D&D General DM Authority

[FrogReaver]

I agree.
My point is that you wouldn't have people trying to change your game if you told them what the game was about and watched them go elsewhere.

If the player was to be a demigod, I want them to know that isn't allowed before they attempt to through a mountain at a dragon.

Maybe next time lead with something closer to this

 

[generic]

Not to be a party pooper - but communication is a 2 way street. All the onus of being clear cannot necessarily solely be left at the DM's feet. That's the other part of the issue IMO. A DM should try to be clear about what your game is about but even the clearest DM doesn't always enlighten as sometimes different people have different ideas about the boundaries of genre/setting/etc and so outside exhaustively listing in specific terms everything that is allowed or isn't allowed you always run into the issue that communicating your idea fails.

Good thing I play with people who have the common sense to know that Goku doesn't fit in Fantasy, or a Warforged in Low Fantasy.

 

[zarionofarabel]

That the idea that Communication being Voluntary is bad and DMs wouldn't have so many authority problems if they were clear from the start.

Okay.

Well, what you said was this...

It feels like many are usingDM scarcity, the large player pool, and the amount of work in DMing as an excuse for DMs to ignore player wishes and allow for DMs to simply filter through players until they find ones with the same ideals or one that will simply accept the DM's.

I don't think it's healthy for D&D at all.

To me this means you have a problem with DMs finding players that want to play the kind of games the DM actually wants to run. An idea that really confuses me. I'm also not entirely sure why you would think it is bad for D&D. I think it's better to have DMs that have fun and enjoy running games. I know if I were somehow forced to run a game o didn't want to run, it would be a piss poor showing on my part, of my own accord.

Simply put, if the DM is the "seller" and the players are the "buyers" it is by far a "sellers" market. Personally I'm loving the fact that players are a dime a dozen cause I can find players very easily. I can also filter out players that don't like the kinds of games I want to run quite easily. I used to have trouble finding people that played RPGs, and at times had to suffer with a player that didn't jive with the group or my playstyle simply because players were scarce. Now I don't need to do that, I can simply filter the available players until I find one's that are a good fit. It's way better for both my enjoyment of the hobby and for my sanity and stress level.

 

[FrogReaver]

Good thing I play with people who have the common sense to know that Goku doesn't fit in Fantasy, or a Warforged in Low Fantasy.

I have a feeling that common sense isn't nearly as common as you think it is.

 

[generic]

I have a feeling that common sense isn't nearly as common as you think it is.

That's always the kicker, ain't it?

 

[generic]

Simply put, if the DM is the "seller" and the players are the "buyers" it is by far a "sellers" market. Personally I'm loving the fact that players are a dime a dozen cause I can find players very easily. I can also filter out players that don't like the kinds of games I want to run quite easily. I used to have trouble finding people that played RPGs, and at times had to suffer with a player that didn't jive with the group or my playstyle simply because players were scarce. Now I don't need to do that, I can simply filter the available players until I find one's that are a good fit. It's way better for both my enjoyment of the hobby and for my sanity and stress level.

No longer do I have to tolerate the Elf loli character played by the troglodyte with the neckbeard...

So, yes...

I quite like that I can find the right people to play the games I want to play.

 

[Minigiant]

To me this means you have a problem with DMs finding players that want to play the kind of games the DM actually wants to run. An idea that really confuses me. I'm also not entirely sure why you would think it is bad for D&D. I think it's better to have DMs that have fun and enjoy running games. I know if I were somehow forced to run a game o didn't want to run, it would be a piss poor showing on my part, of my own accord.

No. My problem is that DM Scarcity + DM Authority + Zero Responsibility allows bad DMs to stay Bad DMs and teaches some naive DM bad practices.

I don't want the new generation of D&D fans to be corrupted as technology progresses. I don''t want D&D to fall because it became flooded with power hungry jerks and confused novices because no one encourages clear communication.

 

[generic]

No. My problem is that DM Scarcity + DM Authority + Zero Responsibility allows bad DMs to stay Bad DMs and teaches some naive DM bad practices.

I don't want the new generation of D&D fans to be corrupted as technology progresses. I don''t want D&D to fall because it became flooded with power hungry jerks and confused novices because no one encourages clear communication.

Not my problem, I play D&D to have fun with mates. In what way does DM scarcity and DM authority somehow confer the
proverbial "great responsibility" to run games for the thirsty masses?

Am I missing something here?

How is this relevant?

 

[zarionofarabel]

I have a feeling that common sense isn't nearly as common as you think it is.

Common sense is so uncommon it should be a superpower!

 

[Blue]

First question: why is a player even trying to singlehandedly introduce something on the scale of a whole kingdom into an established setting? (I'd almost certainly hard-no this right away to head off subsequent issues noted below)

I'm for DM Authority, but different DMs invite different amounts of player input.

I personsonally go into Session 0 with hooks and ideas to get the players excited, and do a lot of world building after that. Last campaign I ran (4.5 years) didn't have a pantheon - no divine characters, just didn't come up. On the other hand, Session 0 for my most recent campaign started with the player wanting a druid to have a "real connection to the magic of the land as something" and proposed that the moon was the skull of a decapitated god and the world itself was it's body. Hmm, does this get int he way of anything? Nope. From there from player suggestions we had the dwarves had been genocided, the drow were a created race to take their place (for the victors) mining the Bones of the Earth (literally), and the Halflings were also a created servitor race.

None of that got in the way of what I had planned, and made the setting both unique and having lots of player buy-in. So sure.

A kingdom? Not a big deal.

Actually, I realize I have introduced a kingdom as a player. Was playing in a world with one continent fleshed out but plenty of unexplored and undetailed lands. I was playing a halfling and when the DM asked me to detail where I was from, having been a bit enamoured with the Eberron Telenta Halflings that domesticated and rode dinos, I asked if I could introduce an island that time forgot like that. He agreed, and poof - I've added a kingdom.

Which brings it back to DM Authority - in both cases the players were suggesting things, but the DM (me or mine when I was a player) had veto power. "No, that doesn't fit." And everyone would have accepted it without an eyeblink.