Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="Mercule" data-source="post: 6557519" data-attributes="member: 5100">I refer to myself, somewhat tongue-in-cheek, as a &quot;DM as God&quot; guy, so I'll bite. I don't think the GM should ever go on a power trip. I do think Gygax was wise to refer to the DM as &quot;referee&quot;, though. I forget the source, but there's a quote something like, &quot;A democracy can only survive until the citizenry discovers it can vote itself gifts from the public coffers.&quot; RPGs have a similar dynamic, and the GM being able to invoke ultimate authority is the safety for that. GMs should also be aware of the eventual fate of most brutish despots.That aside, the GM has to monitor a significant number of moving parts. The GM also puts in substantively more creative energy than any player (sometimes more than all the players), just to keep things moving along. If the group is using exclusively a published setting and a module written for that setting, there isn't nearly as much difference in creativity, but the juggling act still exists. IME, the GM has to know the PCs' abilities almost as well as each of the players (and often knows them better) as well as the DMG rules and the module. That can easily lead to burnout. If the GM isn't able to put the brakes on things that, for whatever reason, markedly more of a chore (whether due to effort or &quot;feel&quot;), that burnout is almost guaranteed.As I've said, before, it's appropriate for the GM to give the player a chance to &quot;sell&quot; his idea. I don't think the GM has &quot;failed&quot; the group in any way, though, if he refuses to run Shadowrun instead of D&amp;D. Likewise, I don't feel bad for disallowing things that have been a problem for me in the past or that doesn't seem like it fits with what the other players are doing, etc. My job is to make sure everyone (myself included)&nbsp;has enough fun to make the activity worthwhile, not to maximize the enjoyment for a single player (myself included) at the expense of others. Quite honestly, if I have a player who only enjoys playing tinker gnomes (a personal dislike of mine), odds are we're going to have plenty of other issues at the table. Might as well get it out of the way up front and not waste anyone's time.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Mercule, post: 6557519, member: 5100"] I refer to myself, somewhat tongue-in-cheek, as a "DM as God" guy, so I'll bite. I don't think the GM should ever go on a power trip. I do think Gygax was wise to refer to the DM as "referee", though. I forget the source, but there's a quote something like, "A democracy can only survive until the citizenry discovers it can vote itself gifts from the public coffers." RPGs have a similar dynamic, and the GM being able to invoke ultimate authority is the safety for that. GMs should also be aware of the eventual fate of most brutish despots. That aside, the GM has to monitor a significant number of moving parts. The GM also puts in substantively more creative energy than any player (sometimes more than all the players), just to keep things moving along. If the group is using exclusively a published setting and a module written for that setting, there isn't nearly as much difference in creativity, but the juggling act still exists. IME, the GM has to know the PCs' abilities almost as well as each of the players (and often knows them better) as well as the DMG rules and the module. That can easily lead to burnout. If the GM isn't able to put the brakes on things that, for whatever reason, markedly more of a chore (whether due to effort or "feel"), that burnout is almost guaranteed. As I've said, before, it's appropriate for the GM to give the player a chance to "sell" his idea. I don't think the GM has "failed" the group in any way, though, if he refuses to run Shadowrun instead of D&D. Likewise, I don't feel bad for disallowing things that have been a problem for me in the past or that doesn't seem like it fits with what the other players are doing, etc. My job is to make sure everyone (myself included) has enough fun to make the activity worthwhile, not to maximize the enjoyment for a single player (myself included) at the expense of others. Quite honestly, if I have a player who [U]only[/U] enjoys playing tinker gnomes (a personal dislike of mine), odds are we're going to have plenty of other issues at the table. Might as well get it out of the way up front and not waste anyone's time. [/QUOTE]

Verification