DM Entitlement...

[EATherrian]

I've DM'd for a long time so I figured I'd add my opinions here. I mostly start from the setting and then decide if anything is out. I didn't really have to excise much until 3.x, except psionics which I've disallowed since 1st edition. My problem with 4th edition is that I've been able to play in my homebrew world for 2 decades now, but if I want to stay core I'd have to add Tieflings and Dragonborn. I have no idea how to add them without making it look stupid, so for 4e I have to make a new world. For games played in my old world then there are no tieflings or dragonborn and I explain that to players before I run a game there. Mind you I've house-ruled the hell out of it, so those aren't the only excisions, just the most obvious in 4e. Even in my 4e world I've had to change things, but it's mostly fluff to fix things I don't think were well thought through. I think what I'm saying here is that if it is consistent and the DM explains in advance what he allows / disallows I have no problem with it.

 

[Wyrmshadows]

The DM has the right to define what is included or excluded from a game he or she is running. With this right comes the responsibility of making sure prospective players are well informed of these things before characters are created.

If the players do not like the game being offered then the option for one of them to run something else should be made available. It comes down to a simple case of putting your money where your mouth is. The amount of input about what gets included in a game is proportionate to the amount of time one is willing to run a game.

Too true.

IME, it is the DMs who buy the setting books and setting specific supplements. In fact, I always felt it was my responsibility to buy the materials I needed/wanted to run the game I wanted to run. I never thought of it as a burden and never thought to ask my players to pitch in because I'm the DM and its my responsibility.

I remember how much money I spent getting my Athas campaign going. I had everything and the campaign was great because I had the whole setting at my fingertips. Same for FR, Ravenloft, Dragonlance, Midnight, etc.

In the 3e era, the only things I have seen players buy are splatbooks that they would personally benefit from. I have yet to see a player who runs a fighter go out of his way to buy a book updating wizards for the sake of his buddy's mage. Maybe it does happen, but its rare.

If I shell out hundreds of dollars preparing for the game, making sure I have everything I need to create a vivid campaign that everyone will enjoy you can bet that if you want to play at my table you will accept my/the setting's rules and thematic elements.

Anyone who doesn't like it is free to spend the money to prep your own game, spend the time creating a setting, spend the time making sure the game is prepped between sessions when you work full time and have a kid. Feel free to do that and then you can make the rules. I'll happily rest on my laurels and play abiding by the rules you decide on.

I love DMing but with the numerous resposibilities of DMing comes great power within the game. I would never go all out for my players the way I do if I thought that I was going to be countermanded all the time. I am very fair and resonable with my rulings, but ultimately I am the boss at my table.


Wyrmshadows

 

[Hussar]

Wyrmshadows - the metric for DM authority should be the amount of money he's put into the game?

Yeesh, by that metric I've got about zero authority. I buy very few books. I buy maybe one or two books a year and have since 3.5 was released. My players all have more books than I do.

Going by what you say, I should allow my players to have whatever they want.

 

[Obryn]

If I shell out hundreds of dollars preparing for the game, making sure I have everything I need to create a vivid campaign that everyone will enjoy you can bet that if you want to play at my table you will accept my/the setting's rules and thematic elements.

This right here is the attitude I really dislike.

If you don't enjoy buying new books, and don't enjoy doing the prep-work on its own merits, why are you DMing? It seems like a joyless way to run a game.

-O

 

[Jedi_Solo]

I would say that I am amazed at the amount of "if the DM isn't 110% in control of everything then the DM is 110% powerless" attitudes that some of the posts seem to carry in this thread...

but then again this the intertubes so I guess it is to be expected.

This is coming from a player:

Yes, the DM has the right to deny stuff - but the players has the right to question and offer alternatives. The objective is for everyone to have fun.

Everyone.

That means both the DM and the players.

The DM has the right to say "for this next campaign no Dragonborn." Maybe it's the tone of the setting, maybe the DM is planning on having dragonborn be the race of an invading army (and thus all of them be bad guys) and maybe the DM just doesn't like the race at all.

