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<blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 9507895" data-attributes="member: 6790260">Can you have a respectful conversation with your players where you recognize that their interests might sometimes--absolutely not every time, but sometimes--be more important than your prewritten setting concepts?Are you willing to look for ways to make both sides happy, even if that likely means both sides make some adjustments on things?Do you agree that, at least in the substantial majority of cases (IMO it's nearly 100% of them), if all participants are reasonable and acting in good faith, they can work something out together?Because that's what I've talked about. Every single time. I've spoken of meeting people halfway. Of drilling down to find what players really, truly want, and that in general whatever that thing is, it's something totally workable. I've spoken of how infuriating it is that everyone always assumes that players always become petulant jerks. That players always do the horrific caricatures like your &quot;wookiee Jedi in Star Trek&quot; and thus always need a Hobbesian DM (that's Thomas Hobbes, not the stuffed tiger comic character named after him.) I've spoken about how tedious it is that as soon as any criticism is ever levelled against the notion of absolute DM power, it's countered with the non-argument &quot;well don't you TRUST your DM?&quot; or &quot;I couldn't play a game with someone I don't trust so your argument is irrelevant,&quot; as though it were utterly impossible for DMs to do things that erode trust or that DMs don't automatically start with an unassailable carte blanche (especially when they're demanding absolute power!)</blockquote>

[QUOTE="EzekielRaiden, post: 9507895, member: 6790260"] Can you have a respectful conversation with your players where you recognize that their interests might [I]sometimes[/I]--absolutely not every time, but [I]sometimes[/I]--be more important than your prewritten setting concepts? Are you willing to look for ways to make both sides happy, even if that likely means both sides make some adjustments on things? Do you agree that, at least in the substantial majority of cases (IMO it's nearly 100% of them), if all participants are reasonable and acting in good faith, they can work something out together? Because that's what I've talked about. Every single time. I've spoken of meeting people halfway. Of drilling down to find what players really, truly want, and that in general whatever that thing is, it's something totally workable. I've spoken of how infuriating it is that everyone always assumes that players [I]always[/I] become petulant jerks. That players [I]always[/I] do the horrific caricatures like your "wookiee Jedi in Star Trek" and thus [I]always[/I] need a Hobbesian DM (that's Thomas Hobbes, not the stuffed tiger comic character named after him.) I've spoken about how tedious it is that as soon as any criticism is ever levelled against the notion of absolute DM power, it's countered with the non-argument "well don't you TRUST your DM?" or "I couldn't play a game with someone I don't trust so your argument is irrelevant," as though it were utterly impossible for DMs to do things that erode trust or that DMs don't automatically start with an unassailable [I]carte blanche[/I] (especially when they're demanding absolute power!) [/QUOTE]

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