Retro Post: DM’ing Versus Scripting

[Submitted for your approval, this trip into the Twilight Zone. There is no beginning and no end, only random mumbling.]


There’s no right way to play the game, as long as the group is having fun. If the pendulum swings widely in either direction, it’s okay, as long as everyone goes along with it. Where it goes wrong is when the DM or the players start to pull the game away from where they’re all happy.

“It’s what my character would do!” Or, role-playing versus acting. There’s a question of where the character begins and the player ends. At worst, you have the min-max’ing, power gaming, rules lawyering, munchkin, who refuses to recognize that it’s just game, and game is not Monopoly. Unfortunately, the other side of the spectrum isn’t much better: players who make dumb decisions or sabotage the group because of their class or alignment. Dealing with the first sort is easy: the DM says, “No you can’t. Shut up and play!” The power gamer will keep quiet, while they search out other ways of getting an edge on the rules. The frustrated actor, on the other hand, genuinely believes that they’re doing the right thing and will become a frustrated player if not allowed to play their character the way they want.

The game itself sets up these dichotomies. The rules do say to have fun and the DM is the final arbitrator of the rules at the table. No where within does it say, “Don’t be a dick.” The power gamer is definitely created by the rules. D&D utterly caters to them. Starting I suppose with 2e and character kits, moving to 3e feats and skills, and now 4e’s assortment of powers, the player doesn’t just have more choices than 1e and Rules Cyclopedia, they are actively forced to make decisions. Though 4e makes a severe effort at class balancing, there are bad decisions that can be made in character building. Hell, just look at the terminology. You used to roll up a character, now you have to build them. Essentials seems to be D&D’s acknowledgement of that. (And it’s still too complex.)

This is purely a business decision on D&D’s part. They’re book publishers and they need to sell books. Eventually, you’re going to run out of audience for the core books. Power gamers are willing to shell out for a book that might give them an advantage in character building. The decision to be a power gamer is a basic function of the rules. It is the leveling process that makes players play the game and not their characters. Just surviving the dungeon is way too Old School. You want to thrive and grow and hit the end game, whatever that is.

I have to think that this is antithetical to the original intention of D&D. Yes, your character can improve over time from adventuring. But no, the point of the improvement was to allow the characters to face greater challenges, not just to max out the advancement tables as quickly as possible. It’s not like this is a new thing. Monty Haul DM’s did this all the time in 1e games. In 4e, with treasure parcels and such, it’s now a matter of mathematical formula how often the characters should advance.

Let’s not forget though, killer DM’s also created the power gamer. As long as it was written down in an official rulebook, players could do something to check a sadistic DM in check. Old School typically seems to view characters as faceless minions. They are there to die quickly and cruelly, but for clever, prudent player actions. If they somehow survive a few levels, it is then that the player regrets not giving them a better name. Is it any wonder the power gamer was created? How many anonymous first level characters do you want to go through before you get a winner? How many dungeons do you want to fearfully creep around, hitting everything with a 10’ pole, never touching any levers, running away from giant rats, and fleeing to town after the first couple of rooms with one hp?

Following versions of the game have progressively helped the players more and more against the DM. Though the DM’s creatures have access to the same rules, it is the players who will fully exploit feats, skills, and spells. Finally with 4e, beginning characters are pretty hard to kill. Given the large number of choices in character creation and time taken to do so, they’d better be. Who would spend so much time on a character that could die pretty easily in their first encounter? So the problem is recursive. Near arbitrary character death at the hands of the DM is a no-no given the investment by the player in creating them. Thus, more powerful characters are needed. Thus, more challenging encounters are needed. Thus, 26 hp first level Orcs. Thus, more powerful characters are needed.

The sad fact is that there may not be a happy medium. In order for the game to be challenging, the characters have to be imperiled. As long as there are levels to be had, players will be working towards attaining them. And as long as there are greater challenges to be had, the characters will need those levels to face them.

[Was there a point in this somewhere? I assure you I found this funny for the same reason you did, “WTF was that about!”]