D&D 5E What DM flaw has caused you to actually leave a game?

Lanefan · Oct 25, 2018

Speaking of labels...

Aldarc said:
Nevertheless, as one would reasonably argue, I don't think that any historian or political scientist would define the powers of an absolute monarchy in such an oblique and tertiary way. If you are privilege to such a definition, then I would be keen to hear it. However, defining this as a "key part" is vacuous under scrutiny.

The (in)ability for people to leave is not unique to monarchies, but is found across nearly all governments and (not) done for numerous reasons. It says more about the mobility of the citizenry than it does about the institutional power structures that supports the ruling class. Likewise, my ability to leave a table is a given for any system or game; it says nothing useful about the relative powers relegated to or presumed by the DM function. Neither does players choosing to stay.

Is this an argument to the effect that the players at my table are citizens, and that my game is a monarchy?

Guess I'd better get some passports printed up for next session...and buy meself a crown...

Aldarc · Oct 25, 2018

Lanefan said:
Is this an argument to the effect that the players at my table are citizens, and that my game is a monarchy?

No, Lanefan.

S'mon · Oct 25, 2018

Hussar said:
Now, turn it around though. You WANT to play an evil campaign, and the player, a long time player who you enjoy playing with, says that he or she isn't interested. To the point of hating the idea and saying that if you run the campaign, he or she will drop out of the game.

Do you proceed? Or do you simply pitch a different campaign idea to keep the group together?

THAT'S the difference. Why should the DM be able to force his or her ideas on the group to the point of forcing a player to leave the table? Is that a good DM who does this? I certainly don't think so.

I just don't have this overwhelming desire to keep the group together - you're not a bad DM if your overwhelming priority is to keep the group together, but nor are you a bad DM if you like playing new games with new people.

S'mon · Oct 25, 2018

Hussar said:
Now, turn it around though. You WANT to play an evil campaign, and the player, a long time player who you enjoy playing with, says that he or she isn't interested. To the point of hating the idea and saying that if you run the campaign, he or she will drop out of the game.

Do you proceed? Or do you simply pitch a different campaign idea to keep the group together?

If I had another equally good idea and I really liked that player I might pitch my other idea instead. More likely I'd either run the game I wanted to run, or - perhaps most likely - I'd feel deterred and not run anything for a while. GMing is much harder than playing, after all, and needs a lot of enthusiasm.

So, normally I don't start with a group and try to negotiate a game to suit them. I'd rather start with what enthuses me, and find some players who like the idea too.

Oofta · Oct 25, 2018

Hussar said:
NOPE. NO. That's not what's been said AT ALL.

No one is claiming that the DM should run a game that the DM doesn't like. Not ONCE has that been claimed. You don't want to run an Evil game, so, we don't play an Evil game. Fair enough. The player has no way to compel you to play an evil campaign.

Now, turn it around though. You WANT to play an evil campaign, and the player, a long time player who you enjoy playing with, says that he or she isn't interested. To the point of hating the idea and saying that if you run the campaign, he or she will drop out of the game.

Do you proceed? Or do you simply pitch a different campaign idea to keep the group together?

THAT'S the difference. Why should the DM be able to force his or her ideas on the group to the point of forcing a player to leave the table? Is that a good DM who does this? I certainly don't think so.

Well, the all caps thing ALMOST convinced me. But all you did was swap player statement of "I want to play a campaign with evil PCs" with "I want to play a campaign with good PCs".

There's no difference. The player I was referring to had played with our group for a couple of years and wanted to play a campaign where evil PCs were allowed. I said no. I don't see a reason to let one player dictate the campaign. I try to run campaigns that everyone enjoys but ultimately you can't please everyone.

Take a different scenario. When I DM I'm good at improv and like to have over-arching stories going on (that the PCs may or may not influence). Basically, the world is a living, breathing place that the PCs can help shape and influence but there will always be other things big and small going on. But I had a guy that wanted to have their PC "go to a bar and see what happens". I'm still not sure what they were looking for other than for their PC to run up a bar tab, or perhaps they only wanted to do dungeon crawls. I'm still not sure. But assuming it's the latter, I and most of my players would have been bored with dungeon crawls so we parted ways.

As a DM, I run game I will enjoy running. I don't force players to do anything (although I do limit some options that I'm clear on up front) and I try to make reasonable allowances for my players. But ultimately if I'm not invested in a campaign, I'm not going to be a good DM.

5ekyu · Oct 25, 2018

Imaro said:
Why is that player able to force his or her ideas on the group to the point that the others don't get to play what they really want to?

I'm a little confused on how you consider it selfish on the part of the DM to choose to run a game he, along with every other player except one, want to play but for some reason you don't consider it just as selfish, if not more, for a single player to eliminate a certain type of game from ever being played by the group because they don't like it. To take another example... If everyone in the group enjoys running/playing horror games but a single player doesn't like them... how is it not selfish on his/her part to basically ban horror games from ever being played vs. sitting a single run of a horror game out or finding a group that similarly has no interest in horror games? Is it a "good DM" who allows a single player's preferences to minimize the groups fun? Am I missing something here?

