D&D General DM Authority

[generic]

But, DMs don't need to bend either. And, maybe you won't bend on your homebrew setting, but some DMs also don't bend on the lore of established settings either.

I think the issue of DMs bending on the lore of their setting is a pretty minor one, explicit restrictions aside. Depends on your style, I guess. If thye players understand that you like to act as an arbiter of the setting, it's fine. If you run a game like mine, where players can author in pretty much whatever to fit a character concept, it's just a non-issue.

Arguing from this point doesn't alter anything which has been said about player buy in and the duty of DMs to facilitate player enjoyment.

 

[generic]

I'm not saying it is unreasonable, but I am trying to make a point.

You started out your last post by listing all the things the players had asked for.

They asked you to be DM
They asked to play in your setting
They asked to be in the Material World
They asked to play Genasi
They asked to play Genasi from the Material World.

But, that wasn't the real situation. It almost never is.

You asked to the DM. You presented your setting.

Now, if the players aren't interested in your campaign, you are willing to try and find a different campaign, but you aren't willing to budge on certain points.

Potentially, I'm carrying a little too much over from the last thread, but so many of the same actors are on the stage, it is hard not to, but there was a lot of discussion on that thread about how players were being unreasonable by not being willing to bend on their desires. A lot of times they were called entitled, or a whole bunch of other things.

Okay, you don't get to judge what the real situation was or is. Furthermore, under this argument, you seem to be implying that the DM's fun should not go before the fun of the players, which is perfectly valid, I completely agree.

However, if a player buys in to the DM's preexisting restrictions, there's no loss of player agency in the choice of what the fun is.

What kind of game exists where the DM invites players, forces them to play, and never makes room for anyone else's fun? I've always found that player buy in prior to the game negates pretty much all of these issues of DM entitlement.

 

[generic]

Goku was capable of casually blowing away a planet as a teenager. There's nothing trivial about inserting Goku into any setting.

Except maybe Forgotten Realms, could do with a little blasting away of the excess.

 

[Charlaquin]

I'm not saying it is unreasonable, but I am trying to make a point.

You started out your last post by listing all the things the players had asked for.

They asked you to be DM
They asked to play in your setting
They asked to be in the Material World
They asked to play Genasi
They asked to play Genasi from the Material World.

But, that wasn't the real situation. It almost never is.

You asked to the DM. You presented your setting.

Sure, I'll concede that those first two points (and arguably the third as well) were, in this hypothetical, proposed more by me than by the players. My point was more that, in your hypothetical example, you didn't seem to accept either playing a plane-hopping game within my homebrew setting or playing in a different, published setting, or working with the players to come up with a lore-friendly reason these Genasi characters were hanging out in the material plane as acceptable alternatives. It seemed therefore that my hypothetical group was for some reason insisting on playing a as Genasi, in my homebrew setting, exclusively in the material plane, and without working with me to come up with a lore-friendly explanation for this. If they would be willing to accept any one of these alternatives, there would be no conflict. Those are all points I would be willing to bend on. But, if the players for some reason insist on all of those points, as seemed to be the case in the hypothetical scenario you've presented me with, then I would decide not to DM this game (hence, "me DMing " being one of the points I listed that the players seemed to want).

Now, if the players aren't interested in your campaign, you are willing to try and find a different campaign, but you aren't willing to budge on certain points.

Potentially, I'm carrying a little too much over from the last thread, but so many of the same actors are on the stage, it is hard not to, but there was a lot of discussion on that thread about how players were being unreasonable by not being willing to bend on their desires. A lot of times they were called entitled, or a whole bunch of other things.

But, DMs don't need to bend either. And, maybe you won't bend on your homebrew setting, but some DMs also don't bend on the lore of established settings either. And a lot of the time, if there is something a player wants badly enough, the only recourse is to become a DM.

Well, I wasn't following the other thread, so ¯\(ツ)/¯

So, here we have the situation, maybe not specifically from you but in general.

A single player, they should bend to the DM.
The DM... really never has to compromise. The closest we get is that the DM is free to take the players opinions into consideration, but that is always presented as the DM being gracious, not as something they have to do.

And even if the entire group wants something, the DM might negotiate with them. Or they could end up deciding the group won't work and they will leave.

I have yet to come up with a single scenario where people have agreed that DM should bend or back down. Ever. No matter what scenario I present. The DM might kindly agree to negotiate, or they might decide the game isn't going to work. But never has someone said "As a DM, I'd change my mind."

But, players should back down. In fact, in the previous thread, it was questioned why a player would even attempt to push the envelope and not ask for something that the DM didn't approve.



But that is what it takes to even get people to consider that the DM should change their mind.

I mean, so far your hypothetical hasn't illustrated to me that this is anything other than the organic consequence of the designed DM-player dynamic.

And despite you inviting the players, you presented it as the players asking you to DM. Kind of strange, isn't it? You ask them to play, but you present it as though they asked you.

As mentioned earlier, I'm willing to concede that in the hypothetical scenario, the players didn't ask me to DM. But I got that impression from the way you had set the scenario up. My bad if I misunderstood.

Sure, but if we are talking about the limits of DM authority, this seems to be what we have to talk about. A DM against a single player, the player seems to always be in the wrong. Always be overruled. Maybe not specifically for you, but that is how it seems from this perspective.

I don't think that's a fair assessment. Sometimes the DM will agree with a single player's perspective.

Then why do you keep saying it is ultimate authority?

