Here is what the 2024 Players Handbook says about being a DM.
The players drive and steer the narrative:
"The players decide."
"The players choose."
"You [the DM] determine the results of the adventurers decisions."
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Guide the Story. You narrate much of the action during play, describing locations and creatures that the adventurers face. The players decide what their characters do as they navigate hazards and choose what to explore. Then you use a combination of imagination and the game’s rules to determine the results of the adventurers’ decisions.
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The job of a DM is to "serve" the fun of the players.
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Adjudicate the Rules. You oversee how the group uses the game’s rules, making sure the rules serve the group’s fun.
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The DM is a "lead storyteller", a "guide", even a "mastermind" who creates an adventure. But "the DM isnt your adversary". "Dungeons & Dragons [is] a cooperative game."
In 5e, such talk about a "DM dictator" isnt a thing.
First, there is a whole lot of cherry picking going on here...
Second, I would wait for the DMG to come out before one can truly define the role of the DM?
This notion of a DM saying "my way or the highway" didnt age well, and didnt survive into the D&D of future generations.
It's aging well as far as I can see.
The job of a DM is to "serve" the fun of the players. -- To be clear,
these are YOUR words, not in the PHB... And are emphatically wrong and misleading.
These words are in the PHB, as you quoted, "
You oversee how the group uses the game’s rules, making sure the rules serve the group’s fun."
See, you leaped from "the group's fun" to "the fun of the players". THE DM IS PART OF THE GROUP, RIGHT???
Yeah, they are. And if allowing a race, class, subclass, rule, 3PP, or whatever doesn't contribute to the DM's fun as the mastermind of the game, as part of the group, they have to have the same weight (at a bare minimum) as the other players. FWIW, every player I've ever played any edition with agrees "You do the lion's share as the DM, you run the game, you call the shots."
So, if I outline certain things that as DM, I am not allowing, the reason is including them detracts from my fun (for whatever cause--it is immaterial). If a player won't play without that, they lose out. I am not going to run a game that isn't fun for me to participate in just so that player can have fun at my expense. It is not my responsibility as DM to compromise my fun for a player's fun. That isn't in the job description. Maybe you or other DMs are willing to ruin your own fun so the players have a great time with their fun. Kuddos for you! That ain't me.
When it comes to that point, if the group continues to want me to be DM, that player has to accept it or move on.
The group is free to have someone else DM, certainly, but depending on what that player wants (such as an evil PC) I might not continue to join as a player under that DM. Then, I will walk away and not worry about it.
Actually. 2024 says, the DM must make sure the rules are working in a way that players are having fun.
If certain rules are unfun, a DM must mitigate them or even modify them, so that the players are having fun.
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Adjudicate the Rules. You oversee how the group uses the game’s rules, making sure the rules serve the group’s fun.
"
And here you are doing it again. Conflating "group's fun" to mean "players fun".
Finally, I don't recall anyone (but you?) using the term "dictator"? I could be wrong, I haven't read every post and I have some people blocked.
Sure, I have certainly used phrases like "absolute power", "my way or the highway", etc. but those things do not make me a dictator.
A dictator is someone who also refuses to give up their power. I am
very happy to give it up and allow someone else to DM! In fact, I'm typically thrilled when I get to just play (like I do now on Wednesday nights). Now,
if I said, "Sorry, guys, either I'm the DM or I'm leaving" that would be dictorial.
But, yeah, that'll never happen. Most of the time I'm DM because no one else wants to. They don't want the responsibility that goes with it. I agree under the conditions that I have things I don't allow in my games and the players accept that.