D&D General DM Authority

[Warpiglet-7]

Oops. Never mind!

Yeah, tone doesn't always carry and unfortunately there are some people would say something like that seriously.

Haha I thought it was bonkers enough to be a joke...sadly, precedent did not mean it had to be a joke!

 

[Maxperson]

In which case a group that is not socially suppressed and expects to be involved could have told him to knock it off too, no?

This is the problem; I've yet to see an explanation why whatever an individual group is doing in regard to disagreements by one player could not be handled by group decision making (or as I put it, the group going "That doesn't make any sense Fred; move on". You can argue a given group wouldn't (as I've acknowledged before) but to say its generally a bad idea requires at least making the argument most groups won't do that, and doing so in a way that acknowledges to the degree its true, its often true specifically because most players have been, effectively, trained to expect their input in such situations would not be appreciated.

Otherwise it simply comes across as begging the question.

In my experience, when a group confronts an individual you end up in a situation where the individual is MUCH more likely to be defensive and react poorly. The group can decide, but it should still be a one-on-one talk with the DM. At least it should if successful rehabilitation is your ultimate goal.

 

[Oofta]

In my experience, when a group confronts an individual you end up in a situation where the individual is MUCH more likely to be defensive and react poorly. The group can decide, but it should still be a one-on-one talk with the DM. At least it should if successful rehabilitation is your ultimate goal.

It also puts the other players into a potentially very uncomfortable situation. A lot of people aren't okay with confrontation and telling other people "no". I've had to get used to it as a DM, it took me a while to realize the best thing I could do for the group as a whole was to say no to one individual. As the great philosopher Spock once said "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one."

 

[Blandco]

In games I've run or played in, the DM makes the final call on rules. They come up with the campaign world and broad campaign, decide restrictions and house rules.

This actually came up in a recent video I was making.

A few years ago there was a lot of advice out there that you should not be precious with your D&D and that allowing players to make meaningful choices, even when those choices destroyed what is in your DM folder, was important.

Now, having gone online trying to find games accepting new players, I have found so many games advertising themselves as "5E" that had so many changes in the basic rules that I don't understand how the DM could still honestly consider that game a "5E" game. And I am not some sort of absolute purist.

You can run whatever sort of game you like of course and as a DM you have a responsibility to run that game.

However, with this new attitude of saying "No" to players, from character creation to ever aspect of the game where the 5E book allows the players to make their own choices ... It just seems like any sort of collaborative gameplay is just stripped away so players are just passive audiences to the DM's story and nothing they do has any real impact.

Which is fine if every DM was a professional writer. But they are not, and I feel bad that everyone is missing out on how ANYONE can run a fun game of D&D if they just don't stray to far away from the collaborative nature of the game. You don't NEED to be a good writer to run a fun custom game of D&D if you allow your players to actually play. But you can't be precious about what is in your DM's folder.

Anyways I edited a whole video that touches on this.

 

[Warpiglet-7]

It’s interesting. If I had to bet, I would bet that the actual table experiences across groups represented by posters here are not as diametrically opposed as one would think.

Its almost like a projective test—-how people feel about choice, authority and so forth. In practice, people may be seeing the same things and focusing on what resonates with them more than they know.

there have been jackass player behaviors and jackass dm behaviors but what we fear and worry about is probably more about our personality that actual effect on in game experience.

just a guess.

I also know nightmare scenarios happen too but I have been blessed to miss most of the worst...except at Gen Con many years ago...

 

[Thomas Shey]

If the DM position was seen closer to that of a tie-breaker, what would happen? I don't think it would change much in the obvious sense, because I feel like the majority of the time, the same things happen anyways. The rest of the players either don't have an opinion or don't know, so they default to trusting the DMs opinion. But maybe more people would be willing to speak up, or help the DM, with implementing parts of the rules, if it felt more like they were allowed to.

Well, even in a group-agreement model, you're going to need a tiebreaker under some circumstances so the GM might as well be the one.

Not to call you out specifically, Dragonsbane, but your post kind of shows my original point.

The very first thing you said is that the group follows you. You are establishing that the majority of the table votes with you on most points. And, if a player protests, you essentially tell him that the role of DM is special, and that if they want the ability to do what they want, then they can run their own game.

Which, de facto, especially for an online game, would mean leaving the game and leaving all the people they are playing with, and abandoning all the time they've put into this game. It is, in a way, a threat.

I think it absolutely is, honestly. At its best, its saying "My way or the highway" in a more civil way.

See, this is only possible if you have multiple groups to play with. Because you are really just looking for people who agree with you. You wouldn't run that game with those players though.

And, if you are in a situation where you can't just casually scare up five new people to play with, I think many people would try to find a different game to run.

Yeah, there's frequently an overly-casual attitude toward acquiring new players and GMs in these discussions that may well be the case in a lot of places, but is absolutely not in at least a fair number more. "Better no gaming than bad gaming" and all that, but what translates into "bad enough I'd rather just not play" is going to vary considerably while still landing in the land of "this is fairly annoying."

We as DMs often are not confronted by the entire table disagreeing with us. So it is hard to think up "valid" examples. One of those examples is the campaign pitch. I know there are many DMs on this forum who are long-term DMs for long-term groups, running multiple campaigns back to back.

And generally, those DMs bring multiple pitches, because if they only brought one, and it is shot down, they aren't going to say "I'm the DM and this is what we are doing anyways."