All of these are valid reasons. On the flip side I do think the player has the right to ask the DM why there are no dragonborn alowed. Hopefully the DM can give a satifactory answer (and "plot reasons that will become apparent in a few levels" is a valid answer if the DM wants to keep something hidden for a future surprise).

Now the tricky part: I think the player has the right to offer up the "What if I play a dragonborn with this background/restriction" idea. I also think the DM does have the obligation (yes, I used the word obligation - I can hear the screams of Player Entitlment from here - stay with me for a minute) to concider said idea; but the DM is under no obligation what-so-ever to take the player up on the build. The DM has the right to continue saying "no".

Yes, this is coming from a player. Yes, I stated what I believe are some player rights - but taking control of the entire game from start to finish is NOT one of those rights. There is a middle ground. The DM has the right to choose. The players have the right to question.

 

[Jackelope King]

I'm seriously perplexed. I keep reading that "the DM does all the work and the players just show up, so the DM should get his way". "It's so hard being the DM, so the players should cut him some slack and let him be the boss." "If the players don't like it, tough. They're not doing any work."

If this is such a problem, why not, as I've already suggested twice, try asking the players for help? This has really made our round-robin Mutants & Masterminds game a lot of fun, and has opened up possibilities we'd never considered for the progression of the game, of the characters, and of the story. Ask the players to bring with them ideas for their home town, or maybe even home country, and then take a couple of minutes to hammer it in to fit in your vision of the world. Maybe a magical fae wonderland for a player's hometown doesn't fit in a very grim and gritty Conan-esque world, but maybe a hidden utopia which falls under attack during the course of the game and is destroyed by the world it hid from could be an interesting metaphor for the destruction of the innocent, or commentary on isolationism.

Or maybe, rather than being the only one coming up with NPCs, you could ask the players to come up with ideas for old friends or contacts or enemies who their characters might know. Maybe you can't use them exactly as your player presents them, but they might come up with an excellent character who will make your game better.

When I ran a game set during a stalled Age of Exploration, one of the players had a character who was a native from the steppes of a continent colonized in the relatively near past, and he devised an absolutely fascinating home territory for his character's tribe. They migrated around a huge, mineralized set of dragon bones half-exposed on the steppes. I had originally not intended dragons to be "monsters" in that sense... they were instead going to be what ammounted to deities for one of the two great empires of the world. But that got me thinking, and I started wondering if maybe one of these near-deific creatures had been slain in the past. What could've done it? Why? What happened to the people who had once worshipped it? Did it happen before the rise of mankind, or after? That one idea the player brought to me spurred a whole new realm of possibilities.

The art of running a game is being able to rip off ideas and make them into your own, and your players are immaginative, clever people who are full of them. I mean, nobody does the unexpected like an RPG player (and every DM in this thread can agree with that).

So rather than bemoaning how heavy the head is which wears the crown, I think it's much better to talk to the players and ask for help or contributions. Stop thinking of it as "your world" and start thinking of it as "our world".

 

[Cadfan]

The DM has the right to say "for this next campaign no Dragonborn." Maybe it's the tone of the setting, maybe the DM is planning on having dragonborn be the race of an invading army (and thus all of them be bad guys) and maybe the DM just doesn't like the race at all.

All of these are valid reasons.

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!*

 

[ExploderWizard]

Too true.

IME, it is the DMs who buy the setting books and setting specific supplements. In fact, I always felt it was my responsibility to buy the materials I needed/wanted to run the game I wanted to run. I never thought of it as a burden and never thought to ask my players to pitch in because I'm the DM and its my responsibility.

I remember how much money I spent getting my Athas campaign going. I had everything and the campaign was great because I had the whole setting at my fingertips. Same for FR, Ravenloft, Dragonlance, Midnight, etc.

In the 3e era, the only things I have seen players buy are splatbooks that they would personally benefit from. I have yet to see a player who runs a fighter go out of his way to buy a book updating wizards for the sake of his buddy's mage. Maybe it does happen, but its rare.

