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Message: <blockquote data-quote="clearstream" data-source="post: 9505885" data-attributes="member: 71699">While I very much agree with you here, this is resisting something I did not say.This thought came out of a previous conversation, and relates to something I've observed can be fruitful for play. Some groups seem to follow a pattern where they all agree that the DM owns "the campaign".A case where I've observed that was a long running DQ campaign where a group of DMs were curators of the world and rules. Everyone playing agreed to that. The DM group was fluid - anyone could join and thus become a curator too - but they had to take on the mantle first. Anyone could make submissions to the curators, who could accept or reject.Another case was a long running AD&D campaign where a single DM was curator of world and rules. They seemed - again with agreement - to treat "the campaign" as their property. That didn't necessarily mean they weren't considering and respecting what their players wanted from play, but ultimately they decided on world and rules. In this context (AD&D) it's interesting to recall the afterword in the DMGIt is the spirit of the game, not the letter of the rules, which is important. Never hold to the letter written, nor allow some barracks room lawyer to force quotations from the rule book upon you, if it goes against the obvious intent of the game. As you hew the line with respect to conformity to major systems and uniformity of play in general, also be certain the game is mastered by you and not by your players. Within the broad parameters given in the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons volumes, you are creator and final arbiter. By ordering things as they should be, the game as a whole first, your campaign next, and your participants thereafter, you will be playing Advanced Dungeons & Dragons as it was meant to be. May you find as much pleasure in so doing as the rest of us do!The argument I am making is one about the kinds of entities involved in TTRPG play and how they are wielded for play. I'm observing "the campaign" as a metagame entity, i.e. one that exists across sessions, and it is possible and can even be fruitful for some modes of play for DMs to own it. It seems feasibly like an intellectual property: the creating artist (in this case the DM) holds rights over "the campaign" including a right not to have it adapted without their approval.I'm not making any argument for the superiority (or inferiority) of this approach. I'm calling attention to the entity itself - "the campaign" - and asserting its existence in the domain and that there are groups that agree to it being owned by the DM. I'm curious about what they get out of it and whether those precise benefits can be gained in other ways?</blockquote>

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