Rant -- GM Control, Taking it Too Far?

[Mournblade94]

If he doesn't like your backstory, ask him for clarification. If he gives you one, refuse. If you want to name yourself something silly, do it. If he demands that you do things his way or else, take the else and leave. You're right. If he's ruining your fun, he's doing something wrong.

It doesn't sound like the DM is doing anything wrong, it just may not be the style of game your looking for. I have turned players away from my game because of characters they wanted to play, simply because it would not fit with the story. BAsically I gave him options he said no... I said bye. There was thouroughly no loss to me.

Because a player is not having fun in a game does not mean it is the DM's fault. If everyone else is having fun, the group may just not be the proper fit for a player.

If someone wants to play a silly character in my campaign, I tell them the level I can accept. If they insist on playing silly, I tell them to go find another game. Plenty of DM's like silly, I don't. Unless I am playing TOON, or paranoia.

Your animal names would be fine for many groups, but I quite honestly would have problems with them. Its the DM's campaign, and he needs to make sure there is no one that will disrupt the versimilitude.

If your DM is running a good campaign, and you like it, find out how YOU can fit in the story, not how the story can fit around YOU. If the campaign is bad... then who cares, it won't last long.

 

[Rackhir]

There's always the old trick of just using the same "names" only translated into the equivalent in a foreign language like Chinese or Russian.

Might take a bit of googling, but shouldn't be too hard.

That said, this isn't the sort of thing where it's just about either you or the DM, being correct. While him insisting you change the names is hurting your fun, your insisting on silly names is hurting his fun.

Try and split the difference in other words. There's plenty of room for both of you to give up something to achieve a compromise.

 

[Mallus]

Personally, I'm on his side. I hate players who give silly names to things. And I'm guessing that the attitude you have towards his game of silliness carries into all aspects of how you approach it at the table and that I will be willing to lay money on, pisses him off to no end.

As DM, do you ask for ownership of all aspects of a PC? Objecting to giving a wolf a cliche dog's name seems like an egregious example of control-freakishness to me.

I'd recommend you leave. Neither of you will win in this situation by continuing.

In the end that might be best, but people have been known to compromise on occasion.

 

[Mark]

(snip)

How difficult would it be to find a new game? How many other games and with others DMs have you played in the past? Have you DMed for this DM or with this group previously to now? Do you sometimes DM and would you be willing to start up your own campaign or group?

 

[roguerouge]

These names aren't even that silly. If it was Poopers the Dire Wolf, that's one thing. But this is DM over-reaching.

Plus, many heroic tales have plucky comic relief characters. It's not like this is unheard of. As a DM, I say he needs to unclench a little bit.

 

[architectofsleep]

I have been on both sides of this issue. As a DM, I have been unhappy with goofy names -- in my opinion, names are a big part of immersion, and it destroys immersion for the other players when you send 'tweety' off to do something while they have a more serious/fantastic mental image of the game in their head.

I agree. If it destroys immersion for the other players, I wouldn't do it. Our group (the players, anyway) is really laid back, though. We spend 8-10 hours a week at the gaming table, and only about 4 of that is spent actually gaming, and maybe 30 min. of that is spent actually role-playing (the rest is mostly battle, and then either buying things or saying "we rest," or making plans about where we're going next). The rest of the time is spent joking around, shooting the bull, etc. Sometimes, when something extraordinary happens in game, like someone failing a necessary roll, we stop and joke about it and everything gets really silly. So, I was pretty sure that naming my oft-dying-or-running-away animal companions something silly wouldn't really be a game-breaker.

As a player, though, I must admit I had great fun playing a city-based ghostbuster baboon shaman in RuneQuest back in the 80s, who drove a chariot with a ghoul spirit bound in a glass jar (his 'siren'). His fatal flaw? A baboon, he always hoped to score with the human ladies. His name? Simon Wagstaff.

That sounds like a blast. I love playing fun, creative ideas. This campaign is more in the epic style, so I made my character to suit it (druid with an appropriate non-silly name, and a fairly basic background that I'm not excited about playing, but it will do). I really didn't think giving a cutesy name to my animal companion would get my GM's dander up. Maybe he had a bad experience in the past...

I think that whether this is appropriate depends on the tone of the game, and this is something you have to negotiate with the DM and the other players.

I'm pretty sure two of the players have absolutely no problem with it. The third player is the GM's wife and would probably side with the GM (go figure). I haven't actually asked them, though, not wanting to make a big deal out of names, of all things.

