Is the DM the most important person at the table

[prabe]

The DM is the MOST IMPORTANT PLAYER of the game so that the PLAYERS can be the MOST IMPORTANT people at the game.

I might phrase this thought differently: The DM is the most important player at the table so the PCs can be the most important people in the game.

 

[Fanaelialae]

There was one player doing that. And I was powerless to stop him - at least within the bounds of our social contract - because if I could have done so I would have.

That isn't to say there was no possible technique that could have been used to stop him - there probably was and I have some ideas for what to attempt in the future - but in the heat of the moment in the middle of the game that night I exhausted every avenue I could see. That to me is powerlessness - is it not to you?

More importantly, as I noted in my initial post - there was another player that was able to progress the game to a point we could move forward.

I think the important thing here is that it was due to a social contract. You agreed to surrender some portion of your authority as part of that contract. Which is fine, I'm sure you have good reasons for doing so. But it was due to a social contract that you opted into that limited your authority, rather than you lacking that authority.

You weren't in that game, in the heat of the moment and you are telling someone they should have done X in that game, in the heat of the moment. That's precisely what Monday morning quarterbacking is.

I'm confused. The quoted text you responded to was Lanefan and myself talking about a hypothetical, not something that really happened. You can't Monday morning quarterback a hypothetical.

Or do you mean I was MMQing you, because that wasn't my intent. I wasn't saying what you should have done. I was saying what you had the authority to do (which, as you've clarified, you couldn't actually have done, but only as a result of a social contract).

 

[Fanaelialae]

Why is a new GM less likely to know about practices that can reduce the burden of GMing? Because they are not shared, or demonstrated, but other GMs. That's part of gatekeeping -- the hoarding of knowledge.

GMing is not hard, unless you conflate your preferences for what's actually required. Too many of us do this, and those preferences become another lock on the gate.

Or, you know, because like me they had no one to show them how and had to figure it out on their own? It's great if you have a experienced mentor to teach you, but that's hardly a given.

ENWorld is a great example of GMs sharing their knowledge freely. But not one that a new GM is necessarily going to know about. It's certainly better nowadays thanks to the internet, but I don't think it's a given that a newbie will know the right place to look. And then there is also sorting good advice from bad...

 

[FrogReaver]

I think the important thing here is that it was due to a social contract. You agreed to surrender some portion of your authority as part of that contract. Which is fine, I'm sure you have good reasons for doing so. But it was due to a social contract that you opted into that limited your authority, rather than you lacking that authority.

If I've surrendered authority then I no longer have it - aka lacking that authority.

Or do you mean I was MMQing you, because that wasn't my intent. I wasn't saying what you should have done. I was saying what you had the authority to do (which, as you've clarified, you couldn't actually have done, but only as a result of a social contract).

I'll take your word for it.

I'm just glad we are on the same page - that DM authority can easily be more limited than typically envisioned in these discussions.

Which going back to my original point - in my game a player was able to accomplish moving the game forward when I as the DM could not. So now that it sounds like you agree with this assessment - how does this not make the case that a player can at least for some sessions be more important than a DM?

 

[Maxperson]

Which going back to my original point - in my game a player was able to accomplish moving the game forward when I as the DM could not. So now that it sounds like you agree with this assessment - how does this not make the case that a player can at least for some sessions be more important than a DM?

The DM is still first among equals. Even if the player occasionally does more in session than the DM, he still doesn't take over the first among equals spot. The DM still has far more responsibility, puts in far more work prepping for the game, plays far more roles, etc., than the players do.

 

[macd21]

If I've surrendered authority then I no longer have it - aka lacking that authority.



I'll take your word for it.

I'm just glad we are on the same page - that DM authority can easily be more limited than typically envisioned in these discussions.

Which going back to my original point - in my game a player was able to accomplish moving the game forward when I as the DM could not. So now that it sounds like you agree with this assessment - how does this not make the case that a player can at least for some sessions be more important than a DM?

No. Again, without the DM, there is no session for the player to be important in. And the authority ultimately always lies with the DM. You may have ‘surrendered’ your authority, but you can always take it back - ultimately the decision lies with you. If an individual player disagrees with that, he can leave, if you leave, the game doesn’t happen.

 

[Fanaelialae]

If I've surrendered authority then I no longer have it - aka lacking that authority.



I'll take your word for it.

I'm just glad we are on the same page - that DM authority can easily be more limited than typically envisioned in these discussions.

Which going back to my original point - in my game a player was able to accomplish moving the game forward when I as the DM could not. So now that it sounds like you agree with this assessment - how does this not make the case that a player can at least for some sessions be more important than a DM?

