Forked Thread: DMs - No one cares how long you worked (was: Rant -- GM Control...)

[billd91]

In this case are you appreciating the work, or the friendship?

Naturally if your friends are important, you will have respect for their limited time and the fact that they spent it on you. But that's a reflection of the friendship, not the game. Lots of us only play with friends, so the issues are convolved.

PS

Ultimately, why would it matter? Hard work and passion are worth appreciation, even if they don't match what I'm looking for. I can appreciate the effort, offer my thanks, and then still not play. The idea that someone else's efforts would be dismissable, no matter who they are, seems an unfortunate one to me.
It's true that closer relationships need to be treated differently from more casual ones, but that doesn't free me from appropriately respecting someone.

 

[Vegepygmy]

Change "Grandma" to "guy I met at the Yarn Barn." Does everything else still follow?

My Dad would just pull me aside and tell me how disappointed he is in my behavior, rather than drop-kick me, but otherwise...yeah, everything else still follows.

Common courtesy isn't reserved only for grandmas. When someone does you a favor, you don't tell them: "I don't care how hard you worked on that." And though they may fail in their attempt to please you (I used the grandma/sweater analogy because most of us have, at some time in our lives, received an undesirable gift from a grandma or similar person), only a [censored] feels no appreciation for the effort. It really is "the thought that counts."

When someone DMs for you, they're doing you a favor. If you wouldn't rather play than DM, you'd be DMing instead of playing...so obviously, you'd rather play than DM yourself. To play, you need someone to DM for you. Thus, you owe your DM a little gratitude.

Jeff Wilder said it first, upthread, but I'll join him: I'm flabbergasted that so many people apparently have no appreciation for the work their DMs do. Sadly, it just reinforces the stereotype that gamers tend to be "socially challenged" individuals.

 

[FireLance]

Jeff Wilder said it first, upthread, but I'll join him: I'm flabbergasted that so many people apparently have no appreciation for the work their DMs do.

Similarly, I find it strange that so many people seem to expect appreciation simply for doing work, even if that work is not wanted. In a way, it smacks of emotional blackmail to me.

I think where the confusion lies, and where the politeness issue comes in, is that the players may certainly feel that they don't appreciate the DM's work, but they don't necessarily have to tell him that. I can certainly get behind the idea that you don't need to tell the DM that you don't appreciate his work, and that you should find some polite way to tell him that you're not enjoying his campaign. What I don't agree with is that the player has to feel appreciation for the DM simply because he has worked hard.

 

[billd91]

Similarly, I find it strange that so many people seem to expect appreciation simply for doing work, even if that work is not wanted. In a way, it smacks of emotional blackmail to me.

I think where the confusion lies, and where the politeness issue comes in, is that the players may certainly feel that they don't appreciate the DM's work, but they don't necessarily have to tell him that. I can certainly get behind the idea that you don't need to tell the DM that you don't appreciate his work, and that you should find some polite way to tell him that you're not enjoying his campaign. What I don't agree with is that the player has to feel appreciation for the DM simply because he has worked hard.

What I think you're misunderstanding is that appreciating someone's work doesn't mean I want to participate in it. If it's not my cup of tea, it's not my cup of tea. That won't stop me from appreciating the effort that went into it. I'm just going to beg off being a player.

 

[FireLance]

What I think you're misunderstanding is that appreciating someone's work doesn't mean I want to participate in it. If it's not my cup of tea, it's not my cup of tea. That won't stop me from appreciating the effort that went into it. I'm just going to beg off being a player.

Actually, I'm coming at it from a slightly different perspective, namely, whether it is wrong if I don't even appreciate the work in the first place. There seems to be an argument that even if you don't like the work, you should appreciate the fact that he put effort into it. All I'm saying is that while I may be polite about it, and I may even intellectually acknowledge his efforts and good intentions, I reserve the right not to feel one iota of thankfulness. (I might actually feel thankful regardless, but that's because I'm a big softie.)

A related question is: how do you react to a well-intentioned bumbler who wants to help, but keeps making things worse? Similarly, how would you react to the ardent proselytizer, whether of a religion, a product, or a game system, who really thinks that whatever he's promoting is going to benefit you, even though you've already decided that you don't like it? As with the DM who has spent a lot of effort in preparing for a game that I don't want to play, I reserve the right to be privately unappreciative of their efforts regardless of how much work they have put in, or how well-intentioned they are.