The DM's Magic

My meeting with Shelly Mazzanoble, an associate brand manager from Wizards of the Coast working on the D&D franchise, began like most of the other prescheduled meetings I had at PAX East. I checked in with the PR team that was managing the event for WotC, some quick organization of meeting space and personnel took place in the organized chaos, and after a few moments I was face to face with a person who was doing a good job of trying to look as excited as she possibly could while getting ready to say basically the same things I suspect she’d been saying for two days now.

Mazzanoble started telling me about the plans around Rise of the Underdark and the two-year story they were readying as part of a multi-pronged media strategy. Then I said something I don’t think she fully expected. I told her the truth, which is that I’ve played Dungeons & Dragons in a traditional capacity so seldom that I could count the times on one hand, with fingers left over.

Then I told her about my eight-year-old son who had recently strode into the house after his long day of second grade and proclaimed that he was now part of his elementary school’s Dungeons & Dragons club. I mostly spent the next few minutes squaring the fact that there was a sanctioned D&D club in his school with my basic understandings of reality.

I asked Mazzanoble how you keep a brand on track that is at once a new and living thing to eight-year-olds and a long and trusted friend to now-adults who’ve played since they were eight. The answer, as it turns out, has nothing to do with rules, manuals or dice. It is, as many of you likely already know, all about creativity and ownership of the experience. It is, in short, all about the real genius concept born from D&D: the Dungeon Master.

My father-in-law is what I think of as a man of the people. I’ve never seen the man meet someone he couldn’t connect and build a rapport with. He’s got this southern-gentleman kind of charm about him, a slow easy style that puts you at ease. Whatever you want to talk about, he’s got an anecdote, joke or story at the ready. And he’s the first one to tell you that the easiest way to be that guy is to never let the truth get in the way of a good story.

I don’t know that D&D is a game he would ever ken to, but if it were I think he’d find that it suits his nature. The thing about the game — and when you talk to someone at Wizards, you begin to discover that it’s a concerted effort — is that the game has less to do with crafting an experience that you participate in and more to do with giving you the tools, the platform, the world and the background to craft your own experience.

In our conversation, Mazzanoble talked about a pivotal moment when she was struggling with being a DM and the confines of the rules impacting the player experience. One of her colleagues pointed out that the answer was incredibly simple: Change the rules. Ok, so your character only rolled a 16 and they needed a 17, but the more fun thing for everyone is to have had the 17 happen, so just act like it did. You’re the dungeon master; the world bends to you.

When I sit down and think about it, I’m at a loss to think of a game family aside from role playing games that essentially cedes power to an arbiter. The dungeon-master concept is frankly the brilliance of D&D, the thing that I think keeps it alive and thriving, because it gives you unlimited flexibility to shape the game to the needs and desires of the players. Whether that means you want to create a very fixed, rigid, rules-based game where the consequences are immutable, or a highly flexible, almost casual experience, the game can support it.

When you ask the question of how you can create and maintain a brand that wants to appeal to both the rules driven, live-for-a-challenge, long-time player-base, as well as someone like my son who has a significantly reduced capacity for living with the capricious and unforgiving roles of a die, the answer turns out to be quite simple. You give all the power to a player whose job is to have the best interests of the experience at heart. And it really only could work in this kind of game, one where the experience is the whole point.

Because the thing about games like this is that winning is irrelevant. It’s not about levels or spell damage, saving throws or abilities. It’s about the story, a story told to you by a friend where you’re the star. The dice and the paper and the manuals are just tools to build that story, a framework from which you can start. It’s organized playing make believe.

As I stood up from my conversation with Mazzanoble, I had a handful of notes about the new content being developed for D&D, but more importantly I had a clearer understanding of why people have and continue to care so much about this game. My experience with D&D-related products from CRPGs to books has always been entertaining, but for the first time I know what makes it special.

Comments

In our conversation, Mazzanoble talked about a pivotal moment when she was struggling with being a DM and the confines of the rules impacting the player experience. One of her colleagues pointed out that the answer was incredibly simple: Change the rules. Ok, so your character only rolled a 16 and they needed a 17, but the more fun thing for everyone is to have had the 17 happen, so just act like it did. You’re the dungeon master; the world bends to you.

BOOOO!!!! Let the dice fall where they may!

You've got it right and it is what makes table top role-playing so much more enjoyable to me, than any computer game could ever hope to be.

