Is 3.X The "Player Vs. DM" Edition?

[Thurbane]

I hope I don't start a massive flame-war, but somehting has been on my mind for a while now:

3.5 is my preferred edition. I started out on AD&D 1E and Basic, then on to 2E, and after a break of a few years, into 3.5. We very briefly tried 4E, but didn't much like it. We have briefly played Pathfinder a couple of times, too. Some of my players have heard good things about 5E, so we might give that a try at some point.

...anyhow, sometimes I feel like 3.X is the edition that fosters the most "DM vs. players" attitude of the editions I've played. Not so much at my own table, but from some of the things I read on forums.

The two main aspects of this I note are as follows:

1.) Player "entitlement": sometimes I feel an undercurrent of "the customer player is always right"; if the DM says no to anything, he is a bad DM; if the DM has a story arc that has a specific outcome in mind it's "railroading" (note: sometimes this is fairly unavoidable if you're DMing a pre-written adventure and don't have hours to re-write the story to accommodate alternate "endings"). Advice often seems to be along the lines of "Oh, your DM only allows core books? Build a brokenly powerful Druid and wreck the game LOL".

2.) Arms race mentality: the players "discover" some game breaking build or combo (or vice versa, the DM does the same), and instead of coming to a "gentlemen's agreement" of not using that particular build or combo, it becomes an arms race. The DM has to start optimizing every monster or NPC encounter to the Nth degree to challenge the group; or if the shoe is on the other foot, the player has to research TO builds to keep up with the DMs killer encounters.

Now, what I'm wondering is this: is this an advent of 3rd edition; or is it more an advent of online forums and sharing character build and other info globally?

Or maybe I'm imagining the whole thing, and this has been happening ever since 1E, or doesn't happen much at all.

Cheers - T

[Florian]

I think it´s the aftereffect of too many bad gms in AD&D. They wanted to fix this by creating a rule for everything, negating the need for rulings/rule zero, but you see where that ended.

[Fizban]

Combination of the online effect and 3.5 having the most splatbooks and rules in general to fuel the online effect. Nothing in the books seriously supports an adversarial tendency any more than in other editions, but where there are rules there are people who want to use them to win.

For example, nothing in the 3.5 WBL system guarantees player choice of magic items at all. WBL isn't even a system, it's just a handy table for if you're not starting at 1st level. The only thing guaranteed is random treasure from fighting monsters, but people take one look at that table, read about a bunch of items online, and once the internet gets them hyped up they get mad if the DM isn't letting them do what the internet said they should.

Same with builds: internet says all these books and builds exist, but the DMG makes it quite clear that it's the DM's job to keep the game balanced, including choosing what new elements to allow (in fact, I'm pretty sure the DMG never even considers the concept of allowing a whole book at all, just specific things).

The reason it's not as pronounced in 4th and 5th is because both later editions specifically worked against it. The internet told them their game was garbage for being "unbalanced," so they restricted things practically down to a video game in 4e and a ton of people (msyelf included) stopped even paying attention. So 5e backpedaled, combining an overarching system that looks like a throwback to 2e/3e, but far less structured and with flat out fewer abilities than 3e. The multiple parallel advancement tracks that allowed builds in 3.x are gone, the "WBL" table explicitly includes multiple tiers that put a damper on claims of standard wealth, magic item crafting is behind a DM wall, spells simply do less and cutoff sooner, and the skill system is entirely DM based without any fixed DCs. Meanwhile, the people who make a problem out of it stuck to 3.whatever and kept on pushing their agenda, while the people who don't generally kept quiet because they weren't causing themselves any problems and/or moved on to whatever edition suited their needs.

In short, the whole of 5e is lower powered, with a smaller gap between floor/ceiling, and more stuff says "DM only" on it. With fewer rules to hide behind, there's simply less for the problem players to try and break to their advantage. The only problem with 3.5 is that it dared to assume people would play nice with each other.

[GilesTheCleric]

In short, the whole of 5e is lower powered, with a smaller gap between floor/ceiling, and more stuff says "DM only" on it.

This may be the most important part. GMs and players both use the same rule set, so it nearly literally is GM vs player if you want to look at it that way. In other editions, this fact is just more obscured.

In a more rules-light system, maybe it's easier to feel like it's the "story" vs the players, since there's less mechanical weight being thrown around.

