The meaning of "fair" in DnD

Quote from SunIsGettingRealLow96589 >>

But that isnt my point. you keep making it about you the player, on a thread i repeatedly have told you is about dms.

You can't separate the question, because the fundamental measure of whether a DM is good is "are people having fun". Which means a DM that is good for one group of players may be bad for a different group of players.

Quote from SunIsGettingRealLow96589 >>

Quote from oreosandcat >>

Quote from SunIsGettingRealLow96589 >>

"Way to miss the point. Yes, there are people who like tracking that kind of thing -- but they still want doing so to matter"

Look, if you are a player and want your hard tack calorie.counting spreadsheet to "matter" ask your DM to enforce.charavter death on you if you fail to show the reciepts for suffient caloric intake for enough days in a row to kill a pc.

But that isnt my point. you keep making it about you the player, on a thread i repeatedly have told you is about dms. So lets try something more direct:

1) You are a dm for a long (20 level) campaign  I assume you would gladly enforce ration counting? Yes? 

2) if no, then you have comepletely missed the point, since, again, this is about DMs.

3) if yes, then one of your players tells you they are going to take the Guide Background to get access to the Goodberry spell. And then they tell you their intention to feed everyone in the party using goodberry, specifically so no one has to worry about food.  Question: do you allow them to do that? Yes or no?

4) they then indicate their plan to play a bard, which has access to tiny hut, mordenkainens magnificicient mansion, and they intend to provide food and shelter to all the members of the party? Question: do you allow them to do that? Yes or no?

5) do you do anything to nerf existing spells or features that allows players to easily deal with or ignore your enforcement of counting rations? Yes or no?

Thats the point. What do you as a dm do about a campaign where you want ration counting and the players all create builds that magically solve all food scarcity issues?

 

 1) If the players AGREE, then yes!

3) Yes, because I, personally, do not want to disallow a valid method of avoiding rations. However, if all the other players say they would like him to not feed everyone, then I'll say he can only feed himself with Goodberry. Goodberry solutions: Anti magic field, anti magic device, thieves, etc.

4) Yes. See above.

5) No, I will not nerf or delete them UNLESS the party would like me to, or some players want me to and the others do not care

6) I don't do anything, because A. some people simply do not want to play casters, and therefore will not have access and B. I think the spells are perfectly valid. And almost all of them are higher-level spells. If they are fine with ration tracking, cool! If they want to make builds to make that a non-issue, ok! That is perfectly fine, and also means they have less spells to kill people with. If they do not, on the other hand, make builds to eliminate the issue and actually buy rations and stuff, wonderful! This is what they and I, as the people playing a fictional game as fictional people doing fictional things and eating fictional food because we think this is a fun hobby have decided will make the game fun for everyone at the party. 

And if you think that's wrong and stupid, okay! that's your opinion, and completely irrelevant to my games and life, since I will never see you or play D&D with you <3

 

Cool!

Congratulations! 

We agree! 

Huzzah!

 Well now i'm just confused. 

Quote from oreosandcat >>

 That actually sounds really cool, do you mind if I steal the idea?

 Go for it! It was surprisingly fun. 

Quote from SunIsGettingRealLow96589 >>

Quote from Agilemind >>

Quote from Pantagruel666 >>

Quote from SunIsGettingRealLow96589 >>

"They are saying that any GM who runs that kind of game is bad and unfair. But I argue that there are people that want that kind of game and a GM that refuses to run it would be a bad and unfair GM."

If players want to track rations, they can track their own rations.

 Way to miss the point. Yes, there are people who like tracking that kind of thing -- but they still want doing so to matter.

I don't believe that a majority or even a large minority of D&D players actually likes tracking minutia such as rations, I've certainly never encountered players who did, but it's a gross overreach to say that there's nobody who enjoys that kind of game.

 It totally depends on the game. Here's a story arc I played in at a table where tracking rations and tracking ammunition was enforced:

Premise: The party starts off on the road to Hillburg, an isolated lumber post deep in the Wildwood. As they approach the post, the sun sets and two wolf-human hybrids (werewolves) leap out of the undergrowth and attack. Lacking silver weapons, the party barely survives and is forced to run as fast as they can to the walled post with howls following them. Inside they are told the werewolf activity started a few days ago and is getting more and more common as the fullmoon approaches - which is due to arrive 3 nights from today.

