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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Raven Crowking" data-source="post: 2582249" data-attributes="member: 18280"><shudder>Sorry, but no.  KM presents "fun" as the be-all and end-all of gaming, but also as a moving target whose definition is whatever is convenient at the moment.According the KM, the DM's primary concern is to ensure that everyone at the table is having "fun" and will have "fun" in the future.  If one person's idea of "fun" is to play the Tarrasque, the DM should just have to deal with that.  If another person's idea of fun is to play a serial murderer/rapist, then the DM should just have to deal with that.  If Player A wants to kill Player C's character, then the DM should just have to deal with that.Unless, perhaps, what the player wants will not serve the purpose of "fun" .... He's "talking about the DM serving the player's needs."  In KM's philosophy, there is no way for the DM to win.  He "serves the player's needs" and is forbidden from putting "his own pleasures in the game first, ahead of the player's, rather than equal to them."  In other words, the DM serves the players by doing 90% or more of the work involved in the game, does not get to experience the game as a player, and if more than half the players say one day "It would be fun if magic items started raining from the sky...and we mean real, long-term fun" the DM is supposed to shrug and start dropping +2 swords.This isn't an interesting point.This is a desire to have the DM's work somehow subservient to the player's efforts at rolling up characters.KM has a point about risk vs. reward ratios.  If the risk is too great, and the reward too little, no one will accept the risk.  Well, duh.  But in a world in which death can occur, it is up to the players to determine what risks are acceptable.  If they think that the reward is worth risking death, so be it.  If not, also so be it.  KM's idea that the risks shouldn't be that great (no death possible), but the rewards should be (DM serving player's fun), is a pure and unadulterated example of Monty Haulism from the 1st Edition DMG.  It is, in fact, a style that I imagine many of us played when we first started gaming, and eventually quit because all reward and no risk is ultimately as boring as all risk and no reward.In KM's example of a bad DM, the DM sets up a campaign setting in which all of the character types are human and no one can play a wizard.  One player wants to play a fey-type character and another a wizard, and the DM says no to both.  (Apart from deciding to make the DM sound rude when saying no, that's essentially it.  Oh, sure, he has the DM seem to suggest that there are multiple races available, and if that's where this DM is supposed to be "bad" so be it.  That, at least, makes more sense than KM's suggestion that limitations on racial type make one a bad DM.)  There is some idea here that the DM envisions a campaign setting based off of Arthurian mythology and literature.And why, exactly, is he a bad DM?Certain character types do not fit the setting.  The DM tells them prior to character generation that these types will not be allowed.  So, presumably nothing hidden here.KM agrees that the "whole ride" trumps "instant gratification" (though he still seems to believe that it is the DM's holy duty to ensure that every player's wish is eventually granted, even if mutually contradictory).  Here we have an example where the DM rules that setting excludes certain choices.  Like many DM's, this DM probably believes that a coherent setting is a large contributor to the "fun" everyone is supposed to experience, and the primary contributor to the "fun" of world creation (about 80% of the 90% work that a good DM has to do, on his own, away from the table).If this is, as KM suggests, an example of a bad DM, then these people are also bad DMs:*  Person who will not let me play Q in a Star Trek game.*  Person who will not let me play a klingon in a Star Trek game taking place during the Original Series aboard the USS Enterprise.*  Person who will not let me play a kender.*  Person who will not let me play a spellcaster in D&D using the rules in suppliment X.*  Person who will not let me play a new class from suppliment Y.*  Person who will not let me play a warforged in a campaign taking place in Medieval Japan.*  Person who will not let me play a series of characters, all of whom are designed to not fit into the campaign world as it is presented.Either the DM can limit racial choices, and still be considered a good DM, or he can't.Either the DM can limit class choices, and still be considered a good DM, or he can't. The DM saying that D&D magic is too powerful for a particular setting is, imho, perfectly fair.  Perhaps he intends to introduce Call of Cthulhu magic.  Maybe he is really planning a Call of Cthulhu game with D&D characters, and has decided that the players learning this in game is part of the effect that he deems will be fun for everyone.KM's says he's not talking about instant gratification.  I call bull-hooey.A player's desire to play Character Type B can always be accomodated by that player in some campaign somewhere.  It does not have to be accomodated in this campaign now.  To suggest otherwise is to suggest that the DM does, in fact, owe the player some form of instant gratification."The DM exists for the fun of the players" is not an "excellent point".  It is, rather, a restrictive and self-indulgent view of the game.  RC</blockquote>

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