Dungeons and Dragons, "Bullshit"

Introduction

            Hello, I am a Dungeons and Dragons player.   On this blog, more and more frequently I have been discussing Dungeons and Dragons (DnD) because I like to write and I often can spare time to write about one of my favorite hobbies.  While I am professionally qualified to talk about politics and world events… I do that professionally and need a break from that.

            Recently, I moved to Arlington, just south of the Pentagon.  This move, coupled with the change of career, has left me with little time to play DnD, so I suspect I will just be writing about it from time to time on here till I can find a group again.

            You might be wondering why I am telling you this when the title to this blog is so harsh.  “Bullshit?  Why that sounds rather derogatory.  What do you mean by that?”  Well, to be clear, I am not calling the game “Bullshit”.  In spite of it being a game and gigantic time sink, the fact is any and all downsides to playing the game are invariably off set by the educational, social, and creative benefit its players gain by learning the mechanics and making the most of their time playing it.  I know that I am better at math, writing, and history all as a result of playing DnD.

“Bullshit” in this instance, refers to something that shows up in the game that players complain about, but I have to tell them… it is not going to go anywhere, and they should be glad. 

This is going to be a bit rambling.  Hopefully it is entertaining enough to justify hanging in there and opening a dialogue. Let me get into this.

To listen to while reading maybe?

Players Versus the DM

DnD is a “game” in that you play it.  But much like a creative writing exercise there really is no “winning”.  You win by having fun.  Facing challenges, playing a character, learning about and influencing a fictional world, and spending time with fellow players.

Certainly there are instances in which “victory” can be achieved.  Getting past a puzzle, convincing a non-player character (NPC) to do something, beating a bad guy, and all the other tasks the players can do in order to progress the story.

Unfortunately, players come to see the DM, the person constructing these challenges as an adversary.  They are not the guy who takes hours each week to think up stories, traps, and encounters… they are the guy trying to kill the players.  In this mindset the DM is not the person dispensing fun, they are an obstacle to fun.

Conversely, DM’s often run into situations where they put in a lot of effort to make sure that the game is optimized when played a certain way.  Here is a fun combat encounter, here is a fun riddle, here is a cool NPC… They are trying to make a game world that is fun to play in, but the players are trying to defeat for the pleasure of ‘victory’.  Players might come up with an interesting way to bypass encounters, they might kill the cool NPC, they might not be interested in the story at all.  AND THAT IS FRUSTRATING.

Speaking as someone who has DM’ed many more times than he has been a player, the fun part is giving your players something fun to do… THAT IS THE GOAL OF DM’ING.  But when you put in a lot of work (or buy a supplement) that has well designed elements and the players do not encounter those elements you feel (for lack of a better word) betrayed.  That the fun of seeing this thing you spent time making or learning is going to waste.  That way leads to madness and to wanting to punish the players for behavior like creative problem solving… or discretion.

These two big elements “Players wanting to Win” and “DM’s wanting to Show Their Work” begin to bang into each other and that is where “Bullshit” starts to creep in.  The DM starts to push the players in a certain path.  NPC’s keep bringing up the same plot hooks, combat encounters outside of the “good” one become punishing, the bad guy always manages to get away before the killing blow can be struck.  It is nearly tantric in how it keeps the players from experiencing what they want from the game, to “beat” the DM.

And let me be clear, DM’s can be awful when it comes to hammering players into doing things the “right” way.  But there has to be some allowances for the DM to show off the cool thing he created otherwise the players are kind of cheating the DM out of a lot of the fun the DM gets out of DM’ing.  DM’ing is often hard.

“Beating” the DM

Beating the DM in the context of the game is impossible by the very nature of DnD.  Dungeons and Dragons is an asymmetrical game.  Players cannot “beat” the DM.. in the game.

The DM has infinite resources. They can create whatever trap or challenge that they want. Therefore, they will always "win" because they can create unwinnable scenarios.

The objective for the DM is to create scenarios that are fun to play, thru a combination of creativity, challenge, and story value. A confrontation with an NPC or group of NPC's that is in a unique area, with strange powers, and for a good reason is the ideal… and if the players are trying to “beat” the DM by just not engaging with the story, with the encounters, with the material that he is giving them… EVERYONE LOSES.

Conversely, DM’s who come to resent the players, and just keep hammering them with encounters that are too hard, NPC’s that are too stubborn, or environments that are too narrow and dull, then the DM is only defeating themselves.

DM's "win" when everyone, including themselves, is having fun. If you only have fun by utilizing your infinite power to slam the player’s, then you are not winning.  If you are trying to “win” by playing less, then you are defeating yourself.

