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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Majoru Oakheart" data-source="post: 6132538" data-attributes="member: 5143">Actually, I'm the DM...I don't have to let anything go.  That's the great thing about being the DM.  You control EVERYTHING in the universe.  Do I leave thing broad enough to allow the PCs to come up with any number of 20 or 30 solutions to the problem?  Sure.  Do I allow infinite solutions?  Unlikely.  If it seems completely unfair, or I feel would spoil the experience of playing, then I find a way not to allow it.Basically I weigh "I don't have anything planned after this tower of traps and tricks.  I anticipated that it'd take about 3 sessions for the players to get through it, so I didn't think I'd need to plan beyond that.  I'm really bad at improvising.  I spent 3 hours mapping this tower and its traps.  If I allow them to destroy the tower, I'd either have to end the session immediately so I had time to come up with something else...or I have to just start making up plot on the fly.  Which always turns out poorly and with the players complaining that my game is boring.  So, it's either say no to blowing up the tower and giving them a little bit of disappointment in exchange for them likely having fun solving my puzzles for the next 3 sessions....or it's end the game here and telling them to go home early since we won't be playing tonight."A couple of times when I REALLY didn't want to tell the players no, I actually posed the question to them outside of the game "Here's the situation, do you want me to allow this in exchange for not gaming today?" they've never said anything but "Oh...nevermind then, I don't even try that."I also disagree that my entire job is to make the players happy.  I believe my happiness should be equal to theirs.  My job is to create a game that makes both them AND me happy.  If it requires sacrificing my own happiness for theirs, I don't want to DM.  None of them want to DM either.  We've discussed it many times.  If I step down as the DM, we stop playing D&D.  Everyone would much rather play the game with some restrictions to make the game more fun for me than not play at all.</blockquote>

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