3e, DMs, and Inferred Player Power

[Raven Crowking]

I've been checking this thread frequently, haven't posted to it in a while ... let's just say Raven CrowKing has saved me a great deal of typing. (Incidentally, RC, your "baker analogy" is called "Social Exchange Theory" by sociologists. It has a long and well respected history. In this instance, it basiclly says time is money, and how we spend our time and who we spend it with is governed by the same rules economists apply to capitol. Except you used cookies instead of time.)

Yup. I just thought that everyone understood cookies.


RC

 

[Raven Crowking]

If you DM because you have fun doing it (and I'd encourage those not having fun to stop. ), then it doesn't matter how much work or not work you put into your campaign, as long as it's fun. You can spend hours a day working up complex mechanisms, or you can think about it for thirty seconds at the game table and as long as eveyrone keeps enjoying themselves, it doesn't matter. Furthermore, working that extra bit doesn't give the DM any special right to inflict his desires on everyone regardless of what they desire. Working that extra bit is a choice, not a chore, and so I don't think that choosing to do something that I have fun doing entitles me to be able to rank my fun as higher than anyone else's.

Again, if the DM actually were inflicting his desires upon anyone else, you would have a point. However, playing is a choice, not a chore. You choose to play or you choose not to play. Your choosing to play does not entitle you to rank your fun as higher than anyone else's.


RC

 

[I'm A Banana]

My fun isn't ranked higher than anyone else's but I guarantee that if I am not having fun there is NO game to be played.

This seems instinctively odd to me. What's wrong with someone else picking up and running the game? Are you the only person willing to DM in your circle of gamers? If you aren't having fun DMing, don't DM. If no one at the table would have fun with an Arthurian Fantasy except you, don't do it. Similarly, if everyone else is having fun in the dungeon crawl, but you aren't, ask for a change of the game. Or a change of DM. You don't have to run a game you don't enjoy, but that doesn't mean you should tell players who wouldn't have fun playing your kind of game to either acquiesce to you or get lost. This is compromise, which I think a DM has as much to do as any player. You find something that you can all enjoy. Thus, everyone gets to play D&D and have fun, which is the entire point of playing D&D.

If everyone does have fun playing your way, there isn't really a problem. But that doesn't mean that 3e is wrong for telling players that they can and should have it their way, too. Players have just as much right to fun as a DM does. No more. No less.

The degree of compromise is largely an artifact of intergroup dynamic. Certainly the degree of investment any individual has to a particular idea is going to affect how much they are willing to compromise. This is actually one of the reasons that tournament modules come with pregenerated characters.

If the DM discusses campaign set-up with the players prior to starting work, then he is more likely to compromise on larger issues because he has not yet made any huge investment of time or effort. Similarly, the baker could ask you what type of cookies you want before he starts baking.

Others invest more heavily in their campaign worlds, using them for multiple groups, multiple stories, and multiple characters. If you asked WotC politely to make major changes to Eberron or the Forgotten Realms, I doubt they would be willing to do so. They have too much invested in the setting.

Nothing at all to disagree with here. And what's not here sounds more like a semantics argument than a substantial one.

I do a lot of work designing a campaign setting because I enjoy it. I want to share my work because I enjoy that, too. I want to share my work particularly with people who will enjoy the work that I have done, who will add to it and build on it rather than attempting to tear it apart

That's fine. You don't HAVE to do that work, you know, but as long as you enjoy it, no problem. However, you seem paranoid at the end, there. Affraid that players who aren't particularly thrilled with your work will want to destroy it. This isn't true. Players only want to add to it, to make it something more fun for them. And an inflexible world deprives them of that ability. If the world doesn't please them, and they can't change it so it will please them, they won't be having much fun. This means that whenever a DM delivers his commandments from on high, there is a solid chance, especially with new players or people new to the hobby, that someone won't have fun with it.

And then, I would say, it is the DM's job to correct that, and help the player to have fun. Just like it is the player's job to make a character who actually wants to go on adventures for the fun of the group. Do you have to? Of course not. It might not be very open minded, but that's not always a big deal.

If everyone has fun in the closed circuit, it's not a problem. If someone doesn't have fun -- if someone really wants something that you've absolutely disallowed -- it is a problem. And it's not a problem with the PLAYER, who just wants to enjoy the game. It's a problem with the DM, who, quite simply, won't let them.

I base this on the idea that bad (selfish) players are just as rare as bad (selfish) DM's. I don't think I've met...any....people who fall into either of those categories in my years of gaming. Maybe one or two, but I can't even be sure about that.

