D&D General DM Authority

[Oofta]

Dear @Chaosmancer
I'll give you that THE post you quoted was not in @Oofta's favor. That much is true.
But a thread is more than a post. It is a serie of posts within the same thread. Do not take threads one by one and try to remember what the poster said in earlier posts and to what post he is currently answering. On that particular post you were right, but @Oofta and a lot of others are considering the whole thread. Not one line in particular, not one post in particular but the whole thread. IF you take into account what he had been saying all along from post one, @Oofta was right. If you just take a few lines which make out the post you quoted out of the hundreds already written, you were right. It is all a matter of perspective. I would take not one post, but the thread in its entirety. And yes, over long thread, it is easy to loose tracks.

And for

We'll always have this:

I'm not perfect. I make mistakes especially when you gain 10 pages in a day. But when post after post is ... let's say misleading ... it's easy to misread. Sorry if I misread, not sorry for pushing back against the hyperbole and strawmen that seem to be thrown around on this topic.

In any case, I'm trying to get better at not getting pulled into arguments that basically boil down to two people saying "neener neener" to each other. It's a work in process.

 

[Oofta]

With certain groups, nobody ever has to make a ruling other than possibly the occasional reminder of what the rule is. In other cases once in a while someone just need to make a call because things can be binary yes/no and reasonable people can disagree. I think it's best if that is done by the DM (which can mean agreeing their initial ruling was wrong). There are cases where you have problematic player in which case it's best dealt with by the DM even if that escalates to showing them the door.

To me, message boards and discussions like this shows an aspect of how people just can't reach consensus at times. It's too easy for a disagreement to raise to a boiling point without someone just stepping in to make a decision.

But that's pretty much it. We've got over a thousand posts and my views on the subject can pretty much be summed up in a couple of paragraphs. I know there's a lot of variation on how people run things, there is no one true way and frequently tone doesn't carry correctly.

Anyway, just my two coppers.

 

[Maxperson]

Anyway, just my two coppers.

You forgot the "neener neener" at the end of that.

 

[Helldritch]

I'm not perfect. I make mistakes especially when you gain 10 pages in a day. But when post after post is ... let's say misleading ... it's easy to misread. Sorry if I misread, not sorry for pushing back against the hyperbole and strawmen that seem to be thrown around on this topic.

In any case, I'm trying to get better at not getting pulled into arguments that basically boil down to two people saying "neener neener" to each other. It's a work in process.

Do not be sorry. We are all humans after all. If anything, I should plead guilty of the same. And you are right, after 100+ posts, it is easy to misread, misinterpret or draw false conclusions. Hell, sometimes answering to somebody might mean that an other one posted and invalidate or modify the meaning/intent of the message you were writing. Again, I am guilty of that too. Try as I may, I am not 100% perfect (but sooo close! ). Jokes' asides we all make mistakes. As long as we can forget each others, we can further our discussions.

With certain groups, nobody ever has to make a ruling other than possibly the occasional reminder of what the rule is. In other cases once in a while someone just need to make a call because things can be binary yes/no and reasonable people can disagree. I think it's best if that is done by the DM (which can mean agreeing their initial ruling was wrong). There are cases where you have problematic player in which case it's best dealt with by the DM even if that escalates to showing them the door.

To me, message boards and discussions like this shows an aspect of how people just can't reach consensus at times. It's too easy for a disagreement to raise to a boiling point without someone just stepping in to make a decision.

But that's pretty much it. We've got over a thousand posts and my views on the subject can pretty much be summed up in a couple of paragraphs. I know there's a lot of variation on how people run things, there is no one true way and frequently tone doesn't carry correctly.

Anyway, just my two coppers.

The bad cases usually happen with new players that do not know what is acceptable or not. And in new, I mean new to a table and not necessarily inexperienced. We all come from different experience and what is normal at a table might not be at an other. Many houserules are often forget to be house rules and assumed to be rules. Period. So when a player comes to a new table, his old habits might kick in and all of a sudden... BOOM! A big arguement erupts like a volcano. As I have done many tournaments in the days, my opening speech as DM in chief and organizer was to tell everyone to remember that house rules were just that. House rules and they had no place in tournaments. In one big tournament we had 25 DMs... each with his (and one was a she) house rules. So we all had to be on the same page and we adjusted our rulings accordingly. Me and two others were there to be sure that if an arguement at a table was erupting, we would be there to either support or invalidate a DMs decision. It happened once or twice, that we invalidated a DM. Most of the time, it was a player knowingly or unknowingly applying a house rule to the situation.

The true toxic/abusive player is a rarity. But they are there. Most of the time, it is a nice chap trying to get a small advantage for his character. We are all humans after all.

 

[FrozenNorth]

Wives aren’t the best example. You have huge trust there and a commitment to each other that extends well beyond playing D&D or going out to dinner. Dinner isn’t a sufficiently important enough example either.

I would say “same principle, different application”.

But if you think the analogy is poor, bring it up with Maxperson: he’s the one who briught it up.

 

[FrogReaver]

I would say “same principle, different application”.

But if you think the analogy is poor, bring it up with Maxperson: he’s the one who briught it up.

I think it works in the other way. Saying even wives and husbands disagree is fairly compelling to show that random strangers or even friends around the table will disagree as well.

I think it’s a good example for that.

 

[FrozenNorth]

Yep. Which is what inherently makes that technique soo bad in most cases. No one likes a bait and switch.

Not a criticism, but a data point: my experience is that most DMs, myself included, believe that their secrets are more clever than they think.


Often, what is lost: creating a character appropriate to the campaign, or with ties with the land, is more than what is gained.

 

[Campbell]

I would say that there is a level of trust and commitment that extends beyond the game for any group of people worth playing with. That does need to be built over time though.

 

[FrogReaver]

Not a criticism, but a data point: my experience is that most DMs, myself included, believe that their secrets are more clever than they think.


Often, what is lost: creating a character appropriate to the campaign, or with ties with the land, is more than what is gained.

Are you even talking about the same thing?

 

[Maxperson]

I would say “same principle, different application”.

But if you think the analogy is poor, bring it up with Maxperson: he’s the one who briught it up.

Not about something as minor as where to eat.