D&D General [rant]The conservatism of D&D fans is exhausting.

[FrozenNorth]

Reading your post, I wondered if you had considered that putting a rule in force for oneself isn't a binary (i.e. it's not that it's either in force or not in force.) I observe participants putting rules in force for themselves with variations in strength.

I think that framing the question in that manner is inherently adopting a “trad” framing of the question.

Can the group of players (including the DM) agree that they want the DM to have broad powers in running the campaign? Absolutely!

Can the group of players (including the DM) go a step further and decide that they are OK with the DM not being constrained with the written rules of the game if the end result is fun and exciting? Also yes.

Except, that wasn’t the framing. Your post is framed as the DM putting a rule in place for themself.

To me, this heartens back to the framing that the game is the DM’s game. They can exercise more power because they put in the most effort. The players must defer to the DM or leave the game. A poster can indicate that they derive enjoyment from providing a game that is fun to their players, but this must be immediately and vociferously qualified by adding that their fun is paramount.

So to answer your question, no, because the DM does not put rules in place for themself. The group (including the DM) decides how much power the DM can exercise.

It means that when someone thinks DM should be free to unilaterally modify the rules, they could have in mind that DM will exercise discretion. Some rules, DM might be reluctant to modify; others they might modify more freely. And that can apply to circumstances of play too, so that they might feel it is less well justified to modify a rule in some circumstances, and more in others.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Isn’t this just 1 thing? Isn’t a GM abusing the power and authority granted to him by the players ipso facto violating the social contract?

Ok. The GM can still be wrong by:

1. Violating the social contract.

Did your objection make any difference to the statement expressed?

 

[Emerikol]

He's not talking about "long tedious rules debates" being mature. He's talking about talking problems out with the group as being mature, whereas table-flipping (or its verbal equivalents) to be immature. If you leave a game and just ghost the DM, that's immature. If you leave a game and say "I don't want to play because of XYZ," that's (probably) more mature. (Depending on what XYZ are, of course.)

No one said ghost the DM. You tell him you don't want to continue on in his campaign. The person I replied to just assumed the ghosting.

And for the GAME of D&D, I don't find talking things out with the group to be very fruitful most of the time. It sure is a time sink though. You can turn a long planned Saturday into a complete waste of time. It can wait till later and maybe a discussion by phone some evening you aren't playing. Even then be prepared to be told no by the DM. See I recognize two things. A DM is over his or her campaign and I am free to play or not play (if invited of course) in that campaign.

 

[Enrahim]

I think you are overly focusing on the example I gave here.

My point is that you don't need to give the GM power to overrule the rules in the name of the fiction when the rules only give players the permission to do things if they are consistent with the fiction.

Ok. Just to make things clearer: Who determines if the thing the player suggest is consistent with the fiction?

If it is indeed the GM, isn't that actually just rephrasing the power? They do no longer need the power to explicitly deny use of a rule as they are instead able to implicitly gatekeep the rules.

If not, how is fictional consistency ensured in an environment with potentially corrupt players? (ref @Paul Farquhar highly controversial claims somewhat upthread)

 

[AlViking]

One DM has a lot more power to make a game unpleasant than one player.

Specific example, across several groups, I have players that cannot seem to retain how to play the game or how their character works. Slightly annoying, but they are friends and good people, and they come into their own on the roleplay side of things.

Games in which the GM doesn’t understand the rules are a lot more painful.

Sounds like you've never had a disruptive player, an attention hog, a whiner, the guy who insists on playing the antisocial lone wolf who goes out of their way to be antagonistic. That's not even counting the rude or misogynistic player.

Those people have made the game less fun for me as often or more than GMs. Fortunately most were dealt with (typically by the GM), occasionally after everyone else let the GM know something had to give.

 

[AlViking]

Which version of D&D are you talking about? There are several where running into a red dragon at 1st level is perfectly acceptable under the right circumstances, and where things like XP budgets and CR don't even exist. Many folks would say XP budgets and the like are unnecessary, if not actually detrimental to play.

If you're talking about 5e, then no, I don't think it's a strawman to point out how clear other rule sets are. 5e is notoriously unclear about its processes.

It's not about breaking rules... it's about there being specific rules.

If the DM killed of your level 1 characters with an ancient red dragon in any edition they were being an a-hole in my book.

I think the 2024 book does a better job than the 2014 books, but both talk about the game being fun for everyone. Most complaints I hear is that 5e and it's guidance on encounters is that it's "too easy".

