D&D General The DM is Not a Player; and Hot Topic is Not Punk Rock

[Micah Sweet]

I think if we are going to have any measure of social equity at the table they should be. I expect everyone at the table to meaningfully contribute and value everyone else's contributions. My experience is that players (on either side of the screen) who do not engage with the people they are playing with are absolutely a drag on the experience for me on either side of the screen.

With new players I will make every effort to make them feel comfortable and engage with them (on either side of the screen). I expect the same from everyone else at the table too. I do not expect new players to engage with the same skill and knowledge as the other players at the table, but I do expect them to enthusiastically play.

I'd like them to enthusiastically play too, and when I DM I do my best to make that happen. But my game does not become uninteresting if a player chooses not to do that, except to that player. As I said above, people game for different reasons, and some of them have little to do with gaming. Occasionally, you have to nod to reality about stuff like that, and make the best game together that you can in despite.

 

[TheSword]

I saw this, and will address it first because it's a tangent and thus will probably get buried by my second response to another post from yesterday which is actually on-topic.

So we can imagine various idealized worlds in which people are paid based upon the "actual value of their labor." Call it "util" or something. A world in which a teacher that adds a great deal to society is paid more than, say, a person who makes arbitrage profits. But as you note, we do not live in that idealized society, nor is there some way to measure the "actual value of labor" ... except money. Money is how we are able to allocate scarce resources (in this example, your time, your skills, etc.). This is overly-simplified, but you get the gist.

The quickest way to make laborers feel their work is pointless is ... to not value their labor. To not pay them for their labor. By definition, you pay someone because you want them to do something that they would otherwise not be doing if it's an issue of employment. I think that we should all want the terms and conditions of work to be better; more vacation time, a safer working environment, more breaks during the work day, more allowance for sick time, more ancillary benefits, and so on. But whenever I see someone talk about how "fun" work should be, I see someone who is usually plugged into a certain mindset and is neglecting the vast majority of workers; a video game company can claim that they are "fun" with free sodas and nerf battles (never mind the crunch) and google can claim that they are "fun" (never mind that people work there because of the pay and prestige), but most Americans do not work at those type of companies. They want good pay, good benefits, and a safe working environment. Not "fun" or "fulfillment" from their work.

The reason that this (tangentially) ties into the DM thread is because the original claim is, IIRC, that the people being paid to DM are probably just doing it because it's fun, and why not? And you know what? Sure, there are some people that are doing it for just that reason. But I know that there are other people that are not doing for that reason. Moreover, because D&D is so much more diverse now in so many ways, including economically, it is not correct to say that the people who DM for pay are likely just doing it for "fun." I just gave two examples- one that I read about, and one that I know personally, of people that were depending on the money that they were earning from DMing. I don't know the socioeconomic situation of the women who used DMing for pay to support herself when she was transitioning, but I know the person that I know who DMs for pay at night on-line never went to college, and has only had service industry jobs.

The point being, the way the world works I always try to have the utmost respect for people's labor. In fact, given the increasing rise of the so-called "gig" economy, I am often impressed at the ways some people can hustle to make ends meet. If DMing pays your bills, more power to you.

Yeah, you’re totally straw manning here. Nobody is saying they just do it for fun. That is the crux of your misunderstanding.

We’re saying they are good at it, and enjoy it, and get paid for it as well. Having fun at work and getting paid for work are not mutually exclusive.

However you may Choose to take a fun lower paid job, than do a better paid unfun job. It happens all the time.

You also have some serious misunderstandings about having fun at work. You don’t have to be working at Google HQ .

The serving staff or receptionists that have great rapport and banter with customers, the sales office that has great team spirit and gets on really well with each other, the coaches or instructors that love helping people get fitter. I think you have a very cynical view about what work is and what you think it has to mean. I wouldn’t do a job that I didn’t enjoy... period.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Yeah, you’re totally straw manning here. Nobody is saying they just do it for fun. That is the crux of your misunderstanding.

We’re saying they are good at it, and enjoy it, and get paid for it as well. Having fun at work and getting paid for work are not mutually exclusive.

However you may Choose to take a fun lower paid job, than do a better paid unfun job. It happens all the time.

You also have some serious misunderstandings about having fun at work. You don’t have to be working at Google HQ .

The serving staff or receptionists that have great rapport and banter with customers, the sales office that has great team spirit and gets on really well with each other, the coaches or instructors that love helping people get fitter. I think you have a very cynical view about what work is and what you think it has to mean. I wouldn’t do a job that I didn’t enjoy... period.

