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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Charlaquin" data-source="post: 8162419" data-attributes="member: 6779196">All well and good. And at that point, I would say, “It’s an important part of my setting that Genasi aren’t native to the material plane, so if we go this route, we’ll have to do some thinking about why your characters are exceptional, and you’ll need to be prepared for the other inhabits of the world to find you all very alien. I’m willing to do that work if you folks are, but if that doesn’t sound like fun to you, maybe we should consider a different party; or maybe a different setting if you’re all really jazzed on the idea of playing a Genasi party. I’m sure I could translate the themes I pitched to you into like Forgotten Realms or something.Not really? None of that seems unreasonable to me, beyond maybe your choice of words with “using that fact as a bludgeon to demand that they concede further.” It’s a negotiation. Here’s what I was thinking of running. Sound fun? Cool. Oh, you wanted to play characters that don’t really fit into the setting? Ok, let’s talk about that and figure out how they fit. If you’re not willing to do that, maybe we consider re-drafting the pitch around the characters you are interested in playing. If you’re not willing to do that either, then we seem to be at an impasse. Maybe what we want out of the game is just not compatible. That’s fine, we don’t need to play this game together if it isn’t going to be mutually enjoyable.I said I would offer an alternative, and leave if no mutually agreeable alternative can be found. In any negotiation, there are things people are willing to compromise on and things people are not willing to compromise on. Using my homebrew world as the setting for a campaign is something I’m willing to compromise on. Changing the lore of my homebrew setting is not. I fail to see how that makes me some kind of tyrannical dictator.This is a gross mischaracterization of the position I’ve been arguing. I’m not claiming I’ll walk if the players don’t obey my every decree. I’m saying I reserve the right to make the final call on rules disputes (a right I have seldom had the need to exercise) and to decide the setting details, as is the DM’s role. If the players want to provide their input, I am more than happy to take it into consideration, but I will make the final decision. If the players all collectively agree that they don’t like the setting details I’ve decided on, I’m willing to negotiate, but one point I am not willing to concede is the lore of my own homebrew setting. It’s baffling to me that anyone would find this an unreasonable position, let alone authoritarian.Sure, that’s pretty consistent with my experience as well. And since I am generally the one taking the initiative to invite people to my game, I’m generally going to invite people I know have similar taste in fantasy to me. So this hypothetical scenario where the whole group is overruling me on the subject of whether or not Genasi should be native to the material plane is kind of absurd; it just isn’t likely to happen, because the people I would ask to play are people I think are likely to be on the same page with me as to baseline setting assumptions.This has never really happened to me. This is all an extremely dubious hypothetical.I just think some of y’all are interpreting phrases like “ultimate authority” in as uncharitable a way as possible. Especially when the folks your arguing with have consistently stated that they do take their players’ desires into account and negotiate with them.Um, what? I’ve never heard of anyone deciding what races and classes their players are. Many DMs provide a limited set of options for players to choose from, but that’s not even in the same ballpark as choosing the players’ races and classes for them. And providing a limited set of playable options within a particular setting is bog-standard setting design. Dark Sun lacks divine magic and most of the standard fantasy races. Lots of settings exclude “monstrous” races as PC options. Vedalken are a race from Magic: the Gathering, for which playable racial stats exist to allow for the possibility of playing in that setting, but don’t generally exist in most D&D worlds. Hell, the DMG advises the DM to make a document of up to two pages laying out the scope of playable options for their setting. This is not outlandish stuff.As well it should be. That’s what makes D&D work as a roleplaying game.I think those meta-game group management things are generally arrived upon as a group. Maybe the DM is the one who facilitates that negotiation, but generally you work together to figure out when and where works best for everyone.I don’t know what Lanefan does, and in general they seem to be an outlier in the way they run their game, which as I understand it is some manner of kitbashed monstrosity built on the back of AD&D. Myself, I have a table rule that rules discussions not interrupt play (as the DMG recommends.) If a rules question does come up, I make a ruling in the moment and take note to return to the issue later, when it won’t interrupt the flow of play (again, as the DMG recommends.) At that time, I will listen to the players’ input on the matter and will make a more permanent decision. Certainly if the majority of players agreed on an interpretation of a rule that I disagreed with, I would agree to their interpretation unless I had a very good reason not to, and I can’t really imagine what such a reason might be.Well, now someone has, I guess. It’s a fast-moving thread, I haven’t been able to keep up with everything.Generally symmetrical games have very strictly defined rules, and introducing house rules to them is a group decision. That is also the case in some asymmetrical games. In D&D, the nature of the game is so asymmetrical that it often doesn’t make sense for the players to have equal input on all things. The DM is in control of the environment and everything in it save the players’ characters. It makes sense that the DM be the authority on the rules governing the environment and its responses to the players’ characters’ actions. The DM is in fact part of the game’s core action resolution system, so that authority is important for them to have to be able to fulfill that role.I think that’s a rather silly assumption myself. The players trust the DM not to cheat, the DM should likewise trust the players not to cheat; and frankly, the DM having authority over the rules or not really has very little bearing on the likelihood of cheating.</blockquote>

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