When I talk about GMs having greater authority than players, I am talking about a typical GM in a typical game, rather than FrogReaver the GM in FrogReaver's game. We can make generalized statements about GMs as a whole. Those statements may or may not apply to a particular GM, such as yourself.

You could play 5e with something like Mythic GM Emulator, eliminating the role of GM as being distinct from that of a player. It wouldn't really be pertinent to this discussion though.

Same thing here. You voluntarily entered into a contract that limited your authority as GM. It tells us something about your game, but we can't generalize it into telling us about GMs in general, since that is not typical. The most we can say about this is that a player at your table can have more authority than you (specifically, FrogReaver). A square is a rectangle, but a rectangle is not a square.

Like I've said before, I've largely tried to avoid using the term important in this thread because it is very subjective. Important in what sense?

A king is more important than other people in the sense that the king has the greatest governmental authority (yeah, that may not ALWAYS be true but for simplicity's sake let's just assume it is).

However, many would say that the king exists to serve the people, and derives his power from the people. So in that sense the people are more important.

And, arguably, from certain moral standpoints the king is a person just like any other citizen and therefore his happiness is no more or less important than that of any other citizen. So the king is of equal importance to the citizens.

See what I did there? I just showed that a king can be of greater importance, lesser importance, and equal importance to his citizens. Which I think says a lot more about the subjective nature of the term important than it does about the relationship between kings and their citizens. (Also, no, I am not equating the role of GM to that of a king. I'm just showing how subjective the term important is, that's all.)

My standpoint has been that the GM is equal to the players in the sense that everyone's fun is equally important. However, GMs have both greater authority and responsibilities than a player does.

 

[Fishreeler]

If I really make a purchase and make a sorcerer with 10 Cha, at some point I had to put these points in some other skill. Therefore, if my DM casts the Pact Guardian Rod +3 so that my spells act as if I had 16 Cha, I will receive several free points in other ability scores for free.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Or, you know, because like me they had no one to show them how and had to figure it out on their own? It's great if you have a experienced mentor to teach you, but that's hardly a given.

Needing a mentor to show you the difficult ropes is another form of gatekeeping.

And, D&D is bad in it's manuals (usually, some older exceptions) at teaching anything useful about GMing. Largely, I think, because a lot of material on HOW to GM would make many returning customers upset. There's already loads of complaints about the 'wasted' space in the 5e DMG that does talk about the basics of GMing. So, yeah, that's gatekeeping as well.

I huge amount of the problem is that we all think that the way we, personally, prefer games is how games should be, and that's been locked in through a few decades of GM's doing the heavy load lifting. But, you don't have to. You can offload a lot of the tracking onto the players. You can using random generated dungeons, either from the back of the DMG or any number of tools online. You can pretty quickly pull encounters straight from the MM that will work, especially with other neophyte players, or you can use an online tool like KFC to do work for you. In game, all you have to do is listen to what your players say and then call for checks when needed. It's not hard, but it would probably not look like a game you'd prefer. But, that's okay, you're GMing. And, maybe that game doesn't need to be like yours.

But, this conception we have that DMing should look like our DMing (and mine doesn't look like the example above) and we know how much work we do so therefore DMing is HARD is really gatekeeping -- it's stepping on games that don't look like ours.

I was guilty of all of these things for pretty much my entire hobby experience. GMing was clearly the toughest job. It's only after I've started playing other games that I realized exactly how much mental overhead I've borrowed in how I've run D&D, overhead that wasn't necessary to run a game of D&D. That that overhead was a combination of how I was "mentored" and the lack of good, clear methods of running in the rules. That I didn't have to do it that way. That let me then choose what I kept and didn't, and the fact that I've chosen to keep stuff I didn't have to is my choice, and not a requirement of GMing.

ENWorld is a great example of GMs sharing their knowledge freely. But not one that a new GM is necessarily going to know about. It's certainly better nowadays thanks to the internet, but I don't think it's a given that a newbie will know the right place to look. And then there is also sorting good advice from bad...

EMWorld is a great place to be intimidated as a new GM. We climb deep into the gears here, because we're gaming nerds that like to argue arguing about gaming. It's not as friendly and welcoming as you think.

 

[jasper]

I just had a great idea.
The DM is the MOST IMPORTANT PLAYER of the game so that the PLAYERS can be the MOST IMPORTANT people at the game.
See like all good dms. I stole it.
DM is hard depending on your group. Bunch of Randoms at the FGLS and you are shy hard. Playing with your regular group which contains a sad sack and goober, that is hard. Playing with a group friends who will go easy on you, just a little hard.