And many many times, when someone gives an example of a single player vs the DM, the rest of the table is assumed to side with the DM. Granting them that extra authority of the group, but I think this is mistaken for being the DMs sole authority.

Which is why I keep bringing up this point, what happens when the vast majority of the group disagrees with the DM? If the DM truly has an ultimate authority and final say, then they would get their way. But, I feel like what often happens is they back down, because the group has more authority than the DM alone.

Of course the problem is, as I referenced, that a lot of groups will have one or more players who are non-confrontational; that's a two-edged sword in this situation because, on one hand, they aren't going to tell the standalone player that he's being unreasonable, but they're also far, far less likely to tell the GM they think that he's wrong, not the least because of the assumed power dynamic there in the hobby as a whole.

So, to give a quick pivot to the question, would anyone here have a problem if a current or former DM wanted to play in their campaign? They have full access and knowledge of the Monster Manual and the DMG, they are probably going to instantly recognize clues that you leave about the various monsters, even some of the obscure things.

I'm probably a bad example, because I play with groups where half or more of each group are GMs too, so I never assume "secret" information in any books.

Yeah, there is a lot of this idea floating around that the player who argues with the DM is "causing a problem"

Well, when you have on one hand the idea that the GM defaults to being right, and the other than anything that interrupts the flow of the game is "bad", that's pretty much the expected final result.

People are gathering to have fun, not cause problems, so they don't argue with the DM. But this makes the players more passive, and the consquences of that can cause ripple effects.

And why I'm often suspicious of claims from GMs online that "My players have no problem with it." No, at best your players have no problem they've chosen to share with you, and there can be all kinds of reasons for that, and having no problem is only one of them.

 

[Blandco]

there have been jackass player behaviors and jackass dm behaviors but what we fear and worry about is probably more about our personality that actual effect on in game experience.

It's worrying to be how many player behaviors are described as disruptive when I have run so many games I recognize that the vast majority of new players go through a period of feeling out their own actions in the game.

Most players act like idiots when they first start playing. That seems really normal to me.

Yet people (not people here) are putting this on the same level as players being genuinely disruptive towards the game and worse being negative towards other players.

I dunno maybe I am the only one who sees a clear difference.

 

[Warpiglet-7]

Um, no?

I mean, maybe for some people, at some tables, at some times?

But others prefer that stories are emergent; the fun is that the stories aren't crafted!

Yes, well, OSHA is already understaffed as it is....

It's worrying to be how many player behaviors are described as disruptive when I have run so many games I recognize that the vast majority of new players go through a period of feeling out their own actions in the game.

Most players act like idiots when they first start playing. That seems really normal to me.

Yet people (not people here) are putting this on the same level as players being genuinely disruptive towards the game and worse being negative towards other players.

I dunno maybe I am the only one who sees a clear difference.

No there is a difference. My kids are learning to play and there are times where my little guy would be aggressive and not think about how others in the game world would react.

an adult who did what he does would be considered disruptive.

or a newb can surely misplay x or y or be overly confrontational or foolishly confident, etc etc

however strong arming the dm, being hostile or demanding and complaining is never good form, inexperienced or not.

 

[Charlaquin]

There are two things going on here though.

On one hand, you have people who aren't confident in their understanding essentially abstaining from the vote, which in this case is the same as agreeing with the DM. They don't know, so they trust that you do know.

But secondly, this can apply to narrative control as well. You say it has never happened (therefore again, the other players are abstaining and putting their weight behind you) but think about if it did. Think about for a moment if after you said they weren't native to the plane, the other players spoke up in favor of adding Genasi to this Material Plane.

Would you really override the entire table? Again, not saying it has ever happened or will ever happen, but thinking about if it did.

Absolutely. Even if all of my players said “we want Genasi to be from the material plane,” I would not make that change to my setting. I would offer an alternative; I’m willing to work with a player to figure out what their Genasi character is doing on the material plane, if they’re willing to accept that their character will be totally alien to the people they encounter. I would be willing to run an interplanar adventure within my setting, where PCs native to other planes would be more fitting. I would be willing to run an adventure in a setting other than my homebrew one, where genasi are more common. But I am not willing to change my setting on the players’ say-so. It’s my setting, I put a lot of work into it, and you aren’t going to get me to change it because you want to play a genasi, any more than you’re going to get Timothy Brown and Troy Denning to change Dark Sun because you want to play a gnome.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Wow. "Socially suppressed"? As in the DM and his players are in an abusive relationship? Really?

People can be socially suppressed just from context. Anyone shy is socially suppressed just as a matter of course, and anyone who is counter-confrontational could be averse to reigning another player in. That sentence had nothing to do with relation to the GM, just the nature of some members of the group.;

I don't know what groups you've played with, but when it comes to resolving issues at the table it's generally the DM's problem. Somebody may correct someone else now and then, but addressing a social issue? They look to the DM. Same way they look to the DM to be the referee, most people would not feel that it was their place to chastise another player. I've had groups (sans the 1 person we were talking about of course) tell me that we needed to do something about the problem player.

Now show that's anything but "that's how its always been done." The fact that's the default is a cultural thing, not a law of nature.

Could you put every decision to a vote? I guess. I don't, I've never seen it, I don't see it being practical at the game table, in my experience it would not work very well. Do what makes sense for your group of course. If it means I'm not the right DM for you, so be it. My players are quite happy with my style.

You wanted a discussion of GM Authority. If you didn't expect some of that to be critical of the default of it being top-down, what were you expecting? Affirmation?