Campaign structure: The town has a two dozen able bodied men, but only a handful of mundane weapons. So has no chance right now to fend off the growing numbers of werewolves. They are also too far from the nearest town to reasonably get help from them. However, in the surroundings there is an ancient cemetery, an abandoned mine, a farm house & surrounding farmland and a hunting camp that the loggers haven't heard from in a few days, there is also sometimes travelling merchants along the main road and a retired adventurer in a little cottage up in a tree house in an ancient Sequoia. These locations are 2-4 hours walk from the camp and several hours walk from each other so it's not possible to visit all of them within the 3 days. There are also some crafts people in town that might be willing to help.

The whole point of the campaign is to figure out which locations it is / isn't worth visiting and how much time to invest into exploring each one. Rations and ammo are required to be tracked because purchasing more reduces the resources available to the party to buy things from the travelling merchant, or to use to pay / bribe the local craftsmen to help. 

Day 1 we went to the hunting camp, where we found a couple of bears and found a stash of weapons the townsfolk could use. We spent the rest of the day tacking down the hunters and convincing them to come back to town and help defend it.

 Day 2 we explored the cemetery hoping to find some silver items that could be used to silver the weapons we had collected the day

 

"The town has a two dozen able bodied men, but only a handful of mundane weapons"

The lumber/lumberjack town doesnt have weapons?  The place should be chock a block full of axes, mauls, cant hooks, and peaveys. And everyone there should be extremely adept at using them.

"Rations and ammo are required to be tracked because purchasing more reduces the resources available to the party to buy things from the travelling merchant, or to use to pay / bribe the local craftsmen to help."

20 arrows cost 1gold. 

20 lbs of food costs 5gold. 4lbs per gold. Raw, a medium sized creature needs to eat half a pound per day to avoid making any con saves for malnutrition. So 2 gold should buy enough food to last a party of 4 for four days.

I dont know what rules your using, but a normal level 1 character could easily start with 25 gold.

If the dm says we are counting rations and ammo, i will start with 100.arrows and woodcarvers proficiency.

Also, youre helping the lumberjacks/lumber town and they couldnt give you any rations??? 

"Rations and ammo are required to be tracked because purchasing more reduces the resources available to the party to buy things from the travelling merchant, or to use to pay / bribe the local craftsmen to help."

What are you buying from a traveling merchant that isnt food or ammo? And why is a traveling merchant traveling whilst werewolves are running amok?

Is there no smithy at the lumber/lumberjack town? You shouldnt have to bribe them to help.at all.

"Day 3 we convinced the local smith to melt down the loot to silver the weapons"

2024 rules removed immunity to nonsilvered weapons for werewolves. 

"we really had to make every spellslot and every ability go as far as it could, and we had to track every resource."

Great, except no one was suggesting not counting spell slots.  Just rations and arrows, and if players knew they would have to count rations and arrows, they would use their starting gold to load up on both.

Unless the point is to NOT tell players? And do a "gotchya" on them  Which, ya know, gets into bad dm territory. 

Cause if thats the cue from session zero: tracking ammo and food, im playing a warlock with eldritch blast/agonizing blast and grab the guide background to cast goodberry.

 I assume that they decided they wanted to do this sort of campaign during Session 0, and deliberately chose not to play characters designed to ignore the entire premise.

As for the weapons, The enemies are werewolves. They need silver weapons.

Quote from SunIsGettingRealLow96589 >>

As long as they dont nerf the standard rules for folks who think tracking ammo and rations is a waste of time, cool.

They should definitely nerf the standard rules, and people who don't want to play that way... should find a different game. Not every game is for every player.

Quote from SunIsGettingRealLow96589 >>

"Way to miss the point. Yes, there are people who like tracking that kind of thing -- but they still want doing so to matter"

Look, if you are a player and want your hard tack calorie.counting spreadsheet to "matter" ask your DM to enforce.charavter death on you if you fail to show the reciepts for suffient caloric intake for enough days in a row to kill a pc.

