to considerable lengths to arrange their bonus stackings to be compliant with the rules as they read them. If you are playing 3.5 (where they both provide a shield bonus and don't stack), and your players are looking stuff up in a 3rd edition PHB to design their charactes, you have a real game issue which is not resolvable in a satisfactory method by you slapping down the iron gauntlet on the table and moving on.

If your players don't know what rules you are using, then you aren't playing a game. They are making decisions based on incorrect information or not information at all, and periodically their characters die. That's not fun, and it's not fair.

-Username17