Yes, but that's a bit out of context. The game gives the DM absolute authority. If the DM abuses that authority, and there are many ways that can be done, then he's going to and should lose his players. I've never advocated that the DM use that authority any way he wants at any time he wants to. It's like the Spiderman quote. With great power comes great responsibility.
A distinction without a difference. You declare the power is absolute. The person I replied to said they'd never seen anyone do so. That you claim it, regardless of context, is the only relevant fact here.
A statement that entitled players exist, and even that they are increasing in number as the community grows (not especially statistically relevant) is in no way an assertion that all or even most players are entitled.
It sure as hell is when you present it as you did. It's very clear what you were saying.
It might surprise you to learn that I consider equitable results and the inclusion of players in the adjudication process to be central to good dungeon mastery.
Yes, it absolutely would, because that's not absolute power if you actually include them. And if you don't actually include them, it's not equitable results and player inclusion.
If I fudge results for my own dubious benefit, it serves no one, least of all me, and you'd know this if you'd bothered to read my post beyond your trigger words.
I tried. There wasn't much to read. Nice jab though, "trigger words" is another incredibly loaded phrase. Guess loaded language is only a problem when
I use it?
The dungeon master is the last word at the table because someone has to be. Consensus is a joke.
(Emphasis added.) Well then, you clearly don't actually believe in including the players. Because consensus IS how you include them. To call it a joke is to straight up deny that there is anything of worth other than you and your decision.
That's why I push back so hard on this. Your derisive hostility to the very concept of actually including other people in adjudication is what I am so opposed to! (Well, that and the deception thing, but that's a different side of this discussion.)
Being a good dungeon master means taking that "absolute and unquestionable power and latitude," such as it is, and using it only to improve everyone's experience.
And you
cannot do that unless you actually know what will do it. You cannot know what will do it without communicating and giving people the chance to make decisions for themselves, not merely meekly submitting to your word because you say it and you
obviously know what's best for them and the game.
It
has to be a two-way street. Anything less is simply not capable of using this power "only to improve everyone's experience."
If the dungeon master has any advantage over the players, it is only because the players agree to give it to them, and it can and should just as easily and readily be revoked upon abuse.
Except it isn't. For a huge number of reasons. Just as how trusting a corporation—say, with a license they tell you is irrevocable and then turn around later and say it isn't—is nowhere near as easy to back out of. Or trusting a government, or any other sort of thing where one side has all the power and the other side has nothing but soft, social/reputation power to exert any influence at all. Pretending it is that easy is one of the ways abusers get away with their abuse, in all sorts of relationships.
I've never understood the mindset that consideration for the table and the game is somehow only to be trusted to the players,
Because the players are not the ones claiming authority.
That is where the asymmetry lies. I'm not at all saying that DMs are somehow inherently wicked (that would be hilariously self-incriminating, given I only DM these days); I'm saying that the way you
demonstrate your "with great power comes great responsibility" reference
is itself by showing deference to those who
aren't claiming authority. In this context, players. Much as (for example) Superman
could just kill people whenever he wanted, but he
doesn't do so, because holding himself to a higher standard, a standard even ordinary citizens wouldn't hold themselves to, is all that stands between him and doing things because they are convenient to him, not because they are the right thing to do. (Notably, Clark Kent is
much more willing to bend the rules than Superman: yet another proof that Kent is the actual person and Supes is a mask he wears to be able to help others.)
when personal experience inside and outside of the game has demonstrated to me that no one group of humans has a monopoly on selfishness.
I don't understand the relevance. I'm not talking about selfishness. I'm talking about elitism, deception, absolutism, the belief that "consensus is a joke," etc. One does not need to be
selfish to be
elitist. Indeed, some of the most selfless people are dangerously elitist as a direct consequence, and that is
exactly the kind of dangerous sentiment that C.S. Lewis wrote about when he said that the most oppressive tyrannies are those exercised under the sincere belief that they are of benefit to their victims.
If I'm guilty of excusing dungeon masters, you are at least as guilty of apologizing for players.
I'm not apologizing for players at all, so I don't underarand what you are referring to. The only thing I have said even remotely in that direction is that "player entitlement" is largely a fiction, and doubly so for the alleged sudden rise thereof. Are there entitled players? Sure. But
player entitlement, as some kind of philosophy or movement or pattern, is a pernicious myth used as a cudgel against anyone actually speaking up for player interests. As we have seen here.
