overgeeked
Open-World Sandbox
Power gamers are disruptive for exactly the reason you say. It’s a game with dice. Failure is always a possibility. If they can’t accept failure, they don’t want to play a game.
How Accommodating to Player Preferences Should the GM Be?
- Thread starter Reynard
- Start date
Jack Daniel
Legend
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Guest 6801718
Guest
It's not a weird take at all. I've also run D&D games and lots of other games for 40 years. When you actually listen to your players and provide them with what they come to the table looking for, games get better. Treating your friends and game mates as equals with respect isn't exactly a hot take. Or it shouldn't be, anyway. Why wouldn't you listen to your players, if they're offering ideas? If they just want to go with the flow and play whatever you cook up, cool. Everyone signed up for the same thing. Have a blast. That's not what we're talking about here though. The premise here is a player coming up with something that doesn't quite fit. If they offer strange or unusual ideas that could work but seem a little odd, talk it over and see about working them in. It takes some time and effort to give up some of that control some GMs seem to clutch so desperately. Learning to work in ideas beyond your own will absolutely teach you a lot of things.
To be clear, I am not saying "don't do that" I am simply saying it might be useful to interrogate one's reasoning for that. As I said above, GMs are often far too precious about their worldbuilding choices, which are often just arbitrary. It is worth thinking about alternatives, or how things that we not considered interact with those world building choices.
I will return to the very real world example of a player wanting to play an elf ninja in a (AD&D2E) game set up with a dark ages England vibe. Because i interrogated my own world building on the issue, and then found a way to accommodate the player, the depth and breadth of a campaign that ended up lasting over 20 years was greatly improved.
You don't have to say "Yes" to everything. But it is worth pausing to ask yourself why you are kneejerking to "no."
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Guest 6801718
Guest
Hasn't happened yet. Doesn't mean it won't...Hm. I wonder why that doesn't happen?
Perhaps, under some circumstances, for some kinds of campaigns, restrictions are good sometimes?
Perhaps, players don't always know what's best for every campaign? Perhaps, what players want and what will make a campaign good (for a certain view of "good"), aren't always the same thing?
I do agree that some restrictions can be good. As long as they are decided upon by the group and not one person. Everyone has game styles, personal tastes and limits on what content they find acceptable. So yeah, some of this should be discussed and limits set. As a group.
They have a tool for this very thing! Session Zero. Everyone talks about what they want. Everyone agrees to certain things, makes compromises gets to add cool things to a game. It's amazing how you can avoid all these problems by...talking to your players!
Faolyn
(she/her)
In some cases, it would be more than enough. But if (as the original idea put it) someone wants to play a steampunk techie in a world you wanted to be low-fantasy medieval, then you might want a reason beyond coolness.
I pretty much let players do what they want. I can weave it into the story, or ignore it. It's just a game, for me, and if they want to do something odd with their character, that's for them. Other than be evil and intra party fight.... That's not the game we play. I get others disagree, and I'm not trying to convince anyone. Just answering the question.
Jack Daniel
Legend
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overgeeked
Open-World Sandbox
Huh. You're extrapolating from not allowing something that has a high potential for disrupting the setting all the way to never listening to players about anything ever. I've seen some hyperbole, but damn. Good luck, you'll need it. Tschüss.
Pedantic
Legend
This is usually an adult conversation moment for me, and it really depends on the the background of the game in the first place. Am I pitching these players on some theme/setting concept I like? Then I'm probably going to want to be persuaded that this character will support that structure in some way, and I'll look askance at a player not interested in engaging with the pitch.
Am I getting pitched by the players on a game, where they have specific characters/themes/mechanics they want to play with? Then I'm probably starting with their characters before we even get to worldbuilding.
I like to be accommodating, so I often try to explore ways to make my settings very cosmopolitan, even in the first case. And I've absolutely abandoned proposed games/settings no one was interested in.... But on the other hand, I'm also paying the game, and I'm not just there to validate the player's interests. It's a whole collaboration, with discussion and compromise and shared creative vision all around.
Am I getting pitched by the players on a game, where they have specific characters/themes/mechanics they want to play with? Then I'm probably starting with their characters before we even get to worldbuilding.
I like to be accommodating, so I often try to explore ways to make my settings very cosmopolitan, even in the first case. And I've absolutely abandoned proposed games/settings no one was interested in.... But on the other hand, I'm also paying the game, and I'm not just there to validate the player's interests. It's a whole collaboration, with discussion and compromise and shared creative vision all around.
