Me and the DMG

Nice posts both of you. Beoric brings up many good points.

Two things EOTB says in counterpoint ring true with me. First, as said above, I often grope around for self-imposed rules for consistency. At face-value, it may seem like skills are a solution I would like. That's not so. But the difference, as EOTB says, is the DM is arbitrator for self-imposed rulings, whereas the players OWN the skills---and generally lean into them heavily. In my experience, this massively changes the play-dynamic and the overall game into something far more mechanized and action-quantized. I like the former (aides) because they help me maintain a smooth-running and consistent game. I generally dislike the latter because they can hand-cuff the DM and box-in the player's actions mentally.

Secondly, ...err...I forgot my second point.

Anyway. I feel like the whole 1e DMG, although it is taken as gospel by many, is in fact much more a collection of tips by Gygax for DMs to use in those areas for which the core-mechanic (combat?) of the game are fuzzy. He knows you are going to have to make a bunch of rulings for wierd situations you players get themselves into, and he's giving you the benefit of his experience. One might expect it to read like New Rules, but it's more nuanced than that. Sure some things are cast in stone (e.g. attack tables), but what makes it such a weird, rambling book, is that it's almost autobiographical in nature, i.e. "Things I've Had to Deal With While Running Dungeons & Dragon's Games, by E.G. Gygax" might easily have been the title.

EDIT: Also skills (in modern games especially) come across to me as a player power-grabs. Players having influenced the rules---trying to rig the system for an additional leg-up. Sorry Charlie! Play it straight!---get advantage the old-fashioned way, by successful play. No fair cheating at role-up time. We all start the game equally at GO. You don't get to sneak Park Avenue into your portfolio in anticipation we will land there. And before anyone says it: if you don't mind those kind of systemic short-cuts...then that's your business. It's not for me.
(Also, I'm going to recklessly incantate the magic-words "special snowflakes", just to see if they summon the daemon DP.)
 
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squeen said:
EDIT: Also skills (in modern games especially) come across to me as a player power-grabs. Players having influenced the rules---trying to rig the system for an additional leg-up. Sorry Charlie! Play it straight!---get advantage the old-fashioned way, by successful play. No fair cheating at role-up time. We all start the game equally at GO. You don't get to sneak Park Avenue into your portfolio in anticipation we will land there. And before anyone says it: if you don't mind those kind of systemic short-cuts...then that's your business. It's not for me.
(Also, I'm going to recklessly incantate the magic-words "special snowflakes", just to see if they summon the daemon DP.)
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This is very true. If you are playing with min/maxers, they will take advantage of the skill system to get ungodly high skill bonuses. This with limitations in the system itself (rolling a d20, not 3d6 or some other mix of dice, means you don't have a nice bell curve to work with) can make the system into a disaster.

Another problem is that if you base skill points on hit dice, you get monsters with ridiculous skill ranks. There was a colossal toad statted out, with Spot at something ungodly high (+30? +50?) because of the amount of hit dice the toad have. That was ridiculous. I would have thought that the toad probably would have trouble noticing anything tiny like a human, and even with the size modifiers the spot skill on this toad seemed too high.

A player in a previous power-gamer group I dm'ed told me about his experience playing D&D online. He created a half elven sorcerer and put everything in Charisma to get a super-high diplomacy skill. The in game effect of this was that you would get better rewards the higher your diplomacy skill. Eventually they realized that this was a mistake and nerfed it in a patch. He was so ticked he stopped playing the game.
 
Finally, for Dangerous Puhson:

CANADA ROCKS.

(well except for Alberta, but I guess everyone has to suffer through their own Texas)
 
I think you are both misunderstanding my meaning. When I talk about adjudication, I mean it in the same sense that Gygax uses the words "referee" or "neutral arbiter".

The skill bonuses belong to the PC. But the determination of which skill applies, and the determination of the target number ("DC"), belong to the DM. In a properly adjudicated skill system, the player does not get to tell the DM what skill he uses. The player tells the DM what approach he takes, just like with he would in a system without skills. Based on that approach, the DM determines (a) whether the approach automatically succeeds of fails, or (b) if the approach does not automatically succeed or fail, how difficult the attempted action is. Many skill systems provide guidelines as to the DC to set for an easy, moderate or hard an action is, but guidelines are not mandatory, and the DM can fix whatever number he wants. Moreover, the DM is free to grant bonuses or penalties to the roll if the approach is particularly clever or stupid. In other words, the DM owns the numbers that matter.

