WOW mechanics are largely balanced to ensure equality among players, as is the case with most MMO style games. This stems from the communities who place a great deal of importance on "balance" between players. That aspect of video games has definitely found footing in RPG's, where equality is of the highest importance to many and really you need to look no further then 4e to understand how applying that theory in practice, rather then just theory, plays out.
I think role-players want balance, but not in the same sense as a MMO type game. I think most role-players see balance in the concept of equal contribution, rather then "power" balance. Like I think players are ok with say a thief like character that contributes by finding and disarming traps while a Ranger might be the tracker and guide, while the Fighter is the big gun on the battlefield. I don't think role-players necessarily feel that a Rogue should be as powerful or important in combat as a fighter is or that a magic-user needs to be balanced against the powers of a cleric.
Equality in classes as we saw in 4e really rubbed people the wrong way and I think contributed to the general hate that version of D&D got, it wasn't the only thing of course, but I do believe this feeling of "we are all equal", wasn't what people wanted, I think it would be more accurate to say that people want the "we are all important" style of balance.
I definitely disagree however that rolling for stats should be removed from D&D, but then again, I'm not even in the slightest concerned that it ever will be. Their are sacred cows in D&D that are simply untouchable. Hit Points, Armor Class, Class/Level system, Magic System, none of these can ever be changed, they are the identity of D&D for better or for worse and rolling for stats is about as D&D of a thing as you can get. Show me a D&D book that says "no rolling for stats" and I will show you a D&D book that will find its way into the bargain bin on release day. Its just not something that can be messed with and for the game to evolve in some alternative direction their would have been a pretty considerable swing in D&D community preferences. Rolling for stats is as popular today as it was back in the 80's, people still do it and though I will agree that it might be a bit off given how 5e is designed, if the people like it, Wizards of the Coast has to print it.
Its just the way it is and truth be told if they ever did make an edition with no stat rolling, people would still do it anyway. Its just part of the game. There is a metric ton of history in D&D and that history is passed on to new generation, I know, I have been doing it for decades. No one that I taught to play D&D even knows there is such a thing as "point buy", they never heard of it, because I have never even told them about it. To them, rolling for stats is how you make a D&D character and doing it differently would probobly feel wrong to them at this point. So yeah, I don't think its going anywhere, though I will admit in 5e games, it tends to be a much less attractive option to me personally. The system is just designed in a way where you get more of the drawbacks from it then any benefits but then again I haven't run a true 5e game in quite a while so there is that too.
I could take the last 2 paragraphs from above and replace "4d6" with "floating ASI's and custom lineages" and then use that in the argument with you against those things. The abomination that shall not be named just proved there are no more "sacred cows" in the D&D world.
Because majority of new players are powergamers who come from video game / WOW mentality. Even had a newbie play a Wiz and was so mad about his STR being low, when he should be focusing on his INT / CON . Also Loot Mongering is another trait of power gamers, they see it....they want it. Had an old member die 3 times same campaign due to him being a loot monger. Yet every character he created was "different"
People who cut their teeth on computer games -- or heck even those who started playing table-top but have gotten very used to the computer-RPG model -- will try to powergame in this way, in part, because they are used to the heartless computer with pre-programmed dungeons being their "DM." They are not used to having a human controlling the bad guys in real time -- a human with a heart, a soul, and most importantly, a sense of narrative, which a computer cannot ever have. In many video games you have to max everything out to the Nth degree or your entire raid team will wipe. People get /kicked from pickup groups if they don't have the "right build." This is partly smugness on the part of the other group members, but partly a nod to the reality of the situation, which is that if you have people with sub-optimal characters, they might not be able to keep up with the pre-programmed level of the adventure, which a computer is not able or willing to adjust to suit the party.
This mentality that if you are not optimized you will fail then just becomes part of the psyche many gamers have. I remember having this conversation with my friend who plays in my group. He was trying to super-optimize and expressed what happens if his character has this or that imperfection and I stopped him and said, "What you do is you trust your DM." And he took a second and said, "OK, fair point." He'd gotten so used to video games that he forgot, I was going to be running the game, and I'm not going to just "do what it says in my notes" mindlessly (and heartlessly) the way a computer does.