Here "ultimate" is being used to mean "final," rather than "greatest". Though, I have personally been avoiding the term "ultimate authority" because it seems to set some folks off. Again, it seems from my perspective like you are really objecting more to the term "authority" than to the actual positions of the folks who advocate for a top-down power dynamic.

Again, discussions from the other thread.

There seemed to be no limits. A DM could hand out Pre-generated characters, and that was perfectly fine. So, yes, that seems to be something that people think a DM is perfectly fine to do.



But, if we are as uncharitable with DMs as we are with players, we have to recognize that it is entirely possible that that agreement that the DM can use that understanding to act improperly.

I don't know what other people have told you. I'm largely just responding to posts directly quoting me at this point.

Exactly, that seems to be a reasonable position. And yet, I was told that it would matter about the context. That if the players were only all agreeing on that interpretation because it was in their favor, he might overrule them anyways.

That would be excersising Ultimate Authority, wouldn't it? But you seem to be of the opinion that doing so would be improper. So, perhaps, you are not advocating for Ultimate Authority?

I dunno, my posts seem to be getting a lot of Likes from the folks on the pro-DM Authority side of this discussion, so my position seems to resonate with them at least. There are some who seem to disagree with my position, like @Maxperson and @Lanefan, but they seem to be on the extreme end of the DM-Authority spectrum, where I seem to hold more moderate pro-DM Authority views.

But none of that is what people are saying they need the authority for. No one is claiming they need Ultimate Authority to run the environment or the NPCs.



And yet, that is the majority of what people are talking about. Almost exclusively.

I mean, that's what I'm claiming that authority is needed for. My preferred game dynamic wouldn't really work without the top-down power structure. Not because I worry players would try to cheat, or ruin the game or whatever, but because I run the kind of game @Campbell describes as "exploration-based play," where I as DM set up and control the environment and the players play to discover it. That kind of play just straight-up isn't possible if the players can decide they have a key to this locked door, or there's a city of Dragonborn on this part of the map, or Genasi are native to the material plane. That creates a totally different play dynamic, where the group is creating the environment together as they go, rather than discovering an environment that has already been created.

 

[loverdrive]

Usually, but not always. There are some situations which require a final arbiter, even amongst the most reasonable of groups. This is the point that people are contesting with you in case that wasn't clear.

What I'm saying is that if they can't reach an agreement and need an arbiter, then they have a deeper problem that isn't actually about a ruling or a scene they are arguing about -- and this problem needs to be addressed and solved in order to have a good game where everyone can bring something valuable to the table.

And, by the way, there are systems out there without a game master. In, say, Microscope, when it comes to individual characters, one person just narrates what their character is doing and if it influences another person's character -- the second person narrates what happens to them. Yeah, this allows for things like "I killed you!", "No, I had a super-puper magical shield, and I shot back and killed you!", but that never happens if people at the table understand the game and work together.

In D&D, if the players feel like, well, they are working together with the GM, then all the issues are resolved in a few words. If the players feel like they need to "win" the game and that the GM is their enemy, then having any "final word" will just make naughty word more hostile.

 

[Garthanos]

In D&D, if the players feel like, well, they are working together with the GM, then all the issues are resolved in a few words. If the players feel like they need to "win" the game and that the GM is their enemy, then having any "final word" will just make naughty word more hostile.

Again I am reading emphasis on players being bad actors wanting to "win". I met a guy in the 80s who was incredibly shell shocked might be the word? over DMs using their characters background against him... he did not want a character with depth because it was as he saw it a vulnerability through which he could be hurt it staggered me and I identified it as Gygaxian DM adversarialism come to roost. The perception of DM as enemy I thought came from someplace it seemed to have been in the 1e DMG, and the incredible fragility of the characters and dramatic easy character death no matter what you did.

 

[Maxperson]

In D&D, if the players feel like, well, they are working together with the GM, then all the issues are resolved in a few words. If the players feel like they need to "win" the game and that the GM is their enemy, then having any "final word" will just make naughty word more hostile.

Or else there are just different playstyles than yours and people can play differently from you without needing to "win" or things becoming hostile when the DM makes a ruling.

 

[loverdrive]

Again I am reading emphasis on players being bad actors wanting to "win".

I don't think that it automatically makes said players "bad" and need to be disposed off immediately -- it's not like they're sending me dick pics or something.

Of course, roots of the issue can be outside of the table -- but they need to be addressed anyway. A shell-shocked player just needs time and some effort to build trust.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I used the term to ask people what it meant to them. There's no accepted definition of absolute authority. I'm not Maxperson but he doesn't dismiss every position he doesn't like and explicitly states so.


If you want to quibble about details, discuss it with max. You are, however, making up naughty word people have never said.

Sure man, I'm always at fault and always just make up things people have never said.

Makes me wonder why I try and have conversations with you when it inevitably turns into you personally attacking me. Especially in this case.

I was asked why we are using the words "Absolute Authority" and told that only the "anti-DM authority side" has used them.

I mentioned that you used the words, asking what they mean to people. I mentioned that other people have explicitly made statements not only claiming absolute authority but giving no limits on that authority.


You are offended because I'm "making up naughty word people have never said" while quoting someone who literally says "The DM has absolute Authority" The thing you are telling me is naughty word that no one has ever said.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Dude, I'm done arguing with you. Read the PHB and DMG on the role of the DM because that pretty much sums up how I approach this. The DM is main story teller and referee that makes the final call on the campaign setting, rules, house rules and restrictions.

Right, insult me, then ignore me. Why not. It isn't like you started a thread asking questions that I'm trying to discuss.