3e is also the character building depth/ complexity/ options edition. Folks that enjoy that aspect of DnD will get the most from this edition, so it makes sense to me that those folks would be primarily the ones still playing.

[Florian]

This may be the most important part. GMs and players both use the same rule set, so it nearly literally is GM vs player if you want to look at it that way. In other editions, this fact is just more obscured.

I think there´s more to it. 3E was designed was a certain balance in mind, codifying "fairness" in the way CR, EL, WBL interact. A gm should stick to these guidelines to create a fair series of encounters, which in turn should give all characters enough spotlight.
In a sense, that transfers a lot of the usual gm duties over to the system (even more pronounced in 4E), making it players vs. system (with gm as judge).

3e is also the character building depth/ complexity/ options edition. Folks that enjoy that aspect of DnD will get the most from this edition, so it makes sense to me that those folks would be primarily the ones still playing.

On the german rpg boards, we call that "Playing with your Barbie", as it lets you enjoy part of the game outside of the game itself.

[gooddragon1]

I hope I don;t start a massive flame-war, but somehting has been on my mind for a while now:

3.5 is my preferred edition. I started out on AD&D 1E and Basic, then on to 2E, and after a break of a few years, into 3.5. We very briefly tried 4E, but didn't much like it. We have briefly played Pathfinder a couple of times, too. Some of my player's have heard good things about 5E, so we might give that a try at some point.

...anyhow, sometimes I feel like 3.X is the edition that fosters the most "DM vs. players" attitude of the editions I've played. Not so much at my own table, but from some of the things I read on forums.

The two main aspects of this I note are as follows:

1.) Player "entitlement": sometimes I feel an undercurrent of "the customer player is always right"; if the DM says no to anything, he is a bad DM; if the DM has a story arc that has a specific outcome in mind it's "railroading" (note: sometimes this is fairly unavoidable if you're DMing a pre-written adventure and don't have hours to re-wrote the story to accommodate alternate "endings"). Advice often seems to be along the lines of "Oh, your DM only allows core books? Build a brokenly powerful Druid and wreck the game LOL".

2.) Arms race mentality: the player's "discover" some game breaking build or combo (or vice versa, the DM does the same), and instead of coming to a "gentlemen's agreement" of not using that particular build or combo, it becomes an arms race. The DM has to start optimizing every monster or NPC encounter to the Nth degree to challenge the group; or if the show is on the other foot, the player has to research TO builds to keep up with the DMs killer encounters.

Now, what I'm wondering is this: is this an advent of 3rd edition; or is it more an advent of online forums and sharing character build and other info globally?

Or maybe I'm imagining the whole thing, and this has been happening ever since 1E, or doesn't happen much at all.

Cheers - T

I played in a massive 3.5 gaming group of about 100 people split into groups of 4 to 6. Originally it started out as about 8 people when I was there who showed up at different days. I was in this group for several years and at first I had the urge to create things like a thri kreen with punishing stance or even an anthropomorphic squid with punishing stance. As the game went on I learned that I didn't need to make a super powerful character to have fun. In all that time I think I only had 1 game I disliked (due to a DM appropriating player agency and handing out a fiat ruling (it was the crippling fiat ruling out of nowhere that I took issue with)).

If DM's are creative and don't take away player agency or hand down fiat rulings without negotiation, I've seen 3.5 work for a long time with a lot of different players. You just have to have a sort of gentleman's agreement.

I think it´s the aftereffect of too many bad gms in AD&D. They wanted to fix this by creating a rule for everything, negating the need for rulings/rule zero, but you see where that ended.

Oh yes. A straitjacketed game that belongs on a console or the PC where it would be more appreciated, have more content, better graphics, and certainly faster loading times.

Players will find a way in games that are flexible to abuse the rules, but working with them rather than taking out variety to curb abuse allows a more flexible game. If you want to curb abuse with a straitjacket, it's probably better to play an online game. They routinely make balance patches. Pencil and paper has the advantage over computer games in the way of flexibility. Sacrificing that takes away one of the best things a player gets out of it. The DM still gets to tell their story, but the player is left wondering why they even bother.

[Zombimode]

Now, what I'm wondering is this: is this an advent of 3rd edition; or is it more an advent of online forums and sharing character build and other info globally?