 

[Mallus]

These names aren't even that silly. If it was Poopers the Dire Wolf, that's one thing. But this is DM over-reaching.

Also, the vast majority of 'fantasy names' are unintentionally hilarious. I rediscover this fact any time I describe the books I'm reading to my wife...

 

[architectofsleep]

Architectofsleep, don't you think that you might be overreacting?

Quite possibly. That's part of why I posted here: to get some perspective.

The DM's responsibility is to maintain a fun, gameable, and coherent world. That may cause him to restrict certain backgrounds or classes because they don't fit.

I agree. I have no problems picking a class or a race or whatever the GM limits us to. It's hard enough to find a character concept that I haven't done, hasn't been overdone, and that I like, though, that it really feels stifling when it comes back to me completely edited. For example, I sent him an idea for a cleric who was really, really good (not necessarily lawful), and that was her fatal flaw. It caused her all kinds of anguish, seeing the suffering and not having the power to help with it. This also gave me an angle into an overarching goal of seeking power, or seeking the power to be a force of change in the world. He sent it back to me saying, how about I make her have done all kinds of evil acts in her past and is now full of anguish and trying to atone for her deeds? Ok, that's another idea for a cleric background, but completely not what I had in mind. But I guess it fit his world better. I didn't want to play it, so I went with my current character that I built in conjunction with him. I'm not excited about this character, either, but since I didn't start out with what I thought was a great idea that got squashed, it wasn't as hard to swallow.

As for the names, I found your examples to be amusing, and would've had no with them problem as the DM. OTOH, if you had named your character "Batman" or "Jennifer Love Hewitt" (i.e. something that jarred me out of the game every time I heard it) I would have a problem with it, were I your DM. There's a line here, and its different for different people.

Yeah, I wasn't trying to go overboard or anything. All of my character names have always had serious, "appropriate" names. I was just trying to have a little fun. I've never played a druid before, and alas, my animal companions seem to die a little more frequently than I'd like, so I thought I'd give them cutesy names to show my affection for them and help them stand out in my memory. Like real people do.

If your DM is good in other ways, I'd encourage you to put up with his flaws. Nobody's perfect.

Good advice.

 

[architectofsleep]

If he doesn't like your backstory, ask him for clarification. If he gives you one, refuse. If you want to name yourself something silly, do it. If he demands that you do things his way or else, take the else and leave. You're right. If he's ruining your fun, he's doing something wrong.

I may not take it that far, yet, but if I continue to be creatively stifled, well, it's definitely in the back of my head. Sometimes I wish there were more gaming options in my area. But I definitely agree that the number one thing is that all the players (and the GM) have fun. I wouldn't want to ruin anyone else's fun, but I should get to have some, too, and I think the whole names thing is harmless fun.

 

[architectofsleep]

Its hard to say exactly without knowing what your suggested background was, but one of the big missteps I see in PC backgrounds is the PC being 1st level, but their background indicates practically an epic level story already. That's what game play is for. I've given suggestions to players that toned their background down a touch from time to time. Its all about creating a character that fits in the world.

I know. I hate to put specifics down since I don't know if my fellow gamers read this, and I don't want to make anyone angry when I'm just venting. So, without too many specifics, here is one example.

We're mid-level characters (about 8-10th level), and I was asking about playing a character who had been struck mad by a god (insanity is allowed as a character trait in this game). This fact was just a reason for how my character was going to behave, and not an ever-present you're-always-connected-to/talking-to-this-god kind of thing. Now, even though our characters are currently dealing with gods, or at the least their avatars, he said no, I couldn't be that, because our characters shouldn't have gods in our background. Ok...a little bit contradictory with how the campaign is currently playing out, but I can accept that. He then said I should have been driven mad by my past actions (this is kind of a theme with him), instead. To me, that's a bit more boring and watered down. It could work, sure, but it wouldn't make me love my character. Like I said in my o.p., it wasn't that big of a deal. I said no, and we came up with something else, and I'm saving my other character ideas for another campaign. But I still felt creatively stifled. I am at my best as a roleplayer when the stakes are high, and when I don't feel like I'm playing just another cookie-cutter role.

And I'm sometimes fine with silly names. Just so long as their amusing silly names. And so long as the player doesn't ALWAYS do that.

I agree. I never name my characters silly names (unless it's a silly campaign), but I wanted to do something to make my animal companions a little bit more memorable. Ah well.