And that is the only difference between what you do and what I do, from the DM side of the screen. If a player wants to try something that I think is "hard", I have a guideline to help me decide what "hard" means. From the player's side of the screen, he has a sense of what he is good at and what he is not good at.

@ EOTB the "narrative bypass" I discuss above is not for purely physical tasks. For example, if players take the time to research the Duke's likes and prejudices and phrase their argument in a way that is likely to appeal, and persuade or leverage his advisors to agree, then no Diplomacy check is required. (A Diplomacy check is also not required if they instead insult him and the Barbarian tries to intimidate him.)

As for "moving silently even in areas where other classes can't move quietly if they want to and try very carefully", may I point out how difficult it is to move silently in areas of dry leaves or dry tall grass? Which is something a Ranger ought to be able to do in ideal conditions, and ought to have a shot at if he is scouting or attempting to ambush an orc party.

I will also point out that ad hoc adjudication requires more DM skill than adjudication with a skill system, and is less accessible to newer players, whereas the skill system adjudication methods I describe can be employed by a novice DM. You may be skilled at assigning appropriate and realistic probabilities to actions; other DMs are not. As I mentioned above, two-thirds of my group during my teens was composed of athletes and hunters, and the other third was composed of couch potatoes. When the couch potatoes DM'd (and they DM'd a lot, having more time to make stuff up), there were frequent arguments about what was physically possible, and I remember at least one occasion where the argument was settled by the player actually doing the thing in RL that the couch potato said was impossible.
 
The Heretic said:
This is very true. If you are playing with min/maxers, they will take advantage of the skill system to get ungodly high skill bonuses. This with limitations in the system itself (rolling a d20, not 3d6 or some other mix of dice, means you don't have a nice bell curve to work with) can make the system into a disaster.

Another problem is that if you base skill points on hit dice, you get monsters with ridiculous skill ranks. There was a colossal toad statted out, with Spot at something ungodly high (+30? +50?) because of the amount of hit dice the toad have. That was ridiculous. I would have thought that the toad probably would have trouble noticing anything tiny like a human, and even with the size modifiers the spot skill on this toad seemed too high.

A player in a previous power-gamer group I dm'ed told me about his experience playing D&D online. He created a half elven sorcerer and put everything in Charisma to get a super-high diplomacy skill. The in game effect of this was that you would get better rewards the higher your diplomacy skill. Eventually they realized that this was a mistake and nerfed it in a patch. He was so ticked he stopped playing the game.
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Not sure about 3e or 5e, but in 4e the DM has the express right not to include certain game elements (like feats, powers and magic items) in his game. That means you can effectively forbid certain obnoxious combos. If a player has a strong reaction to that, well, it's nice to know in advance that someone won't be a good fit for your table.
 
EOTB said:
What most people desiring a skill system really want is some other person to cast responsibility for the listed success ratio upon, because they're passive introverts who don't take well to an assertive player aggressively arguing with them.
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I suppose I should be happy you didn't call me a "fucked up DM" this time. Yeah, I saw that post before you edited it. I'm down for a courteous conversation, but if you are going to insult me you can forget it.
 
So squeen said something over on the 5e thread
squeen said:
That's what the Me and the DMG thread is suppose to be about---the discovery process---mentally connecting those pieces and understand where they fit in the whole.
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and it got me thinking about the initiative thing again, and its impact on gameplay. I am curious, for those of you who have internalized 1e initiative to the point that you use it more or less RAW, how does knowing that system change the decisions you make, both as a player and as a DM? How does it impact your strategic and tactical decisions, and are those decisions made mainly before the start of combat, or during combat?
 
Not sure I'm following all of this. How do you influence surprise by tactical choices, other than having a ranger in a party (which is really a personnel choice, or arguably a high level strategic choice)?

