I don't know what just happend, but it seems that Ayn Rand corrupted my player!

[TheAuldGrump]

It probably is, though her philosophy doesn't place much emphasis on "profit," nor does it promote "contempt for the weak." (I doubt this is the forum where we should explore the topic much further, though.)

More about independence and achieving your goals, at the cost of charity and empathy.

Self promotion over social progress. In some ways fundamentalist Puritanism, sans any religion.

I swear, reading her made me want to wave a red flag and sing The Internationale....

The Auld Grump, arise you prisoners of starvation!
Arise you serfs, no more in chains!
For Justice thunders condemnation....

Where'd this flag come from?

 

[Chris Knapp]

Sure are a bunch of Capitalist DMs here. DM as employer, players as employees? No thanks, I get enough of that at work. I guess I'm more of a socialist. DM and players work together to decide what kind of game we want to play, since this IS a social game first and foremost.

 

[Celebrim]

You're claiming because the DM does the most work, then their word is law. That's entitlement dude.

No, it's not. It's earned. Their creation; their rules; their labor. To constrain it is to lay claim on the DM's effort. Or do you contest that the guest has claim over the house owner and builder about what rules the host sets over what goes on in his own house? It is not authoritarian to say that you own what you own. It is authoritarian to say that you own what belongs to someone else. On this, even I agree with the Objectivists.

Entitlement is special rights and priveledges which are not earned but granted to you by social standing and civic custom. Ownership and control of what you've worked for and what you yourself have built is not entitlement but its opposite.

But if you must have it be entitlement, then the DM is entitled - by some of the oldest social customs in all of Role Playing - to be master over his game and to rule over it unquestionably as he sees fit. He is by social custom, convention, and often the explicit statement of the rules, and absolute dictator that need not bow to anyone else's opinion unless he desires to do so. I believe that this common entitlement is only a recognition of the fundamental truth that the DM creates the game for his own reasons, and the players choose - or do not choose - to participate in it. The DM in my mind unquestionably has the right to control his game, and the only questions therefore is in what fashion a wise DM conducts himself if he wishes to entertain himself and to have players and to entertain them.

It was for this reason I found it ironic that a player would charge the DM with, "enjoying the game on the cost of the players" as if the players labored to please the DM rather than the DM laboring to please the players. I typically put in 10-20 hours a week in to a game, and I've rarely met the player that makes an effort at all until they show up. If DM's were paid for their time, there would hardly be a game ever, because players simply couldn't afford the rates. The DM gives his work away; the player therefore has even less right to lay claim to it.

 

[Celebrim]

Sure are a bunch of Capitalist DMs here. DM as employer, players as employees? No thanks, I get enough of that at work. I guess I'm more of a socialist. DM and players work together to decide what kind of game we want to play, since this IS a social game first and foremost.

Wow.

But when exactly did money change hands at your table? And when exactly was a free market ever defined primarily as a relationship between employers and employees? And when was socialism ever defined primarily as democracy?

And can we avoid talking about this increasingly far removed political metaphors? The fundamental question at stake here is the relationship between the DM and the players, and we can resolve that without answering the political questions of the ages.

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

...

I have no idea what you just said, but my sympathies go out to you.

Ayn Rand sucks!

 

[Halivar]

I think connecting Randian Objectivism to this situation is a little bit of a stretch.

The fact is, when a group agrees to a DM's game, they are assenting to the DM having control over the game and how it is run. That being said... I think it is appropriate for the group to bring up these issues before the game starts. It benefits neither the DM nor the players to jump into a game that is going to leave one side miserable.

There are a number of DM's in my area that run gritty games where campaigns end in the first TPK as such. I don't play in those games. And on the occasion where one of our DM's changed his playstyle into something we didn't like, we sat out his games. Unfortunately, with a dearth of players in our area, that meant he had no game.

Players need DM's. DM's need players. And they need to expect the same thing from the game. IMHO, the OP is describing a situation gone right; the players and DM's agreed that they don't want the same game. Better to get it out at the start than at the bitter end of a campaign.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I pretty much agree with the various responses to HLTW's claims about DM entitlement & authoritarianism, so I won't dogpile.

 

[Wiseblood]

philosophy ...ugh. 8(

 

[TheAuldGrump]

philosophy ...ugh. 8(

It's not that bad, you just need the proper grounding in the curriculum:
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_WRFJwGsbY]Philosophy Department[/ame]

The Auld Grump

 

[Holy Bovine]

For expending time and energy in a frivolous manner, both the players and the GM are hedonists....

Now me, I have it on good authority that I am a sober Bohemian....

The Auld Grump

Drunken Observer here.