Here's another perspective... if I as a player am in a group and we all discuss playing a horror game and everyone is good with it except player X who states they don't like horror games and won't play them... am I a bad player for leaving said group if I find one that will run Unknown Armies, Call of Cthulhu, Chill and Vampire? Are they a bad player for putting me in the position of having to make that choice? Was the DM a bad or good DM for letting one player's preferences dictate that for the entire group?

Just to be clear from my,perspective ge wasnt a bad player or a bad GM (me) because like the rest of use had been doing for some time he knew from time to time campaigns would be run without him. We all had different tastes, we always had more players than slots, we always bmvakued adding new players etc.

So some folks did not get into Vampire, others not into Stargate, etc.

We did not as a group see value in cutting back all our gaming iotions to the most common denominators to try and squeeze everybody into every campaign.

Like everyone, we had flaws but selfish gaming was not one since we shared preferences many times over the years and in the Stargate case everybody was happy with the outcome.

The reaction here on these forums to what was by everyone involved an enjoyable result everyone agreed with both during and after is staggering to me, but hey, not totally unexpected.

pemerton · Oct 25, 2018

Sadras said:
I don't know about that.
Enlightened Dungeon/Games Despot just doesn't work for me and didn't for Gygax.

Presumably [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] agrees with me on this, since he quotes Gygax and 1e so often upthread, unless we are picking and choosing.

What am I supposedly agreeing on?

It's very easy to see the places in Gygax's DMG where his basic principles come into collision with his detailed prescriptions, and one can also see tensions between what seem to be his own table practices and his advice to other GMs.

But in any event, Gygax doesn't assume that the GM is the sole author of the ingame fiction. Here's one example, from his DMG (p 93):

Assume that the player in question decides that he will set up a stronghold about 100 miles from a border town, choosing an area of wooded hills as the general site. He then asks you if there is a place where he can build a small concentric castle on a high bluff overlooking a river. Unless this is totally foreign to the area, you inform him that he can do so.

pemerton · Oct 25, 2018

S'mon said:
When playing D&D I don't want to be in author-stance, thinking of myself as a participant in group creation of a story, since what I want is you-are-there immersion, seeing the world through the POV of my PC. I found that 4e D&D had a nice solution in some of the combat powers, where the PCs had an in-universe ability to determine the outcome; previously only the domain of magic. This would work equally well for non-combat, where eg a Bard type character could use a power to determine how the Duchess reacts to the news. But if I as player get to determine the outcome, then I get taken out-of-character. This makes RPGing somewhat inherently fragile - the GM has authority to determine the outcome, but it had better be generally consistent with what the players think is reasonable or else the game breaks down. But I don't see a good alternative - I do like the Free Kriegsspiel approach that the GM always needs to be able to explain & justify their decision.

There's too much going on in this to unpack it all. So I'll just say a couple of things.

(1) The only meaning of author stance that I'm familiar with is Ron Edwards':

In Author stance, a person determines a character's decisions and actions based on the real person's priorities, then retroactively "motivates" the character to perform them.

This can be contrasted with actor stance:

In Actor stance, a person determines a character's decisions and actions using only knowledge and perceptions that the character would have.

In other words, author vs actor stance (in the only meanings I know) is about reason for which, or basis on which, a player declares an action for his/her PC. It hasn nothing to do with how action resolution is resolved, and as a special case of that has nothing to do with whether or not the GM has a veto, or the sole say, or whatever.

Author vs actor stance also has nothing to do with the psychological state of immersion, nor the psychological state of enjoying the creation of a shared fiction. In my Burning Wheel game I don't believe I've ever delcared an action outside of actor stance, but that doesn't mean that I haven't enjoyed creating a shared fiction. I've enjoyed that very much.

pemerton · Oct 25, 2018

Hussar said:
/ninja'd by [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION].

No shame in that!

Ovinomancer · Oct 25, 2018

Hussar said:
Really? The problem with silly buggers games is my labels? When you have responses like this gem:

Or comments about jumping off bridges?

Yeah, I'm thinking that there's a significant level of bad faith going on when people are ignoring actual dictionary definitions and then doubling down by making ridiculous claims that even the definitions that they chose to use don't even come close to supporting their point. While I agree that there is some onus on the person making the claim to make sure that their point is clearly made, there has to be some degree of responsibility on the other person's part to actually make an honest attempt to see the point being made instead of jumping off of ludicrous tangents just so they can "win" the argument.

And this particular thread has been full of them. Whether it's blindingly stupid examples like a T-Rex in town or cherry picking dictionary definitions. It does get rather tiresome.

The only reason that the argument over the applicability of the label is because of incredibly obtuse arguments that are pretty obviously in bad faith. I'd say, from my side of the fence, the argument ended a couple of pages ago, but, I know that it will continue to get brought up because it's easier than actually trying to make a real point.

Yeah, it will, because you handed the conversation over to the labels, so that's what it's about, now. As I said it would be. Hell, your arguing niw about the argument about labels. We're two inceptions down!

D&D 5E What DM flaw has caused you to actually leave a game?

Lanefan

Victoria Rules

Aldarc

Legend

S'mon

Legend

S'mon

Legend

Oofta

Legend

5ekyu

Hero

pemerton

Legend

pemerton

Legend

pemerton

Legend

Ovinomancer

No flips for you!

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