I get how spell choice can affect attack order, but I'm not sure I get what you are saying about deployment of high dex characters. Are you saying that you tend to give them a missile fire role, and put low dex heavy armor types on the front line? If so, does that mean you tend to lose control over where the front line is (if the other side gets to move its front line into position first)?
 
I love it. I think it would be a massive service to the hobby if EOTB (co)authored a little pamphlet called something like "EOTB's Combat Tactics for AD&D". Some of his great grasp of the game (including the whole grapple-en mass to bring down high-level PCs, etc.) could highlight what 1e makes possible in the realm of tactics.

I wouldn't limit it to strict BTW rules. I would also (duely noted) include EOTB's interpretation of some of the ambiguities. Optional rules like allowing (readied) missile-fire to proceed a charge (that also ends in an attack with a second weapon).

I think a document like that would be long remembered and treasured. I am willing to help with the layout.

Turning the tables back @Beoric : Would you mind describing some of the tactical options that exist in later editions? Things that are missing from 1e? I am curious.
 
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squeen said:
Turning the tables back @Beoric : Would you mind describing some of the tactical options that exist in later editions? Things that are missing from 1e? I am curious.
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I plan to get to it when I have more of a 1e baseline to draw on. The reason I asked the question is because I am very interested in how mechanics affects the way we play.

For example, I like how the surprise mechanic encourages scouting as a way to avoid surprise, which is something you would naturally expect. The surprise mechanic in 4e does the same thing, although it operates very differently in other respects.

I am less enamoured by the suggestions that the initiative rules encourage the tactical decision to have high-dex characters employ missile attacks as much as possible, because that looks like a decision made entirely in the metagame. I am sure people have come up with in-world justifications for it, but to me it is not intuitive that someone can draw an arrow, nock it, draw, aim and fire a bow before swinging a melee weapon; in a one minute round the melee character may be feinting and dodging, but a bowman also has to worry about dodging enemy fire, finding a clear target, and possibly defending against melee attacks with no effective way of parrying.

This sort of think isn't limited to 1e; I'm sure I will find examples in 4e when I start parsing through those rules to outline how they affect tactics. But I mention it because in my view, whatever ruleset you choose, when a mechanic encourages a metagame response that is dissociated from the in-world response, it is worth looking at whether improvements can be made to the mechanic. I also think it is worth looking at if a mechanic neither drives nor results from any player choices; this is why I think critical hit tables, like frozen yogurt, often seem to disappoint.

So, anyway, keep telling me how initiative affects your choices; when that well it dry I will write a comparison to 4e.
 
EOTB will hopeful correct me if I've gotten it wrong, but those DEX-based initiate bonuses only apply if you have your arrow/what-not notched and ready. I make my players state this now.

(..or at least, I'm TRYING to get in the habit of making my player state this, now. 1e fun!)
 
squeen said:
EOTB will hopeful correct me if I've gotten it wrong, but those DEX-based initiate bonuses only apply if you have your arrow/what-not notched and ready.
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Does this imply it cannot be used after the first round?
 
EOTB said:
Nope, it applies any time their declared action is shooting/hurling a missile. "Notched and ready" isn't really a concept in 1E rules except in UA (don't use it, so would have to look it up) where archer specialists get some special rule when they declare such.
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To be clear: I won't let the high-dex player who's side lost initiative (by a couple of points) get off a shot before the opponent if they are just "walking along a city street on their way to see grandma", or "just finished climbing a rope", etc.

Basically, "notched" means "I declared that my bow is out and in-hand" *BEFORE* the combat started. That applies to the first round shot.

Once in melee, they can continue to use their missile weapon and get a timing bonus. (unless changing weapons---which is another thing I am trying to standardize how I handle it.)

Have I got it BTB, EOTB?
 
