D&D General The DM is Not a Player; and Hot Topic is Not Punk Rock

[embee]

Next time, don't play the part.

Just be the DM.

Do or do not. There is no try.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

As just a brief response to the OP @Snarf Zagyg ...

You say "we use different words for DM than we do for player," and then immediately undermine your own point by referencing another common-use term: "DMPC." How can there be a "Dungeon Master player character" if the DM isn't--indeed, cannot be--a "player"?

 

[embee]

As just a brief response to the OP @Snarf Zagyg ...

You say "we use different words for DM than we do for player," and then immediately undermine your own point by referencing another common-use term: "DMPC." How can there be a "Dungeon Master player character" if the DM isn't--indeed, cannot be--a "player"?

There are also NPCs.

Non Player Characters.

And yet Non has never been in my group.

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

Or whether you're talking to another gamer.

That's true, I hadn't considered that. Overall, I don't often enjoying taking the role of the DM in the game. I'd much rather run a PC. So, given that I enjoy it less and, generally, consider it work, it might affect how I describe DMing to others.

 

[Azzy]

Somebody's been listening to MC Lars.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

so clever.

I was simply telling you how I answer the question of 'what did you do last night' when I was the dm. It was an observation. Then you made up a fictional conversation for some odd reason. I'm not sure if it was to insult the observation I was making? I didn't understand the point you were trying to make.

Anyways,

Everyone plays roles in a game. Without the DM there is no game and without the Heroic Characters, there is no game. If there's no game, there's no players.

So, to me, the DM is playing the game. Unless they are running the game as a job or dislike doing it and/or find it a huge chore. Then they're not playing, they're working.

The same point ... that is the OP. Because the OP was written by an attractive, articulate, indubitably correct person that likely smells like fresh laundry.

ahem

Seriously, though, that was the first section of OP, but you were just doing it in reverse. It's the pedantic point of definitions and usage.

A: DMs and Players are both "Players" because they both "play" the game, and someone who "plays" a game is called a "player."

B: DMs are not Players because there are two distinct groups that are referred to in D&D; "DMs" and "Players", and referring to the DM as a Player (or vice versa) is bizarre and confusing, and no one would ever do it.

Notice what's going on? Yes, if I DMd, I would also say that I "played" D&D in the broadest possible sense- because D&D is a game, and I acted in the game, and therefore I "played" the game. Because we lack that level of fine distinction in our word choice.

OTOH, if I am discussing D&D, I would never confuse "player" and "DM" because those are two completely separate roles within the game. Some historical examples:
Might & Magic states that "Number of Players: At least one referee and from four to fifty players can be handled in any single campaign, but the referee to player ratio should be about 1:20 or thereabout." (50 players!)
Moldvay puts it like this: "When a group plays a D&D game, one person acts as a referee and is known as the Dungeon Master (DM). Others play the roles of fantasy characters and are called the players."

There is a lot of confusion between two similar, but different, terms: player (as in a generic "one who plays" and doesn't like playa haters) and player (the role of player in D&D).

Saying that DMs are players needlessly confused the two terms. IMO.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

As just a brief response to the OP @Snarf Zagyg ...

You say "we use different words for DM than we do for player," and then immediately undermine your own point by referencing another common-use term: "DMPC." How can there be a "Dungeon Master player character" if the DM isn't--indeed, cannot be--a "player"?

I don't know why they call this stuff hamburger helper. It does just fine by itself!

 

[EzekielRaiden]

There are also NPCs.

Non Player Characters.

And yet Non has never been in my group.

Whether or not that is true, leaning on "common usage" as a key point of your argument....and then immediately invoking another point of common usage that opposes the first? Not a good argument. Whether or not the rest of the argument is sound, I haven't gotten to yet. Common usage arguments are already perilous things*; to then directly follow one with a different argument that shows exactly the opposite usage is not merely shaky, it's pretty obviously flawed.

*Whoever said that common usage had to be correct/accurate/precise? Plenty of commonly-used terms are none of those things, consider the interminable arguments about whether "ironic" MUST mean "a truly striking reversal of expectation" or whether it can also mean "a surprising or unexpected coincidence of events. If that's not enough to punch a hole in common-usage as a logical argument, I don't know what is.

 

[Guest User]

No analogy is perfect. But the idea of a neutral arbiter is why we often analogize the DM to a referee (in fact, the first DMs were called referees, from wargaming).

A DM is in no way analogous to a neutral arbiter. A neutral arbiter is hired to settle a contractual dispute. The neutral arbiter, had no hand in drafting the language of the contract. The neutral arbiter played no part in the actions that lead to the dispute.

A DM, is fulfilling the role of arbiter, but no reasonable person would classify the DM as a neutral arbiter.
(reasonable, in the legal sense...not intended to imply unreasonableness on anyone's part)

The DM and Players are all participants in a game.

I've played with groups that absolutely, fundamentally, rejected the notion of
DM-ICUS TYRANUS REX. The most radical group, used tag team DMing.
All players were expected to take a turn, each session, behind the screen.

One person would write the session. The game was intense, but very fun, and it was very educational. You had to have tight, and clear design, as you knew it was not going to be just you
DM-ing. You could not just have a rough idea and wing it.

DM-ICUS TYRANUS REX is not a neutral arbiter.

 

[embee]

I don't know why they call this stuff hamburger helper. It does just fine by itself!

Hamburger Helper has never helped hamburger.