But that isnt my point. you keep making it about you the player, on a thread i repeatedly have told you is about dms. So lets try something more direct:

1) You are a dm for a long (20 level) campaign  I assume you would gladly enforce ration counting? Yes? 

2) if no, then you have comepletely missed the point, since, again, this is about DMs.

3) if yes, then one of your players tells you they are going to take the Guide Background to get access to the Goodberry spell. And then they tell you their intention to feed everyone in the party using goodberry, specifically so no one has to worry about food.  Question: do you allow them to do that? Yes or no?

4) they then indicate their plan to play a bard, which has access to tiny hut, mordenkainens magnificicient mansion, and they intend to provide food and shelter to all the members of the party? Question: do you allow them to do that? Yes or no?

5) do you do anything to nerf existing spells or features that allows players to easily deal with or ignore your enforcement of counting rations? Yes or no?

Thats the point. What do you as a dm do about a campaign where you want ration counting and the players all create builds that magically solve all food scarcity issues?

 

 This is clearly meant as a gotcha and not asked in good faith, but I'll answer it in earnest anyway.

Assuming the rumors of a Dark Sun release coming sometime soon are true, I'm champing at the bit to run it. When that time comes, my players and I are going to have a session zero to go over some basics about the world of Athas. Now obviously I'm not going to give them spoilers about the sorcerer kings, but I am going to lay out some of the defining features of the Dark Sun setting: resources are scarce, metal weapons and armor are nigh unheard of, and magic is rare and forbidden. So in this setting we will be tracking food and ammunition and there won't be goodberry or other spells to get around it, and there won't be any bags of holding. And then I'll ask the all important question: "What does everybody think?"

As I've said several times already, it all comes down to communication and session zero. I'm not a bad DM and I'm not being unfair for wanting to run a Dark Sun campaign. And if my players don't want to play in that world they're not bad players. And if you somehow magically appear during our session zero and at the end when we've all agreed to play it our way you accuse me of DMing wrong because it's not how you prefer to play I'll call you a silly goose and tell you to be on your way.

Quote from SunIsGettingRealLow96589 

 

As long as they dont nerf the standard rules for folks who think tracking ammo and rations is a waste of time, cool.

Later on, when the party is arguing over whether they have time to hunt for food and save the village, or arguing if they can afford to buy more rations or save it for buying something else, i will be nibbling my Goodberry, shaking my head.

Oh brother

The lumber/lumberjack town doesnt have weapons?  The place should be chock a block full of axes, mauls, cant hooks, and peaveys. And everyone there should be extremely adept at using them.

There is a clear distinction in the rules between tools and weapons, those would all be "improvised weapons" thus not very effective. Being good at cutting down a stationary tree, does not make you good at cutting off a werewolf's leg in the heat of battle.

20 arrows cost 1gold. 20 lbs of food costs 5gold. 4lbs per gold. Raw, a medium sized creature needs to eat half a pound per day to avoid making any con saves for malnutrition. So 2 gold should buy enough food to last a party of 4 for four days. If the dm says we are counting rations and ammo, i will start with 100.arrows and woodcarvers proficiency. I dont know what rules your using, but a normal level 1 character could easily start with 25 gold.

Our party started with 3-5 gp per character and starting equipment, everyone had some rations to start with but we also used some for things other than feeding ourselves, we had a random encounter with some animals while hiking through the forest and used several blocks of rations to distract & lead away the animals rather than fight them. We could have traded equipment for gold for sure, but then we'd have less equipment to achieve our various goals. Hence the whole point of the campaign, the party has to choose what is most important. There also wasn't infinite arrows available - otherwise why would the loggers need us to go find them more weapons. The loggers had carpenters that could spend 3 hours and 1 gold to make 10 arrows, but that's 3 hours where the carpenter's weren't reinforcing the gate & walls. The archer in the party could have spent time to make their own arrows but that's time the party couldn't spend going and exploring one of the points of interest. One of the days we had a couple free hours and they did make a few arrows, while the rest of us went and did other things to help the defences. 

