Depends. I believe that the Original Post complained that the answer Uncle Cecil gave was incorrect in asserting that there was a need to undergo mathematical calculation that would bedevil even a math major.
Meaning that if you simply use monsters from the Monster Manual and treasure from the Dungeon Master’s Guide and the basic experience point rules, the math is a snap. However, one should note that the minute you try something not set out in advance, like creating your own monster, the math becomes complex again.
In other words, millions of rules, but simple to play because you ignore most of them until needed. True enough to a point, but the next statement from the OP tells the true tail:
which in essence says: if the DM lets the players bully him into using a rule to answer all situations that arise, then yes, you spend all your time nose deep in the ‘rule book.’ As most of the rest of the thread has pointed out, HOW deep you end up in those millions of rules depends on the players and the DM.
Frankly, given the complexity, I am not surprised that the trading card games have snapped up so much business (e.g. Magic, the Gathering). Most people are first exposed to role-playing while still in their teen years. How many teens enjoy the complex?
Um…most of them? If you think Magic
the Gathering isn’t complex…well, you
don’t know Magic, that’s all I’ll say.
(Endless rules had to be made to handle
situations where card X and card Y both
break the normal rules, but in contradictory
ways, for example. “Timing” has always
been a complex issue as well.)
When I was a teen, it was the complexity
that drew me deeper into a fascination
with RPGs. How many teens prefer to play
less complex games like tic-tac-toe or
checkers, after all?
I’d say this is true. “Outdated” in that
the current (2nd edition) rules do not use
the quoted rule and “nonrepresentative” in
that the quoted rule is only of significance
when calculating xp values for non-official monsters, i.e. rules for what to do when
not using the rules.
Just an interesting footnote to this discussion: Wizards of the Coast has just been bought by Hasbro, Inc. I guess the trading card phenomenon was what really interested Hasbro, particularly the success of the Pokemon cards.
Purchase price is basically $325 million. Considering that WotC is basically a merger of the Magic and D&D empires, that makes D&D a pretty valuable enterprise. Who woulda thunk it 25 years ago?
IMHO the most important thing in a DM is the ability to make the noise of an arrow hitting you at high speed in the dark.
Like many have said before me - the rules are there for those who insist that they were not shot.
However, sometimes no matter how many manuals you have - there is no rule.
I cite as an example the time one of my characters was unconcious and the rest of the party sold tickets to her ahem deflowering so that when she woke she was suddenly unable to ride her unicorn anymore.
Show me a rulebook that covers any of that … its the Dm who runs the game, and the Dm who makes the rules - not the guy who wrote the game all those years ago - which is just fine by me
I’ve played with a party like the one Triviasavant described! Of course we were young then. Nowadays we wouldn’t have a Paladin and an Assassin in the same group, let alone leave them on guard together. The Paladin died mysteriously - ‘it must have been a poisonous snake’ quoth the Assassin…
In case any parents are reading this, my School group would not get involved in such matters. After one trip, one pupil opened a cheese shop and another spent his treasure on building low-cost housing for low income families (it’s all true!)
The dice are nice, because you can’t argue with them.
But, every good gamer knows it is the character that matters, and the personality you have created for them that makes it fun to play.
I had the good fortune to be a part of an ongoing game that met most every week for six or seven years, and occasionally for another five years or so. The people were imaginative, and Game Master more interested in having us create his fabulous world than in reading tables and charts.
I was fascinated by magic. The definitions of the spells begged for abuse. I played the rules like a violin. But in the end, it was not the “winning” of points that mattered, but getting a chance to say something like “I use the Flame of Life to ignite my own soul, and kindle the Light of Hope within the Heart of Darkness.”
None of that was in any rule book, and that character was gone forever, beyond even D&D means of returning to life. But the story lives on! Besides, it was fun saying it.
Thieves who never steal, except for off the cuff contests among players to snitch each others goodies, and ongoing jokes like finding three or four examples of some former player’s skull are all the elements that make it fun. The rules are just part of the map.
I think one of the most entertaining RPGs I ever GM’d for was Paranoia-- a game in which the GM has a sort of sadistic total creative authority and the point is to make the players feel powerless and paranoid and eventually kill them off (repeatedly) in novel ways. The storytelling aspect was strong, yet players could still feel some sense of agency-- if they said/did something particularly clever, amusing the GM, they’d be rewarded in some way (“rewarded” may not be the term, as the reward was some sort of special attention from the players and GM-- not necessarly to the benefit of their character, but given the attention-starved nature of gamers…). Very frustrating for the sort of domineering player who likes to take over sessions, but for the players who enjoyed games for the creative and entertainment aspects (and not gaining levels for a character as if it were an important career goal) it was hella fun.
