Well, Mike Mearls got promoted. Any hope for 5e?

[shadzar]

Two minor points:

First, while rules can never prevent GM dickery outright, they can in some cases reduce it. For example, open rolling doesn't let the GM declare whatever number he wants and certain abilities (such as Divination, No Save attacks, and very high numbers) are harder for the GM to ignore without being called out, as opposed to spells granting saves (the monsters might just all "roll well").

Second, I don't understand the advice given by fectin (and others, other times and boards) that if a rule cannot be found immediately, the matter should be resolved after the session. Assuming that it is known that a relevant rule exists, why wait? Is the system you're using so byzantine that it takes more than a minute or two to resolve any given issue?

1. you also have the problem of DM being unable to save you, and if they do it feels pointless when the DM does get those hellish rolls, where he doesnt want a TPK, but open rolling means the dice fall where they may.

2. a DMs job is to keep the game going. trough 3.0 the DMG said the DM should try to not break the game for ANYTHING unless really needed, such as rea life type things, as breaking the game for rules look up can often lose the pace or the situation and be hard to get back into that groove once the thing is looked up.

it is always good to discuss the game afterwards to handle any ideas and thoughts about it anyway.

-refresher beforehand to get people back in the mood
-the game itself
-then summary of events and discussion.

no need to have the discussion in all 3 parts.

also if someone REALLY needs to look it up, then an inactive player can do so during if it will be needed again soon.

the may thing to do is for the session keep consistent. again looking it up after, means you dont have to retcon something if you switch mid-stream of the game.

but yes, people should be familiar with where things are and what they are for their own character, so looking up a rule during game shouldnt be done often. know your character well enough to play it.

[fbmf]

but yes, people should be familiar with where things are and what they are for their own character, so looking up a rule during game shouldnt be done often. know your character well enough to play it.

Wait, are you suggesting players should be familiar with the ru-uh, I mean guidelines of D&D?

Who are you? What have you done with shadzar?

Game On,
fbmf

[Wrathzog]

Second, I don't understand the advice given by fectin (and others, other times and boards) that if a rule cannot be found immediately, the matter should be resolved after the session. Assuming that it is known that a relevant rule exists, why wait? Is the system you're using so byzantine that it takes more than a minute or two to resolve any given issue?

A well written rule is going to quickly squelch any argument and play can continue. A Badly Written rule just exacerbates any conflict and that's the sort of thing that should wait until post-session.

[tzor]

Are you sure that works when the rest of the group is NOT on your side?

If you are not liked by either the DM or the Players then you shouldn't be there at all. Just walk away.

[fectin]

Second, I don't understand the advice given by fectin (and others, other times and boards) that if a rule cannot be found immediately, the matter should be resolved after the session. Assuming that it is known that a relevant rule exists, why wait? Is the system you're using so byzantine that it takes more than a minute or two to resolve any given issue?

Swordslinger was complaining about it, so it must be a problem for him. Given that it is a problem, this is how to handle it. And really, not all games have good indexes, so it can take quite a long time.

[Swordslinger]

Second, I don't understand the advice given by fectin (and others, other times and boards) that if a rule cannot be found immediately, the matter should be resolved after the session. Assuming that it is known that a relevant rule exists, why wait? Is the system you're using so byzantine that it takes more than a minute or two to resolve any given issue?

Swordslinger was complaining about it, so it must be a problem for him. Given that it is a problem, this is how to handle it. And really, not all games have good indexes, so it can take quite a long time.

The problem is that while it's easy to say, putting a player off with a ruling that the PC thinks is wrong creates more bad blood than simply the DM ad hocing something.

People can generally understand and respectfully disagree with a bad ruling on the DM's part if that's expected of the DM to make rulings. At least in my experience, It creates more bad blood to ignore or put off a PC till later, especially if they find out that they were right the whole time and the DM was wrong. At that point the PC feels like the DM cheated, because he knows 100% that the DM was wrong there. In the case of ad hoc rulings, there really is no right and wrong, it's all a matter of opinion and thus the bad blood is actually minimized.

That's why it's good practice to minimize obscure rules in general. If you're probably never going to use a given rule more than once in a campaign, then you should really think hard about including it at all.

[Hieronymous Rex]

1. you also have the problem of DM being unable to save you, and if they do it feels pointless when the DM does get those hellish rolls, where he doesnt want a TPK, but open rolling means the dice fall where they may.

