A Clarification
I need to clear something up. I am not fourthcore. And neither is the Angry DM. Its not that I’m trying to distance myself from it. Far from it. I think fourthcore is great and I have a lot of respect for Sersa (Save vs. Death) and the various contributors. And I do try to spread the word whenever something new gets released. But I don’t play in or run a fourthcore game. I never have. I’m not fourthcore.
The Angry DM (of Twitter) is not fourthcore either. See this great comic from d20 Monkey: http://www.d20monkey.com/2011/07/01/fourthcored/ . That about sums it up. Like Brett in the comic, The Angry DM doesn’t get fourthcore. He doesn’t symbolize it. He doesn’t represent it. He’s not fourthcore.
Fourthcore is not about being an unfair, cruel, killer DM. It is about players taking on an extreme but ultimately winnable challenge so that, in the end, they can celebrate an amazing victory. It is also about the players challenging themselves rather than their characters. It is about the players acheiving victory rather than directing their characters to victory. It is their ability to think, reason, manage resources, and solve puzzles that is truly tested by fourthcore, not the characters’ skills and the players’ ability to function within the game system.
The Angry DM isn’t like that. Well, he is about challenging the players, but ultimately, if the players win, they don’t celebrate an amazing victory. The Angry DM doesn’t slap them on the back and say “good job, you won.” He belittles them and robs them of their victory by claiming they only won because he, the DM, decided it should be so. He creates challenges that are unfair, punishingly so, and exercises extreme power just because he can. The Angry DM isn’t trying to provide a victory or challenge his players, he’s trying to railroad his players into doing exactly what he wants them to do and punishing them when they don’t obey.
In short, the Angry DM is exactly the sort of killer DM that fourthcore is explicitly not about. Check it out: http://slamdancr.com/wp/2011/01/what-is-fourthcore/
I bring this up because I’ve noticed that people on Twitter, Facebook, Google+ keep holding the Angry DM up as an icon or poster child for fourthcore. I’m sure some of it is just the same tongue-in-cheek cruelty that Sersa uses on the Save vs. Death site. But, I’ve seen enough of it to warrant coming out with this little message.
Apart from being dead wrong (The Angry DM is not fourthcore), I worry that its all just a little unfair to Sersa and the contributors to fourthcore. Because if anyone deserves to be a poster child for fourthcore, its the people behind it. The people who’ve put the effort in. I would hate to think I was overshadowing them or stealing credit from them for the same reason that I would hate someone overshadowing me and becoming an icon for the things I’ve written. Everyone deserves the full credit for the things they create.
So, I am not fourthcore. I love fourthcore, but I’m not it, and I’ve not contributed anything to it except lip service. And The Angry DM is definitely not fourthcore. Even if he tried to be, he’d be in it for all the wrong reasons. He’d twist it into something wrong, cruel, and suck all the fun out of it.
Wait… are you saying you are Fourthcore?
Ha! I kid, I kid…
But you did write it, right? I mean, you are so angry…
The key indicator for me was always that the DM of Fourthcore games wants the players to _win_ against all odds.
I think if the players managed to win one of Angry’s games, he’d drop them into a Sphere of Annihilation. Perhaps followed by a large angry gelatinous cube.