EOTB said:
1E does presume, even demand metagaming. Concerns about metagaming were a 2nd generation reaction and/or desire for a certain type of immersion that the 1E rules don't even conceive of, or attempt to implement. If a DM is against metagaming, the 1E rules will fight against them, instead of helping them, every step of the way.
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To be clear, I am not saying that making decisions according to the metagame has to be a bad thing, I am just trying to analyze what a given mechanic does. I am identifying a mechanic as being dissociative, and stating that it has a certain impact on the game, which is that metagame player strategy ends up outweighing in-world character strategy. That is not necessarily a bad thing, but it is a decision I think should be make consciously if possible. It is anti-simulationist, which is also not necessarily a bad thing. It also means that you are effectively out of character when you make such a decision, which is also not necessarily a bad thing.

My preference is for non-dissociative mechanics; if prefer as much as possible to make decisions in-character, or at least based on a proxy for character knowledge. There are dissociative mechanics in 4e (notably daily powers for non-spellcasters) which I do not particularly like and have spend a certain amount of thought on how to re-associate them. But as long as you aren't taking away agency, which this mechanic does not do, I don't really care if you prefer it or not. I do think it is worthwhile to analyze what mechanics do, both for its own sake and to help people identify why they like or dislike a particular rule,
 
In play style, I am much like EOTB --- the character is solely my proxy, a thin disguise-of-self used to affect action in the world. Never, in over a decade of play, did it ever occur to me to invent a backstory for any of the dozens I went through. (I can only remember one's name...and that's because he authored a couple of useful spells.)

This mention of immersion and 2e --- well it's clearly something I missed. It starts to make more sense to me now when folks like Malrex say they prefer 2e. I'm begining to suspect that there's more to the edition change than just a bunch of rule-tweaks and setting books. I need to do some homework.

That said....I took Beoric's noble Quest of Mechanics Understanding in a different light. I thought he was trying identify the list of possible in-game actions that felt jarringly out-of-context. Meta-gaming as something that mentally removes a player from the immersion in the world-simulation (1st-person experience with situational clues for best-action), and exposes D&D as a pure numbers-crunch (War game, with a priori known-best-actions given certain repeatable situations).

I like strategic war games (too), but that's not the feeling I associate with my fondest memories of playing D&D. The "good" D&D I recall is much more visceral. But then again, I played modified OD&D, and not strict AD&D. Is there a significantly difference mood? An inescapable left/right brain switch-over?
 
Beoric said:
I am identifying a mechanic as being dissociative, and stating that it has a certain impact on the game, which is that metagame player strategy ends up outweighing in-world character strategy. That is not necessarily a bad thing, but it is a decision I think should be make consciously if possible. It is anti-simulationist, which is also not necessarily a bad thing.
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D&D has always been tied to chance/fate/luck (we let dice determine all the results, after all). Player buy-in comes in the form of being able to hedge some rolls in their favor by making them under ideal circumstances. In this way, almost all mechanics of the game boil down to "manipulated luck". If you're looking for cracks in the frame, I'd turn my attention to that which breaks/flaunts/ignores the manipulated luck dynamic, because that is where players truly have no say in their own game (though I believe you may have already come to that conclusion).

Initiative is a tricky beast - on the surface it is just a straight dice roll, but there are still ways the players get to manipulate that die roll, it's just a bit more intangible. Playing with DEX scores, for one... or janking with the initiative order during combat after the dice have been rolled. Since I presently DM 5e, I personally like to turn the Advantage mechanic on to Initiative when my players deem it especially important to manipulate the score (they've got to come up with the creative way to earn that Advantage, mind you, but mechanically it works as an initiative tweak that players can manipulate if they so choose).
 
Interesting notion, DP, allowing players to influence initiative via tactical in-game actions. Hmm...my players would eat that up. They HATE when the monsters get to attack first---so much consternation...each...and...every...round.

And yet, for me as DM, it's like a mental breath-mint. We've finally navigated our way to a place where the die fall-as-they-may. A point of no return.

Honestly, when I look at it in the cold light of day, my players are combat-adverse in so many ways (unless it's an obvious cake-walk).

Hmmm, again.
 
squeen said:
Honestly, when I look at it in the cold light of day, my players are combat-adverse in so many ways (unless it's an obvious cake-walk).
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All those points during the GP/XP debates have come to fruition; if XP=XP causes players to pick needless fights, then GP=XP apparently turns them all into cowards. The door swings both ways, it seems.
 
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