I think players get so used to "playing against the computer" that it is almost innate now. It's hard to step away from that mind set once it's ingrained.
In terms of rolling 4D6/drop lowest -- I did not do that in this campaign I am running. I did an improved stat array (17-15-13-12-10-8). I did not do point buy because one of the players was new, and I did not want her to have to figure out the points. Stat array is simple and easy. The improved one allowed them to pick feats at the ASI levels rather than feeling like the "have to" pick the +2 stat the first couple of times. So far, in fact, everyone has picked a feat that just gave a +1 to something. Which is awesome, because the feats make the characters more unique and interesting. For instance, the Cleric picked up Ritual Casting with Wizard spells because he had spent a lot of time with a Centaur divination wizard and gotten interested in her spell book. He might not have done so this early, or perhaps at all, with the standard array.
I see potential advantage to rolling, and that is if you do it Coleville's way (recognize that again, with the DM as a human with a heart, no DM will allow this process to produce unplayable characters). Coleville makes his players roll 4d6 in order -- they cannot move the stats around. He has rules to account for bad luck -- you must have at least 1 roll above 14, and can't have more than 1 roll below 9, I think... and your total has to be a certain amount (probably equal to point buy). If you got bad luck you roll the whole array over again. But you keep the stats where they fall, and this allows players to "discover their character" rather than sitting down at the table saying "I am playing Bill the Sorcerer." He finds that it helps prevent players from bringing their baggage to his table. I think I might do this in the future -- if I ever run another D&D campaign after this one.
I know how you feel about D&D in your last sentence, and it saddens me for what you are saying. But I totally get it.
I don't really care for "Trust your DM" as the answer to everything. Obviously you should, and in fact if you do not you can't play D&D at that DM's table, but this particular usage of "trust your DM" often comes with connotations of one's issues as a player being dismissed or ignored. It's the same reason I don't care for Colville's infamous chargen method or the "Discover your character at the table" games in general - they often feel like a DM simply handwaving away the player's issues with a "Don't worry, I'll just fix it myself later".
A good DM can fix a player's problems for them. A great DM can assist and empower the player into fixing their own problems. Or, to answer one pithy saying with another, a DM should also "trust your players". Which is the bit of DMing advice nobody ever gives that they really, truly should.
But if those issues only exist because the player thinks crap that doesn’t matter matters?!? When players feel like they have to address everything for their characters themselves, that’s an issue. They shouldn’t ever feel like they are the only ones they can count on. It’s D&D, the whole point of the game is to do it together.
I know how you feel about D&D in your last sentence, and it saddens me for what you are saying. But I totally get it.
There are many factors that go into my statement "if I ever run another D&D campaign after this one."
First -- this one is probably 1.5 years from finishing. If we go the distance it will be 2.5 years. At that point I will want a break from GMing.
Second -- D&D is a fine game, but I'd like to try some others. In particular I would like to play Call of Cthulhu and SWADE. And hopefully a nice juicy campaign of both, if I can find someone to GM it.
Maybe someday I will circle back around to D&D... maybe not.
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WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
But if those issues only exist because the player thinks crap that doesn’t matter matters?!? When players feel like they have to address everything for their characters themselves, that’s an issue. They shouldn’t ever feel like they are the only ones they can count on. It’s D&D, the whole point of the game is to do it together.
Examine that statement for a moment, Sposta. "If an issue exists only because something the player thinks is important isn't important?"
DMs are neither kings nor deities. An issue the player thinks is important that the DM dismisses out of hand with 'trust your DM' may well be important, even if only to that player. A DM is just as likely to get things wrong as a player is, and poo-pooing whatever a player says with "It's not important, just trust me" is as likely to strain or even break that desired trust as it is to invoke it. If something is truly bothering the player, a DM would be well advised to have a proper conversation about it rather than just dismissing the concern with "trust me, I'm the DM" and laying down the law.
"Trust your DM" is not advice for players. It's a prerequisite for playing the game, and it is no substitute for understanding the game you're playing and the people you're playing it with.
But if those issues only exist because the player thinks crap that doesn’t matter matters?!?