I am not "straw manning," I am stating my opinion. I do not care to argue with you, or, worse, argue about arguing.

If you would not do a job you wouldn't enjoy, I am very happy for you. There are many, many, many people that do not have that luxury.

I don't think that this conversation merits further exploration, given that it is not on-topic, and is dangerously close to either being political or personal.

 

[Campbell]

I'd like them to enthusiastically play too, and when I DM I do my best to make that happen. But my game does not become uninteresting if a player chooses not to do that, except to that player. As I said above, people game for different reasons, and some of them have little to do with gaming. Occasionally, you have to nod to reality about stuff like that, and make the best game together that you can in despite.

Of course such behavior has an impact on play. We are playing a game together. Part of play (for me and those I care to play with) means taking an active interest in each other's contributions. Being fan of all the player characters and not playing just to satisfy your own kinks. Someone at the table who is not into the game or just there to be entertained ruins the whole thing for me. It means the table cannot engage with each other in the way I want to engage. It's like when you are playing a card game and someone is not even trying to win. It disrupts the flow.

 

[prabe]

Of course such behavior has an impact on play. We are playing a game together. Part of play (for me and those I care to play with) means taking an active interest in each other's contributions. Being fan of all the player characters and not playing just to satisfy your own kinks. Someone at the table who is not into the game or just there to be entertained ruins the whole thing for me. It means the table cannot engage with each other in the way I want to engage. It's like when you are playing a card game and someone is not even trying to win. It disrupts the flow.

This seems to point to at least part of why GM Burnout is so pernicious, given how much gameplay flows through the GM (in D&D and closely-related games).

 

[Micah Sweet]

Of course such behavior has an impact on play. We are playing a game together. Part of play (for me and those I care to play with) means taking an active interest in each other's contributions. Being fan of all the player characters and not playing just to satisfy your own kinks. Someone at the table who is not into the game or just there to be entertained ruins the whole thing for me. It means the table cannot engage with each other in the way I want to engage. It's like when you are playing a card game and someone is not even trying to win. It disrupts the flow.

I'm not saying it doesn't have an effect. I'm saying how much it "ruins the whole thing" depends on the group, and having a casual, unengaged player, while regrettable, is not a deal-breaker guaranteed to destroy everyone else's fun.

 

[Haffrung]

I think if we are going to have any measure of social equity at the table they should be. I expect everyone at the table to meaningfully contribute and value everyone else's contributions. My experience is that players (on either side of the screen) who do not engage with the people they are playing with are absolutely a drag on the experience for me on either side of the screen.

My experience over 40 years of playing RPGs, and playing with somewhere in the neighbourhood of 50-60 people in that time, is that around a third of the people who play are just there for the beer and pretzels socializing. Many don't own and haven't read the rules. Some are passive, and don't initiate a whole lot beyond doing the standard things their character does, and maybe cracking a few jokes. They barely have the bandwidth to know and run their PC, let alone world-build or engage in a deliberate collaboration to craft a narrative. This doesn't make them bad people to have at the table. They're my friends, and they're enjoying themselves and having fun. A whole table of people who need to be guided and prompted all the time would be a drag. But usually there are a couple players who are dynamic and help steer the ship.

I don't really understand the desire to impart playing a tabletop game with high ideals like 'social equity.' We're friends sitting around a table having a laugh. Achieving some ideal of equity and participation playing D&D seems as pointless as it would be achieving equity going mountain-biking, having a BBQ, or playing poker. Any group of people varies - often dramatically - in how engaged and invested they are in any given activity. I don't see why we should expect RPGs to be any different.

 

[loverdrive]

These viewpoints tend to have a constellation of associated beliefs and points that they argue; for example, the DME are more likely to argue for curation and cite OD&D, and the PLA are more likely to argue for collaboration and cite Blades in the Dark. I kid, kind of, and overly simplify, but you get the gist.

The thing is, the actual play experience is likely quite similar at these tables; in my opinion, good tables in D&D that have communication tend to function well regardless of the theoretical underpinnings. So a DME table with experienced players and good communication most likely is not that different, in the main, than a PLA table with experienced players and good communication. And yet, given the nature of internet discussions, it always devolves into an angry exchange of, "I wouldn't let that player at my table," "Yeah, well, I wouldn't play at your table!"

