Burning Questions: Why Do DMs Limit Official WOTC Material?

TwoSix said:

We'll agree to disagree on that point as well.

Click to expand...

Um, no. MIstwell provided the relevant passages earlier. You can't disagree with that any more than you can disagree that orcs are in the monster manual. Well, I suppose you can, but you'd look awfully silly.

Sacrosanct said:

When it doesn't fit in the game world the DM is running, for whatever reason the DM has explained.

*Edit* For clarification, I believe any time the DM is denying official material, they owe the players an explanation for that other than "cuz I said." I don't think that's a high bar. For example, if the DM does not allow dragonborn or tieflings, a common explanation is, "My game worlds are more traditional with traditional fantasy races, nothing exotic like dragonborn or tieflings, because those either don't exist at all, or are reserved for monsters rather than PCs."

Click to expand...

I agree with that, that seems reasonable. That's basic DM worldbuilding, and certainly doesn't preclude taking player input into consideration.

Sacrosanct said:

We sort of spent pages going over this. Because it's the DM's game. Their story and world they are telling. This isn't really that hard to understand. It doesn't matter if the players don't care about having dragonborn in their ME game, it matters if the DM does since the DM is the one doing all the work.

Click to expand...

But then you go back to that. Alas.

It's the DM's world, but it's not the DM's game. The game belongs to the group, and the opinions of the other members of the group do, in point of fact, matter. This isn't really that hard to understand. The purpose of the exercise--the reason the DM does "all the work" on the campaign--is for the players (and the DM) to enjoy the game. If you're a good DM, the players enjoy the game. If you're a bad DM, they don't. That's really your whole job as DM, to run a game that the players enjoy. It's what you sign up for. Of course it matters what the players care about. It also matters what you care about, and the players sign up for an experience curated and presented by you.

What is hard to understand is how you go back and forth between "no reasonable request should be unreasonably denied" and "this is how I play... if you don't like it, move on." I do not intuitively regard those two statements as legs of the same pair of trousers.

Sacrosanct said:

Um, no. MIstwell provided the relevant passages earlier. You can't disagree with that any more than you can disagree that orcs are in the monster manual. Well, I suppose you can, but you'd look awfully silly.

Click to expand...

We'll agree to disagree on its relevance.

epithet said:

What is hard to understand is how you go back and forth between "no reasonable request should be unreasonably denied" and "this is how I play... if you don't like it, move on." I do not intuitively regard those two statements as legs of the same pair of trousers.

Click to expand...

I tend to view the latter statement as the province of the metaphorical "third leg" of the trousers.

epithet said:

I agree with that, that seems reasonable. That's basic DM worldbuilding, and certainly doesn't preclude taking player input into consideration.



But then you go back to that. Alas.

It's the DM's world, but it's not the DM's game. The game belongs to the group, and the opinions of the other members of the group do, in point of fact, matter. This isn't really that hard to understand. The purpose of the exercise--the reason the DM does "all the work" on the campaign--is for the players (and the DM) to enjoy the game. If you're a good DM, the players enjoy the game. If you're a bad DM, they don't. That's really your whole job as DM, to run a game that the players enjoy. It's what you sign up for. Of course it matters what the players care about. It also matters what you care about, and the players sign up for an experience curated and presented by you.

What is hard to understand is how you go back and forth between "no reasonable request should be unreasonably denied" and "this is how I play... if you don't like it, move on." I do not intuitively regard those two statements as legs of the same pair of trousers.

Click to expand...

Wrong again. My job as the DM is not to make the other players happy. That's a whole lot of pressure and expectations for a social partnership. That's like saying it's a wife's job to make her husband happy. No one can *make* another person happy. The DM's job is to provide the world, story/hooks, play the NPCS/monsters, and to be a fair referee. Not to cater to each of the players' whims and desires. It literally says this in the book.

