DMs who are less knowledgable than their players

[Prak]

So. I basically just... lost? gave up? called off? an opportunity for a couple friends and I to do a campaign together for... I'm really not sure what reason.

I suppose it started as a difference of taste from a difference in ability. Friend 1 and I had been saying "man, we really need to find a DM so we can actually play in a session together (preferably our individual favourite characters). I mentioned this to Friend 2, who said "well, hell, I can run for you guys." to which I replied "great! Awesome, I'll talk to F1, and we'll get this set up." But as F2 and I were hanging out and talking about the upcoming campaign as it got closer to when he could manage to do it, it just... fell apart. He prefers to run core only, because those are the books he has, and he feels he doesn't have time (and, honestly, clearly doesn't have the inclination) to read up on other stuff. He doesn't even want other stuff on his computer, regardless of the fact that my compiled stuff takes up all of 15 gigs, and includes a bunch of shit I could easily trim out and not miss at all. Of course, F2 and I have differing preferences for power level, but we can generally set that aside enough to get some kind of game running.

F1 also prefers players make characters in front of him because he, A, doesn't trust them to roll stats (and doesn't believe/care that the stats really don't matter), and B "wants to know what the characters are able to do," as if watching us grab books and write shit down tells him anything, and he's unable to say "hey, gimme a summary of what your character can do." But I got him to agree to us just making our characters ahead of time and sending him copies of the specific feats/classes/whatever that we used, because I personally think first session character building is an insulting waste of time, and know how hard it'd be to get F1 to agree to it.

Then F2 and I get together yesterday, in mutual bad moods because of unrelated stuff, to sort the game out, and my "I know what the fuck I'm talking about, why the hell aren't you listening to me" thing kicks in, while his "INTERNET MATERIAL BAD!!!!" kicks in, and we wind up calling it because...well mostly because his bad mood just kept getting worse.

Today I text F2 and say "hey, don't worry about the internet stuff, I found another game to use it in, but would you mind using this opportunity to help me playtest some invocations I wrote up?"
....which sent him into some kind of rage spiral with a reply of "at this point, if you have to ask, don't bother" and something about how he gets pissed off because he doesn't know how the hell I do shit in games.

I responded "so ask and I'll be happy to explain" and... yeah, it fell apart there, pretty much.
----------------------(this concludes my psuedo-livejournal entry for the day)

Basically I just wonder, do you guys run into this shit with dms? Do you guys run into the person who likes to dm, but doesn't know what the shit he, or anyone else at the table is doing? Does it happen because we post here, where it's encouraged for people to know a lot about how the games we play work? Does this site change our basic attitude towards the games? I know the posting style is something we get accustomed to, or at least I do, and thus I tend to forget, when I responding to something, that I'm not here, and not everyone has their shields up the way one must when they're a poster here, I just wonder if it affects me, or others, as much in other ways.

[shadzar]

not everyone like net-decks...well netbooks. there could be one problem.

seems like you want to try all crazy stuff, but neither f1 or f2 are interested in [random thing from the net]*.

i know MANY people that dont want "last minute" material added, or just stuff they dont like the concept of.

i for one dont allow use of "complete netbook of carnal knowledge".

i think like many things tastes change based on perceptions. this can come from people saying positive or negative things about something.

also you may not have changed and like to explore the stuff out there like netbooks, while f1 and f2 may prefer to K.I.S.S.


*copyrighted and trademarked for future novel or film use

[Prak]

Well, and I think there's the fact that F2 is seriously not inclined to make a value judgement about [random thing from the net]. And that's his perogative. I am, and there are some things that I don't feel the need to judge for myself. Frank, for example, I know he knows his shit, so if I know that he wrote something, I generally consider it fine. F1 and I like to make our own material, F2 just... can't be arsed. I honestly can't understand why he bothers playing sometimes when he obviously cares so little.

[shadzar]

some people like it by the book, and others like it on-the-fly

(see all the fuss over MTP)

maybe f2 doesnt like what you and f1 make?

[Juton]

F2 saying he wants Core only could mean a lot of things, but probably that's his comfort zone. Trying to add to many non-core things too quickly can put a lot of DMs off, you have to remember that while you know the stuff inside and out your DM has to take time to learn it. Sometimes they don't want to spend the time, sometimes they lack the confidence and knowledge to decide what is OP and what isn't without seeing it in play.

While it isn't immediately satisfying I say just play a Core game right now. Try and help your friend run the most successful game possible, and with time he'll grow more confident. Then you can start to expose him to other sources. Bear in mind if most of your group isn't that experienced things like the Fighter/Wizard disparity won't be obvious, in fact it may be counterintuitive to them. Do not try to break the game to show this disparity off, you'll look like an asshat.

