Again, depends what it is. The metals issue is so trivial as to be inconsequential. If the GM is changing the game so much that it's not the game the group wants to play, then he can't force them to play his game. That said, if the players want to define the actual setting, why have a GM?
I guess the adamantine example just sounds silly to me (I don't know if that's the actual situation your'e facing or just an example you plucked out of the air). It doesn't seem worthy of comment from players, unless they're trying to be difficult. If it was something like "All players have to play elves" that's noteworthy, and requires discussion before the game to make sure everyone has turned up to play the game they want to play. We're all there just to have fun with our friends, after all, right?
The GM doesn't "own" the game - it's a social activity between a group of people who have agreed to do this thing together. Doesn't make him their king or anything. But objecting to minor trivial changes seems overly antagonistic; that change doesn't fundamentally change the game you're playing.
I don't feel like cutting out parts and re-pasting quotes, so why is the metals example bad?
Yeah the players could make up their own setting, but lets look at the metals form another perspective as opposed to just being metals...they are an example as a cliched theme that has been in just about EVERY game the GM has played so is tired of that and wants something new rather than the same tired cliches.
Now, and I may have been told wrong about it, but lets take the metals specifically, old Dark Sun v New Dark Sun. I think new Dark Sun allows metals in the game, wherein the older version and a valid reason not to allow them. So a GM not wanting metals to give the feel of the old Dark Sun isn't just being an ass like your previous post said, was he? He is trying to present the setting in a manner that makes sense, rather than just have the setting be in the background?
Maybe it has gone past people harping on the metals as a precise thing taken out of context as a bad example of a tired cliche, If so, then sorry for bringing it back into the discussion. Either way, it could be that a material of those properties just doesnt exist int he world the GM has create and "balanced" things to work in.
Are you saying the GM is being antagonistic for not allowing something cause they dont like it, or the player for wanting something that the GM has said they won't allow because the GM doesn't like it?
A GM can disallow anything they wish but they run the risk of losing players if they do it often without what the players believe to be good reason(s).
Sometimes it isnt the need for players to know the reasons such as they may belong to personal life details. Example I have would be a GM not wanting to allow alcohol, and this idea comes from another thread. I will let you think about what things could be a reason for a GM to not want to allow such, and sometimes you just don't need to know the answer.
Always trying to find the reaosn for things you can jsut accept rather than trying to need a reason is often funny. Does one ask for a reason when someone needs to go to the bathroom? I would hope you just assume they need to use something found only there, you know the toilet. Make the assumption that it just isn't allowed sometimes when "I don't like it" is given.
I know my example isnt the best, but hopefully you get the idea, without going into specifics.
Which goes back tot he GM comfort levels of running the game. You chose them as the GM or accepted them as such, so trust them to provide a good game, even if you don't get [specific thing you really want] in the game.
I don't hold much opinion about whether you have the "right" to say no without giving a further reason. But it's probably not a very good idea if you consider the players to be friends and peers.
If my friends and I are going out to dinner and one says, "I want to go to the Mongolian Steakhouse" then I can say, "No." But if I don't give any further reason then they must draw their own conclusions about why I'm saying No and they might conclude that I'm just being a contrary dick. If I instead say, "No, I'm vegetarian." then I've given a reason behind my objection. They may think that's a good reason or a bad reason but I've at least backed up my negation of the idea with something.
If you are pushing for the right to say No without any further justification then I think you're establishing yourself as an authority over the players to the same level as a parent or a boss. You're saying, "Because I said so." is your reason. I just don't see much profit in that.
Funny I know this story, but it was not a steak house, but a little all you can eat dump, and while everyone else gorged themselves on meat, I sitting beside the person who didn't eat it jsut had snow peas and noodles and such out of respect...then later went out and had to find some meat.
I would find food preferences a very valid place for the answer of "I don't like it" to be justified. You don't need to know anymore, unless you are just some nosy person, just accept it and move on. They don't like the Mongolian Steakhouse, either pick somewhere else to eat that they don't mind eating at, or don't throw a tantrum when that person doesn't join you.
No it isn't the same thing. not liking something already offers MUCH more to understanding the "why" than "because I said so". There is personal preference involved and that is part of the reason "why". Like players have preferences at tiems to certain types of characters, GM have preferences to the types of games they run. If you aren't playing an amalgam of all types of games, then odds are you already all have a preference for the one you are playing, so you have narrowed down the field to one element you all like, then within that each player narrows the field down more so that EVERYONE likes the game, hopefully; rather than adding the things that drove those initial personal preferences to chose the current game over the vast number of other games in the world.
Not liking it often tells you all you
need to know. Otherwise you are just trying to psychoanalyze the other person and their likes and dislikes?
The game provides a baseline of content and if its removed from a game players understandably want a good reason why.
Its totally valid.
If a DM doesn't want Tieflings in their game and I asked "Why not?" and was given the answer "Because I don't like them" I'd for sure be very off put about playing in that persons game.
Not because I love Tieflings or because I want to play one, but because I don't like the idea of arbitrarily removing things from the game on a whim of personal preference.
I think Goliaths are silly and I'd never play one, but that doesn't mean I would or should ban them from my current campaign because I have a player that likes them a lot.
Why? The game functioned without Tieflings or dragonborn for many years just fine. So it goes back to what Mort said. Or more than he said, which player is willing to push the issue.
Do you need a game with tieflings in it? Do your need for them to exist since they are in this version outweigh the needs of everyone else to have a good game?
It the GM must be subjected to why they don't like something, then likewise a plyer must be subjected to why they are intent on having it in the game.
Of course communication and discussing won't always work, because it may be dealing with a detail about the game that a player should not yet know.
I would be asking these players who think "don't like it" is an invalid response, "Can the game function without
it, or is it just that
you cannot function without it?"
I'll accept the answer as the GM's prerogative, but I won't necessarily like it. My instinctive reaction is to question the preference. It's like someone saying they don't like broccoli. Do they like it because it has never been prepared in a way that pleases them? If so, why not try it another way? Or do they like it without even trying it? In which case, I really don't have a high opinion of their preference.
An here is where human nature has developed to the point of instinctively trying to get everyone to agree, such that these thoughts progress in a manner to want to change another person's opinion as if they have the right to open discussion themselves.
Why isn't this type of thing applied to all things? Why not just say, who cares, they have the right to not liking broccoli, or thing X. It is not for me to decide for others, so more broccoli for me, now where it the butter and ketchup to go with it!
I love it when someone at a restaurant asks my "why" when told to hold the tomatoes, like their job requires somehow to know me more personally. I respond politely with, "If you want me to pay for it, then you give me what I order or bring you manager out so I can complain about you refusing to take my order and give me what I ordered."
