Quote from: jadrax;332943I don't think the actual product of adventure design by committee is going to be any good, but I can see value in the process of proto GMs actually sitting down and discussing how they would do things.

This strikes me as exactly right. The process looks likes it aims to de-mystify the role of Dungeon Master and open gaming up a little. At the very least more people get an opportunity to decide if that's a role they want to play. And at one DM/ref/Storyteller per table, the number of them is a kind of sales choke point.

Quote from: GameDaddy;332955Any settlement would be passed down the chain on to the players in the form of higher monthly fees, that is if the company survived. I think Blizzard could survive a $90 Mill hit (What Microsoft was sued for). Don't know about the others though. When it costs too much to game, where you gonna get your fix?

Keep in mind that there is no indication that Microsoft paid anything like $90 million. The suit was for $90 million, but the settlement was out-of-court and not disclosed. That also probably means it's not precedent-setting. I doubt MMOs are in any kind of serious trouble.

Quote from: Halfjack;333040Keep in mind that there is no indication that Microsoft paid anything like $90 million. The suit was for $90 million, but the settlement was out-of-court and not disclosed. That also probably means it's not precedent-setting. I doubt MMOs are in any kind of serious trouble.

If such an amount of cash was paid out by the defendant company, I wonder how much of it will be a tax writeoff for them.

Quote from: Fifth Element;333026One of them I doubt will do it again, he didn't enjoy it very much. But his game was fun, from our side of the screen.

I had one of those once.

He's MUCH happier as a player, but I liked playing his game (he was running Dragonlance: The Fifth Age)...

Unfortunately, I have been plagued with a bunch of GMs who like to play politics (hosing one player because they have some out of game issue with someone else), don't bother reading the rules and just make everything up as they go along...without any sense of even internal logic...or GMs who feel they need to "beat" the players.

This is why it has now been a long time since I have played instead of GMed.

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;333017Well, as the hopeful positive capstone to this stupidity, I just want to say that I think anyone and everyone can GM, and everyone should at least give it a try, even if they never settle on it.

I agree with this. Once you took the learning curve and feel comfortable with the game, you should think about running the game yourself at some point, just to try it out from the other side of the screen. If that's not your thing, at least you'll know for sure. If it is your thing, you'll have a lot of fun with it. It's Win-Win for your game table.

Quote from: ggroy;333034This seems to be a very popular "complaint" over the years by hardcore DM elitist types I have met and known in person.  I remember shortly after 2E AD&D was released, some of my "elitist" DM'ing friends who had overinflated opinions of their own DM'ing abilities and prowess, complained that the 2E PHB and DMG completely "dumbed" down DM'ing to the point that any idiot can now DM an AD&D game.  It was as if they thought it was the "end" of their world.

The 4E D&D DMG and DMG2 books would probably give these particular "elitist DM" friends a heart attack if they ever read them.  

I can speak from experience that not any idiot can DM an AD&D game, specifically from 2E.  Months into other people's games, I was still explaining the rules to them (they came to me, sometimes when I was playing and sometimes not), and still saw all kinds of fun-killing railroady stuff.

(Did I ever tell you about the time I was frozen in my tracks by a six foot tall halfling because I wanted to go west instead of north?  This was the beginning of the game, I had no adventure hook to follow, was basically left floating sandbox style, and was apparently going "the wrong way").

Hell, I saw people manage to ROYALLY screw up the Challenge Rating system of 3E (they put a high level NPC with low level players, bad sign already, used THAT to justify hitting them with - I believe - an older dragon, then had the NPC do nothing to help them, leading to mass slaughter).

Quote from: Tommy Brownell;333055I can speak from experience that not any idiot can DM an AD&D game, specifically from 2E.  Months into other people's games, I was still explaining the rules to them (they came to me, sometimes when I was playing and sometimes not), and still saw all kinds of fun-killing railroady stuff.

I've never played 2E AD&D before.  Though from reading the 2E PHB and DMG books, I never got the impression that it made DMing trivially easy.

My 1E AD&D "grognard" friends who complained about 2E "dumbing down" DM'ing to the point of idiocy, were the types who loved to complain about anything and everything which didn't go their way.  Their intentions and rants were largely the equivalent of uninformed "demagoguery", as a way of boosting their own fragile egos and how much of their personal identities were tied up in how they viewed their DM'ing abilities and prowess.  Even today, these same particular grognard friends still behave like they are 12 year olds when it comes to tabletop pnp rpg games.

The first use of the term "boss" in a D&D context I could find on rec.games.frp.dnd was from a November 24, 2004 post:

low-level boss fight

Which seems a bit late to me. First use of "tank," "buff," and "aggro" all seem to occur between November 24 and December 2004.