I think this is true -- because I think players so used to computer games, come to learn that to some degree "everything matters" and any little imperfection of their character can cause a team wipe. But a human DM built this adventure with the knowledge of all the imperfections of your characters, and so the imperfections were known and accounted for when the DM made the adventure or campaign.
Think for a bit about the "holy trinity" of the MMO world -- that you must have a DPSer, a tank, and a healer in every group. That if you don't, your group will wipe. This is often true in MMOs, because the game is built around it being true. The computer will NOT rebalance a mission or lair to account for the fact that your particular team doesn't have a healer.
But a DM will know it and will account for it. Maybe the DM will make healing potions easy to acquire -- either by purchase or frequently found in dungeons. Or maybe the DM will give the party something like a Ring of Regen that they can swap back and forth to help with healing. Or maybe the DM will give them a healing sidekick or NPC. Or maybe the DM, seeing the lack of healing and having had a session 0 in which player preferences indicated this as a thing they'd like, will run a more intriguey, far less combat-heavy campaign, in which healing is just... not an issue at all. None of these things can be done by a CRPG or MMO -- but any or all of them could be done by a DM with a soul, a heart, and a brain.
This is what I mean by "trust your DM." It's not that when everyone shows up with a wizard and they are a Party of Wizards, and one of the players expresses "Well crap we need some people to make up fighters or clerics because we need tanks and healers!" the DM is "dismissive" when the DM says, "Don't worry about it -- trust me." It's that the DM is expressing to the players, that there is no need to be concerned about this, because the fact that they are all wizards will be accounted for in the upcoming campaign. (For example, maybe they do a Harry Potter-style game as a bunch of wizard students who are solving magical mysteries and not getting into a lot of martial combat.)
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WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
But if those issues only exist because the player thinks crap that doesn’t matter matters?!? When players feel like they have to address everything for their characters themselves, that’s an issue. They shouldn’t ever feel like they are the only ones they can count on. It’s D&D, the whole point of the game is to do it together.
Examine that statement for a moment, Sposta. "If an issue exists only because something the player thinks is important isn't important?"
DMs are neither kings nor deities. An issue the player thinks is important that the DM dismisses out of hand with 'trust your DM' may well be important, even if only to that player. A DM is just as likely to get things wrong as a player is, and poo-pooing whatever a player says with "It's not important, just trust me" is as likely to strain or even break that desired trust as it is to invoke it. If something is truly bothering the player, a DM would be well advised to have a proper conversation about it rather than just dismissing the concern with "trust me, I'm the DM" and laying down the law.
"Trust your DM" is not advice for players. It's a prerequisite for playing the game, and it is no substitute for understanding the game you're playing and the people you're playing it with.
I guarantee you that you cannot come up with a single “player problem” related to character creation that I cannot address with “trust your DM.”
But if those issues only exist because the player thinks crap that doesn’t matter matters?!? When players feel like they have to address everything for their characters themselves, that’s an issue. They shouldn’t ever feel like they are the only ones they can count on. It’s D&D, the whole point of the game is to do it together.
Examine that statement for a moment, Sposta. "If an issue exists only because something the player thinks is important isn't important?"
DMs are neither kings nor deities. An issue the player thinks is important that the DM dismisses out of hand with 'trust your DM' may well be important, even if only to that player. A DM is just as likely to get things wrong as a player is, and poo-pooing whatever a player says with "It's not important, just trust me" is as likely to strain or even break that desired trust as it is to invoke it. If something is truly bothering the player, a DM would be well advised to have a proper conversation about it rather than just dismissing the concern with "trust me, I'm the DM" and laying down the law.
"Trust your DM" is not advice for players. It's a prerequisite for playing the game, and it is no substitute for understanding the game you're playing and the people you're playing it with.
And there it is. Sorry, but DM's ARE Deities. They create the entire game's setting. Players can and will run with the tools and encounters the DM puts before the players, but the DM MAKES THE RULES, not the other way around. I have no idea if you DM. I infer from your posts that you do not. But a good, even decent, DM is far more valuable to the entire community that any one player. You may not like that idea. But it is fact. Keeping a DM happy is key. And only a DM can do that for himself.
If you bring a problem to the DM and they dismiss it as it doesn't matter, that DM isn't trust worthy. No one gets to decide what should or shouldn't be a problem for another person, no matter how trivial you may feel that problem is.