Ulairi wrote:

In our conversation, Mazzanoble talked about a pivotal moment when she was struggling with being a DM and the confines of the rules impacting the player experience. One of her colleagues pointed out that the answer was incredibly simple: Change the rules. Ok, so your character only rolled a 16 and they needed a 17, but the more fun thing for everyone is to have had the 17 happen, so just act like it did. You’re the dungeon master; the world bends to you.

BOOOO!!!! Let the dice fall where they may!

Indeed - but the player can still succeed. It's the idea of a Pyrrhic victory, or as detailed in Mouse Guard (ala Burning Wheel I guess) the dice show failure but it's read as a success but with a twist. A cost to the PC.

Nice article Sean. I continue to admire D&D for what it is and what it has done, and I look eagerly to the future of the brand (although I am unlikely to pick it up as a DM myself).

The best D&D campaign I was ever in only involved my wife, my friend and myself. We played a Birthright campaign (which added anther layer of rules on top of the base game). We each had a character and we rotated DM duties. We were all interested in advancing the story and we adapted the rules and setting to our needs. Looking back on it, it was indeed special.

HedgeWizard wrote:

Indeed - but the player can still succeed. It's the idea of a Pyrrhic victory, or as detailed in Mouse Guard (ala Burning Wheel I guess) the dice show failure but it's read as a success but with a twist. A cost to the PC.

Nice article Sean. I continue to admire D&D for what it is and what it has done, and I look eagerly to the future of the brand (although I am unlikely to pick it up as a DM myself).

The most useful thing I got from Burning Wheel is that failure can still advance the story. It's an idea I'd been thinking about before, but Burning Wheel makes it crystal clear by forcing you to set the stakes in advance. Every roll, the players go into it knowing that even if they fail the story is going to go on. It's made me much more flexible as a DM.

I recently introduced my kids to D&D 4th edition, and we're having an absolute blast. My son's almost 10, and I'm taking him to a weekly D&D Encounters session at a game store every Wednesday, and he's completely into it. My daughter's 7.5 and will play in our home campaign, but doesn't have the attention span for lengthy gaming, but a couple times a week we'll sit down for a half hour or 45 minutes or so and the three of us play.

Also, I will fudge the holy hell out of the dice if I think it helps. If it's with my adult friends, I'm more likely to allow it to fall as it may, but with kids? Sure, fudge away.

It's about fun, and if it's more fun with a 16 being a success, 16 is a success. That level of flexibility is why tabletop gaming has always appealed to me so much, and I will ignore the holy hell out of rules I don't like or rolls that I think ruin the experience. Fun wins.

Spot on. I've played D&D a lot, but it always has to depend on how the DM DMs the game. D&D with an incompatible group might as well be a bullet in my crotch. With a DM I like, the experience is sublime.

I think what D&D does best among all the gaming systems is that it is the best at staying out of the way of a good group dynamic. It goes out of its way to tell you to play for fun, and it gives you easy-to-use rules to do with as you please. The other system I liked as much - Gamma World - was done in a very similar fashion.

When people find out I play DnD and look at me funny I try to explain to them what you just said — it's a way to tell a story together.

I was part of a DnD campaign that lasted almost five years, taking us from 2.0 to 3.0 to 3.5. When we finally finished that sucker off and defeated the Ultimate Evil and played through the retirement of our characters, it was one of the most moving, fulfilling story experiences I've ever had. Even now, several years on, we reminisce about the game — the story — with insider references like "I kick the yellow mold."

I must be weird because I've played D&D for 20 years and I would never describe it as a way to tell a story together. To me, we have had fantastic stories but they always arrive from play and usually, the best stories are the ones that no one ever sets out to tell. That is what makes table top RPGs so much more interesting (to me) than anything a video game can ever hope to be, it's the emergence of the whole thing. I always describe it as more as a board game than anything else, but I first learned with games like hero quest and dragon strike so that may explain it.

Ulairi wrote:

I must be weird because I've played D&D for 20 years and I would never describe it as a way to tell a story together. To me, we have had fantastic stories but they always arrive from play and usually, the best stories are the ones that no one ever sets out to tell. That is what makes table top RPGs so much more interesting (to me) than anything a video game can ever hope to be, it's the emergence of the whole thing. I always describe it as more as a board game than anything else, but I first learned with games like hero quest and dragon strike so that may explain it.

