D&D General "Player Skill" versus DM Ingenuity as a playstyle.

overgeeked said:

Yeah, it's weird. The OSR basically started with the OGL in 2000. If you want to try to get precise, it was the publication of OSRIC in 2006 that really kicked things off.

At times I'm perfectly aligned with the OSR ethos, other times...not so much. What's weird is that style of play is exactly how we've always played.

When I read the Six Cultures of Play it did not ring true with my experience. What he labels "classic" is something we never did. What he labels "OSR" is how we always played the game. I started in 1984 and that's how we played. In talking with my brothers and their friends, that's how they always played, too.

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Yeah, in looking at that article, I guess we played pretty much OSR style, though we definitely evolved our style over time.

• Challenge to both characters and "player skill"
• Mix and match rules and abilities and tactics and monsters to keep challenge fresh
• Minimizing creation of new rules
• Puzzles and mysteries as part of player challenge
• Danger, possibility of death
• Weird stuff
• Rulings, not rules
• Random encounters, though these really faded over time in favor of curated encounters/events
• Strongholds, hirelings, henchmen

Things we didn't do:

• Hex crawls
• Psionics, bards
• Weapon lengths
• Really not much at all out of Unearthed Arcana

Things we added later:

• Outdoor adventures
• More roleplaying
• Backstory, character personality, character arcs
• Cultural and cult influences (RQ)
• More "realistic" combat (RQ)
• Relative game balance, but not to the point of worrying about perfection

Reynard said:

Can you remember a time or adventure where the EW quote in the OP was relevant? Specifically that the GM had to find or invent come completely new things because the players already knew all the tricks (mimics, troll regeneration, etc)? That is what drew me to the quote, that it suggested there was something of a arms race between player knowledge and GM ingenuity. Also, importantly, "player/character knowledge" separation wasn't a thing?

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Yes.

So, much like today, there are gamers that only want to play in "offical D&D modules". As soon as you say homebrew, they are out. Official stuff only. Another group of gamers had the focus of "checking off" all the offical modules. They would have the three pages of the TSR Hobby Shop Magazine, that they would carry around with them like a Badge of Coolness. And they would put big red 'X's through the modules they had played through....and the real cool kids had them all x'ed out.

Also....while some people grew up next to a massive D&D-Mart....most people did not. At least half of the bookstores did not even carry D&D stuff, and the few that did just tossed it way in the back on the 'games and puzzles' shelf. And even that shelf did not have much. Sure they likey had a PH or DMG....but anything else was hit or miss. And they likely only had five copies. So, anyone person might well be the only person around to have an individual adventure module.

A lot of Forever Players would not buy adventure modules, so a typical group only had whatever the Forever DM had....like maybe 1 to 5 of them. So some groups would jut run through all five adventure modules.....and then just re run through them again....and again. And that DM with just one adventure module, well they would just play it over and over and over again. For a lot of gamers, adventure modules like Keep on the Borderlands or The Lost City are ones they have played through 20, 30, 50 or 100 times.....or more.

So, yes, it was very common to play through an adventure module where all the players knew it well....and often did things like "ok, so we know the third tile has the trap on it, so we don't step on that.". PC knew what the players knew.....and, after all most players were playing their character as themselves anyway.

And again, while it was rare for most players to buy too much more then the PH, even just by game play all the players would know all the things from the common books. Other then today most players buy everything, it has not changed much. After a bit, most players know everything in the core rules.

"Arms race" does not seem like a good fit. It was just players knowing the common stuff. Every chest might be a mimic...yea, every player knew this. It was more about keeping the game fresh and exciting.

EzekielRaiden said:

There are numerous people on this very forum who have said, more than once, that they would prefer that players not even see their own character sheets--that the players just say things they wish to do, and the DM tells them what happens. Hence my phrases like "black box"ing the rules and the like. This is not some insane notion that only exists in my head. Real people want and pursue this, lamenting that player knowledge of the rules has made players "entitled" and other such nonsense.

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As a player, I want to see my character sheet but I've neither the right nor the desire to see any of:

--- the DM-side tables and charts I'm rolling on
--- the combat matrix or saving-throw tables
--- stats and mechanical information about the opponent (just tell us what our characters observe!)
--- unexplored parts of the adventure (i.e. "reading ahead")

In fact, perhaps the greatest regret I had - and still have - about becoming a DM is that doing so forced me to see and use all that stuff, and now I can't un-see it. Much of what made the game mysterious - and thus, intriguing - is gone for me.

I also greatly dislike that the combat matrix and save tables have been in effect moved player-side in the WotC editions (e.g. BAB replacing the combat matrix in 3e), and didn't like things like THAC0 before this for the same reason. As a player, I want to approach the game mechanics the same way I approach the mechanical functions of a car: I don't want to know - and don't really care - how the engine works; I just want it to operate smoothly and reliably when I turn the key.

Wolfpack48 said:

The idea is to get players and DMs away from hiding behind complicated rules, or using complicated rules as gotchas, and pushing towards "the answer is not on your character sheet, or on p. 237 paragraph 3. It's inside your noggin."

