D&D General DM with too High Expectations - Advice?

[Mannahnin]

What constitutes "talking back"?

MOST of the time when I see someone respond to an issue raised in an internet discussion with "I wouldn't tolerate that at my table" they're responding to an account of some kind of antisocial/misbehavior. Rudeness or nastiness, not merely pushback and discussion.

Certainly some GMs are juvenile and lacking in communications skills, but in play groups with functional communication, back and forth discussion is common and the DM is frequently open to and/or actively soliciting feedback.

 

[prabe]

Yeah, I'm not talking just about players with Viking-Hat GMs here. The truth is that the default response you get when a player is described as challenging something a GM does is, essentially "I wouldn't tolerate that at my table", maybe with some qualifiers about talking about it later or other things that still add up to "players that challenge GMs are bad players." Its damn near the default response you get on this subject.

I think part (most?) of the reason you get that sort of response so nearly inevitably might be that different GMs will have different ... points on which they will not compromise, and--generally--other GMs will back at least the possibility of non-compromise, because they know there are things they won't compromise on, themselves.

I hope that's relatively clear.

What are players expected to take from this sort of thing? That they're going to get, at best, brushed off (theoretically until "later", but one can question how often "later" actually happens), at worst vocally backhanded for doing so (possibly including by other players who have similar expectations). If someone doesn't think the majority of people get the take home from that that they are not to do that, whatever the reason, I kind of don't know what to say to them; as you say, people get that take home from all kinds of other parts of their life, why should it not somehow happen here?

I don't disagree with this. I'm inclined to think at least some of the brushing-off is a matter of "my brain is full right now," but unless a given player has GMed, it's not a given they'll understand that. The solutions I see are to say something out-of-game (early and often) to remind the players that your brain might be full, and if something seems to come up, don't wait for the player/s to come talk to you about it.

 

[Oofta]

Feel free to ask how many people on here have the same experience I'm referencing. Especially those who play only. You can argue that's not "evidence" if you like, but at a certain point when a pattern repeats itself over the years in enough places to enough people, I think that is evidence, even if its not super-rigorous (as any social evidence can't be). As far as I'm concerned I do have evidence, even if its not possible to display it. As far as I can tell, in general what I've said hasn't even been contraversial to most people in the hobby I've seen discuss it over the years; its too common (which is not to say universal, but then I never said it was).



The issues the suppression of talking back isn't limited to people who've had bad GMs. As I noted, its virtually the default response you get to discussions of players doing that; the only question is how severe and rigid the response is.



But I think it absolutely bears on how much the players involved were willing to push back on the GM in question. If you don't see why that's relevant, I don't know what to tell you.

How about "my experience isn't universal" or "Let's start a thread called How to be a better DM and what kind behavior to avoid"? Well, the latter would need a better title, but you get my gist.

At some point there needs to be a rules arbiter. I started a whole thread on that. But you (once again) seem to go to "rules arbiter? You mean dictator who shuts down all questions".

Do I have rules discussions for more than a minute or two during the game? No. That doesn't mean we can't discuss options after the game. I don't want to interrupt the flow of the game, as a DM I'm juggling a dozen different things. All I ask from my players that they be reasonably polite and considerate of other people's experiences and time. I don't think that's too much to ask.

 

[Thomas Shey]

How about "my experience isn't universal" or "Let's start a thread called How to be a better DM and what kind behavior to avoid"? Well, the latter would need a better title, but you get my gist.

I absolutely agree with the first part. But "universal" doesn't have to be the case for "common" to be true. I don't think players who've been taught not to challenge GMs is universal--but I do think its common, particularly in the D&D part of the hobby.

At some point there needs to be a rules arbiter. I started a whole thread on that. But you (once again) seem to go to "rules arbiter? You mean dictator who shuts down all questions".

And you yet again seem to be overstating my position for effect. Nothing about the responses on your side in that thread was beyond what's necessary to convince a lot of people to not challenge a GM on things; hell just the fixation some people have on "not slowing the game down" is enough to train people to that.

Do I have rules discussions for more than a minute or two during the game? No. That doesn't mean we can't discuss options after the game. I don't want to interrupt the flow of the game, as a DM I'm juggling a dozen different things. All I ask from my players that they be reasonably polite and considerate of other people's experiences and time. I don't think that's too much to ask.

And if you don't understand that's enough by itself to teach a lot of people just not to bother, I don't think you understand how people are. There are plenty of the people who will read that as "I can't be bothered with this" right there. A few repetitions early in their gaming career (let alone an encounter with a GM or two who's more rigid) and the habits have gone set.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I think part (most?) of the reason you get that sort of response so nearly inevitably might be that different GMs will have different ... points on which they will not compromise, and--generally--other GMs will back at least the possibility of non-compromise, because they know there are things they won't compromise on, themselves.

I hope that's relatively clear.

Yeah. And of course its easy to project the worst player you've ever encountered on the person the other person is talking about, not the least since they'll probably be presenting their player's behavior in a less than neutral fashion (or they likely wouldn't even bring it up).

I don't disagree with this. I'm inclined to think at least some of the brushing-off is a matter of "my brain is full right now," but unless a given player has GMed, it's not a given they'll understand that. The solutions I see are to say something out-of-game (early and often) to remind the players that your brain might be full, and if something seems to come up, don't wait for the player/s to come talk to you about it.

Yup. But of course any number of otherwise decent GMs don't do that for any number of reasons. But the fact there's no malign intent doesn't help a bit when it comes to, in practice, teaching players that this is just not something to bother with unless they're really passionate about it (and then, there's a coin toss whether it won't be just read as "unreasonable".)

 

[Oofta]

And if you don't understand that's enough by itself to teach a lot of people just not to bother, I don't think you understand how people are. There are plenty of the people who will read that as "I can't be bothered with this" right there. A few repetitions early in their gaming career (let alone an encounter with a GM or two who's more rigid) and the habits have gone set.

I'd rather keep the game moving than argue about rules disrupting the flow of the game. No DM is perfect, everyone makes mistakes and sometimes people disagree.

So start another thread. Make one of the points "how do you handle rules discussions and how do you encourage conversation". For example if I ask someone to table a discussion I try to make a note to chat with them later on, I think it's a good habit to get into.'

I'm happy to discuss issues and possible fixes, I don't see a point to blanket statements and complaints with no solutions.

 

[billd91]

But again, only one side is taught that its bad form to challenge the other.

Does this debate need to pollute yet another thread? That's already going on elsewhere.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I'm happy to discuss issues and possible fixes, I don't see a point to blanket statements and complaints with no solutions.

The point was to suggest that there's good reasons someone might not challenge a GM even on things that seem pretty out of line.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Does this debate need to pollute yet another thread? That's already going on elsewhere.

Fair. But its hard to comment on the impact this has on player behavior without it at least potentially going there if people want to argue against it.

 

[Oofta]

The point was to suggest that there's good reasons someone might not challenge a GM even on things that seem pretty out of line.

If you want to continue the conversation start another thread.