Release date for WoW? November 23, 2004.

Quote from: Tommy Brownell;333053This is why it has now been a long time since I have played instead of GMed.

I KNOW that feeling. Thats also why I know the Game Day kit was bullshit.  
Making an adventure session is not a committee exercise.

One person writes an adventure for a DM toi use ..then its used with a group of players.

What would've made sense is if they had sent out a REAL written-up adventure with the nice pretty map and free miniatures, and 6 ad/promo sheets for D&D brand label Jones Cola (What was up with that - it seemed a tad excessive).
 Then had the DM run it.
Afterwards he shows the players Designer's notes on other ideas and rough drafts on the written adventure.
When writers show the 'paths not taken' or almost tried - thats for more illustrative of the process than a team exercise in group think.


- Ed C.

Ed, how the hell is this "group think" ? According to GeekEclectic is was just an excercise to give some new players a taste of creating adventures. Some hands on experience so to speak. So what if they were engaging with each other in a group. Look these new players go home and create adventures by themselves using what they learnt for this workshop or whatever. That's good, right? Seriously Ed, what gives?

Regards,
David R

Quote from: Koltar;333060I KNOW that feeling. Thats also why I know the Game Day kit was bullshit.  
Making an adventure session is not a committee exercise.

How many AD&D/D&D modules were designed by a committee?

Quote from: Benoist;333054I agree with this. Once you took the learning curve and feel comfortable with the game, you should think about running the game yourself at some point, just to try it out from the other side of the screen. If that's not your thing, at least you'll know for sure. If it is your thing, you'll have a lot of fun with it. It's Win-Win for your game table.

Couldn't agree more.

Quote from: ggroy;333065How many AD&D/D&D modules were designed by a committee?

Don't you know that real adventures spring fully-formed from the minds of divine DMs?

Yow, even fans of 4/e D&D or D&D in general on TPB agree with me indirectly that it sucked. :

QuoteSome guy named Naniwa said : I ran it and it kind of sucked. The group who made our adventure spent an extra hour working on it, and then when they gave it to us, they had only placed monsters and written a sketchy scenario. We ended up playing through it and making it into an MST3K type experience, which ended up being really hilarious.

I just think it was a bad idea. There were quite a few kids who had barely played d&d before, and they had no interest whatsoever in making encounters. And it seemed like one player or DM in each group ended up writing the whole thing.

From this thread page:
http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=474219&page=2


- Ed C.

Ed, I'm not going to look at the purple thread to see the contexts you pulled the quotes from. Suffice it to say that even if one agrees with them (as I'm inclined to) that's a long shot from endorsing your opinion.

See, what I see these people saying is that the "Let's build two encounters by a Worksheet" approach was a stupid idea for a Game Day Event. As I predicted upthread, these things make for the sort of situation where a lot of groups end up either not producing anything worthwhile at all, or one guy ends up doing the whole thing by himself because people turned up to consume a game, not to volunteer their own stuff.

As for the "Not everyone can DM" approach apparently attached to a segment of the 1E AD&D crowd, I wish I had my copy of the Hackmaster GM Guide on me. I've always taken that as an unabashed transcription of Gygax' actual intentions when writing the 1E DMG. Roughly, the Hackmaster GM starts out like this (if my poor memory may serve for now).

QuoteWelcome friend or, dare I say it, esteemed colleague. You have found your way here, and that itself is indication of your superior intellect.

Truly, not everyone can DM. According to our calculations at Hard8 Enterprises, only 0.005% of the world's population can comprehend the genius that is the Hackmaster game, and only 0.0005% thereof have the wits to GM it. (Less if we didn't provide a translation.)

It then goes on to say just how much it takes to be a proper GM, and that most people who try fail at it terribly; and how Hard8 requires these people to admit their failing and step back lest they disgrace the guild of true GMs.
I hope I'll trace up the original at one point in the future (vastly more enjoyable to read, and also even more hyperbolic, if you can believe that).

For what it's worth, the 3E DMG (both incarnations) contained a strikingly similar line.

QuoteYou’re a member of a select group. Truly not everyone has the creativity and the dedication to be a Dungeon Master.

Quote from: Koltar;333071Yow, even fans of 4/e D&D or D&D in general on TPB agree with me indirectly that it sucked. :

Wow, now you're going to rpg.net for validation?

Besides, your point (IIRC) wasn't that the idea or the implementation sucked. It was that the forgie and MMO terminology made it suck. Now that it's clear no such terminology was used, you're running from that?