Also, youre helping the lumberjacks/lumber town and they couldnt give you any rations??? 

They didn't have much to spare because many of them were afraid to forage for food due to the werewolves so they were already drawing down their emergency rations. Sure we could have demanded their food, but that might have weakened them prior to the final confrontation and it would certainly have made them less cooperative.

What are you buying from a traveling merchant that isnt food or ammo? And why is a traveling merchant traveling whilst werewolves are running amok?

I don't know because we didn't happen to encounter them, but presumably they would have had some magic items, some potions, some unique weapons, potentially some equipment for making / setting up traps. 

Is there no smithy at the lumber/lumberjack town? You shouldnt have to bribe them to help.at all.

There was, but depending on how we treated the loggers their attitude would vary. Had we demanded their food from them they almost certainly would have demanded some kind of payment. As it turned out we rolled decently on our Persuasion check to convince them our plan made sense and despite them never having worked with jewelry or silver before they could figure out how to silver the weapons. But had we failed they might have demanded we buy them a better crucible to melt the silver in, or get them special tools for working with the silver. 

2024 rules removed immunity to nonsilvered weapons for werewolves. 

This was 2014 rules, and the werewolves were homebrewed to be more interesting - they had mages, they had brutes, they had archers, etc...

Great, except no one was suggesting not counting spell slots.  

But you are claiming Goodberry trivializes tracking rations, but it doesn't when it means sacrificing a casting of Cure Wounds that might save a party member's life.

Unless the point is to NOT tell players? And do a "gotchya" on them  Which, ya know, gets into bad dm territory. 

Surprise, mystery, and lack of full information is a fundamental part of story telling. Gotchyas are not a sign of a bad dm. 

Cause if thats the cue from session zero: tracking ammo and food, im playing a warlock with eldritch blast/agonizing blast and grab the guide background to cast goodberry.

I did happen to play a warlock in that game but it wasn't particularly OP because a short rest costs 1 hour which you aren't using for something more productive like searching for loot. So we only took 1 short rest most days. At no point prior to making our characters were we told it was going to be such a resource-management type game or that it would heavily involve werewolves. We were told it was going to be for level 5 characters and forest / wilderness focused (hence we had a ranger with Forest as their favoured terrain). Had we all designed characters specifically to circumvent the limitations and constraints of the campaign it would not have been nearly as fun. At no point was the party at risk of starving, but had we decided to forage for food rather than using up rations that would have cost time and required another roll on the forest random encounter table. The Ranger did have Goodberry as well, but they were also the only person in the party that could heal so we generally decided it was better they save their slots for Cure Wounds instead.

You keep talking about bad and unfair DMs, but as often as you default to "leave if I don't get my way" I'm starting to think the issue is that you're a bad player. Or rather, you're sounding like the kind of problematic player refered to in the DMG section about the social contract of D&D. You're willing to bail on your fellow players because you don't want to follow the DM's rules (and it certainly doesn't sound like you're stopping to have a tactful, respectful conversation about your issues), which I would argue is unfair to your fellow players and the DM, given the collaborative nature of the game.

I think eventually you're going to run out of tables to play at altogether if you keep insisting people who don't conform to your preferences are objectively wrong and bailing when they don't change their rules to suit you. I certainly wouldn't want you at my table because you would be too disruptive to my other players' enjoyment of their game.

Versimilitude.

Quote from SunIsGettingRealLow96589 >>

"At no point prior to making our characters were we told it was going to be such a resource-management type game"

Thats bad dm'ing. Cause thats a "gotcha".  

 

 
To highlight and support what other's have been saying - that you're coming across as a problematic player personality - here's a a couple of real scenarios to consider.

1. In Lost Mine of Phandelver, the party venture into the nearby forests. They get sidetracked by some small an insignificant detail because they DM wants to allow the players to have their fun. They chase after a bunny rabbit, because a player character wants a new pet. A few bad survival rolls later and the party are lost. There's no ranger or druid in the party - Lost Mine of Phandelver as written is played with pre-gens after all. So now the party are lost in the woods...none of them are specialised in woodland survival. Then as night falls the party decide to make camp. Only they get another bad luck roll and aren't sure if the berries on that bush are 100% edible. They decide it's best not to eat them. They didn't bring any rations, because they didn't think they'd need them.

