D&D General The Monsters Know What They're Doing ... Are Unsure on 5e24

[DinoInDisguise]

And yet your phrasing suggests that any time you have a preference in conflict with your players, you automatically get to be the one who wins. So which is it? Does your preference automatically trump theirs in all cases?

Not directed at me, but I feel most DMs will share my line here. My preference trumps that of the players when my fun and motivation are at stake. If my fun and motivation would suffer in a significant way, then I will tell a player no. I don't really care at that point about the player's motivation for the ask. Because without the incentive of fun, I'm not playing. To me, this is the obvious bar. It's the bar everyone in this hobby operated under, "Am I having fun."

And if someone wants to argue that I should forgo my fun for theirs, I wonder if they practice what they preach, because that is an absurd ask in a game. So really, the answer for everyone in the hypothetical is "I'll compromise or accept less if my fun isn't diminished too much." And if their fun is diminished more then they want, they say no. Either by walking away or sending someone else on their way.

So yes, everyone here chooses their fun over that of others constantly. DMs are not uniquely bad for doing so.

Spoiler: But I give up my fun as a player!

No you don't or you wouldnt be arguing here, because you'd just accept what the DM wanted.

 

[AlViking]

I agree its not zero sum gain, but it seems that if something would lower the enjoyment of the DM by any degree, even if it raises the enjoyment of a player, that is an unacceptable term. If you could measure fun in units, the DM must always be a maximum fun and will not lower his fun to raise another players by any amount. I'm not (nor have ever said) be miserable, but I feel like the DM refuses any sacrifice, even if it betters the game for others.

I can't guarantee "maximum enjoyment" all the time for anyone at the table, myself included. For example if someone finds the game isn't for them because they want to play an evil character then they can find another game. If I let them play an evil character the game may be more fun for them but it will be less fun for me and the other players. I do my best to make the game fun for everyone and by and large I do a good job of it. We all have fun playing the game no matter how much you try to ... well I don't know what you're trying to get at because it's not really an issue.

It would be a sacrifice for the entire group if I was running a game I didn't enjoy or a world I didn't believe in. No matter how many times you try to prop up this strawman it still doesn't hold water. Probably because it's made up of, well, straw.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I'm not included in that everyone?

You are. I've said so. Numerous times.

But other people are too. Which means sometimes, again SOMEtimes, you'll have to choose not to do the thing that makes you absolutely 100% maxed-out blissfully happy, in order to give one or more other people what they want.

You keep doing this, by the way. You keep presenting my position as "Oh so I'm never allowed to have any fun at all" when I've explicitly rejected that. Which is precisely what makes it a hard binary: either you always get everything you want and the other players' fun is always secondary, or the players get everything they want and your fun is always abandoned. There are other paths, and one of them is "EVERY person SOMETIMES has to give up something they find absolute maximum fun, in order for the group to overall have the most fun they could."

That's the actual middle ground here. Sometimes the player gives up something they would be blissed out by. And, yes, sometimes that will mean the person who wants to play a tortle or whatever is the one up. This time. The problem is that you've made clear that on every place where you would prefer X over anything that isn't X, your way will always be taken. There is no exception. There is no deviation. 100% of your bright lines will always be respected. Any time any player bright line is something you don't want, well, sucks to be them! That's the problem here. It is all take and no give.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Not directed at me, but I feel most DMs will share my line here. My preference trumps that of the players when my fun and motivation are at stake. If my fun and motivation would suffer in a significant way, then I will tell a player no. I don't really care at that point about the player's motivation for the ask. Because without the incentive of fun, I'm not playing. To me, this is the obvious bar. It's the bar everyone in this hobby operated under, "Am I having fun."

And if someone wants to argue that I should forgo my fun for theirs, I wonder if they practice what they preach, because that is an absurd ask in a game. So really, the answer for everyone in the hypothetical is "I'll compromise or accept less if my fun isn't diminished too much." And if their fun is diminished more then they want, they say no. Either by walking away or sending someone else on their way.

So yes, everyone here chooses their fun over that of others constantly. DMs are not uniquely bad for doing so.

Spoiler: But I give up my fun as a player!

No you don't or you wouldnt be arguing here, because you'd just accept what the DM wanted.

No. I advocate for my own self--that is absolutely true. But I also compromise--SOME of the time.

Not all of the time. If I'm compromising ALL of the time, you are an arsehole exploiting my good will. If I make you compromise ALL of the time, I'm an arsehole exploiting your goodwill.

The one and only correct answer is that SOME of the time, I'll compromise for you, because that's being gracious and respectful....and SOME of the time, you'll compromise for me, because that's being gracious and respectful. And, SOME of the time, we'll each compromise for each other, because that's being gracious and respectful.

The instant you make it so one person always gets whatever they want, no matter what, you've broken something.

 

[AlViking]

You are. I've said so. Numerous times.

But other people are too. Which means sometimes, again SOMEtimes, you'll have to choose not to do the thing that makes you absolutely 100% maxed-out blissfully happy, in order to give one or more other people what they want.