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Easier said than done. Often, it resulted in whatever was in the GM's noggin. Like you had to find the correct syntax for the situation to work out like a Sierra adventure PC game from '91.

EzekielRaiden said:

A monster's stats are not the rules of the game.

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I think that view is why you have that reaction.

If you take rules as including things like how flesh golems get extra damage from fire but are powered up by lightning bolts then the quote takes on a different connotation as it is about players having all the rules in front of them makes it tough to challenge them with existing monsters instead of being about keeping the knowledge of mechanics of saving throws out of their hands.

payn said:

Easier said than done. Often, it resulted in whatever was in the GM's noggin. Like you had to find the correct syntax for the situation to work out like a Sierra adventure PC game from '91.

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“Guess which number between 1 and 100 I am thinking of right now and your party survives the trash compactor trap.”

Agree it ain’t easy. Strangely it requires empathy for your group to design challenges that nicely match their ability. It definitely can’t be some obscure puzzle that no one in a million years would figure out. Call of Cthulhu scenario writers have to do this for almost every single adventure.

Wolfpack48 said:

“Guess which number between 1 and 100 I am thinking of right now and your party survives the trash compactor trap.”

Agree it ain’t easy. Strangely it requires empathy for your group to design challenges that nicely match their ability. It definitely can’t be some obscure puzzle that no one in a million years would figure out. Call of Cthulhu scenario writers have to do this for almost every single adventure.

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That's why I keep repeating it's not antagonistic. Because a lot of people mistakenly see it that way.

Reynard said:

In your experience and/or preference, should players separate player and character knowledge when using their brain muscles?

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No, it is silly and pointless.

For the few things where a player might know and use in the game for whatever reason.........the DM should just change things up. Though really the DM should 'spice things up' over the basic printed book so it should never be just "by the book anyway". An adventure should inspire a DM to make up stuff based on the text, not just read the text and do what it says.

EzekielRaiden said:

No. I'm criticizing DMs who think it's impossible to challenge players unless they hide the rules of the game from those players.

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The problem is the players that count "The Rules" as everything and anything they want.

Too many players get really locked into the mechanical rules mini game. Anything that happens in the game is an "event" or "reaction" and they break everything down to action and beating DCs. It is bad enough when 'event 11' happens and the player knows it is a DC 11 to beat it. So the player does whatever is needed to make that exact dc 11. The same ways it's bad when a player knows the effect of anything and ignore it or avoid it, as they know exactly what it does.

No thank.
games of « guess what what I’m thinking about » with the DM is not for me.
I run a character, DM run NPCs and monsters.
The competition and interaction are between those, not directly between me and the DM about nasty mind game.

Lanefan said:

As a player, I want to see my character sheet but I've neither the right nor the desire to see any of:

--- the DM-side tables and charts I'm rolling on
--- the combat matrix or saving-throw tables
--- stats and mechanical information about the opponent (just tell us what our characters observe!)
--- unexplored parts of the adventure (i.e. "reading ahead")

In fact, perhaps the greatest regret I had - and still have - about becoming a DM is that doing so forced me to see and use all that stuff, and now I can't un-see it. Much of what made the game mysterious - and thus, intriguing - is gone for me.

I also greatly dislike that the combat matrix and save tables have been in effect moved player-side in the WotC editions (e.g. BAB replacing the combat matrix in 3e), and didn't like things like THAC0 before this for the same reason. As a player, I want to approach the game mechanics the same way I approach the mechanical functions of a car: I don't want to know - and don't really care - how the engine works; I just want it to operate smoothly and reliably when I turn the key.

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I have no problem with points 3 and 4, but (as stated) I don't consider those part of the rules of the game. Yes, they're numerical attributes, but there's a difference between knowing how the game itself functions, and knowing that this particular monster has 62 HP, +5 Strength modifier, etc.

It's the first and second points I'm contesting--primarily the second. I can live without knowing the first, but don't really see how it's possible to control that information outside of the context of the fourth point: if players are never ever allowed to see the DMG, then DMs can't ever play the game again, and that's putting an even worse burden on them than we already had.

But the second? Why is that in any way valuable? How is it helpful to deny players knowledge of how saving throws work, and whether one has hit or not hit? These aren't things that differentiate one monster from another. They aren't challenges to be overcome with learning. They're just facts about how the game in general works. What is gained by such alleged "mystery"?

Voadam said:

I think that view is why you have that reaction.

If you take rules as including things like how flesh golems get extra damage from fire but are powered up by lightning bolts then the quote takes on a different connotation as it is about players having all the rules in front of them makes it tough to challenge them with existing monsters instead of being about keeping the knowledge of mechanics of saving throws out of their hands.

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I don't get why or even how those things are "rules" of the game though. Like, immunity as a term is a rule of the game, sure. But it's not only expected, it's practically required that DMs invent some of their own monsters, unless they're rigidly running a module (and most of the DMs advocating black-box rules are not doing so, wouldn't even want to do so.) That pretty clearly moves away from "the rules of the game" and into...just individual DM expression.