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Message: <blockquote data-quote="haakon1" data-source="post: 4661526" data-attributes="member: 25619">Why power struggles?This discussion seems very elaborate.My views are pretty simple:- As a DM, I'm the referee and I choose the rules.  For example, in 3e, I allowed only a limited rule set (basically Core Books), to keep the cost playing low and the game simple.  I've add other stuff only on case-by-case basis, when someone requested it or I thought it was a good rule, and I decided the rule "wasn't broken" in terms of relative power and "fit" the campaign style.  I've never had anyone argue the legitimacy of this approach.-- For example, reviewing the Spear and Shield feat from the Net Book of Feats, I decided "yes" based on the Power Rating it had been given and on its historical accuracy (I spotted an illustration of the tactic in a book about ancient Greek warfare).- As a DM, I tell people if I don't like a character idea.  Sometimes, we compromise.  I would put my foot down and just say no if something really didn't fit.-- For example, a player wanted to bring in a strange reptilian race I'd never even heard of, with powers I didn't like/didn't find appropriate for a starting charater.  So I told him he could play a Lizard Man instead -- which fit my world and was something I wanted to see tried.-- I'd say no to a half-dragon or dragonborn.  Part dragon, part human just doesn't make sense to me and doesn't fit my vision of the old school D&D I like to run -- threatening MY suspension of disbelief makes it a rules violation, essentially.  I'd be OK with a tielfing (lots of traditional stuff with part demons).- As a DM, I theoretically allow PC's to do anything they want, but I enforce logical in-world consequences for doing "bad stuff", which in any case tends to be distasteful to me and to other players too.-- For example, a player once wanted her character to eat dead orcs to save on rations.  I told her that her PC might get in trouble with local law enforcement, who would consider if cannibalism.  She decided her character wasn't going to do that.Usually, this sort of thing seems to only come up in the first outing for a player, as they learning the group's style or just plain how the game works, since I'm usually an evangelist asking non-D&Ders to give it a try.As a player, I don't get the DM-player power struggle stuff.  I view myself as a guest of DM -- which is literally true 99% of time, since I've almost been in campaigns that were played at the DM's house.  I think it's rude for a guest to argue with the host, not to mention disruptive to be a rules lawyer, but it's also incumbent on the host to try to hospitable to his guests.  That doesn't mean the DM needs to be push over, but it does mean the DM must treat the players as, well, guests and/or friends.  Probably 90% of time, I've gamed with long-standing friends . . .</blockquote>

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