Well yes, but forums also offer only an incredible skewed view of the playerbase.

The Portion of Players/DMs that visit Forums regularly is minuscule. And not every Person active on the Forum does actually Play D&D.

[Darth Ultron]

Now, what I'm wondering is this: is this an advent of 3rd edition; or is it more an advent of online forums and sharing character build and other info globally?

It is a 3X thing for sure. The factions of Rules Lawyers, We must follow the All Mighty Rules, The DM is just a Lowly Player People, Optimization-build-munchkin Players and the Hostile This game is all about the Players vs. the DM have been around from the start of the game. Sadly, in about 2000 with 3X all of the above types of gamers were hired by Wizards to write the game. And they changed D&D into their ''homebrewed paradise'' system, and either arrogantly assumed that everyone automatically just thought like them as they are always right, or simply did not care if ''some'' people did not like it.

Now admittedly they did read the times well, as the vast majority of the new gamers after 2000 were of the above types of mindsets. Especially the ''video game builders'' who played all the RPG type video games where you build characters to beat the game.

The online aspect just added fuel to the fire. But amazingly, a lot of gamers even to this day, don't get online for any game related reason....other then to maybe be cool and hip and order a game book off Amazon. I know tons of players that just ''can't be bothered'' to get online for gaming reasons. I can e-mail them a link to a good Handbook that will really help them out....but they don't click on it.

4E, of course, went beyond the pale. 5E tried to reel it in a bit...and half succeeded....but the factions will never willingly give up the power and can't be reasoned with (as they are always right). They can't even agree to disagree, as, well, they are right.

[Mordaedil]

The rules are pretty clear that there shouldn't be any fighting between DM's and players, but it also addresses the issues of D&D as a social game and provides constructive ways to consolidate them, but I think a lot of DM's and players skip those chapters or don't take the advice to heart and they end up arguing a lot.

A session I had a few years ago where I was a DM in Pathfinder, where I had the party explore a wizard's tower where I based the insides on the old Wizardry games (nothing as cruel, of course, I even allowed the players to solve a time-traveling puzzle room and use it to rest up) and because two of them were new to the game, they were kind of upset when I punished them for sleeping without guards or for not being patient enough to let the rogue do his thing and run through some traps, but the one where we ended up nearly yelling at eachother was when he grew frustrated with his options in combat, so I made a suggestion to flank to set up the rogue, but it ended up not mattering much and he wanted his action back and I had to insist strictly that you can't just take an action back just because it didn't work out like he had planned it.

That's something I didn't want to dwell on, so I just asked if we could move on, but he kinda refused, made it a big deal. Maybe conceding would have been the better idea, but that's usually how it becomes "player vs. DM". And honestly that can happen in ANY edition.

[JNAProductions]

It is a 3X thing for sure. The factions of Rules Lawyers, We must follow the All Mighty Rules, The DM is just a Lowly Player People, Optimization-build-munchkin Players and the Hostile This game is all about the Players vs. the DM have been around from the start of the game. Sadly, in about 2000 with 3X all of the above types of gamers were hired by Wizards to write the game. And they changed D&D into their ''homebrewed paradise'' system, and either arrogantly assumed that everyone automatically just thought like them as they are always right, or simply did not care if ''some'' people did not like it.

Now admittedly they did read the times well, as the vast majority of the new gamers after 2000 were of the above types of mindsets. Especially the ''video game builders'' who played all the RPG type video games where you build characters to beat the game.

The online aspect just added fuel to the fire. But amazingly, a lot of gamers even to this day, don't get online for any game related reason....other then to maybe be cool and hip and order a game book off Amazon. I know tons of players that just ''can't be bothered'' to get online for gaming reasons. I can e-mail them a link to a good Handbook that will really help them out....but they don't click on it.

4E, of course, went beyond the pale. 5E tried to reel it in a bit...and half succeeded....but the factions will never willingly give up the power and can't be reasoned with (as they are always right). They can't even agree to disagree, as, well, they are right.

That sounds a lot more like your problem than a universal problem. Most players aren't jerks.

And I actually like 4E, for what it was-a much better tactical game than any other edition of D&D. There's still plenty of roleplay in 4E, but I do agree that it's quite different from any other edition of Dungeons and Dragons. That's not bad, though-just different.

[Aetis]

but from some of the things I read on forums.

