Role A DM Should Play

[Protean]

After taking a look at this thread, I began to think there must be obvious conflict as to how people see what being a DM really entails. I'd like to see what you guys think would be the fitting solution. I'd also like input on what you assume as proper player behavior and proper DM behavior..Eh I'd just like some honest input since I'm thinking about running a game for the first time in awhile.

[Henry]

Definitely conflict in this view between different gamers, but rarely I find between different gaming groups. Because of the social nature in which gaming groups are formed, most gaming groups have this role of DM/player firmly established, and only comes to the fore when players are joining established groups.

For me, it's a question of "final authority." Originally, DM's were called "referees," and I still see DM'ing in this light today. For expediency of play and fun, the DM's word needs to be final authority, which does not discount disagreement - it only discounts protracted disagreement during a session. Players may try to use rulebooks to argue points in their favor, but in the end, it hurts the fun and enjoyment of all other players concerned, INCLUDING the DM.

Outside of the session, the DM needs to be able to firmly set rulings and precedents for his campaign, if he is to design a coherent setting that he enjoys as much as the players do. The DM is not an iron-fisted dictator, whose position is set for life; every player has an equal opportunity to DM, and set their own rules and precedents. Those who take a turn at DM'ing I believe better appreciate the preparation, foresight, and management skills that being an effective DM needs, and are better able to help the Dm during the game.

[ForceUser]

Originally posted by Henry
Those who take a turn at DM'ing I believe better appreciate the preparation, foresight, and management skills that being an effective DM needs, and are better able to help the Dm during the game.

Yep. Other DMs make the best players because they understand how much work it is and are generally more willing to accept another DM's rulings at the table, and more likely to discuss said rulings rationally after the session.

I think a DM needs to be both stern and accommodating. You've got to know when it's okay to let the players run with an idea, and when you need to put your foot down for the sake of continuity, fairness, or versimilitude.

[edit: spelling]

[Angcuru]

Originally posted by ForceUser
I think a DM needs to be both stern and accommodating. You've got to know when it's okay to let the players run with an idea, and when you need to put your foot down for the sake of continuity, fairness, or versimilitude.

Unless that Idea is to run around Faerun using the names of 70's/80's rock stars and random jumblements of modern day swear words as aliases. That's just plain silly and would interfere with my running of the game and cut away my portion of the fun. Therefore, the character can not run around in red leather pants, doing the Thriller dance and calling himself Axle Jackson, which it would eventually boil down to.

D&D is a book. The players are the main characters who dictate their own actions, and the DM is everyone else. If Legolas had randomly walked up to people and said 'HI! My name is *insert expletive*, how are you!?', would the book have been as good as it is? No. I take the same approach to my games.

[ForceUser]

Originally posted by Angcuru


Unless that Idea is to run around Faerun using the names of 70's/80's rock stars and random jumblements of modern day swear words as aliases. That's just plain silly and would interfere with my running of the game and cut away my portion of the fun. Therefore, the character can not run around in red leather pants, doing the Thriller dance and calling himself Axle Jackson, which it would eventually boil down to.

D&D is a book. The players are the main characters who dictate their own actions, and the DM is everyone else. If Legolas had randomly walked up to people and said 'HI! My name is *insert expletive*, how are you!?', would the book have been as good as it is? No. I take the same approach to my games.

Stupidity is its own reward. This is especially true in D&D.

[ergeheilalt]

I run a game with 2 other DMs, we each take turns and have established house rules by discusing it amoungst ourselves. As DMs we run the gamut, I prefer to run a game with subtle influences from books and stories lines I like, another DM runs canned adventures, while the other DM enjoys taking characteristics and changing them arround (like having an Elf-Gnome war).

The game table is very open (we do it online and have eachother on all sorts of text-messengers), so there is always new ideas being pitched and such. During the game the DM has the final word. On evenings when we have extra time after the game, we as DMs all talk and try and figure out if there are any issues that need to be addressed. This topic can be determining the correct uses of Keen or which jump bonuses stack - even which 3rd party products to allow into the game.

I've come to this oppinions. During times of crisis (ie: game) the DM has all the war power. After the game it becomes slightly more democratic and everyone is entitled to an opinion. Without the war powers, there could be a filibuster during the game, which are not fun. It may be sloppy, it may seem down right tyranical; but it keeps the gaming going. Keeping the story going and the mechanics out of the way is important IMC.