4d6 is a legacy mechanic that should be wiped out, the same way that rolling percentile dice for Str over 18 was.
Between this and not using alignment, I think it might be time to revoke your true classic D&D card, Vince. ;)
On a more serious note, why does it have to go? What does it matter if some tables use it? Adventurers League doesn't, so nobody's forced to go with 4d6 drop lowest. It's entirely optional. You said you'd love to use roll 3d6 in order with the right group yourself. So why should another dice-based method get banned from all D&D?
I have always been a proponent of "true classic D&D", and will die on that hill. But I am talking about the fundamental theme and feel of it. Clearly, the mechanics of 5e are so different from 1e and 2e that the game's base mechanics are virtually unrecognizable. I mean, every iteration of the game has made huge changes from the previous iteration. And I am OK with that. No one misses THACO.
But the theme and feel of D&D never changed. There are lines that cannot be crossed. The abomination that shall not be named crossed those lines, because it goes against everything that made D&D, well D&D.
4d6 is legacy mechanic that makes no sense anymore. It is used for one reason, and only one reason. As for playing at a table that rolled 3d6 and lived with those stats, I think it would be a wonderful experiment, but I will say it again: "The vast majority of players are not equipped, neither skill wise, nor emotionally, to play a game like that." If I proposed such a game at my gaming cafe, that had a pre-Covid core of about 20-30 players, I might find one or two willing to try it out. It is not something that works in the mainstream, as the DM has to really be careful with encounter levels, because the chars are indeed badly handicapped.
That's a reason not to use it yourself. It's not a reason for it not to exist at all.
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I know how you feel about D&D in your last sentence, and it saddens me for what you are saying. But I totally get it.
There are many factors that go into my statement "if I ever run another D&D campaign after this one."
First -- this one is probably 1.5 years from finishing. If we go the distance it will be 2.5 years. At that point I will want a break from GMing.
Second -- D&D is a fine game, but I'd like to try some others. In particular I would like to play Call of Cthulhu and SWADE. And hopefully a nice juicy campaign of both, if I can find someone to GM it.
Maybe someday I will circle back around to D&D... maybe not.
Someday, I think I would like to play in a D&D campaign with you. My comp is too rickety at the moment, and I hate stuff like Roll 20, but someday.
But if those issues only exist because the player thinks crap that doesn’t matter matters?!? When players feel like they have to address everything for their characters themselves, that’s an issue. They shouldn’t ever feel like they are the only ones they can count on. It’s D&D, the whole point of the game is to do it together.
Examine that statement for a moment, Sposta. "If an issue exists only because something the player thinks is important isn't important?"
DMs are neither kings nor deities. An issue the player thinks is important that the DM dismisses out of hand with 'trust your DM' may well be important, even if only to that player. A DM is just as likely to get things wrong as a player is, and poo-pooing whatever a player says with "It's not important, just trust me" is as likely to strain or even break that desired trust as it is to invoke it. If something is truly bothering the player, a DM would be well advised to have a proper conversation about it rather than just dismissing the concern with "trust me, I'm the DM" and laying down the law.
"Trust your DM" is not advice for players. It's a prerequisite for playing the game, and it is no substitute for understanding the game you're playing and the people you're playing it with.
And there it is. Sorry, but DM's ARE Deities. They create the entire game's setting. Players can and will run with the tools and encounters the DM puts before the players, but the DM MAKES THE RULES, not the other way around. I have no idea if you DM. I infer from your posts that you do not. But a good, even decent, DM is far more valuable to the entire community that any one player. You may not like that idea. But it is fact. Keeping a DM happy is key. And only a DM can do that for himself.
As a DM who started out not knowing what I was doing and learning as I was going along with the help of my players... Ugh.
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Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
If you bring a problem to the DM and they dismiss it as it doesn't matter, that DM isn't trust worthy. No one gets to decide what should or shouldn't be a problem for another person, no matter how trivial you may feel that problem is.
The player is always welcome to find another table. Sorry, but not every single problem a player has matters. That does not happen in the real world either.
4d6 is a legacy mechanic that should be wiped out, the same way that rolling percentile dice for Str over 18 was.
