D&D General [rant]The conservatism of D&D fans is exhausting.

[Remathilis]

Ultimately GM doesn't have to compromise.

I'm going to say that's only true if you have a large pool of potential players and no other obligations to said players. That compromise line gets fuzzier when you don't have players to replace your current group with, or your players don't include longtime friends, coworkers, spouses, family, etc.

I have been playing with the same group of friends for a decade and some of those players far longer. They are flexible to a point, but if I told them all next game was 2nd edition AD&D, I'd probably get a lot of polite cancelations and be sitting on this board bemoaning how nobody wants to play the game I want to run. In that, I'd rather play something everyone likes (even if it wasn't my hypothetical first choice) than sit home alone on a Saturday night.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

No, it is not true. Sometimes, everyone actually is HAPPY with a compromise. It isn't always possible, but it does happen.

Your assertion is false if even one single compromise has ever occurred in all of human history where nobody was actively unhappy about the result. Are you willing to commit to the idea that not one single compromise, in all of human history, failed to make every single participant unhappy?

“everything is for the best in the best of all possible worlds”
-Candide (Voltaire)

If you go round believing that gumph you are destined for a life of disappointment (and angry ranting on the internet).

Anyway, if you come out of a negotiation with everything you wanted, you have not compromised. So you are wrong, by definition.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

“everything is for the best in the best of all possible worlds”
-Candide

If you go round believing that gumph you are destined for a life of disappointment (and angry ranting on the internet).

Again, you keep attacking strawmen I didn't use.

I said that it is at least possible for a compromise to happen where nobody is actually unhappy about it. I gave an example of such a compromise, which was not only successful, it was more successful than ever expected. Canada and the United States worked out their issue, set targets for controlling pollution...and not only did they reach them, they reached them three years early--and have continued to attempt to push numbers down lower than the mandatory cap. We can even compare it to a similar but distinct approach taken in Europe, where it was just straight-up laws put into place. The difference? 65% reduction in the US/Canada, 70% reduction in Europe. Functionally equivalent.

Proof positive that it is, I stress, possible for a compromise to leave everyone involved actually happy, and to produce tangible, provable results without having hateful, onerous consequences. That doesn't mean every compromise will be like that. Most won't. But to claim that absolutely 100% of compromises will guaranteed always upset the people involved? No. Factually, historically, incorrect.

 

[BrokenTwin]

Saying GMs don't need to compromise but players do is a weird take to me. The average GM has more power than the average player, but you can't run a game without players, either. I've compromised as a GM all of the time, and while it wasn't 100% what I wanted, everyone was generally happy with the end result.

The "compromise will always leave people upset" take is... well, I see where it's coming from, but it's a pretty self consuming mindset to take.

 

[ezo]

That's just more work and leads towards rocket tag if you go to far with it.

What is?

You quoted my entire post with no indication of reference so I have no clue to what you're discussing, whether it is support of my post, opposition of it, or something else.

 

[CreamCloud0]

Which is true. Just not as unhappy as if you don’t compromise and get nothing at all.

i dunno, the phrase 'no DnD is better than bad DnD' is thrown around alot and i think a similar perspective applies here, there are some compromises where you should realize that not trying to compromise, walking away and getting nothing will result in more happiness than trying to find a golden medium that doesn't exist.

Real life is full of no good choice situations. You just have to pick the least bad.

sure there are some lose-lose situations but they are far from all there is most of the time, if you actually put in the effort you can actually get compromises where things don't even need to be bad, they might not be great but they're still above bad.

i realize my stance pretty much flipped 180 there in the middle but i think both arguments stand: there is usually actually a 'decent enough' compromise to be found in most situations, but sometimes the best 'compromise' is to stop trying entirely and walk away and get nothing rather than settle for a 'least bad compromise' that still isn't good.

 

[BrokenTwin]

Bad gaming might be worse than no gaming, but there's a pretty broad spectrum of "good enough" gaming before you reach that point.

 

[ezo]

"a good compromise is where both parties are dissatisfied" absolutely is an awful perspective, because it implants in people the idea that 'if you compromise you're going to be unhappy with the result'

@EzekielRaiden

I think people are conflating dissatisfied with "unhappy". Those are two different degrees of emotion IME, with unhappy being "worse" than simply dissatisfied.

Dissatisfied is a measure of contentment, happiness is a measure of joy.

While dissatisfied could lead to uphappy, it does not follow it must. I am dissatisfied with my 5E game which is mostly RAW due to newer players joining, but I am very far from unhappy with it!

 

[AnotherGuy]

The worst thing is, back during the lead-up to 5e (early-mid 2014) I actually was in a WONDERFUL 4e game. Great players, great DM (ironically, a former old-school DM giving 4e a spin because it was cheap and he appreciated the design work), great sci-fantasy homebrew setting, DM was 100% on board with rolling RP concepts into the ongoing story. It was great stuff. Then the DM had a critical family emergency (on top of having a five-year-old son with fragile health) that would require him to rearrange most of his and his wife's life to deal with the consequences. Pretty sure that campaign had a shot at hitting Epic tier if it hadn't died, but I completely understood why the DM needed to end the game. Real life always comes first, always has, always will, and caring for your family is non-negotiable.

Did it end before it found its legs? What happened to the rest of the group?
A DM is but 1 person at the table, surely the rest of you could have made a go of it?

 

[Silvercat Moonpaw]

...but you can't run a game without players, either.

You can solo game. But I admit that 1) it might not count as "running" and 2) it's not going to feel the same.