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Dragon	-	-	-	Dragon 52

Someday you will face a CHANGE in your
life so wrenching that oblivion seems almost
preferable. Your DM will get tired, or you’ll
MOVE, or he’ll MOVE—anyway, something
will be different, and you’ll need a new DM.

When you find a prospective new DM,
arrange to play with him and see if anyone
with whom you have played has played with
this DM. Did you enjoy playing with these
people? If not, remember to notice how the
new DM handles the “problems” these people may cause for you.

Try to talk with the DM for at least a few
minutes before you play. Ask him if and how
he has modified the standard AD&D™
rules. Does his magic system favor <Wizards>? Most do. Is his combat system
vague? This often means he likes to fudge <instead of fudging, consider Luck Points, 1 per level: they automatically negate a failed save or a critical hit>
the results. You will probably like this the
1st few times you get lucky. Soon, though,
you will realize that an unfair combat system makes victories less meaningful. Does
this DM ever allow no-saving-throw deaths,
other than those examples in the AD&D
rules? This can lead to no-saving-throw violence between the players and the DM.
Don’t take your cherished character into a
killer dungeon. Finally, remember that there
is no virtue in unnecessary complication.
Do his variants improve the flow of play? Be
inquisitive Now rather than enraged later.
Find out as much as you can, but don’t rush
to judgment. Play with anyone once.

When the DMG came out, all the DMs I
know were overjoyed! (I bought one of
the 1st copies available in Colorado
Springs.) The final answer to most of our
problems had arrived! IMAGINE my complete happiness to find, 
not only those answers, but also new magical items —
even a couple of monsters that my group <mezzodaemon, nycadaemon>
was not familiar with!

Unfortunately, some of the players
also bought the DMG, reviving the same
problem I had before. Something had to
be done! It had gotten to the POINT where,
no matter what they encountered, they
had all the answers. All the magical items
were totally familiar to them — even
though I had never included some of
them in my treasures.

Well, I decided to change a few items
here and there. I do this on occasion
anyhow, and, if things were going to improve, it was darn near mandatory now!
Any DM worth the [Ren] can’t help but
alter things just a little. It’s a trademark of
his/her Game to have certain things that
are different than all the others.

Monsters, of course, are an obvious
place to twist things a bit. My players
have stumbled across such things as kobolds with 18/00 strength, a rock troll
(made of real rock), and LG
 _ goblins — all designed to shake up the
average player’s complacency. A few of
my players were definitely upset after
that single kobold wreaked all sorts of
havoc by tearing into the group with a
two-handed sword. And all of the players
were a lot more cautious and a lot less
sure of themselves — as it should be!
—for a while afterward.

As for magickal items, all is possible to
he who thinks. The sky is the virtual limit!
Most players ask for a description of the
item 1st and go from there: “Sounds like
a phylactery to me, Fred, let’s see...
there’s one of Faithfulness, one of Long
Years, and one for Monster Attraction.”
They then proceed to test the available
choices and continue on to destroy more
monsters and gain more treasure.

This time I threw a Phylactery of Fumbling at them, which they eventually decided was supposed to give <The Priest> a
long life, and the next monster they ran
into was a vampire. The faithful <Priest>
dove into the fray with his trusty Mace of
Disruption — and promptly dropped it!
Before he could pick it up, the vampire
hit him twice for a loss of 4 levels. Such FUN!

The books themselves are not necessarily
the final word on every question.
There are statements in all of them to the
effect that they are meant as guides only.
To quote from the Afterword to the
DMG:

"It is the spirit of the game, not the
letter of the rules, which is important.
Never hold to the letter written, nor allow
some barracks room lawyer to force
quotations from the rule book upon you ,
if it goes against the obvious intent of the
game.... You are creator and final arbiter.
By ordering things as they should be, the
game as a whole first, your campaign
next, and your participants thereafter,
you will be playing ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS as it was meant to
be. ”

That statement says it all. To me, it is
the most important statement in the entire
DMG. If you are going to stick blindly
to the books, use the charts in them exclusively,
and never create something of
your own, kyou may as well play a board
game such as Monopoly or Scrabble.
Their rules are written out, are not too
complicated, and are basically inflexible.
An AD&D game is not inflexible
and was not meant to be. The books,
even though they define a complicated
structure of rules (which in many
particular cases must be adhered to strictly),
are in general very open-ended. Much of the
text of the rules is taken up with general
guidelines and lists of possibilities,
leaving a multitude of options up to the
DM.

.
Players might be upset after experiencing an unorthodox encounter. In the
long run, however, they will come to realize that the game is more fun this way.
They will not become so easily bored,
and will tend to pay more attention to
what is happening around them.

Your game must be challenging at all
times. If it is not, players will become
bored and may go looking elsewhere;
your campaign will die a slow (or perhaps not so slow) death. It should be a
personal Source of pride that your campaign is exciting, unique, and consistent
yet always changing.

This does not mean that you should
immediately drop everything and start
changing your game so that it is unrecognizable as an AD&D campaign. Think
carefully about anything you decide to
change. Will it make the game unnecessarily complicated? Will it unbalance the
game? These, and many others, are
questions that you must take into consideration before altering anything.

On the other hand, if you feel that your
game has gone too far to be revived,
there's nothing nothing to stop you from scrapping
it in favor of an entirely new campaign. Think
carefully about anything you decide to
change.Will it make the game unnecessarily
complicated? Will it unbalance the
game?These, and many others, are
questiosn that you must take into consideration
before altering anything.

The players should not read the DMG
or the Monster Manual .But if they do, all
is not lost for the DM who wants to keep
some of the secrets of his world to himself.
There are many things you can do to
rectify the situation, kand improve your
game at the same time.