Again, there's no issue if everyone's happy. Be as authoritarian as you like, as long as there's smiles. But if someone is not happy, it's not because THEY have a problem, it's not because THEY are out to get you, it's not because THEY want to destroy something with some perverse glee, it's not because the rules don't respect you, it's not because DM's are being removed from the game. It is simply because some people want different things. You can't really say that 3e undermines strong DMing just because you've met more players unhappy with inflexible DM's since 2000. It's a false conclusion. It takes a lot of trust and a special kind of personality to be okay with a "strong" DM. Not having that trust and not having that personality is not 3e's fault. You want to bemoan kids these days and their rebellious tendancies, that's a new thread, gramps.

 

[Sundragon2012]

Kamikaze,

I am sensing a bit of an entitlement attitude from you and a couple of others posting on this subject. It's strange to see folks who are players and not DMs making claims that somehow the DM is obligated to so as they wish and serve their fun as if the role of DM is entertainment director as opposed to arbiter, setting engineer, storyteller and all around setting management technician. The DM is not obligated to give the players anything that will violate the integrity of the campaign, the story, or the setting. The DM, do to his unique position as holder of the keys to the entire multiverse in which the players are acting, has final say and absolute veto authority regarding anything and everything in his setting. Even the core rules can be challenged and altered if the campaign and the setting require it. PrCs and Core classes can be changed and/or removed as necessary to facilitate the nature of the reality the DM is attempting to convey.

If you played...

Ravenloft
Dark Sun
Dragonlance
Testament
Midnight
Dawnforge
etc.

You have played games where some DMs got together, and having a firm grasp of the basic rules altered them to create a new setting with totally new assumptions regarding what is acceptable in those settings. If a player wants a half fiendish earth elemental ganasi in the Midnight setting the DM should veto this character concept. If a player wants a traditional cleric of Pelor in the Dawnforge setting then the DM should explain why this is inappropriate and veto the character concept.

You get my meaning. Each and every DMs campaign is the same as these published settings in that they are as sacrosanct as the DM decides they are. The players, in agreeing to play a certain setting, whether published or homebrew, they tacitly agree to the overarching assumptions within that millieu. All such assumptions cannot be demonstrated upfront in all cases though the most obvious can and should be made known to the players upfront.

I guess folks who believe that DM is entertainment director for passive players whose only job is to "have fun" should try it sometimes and then tell me that your singular greatest concern is the fun of the players even if said fun undermines countless hours of investment you have put into creating an internally consistant setting. No, folks who DM anything more rigorous and complex than CORE generic will not feel this way if they are being honest.


Chris

 

[Sundragon2012]

This seems instinctively odd to me. What's wrong with someone else picking up and running the game? Are you the only person willing to DM in your circle of gamers? If you aren't having fun DMing, don't DM.

This is instinctively silly.

The fact is that DMs are DMs because we enjoy it and we also DM the kinds of game we enjoy. No DM is going to invest hours and hours into making a setting come alive if he isn't emotionally attached to it. No one in my group wants to DM in my circle because after doing it for 19yrs they respect my rulings and my concepts. None of the others in my circle have any real DMing experience and they keep coming back because they like my style. Even though I am strict in regards to internal consistancy they always have a good time. However, what they can go to have a "good time" is within the firm boundaries of the setting I am running.

Players can "vote with their feet" if they want to run dungeon crawls and create their own campaigns. I am not holding anyone through eldritch magic to my table. No one leaves because they know me and trust me implicitly regarding the game because I have proven myself over the years to be fair whether they disagree with me or not.


Chris

 

[I'm A Banana]

am sensing a bit of an entitlement attitude from you and a couple of others posting on this subject. It's strange to see folks who are players and not DMs making claims that somehow the DM is obligated to so as they wish and serve their fun as if the role of DM is entertainment director as opposed to arbiter, setting engineer, storyteller and all around setting management technician.

It's strange to see people telling me that I'm not entitled to have fun when playing a game of D&D. That my fun as a player is contingent on the DM's fun. That I am not allowed input into the world despite playing one of it's heroes and/or adventurers. That the DM is entitled to my acquiescence.

If a player wants a half fiendish earth elemental ganasi in the Midnight setting the DM should veto this character concept. If a player wants a traditional cleric of Pelor in the Dawnforge setting then the DM should explain why this is inappropriate and veto the character concept....Each and every DMs campaign is the same as these published settings in that they are as sacrosanct as the DM decides they are.