Between this and not using alignment, I think it might be time to revoke your true classic D&D card, Vince. ;)
On a more serious note, why does it have to go? What does it matter if some tables use it? Adventurers League doesn't, so nobody's forced to go with 4d6 drop lowest. It's entirely optional. You said you'd love to use roll 3d6 in order with the right group yourself. So why should another dice-based method get banned from all D&D?
I have always been a proponent of "true classic D&D", and will die on that hill. But I am talking about the fundamental theme and feel of it. Clearly, the mechanics of 5e are so different from 1e and 2e that the game's base mechanics are virtually unrecognizable. I mean, every iteration of the game has made huge changes from the previous iteration. And I am OK with that. No one misses THACO.
But the theme and feel of D&D never changed. There are lines that cannot be crossed. The abomination that shall not be named crossed those lines, because it goes against everything that made D&D, well D&D.
4d6 is legacy mechanic that makes no sense anymore. It is used for one reason, and only one reason. As for playing at a table that rolled 3d6 and lived with those stats, I think it would be a wonderful experiment, but I will say it again: "The vast majority of players are not equipped, neither skill wise, nor emotionally, to play a game like that." If I proposed such a game at my gaming cafe, that had a pre-Covid core of about 20-30 players, I might find one or two willing to try it out. It is not something that works in the mainstream, as the DM has to really be careful with encounter levels, because the chars are indeed badly handicapped.
That's a reason not to use it yourself. It's not a reason for it not to exist at all.
That was the same logic that was applied to the controversial changes created in the abomination that shall not be named. And lo and behold, those changes are now canon, and will be the only options with any new source books and reprints. Apparently there are no sacred cows, no lines that cannot be crossed in the new world order of D&D.
If you bring a problem to the DM and they dismiss it as it doesn't matter, that DM isn't trust worthy. No one gets to decide what should or shouldn't be a problem for another person, no matter how trivial you may feel that problem is.
Horse poopy. If a DM spends all of their time handholding every player who can’t get their PC to be good at all the things then nothing else will ever get done. If a player approaches me and says that they wish their DPR were higher I’m not gonna coddle them, I’m a say “okay, trust me” and sooner or later they’re gonna find a magic item to compensate for that. If they approach me and say they wish they had better mobility because they have to keep dashing all over to get to stuff to hit, then I’ma say “okay, I got you,” and sooner or later they’ll get a boon to help with that. It isn’t “dismissing” that player or their concern.
But I’m not gonna drive myself nuts either. If that player wants to address everything for themselves then they have whatever options are available from multiclassing and feats and get outta my hair. If they wanna keep breaking my balls then there’s the door. If they can just “trust the DM” and be patient until they find their Greatsword of clobbering or their boon of extra movement then they can have a seat.
Heh. Actually Sposta, there's a problem I've had for ages that "Trust your DM" is exactly the wrong answer for.
I love omnicompetent characters. Not "Oh I have a 95-point stat array I can do anything" characters, those are obnoxious, but characters like artificers, Lore bards, Arcane Trickster rogues, or others with a huge and diverse pool of options and solutions available to them. I'm at my happiest when I have 8+ skill proficiencies, at least two Expertise points, access to 6+ cantrips, worthwhile combat options, and enough tools both magical and mundane to accomplish what I need accomplished.
DMs hate that shit. They tell me I'm being a spotlight-hogging *******, or that I'm not leaving room for anybody else to shine, or that I don't/won't/can't trust my fellow players to do their share, or that I don't trust the DM not to hose me. None of that is true. I just really love the Ace character archetype, the adventurer who can do at least a little of everything, and have a strong preference for a larger pool of at-will abilities than a smaller pool of stronger but limited-use abilities. I don't want to cast "Solve Problem" at eighth level, I want to use a combination of skill, smarts, proper gear selection, and low-level magic to Solve the Problem in a particularly clever or impressive way. It's just how I like to play.
But no DM outside my gaming group is ever going to let me be that character, because they don't trust me to use that character for the Greater Good and the betterment of the game. They refuse to hear "Trust me, I know what I'm doing, I won't wreck your game" and insist I Be a Team Player(C) and restrict myself to a narrowly-focused expert who has nothing to contribute to the game outside her specific field of interest, because that's what a DM is expecting and prepared to handle.