Erge

[Emiricol]

Maybe I have this viewpoint because I nearly always DM, but IMHO the player really [expletive] the pooch. He blew the mood for the whole session and irritated the DM into becoming beligerent. I think the DM likewise blew it, probably more so, with that stupid "no YOUR PC wouldn't do that" defense. I think the DM seriously, seriously overstepped his bounds.

The solution that would have avoided much of that problem would have been for the DM to tell the player that he can not use names like that, and that he must work with the DM to come up with several aliases that fit the world and the campaign's mood.

The player *probably* would not have balked at that, and if he did, I'd tell him his options were to either work with me, or leave the group, but that we'd all much rather have him stay, if he could work within the campaign's guidelines.

[Protean]

I'd rather not get into the previous specifics, that being the reasoning behind this new thread. I'd really like some good discussion, but I have seen too many cases of intra-game arguments on message boards and would rather let the parties solve it at the table.

Edit:Spelling

[Drawmack]

Really simply, compare DnD to a computer role-playing game. The DM is the computer.

[willpax]

I see a D&D session as an interactive storyline with three agents acting dynamically:

1. The DM, whose job it is to flesh out the setting and supporting characters, to offer appropriate challenges for the players, and to infuse all of these with enjoyment (meaning that she or he has to get something out of it, therefore needing some control over tone, details, and type of story) and fun (meanning that he or she has to accommodate the players' desires for the type of story they wish to be involved in).

2. The players, whose job it is to have fun developing their fictional personas within the framework of the DM's overall world. Ideally, they stretch the DM to accommodate them within a larger understanding of the possible options within the DM's world.

3. The dice, which represent the true element of randomness and unpredictability that force both of the previous groups to be flexible in their approach. The dice don't accommodate anyone, but tend not to get upset when they don't get their way.

I think that a DM should accommodate the wishes of the players as a group so long as it remains fun for her or him. For example: I prefer adventures that are long on NPC interaction and intrigue, while most of my players would rather not have to think so hard about the game. They tolerate a certain amount of complexity in the plot so long as I give them a sufficient diet of tactical challenges in the form of unusual situations and combats.

It's not about who gets his or her way, but about everyone being considerate and working together to create fun.

[Thimble the Squit]

I've discussed this quite a bit with my own DM, comparing our different styles of running games; his are more down and dirty while mine are more action-adventure -- but, basically, we agree on the function of the DM: to make a good game.

That sounds simplistic but there are very many considerations involved in this most fundamental mission statement.

The game is at its best when all the players and the DM are having fun playing it, purely and simply -- so what constitutes good fun? This varies for every group, based on personal taste. Some players prefer combat and high action to intrigue and roleplaying; others: vice versa. It is the DM's responsibility to adapt to her group's preference whilst not sacrificing her own.

It is the DM's responsibility to write a good story. The players provide the characters and motivation for a strong campaign but, ultimately, the DM provides the milieu, conflict, mystery and all the other things that complete the game.

The DM should be arbiter and adjudicator on all things regarding mechanics and campaign flavour. If an argument ensues over BAB, CR, AC, VIP, AWOL or whatever, the DM decides what goes. And this may annoy many ruleslawyers (it certainly irks me but it's still the truth): it does not matter whether or not her players may know the rules better than she does, she remains the final authority.

On the other hand, she should also be fair and impartial -- it does not make you a bad DM in deciding that rolling a natural 1 to hit (a fumbled weapon) provokes an Attack of Opportunity; it is unfair to apply that only to the PCs. It is not unfair to have someone's fighter fall to his death from a 100' cliff because he failed his Climb check by 5; it is bad DM-ing to grant another player's rogue a saving throw against the same eventuality, "[because] the rogue's more agile and he's a better climber". "One rule for one, the same rule for all" should be the DM's credo.

Sometimes this means that a ruling can have unforeseen consequences, can set an unfortunate precedent. Perhaps you have decided that archery is quite weak (maybe you've looked at the difference in damage between the elf and his friend the greataxe-wielding half-orc) and you've raised the threat rating for all missile weapons; by 9th-level, that archer, with the Improved Critical feat, a +3 bow and a quiver full +3 arrows, is making a pepperpot out of all his foes... The DM must be also a prescient and considerate authority.