OR....
The DM should run a campaign where the half-fiendish earth elemental genasi or traditional cleric of Pelor is permissable.

Both are valid and I think there should be compromise. If the players want traditional D&D, the DM shouldn't be trying to run a Dawnforge game. Or, if it's just one player, the DM should try to inject a feel that the player is looking for into his Dawnforge game.

Those campaign settings are NOT sacrosanct, any more than the RAW is. Just as a DM shouldn't throw high AC monsters against a party that doesn't have a fighter, A DM should change his setting or a published setting based on what they'd have fun doing.

I guess folks who believe that DM is entertainment director for passive players whose only job is to "have fun" should try it sometimes and then tell me that your singular greatest concern is the fun of the players even if said fun undermines countless hours of investment you have put into creating an internally consistant setting. No, folks who DM anything more rigorous and complex than CORE generic will not feel this way if they are being honest.

For the record, I am a DM 99% of the time. And I think my own role is as the DMGII says:

Your job as a DM is simple: to make the game fun for the players and for yourself.
No other goal takes priority over this one.

FYI, the first thing the original DMG3.5 says about my job as a DM is to provide adventures for the PC's.

A player has a right to expect a game to be fun.

Players can "vote with their feet" if they want to run dungeon crawls and create their own campaigns. I am not holding anyone through eldritch magic to my table. No one leaves because they know me and trust me implicitly regarding the game because I have proven myself over the years to be fair whether they disagree with me or not.

Right. They don't leave because they're having fun. They don't run their own game because they're happy where they are. And some won't be. Some won't have fun with this kind of authority. And they should, I think, be able to have a dialogue with a DM without being told to go fish if they don't like it.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Similarly, if everyone else is having fun in the dungeon crawl, but you aren't, ask for a change of the game. Or a change of DM.

In other words, decide that your fun is more important than everyone else's?

KM, you seem to believe that the meaning of the word "selfish" as you apply it to DMs somehow does not apply when you say it here.

You can talk around it in thousands of ways, I feel sure, but at the end of the day intergroup dynamics always come down to one essential fact: sometimes you have to give a little to get a little.

If you don't want to get a little, fine. You are not obligated to give a little.

You, however, seem to have some expectation that it is your "right" to get a little without giving anything. Expecting everyone else to give over their fun game to meet your needs is more than a little selfish. It is quintessentially childish behaviour.

Whether or not one has to cede a degree of their own "fun" for the benefit of the group is more than a semantics argument. As much as I enjoy the game, I don't enjoy all of the work all of the time, nor do I enjoy having to tell a player that no, his character cannot begin play with six adamantium swords and a minor artifact that he didn't pay for (happened today). However, that is part of the job. Because I want something from someone who is not obligated to give it to me (my players are not obligated to play), I sometimes have to do things that interfere with my personal "fun".

That is a substantial difference between our positions.

BTW, I am curious whether anyone except KM still believes that this distinction is a "straw man"?

That's fine. You don't HAVE to do that work, you know, but as long as you enjoy it, no problem. However, you seem paranoid at the end, there. Affraid that players who aren't particularly thrilled with your work will want to destroy it.

Paranoid how?

I stated from the beginning that I have the absolute authority to veto anything within the context of a game that I am running. Even if a player truly wanted to destroy my work, they do not have the ability to do so.

However, if I am presenting chocolate chip cookies, I prefer that the players I present them to are the kind of players who like chocolate chip cookies. I am not the slave of the players. I do not have to DM for anyone. I choose to DM for people who increase my enjoyment of the game.

It isn't my job to ensure that every potential player has fun. It is only my job to ensure that those players whom I choose to DM for have fun. Period. Whether or not "there is a solid chance, especially with new players or people new to the hobby, that someone won't have fun with it" is immaterial. Moreover, ensuring that anyone has fun at all is only my job insofar as I decide it is.

Nor does it have to do with kids and their rebellious tendencies. I do admit that what you are presenting does give the impression that you are either rather young, or rather naive.

If I offer a game that you want to play in, I am not being selfish. There is no obligation, and it is an altruistic action on my part.

If I offer a game that you do not want to play in, I am not being selfish. There is no obligation, and it is an altruistic action on my part.

If I demand that you play in a game that you do not want to play in, I am being selfish. Now I am attempting to impose an obligation.

If I demand that you run a game the way I want you to run it, I am being selfish. Now I am attempting to impose an obligation.​

Here's another thing about "fun".

I've been giving it a bit of thought over the weekend, and I disagree that the purpose of D&D is to have fun. I mean, yes, the game is supposed to be fun overall. Yes, the game is supposed to be entertaining. But that does not mean that this is the only purpose of the game.

