Which... is most DMs.
Like, between DMs who only run RAW AP's and settings, and DMs who present crafted curated worlds, there is very very little space where DMs are willing to collaborate.
Yep. DMing seems to appeal mostly to folks who want to create their own worlds. It’s unfortunate for players who want a more collaborative storytelling experience, but it is what it is. Those games do exist of course, but they’re the minority in the D&D space. There are other systems where that collaboration is more expected though.
And that is made worse I think by this invasive perception that somehow doing so is bad. Which isn't something you've claimed, but it is something I've seen a lot of people express over the years. That somehow allowing this freedom to co-create will inevitably lead to a mess.
Hmm. Well, I certainly don’t think that. There’s nothing
wrong with that style of play, it’s just a different preference.
Perhaps, but again, it is hard to tell when people say they are fine working with their players, yet still feel the need to argue over the fact that they don't NEED to work with their players, they simply choose to.
I’m just not sure this is an accurate perception of what’s being argued. Maybe I’m wrong about that though,
It is the perception of the compromise though.
Some DMs seem to think that them compromising with their players is... anything from a sign of weakness to a strange and baroque idea. Not all DMs, but it is pervasive enough to notice.
That’s not the impression I get from
most folks who support DM authority. There are some out there who feel that way though, for sure. I just don’t think they’re representative of the play style as a whole.
But, a player compromising is, practically ideal. Even better if the player is just perfectly in-line with the DM to begin with.
Well, yeah. Obviously it’s preferable to have someone go along with what you want than to have to compromise. It would also be ideal, from a player perspective, if the DM was perfectly in-line with their interests to begin with.
I know you didn't follow the other thread, but there was a moment where I was asking about a player in a situation with a DM who was banning an idea explicitly because they thought the idea was stupid and not worth playing.They were explicitly judging the player. The person gave a lot of responses of potential things, but ended with "or better yet you could trust your DM"
Yeah, that seems a tad extreme to me.
Which is why I think there is a need to point out that DMs should be more cautious with how we present things. If we present this facade that we are more important than our players, it becomes even harder to find DMs who aren't abusing their power and bargaining power.
Sure. I certainly don’t mean to give off the impression that DMs are more important than players. They just have a different role. And, it should probably be kept in mind that the DM is probably investing significantly more time and labor into the game than any of the players are. That doesn’t make them more important, but it is something I think often goes under-appreciated.
Perhaps, some DMs have also expressed that they have so many players that if they don't agree with exactly the rules the DM prefers, the DM just finds new players.
Lucky DMs, I guess.
I mean, I probably
could find a wealth of players to filter through for ones that perfectly matched my own interests, but... That would require a lengthy process of weeding out players whose tastes might be very different than mine, which doesn’t seem worth it to me. I’m good sticking with a group of friends, who have similar enough interests and are willing to compromise to meet each others’ needs.
Right, I think it is less that I come in with an established idea, and more that knowing I have the freedom to make that impact means I'm less worried about overstepping while I'm riffing on an idea.
Because when I'm coming up with ideas, they don't always limit themselves to easy borders. I might hear an idea from your setting, remember a piece of lore from a class and ideas start popping and I end up creating NPCs and building a bit of something.
Sure. That’s stuff I would personally be fine with for the most part. I’d just want to have a dialogue with the player about those ideas, and to redirect if something they wanted to create contradicted other important lore or something like that.