If the DM is going to ignore rolls that he doesn't like, why does he roll at all? He could just declare a outcome and eschew rolling. By throwing the dice, he commits himself to outcome rolled.

Also, does it help the game for the DM to save people? Is Easymode a design goal?

[fectin]

The problem is that while it's easy to say, putting a player off with a ruling that the PC thinks is wrong creates more bad blood than simply the DM ad hocing something.

I haven't found this to be true at all. And if you're not fairly certain about it, why aren't you taking his interpretation as your temporary ruling?

People can generally understand and respectfully disagree with a bad ruling on the DM's part if that's expected of the DM to make rulings. At least in my experience, It creates more bad blood to ignore or put off a PC till later, especially if they find out that they were right the whole time and the DM was wrong. At that point the PC feels like the DM cheated, because he knows 100% that the DM was wrong there. In the case of ad hoc rulings, there really is no right and wrong, it's all a matter of opinion and thus the bad blood is actually minimized.

I haven't seen that at all. Maybe I'm just more polite to other people at the table when asking them to make an exception for me; I don't know. Anyone else want to chime in here? Am I just confused?

[Wrathzog]

If the DM is going to ignore rolls that he doesn't like, why does he roll at all? He could just declare a outcome and eschew rolling. By throwing the dice, he commits himself to outcome rolled.

The DM Rolls because... because that's just how the game works.
But it's totally within his right to make up whatever bullshit circumstance modifiers needed to skew the result. This isn't necessarily a good or bad thing.

Also, does it help the game for the DM to save people? Is Easymode a design goal?

Ideally, these are the sorts of things that help with the Narrative... so, yes it can help the game for the DM to save people; No, easymode is not a design goal.

I haven't seen that at all. Maybe I'm just more polite to other people at the table when asking them to make an exception for me; I don't know. Anyone else want to chime in here? Am I just confused?

I've been on both sides of this and it totally depends on the people involved. Some people do take it as a personal attack if you say something like, "Oh, they printed errata to the Stealth rules in the PHB2."
and they'll go, "WELL YOU JUST FUCKED THE ENTIRE POINT OF MY CHARACTER YOU FUCKING FUCKER," before pouting for the rest of the session and never apologizing for acting like a fool.

In my experience, most people just go along with what the DM decides at that moment and they'll talk about it later if it really bothers them.

[tzor]

If the DM is going to ignore rolls that he doesn't like, why does he roll at all? He could just declare a outcome and eschew rolling. By throwing the dice, he commits himself to outcome rolled.

I once rolled (as a DM) two 20's in a row for an attack by a small annoying black bird - working for a rather evil goddess at the time - whose normal one point of damage became "death no save." I decided on the spot that the rule was flat out stupid and didn't use it.

I mean two points of damage I could see but ...

[Swordslinger]

I haven't found this to be true at all. And if you're not fairly certain about it, why aren't you taking his interpretation as your temporary ruling?

The DM usually is reasonably sure, just like the PC is reasonably sure, it's just sometimes people are wrong. The PC that said he was "almost positive" that mage armor stacked with regular armor wasn't lying, he was just mistaken. Sometimes PCs actually do just outright make shit up.

In general, if it's not a rule that everyone is familiar with, it's probably something that everyone is a little fuzzy on, the only problem is that the PC won't likely remember the times he was "almost positive" and wrong, but will remember with bitterness the time he was right and you didn't listen to him.

That's been my experience anyway. I've had way more disruptions in rules heavy games than in GM ad hoc games, simply because in the latter people accept the game for what it is, where the former encourages rules lawyering.

[Hieronymous Rex]

I once rolled (as a DM) two 20's in a row for an attack by a small annoying black bird - working for a rather evil goddess at the time - whose normal one point of damage became "death no save." I decided on the spot that the rule was flat out stupid and didn't use it.

I mean two points of damage I could see but ...

"Nonsensical Results" should be an exception to "Let the Dice Fall Where They May", so it would be possible in some cases to both be fair and ignore a die result.

Also, tzor... what system was this anecdote in? Empire of the Petal Throne?

[tzor]

Also, tzor... what system was this anecdote in? Empire of the Petal Throne?

D&D, offhand I forget the edition, it's an "optional rule" in the DMG. I'm going to guess it was still 2E, although it could have been early 3E. I was running my kit bashed Lankhmar world at the time.