You can easily say the same thing about movies. Going to the movies is supposed to be entertaining. Does this mean that movies are supposed to be fun? Sure, frequently. Most movies, most of the time, have to be fun or going to the movies would be unbearable. However, about a year ago a friend of mine convinced me to watch The Deer Hunter (1978). This is a great movie. It is not, however, a fun movie. Deliverance (1972) is not a fun movie, either, nor is Jack the Bear (1993). But these are all great movies.

American Pie (1999) is a fun movie. However, it is not in the same class as The Godfather (1972) or Philadelphia (1993).

The grimmer, sometimes hard-to-watch films do have their fun moments in some cases, and you can certainly have fun watching them or talking about them later, but their purpose is not to be fun. Yet they are entertaining.

A D&D game relentlessly modelled after Boyz n the Hood (1991) might be unbearably grim. On the other hand, one modelled completely for fun (ala the D&D Cartoon, or even Dungeons & Dragons: The Movie [2001]) presents a game world that is stripped of its meaning.

For me, all fun and no meaning means less entertainment. Perhaps we should be looking at something broader than mere "fun" from our gaming experiences?


RC

 

[Raven Crowking]

It's strange to see people telling me that I'm not entitled to have fun when playing a game of D&D. That my fun as a player is contingent on the DM's fun. That I am not allowed input into the world despite playing one of it's heroes and/or adventurers. That the DM is entitled to my acquiescence.

Ah, KM, where exactly did anyone suggest that the DM is entitled to your aquiescence?

And they should, I think, be able to have a dialogue with a DM without being told to go fish if they don't like it.

You do realize, don't you, that having "a dialogue" with the DM is a very different thing from claiming that the DM can only say "No" if you let him? Right?


RC

 

[I'm A Banana]

Ah, KM, where exactly did anyone suggest that the DM is entitled to your aquiescence?

Well, the idea of "My way or the highway" suggests that there is no dialogue. That I can either agree, or leave. Effectively, that a player must compromise, but a DM doesn't have to (unless he wants to). If I want to play, I need to give up my idea of what is fun and trust the DM's.

KM, you seem to believe that the meaning of the word "selfish" as you apply it to DMs somehow does not apply when you say it here.

The key in the quote is the asking. It's not saying "I'm not having fun, we're changing." It's saying "Maybe this would work better?" It's expressing your needs without demanding they be met. Expressing them allows a compromise to be met. Demanding they be met results in a binary absolutism.

As much as I enjoy the game, I don't enjoy all of the work all of the time, nor do I enjoy having to tell a player that no, his character cannot begin play with six adamantium swords and a minor artifact that he didn't pay for (happened today). However, that is part of the job.

I've never seen DMing as a job. I've never NOT enjoyed what I do. When I tell someone "no," I enjoy it because I know it will make everyone have more fun. And I know it will challenge me to meet their needs in other ways. Six adamantium swords and a minor artifact? Why? What's the need here? And how do I meet that need as a DM?

You, however, seem to have some expectation that it is your "right" to get a little without giving anything. Expecting everyone else to give over their fun game to meet your needs is more than a little selfish. It is quintessentially childish behaviour.

It is everyone's right to have fun playing a game. It's childish to say that?

It isn't my job to ensure that every potential player has fun. It is only my job to ensure that those players whom I choose to DM for have fun. Period. Whether or not "there is a solid chance, especially with new players or people new to the hobby, that someone won't have fun with it" is immaterial. Moreover, ensuring that anyone has fun at all is only my job insofar as I decide it is.

No argument here. But I was bringing the argument into the context of the thread. That 3e is not flawed because it lets players expect what they want. Is it right for you? Maybe not. You seem to want something more out of D&D than a night of fun gaming. But that doesn't mean that's what D&D needs to cater to.

I've been giving it a bit of thought over the weekend, and I disagree that the purpose of D&D is to have fun. I mean, yes, the game is supposed to be fun overall. Yes, the game is supposed to be entertaining. But that does not mean that this is the only purpose of the game.

You can easily say the same thing about movies. Going to the movies is supposed to be entertaining. Does this mean that movies are supposed to be fun? Sure, frequently. Most movies, most of the time, have to be fun or going to the movies would be unbearable. However, about a year ago a friend of mine convinced me to watch The Deer Hunter (1978). This is a great movie. It is not, however, a fun movie. Deliverance (1972) is not a fun movie, either, nor is Jack the Bear (1993). But these are all great movies.

