DM Entitlement...

[Mercule]

I'm still confused.

Yeah, I put a lot of work into my game - but it's because I enjoy it, and I love running (and playing!) D&D. It's not a chore for which I need to be rewarded. A simple "Thanks!" is more than enough. I thank my players, too, for making the experience enjoyable.

Agreed. I DM because I like to DM. I enjoy the creativity that goes along with it. But, just as the player has to be willing to compromise with the DM's setting, the DM has to be willing to compromise with the players' expectations.

My current group doesn't particularly care for the Byzantine political machinations I normally like to throw into my games. So, I didn't do those. I'm trying to focus on other things that they do like.

If I have a great idea for a campaign where the PCs are all knights and courtiers, but the players want to be mercenaries, then there will have to be a shift in someone's plans.

But, IME, most players come to the table saying "Let's play D&D," or "I want to play a brick." For anything beyond that generality, there is usually an implied "Entertain us." I'm cool with that. Part of the DM's job is to provide the stage for the entertainment. What I'm not cool with is the implied "entertain us" coupled with inflexibility and a lack of input for the larger campaign (e.g. "I want to play a blackguard, but Bob wants a knight. Make both work.").

The DM is not the players' lackey. It's a cooperative effort and the more responsibility the DM is given for the players' entertainment, the more power must go with it.

If the players (or even one player, seeking buy-in from the others) came to me asking me to run Age of Worms, I wouldn't feel much "entitlement". If the group decided that it wanted to play that AP in Eberron, that's more responsibility and must include the authority to change encounters and miscellany to reflect Eberron, even denying character options. When I'm running a home-brew setting with home-brew adventures (which is my norm), there is a lot of responsibility and a lot of "entitlement" goes with it.

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

In my games, I try to work with my players to see what they want and how that dovetails with my interests. I'll set forward a couple of ideas about general campaign direction and parameters, and get feedback on what the players would like. If it came down to it, though, I'd have no problem with saying "no I don't want to run that kind of game." I aspire to be a benevolent dictator.

Last time I started a campaign, I presented my players with two options: A Hogwarts-ish campaigna starting out in and around a magical university, and a pirate-based game set on board a sea-going vessel. They chose the Hogwarts-ish one, and I went with that (although oddly enough, the pirate thing has wormed its way into the game). I'm still running that game.

For my next campaign - which is a long, long ways away - I've posted up some very basic campaign concepts to test interest and get feedback.

Keeping the communication going is a big part of this - I ask for feedback and ideas about what my players would like to do next all the time. I ask players what their long-term goals are for their PC's. They may not always get exactly what they want, but hopefully they get something close (and ideally, even better than what they thought they wanted).

 

[Wyrmshadows]

Even though I am an authoritarian DM, I also utilize my players strongly when it comes to the evolving story of the campaign. I take queues from how they play their characters, their character's interests and goals and weave them seamlessly into the campaign if at all possible thereby giving each of them plenty of opportunity to shine and making the campaign more compelling to the player.

Even though this collaboration is going on, its actually behind the scenes. The players don't know I am directly doing this but love it when they are surprised by how I wove their character into what they believed was a fixed plot.

One thing I am particularly open to is when a player takes it upon himself to build up the setting by adding previously non-existant details. For example one of my players was playing a priest of a god whose ritual rites weren't really all that detailed. He had an idea for a rite that was really good so I told him that I was going to make that rite one of the primary modes of worship accepted by his god. IME players love that stuff because they feel that they are contributing and that makes them all the more invested in the setting and the campaign.


Wyrmshadows

 

[mmu1]

I'm strongly in favor of the DM having the control and the final say - but I actually care about that more when I'm the player, and not when I'm the DM.

When the DM is fully in control, pretty much the only issue is whether my taste in RPGs matches the DM's - which means I only need to worry about finding one person who's on the same exact page as me. Everything else get sorted out more or less automatically. I don't need to be best friends with the other players - we just need to get along socially, and they need to be willing to respect the DM's rules.

That way, I don't need to worry about someone deciding that - even though we're playing in a desert campaign in a world without known seas or fair-skinned human barbarians - their next character is going to be a Viking.

Naturally, that doesn't mean that the DM shouldn't pay attention to what the players want, or work together with them to make their characters feel like they have a life of their own within the setting - but that needs, IMO, to be done subtly and behind the scenes.

 

[Fenes]

See, I'd question the last one, "maybe the DM just doesn't like the race at all." I'm not sure that's a valid reason.

I know "the DM has the right to enjoy the game too," and all that. My objection is this- if a player having a dragonborn character meaningfully harms your enjoyment of the game simply because you dislike dragonborn that much, you may have a problem.

Its as if I made a rule that players in my game could not wear plaid. And my justification for that rule was that I really, truly hate plaid. In fact, if I have to hang out with someone wearing plaid, I have less fun than I would were they not wearing plaid. Even if I am not lying or prevaricating about my reasons, even if this is completely true and the presence of plaid in the room really does reduce my enjoyment of the social event as a whole, the only thing it indicates is that I have a serious problem.