And my comments aren't contradictory. You seem to imply that any request from the players being denied is unreasonable from the DM. That's why I called you entitled. Because that's what that attitude is. I'm sorry you can't understand how those two statements of mine are not contradictory, but they aren't. If a player, or even most players, want to do something that doesn't fit at all with the game world, me denying that in no way is unreasonable. Players know the expectations, and have agreed to them by playing. There's the social contract. No DM is putting a gun to any player's head and making them play their game. I as the DM am providing a service. You either want it, or you don't. And if you do agree, then you agree to live by those rules I have put in place. Any player who wants me to change my ideas and thoughts to cater to them would ruin my fun, but it sounds like you don't care about the DM's fun, but only the players, even though it's the DM who does all the work.

Sacrosanct said:

We sort of spent pages going over this. Because it's the DM's game. Their story and world they are telling. This isn't really that hard to understand. It doesn't matter if the players don't care about having dragonborn in their ME game, it matters if the DM does since the DM is the one doing all the work.

Click to expand...

That is certainly one way to play. It is, however, not the only way to play. Some of us value consensus at the table more than ownership of the game. Some of us do not view it as "the DM's game" but as the table's game. It is not their story nor is it their world. It's a shared experience and part of that sharing means that the DM is no longer able to simply dictate X or Y about the game. The DM can certainly suggest and cajole, but, for some of us, consensus gaming is far more important.

Getting player buy in should never, IMO, require "well, I'm doing all the work, so, you have to play what I want to play or you can go play somewhere else." If you've ever reached that point as a DM, you've failed as a DM.

Sacrosanct said:

... MIstwell provided the relevant passages earlier. ...

Click to expand...

He might have left this one out, from page 7 of the DMG, under the heading "Know Your Players."

The success of a D&D game hinges on your ability to entertain the other players at the game table. Whereas their role is to create characters (the protagonists of the campaign), breathe life into them, and help steer the campaign through their characters' actions, your role is to keep the players (and yourself) interested and immersed in the world you've created. and to let their characters do awesome things.
Knowing what your players enjoy most about the D&D game helps you create and run adventures that they will enjoy and remember. Once you know which of the following activities each player in your group enjoys the most, you can tailor adventures that satisfy your players preferences as much as possible, thus keeping them engaged.

Click to expand...

Hussar said:

That is certainly one way to play. It is, however, not the only way to play. Some of us value consensus at the table more than ownership of the game. Some of us do not view it as "the DM's game" but as the table's game. It is not their story nor is it their world. It's a shared experience and part of that sharing means that the DM is no longer able to simply dictate X or Y about the game. The DM can certainly suggest and cajole, but, for some of us, consensus gaming is far more important.

Click to expand...

I never said it was the only way to play. In fact, I explicitly said if you want to, more power to you.

Getting player buy in should never, IMO, require "well, I'm doing all the work, so, you have to play what I want to play or you can go play somewhere else." If you've ever reached that point as a DM, you've failed as a DM.

Click to expand...

Hogwash. This not only is not true, the actual guidance in the DM is counter to this. If a DM says, "This is my game world I'm running, here are the limitations, like no firearms (those appear in the core books) exist." That does not mean the DM is a bad DM. You might want to get off your judgmental horse about calling others who don't share your opinion or preference as badwrong. Especially since the books describe that as the default style of play.

Playing in a DM's table IS playing their game. It has to be, because they are the one who is making all of the rulings and adjudications. It's a shared experience meant for everyone to have fun, but ultimately it's the DM who is running the show. It's literally in the title of "DM". "Dungeon MASTER"

I can't believe I'm hearing the argument that if some players went up to Matt Mercer and told him, "We want to play a tactical grid based game. We don't want you to narrate the game like you do.", then Matt is a failed entitled DM for saying, "I'm sorry, this is my style, I don't want to do that. You're more than welcome to start your own game like that, but I can't do it that way."

Sacrosanct said:

Wrong again. My job as the DM is not to make the other players happy. That's a whole lot of pressure and expectations for a social partnership. That's like saying it's a wife's job to make her husband happy. No one can *make* another person happy. The DM's job is to provide the world, story/hooks, play the NPCS/monsters, and to be a fair referee. Not to cater to each of the players' whims and desires. It literally says this in the book.

