However, sometimes they do things right

In an effort to redress the balance after my most recent rant about Wizards of the Coast's advice on running games, here's a comment on something that they've done that isn't just right, but is a major benefit for the harried DM.

I got the new mega-adventure "Red Hand of Doom" yesterday. It's a fun-looking adventure for characters of leels 5-10 (or perhaps 6-12 - the book's a bit unclear on that). However, I've not yet read it.

The thing that the book does that's really useful, though, is to collect the monster stats at the back of the book (and, I'm led to believe there will be an online document giving those same stats in .pdf form). Since this includes lots of different versions of hobgoblin tribesmen for various levels and various roles, this segment of the adventure book has utility far beyond "Red Hand of Doom" itself.

This is the second time Wizards have done this recently. I also got "Sons of Gruumsh" at Christmas, and it does the same thing for Orcish warriors. Again, very useful.

(I would really like Wizards to do a monster book akin to Draconomicon for the classic humanoid races, but I suspect they won't. The major utility of such a book, frankly, would be the sample statistics for lots of different representatives of the races, something that's rather lacking, and something that would make the DM's job a lot easier.)

So, the upshot: well done, Wizards.

Sometimes I wonder...

I posted once before about a comment in "Complete Arcane", which basically said that if a player comes out with a character concept, the DM should find a way to allow the player to play said character. On the Wizards website, they've just posted an articule entitled "Sibling Rivalry", which expresses much the same sentiment.

Essentially, the argument comes down to this: the DM painstakingly crafts a world and a campaign to sit in that world, and then a player develops a character concept that just doesn't fit. The example given is of a half-dragon psioncist in a world that features the introduction of arcane magic to the world (and makes no mention of psionics). The 'correct' response is for the DM to widen the scope of his world, because the player absolutely has the right to play any character he wants.

(What's worse is that the DM in the example complains that he doesn't want to learn all the psionic rules, to which the player replies that he'll handle that for the DM. Presumably, no-one at Wizards of the Coast has ever played with a munchkin rules-lawyer, or they'd know why that's not a good idea - the DM has to know the rules at least as well as such a player, or the game will fail.)

However, that's not really my issue with the 'advice'. The problem is that some character concepts just don't work with some campaigns and some settings. If I tell the players I'm doing a campaign which is a D&D/Cthulhu crossover, they should know that there's no way of fitting a kender ninja into the mix. It just won't go, and there's no way to bend the two together without horribly mangling the campaign.

Now, this isn't a call for absolute authority on the part of DMs. Nor is it a claim that the players are always in the wrong. Ideally, the DM shouldn't craft a campaign in such detail that only a very small range of characters will fit, and he should certainly discuss character concepts long before the point of contention is reached.

It's a question of personal responsibility. The DM is absolutely entitled to develop any campaign he desires, and is absolutely entitled to allow or disallow any concept he desires for any reason whatsoever. The DM is also absolutely entitled to find that he has no players.

What the DM should do is say something along the lines of "I'm working on this campaign... Interested?" The players can then say, "Go for it!" or "Ick, no!" And, at that point, the problem goes away.

Of course, now I really want to run a game featuring kender ninja vs. Cthulhu!