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Message: <blockquote data-quote="FireLance" data-source="post: 2550679" data-attributes="member: 3424">Once again, I'm starting my post by highlighting a few other excellent posts that I agree with: Hussar's point in #94 on the shift in emphasis from DM as storyteller/scriptwriter/director to DM as referee/aribiter, Jackelope King's point in #97 about the DM's responsibility to ensure that the entire group is having fun, Majoru Oakheart's point in #103 that a solid set of rules helps rather than hinders the DM, and Kamikaze Midget's point in #119 that the DM has a bigger job, but it doesn't give him extra privileges.The impression I get from reading some posts is that some DMs do not like the fact that players now have a better grasp of the rules and default assumptions behind D&D and now have expectations when they play the game, whether it is expectations of how likely they are to succeed at a particular action, how magic is supposed to work, what options are available, what sort of challenges and rewards they will encounter, etc. If so, then I will admit that D&D is probably moving in a direction that they will not be happy with. However, I think the change in D&D is not a cause but a symptom of people generally wanting more equal relationships. Consumers want more information about products in order to make better choices, and guarantees of the quality of the services they use. Citizens demand more transparency and accountability from their governments, and more decisions that are based on reason rather than whim. Hence, it is not surprising that players do the same with their DMs. From that perspective, the DM's power has been eroded. He still has all the authority he needs to do his job - he can make up rules on the fly, he can create a setting and populate it with NPCs, he can set house rules, change the monsters, make a snap decision to keep the game going, run low-magic campaigns, disallow anything he feels to be unsuitable for his campaign, etc. However, what he cannot do is to avoid being judged by his players, and they have a much better basis of doing so because of the clearer, more consistent rules, and forums such as ENWorld which let them know that other DMs are doing it differently. And if he doesn't measure up, he's out of a job.To answer an earlier point raised by Henry, I don't think any open-ended rules set can ever do without a DM because it is practically impossible to be comprehensive enough to cover everything that creative players can come up with. However, a good and consistent rules set does make it less necessary for the DM to make his own rulings. Some see it as a benefit - instead of thinking about rules, the DM can concentrate on the other aspects of the game that do not rely on rules such as the setting and the portrayal of NPCs. Others see this as an erosion of DM power. However, it is only an erosion of DM power insofar as it presents players with an alternative to how the situation could have been handled. Any DM whose players agree with the way he handles things ought to have no problems whatsoever.</blockquote>

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