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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Riastlin" data-source="post: 5636954" data-attributes="member: 94022">Well first off, as a long time DM, I have to say that the DM doesn't tell the story, the players do.  The DM provides the framework sure, but in the end, its the players' story. That being said I too do not see the role of the DM diminishing.  What I see is WotC giving DMs the tools to make running a game easier in an effort to get more DMs into the game, and thus a lot of newer DMs.  Newer DMs are, in my opinion, much more likely to simply "control the monsters" because they are so focused on getting the encounters prepared, the rules straight and the sessions run right that they just don't have time to worry about giving the game that something extra special. Along the same lines, the easier to design encounters has at times lead to even experienced DMs taking shortcuts in the narrative.  Its easy to plan a combat now, so we can plan more of them, in fact, it might be easier now to plan a good, challenging combat encounter than it is to plan a good, interesting, roleplay encounter.  The reverse though used to be true. The experienced DMs who take the time to craft good campaigns and not just encounters are still able to do great things with the campaign.  However there are likely plenty of instances of DMs who just stop at making the encounters because the can.  With time, these less experienced, or time crunched DMs, will improve their skill sets and you'll see more of what I think you are looking for.   DM vs. Player trust will always be an issue because quite frankly, both sides have abused the trust over the years.  There were plenty of DM's who thought that they could "win" D&D while there were equally as many players who I think set out to try to disrupt the DM's plans as much as possible.  As long as the game is played and adjudicated by humans, trust will be an issue -- perhaps even moreso in the video game age.</blockquote>

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