I find it odd that you wouldn't have more faith/hope/expectation in a GM that you heard good things about than one you hadn't heard anything. But YMMV.
Goal post move. This cannot be considered a general state, so you've elected to look only at a specific example.
Were the areas of mismatch not gone over in session 0? What questions/information could be put in a session to avoid these mismatch problems.
And now you're borrowing parts of my argument to shore up the other one. Session 0 is a tool that specifically rejects "Trust the GM" by putting the campaign expectations up for discussion and consensus. This is one of the developments in the community moving away from "Trust the GM" stuff.
"Why is the arrow only one direction?" It doesn't seem to be, but I can't think of any other ways to convey that it isn't.
Who says GMs are inviolate? In what sense? No one has said all GMs are good. Lots of people say D&D is set up by default where the GM has the final say in play. Because it is set up that way in the rules, isn't it?
The baseline is that I am to "Trust the GM." This means that, in any questionable event, I am to extend the courtesy of the doubt to the GM and go with it, trusting they have a good reason. It isn't at all about final say in a rules adjudication.
I'm beginning to think you've been arguing from a muddled position, here.
I never said it was a great model, and gave a second (not-great one) with a higher percent of badness for the DM. The idea was just how there are more non-DM players than DM players, and so the P[at least one bad player] can be a lot larger than P[player j is bad]. Which seems relevant to a game continuing if one wanted to work out the odds. Obviously it wasn't helpful to you, so I'm fine with dropping it.
Okay. Part of the issue there is the P[player is bad] bit. Some players are 100% good at one table, and "bad" at a different one. The assumption on players that doesn't include the table is simplistic and will provide nice, pat, easy and wrong answers.
I don't think it's controversial for anyone I've ever played with to say that it's more work to GM D&D by the default rules than it is to be a player by that default.
No, I don't, either. There's a lot of work being done by "default" there. Most of that is an entirely different discussion.
That doesn't make the GM special in so far as the dignity and trust they should be awarded by being a participant.
Yes, that's what I'm saying, and what is explicitly countered in "TtGMNTP."
Putting unneeded pressure on the GM does certainly seem bad, and so a thread on how D&D can still be D&D but put less pressure on the DMs seems great. Merely repeating that everyone always blames the players and not GM and that other games do it better seems much less so.
This really feels like you assigning homework for me to be able to make this point. I don't accept homework assignments.
Completely agree with the part I bolded.
Yes, play can be suspended if a single player can't make it, and we will do that for particularly pivotal scenes. (Three weeks working up to something makes it sad to have someone not there). If we needed all of the players to be at every session for the last few games I've been in we would have cancelled around 1/4 of them (with 4 players and allowing play in most cases if only one was missing). We discussed that as a group before deciding it was ok.
The alternate activity seems to work a lot better in person with my group than on-line, but even those who can make it have other things to do and might catch up on that instead of playing a board game. (At one point I was missing Thursday night MtG for a D&D game, so if D&D wasn't happening I'd go do that. I liked the D&D group, I also liked the other one.) My son's group is just fine playing Roblox online or whatnot.
Then I'm confused by your earlier argument that games can't happen if the GM reschedules, but can easily happen if the player does. You seem to be wanting it both ways -- GMs are critical and therefore have special consideration AND play should only happen with an absent player if the player agrees. Seems some special, and mutual, consideration is shared around there.
I'm not sure how this is relevant to my post. If I was addressing "Trust the GM" it was to say "Being trustworthy is a necessary but not sufficient quality to be a good GM. Being a GM doesn't make one trustworthy."
And we're back to you arguing the bailey position in these arguments (unintentionally). This statement is trivial. As in it's trivially necessary. There's no need to say this as a phrase because of course some amount of trust, respect, and dignity should be afforded to anyone you're willingly engaging in a social leisure activity with. And this should 100% go both ways, so making it specific to one participant is pointless.
So, then, when it is made specific, it's not saying this trivial thing, it's saying something more. And when paired with a "Never Trust Players" which explicitly strips the normal understanding from other participants, it's very, very clearly saying something other than this. TtGMNTP is not about the common trust and respect of a social engagement. It's about how the GM should not be questioned and players are on notice that they will be questioned (and found wanting). Especially when exactly this is openly stated by a proponent. The very statement I responded to that prompted you to respond to me!
In many other threads it was brought up that one common thing is for a prospective GM to pitch an idea, and if it's bought into - possibly with suggestions of the potential players being offered and accounted for, and session 0 goes well, then you have a game with a general outline based on the modified pitch. If you a player doesn't like the pitch or session 0, then they should have voiced that well before play started.
Has a single person on here said GMs shouldn't look at their own play?
Effectively, yes. The statement has been in the form of "if the players can't get onboard they can go somewhere else."
As for adapting to the table, it feels like some folks on here have games that have been going on for 20 years (or what not) with a lot of potential players who want to join. A player who joins such a game where the others are happy and thinks a major change should happen... seems odd.
Again, the odd idea that players need to suck it up and go along with this game rather than discuss it. I've already allowed that if agendas just don't match they just don't match. But that's not at all what "Trust the GM Never Trust Players" is about. I'm staying within the context of the discussion.
Who has said GMs shouldn't be questioned?
"Trust the GM Never Trust Players" does. The fundamental tenet here is that you need to not question GM's choices because they're doing the Right Thing(tm). This is paired with always keep an eye on the players because they're trying to get away with stuff.
I'm not sure why everything in the thread somehow has to be about "Trust the GM" and "Never Trust the Players". Insisting others are trying to rationalize or approve that doesn't seem helpful.
Um, I responded to
@overgeeked on the topic, and you quoted me on that, and here we are?