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Message: <blockquote data-quote="king_ghidorah" data-source="post: 4017099" data-attributes="member: 18404">The problem is the unknown. People project their own fears an concerns onto it.WotC is going to continue to push organized play, either through groups such as RPGA or through the DI, consistency of rules will continue to be a concern. They want to make it easy for anyone to hop into a game in order to promote a consistent experience that people will identify with the brand. This means well-defined, consistent rules. This does not necessarily mean a loss of the amount power DMs actually have in they game: they will still control the game. But it does mean that there will be restrictions on how DMs use their power, since the player-DM contract changes, with an assumption of DMs having certain rules to follow. This is a reasonable concern for DMs like Reynard. Back when I first started playing and DMing in 1980, the DM was often described in terms of having absolute control over the game. When I started playing other games, I found that the level and type of rules, the type of genre, and even the group changed the social contracts. That didn't bother me, but it did involve rethinking the job I did. By the time I was running Hero System games in the late 1980s, the approach to what I did was very different -- discussions of what were possible, proper outcomes of the rules, etc. were more common. The GM-player relationship was less hierarchical, and our interactions more focused on mutual enjoyment of the game.I though that was a good thing, and brought it into the World of Darkness games I ran in the 1990s, and even more so in the Feng Shui games I ran, that involved a fair amount of player narrative control in combats and a focus on fun over balance or even narrative.By the time I came back to playing D&D in 2000, I brought all of that to the table, as did my players. So the idea of DM as part of a collaborative group is not a problem to me, nor is the role of DM as sole authority. But I acknowledge that this is a taste thing. Different levels of DM freedom to control the game result in different games. And the D&D DMing style I started with created a very different experience with the way I ran Feng Shui or D&D 3e.Reynard's concerns have a real basis, though I don't agree that what he reads into some of the articles posted actually reflects what was said, and thus don't agree that there is any particular reason to believe yet that 4e will strip DMs of more power than previous editions have.</blockquote>

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