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Is the DM the most important person at the table
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<blockquote data-quote="Fanaelialae" data-source="post: 7919540" data-attributes="member: 53980"><p>That's been my experience.</p><p></p><p>The GM sets the tone and is the referee. If the person bringing life to the world you interact with is bad, it is likely to impact the entire experience (negatively). I suppose it's likely to be fine if all the players want to do is sit at a tavern table and RP, but as soon as they need to interact with the game world in a meaningful sense beyond of the player characters themselves, that relies on the DM.</p><p></p><p>I said irrespective of player skill. Being a bad player (ie, being disruptive, etc) is more reflective of a lack of basic life skills than player skill.</p><p></p><p>And as you say, a good GM can significantly mitigate the impact of a bad player. A good player is quite limited in their capacity to mitigate a bad GM.</p><p></p><p>As I stated above, the GM is responsible for everything outside the PCs themselves. They set the tone, determine how the world interacts with the PCs, and arbitrate the rules.</p><p></p><p>Maybe not at a conscious level. But IMO there aren't any good GMs who don't recognize this at least subconsciously.</p><p></p><p>Why would anyone play if they didn't enjoy it?</p><p></p><p>Note that not every group's definition of fun is the same. One group might enjoy cinematic adventures where they get to be Big Damn Heroes. Another group might enjoy a brutal, bloody slog that would best be described as nightmare-difficulty. Some GMs might be good at running one style but not the other, resulting in a good GM who is bad for a group that doesn't want to play that way. But that's more a matter of mismatched expectations than actual skill.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I have, though it's a rarity. He was a good GM because he would run the kind of game that he wanted to play in, where the players had a lot of agency.</p><p></p><p>Unfortunately, when he played he was a very selfish kind of player who required a lot of social pressure from everyone at the table to not constantly do things that were at the expense of everyone else's fun. He's a friend, so it wasn't like we were going to boot him from the table, but it could be quite stressful and unfun.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Fanaelialae, post: 7919540, member: 53980"] That's been my experience. The GM sets the tone and is the referee. If the person bringing life to the world you interact with is bad, it is likely to impact the entire experience (negatively). I suppose it's likely to be fine if all the players want to do is sit at a tavern table and RP, but as soon as they need to interact with the game world in a meaningful sense beyond of the player characters themselves, that relies on the DM. I said irrespective of player skill. Being a bad player (ie, being disruptive, etc) is more reflective of a lack of basic life skills than player skill. And as you say, a good GM can significantly mitigate the impact of a bad player. A good player is quite limited in their capacity to mitigate a bad GM. As I stated above, the GM is responsible for everything outside the PCs themselves. They set the tone, determine how the world interacts with the PCs, and arbitrate the rules. Maybe not at a conscious level. But IMO there aren't any good GMs who don't recognize this at least subconsciously. Why would anyone play if they didn't enjoy it? Note that not every group's definition of fun is the same. One group might enjoy cinematic adventures where they get to be Big Damn Heroes. Another group might enjoy a brutal, bloody slog that would best be described as nightmare-difficulty. Some GMs might be good at running one style but not the other, resulting in a good GM who is bad for a group that doesn't want to play that way. But that's more a matter of mismatched expectations than actual skill. I have, though it's a rarity. He was a good GM because he would run the kind of game that he wanted to play in, where the players had a lot of agency. Unfortunately, when he played he was a very selfish kind of player who required a lot of social pressure from everyone at the table to not constantly do things that were at the expense of everyone else's fun. He's a friend, so it wasn't like we were going to boot him from the table, but it could be quite stressful and unfun. [/QUOTE]
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