It's similar to all the horror stories certain DMs like to tell about how their player who rolled super-good stats is totally going to Ruin Their Game Forever(C) because now the Horrible Optimizer Munchkin Dood has the ammo he needs to wreck games. No DM ever seems willing to trust their players in turn and accept that the optimizer with too-big numbers can restrain themselves, or that the jack-of-all-trades skillmonkey can step back and let other players exploit their own specialties. Many DMs say "trust me, it'll be fine" when a player or group of players does something less than optimal, but that DM then flips schittes when the players opt to make exceptionally competent characters instead. Or roll an obnoxiously high stat array that puts them in a position to dominate their table, if they're a bad player.
Trust has to go both ways, and it does not eliminate the need for conversation or understanding.
Heh. Actually Sposta, there's a problem I've had for ages that "Trust your DM" is exactly the wrong answer for.
I love omnicompetent characters. Not "Oh I have a 95-point stat array I can do anything" characters, those are obnoxious, but characters like artificers, Lore bards, Arcane Trickster rogues, or others with a huge and diverse pool of options and solutions available to them. I'm at my happiest when I have 8+ skill proficiencies, at least two Expertise points, access to 6+ cantrips, worthwhile combat options, and enough tools both magical and mundane to accomplish what I need accomplished.
DMs hate that shit. They tell me I'm being a spotlight-hogging *******, or that I'm not leaving room for anybody else to shine, or that I don't/won't/can't trust my fellow players to do their share, or that I don't trust the DM not to hose me. None of that is true. I just really love the Ace character archetype, the adventurer who can do at least a little of everything, and have a strong preference for a larger pool of at-will abilities than a smaller pool of stronger but limited-use abilities. I don't want to cast "Solve Problem" at eighth level, I want to use a combination of skill, smarts, proper gear selection, and low-level magic to Solve the Problem in a particularly clever or impressive way. It's just how I like to play.
But no DM outside my gaming group is ever going to let me be that character, because they don't trust me to use that character for the Greater Good and the betterment of the game. They refuse to hear "Trust me, I know what I'm doing, I won't wreck your game" and insist I Be a Team Player(C) and restrict myself to a narrowly-focused expert who has nothing to contribute to the game outside her specific field of interest, because that's what a DM is expecting and prepared to handle.
It's similar to all the horror stories certain DMs like to tell about how their player who rolled super-good stats is totally going to Ruin Their Game Forever(C) because now the Horrible Optimizer Munchkin Dood has the ammo he needs to wreck games. No DM ever seems willing to trust their players in turn and accept that the optimizer with too-big numbers can restrain themselves, or that the jack-of-all-trades skillmonkey can step back and let other players exploit their own specialties. Many DMs say "trust me, it'll be fine" when a player or group of players does something less than optimal, but that DM then flips schittes when the players opt to make exceptionally competent characters instead. Or roll an obnoxiously high stat array that puts them in a position to dominate their table, if they're a bad player.
Trust has to go both ways, and it does not eliminate the need for conversation or understanding.
None of that makes any sense. Here is a PC I just made two days ago and am currently playing in someone else’s campaign:
Don't play with narcissists, in general. Especially, narcissist DMs can make a player swear off the entire hobby for life.
That cuts both ways. A narcissist player can ruin an entire table. Anyone goes "wah wah, my char sucks at low levels, I need higher stats" is putting up a huge red flag.
Don't play with narcissists, in general. Especially, narcissist DMs can make a player swear off the entire hobby for life.
That cuts both ways. A narcissist player can ruin an entire table. Anyone goes "wah wah, my char sucks at low levels, I need higher stats" is putting up a huge red flag.
It's supposed to "cut" both ways. Mutual, two-way trust is the underpinning of the GM/player contract.
(Yeah, I know, that contract varies game-to-game, and is almost never written down, much less discussed.)
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I could take the last 2 paragraphs from above and replace "4d6" with "floating ASI's and custom lineages" and then use that in the argument with you against those things. The abomination that shall not be named just proved there are no more "sacred cows" in the D&D world.
I know how you feel about D&D in your last sentence, and it saddens me for what you are saying. But I totally get it.