[Ikeren]

Yeah, if I ever have to join a group outside my friends, I'm going to play a core-only cleric that takes nothing but buff spells and dumps strength and says things like "Making the fighter more effective is a good way to contribute. Bulls strength means you'll do an extra 2 damage a round for 30 rounds. That's like 60 damage!"

Sometimes, you gotta pretend for a while for the benefits of others. That's the unfortunate human element of gaming.

[Josh_Kablack]

Basically I just wonder, do you guys run into this shit with dms? Do you guys run into the person who likes to dm, but doesn't know what the shit he, or anyone else at the table is doing?

No.

Because at this point in my life I only game with people I have known for decades or people I met on the Den. This is a luxury of being a "mature" gamer and a corollary "mature" gamers not having time to seek out nor put up with new gamers.

It's also possibly because I'm better at adjusting my own expectations going into a game and phrasing sneaky rules questions in a more-open ended manner than you seem to be from your rant there. By which I mean, I ask "which books / houserules are we using here?" and then build something to whatever that specification happens to be - rather than expecting that random material off of the internet will be allowed in games with people I haven't gamed with before. Part of accepting the task of running a game is getting to set what the limits of that game will be. It is completely within the MC's prerogative to set whatever arbitrary wacky restrictions he or she wants upon the game. If the player doesn't like it, they can either attempt to change the MC's mind through argument, threats and bribery and if that fails they are left to accept it or to go find some other game.

And while, I personally believe as an article of Denizen Creed that Tome is better than any random WotC splatbook, I wouldn't expect anyone who wasn't already familiar with it to believe that. Despite the Denizen invective towards WotC's latest crop of incompetant design and their continual sloppy editing - a random WotC book is still usually better thought out that a random netbook. That's the rubric most MC's will use for vetting material for their games. Sadly you really can't expect someone to digest multiple 50,000+ word documents on the merit of the contents.

Does it happen because we post here, where it's encouraged for people to know a lot about how the games we play work? Does this site change our basic attitude towards the games? I know the posting style is something we get accustomed to, or at least I do, and thus I tend to forget, when I responding to something, that I'm not here, and not everyone has their shields up the way one must when they're a poster here, I just wonder if it affects me, or others, as much in other ways.

I'm sure it affects me. But I would like to think that the personae are somewhat separate due to the media of transmission.

That is to say: when I'm actually gaming I'm mainly into playing the game for fun and tactical victory and when I'm ranting at you retreads over the interwebs I'm mainly into argument for the sake of argument elucidation. At least I hope that's the case. If I become an argumentative douche in the IRC game we're both playing in, feel free to tell me to chill.

[shadzar]

F2 saying he wants Core only could mean a lot of things, but probably that's his comfort zone. Trying to add to many non-core things too quickly can put a lot of DMs off, you have to remember that while you know the stuff inside and out your DM has to take time to learn it. Sometimes they don't want to spend the time, sometimes they lack the confidence and knowledge to decide what is OP and what isn't without seeing it in play.

While it isn't immediately satisfying I say just play a Core game right now. Try and help your friend run the most successful game possible, and with time he'll grow more confident. Then you can start to expose him to other sources. Bear in mind if most of your group isn't that experienced things like the Fighter/Wizard disparity won't be obvious, in fact it may be counterintuitive to them. Do not try to break the game to show this disparity off, you'll look like an asshat.

or something just doesnt work for the DM, like bards and me dont get along and psionics systems and D&D never really got along.

it isnt always about learning it, there is the factor to consider, they might jsut not like it and wont have any fun themselves with it a part of their game.

being a DM is the ONLY time you can remove parts of the game you dont like...IE: bards.

every DM has that right to discard things they dont want. if you want to play a bard, dont ask me to DM. other DMs probably like bards, so you might play in a game with f2 where that other stuff is, but f2 jsut doesnt want to run a game with it in there.

why some DMs run Birthright and Planescape, others prefer Dragonlance, and others still have Forgotten Realms, Mystara, Greyhawk, Dark Sun, etc.....

(why is it everytime i look at something from Birthright now a days it just makes me think it was early stages of, and made FOR 4th edition?)

[Koumei]

Only time I've really played with a DM who didn't know the rules that well, he just let anything fly - "even if you just made it up, there's probably something equally good/broken you could do with core, so whatever". Granted, he had a tendency not to bother using the rules and just turning everything into a bizarre freeform where nothing seems to make any sense. And no, it's not because he's just green, he's old enough to be my father and has been running and playing games longer than I've been alive. Literally.

