The Introdution to the AD&D 2nd Edition Dungeon Master's Guide makes the following interesting assertion:
[I]nformation is in the [DMG] so the DM can control the players' (and hence the characters') access to certain bits of knowledge. In a fantasy world, as in this world, information is power. What the characters don't know can hurt them (or lead them on a merry chase to nowhere). While the players aren't your enemies, they aren't your allies, either, and you aren't obligated to give anything away for nothing. If characters go hunting wererats tomorrow without doing any research beforehand, feel free to throw plenty of curves their way. Reward those characters who take the time to do some checking.
It is a curate's egg of advice. Some of the basic principles are right, but on the whole it simply can't be right. If characters go hunting wererats tomorrow without doing any research beforehand, it should just be the natural consequence of that choice if things go awry. Similarly, it should be the natural consequence of doing proper research that there will be fewer surprises - and there is therefore no need to reward characters who do the right 'checking'.
Success and failure, in other words, are their own rewards, and there is absolutely no need for a DM to second-guess that process by artificially rewarding or punishing good or bad decision-making. Just let events play out as they will and the results will be fair in themselves.
This reminds me of possibly my favourite quotation by an English judge, from Seymour HHJ's judgment in Stephen Donald Architects Ltd v King [2003] EWHC 1867 (TCC):
The short and simple point, as it seems to me, is that there is nothing unjust about being visited with the consequences of a risk which one has consciously run.
This maxim should be printed out on postcards the length and breadth of the land and included in every copy of every D&D book ever sold - it would sort out almost all problems at the drop of a hat.
The DM's only obligation in regard to fainess is to create a setting in which natural consequences of good or bad decision-making arise, and in which there is never any need to tilt the balance behind the scenes. This is the ideal to which a DM should strive, and nothing more nor less.
Players who "memorize the monster manual" or know the rules of the game get their own reward intrinsically. They don't need to be punished. Any DM should be happy to have players so invested in the game that they actually read the rulebook.
ReplyDeleteI think the 2e TSR writers could not even conceive of "let the dice fall as they may" neutral DMing, hence couching their advice in terms of punishment & reward.
ReplyDeleteWhile I strongly agree with his honour (and your postcard plan) there's maybe something to be said for encouraging/rewarding OSR newbies to do their research.
ReplyDeleteI've been thinking a lot recently about how to teach new players, including kids, the OSR way. As you say, the punishment side is simply handled by accurately modelling the consequences of failing to research. With rewards though, doing research often leads to a situation that the PCs are prepared for, and so handle, without any fanfare. There may not be an obvious positive feedback loop to tell new players "Well done, you did this right".
Maybe "survival is the reward" is the OSR way?
for computer games, one truism I've seen repeated is that e the optimal path should also be a fun path. Good planning should ideally lead to more interesting content, not less. You just don't necessarily die from this content.
DeleteAs long as the characters have a clear goal that the players care about, solving problems with little fanfare shouldn't be a bad thing. Getting to this point is sometimes tricky, and might be influenced by the parts of the games the players enjoy - if they want to get in a fight for combat's sake, "solving" combat will never be a priority for them.
Agreed. Which is why the most important part of the DM's job is world building...and shirking that responsibility is doing a disservice to both the players AND the game itself.
ReplyDeleteNothing says fantasy adventure like "mandatory library roleplay or else"
ReplyDeleteHasn't Mandatory Library Roleplay just backed on Kickstarter? I pledged at the "Think your players will reach the dungeon this session? Nope!" level.
DeleteSpeak for yourself; hot librarians figure in many of my fantasies!
DeleteJokes aside, I quite like the idea of 'my PC visits the archive to learn what he can about wererats' as a gambit. Of course, there are ways to make it more interesting and in practice it's always, 'My PC goes to ask the spooky wizard/wise witch/friendly dragon about X/Y/Z'.
