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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Treebore" data-source="post: 2961496" data-attributes="member: 10177">Enabler is probably the best word for describing what most people are trying to use facilitator for.We are all adults, or at least hopefully good DM's, right? So what is so hard at recognzing the fact that DM's are the ones who set up the "opposition" and use them to try and take down the PC's?What is so hard about accepting that doing so is an "adversarial" role?I get the impression so many of you want to "distance" yourself from the adversary label because of the horror stories we have heard about the bad DM's who slaughtered PC's with relish and glee.  We tend towards the advararial role simply because the adventure is set up to overcome obstacles with a bunch of adversaries to over come. That is the biggest premise of this game we play. It is no different in that regard that table top wargaming or sitting down to play a game of Spades or Magic. One guy is out to win over the other.The BIG difference for us as DM's is that we actually want the guy or guys on the "other" side of the table to win. Just not easily. We want them to earn it.So we do this by setting up adversarial situations that we believe they will win as long as the dice roll their way and you haven't accidentally stacked the odds too heavily against them.We are still being their adversary, just a nice one.Are we facilitators? Heck yes!! We facilitate them with treasure and helpful NPC's and any other myriad factor to help them succeed and have fun or to recover from a "adversary" that they used bad tactics against or simply had real bad dice rolls and ended up dying.So most of the game goes to the "adversary" side, but we are nice adversaries, we actually want to lose and do our best to have it end up that way, but only if the players earn it by playing smart, playing as a team, and the dice roll well for them. We want them to have a memorable adversary/challenge.How can we distance ourselves from that role? We are the ones who decided the who, what, when, where, and how much of the whole thing? We designed the adversaries. We designed the situation in which the adversarial confrontation will play out.So how can anyone claim to not be an adversarial DM? Being adversarial is NOT a BAD thing to be! It is being what we usually call a "Killer" DM that takes it too far. Of course even that is obfuscated by our tendency to call tough DM's with a high kill rates "Killer DM's".Maye we should call the truly bad adversarial DM's the "slaughter DM's" instead.Creating the adversaries and the situations in which they are fought or overcome is by default an "adversarial position". That is not a bad label. Being a DM to which the "slaughter DM" title can be given is when it is bad.So get rid of the milk and honey, and the sunshine and flowers. Revel in the truth! The DM is the "adversary"!! Hopefully we are all the "good" adversary who wants us to win IF we earn it. With our "Facilitator" roles we'll do our best to help our players achieve the desired outcomes against the obstacles we place in their way.</blockquote>

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