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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 2580267" data-attributes="member: 2067">Is there any bigger fish in the playing of a game than the having fun of playing the game? Put simply, if not everyone is having fun at the table, there's no game. The DM, as the final authority on what is permissible and what isn't at the table, has the power to determine what the players have fun doing. This means that the players' fun is entirely in the DM's hands...the buck stops there. If you have fun doing something, it is the DM's purview to say "OKAY!" or "NO WAY!" Players "these days" are getting used to Okay, because the 3.5 system is good enough that there are many more situations where the DM can say "Okay!" and everyone will have fun. This is in comparison to things like 2e, where if the DM said Okay to certain supplements, fun may be lessened. What's the "bigger fish?" Story? Feel? Atmosphere? Challenge? If done right, these things serve the concept of fun and enjoyment, making fun an enjoyment #1 priority.Having the possibility of failure makes accomplishment more sweet. There aren't a lot of accomplishments IRL that risk death...simply because I didn't risk death to, say, write a novel, doesn't make the accomplishment writing of that novel any less sweet. The risk involved is not the risk of death....it is the risk of *failure*. Death is only one kind of failure. The most ultimate kind, but still simply one type. It is fun to risk the failure of your characters. It is not fun to have you characters die. There is a compromise that can be reached here: risking failure without the painful risk of death. The idea of permenant PC death could be excluded from the entire game and not make the game any worse. But roadblocks that you cannot overcome? That make what you want not worth the effort? That make you regret ever wanting it in the first place? Where is the fun in crushing someone's desire to be a big strong monster?It is also true that as a DM challenges players, players should challenge DM's. What the players want is to play a game, to be challenged, and to enjoy the campaign world. The DM should give them that first and foremost. Sometimes, to give them that, it means saying 'no.' It always means that they will experience some risk of failure, because that's what's fun for everyone.A DM should only consider campaign world and his own desires if that is what would enhance fun for everyone at the table. Obviously, a coherent campaign world is fun, as is a DM who enjoys what he's doing. However, the DM's desires do not and should not take prescidence over the player's. It's not much fun for anyone except one player when a player is selfish, but it's easy to kick out a player. It's no fun for anyone except one DM when a DM is selfish, and it's much harder to kick out a DM.#1: I do make use of cursed magic items, but only when the party can overcome them. They are challenges, not ways for me to punish them for seeking treasure.#2: Double-edged benefits aren't the problem. The problem is selfish DM's, just like selfish players can be a problem. And I'm not accusing you of being one, I'm just saying that the 3.x ruleset is the first to consider selfish DMing a bad thing, and part of the way it does that is by balancing the ruleset fairly well and empowering the players to know the system.A rules-lawyer, a power-gamer, a spotlight hog, a munchkin? The problem with all these players is ultimately that they are selfish. They don't consider the group as much as they consider themselves.What hasn't recieved much attention is that the DM is just as likely to suffer from these problems. And while a bad player can ruin a night for a group, a bad DM can ruin the entire game for every potential person they play with. A selfish DM is a rules-lawyer who can make up their own rules, they're a power-gamer who can invent new tricks, they're a spotlight hog whose story and world are at the center of the game, they're a munchkin more concerned with their neat-o imagination than the other people that they share a game with.While a good DM might make turning into a dragon frought with problems, they would also allow him to revel in being a dragon for a time, allow him some use out of his nifty powers, make his draconic form essential to the story. And if that good DM had a problem with dragons, he would let the player know that turning into a dragon is not something he's prepared to let the player do. A selfish DM might instead use the transformation as a way to PUNISH the player for trying to have fun. They might consider their own sacred canon above any petty player's considerations. They might see a player who dares to pursue his own goals (rather than the DM-sanctioned goals that he thought of beforehand) and want such a player to learn a lesson of some sort.D&D is not for teaching lessons, except in a highly tangential sense. It is about a group of people having fun pretending to be magical gumdrop fairies who kick some ass for a few hours a week. It it's core, any RPG is about people gathering to enjoy imagination's ability for a few hours a week. And a selfish DM, like a selfish player, mistakes that, and puts their own delight above the delight of the four other people around them.The DM has a powerful ability to determine what the game is like for an entire, and that makes selfish DM's much more insidious and much more harmful than selfish players. Thus, the things in the 3.x ruleset that discourages selfish DMing (including telling you that a DM's #1 duty is to ensure everyone's fun...I can quote, if you need it) are things I adore about it.</blockquote>

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