DM Entitlement...

[Halivar]

We gotta quit with the food analogies. I'm totally getting hungry.

Mmmm.... dragonborn and dip. Tastey...

 

[CountPopeula]

If one player playing something like a dragonborn or an elf is going to totally ruin the game for every other player at the table, I'd say that some people at the table have deep deep issues that go well beyond the gaming table. And I'd further say that being so caught up in not liking something that it ruins your entire night that someone else doesn't like it is obsessive behavior.

I'd also like to point out the DM is just another person at the table in the end, and while he can ask players not to come back, the players can also ask him not to come back if the game is only fun to him.

It's one thing to say "No, this is degenerate and ruins the fun of the game, I don't think I'm going to allow it." It is far different to say "No, you can't be a Fighter, I hate Fighters."

And disallowing Fighters is no more absurd than disallowing any other race or class the player may have his heart set on.

 

[buzz]

. . . matter of fact. The DM is the group facilitator, often the organizer, and has the most work to do to make the game sessions happen. To not recognize that is absurd.

LostSoul beat me to it.

Whether the person serving as DM is facilitating or organizing things for the group is irrelevant. Their role in the game gives them absolutely no special privilege outside of the game. Not in any sane universe, anyway. They need to be communicative and respectful, just like everyone else, and just like they would in any other social situation in which they didn't want to get kicked in the nards.

"The DM is god" is dysfunctional BS. Period.

 

[Mallus]

As I explained in another post, I did. I find Dragonborn to be stupid, lacking any sense, not fitting any campaign I'd like to play, and a sad excuse for lizardfolk or half-dragons.

You could improve on their flavortext. My group made them into something pretty interesting for our new homebrew (sort-of steampunk neo-Victorians complete with high collars, walking sticks that transform into spindly clockwork butlers and a lost empire called the Magna Publica Machina, the Great Machine of State).

Why don't you can the attitude and don't try to tell me that I am having badwrongfun just because I dislike something?

I'm not telling you anything. I'm suggesting that you think about why you dislike something. This is a nice skill for a DM to have. Creating and maintaining a good campaign setting takes a bit of reflection, it should be more than just cataloging your arbitrary likes and dislikes.

 

[Cadfan]

As I explained in another post, I did. I find Dragonborn to be stupid, lacking any sense, not fitting any camapign I'd like to play, and a sad excuse for lizardfolk or half-dragons.

Why don't you can the attitude and don't try to tell me that I am having badwrongfun just because I dislike something?

Technically, you're having badwrongUNfun, if someone plays a dragonborn and you are driven into a frenzy of hate. I'd never criticize someone for having fun with D&D- but if something is stopping them from having fun, and that something is trivial and of nowhere near the amount of importance they've assigned to it, well... they just might be playing wrong. Playing D&D wrong is hard to do, but if you're miserable unless your demands are met, you just might have achieved it.

I'm not criticizing the fact that you dislike dragonborn. I'm criticizing the idea that disliking a player character race is a carte blanche reason to ban it, sans any other motivation for doing so. I don't have to like every single thing my players like. I don't even have to like every single decision they make about including things in our game. And I think that disliking dragonborn so much that you can't tolerate being in a game with one is an awfully extreme position to take- so extreme, in fact, that I question whether that position itself is a reasonable one.

By that logic, no DM should ever refuse a character, even if it is a cybernetic combat droid with 4 lightsabers and the DM is running a Dragonlance campaign.

And no, that's not a strawman - you don't get to tell me what is ok, and what's not ok for me to play and DM. If you say I have no right to veto something that hurts my fun, just because it is a PC, then every player has the right to play every character in every campaign according to you.

Oh, its most certainly a straw man, and one we've dismissed pages back in this thread, as a matter of fact. If there's a genre concern, that's at least a semi-objective matter. The question is, as has been clear to absolutely everyone in this conversation,

"If X is typically a player character matter, is the fact that a DM does not like X a valid and sufficient reason to ban X, where a player does like X and wants to include it?"

You can't bolster your argument by bringing in other reasons a DM might ban something. That's explicitly not the point.

 

[Voadam]

For me it's not the act of saying: "I don't want X because I don't like it" that is problematic.

It's the idea of: "If you don't like it you can leave." that I have an issue with.

You always have the option of leaving if you don't like it.

I chose not to play when a friend wanted to do some Ars Magica to try out the troupe roleplaying aspect of the game. The troupe roleplaying aspect does not appeal to me so I declined.

Its a game, not an obligation.

 

[Scribble]

LostSoul beat me to it.

Whether the person serving as DM is facilitating or organizing things for the group is irrelevant. Their role in the game gives them absolutely no special privilege outside of the game. Not in any sane universe, anyway. They need to be communicative and respectful, just like everyone else, and just like they would in any other social situation in which they didn't want to get kicked in the nards.

"The DM is god" is dysfunctional BS. Period.

I agree with everything you said. Both posts.

 

[Mark]

That's probably usually true, but it doesn't have to be.

Of course, there are always exceptions but I was posting in general terms and without that assumption we really limit the ability to have a meaningful discussion. If every point someone makes is refuted and discounted based on exceptions we would get nowhere.

 

[Halivar]

If the player demands or even thinks that he has some kind of right to impinge upon my setting, then I'm going to be a lot more irked and a lot more prone to telling him "no." You don't get to tell me what goes into my setting.

The best way to keep players from impinging upon your setting is pretty simple. Don't invite them to play, and write yourself a big ol' novel instead. A good player in a good game (with a good DM) will strike indelible changes into the game setting. A DM that resists this doesn't want to play a game; they just want to storytell with a predefined narrative. Such DM's find players like me a huge frustration.

 

[Ranger REG]

You have to understand that the origin of this type of thread (not this particular thread per se, but threads like this in general) is a player dissatisfied with the fact that their DM told them no on something and they're looking for some sort of validation for being angry with the DM or trying to strongarm the DM into allowing them something that the DM doesn't want.

So, this discussion is nothing more than a person seeking validation for his statement?