2. Icewind Dale. The party are on one of the journeys that takes 8+ hours to complete by foot. They're going by foot because a few of the characters are very stingy. A blizzard rolls in and the party get lost. Sadly, the roll was a 9 which is more than 5 below the 15DC and so one of the party gets separated from the others. Now the group is trying to find their lost member. What should have been a 9 hour journey turns into a 12 hour journey. There's no food to be had in this frozen wasteland except what they're carrying with them. None of the party thought they'd have fun playing as a ranger or a druid, so no-one's got the spell Goodberry.

3. Out of the Abyss. The party are making their escape, but they're pretty nervous that the Drow are going to catch them. There are 2 Drow and 4 Quaggoths in Main Hall, so the party decide that discretion is the better part of valour. They skip this room and move on, missing the up to 30 days of rations available to loot. So the party finish up and make their escape out into the Underdark, well armed and supplied except for rations. It's okay though, moving at a slow or normal pace the party can forage as they travel. Except that the DC is 15 (or in some areas 20) on a survival check to find food.

What @SunIsGettingRealLow96589's comments show us is a player/DM with no real experience at actual tables in my experience. You see these aren't fringe examples. Taking the need to gather or forage food as an example, this can be used as a very effective tool in the world and adventure you're laying out for the party. My favourite of these examples is Out of the Abyss. Part of the tension in this adventure is that the party are being pursued by Drow out to recapture their escapees. So the party is driven to explore, to forage, to scavenge. I as a DM when running this adventure tend to make it clear that the module is built on the assumption of this type of tension. That supplies are going to be limited and that part of the fun to be had in this adventure is by surviving against the odds of the setting. Despite such disclaimers I've never had a player run a character in Out of the Abyss who has Goodberry. Any DM who's run even a single WotC produced adventure will know that the tracking of resources was the standard assumption for much of 5e. 

Let's say we want to talk 'fairness' in a serious way though. Let's say we've actually got the experience to make assertions like @SunIsGettingRealLow96589 is trying to make. There are better adventures to point at. Two immediately come to mind. Vecna: Eve of Ruin, and Curse of Strahd. 

Curse of Strahd disables some spells and breaks others. It handwaves a setting-based reason that these spells no longer work. We as DMs don't find this out until Chapter 2, and there aren't any explicit instructions to us to relay to our players that these spells have been altered. The handwave in this case makes a little more sense to me, we're talking about an adventure that is set in a demiplane where the rules are different and are at the whim of a single ruler. The alterations serve the setting and the plot. They exist to help the characters and players feel trapped in Barovia. The changes exist to do something.

In Vecna, something similar is true. Certain spells and abilities built around uncovering disguises will fail to detect a disguise. Now, in this case the alteration to these skills or spells is made to ensure that the player characters still have reason to do 90% of the adventure. If they uncover the disguise they could easily just decide to speedrun to the final chapters of the adventure. As a result the disguise can only be revealed by casting the Wish spell.

Now if @SunIsGettingRealLow96589 had made the argument that DMs who run adventures where the rules are actively changed from as written I'd have had more sympathy. However, even what we can see from these two admittedly advanced adventure modules is that the designers of 5e themselves see no issue with shaking the rules up in service of plot, setting, or theme. Personally, I feel like a pre-game warning should be given to those embarking on Strahd that magic gets altered. For Vecna, there's no good warning that can be given without spoiling the reveal. I could certainly see how some players would feel disappointed by the reveal of the magic-item created 'perfect' disguise.

What we as DMs can take from these advanced adventures though is that rules are there to be bent to our use in serving the same things.

 - Want to create the tension of being hunted? Limiting starting equipment like Out of the Abyss can help with that.
 - Want to make the wilderness feel harsh and untamed? Introduce weather effects and consequences like Icewind Dale.
 - Want to make the party feel trapped and a in danger? Limit magics that allow a character to teleport or move between planes like Strahd.
 - Want to have a reveal, but know there's a single spell or ability that could reveal the secret early? Invent a magic item that will neuter all but one incredibly powerful spell.