Yeah.. for all the terror stories out there, I haven't really ran into those kind of problems at my table.

I think things like that tends to be exaggerated on the net, so I would take it with a grain of salt.

[ngilop]

1.) Player "entitlement": sometimes I feel an undercurrent of "the customer player is always right"; if the DM says no to anything, he is a bad DM; if the DM has a story arc that has a specific outcome in mind it's "railroading" (note: sometimes this is fairly unavoidable if you're DMing a pre-written adventure and don't have hours to re-wrote the story to accommodate alternate "endings"). Advice often seems to be along the lines of "Oh, your DM only allows core books? Build a brokenly powerful Druid and wreck the game LOL".



2.) Arms race mentality: the player's "discover" some game breaking build or combo (or vice versa, the DM does the same), and instead of coming to a "gentlemen's agreement" of not using that particular build or combo, it becomes an arms race. The DM has to start optimizing every monster or NPC encounter to the Nth degree to challenge the group; or if the show is on the other foot, the player has to research TO builds to keep up with the DMs killer encounters.

The above 2 points are for me at least only things I have ever seen recommended and in my opinion offered as advice in an alarming majority from these very forums. I have never seen, heard or experienced this style of gaming at all in real life from other's accounts or personal experience. Nor from any other RPG forum that I am a member of. GITP has that distinction alone.

You can look at any number of threads for supporting evidence if you feel that I am incorrect. People ask for feat help on a fighter and most just say "play wizard" but even that is not enough then people go on to say " elven generalist, divine oracle with precocious apprentice and cats 9s at 1st level"
Then you have have those posters who are completely and utterly beyond rude and inconsiderate. The op will post a thread and very clearly lay out that they want X and Y, but are unsure of taking either Z¹ or Z². And most responding posts completely ignore the OPs constraints and say 'Go A then B' then when the OP points out that is 100% not what they were asking the forums just loves to bandwagon jump on him for being dumb and a lot of other very disheartening things, ya know .. instead of just admitting they did not read and give advice based on what the OP actually wanted.

THEN on the same this forums has an almost absolute HATE of the DM telling the players No for any reason at all. I cannot find it now, but there was thread about the DM not having some sort of race (they were playing a higher level game or without LA) and in all honestly the response posts on that thread were literally how to build X race with templates and basically 'stick it to the DM' for saying No. I even got told very early on in my time here that I was a horrible DM for telling my druid player that he could not have a certain animal companion. The fact that we all ( myself and the players) agreed on a very specific setting and environment and said companion would never be found in that environment, let alone be able to survive.

You have to take into consideration that the population of GITP is a subset of a partical social group (roleplayers, wargamers, and the like) and even then probably a, for the most part, a subset of even that group. So what you experience o this site is not by any means what the majority of player's are going to experience. While I feel it is probably normal for most GiTPs to be running Near Tippy-verse levels of optimization, I do not believe that most players and DM roll like that whilst playing.

[cogminded]

I see it very much as a pairing of circumstances.

3.5 has more splat books than any other edition. There are more than most people will ever own, and across that spectrum there are many options for things that people can break, because odd ability X in THIS obcure book combined with circumstance Y in THAT obscure supplement creates COMBO OF ULTIMATE DOOOOOM *cue laughter and lightning*

This is coupled with it being the fact that 3.0 and 3.5 happened to be the edition that was around at the time that chatting about D&D on online forums really rose in popularity (I'm not saying that people didn't before 2000, but not to my knowledge on the same scale) which gave people the option of comparing notes on how sure, that X creates a good combo with Y but if you add Z in as well then your laughter and lightning inducing combo goes beyond ultimate doom to.... MEGA ULTIMATE DOOOOOOM *lightning and laughter and.. I dunno an 80's montage? I didn't think this bit through, sorry*

So that gave people the idea of "well that seems fun as a pure theory but now I want to actually try it", and people competing online to create more and more ridiculous Kings of Smack, which can give people reading the threads a skewed perspective of what counts as "good".

I mean, there are some of the TO threads where characters designed are considered suboptimal because they only do enough damage per hit to kill a minor deity twice over. I mean, how lame is that?

