LostSoul said:
RPGs generally give a lot more power to the DM. (In a social game, I think that's a mistake.)
Actually, quite the inverse is true - many games, by implelmenting numerous mechanical checks and balances, actually give the
players more power by defining the structure within which a GM can work. There are games are games that don't do this, but everybody (including the players) knows this when they sit down to play one of those games, and trust the GM not to abuse this power. If somebody agrees to play with a rule set that gives the GM more power, they shouldn't bitch about it unless...
A lot of DMs use this power irresponsibly.
If the GM abuses this power, then sure - players
should be upset. They should also
tell the GM that they're upset - something that, in my ten years of gaming, I've rarely seen upset players do. Instead, such players seem to keep their mouth shut and so the GM, unaware that a problem exists, doesn't change anything and a miserable game continues to be miserable, while unhappiness festers.
In this regard players usually have as much responsibility for a crappy game as the GM does, if not more, as they had the chance to point out a problem that the GM might not be aware of and
chose not to do so. When
this happens, players have
no right to complain - after all, they're contributing to the problem by not addressing it (and, thus, allowing it to continue) just as much the GM did by initially creating it.
This comes back to cooperation between
all players. A social contract takes care of a lot of this before play ever begins by addressing specific tenets of play according to the wishes of all players involved in the game, and I've found that most players welcome such structure. The
only players that I've seen vehemently oppose social contracts and other cooperative efforts in games are those socially short-changed players who would benfit from a book such as that proposed by Jim.
[Edit: If you need contributors, Jim, I'd gladly write a piece about social contracts and playing to expectations.]