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Message: <blockquote data-quote="the Jester" data-source="post: 7762784" data-attributes="member: 1210">First of all, who ever said that listening to your players should be optional? Second of all, of course the game doesn't run with no players. But that's not what I said, either. What I said was that you can take any one player away other than the DM and the game will run (group policies of "everyone is here or no game" aside). But if you take the DM away, that game doesn't run.The notion that all the players in an rpg are equally important is nice. But one guy is crucial to play, and- specific instances aside- the others are not, individually, crucial to the game running. It's like if you get together to play Risk with a bunch of friends and the guy who owns the game can't make it. There is no game. The DM may not own D&D or the group, but he absolutely owns his campaign. In fact, if a group got together without the DM and someone else said, "I'll just run this week's session"- meaning those characters and the current adventure- I'd reckon that most groups would find that violates their social contract, to put it mildly.</blockquote>