[Venger]

I hope I don;t start a massive flame-war, but somehting has been on my mind for a while now:

3.5 is my preferred edition. I started out on AD&D 1E and Basic, then on to 2E, and after a break of a few years, into 3.5. We very briefly tried 4E, but didn't much like it. We have briefly played Pathfinder a couple of times, too. Some of my player's have heard good things about 5E, so we might give that a try at some point.

...anyhow, sometimes I feel like 3.X is the edition that fosters the most "DM vs. players" attitude of the editions I've played. Not so much at my own table, but from some of the things I read on forums.

The two main aspects of this I note are as follows:

1.) Player "entitlement": sometimes I feel an undercurrent of "the customer player is always right"; if the DM says no to anything, he is a bad DM; if the DM has a story arc that has a specific outcome in mind it's "railroading" (note: sometimes this is fairly unavoidable if you're DMing a pre-written adventure and don't have hours to re-wrote the story to accommodate alternate "endings"). Advice often seems to be along the lines of "Oh, your DM only allows core books? Build a brokenly powerful Druid and wreck the game LOL".

2.) Arms race mentality: the player's "discover" some game breaking build or combo (or vice versa, the DM does the same), and instead of coming to a "gentlemen's agreement" of not using that particular build or combo, it becomes an arms race. The DM has to start optimizing every monster or NPC encounter to the Nth degree to challenge the group; or if the show is on the other foot, the player has to research TO builds to keep up with the DMs killer encounters.

Now, what I'm wondering is this: is this an advent of 3rd edition; or is it more an advent of online forums and sharing character build and other info globally?

Or maybe I'm imagining the whole thing, and this has been happening ever since 1E, or doesn't happen much at all.

Cheers - T

If anything, 3.x is the least DM vs the players edition, especially compared to older ones.

While a handful of legacies linger, such as the caryatid column, the prevailing design philosophy towards gotcha monsters and encounters like quicklings and nilbogs and whatnot has been lessened a lot since 1 and 2e.

Codifying actual rules to a lot of the game, like having a battlemap in place rather than it being largely freeform when it came to matters of distance and such for spell effects and related (from my understanding of earlier editions of the game) has if anything made it less possible for adversarial GMing to be the new norm. it's much more difficult for a gm to say "ha, gotcha! the monster's right behind you" when there are rules listed for movement, detection, etc.

I've never heard anyone complain about railroading when playing a module. That's just weird.

While your summary seems somewhat skewed, that is a real issue that does come up on the forum a lot. In my experience, the more complete picture is "My gm says our game is limited to core only, but not for reasons of access, but because he wants the game to be balanced and bans all new material because he heard someone on the internet say power creep was a thing" and then people come in and say core is very unbalanced, and a number of the worst effects are there such as druid, polymorph, etc. any advice for player or gm that is to "teach the other one a lesson" is inherently bad, but mostly when I see people mention druid20 in these threads, it's an example of how to explain to the gm that core is not inherently balanced rather than a neat trick on how to be a child and wreck his campaign for not understanding game balance.

3e doesn't in any way preclude the gentleman's agreement, so again, this is a player/group issue rather than a system one. the relative op level of a gm/player group isn't dependent on the system.

[Zombimode]

While I feel it is probably normal for most GiTPs to be running Near Tippy-verse levels of optimization

It's just a (vocal) minority, even here. Have you ever noticed that whenever actual play experience gets relayed, be it Campaign Journals or something else, it is suspicously not on such a ridiculous optimization level?

The Journals of Saph or SilverClawShift offer a MUCH more accurate view on how D&D actually plays out for most people. That is to say: actually quite well.

[Florian]

Yeah.. for all the terror stories out there, I haven't really ran into those kind of problems at my table.

I think things like that tends to be exaggerated on the net, so I would take it with a grain of salt.

Hm... how to best explain this? D&D and its wargaming roots are not very popular in germany, as our roleplaying scene and culture developed in quite a different way. People who´re into D&D/PF despite the marked difference on how roleplaying are understood here are a.... very special... breed, that´s why you´ll find a very high percentage of "jerks" that fit the GitP archetype here.

[Fizban]

The Journals of Saph or SilverClawShift offer a MUCH more accurate view on how D&D actually plays out for most people. That is to say: actually quite well.

Not sure Saph's journal is the best example of typical. It's not DM vs player at all, but Saph was piloting a pretty highly optimized Sorcerer who engaged most of the bosses in single combat and equaled or bested them. A great example of how the caster being OP doesn't mean the rest of the party is irrelevant or not having fun, but I wouldn't beg that build or those bosses as typical.

