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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 2583169" data-attributes="member: 2067">You're removing one key element from my argument every time you represent it, and BU is doing the same thing: the DM should be having fun, too. Obviously, rewriting a month's worth of planning ain't much fun, and a DM has a responsibility for her own fun, too. Some DM's can have as much fun at 22nd level as they can at 2nd. Some DM's don't exhaustively detail their worlds, prefering to destcribe them as players explore them. Some DM's only work a week or two in advance. Some DM's have conversations with their players weeks before the game actually starts, or before they write down one word of what the world is going to be like. In these scenarios, the DM could run a 22nd level game as easily as a 2nd level game and have a lot of fun doing it.A less flexible DM, of course, wouldn't be able to change like that and have fun himself. Which is fine -- D&D is about having fun.Have I ever said otherwise? The DM in the (admittedly rather poor) example is selfish because he is not open to conversation about what the setting can be. It doesn't matter to him what his players want, even if what his players want fit the setting (no Merlin in an Arthurian world? No fey?), even when the rules give guidelines on how to do it. He's selfish: What I want is more important than what you want. I have only been saying that a DM should not be selfish, and that they wield more power than any individual player. The rules make it harder for a DM to be selfish now -- they give DM's one thousand good ways in which they can say "yes," so a DM who says "no" has to now be justified.Continuing with that example, what if the DM didn't care that no one in his group had ever really had much to do with King Arthur? What if he sprung the idea of an Arthurian style D&D session on them when they showed up at the table for the first session? Developing a D&D campaign should be a dialogue, not a monologue. Both sides have their wants and D&D is fun when both sides get what they want.To repeat what I said on page 10: A DM can fairly say no whenever they are justified, in the eyes of the players.World flavor is a fine justification, but only if the players want a world with that flavor, too. Random whim is a fine justification, but only if the players don't mind that whim. A view that the rules are poor and need improving is a fine justification, but only if the players are comfortable with that change. It's not just the players who need to find a new game if they aren't fine with those alterations -- the DM may need to find new players. And not every player is going to be comfortable with those changes. That's not a problem with "players these days." That's a problem with DMs expecting players to just smile and nod and agree because they are the DM. It shouldn't work like that, and it doesn't. Players can choose what they have fun doing. The DM can say "No" whenever the players let him. Because this is a group effort, not just one man's creation. And remember, players want to be challenged, and they want to overcome roadblocks. And players who know what they want aren't an unfortunate situation of the game today. They are an excellent development, because it will lead to them having as much fun playing D&D as they can.</blockquote>

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