What is Bullshit?

I am an intensely intelligent person.  I am not going to run down my credentials in the real world because having lots of degrees is not guarantee that someone is smart, and it just comes off as bragging.  But believe me when I say, “I am smart”.

That being said, I do not have a “20” in Intelligence.  I am not Doctor Doom.  I can only devout so much time and mental resources to a game, even a game I love like DnD.  I do not have every scenario planned out that Doctor Doom would have in an encounter with the heroes, let alone the wisdom of ages that an immortal multispatial cosmic power has.  If I am roleplaying as Baccob, god of Knowledge and Magic… Expect me to still be me, just more cryptic.

When players seek to thwart me with some clever use of the rules (and when it comes to 5e, I am still learning the rules… 3.X is still sitting heavy on my brain) I may end up with my 20 intelligence wizard being caught off guard by something that a super intelligent mad wizard would have planned for.

When that happens I have two options, 1) have the big bad taken out by something he would have seen coming, or 2) have the clever use of the rules get thwarted with the understanding that… it is a super-wizard, they would have had something prepared.

What is fun is, 5e knows this is a thing.  Legendary Resistance, the ability for boss monsters to automatically make saves is a stand in for DM’s inability to think of anything ahead of time.  This represents the Boss’ ability to have some unseen backup plan that keeps them from losing to something that would have taken out a less prepared individual.

But then, you are destined to hear the words, “That is such Bullshit.”

And it is.  It is bullshit.  It is the same thing that happens when you play a strategy game and turn up the difficulty settings, the game’s AI is not getting “smarter” it is just getting stat boosts to give it an edge because creating a thinking computer capable of playing the “Civilization” series better than a person would be insanely complex.  The answer is giving the AI more money and production to make up for the game being pretty dumb.  It is bullshit.

But it is a necessary part of the game and DM’s might have to use bullshit more often than just Boss Fights.  They might have to give more clues or weaker clues, they might have to make the cliffs harder to climb or the river harder to fjord, they might have to make teleport or fly not work, or they might want to make it so your character is not pulverized immediately in the first round of combat… Because sometimes restrictions have to be put out into the world to keep one’s sanity.

I can’t plan for everything; therefore I might just say, “That doesn’t work and you can’t figure out why”.

The Problem

            The real thrust of this whole long diatribe comes here: if you are a good DM that is winning by doing what I mentioned above, “…to create scenarios that are fun to play, thru a combination of creativity, challenge, and story value…” then players will understand the Bullshit you have just utilized has a point and is not a cheat.

            If you have an adversarial relationship with your players, then they will see it as a cheat, and the game might very well enter a death spiral.  It will diminish people’s fun if you use your infinite resources to jerk the players around.  It will diminish your fun to have to do that.  You will “lose” Dungeons and Dragons.

 

Another way to lose at DnD is to be the only member of your friends who is really into it.

A Solution?

            I do not have a solid answer for this.

            The best thing I can offer is this: explain to your players that while DnD is an open ended game, that you (the DM) are a finite, mortal person who can only think of so many things and that sometimes the bad guy will have an escape plan that WILL WORK, because the bad guy did not get to be the bad guy without that kind of thing being in his repertoire.

            Tell them, “roll with it, it is part of the game.”

            Beyond trusting your players to forgive you fudging the numbers against them from time to time, I suggest the other kind of bullshit… Narrative Bullshit.

            Here is one I really like, “The villain has a dampening field for magic in his tower, but it is limited, it only blocks certain types of elements or schools and not others… But he keeps changing it.  There is a strong chance that if you go there, that resources you have come to rely on might not work at all or backfire and you won’t know till you get there.”

            It adds an inherently unfair advantage to the bad guy.  Just to be clear tho, don’t have him throw a fireball if you have already said, “no fireballs”.  Like, have a couple different lists of spells that you can jump between to keep things consistent… or just have the bad guy be a fighter who has found a magic do-dad that cancels magic and he is clever enough to use it like that.

            It is still bullshit, but it is bullshit with an explanation.  It feels less cheap.

Comment

            I don’t know.

            This kind of meandered around a lot more than I anticipated.  I mean, look at how long this blog entry is, and it is mostly just talking about how players should be more forgiving of DM’s and DM’s should be more willing to cheat because the standards of “Good DM” are just too high.  I am sure that will win me lots of friends from the “play what is rolled” crowd.

            What do you think?  If you have a blog of your own on the topic, by all means, link it.

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