Agree with Red

Message:

It's more a whine fest from Colville.

The DM Screen creates a separation between the DM and the players. So .. uh .. why ... uh ... why do you CHOOSE to use a screen? I think I might have had a screen once but I just folded it up and put it on the table to use as a reference. It was easier to just print it out on a sheet and tape it on the inside cover of the book.

The DM has to do more work than the players? Uh ... why do you CHOOSE to do more work than the players? If you use a game that doesn't give the Referee enough to use, you created the problem. Use your voice to speak the word son, it's all you really got. Games have moved to player rolling for the mobs and the rules are known by all. Read the text, sit back and enjoy. Oh no, I have to flip another Tarot card ... my tarot flipping finger is getting worn out.

Choose to be a Referee who simply reveals what is happening? Let destiny happen baby ... it's all in the waves!!!!


Then, the balancing canard enters the chat room. Who knows which edition introduced something called "The Challenge Rating" (LIGHTNING BOLTS!!!!) In theory, you put this many Challenge Thingys against your players to make the battle competitive.

Why the battle would be competitive is never asked ... because to ask would be to know the answer.

But, then the players level up or get the Sword of Slaying Everything (it happens) and you have to re-balance the challenge rating thingys. I found a rock of hitting +1 ... damn ... got to update again. Whoops, I dropped my rock ... arghhhhhh.

Wait til they find out the Challenge Thingys don't actually match up.

So, the problem has been hitting you in the head like a +1 rock of hitting dropped from someones haversack of dropping and yet you still cannot see.

Come with us now while we digress to days of yore. It is said that the Calculus comes from wanting to measure the amount of wine in a barrel. The owner of said wine wanted to put a stick through the side of the barrel as it lay on it's side and determine how much wine was in the barrel. But, because the barrel was not a cylinder, the owner was utterly confused. And, being the dumb wine owner that he was, he could not simply estimate. So, we derived f(x)= pie / 2 * X^2 x L x L2 where L is the length of the wine barrel constant and the function is adjusted for the piece wise discontinuous profile. Integrate along the depth of the rod and you have the answer ... assuming the barrel doesn't leak. Which is to say ... Oh, about half full.

Gygax, of course, would have simply made a chart of stick measurement versus volume and if you needed it you could simply interpolate. But, then, no one can figure out THACO now .... so ... COULD YOU BOZOS WHO CAN'T FIGURE OUT THACO PLEASE GO PLAY SOMETHING ELSE FOR LEIBNIZ SAKE. (Serenity baby serenity.)

Whirly noises and we are back to the present. With Calculus and differential equations and Velcro. It is a serene world.



Of course the reason is that the DM tends to be the one that wants most to control the results. And, I get that. It happens. I want this to happen because reasons and so it shall be.

One could argue the ring must be destroyed in the end, for to not destroy it, means there was no reason to tell the tale. I can accept that.

To let the game go where it may is a scary thing. "I" must invent the one of a kind bad thing in the end that will live or die (but mostly die) as the DM has decided. No free will baby.

I see why it stresses you so. (Is it possible that you are the problem? Asking for a friend.)

Do you actually believe that one minute jabbing me in the pancreas and the next saying "How you doing fellow bros" we wouldn't still see you as the dude who just jabbed us in the pancreas? Well, if you can't figure out THACO ... I see it.


My perception of the Ref playing along as a character is more to experience the mechanics of that part of the game. It's easier to test when you are rolling the dice. (Though it does dip into the world of a little too much control when the Ref Ref is talking to the Player Ref in the other room and eating all the nachos.)

Colville has a good gig ... the books are so so ... but ... he's filling a niche that has been poorly filled by Hasbro. I don't really care to hear him whine about his writer's block ... it seems small.

Yours,