Player choices, on the other hand, are not her responsibility; if a player makes a stupid choice, the DM has the right -- nay, is obliged -- to make his character suffer for it. She should not say, "You can't charge into melee with that troll, you're a wizard" as this is a player's choice (and the DM should not deny her players the option of choice), but she could ask her player, "Are you sure you want to attack that troll? You saw what it did to the dwarf."

It is a DM's duty to present appropriately challenging encounters and to provide adequate reward for her players' efforts. If the opposition is too weak, the game becomes monotonous -- hack, slash, hack, slash, next? -- but if the foes are too difficult to defeat, too many PCs die and the game suffers. Either resurrection and the like becomes too commonplace or the players have to keep rolling up new characters. The first slows the game down too much (as everyone's held back a level for dying) and powerful magic loses its mystery. The second option cheats the players (and the DM) of a sense of continuity and direction, slows the game (as they generate stats, etc) and forces the DM to artificially introduce these new PCs into her story (at the cost of verismilitude). Character death, in general, is only fun when it's heroic and only deserved (whether or not it's fun) if the players have been exceptionally stupid or reckless.

As for reward, in my experience, players prefer intangible things like recognition, respect and authority for their characters, even above a few gold pieces or a magic sword. (They especially dislike the opposites of these: lack of due respect and getting bossed around like pawns.) Accomplishments should not necessarily be rewarded only with material treasure but with things their characters would enjoy; promotion in your job is not just about the pay-rise.

On the other hand, wealth and magic is always desirable! Roleplaying games are built around the idea of challenge-reward; this is one of the reasons we play: it is an escapist ideal to be rewarded for the things we endure. The DM should reward her challenges appropriately and accordingly. Too much treasure unbalances the game (especially if it's all handed out to a single character and not to others), too little reduces the players' sense of achievement for their characters. As a little hint, from personal experience: more, weaker powered magical items are generally preferable to individual, powerful ones. I had a 4th-level paladin once with a +3 frost brand greatsword -- it was fabulous! I was chopping my way through everything I met. But it defined my character in a way that my personality, ability scores and class never could. If I was higher level, my own power would have been adequate to compensate.

Returning to the subject of player choice: it is a lazy DM who bases every plotline around threats to a character's family and friends, who builds every encounter around an ambush, who designs her campaigns never around the stick-and-carrot but always upon the cane-to-the-behind. These all deny a player choice, which limits his enjoyment and, ultimately, makes the game less fun. The kidnapped daughter trick is fine, in moderation, as is the bandit attack from the bushes (or its higher level counterpart: the wizard with the crystall ball, teleporting his cronies in to strike while the group are sleeping). Similarly, it's all well and good to base your game on a militia band under the command of a general or a group of Harpers sent on mission by Khelben Blackstaff but, somewhere along the line, those soldiers, those Harpers, are going to want to create missions on their own initiative. The DM should let them, otherwise, she is once more denying them the opportunity of choice. Whether they actually get to go on those missions is another matter; the DM has every right to interrupt her players' plans, to throw spanners in their works...

The DM has the responsibility to create a vivid environment within her game, to provoke her players' imaginations with well-rounded NPCs, engaging descriptions and intriguing stories. To quote the authors of the much under-rated Tales of Gargentihr, "You are a movie director with an unlimited special effects budget." You do your players a disservice by not exploiting your own imagination. A DM should be articulate and expressive, clear and authoritative, impartial and sensitive. Above all, she should have fun doing it.

This is just some of the many things that are needed in order to make a fun game but the most important of all is: the DM's duty is to create the game she would enjoy playing in. Not to do so prostitutes her talent and is denying her players the fullest pleasure in roleplaying: the shared fun of the game.

Enjoy your games, people.

[diaglo]

we were/are referees. and we are also human. many, and i mean many, would have you believe they are God in their world. but that is a load of crap. if i'm a player i'm there to have fun. if a God complex DM (he ain't a referee anymore) is telling me what my character can and can't do, then i'm no longer playing my character, he is. screw that.