But if those issues only exist because the player thinks crap that doesn’t matter matters?!? When players feel like they have to address everything for their characters themselves, that’s an issue. They shouldn’t ever feel like they are the only ones they can count on. It’s D&D, the whole point of the game is to do it together.
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There are many factors that go into my statement "if I ever run another D&D campaign after this one."
First -- this one is probably 1.5 years from finishing. If we go the distance it will be 2.5 years. At that point I will want a break from GMing.
Second -- D&D is a fine game, but I'd like to try some others. In particular I would like to play Call of Cthulhu and SWADE. And hopefully a nice juicy campaign of both, if I can find someone to GM it.
Maybe someday I will circle back around to D&D... maybe not.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Examine that statement for a moment, Sposta. "If an issue exists only because something the player thinks is important isn't important?"
DMs are neither kings nor deities. An issue the player thinks is important that the DM dismisses out of hand with 'trust your DM' may well be important, even if only to that player. A DM is just as likely to get things wrong as a player is, and poo-pooing whatever a player says with "It's not important, just trust me" is as likely to strain or even break that desired trust as it is to invoke it. If something is truly bothering the player, a DM would be well advised to have a proper conversation about it rather than just dismissing the concern with "trust me, I'm the DM" and laying down the law.
"Trust your DM" is not advice for players. It's a prerequisite for playing the game, and it is no substitute for understanding the game you're playing and the people you're playing it with.
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I think this is true -- because I think players so used to computer games, come to learn that to some degree "everything matters" and any little imperfection of their character can cause a team wipe. But a human DM built this adventure with the knowledge of all the imperfections of your characters, and so the imperfections were known and accounted for when the DM made the adventure or campaign.
Think for a bit about the "holy trinity" of the MMO world -- that you must have a DPSer, a tank, and a healer in every group. That if you don't, your group will wipe. This is often true in MMOs, because the game is built around it being true. The computer will NOT rebalance a mission or lair to account for the fact that your particular team doesn't have a healer.
But a DM will know it and will account for it. Maybe the DM will make healing potions easy to acquire -- either by purchase or frequently found in dungeons. Or maybe the DM will give the party something like a Ring of Regen that they can swap back and forth to help with healing. Or maybe the DM will give them a healing sidekick or NPC. Or maybe the DM, seeing the lack of healing and having had a session 0 in which player preferences indicated this as a thing they'd like, will run a more intriguey, far less combat-heavy campaign, in which healing is just... not an issue at all. None of these things can be done by a CRPG or MMO -- but any or all of them could be done by a DM with a soul, a heart, and a brain.
This is what I mean by "trust your DM." It's not that when everyone shows up with a wizard and they are a Party of Wizards, and one of the players expresses "Well crap we need some people to make up fighters or clerics because we need tanks and healers!" the DM is "dismissive" when the DM says, "Don't worry about it -- trust me." It's that the DM is expressing to the players, that there is no need to be concerned about this, because the fact that they are all wizards will be accounted for in the upcoming campaign. (For example, maybe they do a Harry Potter-style game as a bunch of wizard students who are solving magical mysteries and not getting into a lot of martial combat.)
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
I guarantee you that you cannot come up with a single “player problem” related to character creation that I cannot address with “trust your DM.”
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And there it is. Sorry, but DM's ARE Deities. They create the entire game's setting. Players can and will run with the tools and encounters the DM puts before the players, but the DM MAKES THE RULES, not the other way around. I have no idea if you DM. I infer from your posts that you do not. But a good, even decent, DM is far more valuable to the entire community that any one player. You may not like that idea. But it is fact. Keeping a DM happy is key. And only a DM can do that for himself.
If you bring a problem to the DM and they dismiss it as it doesn't matter, that DM isn't trust worthy. No one gets to decide what should or shouldn't be a problem for another person, no matter how trivial you may feel that problem is.
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That's a reason not to use it yourself. It's not a reason for it not to exist at all.
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Someday, I think I would like to play in a D&D campaign with you. My comp is too rickety at the moment, and I hate stuff like Roll 20, but someday.
As a DM who started out not knowing what I was doing and learning as I was going along with the help of my players... Ugh.