[Florian]

Not sure Saph's journal is the best example of typical. It's not DM vs player at all, but Saph was piloting a pretty highly optimized Sorcerer who engaged most of the bosses in single combat and equaled or bested them. A great example of how the caster being OP doesn't mean the rest of the party is irrelevant or not having fun, but I wouldn't beg that build or those bosses as typical.

Context is important here. D&D/PF changes a lot along the levels, you starting with Captain America and end up with Doctor Strange. That´s important as a lot of people seem to not be able to make that transition in tone and power. Saph shows "supernatural normal" here.

[Psyren]

It's just a (vocal) minority, even here. Have you ever noticed that whenever actual play experience gets relayed, be it Campaign Journals or something else, it is suspicously not on such a ridiculous optimization level?

The Journals of Saph or SilverClawShift offer a MUCH more accurate view on how D&D actually plays out for most people. That is to say: actually quite well.

This, this, this. When you're in an echo chamber forum like GitP or BG where GMs are complaining about players and vice-versa, it's all too easy to forget that there's a reason you see complaining threads so often - it's because the folks with less to complain about aren't making threads. (At least, not nearly as many.) They are out actually playing the game and having fun instead.

This is not to say that negative experiences are somehow invalid or that there's nothing to learn from them, but you shouldn't make decisions or come to conclusions based on the notion that the negative experiences are somehow a majority.

[Fizban]

Context is important here. D&D/PF changes a lot along the levels, you starting with Captain America and end up with Doctor Strange. That´s important as a lot of people seem to not be able to make that transition in tone and power. Saph shows "supernatural normal" here.

For the sorcerer- the rest remained Hawkeye and Black Widow (ranger and assassin) for the most part. If anything the fact that everyone had fun despite their disparate skill/optimization levels is the most important lesson. There were other casters who did castery things, and other characters died and went through a bunch of build versions in addition to the ranger and assassin: none really matched the level of Saph's sorc in terms of sheer tide-turning when the chips were down, but all seemed to have had fun.

[Darth Ultron]

That sounds a lot more like your problem than a universal problem. Most players aren't jerks.

I disagree.

But maybe your just one of them people that only ever games with close personal friends, in a circle were you all agree about everything anyway. Try gaming with someone you just ''know their name'' or even a stranger.....and you will see what I'm talking about.

If anything, 3.x is the least DM vs the players edition, especially compared to older ones.

Odd....0E/1E/2E and such don't have the ''player vs Dm'' problem as: the DM wins, the end. So how do you even see a problem.

Just take any problem you see complained about on the boards where a player does something, and wonder why they did not happen in say 2E. The reason is, in 2E if a player acted up or did anything the DM did not like, the DM could just say ''nope it does not happen'' and the player would be all like ''ok''.

3X really, really, really brought up the silly idea that that ''rules are almighty '' and everyone, even the player called DM for no reason, must follow the almighty rules. Editions before 3X did not even have that idea. There were rules lawyers, yes, but they would only argue about the rules approved and applied and used by the DM.

Without the backing of the 3X rules, players can't go ''vs'' the DM, as they say ''the almighty rules on page 77 say you must do this!'' . See in 2E, if you said that to a Dm they would laugh and ignore you...the other players would laugh...and almost the whole of the gaming community would laugh too.

But then too players back in the day were before the ''me'' generation and had respect for the DM too....

[Pleh]

I think it's worth pointing out that most people find these forums while troubleshooting some problem in their game and/or build.

We have a disproportionate share of the players who have had problems with the game and less of the players who have just enjoyed it and never thought twice about it.

[Manyasone]

Hm... how to best explain this? D&D and its wargaming roots are not very popular in germany, as our roleplaying scene and culture developed in quite a different way. People who´re into D&D/PF despite the marked difference on how roleplaying are understood here are a.... very special... breed, that´s why you´ll find a very high percentage of "jerks" that fit the GitP archetype here.

Funny how that works, I'm from Belgium myself and; while I have a little experience with "Das Schwarze Auge" and my visit to Spiel some years ago made me realize that our neighbors indeed have a vastly larger market in P&P RPG; the only systems played here are D&D and White Wolf World of Darkness.
But Belgium is a desert concerning P&P rpg's in general, much to my chagrin

[Venger]

Odd....0E/1E/2E and such don't have the ''player vs Dm'' problem as: the DM wins, the end. So how do you even see a problem.