This thread is similar, except the DME viewpoint adherents are mostly agreeing with the OP (who is attractive, articulate, and likely drinks expensive scotch) that the DM is not a player is self-evident, while the PLA viewpoint adherents are mostly saying that the DM is a player is self-evident.

And the thing is ... it's not self-evident. Because it's very-much context dependent. If you poke hard enough, both sides will acknowledge that there might be an issue with how self-evident the claim is, simply because language is context-dependent. As I've analogized before, whether you call someone a "Doctor" is not some immutable fact, but depends on the circumstances; whether you think the DM is a player isn't really about some dictionary definition, or even a deep contextual search for what it means to "role shift" when you describe the roles of the participants of a D&D game, but tends to be about a deeper meaning.

Okay, I'm gonna jump into analogy land.

I run a small, but professional (and I guess I can say successful) software company. Yeah, I do have power -- there's no one in the company with more power than me, but I take effort to make that fact not big of a deal, so... Hm, maybe it's better to approach from opposite direction.

I expect people I work with to do more than just solving clearly-cut problems at hand, I want them to share ideas, point out bad decisions and problems that aren't instantly noticeable. I want people to step up and raise concerns, not only about technical viability of a new feature, but "do we really need this naughty word?".

So, the hiring process, salaries and my decision-making process are clear to everyone in the company -- specifically to blur the lines between the boss and everyone else. I don't want people to be scared of speaking or taking action.


Of course, there are other types of companies, God knows, I've worked at some of them, and, of course, there's nothing in the law that requires businesses to be, uhm, "horizontal", but I believe that this approach produces better results with less effort.

Soooo....

When I GM, I want my players to speak up, take action and introduce cool things in the game world. I don't want them to hesitate to talk about the distant land their character is from or about the ways the Ironclad Rebellion fought the Queen-Goddess of the Blackstone City. So if the player pulls, say, catacombs beneath the city that the Rebellion used to hide, out of their ass I want them to expect that I'll run with it and not that I'll try to cockblock them or something.

Or when they feel like monster's AC is too high (or too low) or some NPC's actions don't make sense. If they feel it and stay silent, then I wouldn't know about that -- I wouldn't know that I screwed up in describing or establishing something.

 

[Maxperson]

Okay, I'm gonna jump into analogy land.

I run a small, but professional (and I guess I can say successful) software company. Yeah, I do have power -- there's no one in the company with more power than me, but I take effort to make that fact not big of a deal, so... Hm, maybe it's better to approach from opposite direction.

I expect people I work with to do more than just solving clearly-cut problems at hand, I want them to share ideas, point out bad decisions and problems that aren't instantly noticeable. I want people to step up and raise concerns, not only about technical viability of a new feature, but "do we really need this naughty word?".

So, the hiring process, salaries and my decision-making process are clear to everyone in the company -- specifically to blur the lines between the boss and everyone else. I don't want people to be scared of speaking or taking action.


Of course, there are other types of companies, God knows, I've worked at some of them, and, of course, there's nothing in the law that requires businesses to be, uhm, "horizontal", but I believe that this approach produces better results with less effort.

Soooo....

When I GM, I want my players to speak up, take action and introduce cool things in the game world. I don't want them to hesitate to talk about the distant land their character is from or about the ways the Ironclad Rebellion fought the Queen-Goddess of the Blackstone City. So if the player pulls, say, catacombs beneath the city that the Rebellion used to hide, out of their ass I want them to expect that I'll run with it and not that I'll try to cockblock them or something.

Or when they feel like monster's AC is too high (or too low) or some NPC's actions don't make sense. If they feel it and stay silent, then I wouldn't know about that -- I wouldn't know that I screwed up in describing or establishing something.

That's a cool way to play and I have no issues with it at all. Where I usually disagree with you is that you seem to feel that your way is the one true way and we should all be doing it like you do. There are lots of ways to DM(and run a successful business).

 

[FrozenNorth]

Soooo....

When I GM, I want my players to speak up, take action and introduce cool things in the game world. I don't want them to hesitate to talk about the distant land their character is from or about the ways the Ironclad Rebellion fought the Queen-Goddess of the Blackstone City. So if the player pulls, say, catacombs beneath the city that the Rebellion used to hide, out of their ass I want them to expect that I'll run with it and not that I'll try to cockblock them or something.

Or, to summarize, when your players tell you what they want, listen to them.