I don't know what just happend, but it seems that Ayn Rand corrupted my player!

[Dannyalcatraz]

Shrödinger's Catholic.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Shrödinger's Catholic.

That may be uncertain....

The Auld Grump, and good day to you, Bruce!

 

[Chris Knapp]

Wow.

-rant-

Sorry some of my peepee wound up in your cheerios. I'm also sorry if my hacked metaphor offended, but you know what I was trying to say, you just chose to attack the wrapper.

But let me explain: By Capitalism, I meant private ownership. You, as DM, believe you OWN the game, simply because you created the world. You believe in a gaming population where players will opt in & out of your table because you provide the experience (product) they want. You act like a boss who treats his players like employees, whose sole task is to help you realize your campaign's arc. Someone better be paying me some money to sit in on that kind of game.

In my gaming group, we are all friends first and foremost. We all want each other to have fun: DM and player all. If one of my friends didn't want to play a certain game, we probably wouldn't. We're concerned more that the group has fun than whether we get to play X. Bob is the DM because he's great at it and likes to do all the prep stuff and has the time. I'd DM if I had the time. But for one of us to say, my world, my rules? First response would be, "Fv<K that!" The DM's world is an empty shell without the players. And what the players can bring to it without preconceived hard-coded limitations and petty rules can be something better than imagined.

So, just realize that there are others who create worlds out there with the intention of sharing them and allowing them to grow with group input. I used to believe the same as you did, especially since I'm a Dragonlance fan and had a fit the first time I ran the original AP: "What do you mean you don't want to play any of the pre-gens? You want to kill Goldmoon and take her staff!? You want to join the dragonarmies?"

Maybe having a kid changed something. Try spending 45 minutes building that lego truck, page by page, only to watch him smash it, on purpose, within 5 minutes. Frustrating? At first, yes. Seeing him smile & laugh? Worth it.

 

[korjik]

Sorry some of my peepee wound up in your cheerios. I'm also sorry if my hacked metaphor offended, but you know what I was trying to say, you just chose to attack the wrapper.

But let me explain: By Capitalism, I meant private ownership. You, as DM, believe you OWN the game, simply because you created the world. You believe in a gaming population where players will opt in & out of your table because you provide the experience (product) they want. You act like a boss who treats his players like employees, whose sole task is to help you realize your campaign's arc. Someone better be paying me some money to sit in on that kind of game.

In my gaming group, we are all friends first and foremost. We all want each other to have fun: DM and player all. If one of my friends didn't want to play a certain game, we probably wouldn't. We're concerned more that the group has fun than whether we get to play X. Bob is the DM because he's great at it and likes to do all the prep stuff and has the time. I'd DM if I had the time. But for one of us to say, my world, my rules? First response would be, "Fv<K that!" The DM's world is an empty shell without the players. And what the players can bring to it without preconceived hard-coded limitations and petty rules can be something better than imagined.

So, just realize that there are others who create worlds out there with the intention of sharing them and allowing them to grow with group input. I used to believe the same as you did, especially since I'm a Dragonlance fan and had a fit the first time I ran the original AP: "What do you mean you don't want to play any of the pre-gens? You want to kill Goldmoon and take her staff!? You want to join the dragonarmies?"

Maybe having a kid changed something. Try spending 45 minutes building that lego truck, page by page, only to watch him smash it, on purpose, within 5 minutes. Frustrating? At first, yes. Seeing him smile & laugh? Worth it.

You are slightly off, the players are the customers, not the employees.

I make a game, I run a game, it is my game. The players are the customers, so I need to make a product that they will buy, so I need to take into account customer reviews and if my game is not worth the cost to play, people will stop playing.

 

[S'mon]

So, just realize that there are others who create worlds out there with the intention of sharing them and allowing them to grow with group input. I used to believe the same as you did, especially since I'm a Dragonlance fan and had a fit the first time I ran the original AP: "What do you mean you don't want to play any of the pre-gens? You want to kill Goldmoon and take her staff!? You want to join the dragonarmies?"

I'm more in the style of I create the world, with some player input as requested, the PCs are free to do whatever they want in it (provided they stick together) - no planned campaign arc. Yet I'd consider myself a fairly authoritarian GM: I'm in charge of my game, the players are in charge of their characters. I guess that makes us all little Randians or Nietzscheans in our own spheres. And I'm fairly take-it-or-leave it - I run what I want to run, if players don't like my game they can go do something else. But still the game and campaign is not 'my story'; the PCs are the primary drivers and the 'story' is a result of their decisions interacting with my start-conditions, not a rail-track.

The GM is a bit like an architect, building a structure, he lays the foundations largely alone, but the players are not just consumers who come to inhabit that structure; their decisions determine its final shape.