American Pie (1999) is a fun movie. However, it is not in the same class as The Godfather (1972) or Philadelphia (1993).

The grimmer, sometimes hard-to-watch films do have their fun moments in some cases, and you can certainly have fun watching them or talking about them later, but their purpose is not to be fun. Yet they are entertaining.

A D&D game relentlessly modelled after Boyz n the Hood (1991) might be unbearably grim. On the other hand, one modelled completely for fun (ala the D&D Cartoon, or even Dungeons & Dragons: The Movie [2001]) presents a game world that is stripped of its meaning.

For me, all fun and no meaning means less entertainment. Perhaps we should be looking at something broader than mere "fun" from our gaming experiences?

Here's a major division between our positions as well.

Cinema and literature, two things to which D&D is constantly compared, are one-way conduits. The audience for these is passive. The people absorb the information the film or words present. They are labors, works of art. They can be simply entertaining, but then they're popular culture, which can have it's own unintentional artistry. They can be very meaningful, and then they're Goodfellas

D&D, however, is a game. It's closest analogues are not movies and books, but Poker and Monopoly. All games have some sort of meaning -- all play has some significance. But it is just play. It is safe. It is enjoyable. It is easy. It also has more than one input. A film is one director's vision. A book is one author's creation. Those have a message. A game does not have much of a message. Chutes and Ladders pretty much exhausts its analogic potential in a single metaphor of success.

For me, trying to add deep and significant meaning to something that is primarily for play is going to devalue them both. Like a "very special episode" of Blossom, it comes off as shallow and disolyal to the true meaning, and as not that much fun. Perhaps isntead of trying to look for something deeper in five folks rolling dice around someone's table and pretending to be gumdrop fairies you should let it be fun, and look for deapth in things that are more capable of challenging your world.

Deliverance is challenging. It's also an artistic work, a monologue from active film to passive audience. D&D has many active participants. It's also a game, a process of victory and defeat where choices can affect the result.

A D&D campaign based off of Boyz in the Hood may be grim. But it would also carry none of that film's integrity and little of its artistry.

 

[Sundragon2012]

OR....
The DM should run a campaign where the half-fiendish earth elemental genasi or traditional cleric of Pelor is permissable.

It is my right not to run any setting I do not wish to run. There is no discussion around this point because if I don't want to run it I will not devote my time and energy to DMing it. Because my time and energy are necessary to run the setting, what I am averse to doesn't run. I would play in a game where such character types are permissable because very little is required of me. However, I will not DM this type of setting as MUCH MORE is required of me and I am not willing to put in the time investment into a setting that, hypothetically, doesn't interest me.

My desire to run a given type of game trumps all other desires in this regard. DMing is my hobby, for my enjoyment and it is my right to run or not run any game, setting, millieu I see fit.

Both are valid and I think there should be compromise. If the players want traditional D&D, the DM shouldn't be trying to run a Dawnforge game. Or, if it's just one player, the DM should try to inject a feel that the player is looking for into his Dawnforge game.

Nope, wrong. I will run what interests me and you may vote by coming to the game sessions or not. Its very simple.

Those campaign settings are NOT sacrosanct, any more than the RAW is. Just as a DM shouldn't throw high AC monsters against a party that doesn't have a fighter, A DM should change his setting or a published setting based on what they'd have fun doing.

If you enjoy running settings that are a generic mishmash of every available option that is presented to you by your players, feel free. I run games that are consistant to the setting being run.

For the record, I am a DM 99% of the time. And I think my own role is as the DMGII says:
FYI, the first thing the original DMG3.5 says about my job as a DM is to provide adventures for the PC's.

A player has a right to expect a game to be fun.

Fun is a subjective term and I do my best to make it an interesting, challenging, memorable, compelling role-playing experience for the players. If that is fun for you great, we'll have fun. If you want mindless dungeon crawls focusing on minis and gold accumulation at the expense of character development and versimilitude and whatnot find another DM or run your own game. That could be your fun. I wouldn't play in a game like that as it would bore me. It wouldn't be fun for me to play so I wouldn't involve myself in that DM's campaign. I am not entitled to tell him how to run his game.

Yeah, and i don't need the DMG2 to tell me what to do after nearly 20yrs. I don't care what WoTC's pet policy or philosophy is in this version of the game. The game has been DMed by me successfully before WoTC ever existed and with luck will outlast them as well to wander into the newest DMing philosophy of the next 3 versions of the game and whatever company ownes the Dungeons and Dragons IP rights.


Chris