I only play with groups I actually like, so we rarely have problems. And oddly, they tend to look upon me as a sort of guru and Knower Of The Rules. I could probably make shit up and they'd believe me if it wasn't too weird - or if I prefaced it with "I know it makes no fucking sense, but you know what WotC are like", and let their hatred of WotC fill in the blanks.

[RobbyPants]

Basically I just wonder, do you guys run into this shit with dms? Do you guys run into the person who likes to dm, but doesn't know what the shit he, or anyone else at the table is doing? Does it happen because we post here, where it's encouraged for people to know a lot about how the games we play work? Does this site change our basic attitude towards the games? I know the posting style is something we get accustomed to, or at least I do, and thus I tend to forget, when I responding to something, that I'm not here, and not everyone has their shields up the way one must when they're a poster here, I just wonder if it affects me, or others, as much in other ways.

I've run into weird stuff when I game with other people that I don't know. I left one group after one session, and actually stuck out one for several months before quitting. I'm lucky that most of the time, I play under or DM for one guy that I've been playing with for 17 years. We're pretty used to how the other thinks and are fairly well synced up with expectations.

My basic attitude has changed since joining various forums five years ago. I'm a lot more player-centric, for one thing. I'm also better at objectively rating power of things and avoid knee-jerk reactions, better. I can remember the first time I read the 3.5 warlock and thought "At will SLAs! WTF over-powered!"

[Kot]

Well, that's exactly the reason why I can't play nWoD, Shadowrun, and lots of other stuff. Good thing I have a friend who's more of an ED buff than I am...

[...You Lost Me]

Any time I've been the player, my DM has been all angsty about material from t3h interwebs, but usually allows most of the splatbooks unless I'm an enormous asshole about it.

Of course, that's happened a grand total of three times. And as a general rule, I am the DM when I play campaigns...

[icyshadowlord]

I fail to understand the bias DMs have against online homebrews and homebrews in general. It just ticks me off when I am forced to be DM just so my stuff is ever allowed in any game because all the other DMs are fucking cowards and retards who always go "TL;DR" when I show them something, be it Tome or my own homebrew races...

[Krusk]

You had two questions. Implied and asked.
Implied - Do you get mad when DMs don't let you use internet stuff? - Not paticulalrly. Asking them to learn how it works, and what it does is extra prep time and if they don't have it they don't have it.

Asked - Do you find DMs who don't know the rules. Consistantly. I consider it a rare happy time when I find a DM who has a general understanding of the core concepts of the system. Let alone understands how the majority of the rules work, or how they interact with one another. I know loads of gamers, and we have shifting groups, so I play under lots of different DMs (Hey my friend you don't know is running something, want in?)

Generally I just accept that 99% of the time I will know the rules best, and the group probably won't be using them. Instead there will be lots of MTP with some irrelivent die rolling, or suprise unadmitted and unexplained house rules. Fighting it makes a scene and ruins the session, so I bring it up after the first game and say "Hey did you know___". If they react like an ass, I leave, if they say "I didn't and I don't really care honestly" I drop it. If they say "No, and I will change it", well I don't think that has happened yet. Don't know how that would go.

[shadzar]

I fail to understand the bias DMs have against online homebrews and homebrews in general. It just ticks me off when I am forced to be DM just so my stuff is ever allowed in any game because all the other DMs are fucking cowards and retards who always go "TL;DR" when I show them something, be it Tome or my own homebrew races...

maybe that is the reason your stuff isnt allowed. being an asshole with a DM or towards them, isnt going to get you allowed to use anything.

secondly, not everybody wants Naruto and Dragons, so dont really care for every little splinter of an idea as part of their games.

DMs are players too, and they want to be able to have fun, components that are not fun to them, including but not limited to some netbook material, are thigns that take extra time to work with JUST FOR YOU, when the DM isnt there JUST FOR YOU, but the other players as well.

so something you find in some netbook, means the DM has to go throught the process:

1. read the material
2. evaluate the material for competence of design
3. evaluate the material to see if it will fit the game world
4. evaluate how to introduce it
5. evaluate if other players will like/want the addition
6. evaluate the impact of introducing this material at this tiem.

those are jsut the MAJOR points that must be looked at, with other minor ones.

the best thing to do with new material always has been to run a one-shot where it is used and see if the entire group, DM included, likes it and thinks it will fit in other games, or even with the group itself.

a single NO it is not welcome addition, means that including it will likely cause game failure because there will be at least one person who doesnt enjoy the game, and that will trickle out throught he game to other players form that single player's discomfort. IF that single player is the DM, then kiss your game goodbye.