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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 9665983" data-attributes="member: 6790260">I mean, sure, but the player isn't the one laying claim to power and leadership and expecting trust. There's a reason greater expectations are placed on those who claim authority.This only counts if we look at cases. If we instead look at how much effect a problematic action has, DMs engaging in problematic behavior have far greater impact than players engaging in problematic behavior, even if we assume DMs are significantly better than players on average. Because when a DM does something hinky (again, not necessarily bad, just questionable/concerning), it usually affects everyone at the table, while a single player doing something hinky may only affect the DM, not anyone else.Which just links back to what I said above: the DM in this context has enormous power and control over the situation, especially because things like social contracts and relationships make the endlessly-repeated "just leave" response nowhere near as easy as people think it is. (It turns out, cutting and running when you have a problem with someone's behavior, even if it is objectively a problem, has significant social costs that can't actually be ignored!) The DM, in this playstyle context, has much more power and many more ways for their behavior to lead to problems than the players could ever have.If the player takes 100 actions that could potentially be done problematically in a given session (I am not assuming they ARE problematic, just saying they COULD be), then even if there are 5 players taking such actions, they'll still be outnumbered by the DM if that DM is taking 1000 actions that could potentially be done problematically in a given session (I am not assuming they ARE problematic, just saying they COULD be)--indeed, by a two-to-one margin. And since players literally cannot do anything without having first received DM input, every player action is preceded by the DM doing something first, alongside however many things the DM did that the player can't see.But that's exactly the issue, it ISN'T transparent, by intent! There's a reason I keep bringing up the "black box". Black box DMing is inherently not transparent. It cannot be transparent, otherwise it wouldn't be black-boxing anything.</blockquote>

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