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

[MarkB]

People can voluntarily perform.

They can. But if you're using them to "grow your brand" so that you can sell your services, they shouldn't need to.

 

[Khelon Testudo]

I do know, that being actors and members of Actors Equity, Critical Role have been paid (almost certainly minimum rates) since their inception.

 

[Eltab]

Well, my wife tried an Adult Conversation with the DM today and got a "my way or the highway" style response. I'm now encouraging her to just walk away. It's sad that a DM lets his game devolve into this state.

Any word on what the rest of the group thought?

 

[Retreater]

Any word on what the rest of the group thought?

They haven't had a group discussion. Apparently what happened was the DM had the initial conversation with his group on Discord last session and recorded the conversation for posterity. Two of the players were not there for the discussion. So the DM re-recorded the video without any of the other players' feedback to send to the players who were not there, claiming a desire to send a more "clear explanation" (which was basically to scrub out any objections).
Some of the other players responded with positive emoticons on my wife's response, but they haven't had a discussion yet. The DM basically said, "we'll talk about this next session," which has ended the discussion at this point. In the meantime, I'm encouraging my wife to talk to her friends individually to voice her concerns.

 

[ART!]

I feel like it's always best to ask the group "I'm thinking of running a game that would be like [concise description of system, tone, expectations]. Who's interested?" Anything else assumes a lot of things about your players, even if you think you know they'll say "Let's do it!"

 

[FrogReaver]

They can. But if you're using them to "grow your brand" so that you can sell your services, they shouldn't need to.

Why? I mean they are already volunteering their time to play in your game for free. All the DM was Asking for is to record this. (Well homework to in this particular case, but I’m talking more general case)

Now there are plenty of good objections to being recorded and how being recorded can change the dynamics of the game, but not getting paid for something you were already doing for free, that’s some strange reasoning to me.

 

[Laurefindel]

They can. But if you're using them to "grow your brand" so that you can sell your services, they shouldn't need to.

But think of the exposure!

 

[Retreater]

Now there are plenty of good objections to being recorded and how being recorded can change the dynamics of the game, but not getting paid for something you were already doing for free, that’s some strange reasoning to me.

Demanding more outside of the game from your players? Like filling out backstory worksheets? Watching "good player" video assignments? My wife was given around 2 hours of D&D homework for this week, in addition to her full-time job, 12+ hours of night school, etc.

 

[MarkB]

Why? I mean they are already volunteering their time to play in your game for free. All the DM was Asking for is to record this. (Well homework to in this particular case, but I’m talking more general case)

Now there are plenty of good objections to being recorded and how being recorded can change the dynamics of the game, but not getting paid for something you were already doing for free, that’s some strange reasoning to me.

Because playing to an audience is different than playing with friends. It's a different experience, and if you want to be successful it requires a different attitude and way of playing. It requires a commitment to keeping to dates and schedules that goes beyond any home game.

And because if you're looking to make money from someone else's performance, it's impolite at the very least to expect them to perform for free.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Yeah. I mean I suppose it’s within the DM’s power to require players to do homework in order to play in their game. But a DM who does that is likely to end up with no players very quickly.

I don't think its to the degree being discussed here, but I've absolutely run games where there was material a player was going to need to read to engage properly with the campaign. This ranged from houserules to background documents where a player was pretty likely to make nonsensical character generation or advancement choices if they didn't read it. I avoid turning the latter into a book, but its not uncommon for me to turn out 10-20 pages between the two, and I honestly can't find that a super onerous task; a player who can't bother to do that even once at the start of the campaign is probably expecting a much more casual approach than I'm going to supply them anyway.