And my comments aren't contradictory. You seem to imply that any request from the players being denied is unreasonable from the DM. That's why I called you entitled. Because that's what that attitude is. I'm sorry you can't understand how those two statements of mine are not contradictory, but they aren't. If a player, or even most players, want to do something that doesn't fit at all with the game world, me denying that in no way is unreasonable. Players know the expectations, and have agreed to them by playing. There's the social contract. No DM is putting a gun to any player's head and making them play their game. I as the DM am providing a service. You either want it, or you don't. And if you do agree, then you agree to live by those rules I have put in place. Any player who wants me to change my ideas and thoughts to cater to them would ruin my fun, but it sounds like you don't care about the DM's fun, but only the players, even though it's the DM who does all the work.

Click to expand...

I never said your job was to make the players happy, no one can shoulder that burden. I said your job was to present a game that they enjoy. They can be miserable and wretched and still enjoy the campaign, and in fact bringing a sliver of solace to their bleak little lives is one of the reasons it's worth doing.

So, your response is... well, it's wrong on so many levels. I guess there's nothing for it but to get into it, so... here we go. I certainly never meant to imply that it was unreasonable for the DM to deny any request from the players. I have, in fact, supported the reasonable constraints of worldbuilding within the very post you quoted. I don't think it is reasonable to knowingly build a world that your player's won't like very much, but then I don't think you actually do that and I've never made such an accusation.

If you think that I am "entitled" for thinking that I, as a DM, have some obligation to consider the preferences of my players, then you should go look up the definition of the word. "Entitled" and "obligated" are no synonyms, and you're using the word wrong. It's so wrong, in fact, that I'm not certain exactly what you're accusing me of. Being annoying? Being obnoxious? I mean, I'm not playing in your campaign, I am not trying to force you to act or to refrain from acting in any particular way, and I'm not insisting that you or any other person have any duty or responsibility towards me, so... I can only assume that Mistwell was right, and you're just saying "I'm not entitled, you are!" as some sort of "blah blah rubber, blah blah glue, etc." thing.

You are grossly mischaracterizing the "social contract" of the typical D&D game play group. I've heard of "professional DMs" who will come run a game for your group, and "provide a service," as you suggest, but that's certainly not standard. Furthermore, you go on to describe the situation as if the players are the ones providing the service to you, saying "[a] player who wants me to change my ideas and thoughts to cater to them would ruin my fun, but it sounds like you don't care about the DM's fun..." as if their role is just to validate yours, and to make sure you have a good time. Unless you have a very unusual game group, you are not a DM for hire and your players are not playtesters for your unpublished opus. You are all there to have a good time, together, as a group, collaboratively. None of you should be swatting the others with rolled-up newspapers (unless that's what you're into,) dictating the terms and conditions of the evening's social interaction to which the others must subscribe.

Yes, the role of the DM is to be the tyrant of the table. As DM, it is my job--and mine alone--to determine the actions and attitudes of all the NPCs, to adjudicate the actions of the PCs and determine success or failure, to impose certainty by my rulings on all things crunchy and fluffy. It is the role of the players to engage with the world and enrich it through their actions, creating and destroying within the structure of the game. We each have a role within the game, and the game is ours. The world is mine, the game is ours. The story that unfolds in the campaign is determined by player action within the context I provide. It is collaborative. Do I change things up to give them things I think they'll enjoy? You bet your ass I do. I've had players mistake something, and get super excited about what they thought they had discovered, so I rewrote significant background details to make that into reality. I've been flexible, and come up with interesting and consistent ways to fit things into a setting that was not designed to accommodate those things, because players have wanted them. Why? It's the same reason they abide by my rulings, and overlook my occasional mistake or inconsistency. Because these are my friends, and we all want the lot of us to have a good time. That's the social contract.