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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Oofta" data-source="post: 8430185" data-attributes="member: 6801845">I guess I've been playing, and continue to play D&D wrong then.  As has pretty much every DM I've played with.  As had every streamed game that I've watched as far as I can tell.  Too bad that we're following the rules of a fundamentally broken game.   <img class="smilie smilie--emoji" alt="🤷‍♂️" src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f937-2642.png" title="Man shrugging    :man_shrugging:" data-shortname=":man_shrugging:" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" /> The rules are clear.  The DM has ultimate authority[SPOILER="PHB intro"]One player, however, takes on the role of the Dungeon Master (DM), the game’s lead storyteller and referee. The DM creates adventures for the characters, who navigate its hazards and decide which paths to explore. The DM might describe the entrance to Castle Ravenloft, and the players decide what they want their adventurers to do. Will they walk across the dangerously weathered drawbridge? Tie themselves together with rope to minimize the chance that someone will fall if the drawbridge gives way? Or cast a spell to carry them over the chasm?Then the DM determines the results of the adventurers’ actions and narrates what they experience. Because the DM can improvise to react to anything the players attempt, D&D is infinitely flexible, and each adventure can be exciting and unexpected....Your DM might set the campaign on one of these worlds or on one that he or she created. Because there is so much diversity among the worlds of D&D, you should check with your DM about any house rules that will affect your play of the game. Ultimately, the Dungeon Master is the authority on the campaign and its setting, even if the setting is a published world....The Dungeons & Dragons game consists of a group of characters embarking on an adventure that the Dungeon Master presents to them. ...Exploration includes both the adventurers’ movement through the world and their interaction with objects and situations that require their attention. Exploration is the give-and-take of the players describing what they want their characters to do, and the Dungeon Master telling the players what happens as a result. On a large scale, that might involve the characters spending a day crossing a rolling plain or an hour making their way through caverns underground. On the smallest scale, it could mean one character pulling a lever in a dungeon room to see what happens.[/SPOILER][SPOILER="DMG Intro"]The DM creates a world for the other players to explore, and also creates and runs adventures that drive the story. ...The D&D rules help you and the other players have a good time, but the rules aren’t in charge. You’re the DM, and you are in charge of the game...Every DM is the creator of his or her own campaign world. ...Dungeons & Dragons isn’t a head-to-head competition, but it needs someone who is impartial yet involved in the game to guarantee that everyone at the table plays by the rules. As the player who creates the game world and the adventures that take place within it, the DM is a natural fit to take on the referee role.As a referee, the DM acts as a mediator between the rules and the players. A player tells the DM what he or she wants to do, and the DM determines whether it is successful or not, in some cases asking the player to make a die roll to determine success.[/SPOILER]The only thing I found that talks about giving other players authority is in the DMG: "You [as DM] can also lean on the other players to help you with rules mastery and world-building."  So it clearly states that it's up to the DM how much the other players help out.  Which, cool.  If you want to build a collaborative world, I can see how it could be interesting.  I get input from my players as well, I just have editorial and veto power.Lots of places where the DM is given authority.  Can you quote one single sentence in the PHB, DMG or any published book that contradicts it?  Because I've made house rules that some of the players disagree with.  I ask people to describe their background and then either fill in the blanks or say "that makes no sense in my world how about [fill in the blank]".  Even then the background is from the perspective of the PC; I had a game where the PC's aunt was really their mother (it was awesome).  I have never asked a player to tell me who someone is or explain who they are talking to at the game table, although I will collaborate with them off line.Obviously there are bad DMs out there.  The hypothetical DM that just arbitrarily changes the rules on the fly?  Never met one, but I can't imagine them retaining a group for long.  Seems like a problem that's going to resolve itself soon enough.I guess following the advice and direction of the game makes me a terrible DM.  I'll have to tell all the people who enjoy my games that they're wrong.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f644.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":rolleyes:" title="Roll eyes    :rolleyes:"  data-smilie="11"data-shortname=":rolleyes:" /></blockquote>

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