DeleteLooking at the passage in context, it's first of all about an assumption that the DMG has information only for the DM, not for the players, who should *not* read the DMG. It's on the first page after the table of contents, stating, essentially, why there is a DMG at all when one might think that the rules are covered in the PH. It's implicit that players are not supposed to know what's in the DMG (and perhaps even the MM). This mirrors the equivalent passage in the Introduction to the 1e DMG.
ReplyDeleteI think you are squeezing too hard on the word "reward" in the text. The passage is not saying that the DM "rewards" players artificially (as you put it) for inquiring by giving them some special goodie or perk, but that the DM "rewards" players simply by revealing information when they inquire about something in the game world. That is, they will have fewer surprises when they meet these wererats because they obtained information about them (such as the need for silvered weapons), which is exactly what your situation of game "justice" would entail.
Now, I agree with you that the DM shouldn't "throw plenty of curves" towards the players to *punish* them simply for not doing any "research beforehand," but this DMG passage doesn't refer to punishment. It actually says *not* to be oppositional. A neutral interpretation of the passage is that, when a monster is encountered, the DM should not downplay a monster's strengths and special abilities simply because the players didn't find out about it beforehand. Don't pull punches, it's saying, when there are curve balls in store, such as a wererat's ability to summon giant rats. Nor should the DM simply reveal a monster's special abilities as free information. To me, this is not controversial, and it sounds similar to what OSR-type players say about ditching concerns to scale threats to PCs' abilities. Could it have been more clearly written to illuminate its implied ludic morality? Yes. But it's an RPG game book, and I'm guessing this is the first time, even since 1989, that a law scholar scrutinized its diction in a search for justice. ;)
You're reading into the passage words that aren't there. "If characters go hunting wererats tomorrow without doing any research beforehand, feel free to throw plenty of curves their way. Reward those characters who take the time to do some checking." With respect to Stanley Fish there is a plain meaning to that text.
DeleteMy interpretation is due to context and my point was the same as yours: "You're reading into the passage words that aren't there." I mean this non-combatively, but in the spirit of discussion. (If a blog entry about a passage in the DMG from '89 is worth talking about, why not?) Ambiguity may leave us both in the lurch. I guess the question I'm left with is: What rewards do you think Dave Cook is advocating giving, except the information players are seeking in the situation he describes? To answer that, we evidently need words that aren't there. Plain meanings exist only in contexts. What rewards to players do you think Cook intended with his example?
DeleteThis entry is a more polite version of what gygax argued for with 1e dnd both in the actual dmg and elsewhere, that is, the actual restriction of rules from players. Anyone besides the DM is banned from reading the DMG or MM, which is ludicrous when everyone in the group is both a player and DM. When it says to throw curves at players who haven't done their research, that implies throwing curves that wouldn't be there normally. It's not a "curve" if it's normal and they are just ignorant. Throwing a curve specifically because they didn't do research is punishment, especially when you ban them from reading the rulebook.
Delete@Tom Van Winkle - Lance basically said it. The text says 'feel free to throw plenty of curves their way'. In other words, if the players haven't done their research, you should deliberately complicate things for them. Basically, that's punishment!
DeleteI can see why you two would interpret it that way, given your arguments, but the same text tells the DM, "the players aren't your enemies," suggesting it's not recommending punishment. The context is about providing information (such as info derived from the DMG and MM) as a reward for seeking information. Feeling free to throw curveballs implies exposing the PCs to the things pre-planned that they haven't learned about for lack of care, not oppositional DMing. "Curve" balls means unexpected. Something "normal" can be a curve in the sense of a pre-planned but unexpected monster ability, etc. (such as level drain from a wight when the players never heard of wights or their abilities). I take the text to mean "don't pull encounters' punches if they don't take precautions." Anyway, perhaps we should agree to disagree. It's fun to consider. If you were correct in your interpretation, I'd agree with you that it's not a cool way to run a game.
Delete"Feeling free to throw curveballs implies exposing the PCs to the things pre-planned..."
DeleteSo if the PCs do their research, then the DM should not feel free to expose the PCs to things pre-planned?