Ha, you got me there

Just take any problem you see complained about on the boards where a player does something, and wonder why they did not happen in say 2E. The reason is, in 2E if a player acted up or did anything the DM did not like, the DM could just say ''nope it does not happen'' and the player would be all like ''ok''.

I would think of that as a bug rather than a feature when it comes to mechanical effects.

3X really, really, really brought up the silly idea that that ''rules are almighty '' and everyone, even the player called DM for no reason, must follow the almighty rules. Editions before 3X did not even have that idea. There were rules lawyers, yes, but they would only argue about the rules approved and applied and used by the DM.

I mean... yeah? If there aren't any rules, then we aren't really playing a game, we're just doing freeform, which is fine, but it's not really the goal of someone who's setting out to play D&D.

Without the backing of the 3X rules, players can't go ''vs'' the DM, as they say ''the almighty rules on page 77 say you must do this!'' . See in 2E, if you said that to a Dm they would laugh and ignore you...the other players would laugh...and almost the whole of the gaming community would laugh too.

I agree this is the fundamental difference in design philosophy between prior editions and 3.x. in 3.x, I think it's fair to say the role of the gm in 3.x is more like a judge in a courtroom, whose job it is to ensure the rules are being applied fairly and consistently for both pcs and monsters, while in earlier editions, the gm was more like a king who just said whatever he wanted.

I feel like we're agreeing on everything, but you think prior editions are good and 3.x is bad. Am I misreading your comment?

[Necroticplague]

I disagree.

But maybe your just one of them people that only ever games with close personal friends, in a circle were you all agree about everything anyway. Try gaming with someone you just ''know their name'' or even a stranger.....and you will see what I'm talking about.

As somebody who has only ever gamed with complete strangers, I have to disagree with you: most people aren't jerks. They all come to game to have fun, why spoil it with a bit of needless jerkassery?

[Psyren]

Without the backing of the 3X rules, players can't go ''vs'' the DM, as they say ''the almighty rules on page 77 say you must do this!'' . See in 2E, if you said that to a Dm they would laugh and ignore you...the other players would laugh...and almost the whole of the gaming community would laugh too.

But then too players back in the day were before the ''me'' generation and had respect for the DM too....

No need to wave that cane around, I'm getting off your lawn.

There are lots of rules that require GM adjudication for the game to work. I think you'll find that even in 3.x/PF, the GM still has a great deal of power - vested in him/her BY said rules.

[Florian]

No need to wave that cane around, I'm getting off your lawn.

Why so meek?

Remember the what and why of rules: They are communication.

This is not a board game. This is collaborative Storytelling and what we do is use rules to adjust how player and gm input fit into the story.

[Telonius]

This is just my impression, having never played an edition before 3.0, but having heard quite a bit about it from the grognards. But; it seems to me that OD&D and AD&D were just as much player vs. DM; but the power was so heavily stacked on the DM's side that people didn't really notice it. With 3.0, players actually had some rules-based agency, and DMs suddenly realized that there was, in fact, a competition going on.

[Florian]

This is just my impression, having never played an edition before 3.0, but having heard quite a bit about it from the grognards. But; it seems to me that OD&D and AD&D were just as much player vs. DM; but the power was so heavily stacked on the DM's side that people didn't really notice it. With 3.0, players actually had some rules-based agency, and DMs suddenly realized that there was, in fact, a competition going on.

In older editions, the gm was tasked to pit the players against the game world and take on the role of a judge.
This stopped working once people wanted to experience more coherent stories like "Pharaoh" or "Dragonlance".

[Psyren]

Why so meek?

I don't want to get struck by his cane. I thought it was obvious.

Remember the what and why of rules: They are communication.

This is not a board game. This is collaborative Storytelling and what we do is use rules to adjust how player and gm input fit into the story.

I don't think we disagree that rules should take a backseat to story. But I don't think clear rules necessarily get in the way of collaborative storytelling either. For example, if the players are up against a serial killer who scries on his victims, that rule leads to an interesting puzzle for the players to solve. You can make narrative from mechanics in many ways.