[Chamomile]

I ran an encounter with some gnolls once. When the gnolls reached the party, they got two critical hits and another rolled for maximum damage. Half the party was going to go down in the first round. I decided that y'know what, no, the gnolls are not allowed to be that lucky, and rerolled the attacks. I'm still not entirely sure whether this was a good or bad decision, having been made spur of the moment and all.

[Hieronymous Rex]

I ran an encounter with some gnolls once. When the gnolls reached the party, they got two critical hits and another rolled for maximum damage. Half the party was going to go down in the first round. I decided that y'know what, no, the gnolls are not allowed to be that lucky, and rerolled the attacks. I'm still not entirely sure whether this was a good or bad decision, having been made spur of the moment and all.

Critical hits have never been a good idea (except WHFRP, in which the term means something entirely different); they make combat more swingy, and are redundant, since the damage roll already accounts for "how well you hit".

I'd say that you made the right decision, but encountered a problem with the system (i.e. that gnolls can get that lucky).

[Stubbazubba]

I ran an encounter with some gnolls once. When the gnolls reached the party, they got two critical hits and another rolled for maximum damage. Half the party was going to go down in the first round. I decided that y'know what, no, the gnolls are not allowed to be that lucky, and rerolled the attacks. I'm still not entirely sure whether this was a good or bad decision, having been made spur of the moment and all.

Too bad you didn't decide that in time to save my first character in that game...

[Lago PARANOIA]

Why didn't you just decide that ahead of time the PCs won and then just roll a 1d6 on a sliding scale to see how bad they got banged up?

[DSMatticus]

Killing PC's ain't fun. People made a character they wanted to play as and tell stories about, presumably. Telling them "oops, no" and asking them to move on to their second favorite idea is unfun. Of course, it's also fun to tell stories in which the characters lose. Unfortunately, it's frequently difficult to tell a story where the characters lose but don't die. D&D does not make this easy, with its measly 10 negative hitpoints and such. And then there are times when it's fun to tell stories in which the characters die, but it's usually at dramatically appropriate moments and not to some random gnolls.

Depending on the gnolls' motivations and circumstances, I could see doing something like this: the party is beaten to near death, robbed, and left for dead, but 'auto-stabilizes' long enough for one to recover, stabilize the others, and limp it back to society half-alive. Quest Received: "Where's All Our Shit?" But even this would just piss off most people, especially when you take their shiny gear. D&D is very item-dependent.

[ishy]

Never being able to die is no fun either though, I like a challenge

And it makes me wonder, would you have fudged the results too if the gnolls were extremely unlucky or if the pcs were extremely lucky?

[Hieronymous Rex]

Depending on the gnolls' motivations and circumstances, I could see doing something like this: the party is beaten to near death, robbed, and left for dead, but 'auto-stabilizes' long enough for one to recover, stabilize the others, and limp it back to society half-alive. Quest Received: "Where's All Our Shit?"

I would be irritated if a DM transparently pulled his punches like this.

[Chamomile]

Never being able to die is no fun either though, I like a challenge

And it makes me wonder, would you have fudged the results too if the gnolls were extremely unlucky or if the pcs were extremely lucky?

No. There are plenty more NPCs where those came from, and there will be plenty of chances for the PCs lives to be hanging by a thread in the midst of a desperate combat (in fact, the gnolls' luck held enough that the gnoll fight ended up like that anyway, even though they didn't down anyone in the very first round). These gnolls weren't fleshed out characters like the PCs were, they're just "1d6+3 gnolls" or whatever it was.

Too bad you didn't decide that in time to save my first character in that game...

That was actually a big part of the reason I made that choice. The campaign was already lethal enough without you guys getting steamrolled by gnolls favored by the RNG. And there were a number of other differences between the gnoll fight and the guard fight that I don't really think I should elaborate on here.

[shadzar]

1. you also have the problem of DM being unable to save you, and if they do it feels pointless when the DM does get those hellish rolls, where he doesnt want a TPK, but open rolling means the dice fall where they may.

If the DM is going to ignore rolls that he doesn't like, why does he roll at all? He could just declare a outcome and eschew rolling. By throwing the dice, he commits himself to outcome rolled.

Also, does it help the game for the DM to save people? Is Easymode a design goal?

and here we go again.....

