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

[EzekielRaiden]

Traditionally, this is a self-correcting problem.

Back in the old days (finds beard to stroke) ... the way a lot of games evolved was organic. People would play and learn how to play. Over time, one of the players would start to think to themself, "Self, I think I could run a better game. In fact, I'd like to try it!"

And then that player would take their ideas and become ... a DM. Usually, it would be rough sledding for a little while- because it's a lot easier to point out mistakes than ... you know, to actually run a game.* But they'd get the hang of it, find their own voice, and run games! And then, one of their players would start to feel that itch...

So it goes. As you correctly note- it is a seller's market. Because it's a lot easier, less time-consuming, and less stressful to play than to DM. It's certainly easier to focus your ire on a single point than to worry about how to make a campaign appealing to a disparate set of players so that everyone, not just a single player, is having fun.

Despite this, we see that there are many players who demand that their preferences are catered to. To that I will say only the following- I hope you find all the gaming joy that you seek. But the only way to have a game run the exact way you want it to be run is to run it yourself. Instead of criticizing all the terrible DMs out there, become the great DM that you demand others be! Be a positive influence. Put all of the material you've learned into practice, so that you can teach a new generation of players how to "play the right way" according to you, and you can also show them how to "DM the right way" by example, so that when they go off and DM on their own, they will have learned by your example.

Be the change you want to see.


*Critics are men who sit and watch a battle from a high place and come down to shoot the survivors.
-Papa Abraham Lincoln

I already tried that.

Guess how much I get to play?

Guess how much joy of playing I get out of running?

I'll give you a hint. The answer to both of those questions is a nonpositive, nonnegative integer.

This is like saying, "If you want to feel the joy of a great massage, become a masseuse." No! Being a masseuse has nothing to do with getting a massage! The response is a complete non sequitur!

 

[Micah Sweet]

That is sure as hell the sentiment I have gotten from the vast majority of people promoting the "traditional GM" approach.

"You WILL adventure in the world I've provided to you. Don't like it? Tough, find a new table."

If I want to run a game other people don't want to play, we don't end up playing it. If we do play and I make a call with which a player disagrees, we talk about it, and sometimes I change my mind. In the end, if an agreement can't be reached, I make a call and that's what we do.

That is pretty much all "absolute power" means to me as a GM.

 

[Umbran]

You answered "no", and then proceeded to explain to me, "but actually yes".

I don't read it that way.

I feel he said that, no, the GM doesn't have to accept every player suggestion, but it is good for the GM to have space from which they can consider player suggestions seriously, before ruling yes or no.

There is "The GM predetermines it all, no questions will be brooked." There is, "Everything the players say goes, no matter what." And then there's this astoundingly huge space in the middle where we can discuss and negotiate before making up our minds.

In that astoundingly huge space, the player may suggest ways in which the idea isn't so damaging to the GM's conception. Or maybe the GM will suggest something other than the player's suggestion, but nearly as good for the player's stated goals. And so on - there are many possibilities one will never find if one rejects the notion of even considering discussion.

Going a long, long way back to the OP - an exhausting thing is having to repeatedly re-establish that most of the arguments we have are not actually composed of choices between polar opposites.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

If you assume players are perfectly interchangeable widgits then sure it is a trivial cost.

They aren't.

Why wouldn't players be perfectly interchangeable widgets to the "traditional GM"? They don't want any contributions except character actions.

I would never have come up with this phrasing myself, but--yeah, this is precisely the problem I have. With all of the emphasis on "absolute power", on GM vision, on it being "my campaign" from that GM's perspective, the bottomless dismissiveness for the very concept of player contribution outside of character actions? As far as I can tell, to the "traditional GM", the players are perfectly interchangeable widgets.

They just happen to be the particular perfectly interchangeable widgets which coincidentally ended up experiencing that campaign.

 

[Umbran]

Perhaps, but the effect was first noticed on cruise liners crossing the equator which would have been using the same equipment all along, so ???

Myth!

Does the Coriolis Effect Determine Which Direction Water Goes Down a Drain?

The notion that the Coriolis force determines which direction water spirals down drains is one of the most prominent scientific myths.

www.snopes.com

Does Water Flowing down a Drain Spin Differently Depending on the Hemisphere?

Theoretical physics may not be powerful enough to rule over every individual eddy of water

www.scientificamerican.com

 

[clearstream]

Social contracts generally mean sometimes I have to do certain things I don’t really want to do so that I will be able to do the things I really want to do at other times.

Accepted, but it doesn't end up matching the case I described. Compare

"You will GM the world that I want to play in." (involuntary or forced acceptance of the terms)

With

"Will you GM the world I want to play in, if I GM the world you want to play in right after?" (voluntary acceptance of the terms in sum)

Those aren't identical.

 

[Thomas Shey]

This calls up the same basic question for the author: "If I cannot write confidently on this, should my plot/narrative hinge on the details of its operation?"

Sometimes you just need to jump into the deep end of the pool. When it comes to something like a fictional stardrive, you find out if you can write about it convincingly by writing about it and seeing if what you do is convincing.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

If I want to run a game other people don't want to play, we don't end up playing it. If we do play and I make a call with which a player disagrees, we talk about it, and sometimes I change my mind. In the end, if an agreement can't be reached, I make a call and that's what we do.

That is pretty much all "absolute power" means to me as a GM.

Then I would never, in a million, billion years, ever call that even remotely like "absolute power", and it's incredibly frustrating to hear it being called "absolute power" with dogged, unrelenting insistence when...it's...it's so radically different I am struggling for words here.

It's like insisting the sky is violet, that it can't ever be anything but violet, that "violet" is the one and only word that could ever apply to the sky....and then saying "well I consider anything up to like 520 nm 'violet'."

 

[Micah Sweet]

Okay, but I was explicitly told #2. Like I used a direct quote for it. Collaboration and cooperation are not acceptable; that has been made very clear. No amount is acceptable; any amount of it would be, as quoted, "having reality-altering powers".

I can see relaxation of 3, but I was under the impression that any relaxation of 3 was a really terrible thing to be avoided at any cost. Like...I thought just you and I, to say nothing of the more strident "traditional GM" voices, had come to the conclusion that that isn't just an ideal to pursue, it's something where backsliding isn't tolerated. Is that not the case?

If 2 and 3 are ideals as has been suggested, one can believe in them quite strongly while also being aware full adherence to them is impractical.

 

[clearstream]

BTW,

The persistence of this thread is exhausting.

On brand. There are refreshments on the last page.