The guidelines in D&D ave just as much ability to enforce good GMing as any rules in any other game. Approximately 0.

 

[clearstream]

I think that framing the question in that manner is inherently adopting a “trad” framing of the question.

That's somewhat of a misreading as I'm speaking about how people follow rules. It seems like a modest claim to say that folk adhere to some rules more strongly than others, and more strongly in some situations than in other situations.

Can the group of players (including the DM) agree that they want the DM to have broad powers in running the campaign? Absolutely!

Can the group of players (including the DM) go a step further and decide that they are OK with the DM not being constrained with the written rules of the game if the end result is fun and exciting? Also yes.

Except, that wasn’t the framing. Your post is framed as the DM putting a rule in place for themself.

I think I see where the misstep occurred. I went on to apply the notion to the topic that I thought you were addressing, so that you could see some possible implications. I took you to be addressing your critique to DMs so I did too! You did after all reference DM about a dozen times in your post... virtually in every paragraph.

To me, this heartens back to the framing that the game is the DM’s game. They can exercise more power because they put in the most effort. The players must defer to the DM or leave the game. A poster can indicate that they derive enjoyment from providing a game that is fun to their players, but this must be immediately and vociferously qualified by adding that their fun is paramount.

So to answer your question, no, because the DM does not put rules in place for themself. The group (including the DM) decides how much power the DM can exercise.

That isn't apposite, because as I clarified above the observation applies to how every individual at the table puts rules in force for themselves. To play, to referee, to follow rules voluntarily, as in a game, necessitates putting rules in force for yourself. This notion comes from Reiland, who writes

to perform a rule-constituted action is to perform an antecedently existing action while enacting or putting the rule in force for ourselves or accepting it as being in force​

​

constitutive rules are distinctive in being in force for us if we enact/accept them, having a certain special sort of content, and being enacted/accepted for a special reason​

All I add is that the weight or strength they are put in force for ourselves is observably variable. I take it you've no real objection to this notion... it was the (unwarranted/mistaken) jump from there to "framing that the game is the DM's game" that worried you. (Although it'd be interesting to understand your reasoning if you do think it's wrong!?)

So my question was (and is) - have you considered this aspect and how it would nuance arguments like the one that DMs should be free to unilaterally modify the rules of the game? Stressing that I put forward no argument for any particular arrangement of GM empowerment. I aim only to indicate some nuances to have in mind while considering how participants (GMs included) follow rules.

 

[Thomas Shey]

If it is the DM, they do have the right to that power.

See the title of this thread up there? Yeah, here's some of that right there.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Again I don't care but stop trying to make out this playstyle which was almost the universal style at the games founding as radical or extreme.

I don't make it out as radical. I make it out as bad at least as often as not. I've explained why by now, if that doesn't seem valid to you, it doesn't.

 

[AlViking]

I wasn't trying to say anything about D&D. I meant the previous as an addendum to the one before. Basically, to clarify that when people are talking about the rules binding the GM in games like Apocalypse Keys there are not really dealing with the nuances involved. That the rules expect the GM to do the basic duties of what the job entails for the game. That there's no need to do the specific rulings you need to do in games like D&D because the game provides you with a lot of flexibility to frame scenes, determine when moves should apply and to determine what happens next while still being bound to the rules because GM Judgement is part of the rules.

The rules aren't particularly binding if you want to actually run the game in question. It's pretty similar to D&D that way.

It seems to me what folks who don't run these games and have no interest in running them are objecting is the basic requirements of the job which is just another way to say don't make narrativist games. I don't get the objection. No one is telling anyone to run games they do not want to run. It seems like folks don't want to provide any space for people to design games not meant for them, no matter how niche.

For the last time, hopefully, I run trad games too. I'm playing in what is planned to be a six-month long Wraith - The Oblivion game. I have plans to run the Stormlight Archive RPG after that and we're also interested in Warhammer - The Old World. I'm just trying to correct the record that games like Apocalypse World rely on a lot of GM Judgement. That they are not going to protect players from GMs or GMs from poor players - they are written (AW in particular) with the assumption that you could play freeform and have functional play.

Note: This was also meant to address those who believe games like Dungeon World protect the players from poor GMing. It might make it a bit more obviously when GMs are moving funny, but like the broad authority is there. Sometimes even more.

Assuming this was in response to my post, I didn't think it was directed at anything other than explaining how your system approaches it. Its interesting to hear about different approaches.

But there are some people that are quite adamant that GM authority is the root of almost all evil in TTRPGs.