But that's the whole crux of the argument. That compromise doesn't really mean compromise, it seems to always mean "do whatever the player wants". Is the DM less important than an individual player? What do the rest of the players desire?
Compromise is the first step, of course. It’s what I’d attempt and what I’d expect and hope for by others. I don’t know if everyone agrees, based on many of the responses, but I’ve been approaching this conversation with that as a given.
The way
@overgeeked set the poll up, with only two options, implies only one can be chosen, so to me, the question is about what to do when some compromise can’t be reached.
Personally, I’d give the player what they want. I mean, in the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t really matter and as I’ve said many times now, real people are more important to me than fake ones.
Also, if it’s a case where I’ve decided 99% of the setting, I’m probably gonna be okay if this one time it turns out to be only 98%.
The DM puts far more work and effort into running the campaign than anyone else. If you don't have a DM you don't have a game, meanwhile players come and go for various reasons.
I suppose we should examine that a bit… why does the DM put in all that work?
Maybe the answer to that question will reveal something.
I have a player who, sadly, will have his last game with us in a couple of weeks because they're moving to Kentucky. Should I have let him play something I didn't care for that didn't fit with the lore of my world because he asked me to?
Sure, why not?
If I created a new world with every campaign I ran and if campaigns only lasted for a few months, I'd probably be more flexible. But I've run the same campaign world for decades. It has history and deep lore, most of it created or influenced by what PCs did in previous campaigns. I run campaigns from 1-20 so it can take years to finish since generally we can only do monthly games.
So on this, I’m going to propose a hypothetical question. I’m assuming that your approach works fine and your players have been cool with it and there’s no issues. So what I’m about to ask is not about any specific game.
Maybe each DM has to consider that the only person who really cares about the lore of their homebrew world is them? Maybe if an orc showed up and there had never been such a creatire before, the DM is anxious because how do you reconcile that? Why is this just coming up now? What impacts will it have? All that stuff… maybe the players don’t remotely care.
As you say, they’re likely not as invested in it. They haven’t put in the hours and the effort! So of course they’re not going to care as much.
So this hypothetical DM… or all of us, really… should consider these tough questions and then maybe revisit the one I asked above… why does the DM put in all that effort?
As DM I make the final call. Just like every other D&D game I've ever played with other people's campaigns. If that means I can't play a tabaxi in their campaign, so be it. I'll play something else, the DM has far more invested than me so I owe them.
I used to think more along these lines, but these days, nope… people show up for a game and that’s all of our time. If I choose to spend hours and hours in between sessions, that’s my choice. It certainly isn't necessary to run a game. No one owes me for that, beyond basic respect.
I was essentially the forever GM for nearly 20 years and about three years ago, I said I wanted to just play for a while. Other people have stepped in and have been DMing since, and I’ve been regularly running other games (with a short five session return to D&D).
Just like there are other players, there are other DMs, and other games. I don’t really consider anyone at the table more important than any other.
