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Burning Questions: Why Do DMs Limit Official WOTC Material?
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<blockquote data-quote="epithet" data-source="post: 7762533" data-attributes="member: 6796566"><p>I never said your job was to make the players happy, no one can shoulder that burden. I said your job was to present a game that they enjoy. They can be miserable and wretched and still enjoy the campaign, and in fact bringing a sliver of solace to their bleak little lives is one of the reasons it's worth doing.</p><p></p><p>So, your response is... well, it's wrong on so many levels. I guess there's nothing for it but to get into it, so... here we go. I certainly never meant to imply that it was unreasonable for the DM to deny any request from the players. I have, in fact, supported the reasonable constraints of worldbuilding within the very post you quoted. I don't think it is reasonable to knowingly build a world that your player's won't like very much, but then I don't think you actually do that and I've never made such an accusation.</p><p></p><p>If you think that I am "entitled" for thinking that I, as a DM, have some obligation to consider the preferences of my players, then you should go look up the definition of the word. "Entitled" and "obligated" are no synonyms, and you're using the word wrong. It's so wrong, in fact, that I'm not certain exactly what you're accusing me of. Being annoying? Being obnoxious? I mean, I'm not playing in your campaign, I am not trying to force you to act or to refrain from acting in any particular way, and I'm not insisting that you or any other person have any duty or responsibility towards me, so... I can only assume that Mistwell was right, and you're just saying "I'm not entitled, you are!" as some sort of "blah blah rubber, blah blah glue, etc." thing.</p><p></p><p>You are grossly mischaracterizing the "social contract" of the typical D&D game play group. I've heard of "professional DMs" who will come run a game for your group, and "provide a service," as you suggest, but that's certainly not standard. Furthermore, you go on to describe the situation as if the players are the ones providing the service to you, saying "[a] player who wants me to change my ideas and thoughts to cater to them would ruin my fun, but it sounds like you don't care about the DM's fun..." as if their role is just to validate yours, and to make sure you have a good time. Unless you have a very unusual game group, you are not a DM for hire and your players are not playtesters for your unpublished opus. You are all there to have a good time, together, as a group, collaboratively. None of you should be swatting the others with rolled-up newspapers (unless that's what you're into,) dictating the terms and conditions of the evening's social interaction to which the others must subscribe.</p><p></p><p>Yes, the role of the DM is to be the tyrant of the table. As DM, it is my job--and mine alone--to determine the actions and attitudes of all the NPCs, to adjudicate the actions of the PCs and determine success or failure, to impose certainty by my rulings on all things crunchy and fluffy. It is the role of the players to engage with the world and enrich it through their actions, creating and destroying within the structure of the game. We each have a role within the game, and the game is ours. The world is mine, the game is ours. The story that unfolds in the campaign is determined by player action within the context I provide. It is collaborative. Do I change things up to give them things I think they'll enjoy? You bet your ass I do. I've had players mistake something, and get super excited about what they thought they had discovered, so I rewrote significant background details to make that into reality. I've been flexible, and come up with interesting and consistent ways to fit things into a setting that was not designed to accommodate those things, because players have wanted them. Why? It's the same reason they abide by my rulings, and overlook my occasional mistake or inconsistency. Because these are my friends, and we all want the lot of us to have a good time. <em>That's</em> the social contract.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="epithet, post: 7762533, member: 6796566"] I never said your job was to make the players happy, no one can shoulder that burden. I said your job was to present a game that they enjoy. They can be miserable and wretched and still enjoy the campaign, and in fact bringing a sliver of solace to their bleak little lives is one of the reasons it's worth doing. So, your response is... well, it's wrong on so many levels. I guess there's nothing for it but to get into it, so... here we go. I certainly never meant to imply that it was unreasonable for the DM to deny any request from the players. I have, in fact, supported the reasonable constraints of worldbuilding within the very post you quoted. I don't think it is reasonable to knowingly build a world that your player's won't like very much, but then I don't think you actually do that and I've never made such an accusation. If you think that I am "entitled" for thinking that I, as a DM, have some obligation to consider the preferences of my players, then you should go look up the definition of the word. "Entitled" and "obligated" are no synonyms, and you're using the word wrong. It's so wrong, in fact, that I'm not certain exactly what you're accusing me of. Being annoying? Being obnoxious? I mean, I'm not playing in your campaign, I am not trying to force you to act or to refrain from acting in any particular way, and I'm not insisting that you or any other person have any duty or responsibility towards me, so... I can only assume that Mistwell was right, and you're just saying "I'm not entitled, you are!" as some sort of "blah blah rubber, blah blah glue, etc." thing. You are grossly mischaracterizing the "social contract" of the typical D&D game play group. I've heard of "professional DMs" who will come run a game for your group, and "provide a service," as you suggest, but that's certainly not standard. Furthermore, you go on to describe the situation as if the players are the ones providing the service to you, saying "[a] player who wants me to change my ideas and thoughts to cater to them would ruin my fun, but it sounds like you don't care about the DM's fun..." as if their role is just to validate yours, and to make sure you have a good time. Unless you have a very unusual game group, you are not a DM for hire and your players are not playtesters for your unpublished opus. You are all there to have a good time, together, as a group, collaboratively. None of you should be swatting the others with rolled-up newspapers (unless that's what you're into,) dictating the terms and conditions of the evening's social interaction to which the others must subscribe. Yes, the role of the DM is to be the tyrant of the table. As DM, it is my job--and mine alone--to determine the actions and attitudes of all the NPCs, to adjudicate the actions of the PCs and determine success or failure, to impose certainty by my rulings on all things crunchy and fluffy. It is the role of the players to engage with the world and enrich it through their actions, creating and destroying within the structure of the game. We each have a role within the game, and the game is ours. The world is mine, the game is ours. The story that unfolds in the campaign is determined by player action within the context I provide. It is collaborative. Do I change things up to give them things I think they'll enjoy? You bet your ass I do. I've had players mistake something, and get super excited about what they thought they had discovered, so I rewrote significant background details to make that into reality. I've been flexible, and come up with interesting and consistent ways to fit things into a setting that was not designed to accommodate those things, because players have wanted them. Why? It's the same reason they abide by my rulings, and overlook my occasional mistake or inconsistency. Because these are my friends, and we all want the lot of us to have a good time. [I]That's[/I] the social contract. [/QUOTE]
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