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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 9543628" data-attributes="member: 6790260">The point was not to take an extreme stance; it was simply to say that if we were already in a paradigm of extreme...let's call it "DM Latitude", then (very nearly) any change at all would necessarily move away from it. I very much believe that 5.0 went dramatically overboard in pushing the DM-above-all, of treating the player as a mere witness or present only at the intense sufferance of the DM. Remember that in the wake of 5.0's publication, we really did have a year or two of people on this very forum would respond to every single question--literally every single one--about how the rules work with, "<information> ...unless your DM says otherwise." Because that was the eggshell-fragile presentation of the rules, that was how people understood 5.0 when it was fresh. After a couple of years of that song and dance, we all kind of collectively got over it and realized that treating the rules as a diaphanous nothing wasn't super productive, but the text remained where it was in 2014, as text is so stubbornly wont to do.So...yeah. I really do believe 5.0 went massively overboard in positioning the DM as absolute, unimpeachable, unquestionable dictator, which the players must meekly submit to under all circumstances. So...anything other than actually saying that explicitly outright would be stepping away from it, to one degree or another. I certainly grant that 5.5e is consciously stepping back from that overwhelming "the DM is absolutely everything, and you the player better shape up or you'll get shipped out" attitude. (Though I will admit, the pearl-clutching and performative horror over the incredibly bland, milquetoast "changes" to Rule Zero was pretty funny.)Oh, certainly. Hence why I said I cut my losses and departed that game. But when that happened a second time, with a completely different DM, I wised up pretty quickly; I did not wish to risk a third. 5e DMs were, consistently, not interested in receiving player feedback or discussing anything about the campaign proposal other than what part of it I would be allowed to settle into. And yes, I do credit (or perhaps blame?) the presentation and advice in the books for partially encouraging this particular strain of DM thinking. It's why I've been such a vocal critic of "DM Empowerment" over the years, and why I think so little of any argument that remotely takes seriously the idea of "player entitlement". (Indeed, "player entitlement" is probably my second most-hated phrase in all of TTRPG discussion, and only narrowly beaten by the most: "white room". Mostly because they're non-arguments, emotional short-circuits designed to reject any possibility of discussion or alternatives to whatever the person using them thinks.)</blockquote>

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