1. he doesnt "ignore rolls he doesnt like", but in any edition of RPG there is a chance that luck may be with you on dice rolls and against the players and a TPK eminent. the combat might not be a place where the threat of TPK is warranted, or welcomed by the DM or the party. rather than having the players know they have a hollow victory by seeing jsut how badly their ass got handed to them by seeing the dice, mean the DM can fake it and allow the game to continue.

maybe he does this after just getting started and a series of lucky rolls is about to TPK the entire level 1 party. you dont have time or feel like rolling new characters, and dont want to just erase the names on the character sheet and write new ones to continue on, so the DM, just overrides the dice outcome for the sake of the game.

the DM priorities as in this order:

-game
-world
-players

2. by being the DM, he can override ANY outcome at ANY time. if the group wants and epic chase the BBEG all over the world game, and they kill the BBEG at the beginning...game over. so the DM can let them escape, like he can let the player party escape at any time to make the game work. (see above priority list for the DM)

3. yeah it helps the game for the DM to save people. lucky dice tonight again can cause a game to end miserably and unfullfilling for all. a published adventure could ahve something that goes harder than expected. the players may encounter something designed by the DM, and in order to prevent it form being harder than intended the DM has to alter it midstream.

this has ALL been gone over before....

4. easy mode is there if people want to play it, and it seems a design goal of 4th depending on how you look at it.

Critical hits have never been a good idea

..for you. for others they fit right in.

I would be irritated if a DM transparently pulled his punches like this.

that is why DM rolling BEHIND the screen allows for the PCs being saved to NOT be transparent.

Gary was a "dice fall where they may" person. the dice and your choices held your fate. bad dice rolls and bad choices lead to the end of your character.

not everyone wants to play Diablo with infinite character. so going through a dungeon people like to keep their characters rather than pick up a new one a fel levels down, so sometimes the DM has to intervene, and open rolling makes it all too transparent when he does.

[DSMatticus]

I would be irritated if a DM transparently pulled his punches like this.

The alternative is their characters all dying, because that's the result the system turned up. If everybody's unhappy with that, as they probably would be if they got slaughtered by a bunch of random gnolls, why wouldn't you, as a group, try to find a way to maintain shreds of verisimillitude, remain faithful to the outcome of the combat, and let everyone still play? Additionally, D&D is not adversarial. There's nothing wrong with the DM 'pulling punches' because the DM's goal is not to win, it is to facilitate and direct the narrative involving the player's characters. If the system's results are pushing that narrative in a direction everybody hates, I don't see the problem with trying to salvage it.

Ideally, you'd change the system so that player mortality is less likely. Generic orcs have a good chance of criticalling low-level characters, but it's not fun to die that way. The whole 'action points,' 'fate,' 'luck,' or 'edge,' thing where you burn points to turn death into unconsciousness would work nicely to let players lose (which can advance the story in a new, interesting way) without it meaning the end of the story (which is rarely satisfying or interesting unless it happens at a dramatically appropriate point).

[tussock]

Killing PC's ain't fun.

That is such bullshit. Nothing players hate more than a DM cheating them out of a good death scene, or even a weak one when it's obvious. For a lot of people, there is no fun anywhere in the game if their PCs can't die.

People made a character they wanted to play as and tell stories about, presumably.

Nope. Stories are what we, the players, tell about the shit our characters got into, after the fact. They all end with either perma-death, off-screen retirement, or "that campaign died".

Unfortunately, it's frequently difficult to tell a story where the characters lose but don't die.

Meh, only if your players are accustomed to fighting to the last man standing. It's not that hard to cut and run early, even in 3e; and players will learn to if the DM refuses to routinely provide them with other options. Caltrops at 1st level, eh.

Depending on the gnolls' motivations and circumstances,

Gnolls are easy: they always take prisoners, slave them until they get sick, then kill and eat them. Every other race hates them. The prisoner's first job is to carry the dead back for the pot. Instant rebellion/jailbreak scenario, new source of PCs to replace the dead, just play possum 'till the war party heads out on its next raid.

[Daztur]

DSMatticus: I agree that FATE points etc. can do a good job of sending the play in ways that are fun but if you don't have those mechanics or those mechanics aren't cutting it and the GM finds themselves constantly fudging to get the rules to do what they want then they're probably either playing the wrong game and should find a game that matches their expectations better or just let things play out, having hilariously unfortunate things happen to a player makes for great stories, especially if they can get themselves out of that bind later.