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The player is always welcome to find another table. Sorry, but not every single problem a player has matters. That does not happen in the real world either.
That was the same logic that was applied to the controversial changes created in the abomination that shall not be named. And lo and behold, those changes are now canon, and will be the only options with any new source books and reprints. Apparently there are no sacred cows, no lines that cannot be crossed in the new world order of D&D.
Horse poopy. If a DM spends all of their time handholding every player who can’t get their PC to be good at all the things then nothing else will ever get done. If a player approaches me and says that they wish their DPR were higher I’m not gonna coddle them, I’m a say “okay, trust me” and sooner or later they’re gonna find a magic item to compensate for that. If they approach me and say they wish they had better mobility because they have to keep dashing all over to get to stuff to hit, then I’ma say “okay, I got you,” and sooner or later they’ll get a boon to help with that. It isn’t “dismissing” that player or their concern.
But I’m not gonna drive myself nuts either. If that player wants to address everything for themselves then they have whatever options are available from multiclassing and feats and get outta my hair. If they wanna keep breaking my balls then there’s the door. If they can just “trust the DM” and be patient until they find their Greatsword of clobbering or their boon of extra movement then they can have a seat.
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Heh. Actually Sposta, there's a problem I've had for ages that "Trust your DM" is exactly the wrong answer for.
I love omnicompetent characters. Not "Oh I have a 95-point stat array I can do anything" characters, those are obnoxious, but characters like artificers, Lore bards, Arcane Trickster rogues, or others with a huge and diverse pool of options and solutions available to them. I'm at my happiest when I have 8+ skill proficiencies, at least two Expertise points, access to 6+ cantrips, worthwhile combat options, and enough tools both magical and mundane to accomplish what I need accomplished.
DMs hate that shit. They tell me I'm being a spotlight-hogging *******, or that I'm not leaving room for anybody else to shine, or that I don't/won't/can't trust my fellow players to do their share, or that I don't trust the DM not to hose me. None of that is true. I just really love the Ace character archetype, the adventurer who can do at least a little of everything, and have a strong preference for a larger pool of at-will abilities than a smaller pool of stronger but limited-use abilities. I don't want to cast "Solve Problem" at eighth level, I want to use a combination of skill, smarts, proper gear selection, and low-level magic to Solve the Problem in a particularly clever or impressive way. It's just how I like to play.
But no DM outside my gaming group is ever going to let me be that character, because they don't trust me to use that character for the Greater Good and the betterment of the game. They refuse to hear "Trust me, I know what I'm doing, I won't wreck your game" and insist I Be a Team Player(C) and restrict myself to a narrowly-focused expert who has nothing to contribute to the game outside her specific field of interest, because that's what a DM is expecting and prepared to handle.
It's similar to all the horror stories certain DMs like to tell about how their player who rolled super-good stats is totally going to Ruin Their Game Forever(C) because now the Horrible Optimizer Munchkin Dood has the ammo he needs to wreck games. No DM ever seems willing to trust their players in turn and accept that the optimizer with too-big numbers can restrain themselves, or that the jack-of-all-trades skillmonkey can step back and let other players exploit their own specialties. Many DMs say "trust me, it'll be fine" when a player or group of players does something less than optimal, but that DM then flips schittes when the players opt to make exceptionally competent characters instead. Or roll an obnoxiously high stat array that puts them in a position to dominate their table, if they're a bad player.
Trust has to go both ways, and it does not eliminate the need for conversation or understanding.
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None of that makes any sense. Here is a PC I just made two days ago and am currently playing in someone else’s campaign:
https://ddb.ac/characters/45532457/WGmX8V
Clearly everybody hates those characters. 🙄
The only thing I don’t like about that PC is I rolled too high for Ability scores and feel shitty about it.
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Don't play with narcissists, in general. Especially, narcissist DMs can make a player swear off the entire hobby for life.
That cuts both ways. A narcissist player can ruin an entire table. Anyone goes "wah wah, my char sucks at low levels, I need higher stats" is putting up a huge red flag.
It's supposed to "cut" both ways. Mutual, two-way trust is the underpinning of the GM/player contract.
(Yeah, I know, that contract varies game-to-game, and is almost never written down, much less discussed.)