Edit: Adventure Paths raise problems for this model. It may be the pre-written structure of the AP that raises demands for player empowerment by limiting death-risk, since they have reduced empowerment in terms of story-affecting decisions.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

You are slightly off, the players are the customers, not the employees.

I make a game, I run a game, it is my game. The players are the customers, so I need to make a product that they will buy, so I need to take into account customer reviews and if my game is not worth the cost to play, people will stop playing.

Likewise, if the cost of doing business is too high because of customer demands then I would leave the business or relocate to attract other customers. I have to see a profit (fun) too.

The Auld Grump

 

[Jhaelen]

I have no idea what any of this has to with Ayn Rand.

To the DM: What exactly have they been asking for? What did they mean with a 'Load' mechanism? Is that 'Load' as in 'Restore a save game'?

If so, they're probably better off playing WoW instead of stealing your time, i.e. Good Riddance!

 

[Desdichado]

Sorry some of my peepee wound up in your cheerios. I'm also sorry if my hacked metaphor offended, but you know what I was trying to say, you just chose to attack the wrapper.

Conflating Ayn Rand and the concept of capitalism in general is a bit of a badly mixed metaphor, Mr. Occupy D&D. As is claiming to be a socialist because D&D is a social game. Lolwut? Maybe we should just dispense with all the attempts to mix DD with any type of social or political philosophy altogether?

But let me explain: By Capitalism, I meant private ownership. You, as DM, believe you OWN the game, simply because you created the world. You believe in a gaming population where players will opt in & out of your table because you provide the experience (product) they want. You act like a boss who treats his players like employees, whose sole task is to help you realize your campaign's arc. Someone better be paying me some money to sit in on that kind of game.

No, that doesn't make the players the employees, it makes them the customers. And especially since we're talking about an online game (if I read the OP correctly) that's a perfectly valid model for a DM to attempt to use; you attract the customers (players) who are interested in the game experience you provide (the product) and those who are not find another supplier from which to exert their demand.

Again, this isn't Ayn Rand, this is just basic supply and demand as a metaphor for GM's attempting to attract players. Ayn Rand didn't formulate the theory of supply and demand, nor was her philosophy the only interpretation of Adam Smith out there by any means.

In my gaming group, we are all friends first and foremost. We all want each other to have fun: DM and player all. If one of my friends didn't want to play a certain game, we probably wouldn't. We're concerned more that the group has fun than whether we get to play X. Bob is the DM because he's great at it and likes to do all the prep stuff and has the time. I'd DM if I had the time. But for one of us to say, my world, my rules? First response would be, "Fv<K that!" The DM's world is an empty shell without the players. And what the players can bring to it without preconceived hard-coded limitations and petty rules can be something better than imagined.

Again; I think you missed where this is an online game (unless, of course, I completely misread the OP.) The dynamics of the group of close friends negotiating a game that is satisfying to all because they're more interested in gaming together than in searching for their ideal game does not really apply here.

So, just realize that there are others who create worlds out there with the intention of sharing them and allowing them to grow with group input. I used to believe the same as you did, especially since I'm a Dragonlance fan and had a fit the first time I ran the original AP: "What do you mean you don't want to play any of the pre-gens? You want to kill Goldmoon and take her staff!? You want to join the dragonarmies?"

Yes. As it turns out, people have different tastes and preferences for how their games will turn out. Who knew?

Maybe having a kid changed something. Try spending 45 minutes building that lego truck, page by page, only to watch him smash it, on purpose, within 5 minutes. Frustrating? At first, yes. Seeing him smile & laugh? Worth it.

I'm sorry; I'm not getting how this is relevant. Are the GM's now the daddy's of the player's cast as small children who need loving guildance? What metaphor are you trying to make now?

 

[wingsandsword]

Whoo. This thread is a big ol' stack of barrels full of napalm and dynamite, with a lot of dangling live wires overhead spitting sparks.

(That is to say: "Atlas Shrugged," and Ayn Rand's work in general, is a hugely contentious topic, and intensely political, and has been cited as inspiration by some fairly big names in American politics. Not your fault, but pretty much any discussion involving Rand is a flame war waiting to happen.)

Agreed.

Discussion involving the writings of Ayn Rand are almost (but not quite) inherently political given how some prominent politicians and political movements use them as justification for policies and decisions.

Hoping this thread doesn't get locked, and honestly most of what I'd say on this subject of "Objectivist Roleplaying" or whatever they are wanting would probably be well too far into politics for ENWorld.

 

[nedjer]

Given that she wrote a book entitled The Virtue of Selfishness, you probably don't need to qualify that statement with "in my estimation."

I'm sorry you don't care for her. In my estimation, she was one of the most profound thinkers of her time. (And she has nothing to do with the churlishness of the OP's player.)

Profound, how? The writings and the history show her as a self-obsessed pseudo-philosopher who wrote her disjointed ramblings while spaced-out on massive doses of amphetamines.