And maybe real friends would talk to me about that problem, and assist me in seeking help and attaining a sense of perspective.

*slippery slope arguments about giant purple wombat necromancers begin.... NOW!*

Would you force a player to play a dragonborn, even if the player did not want to play a dragonborn? If you'd not do that, why expect the DM to play a world he doesn't like, i.e., one with Dragonborn?

To continue with food metaphors: If I dislike tabasco sauce, and the presence of tabasco sauce in my food means my enjoyment of a meal is diminished, then it doesn't mean I have a problem - it simply means I dislike tabasco sauce.

There's no sense of perspective needed at all. It's simply a matter of taste and playstyle. Some of us dislike some stuff, and its mere presence turns a game we like into something we dislike. That could be firearms, some 3PP pink elefant race, or some clown prestige class, evil characters, comic relief characters, dual wielding drows with scimitars, anything at all. I'd not presume that my personal preferences defined what's normal, and what's a mental problem.

 

[Hussar]

Fenes - I believe the fundamental disconnect here comes with how attached DM's are to their personal settings. Some DM's have intricate settings that they spend hours on, detailing lovingly and lavishly. Some DM's don't. Some DM's focus their attention on other places.

I fall into the latter group. So, for me, while I personally may not like a given race, it's not really an aesthetic issue for me to include it in my setting. So long as it's not going to completely bypass the challenges in my campaign, I don't feel all that entitled to ban an element just because I don't personally like it.

It's not my character after all. The other person is the one who is going to be playing it. I get to play with everything else in the campaign - NPC's, setting, plot, whatever. I don't feel all that threatened by allowing players to have what they want. Within limits of course.

 

[garyh]

So we're primarily talking about variations on the menu... to which I say, is this really a big deal that you can't play an elf (or whatever) for once? "Elf" isn't a character concept. D&D races are just collections of mechanical bonuses with some roleplaying hooks attached.

The "for once" comment irks me. I think there's an assumption in this thread that there's a group in place that meets weekly and rotates campaigns a lot and lots of different things get tried.

That's not always the case. In the game I DM'ed with the elf-wanting player I didn't accomodate, we played every three weeks or so for about two years in that campaign, then stopped playing due to schedules. There was never another chance for her to play her elf.

I also dispute that elf can't be a part of a character concept, but that's another discussion.

 

[Obryn]

Would you force a player to play a dragonborn, even if the player did not want to play a dragonborn? If you'd not do that, why expect the DM to play a world he doesn't like, i.e., one with Dragonborn?

To continue with food metaphors: If I dislike tabasco sauce, and the presence of tabasco sauce in my food means my enjoyment of a meal is diminished, then it doesn't mean I have a problem - it simply means I dislike tabasco sauce.

There's no sense of perspective needed at all. It's simply a matter of taste and playstyle. Some of us dislike some stuff, and its mere presence turns a game we like into something we dislike. That could be firearms, some 3PP pink elefant race, or some clown prestige class, evil characters, comic relief characters, dual wielding drows with scimitars, anything at all. I'd not presume that my personal preferences defined what's normal, and what's a mental problem.

I'd say that, in this case, you should probably have a discussion with the player to try and find ways to make something work. Tossing out an otherwise good player because you can't agree on a single niggling detail is pretty control-freaky.

In your example, you should probably figure out what it is you can't stand about Dragonborn and nail that down. Then, figure out what the player loves about Dragonborn and then see if there's a way to make it work that you're both happy. Is it that you don't want anthropomorphic dragons, but he likes the stats and the honor code? Well, reskin them and move on.

-O

 

[Steely Dan]

In your example, you should probably figure out what it is you can't stand about Dragonborn and nail that down. Then, figure out what the player loves about Dragonborn and then see if there's a way to make it work that you're both happy.

That's what I've done in my upcoming homebrew with a player – Nagaborn (mechanically identical to dragonborn, except for the breath weapon and a cosmetic change – lower body is serpentine).

 

[Fenes]

I'd say that, in this case, you should probably have a discussion with the player to try and find ways to make something work. Tossing out an otherwise good player because you can't agree on a single niggling detail is pretty control-freaky.

In your example, you should probably figure out what it is you can't stand about Dragonborn and nail that down. Then, figure out what the player loves about Dragonborn and then see if there's a way to make it work that you're both happy. Is it that you don't want anthropomorphic dragons, but he likes the stats and the honor code? Well, reskin them and move on.

-O

Of course - I said a compromise is what people should strive for. But there are things that can ruin a game for me because they ruin the whole setting. Firearms in D&D is one thing. Dragonborn are another thing. I can handle lizardmen, half dragons, half-dragon lizardmen (provided the group is willing to deal with the consequences of travelling around with a freak who will attract as much attention and trouble as a drow, i.e. an attention hogging PC), but I do not have a place for an entire race of reptilian mercenaries that is accepted by default by the civilised countries. My setting is far too xenophobic for that.

It's the background of the race, and the assumptions it implies for the setting that are my main beef with them. That and I consider them a purely marketing gimmick with no appeal at all compared to the lizardmen, or half-dragons.