If I shell out hundreds of dollars preparing for the game, making sure I have everything I need to create a vivid campaign that everyone will enjoy you can bet that if you want to play at my table you will accept my/the setting's rules and thematic elements.

Anyone who doesn't like it is free to spend the money to prep your own game, spend the time creating a setting, spend the time making sure the game is prepped between sessions when you work full time and have a kid. Feel free to do that and then you can make the rules. I'll happily rest on my laurels and play abiding by the rules you decide on.

I love DMing but with the numerous resposibilities of DMing comes great power within the game. I would never go all out for my players the way I do if I thought that I was going to be countermanded all the time. I am very fair and resonable with my rulings, but ultimately I am the boss at my table.


Wyrmshadows

Actually its not about money at all, its about effort. If I write my own world and adventures then I will spend almost no money for a campaign but tons of my time, which is more important to me. If I spend hundreds of dollars on campaign materials then hopefully the game will take little prep time ( or else why did I spend all that money!) As a player if I buy a book then its because I simply want to read it. I never assume having a book entitles me to use it in someone else's game.

 

[Janx]

But that's the thing... For me, the first part of that setup would be me, as the DM saying soemthing like: Hey guys, I want to run a midnight campaign, here's the general idea I'm thinking of: followed by listening to their input, or whether they're interested in the idea of a Midnight campaign in the first place.

The idea of a Midnight campaign has a conotation too... I know when I say "Midnight campaign" my players would have a general idea of what to expect, and can work things out with me from there.

That's (in my eyes at least) a world away from saying we''re playing Midnight. Roll up a character.

The first is more like: I feel like going out to eat tonight. Anyone want to come, or have any thoughts on what type of food? I'l drive.

The second is: I want to go to taco bell. Get in the car and buy some tacos to eat.

in a vein similar to your food analogy, I DM the same way I go to the movies. I decide what movie I want to see. I look up the show times, and decide that the 11AM showing is cheaper and easy for me. I call up my friends and tell them, "I'm going to see batman at 11AM tomorrow, wanna come with?" Some do, some can't, some suggest another time. If I really want to see it with them and the time isn't as important, I'll move the time, otherwise, I stick to my plan, and they don't come. Either way, I'm going to see batman, and most likely at the time I chose. The question is, how many friends joined me.

DMing is the same way. I set the house rules and the campaign parameters, and see who wants to play. I get players, usually the same as always. Sometimes my players state a preference or suggestion. Sometimes I incorporate it, sometimes I don't.

I'm certain Joss Whedon and J. Strazynski do the same on their shows with their writers and actors. If they have compelling visions, and are good to work with/for, they get actors and writers that want to do their show. Otherwise they don't. And they usually find the actors and writers bring in in takes on their original vision and they incorporate them. But as producer, they get final say.

In short, a producer or GM is the same job. They create a vision, and the parameters of the show or game. They recruit people to join in building that vision. They remain in charge to keep the direction consistent and the quality high. They are not obligated to listen to their players. That doesn't mean they shouldn't. It doesn't mean they have to make any changes to their product. They are in charge. If they're skilled at it, they incorporate the best ideas from their staff. If they aren't they turn them away.

 

[LostSoul]

If this is such a problem, why not, as I've already suggested twice, try asking the players for help?

Yeah. I really like to develop campaigns as a group instead of from on high. Maybe the DM will have a strong vision for the campaign: "We are all thieves in a big, dark, dirty city; we'll deal with the politics and backstabbing and find out if the old adage: there is no honour among thieves - is true." Or maybe it'll be one of the players who has that idea.

This idea is presented to the group, and if everyone's on board, then they go with that. Everyone brainstorms some stuff they want to see in the game. The players make characters, and then the DM goes back and does some prep - making some obstacles for the PCs.

The DM doesn't have to worry about entertaining all the players by himself; the players have taken some of that responsibility. This leads to less burnout. The players are commited to the shared vision of the campaign, so there's less the DM has to veto or say no to. Everyone's on the same page, and it's cool.