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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ahnehnois" data-source="post: 6194762" data-attributes="member: 17106">The thing is, the term "force" is misleading, as is its relative, "fiat".The DM may use exactly the rules as written, or make houserules and alterations. The DM may use monsters out of the book, or may custom-build them. The DM may create challenges to match the player's abilities, or may make them without regard to said capabilities. In all cases, the DM is making the choice.A DM who runs a bunch of standard array characters with no houserules through a preplanned generic adventure is exercising exactly the same amount of force as one who rewrites the rules and improvises a campaign customized to the players. Which is really none. Both DMs have absolute power to make these decisions by default; making them is not 'forcing' anything, any more than an umpire calling balls and strikes is forcing his will on a baseball game.More to the point, DMs who make decisions that produce outcomes discordant from their desires are responsible for those decisions.If a DM's goal is to take whatever characters the players come up with, magic or no, and force them to have equal power/spotlight time/protagonism/etc., and he doesn't take all the necessary actions to achieve that goal, whose fault is that?</blockquote>