As usual, the thread has zoomed past me at supersonic speeds, but here goes. Some of these are quite old at this point, but they raise points worth discussing.
Again I am reading emphasis on players being bad actors wanting to "win".
I, and others, would not turn to challenging this so often if it were not literally cropping up every other post, repeatedly portraying any form of disagreement as either an effort to destroy the DM's setting, or an effort to "win" the game. Player bad faith is an INSTANTANEOUS assumption in these threads. It happens over, and over, and over again. Every time it's challenged, someone backs down...only to do it again two posts later. It's incredibly frustrating,
particularly since these very same people get ruffled feathers when you say anything that even
vaguely hints at DM bad faith.
Every conversation, as far as I've seen it, has boiled down to DMs saying, "I have the authority, power, and indeed
duty to
defend my game and my fun from the lawless, dissolute players who would tear it to pieces if allowed to run free. Only under my careful guidance can I, and thus the group, have fun." And I just cannot fathom it. Every player that doesn't meekly submit is a threat, either a selfish "I must WIN" type or an anarchistic "I must DESTROY the DM's pride and joy" type.
Why does the DM need this "ultimate" or "absolute" authority? Why do people assume that the player's nature only permits these three states (meek submission, selfish looting, or hostile destruction)?
Or else there are just different playstyles than yours and people can play differently from you without needing to "win" or things becoming hostile when the DM makes a ruling.
That doesn't actually respond to the point, Max. Why are you presuming that the player who pushes back in any capacity is a threat? This is the reason people keep thinking you want passive players.
I have yet to see anyone advocate for that. The last thing I want are passive players. I want proactive players that are going to take the reins if they want and go do whatever they want their PCs to do.
Yet you snatch those reins away from them the moment they disagree with you? Because that's exactly how it sounds. You not only can, not only will, but think it is
vitally necessary to the preservation of the game that you do so. You, essentially, claim you must protect the players from themselves. Why?
That's a misrepresentation of the broader point.
On most of these things, I totally agree, but let's use this in a practical context. Sure, it's hypothetically valid to have a game with no real DM, where narrative agency is guided by the rules and everyone, but that's not what we're discussing.
So a DM is only a "real" DM if they exercise authority that does not have limits or the ability to question it? Better be careful--this is sounding like "no true scotsman" territory. I'm pretty sure actually-existing DMs do, in fact, work with such approaches.
The real kicker is that when I say "absolute authority" I don't mean an iron-fisted DM who runs their game their way and their way only, I mean a DM who must, by necessity, act as the final word on rules judgements. Setting concerns are entirely parallel.
I do not see how this does not become the absolute authority you claim to reject. If the DM has final--unquestionable--authority, and the right to never budge even one iota on each and every setting element unless it just so happens to strike her fancy to do so,
what is the difference? That sounds pretty iron-fisted to me, even if it may rest within a velvet glove, as the saying goes.
People are likely to get upset when you imply, as you've done to Oofta and I, that we're either Tyrant DMs or selfish jerks without engaging in a peaceful dialogue.
Of course, I do understand that you may have felt either ganged up on or as though people were dismissing you out of hand.
When pursuing any question beyond the flat "no" (which
many posters have explicitly said requires no further explanation) is treated as hostile to the DM's fun, it is not hard to see the DM as a "Tyrant" as you call it. Someone who demands meek submission, or ejection for being a threat to the game. Something that, AFAICT, nearly every "final arbiter"-promoting DM here has been
very quick to note. When every discussion about what kinds of questions are allowed, about whether the players can push back a bit and get some concessions from the DM, leads to at least one person talking about how they eject players from their game, it feels quite a bit like "my way or the highway," like "question me and you'll be sorry," like "if you don't agree with my rules, I will eliminate you." Isn't that pretty tyrannical?
Forcing the DM to run something he doesn't want to run is 1) wrong, and 2) will result in a DM who is not really into running the game, which is bad.
Forcing the player to play something she doesn't want to play is 1) wrong, and 2) will result in a player who is not really into playing the game, which is bad.
You may want to reflect on the fact that
I literally already made that argument in a previous thread, and you rejected it pretty handily.
I want to play the game, not set up "cool scenes." Gameplay can and often is cool, but trying to design a cool scene would take away from my enjoyment of the game.
I don't understand. What is the difference? When you are playing a game where the whole point is to play a role--acting out a character's behavior--isn't "playing the game"
equivalent to "setting up cool scenes"? Not every scene will be cool, and the coolest scenes often require many dull scenes and sometimes even some uncool scenes (loss, betrayal, fear, etc.) in order to happen....but we roleplay these various scenes that
would not be interesting to us on their own
in order to get to the scenes that we desire to see.
Why else would you play a tabletop roleplaying game? I am not being even slightly facetious. I literally don't understand what other reason someone would have for it. Catharsis, power fantasy, curiosity, self-challenge, optimization, immersion...these are all specific
flavors, simply defining
what "cool scenes" one looks for. Even
abnegation is a form of cool scene (letting the mind relax), just one much more diffuse than is normally sought.
I play in the real world where sometimes people disagree. That's all.
I play in the real world, where if one side of a disagreement insists on never budging, that makes them a jerk.
Two can play at this bickering, or we can try to look for the
reasons why you think the ONLY solution to disagreement is having a Hobbesian absolute monarch under his principle of "no wrong can be done to a consenting party." Like, this comes across pretty plainly as a Hobbes vs Locke situation here. You are claiming that there has to be a place where the buck stops. That there has to be, somewhere along the line, a single authority whose judgments cannot be questioned and whose power has no limits, because any limited power can always be questioned and challenged, thus leading to anarchy and dissolution, because the natural condition of people is lawless and corrosive to flourishing. That is
literally the political philosophy of Thomas Hobbes, just focused on how to run a game together rather than how to run a government.