There's definitely truth to that. There's an undeniable narrative element, usually, but it's not quite the same headspace as either telling a story or improv. The rules do make a difference, even when they're heavily narrative-casualty rules like FATE. The best tabletop roleplaying experiences I've had don't necessarily translate directly into good fiction; they're good narrative experiences that you can tell a story about but aren't (and don't need to be) moment-to-moment good literature.

That is what makes table top RPGs so much more interesting (to me) than anything a video game can ever hope to be, it's the emergence of the whole thing.

Sure, it's within a system, but it's still weaving a story cooperatively within that system, isn't it?

wordsmythe wrote:
That is what makes table top RPGs so much more interesting (to me) than anything a video game can ever hope to be, it's the emergence of the whole thing.

Sure, it's within a system, but it's still weaving a story cooperatively within that system, isn't it?

On other, RPG focused forums there are big arguments about this. I'm on the side that when I wake up in the morning and go to the market to get a jug of milk, what happens on the way to get the jug of milk is a story. I didn't set out to create that story, it just happend due to my leaving the house to get the jug of milk. A lot of "new school" gaming philosophy is much more about the whole purpose being telling the story that is the focus, story and the rules there are to support cooperatively telling a story. D&D, at least traditionally, the rules are there to support the game and the storys come from the actions the players take, the results of the dice, and things like that. Which is why some people are really against fudging any rolls because sometimes great stories can come from a bad roll.

I think that's really just a hard rules / soft rules differentiation. It's the difference between playing a sport and playing a sport video game, in terms of how the rules are enforced. In a video game, rules are enforced automatically and consistently. On a field, rules are enforced to varying degrees of accuracy.

MilkmanDanimal wrote:

I recently introduced my kids to D&D 4th edition, and we're having an absolute blast. My son's almost 10, and I'm taking him to a weekly D&D Encounters session at a game store every Wednesday, and he's completely into it.

Christmas-before-last, I received the 4th-Edition Essentials box. I was a little confused: the box claimed to have everything required to play 4ED games, but it seemed to be missing statistical tables and equipment lists and the like that I'm used to from 3ED. I bought the full Player's Manual, and started reviewing.

We haven't started playing yet, other than some very basic demonstration encounters. Would you (or anyone else) recommend getting the full DM manual and Monster's Manual/Compendium/whatever before starting?

I should spend some quality time reading through the books and getting a sense for myself, but I approached from a 3ED perspective (and a rusty on at that) and 4ED is presented very differently. It feels like I need to relearn everything, that no systemic details I recall are useful, and it's a little intimidating.

muraii wrote:
MilkmanDanimal wrote:

I recently introduced my kids to D&D 4th edition, and we're having an absolute blast. My son's almost 10, and I'm taking him to a weekly D&D Encounters session at a game store every Wednesday, and he's completely into it.

Christmas-before-last, I received the 4th-Edition Essentials box. I was a little confused: the box claimed to have everything required to play 4ED games, but it seemed to be missing statistical tables and equipment lists and the like that I'm used to from 3ED. I bought the full Player's Manual, and started reviewing.

We haven't started playing yet, other than some very basic demonstration encounters. Would you (or anyone else) recommend getting the full DM manual and Monster's Manual/Compendium/whatever before starting?

I should spend some quality time reading through the books and getting a sense for myself, but I approached from a 3ED perspective (and a rusty on at that) and 4ED is presented very differently. It feels like I need to relearn everything, that no systemic details I recall are useful, and it's a little intimidating.

The Red Box is everything you need for the Red Box. I'd run through that if you really want to play 4E. If you enjoyed 3ED, I'd get the Pathfinder Beginners Box. It's a really nice starter kit and does a much better job (imho) than the Red Box did in getting players up and ready to run the full game.

I like 4th; it's very neat and contained, and is a much better pick-up-and-play game because it doesn't have 46 billion options. As for expanding, the D&D Essentials books have more details; as they're paperback, they're cheaper. There's a Rules Compendium that gives you all the basics, a DM's book to expand it, two player books for more class/race options (Heroes of the Fallen Kingdoms and Heroes of the Forgotten Lands), and then a Monster Vault, which is really handy because it comes with loads of tokens (instead of having to pony up for miniatures).

4th is pretty clearly a kids' starter set, but you can use it as a baseline to get going. The various above books help.

Thanks for the pointers. I guess I expected to pick up the books and they'd look the same as the 3E books except for some simple tweaks. Guess it's time to stop being lazy.