This is my point @SunIsGettingRealLow96589, if you'd have genuinely wanted to debate the 'fairness' of D&D there are good examples that can be made. A reasonable discussion could be had about the fairness of the disguise creating magic item in Venca. I've had those discussions with other DMs. That's not how you've come across though. To me the points you've made have come across as the inflexible ramblings of someone who didn't get things their way. Incidentally, in none of the examples I have given would I have specifically felt the need to say 'hey resource management will be a factor in this adventure'. By default that's how the game is written. To go into Out of the Abyss not tracking food would undercut the tension and atmosphere that the adventure writers were trying to create. As a result, I'd suggest that your points come across as those of someone unaware or inexperienced in running actual games of D&D as written.

Quote from SunIsGettingRealLow96589 >>

Quote from Agilemind>>

 It totally depends on the game. Here's a story arc I played in at a table where tracking rations and tracking ammunition was enforced:

Premise: The party starts off on the road to Hillburg, an isolated lumber post deep in the Wildwood. As they approach the post, the sun sets and two wolf-human hybrids (werewolves) leap out of the undergrowth and attack. Lacking silver weapons, the party barely survives and is forced to run as fast as they can to the walled post with howls following them. Inside they are told the werewolf activity started a few days ago and is getting more and more common as the fullmoon approaches - which is due to arrive 3 nights from today.

The lumber/lumberjack town doesnt have weapons?  The place should be chock a block full of axes, mauls, cant hooks, and peaveys. And everyone there should be extremely adept at using them.

[...]

2024 rules removed immunity to nonsilvered weapons for werewolves. 

[etc]

 

What are you hoping to achieve here? Convince Agilemind that it wasn't actually fun?

Now, from the sound of it, it wouldn't have been fun... for you.

But, to drift closer to the topic of the thread, there's nothing in there to suggest the DM wasn't being fair. They just set up a scenario where money, supplies, time, etc. were tight, in order to create tension. When you're doing that, you usually have to be scrupulously fair, or it doesn't work.

So, you dont know what wasting time tryijg to find food will do. It might take so much time that the party cant get to one of the possible destinations to investigate. 

But youre 100% absolutely certain that cssting Goodberry will use that one spell slot that would have saved a party member?

No you're not 100% certain about anything and that's the whole point! You don't know what's going to happen, you don't know what encounters / enemies you're going to face, you don't know for certain how long anything is going to take. Hence the choice is meaningful whether to use up rations or cast Goodberry or forage. Your choices have consequences, and nothing is guaranteed. That's what makes it a game rather than a story - the possibility of failure if you make the wrong choices. Sure you might roll well and find loot you need quickly, but you might roll poorly and have to spend more time that you wanted to find what you need. You could spend more time looting to try and find the best loot possible but now you might not get back to the logging camp before nightfall and risk a werewolf attack. 

And yes, DMs can nerf player options and buff monster abilities if it makes it a better story and a more fun & interesting game. Doing so makes them a good DM. 

Dude. This is getting to the point of ridiculousness. Somehow, this thread has turned from talking about the ethics of DMing to half of the replies from the defense mentioning Goodberry, and the other half tearing down what sounds like an interesting adventure premise. I don't disagree on the point that a DM failing to communicate what a campaign is about is a big failure on their part, but also: it sounds to me like you're playing quite willfully. DM: "The game is gonna have elements of scarcity." You: "I grab Goodberry to subvert half the game". I mean, come on. Somebody brings up an adventure that they thought was really fun and had a good time, and your response goes something along the lines of: "No, no, wrong, that's not how you're supposed to play the game." Your only responses to others on all 5 pages are about how they're wrong, you're right, rations and arrows are stupid, and the game can't be played in certain ways. I play DnD because I want an immersive experience with a story I can change. The way you seem to be playing it is foiling the DM and then posting about the times that you felt foiled. I'm sorry if you find this offensive, but when Agilemind talks about having fun and then you tear into it, you come off as obtuse and careless on a thread you're trying to use to make a point.