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Message: <blockquote data-quote="The Grumpy Celt" data-source="post: 776012" data-attributes="member: 1019">Milquetoast FascismAn attempt by a game master to prevent his or her players from buying any books — be it the Monster Manual or Penthouse Letters Collected Vol. VIII — is nothing short of milquetoast fascism.The relationship players have with a game master is not the relationship of soldiers and their commanding officer, it is not the relationship of actors and a play director and it is not the relationship of employees and an employer. In these cases, the commanding officer, the play director and the employer all have authority over the lives of the soldiers, the actors and the employees that is more legitimate than that held by a game master over the players. Even so, the commanding officer, the play director and the employer have exceptionally limited moral and ethical authority to demand that the soldiers, the actors and the employees abstain from something. A commanding officer would be exceeding his authority if he told his soldiers to not read an official army handbook. A play director would be rightfully questioned if he told his actors not to read the original version of they play they are performing but only to consult his version. The employer would face a potential lawsuit if she told her employees not to read some manual that would increase their skills.Yet, frequently game master demand that their players — who do not owe the game masters the same kind of obedience owed to a commanding officer, a play director or an employer — do not buy the Dungeon Masters Guide or the Monster Manual, among other works.It is nothing less than an expression of weak willed tyranny and milquetoast fascism on the part of the game master to make such a demand. Unable to force their real lives into lockstep order, they attempt to do so in a world that exists mostly in their heads. The largest challenge to making their narcissistic dream worlds sufficiently ordered is the players. Players who are free-willed, who pursue their own goals and often — as a group — can out think and out maneuver a game master’s attempts to dictate plot and the actions of the player’s own characters.So these game masters make ludicrous demands, such as players must not buy or read the Dungeon Masters Guide or the Monster Manual and sometimes even novels (from which the game master is stealing ideas, characters and/or plot) and even the Player’s Handbook. These are tools in the hands of the players so that they can justifiably question the authority of what the game master is doing. There is nothing tyrants loathe more than being questioned – particularly when those questions have legitimacy.A better relationship is one where there is give and take between the players and the game master, where there is mutual respect. A game master who demands the players never own or read copies of anything is untrustworthy and not worth gaming with, as they will make the fun and joy in the game wither and dry up. This is because any game master that make such a demand – a demand that grossly exceeds their actual moral and ethical authority – is not remotely interested in working with the players for everyone’s enjoyment.They are solely interested in being the absolute master of their petty little mind-world.</blockquote>

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