You keep doing this, by the way. You keep presenting my position as "Oh so I'm never allowed to have any fun at all" when I've explicitly rejected that. Which is precisely what makes it a hard binary: either you always get everything you want and the other players' fun is always secondary, or the players get everything they want and your fun is always abandoned. There are other paths, and one of them is "EVERY person SOMETIMES has to give up something they find absolute maximum fun, in order for the group to overall have the most fun they could."

That's the actual middle ground here. Sometimes the player gives up something they would be blissed out by. And, yes, sometimes that will mean the person who wants to play a tortle or whatever is the one up. This time. The problem is that you've made clear that on every place where you would prefer X over anything that isn't X, your way will always be taken. There is no exception. There is no deviation. 100% of your bright lines will always be respected. Any time any player bright line is something you don't want, well, sucks to be them! That's the problem here. It is all take and no give.

I do my best to make the game fun for everyone at the table. So far it's worked the vast majority of times and when it didn't that person wasn't fit with the rest of the table anyway. You're assuming there's this pent up desire, people disappointed because I've said no to something. Every once in a blue moon I say no, someone is dissatisfied for about the amount of time it takes to shrug and say okay we're back to having fun playing the game.

No DM is perfect. No style of DMing is perfect. But I run more than one group and we all have a lot of fun around the table.

 

[Remathilis]

I can't guarantee "maximum enjoyment" all the time for anyone at the table, myself included.

Not the suggestion I was making.

If I let them play an evil character the game may be more fun for them but it will be less fun for me and the other players. I do my best to make the game fun for everyone and by and large I do a good job of it.

I'm not suggesting disruptive. I'm suggesting something you may have distaste for, but everyone else would at best not care about (like the species of another character). It lowers your enjoyment, buts its not a game-breaker. But its still treated like anything outside of the norms is a major disruption to you are your game.

We all have fun playing the game no matter how much you try to ... well I don't know what you're trying to get at because it's not really an issue.

I'm asking WHEN do you make a sacrifice to make things better for your players? I gather that's never.

It would be a sacrifice for the entire group if I was running a game I didn't enjoy or a world I didn't believe in. No matter how many times you try to prop up this strawman it still doesn't hold water. Probably because it's made up of, well, straw.

Ant it seems like any little disruption would make you take your ball and go home. So I'll ask again: give me an example of a time you took a hit to what YOU want to give one of your players something THEY wanted.

 

[AlViking]

Not the suggestion I was making.


I'm not suggesting disruptive. I'm suggesting something you may have distaste for, but everyone else would at best not care about (like the species of another character). It lowers your enjoyment, buts its not a game-breaker. But its still treated like anything outside of the norms is a major disruption to you are your game.

I'm asking WHEN do you make a sacrifice to make things better for your players? I gather that's never.

I don't have an answer because I don't have to "sacrifice" anything any more then my players do. Except of course that guy that wanted to play an evil character, the one who wanted to be a vampire or the werewolf dude of course.

Ant it seems like any little disruption would make you take your ball and go home. So I'll ask again: give me an example of a time you took a hit to what YOU want to give one of your players something THEY wanted.

I don't even know what you mean by that. I have a few simple restrictions and outside of that I do the best I can. I guess they'd appreciate it if I gave the characters a million gold pieces now and then but other than that we enjoy the game just fine whether you accept that it's possible without doing it your way.

You keep trying to goad me into a gotcha but there just isn't one. I do the best I can to DM, sometimes that means I tell the players no, sometimes they point out that I goofed. Beyond that? Good luck and good gaming because unless there's something other than constantly asking variations of the same question I'm done.

 

[DinoInDisguise]

No. I advocate for my own self--that is absolutely true. But I also compromise--SOME of the time.

Not all of the time. If I'm compromising ALL of the time, you are an arsehole exploiting my good will. If I make you compromise ALL of the time, I'm an arsehole exploiting your goodwill.

The one and only correct answer is that SOME of the time, I'll compromise for you, because that's being gracious and respectful....and SOME of the time, you'll compromise for me, because that's being gracious and respectful. And, SOME of the time, we'll each compromise for each other, because that's being gracious and respectful.

The instant you make it so one person always gets whatever they want, no matter what, you've broken something.

Sure. But the trading isn't by role. It's by human. That's the fundamental flaw of the debate in this thread. Roles are arbitrary labels that we are using to distribute rights to fun. But the fun is connected to the human, not to the role. So asking DMs or players to make concessions in certain ways based on role is fundamentally flawed, because you don't know the fun dynamic of the people in those positions.

An example would be a person who got their way twice as a DM, and then went to being a player. And another who "lost" twice as a player and is now the DM. The human in the player spot should give in. Here the role is irrelevant, as it always is when it comes to fun. The human won twice as a DM, they "owe" some good will to the human who lost. Notice that swapping the roles in this hypothetical changes nothing. I bet any group that sticks together for more than a few sessions does this.

The absurdity of some of the arguments here, become clear if we replace the roles with "human with dice" and "human with different dice." All of a sudden saying "Human with dice should always acquiesce to my wishes because I'm a human with dice" sounds like what it is. Absurd.

It is only when we disassociate from the human element through opaque mechanical roles that much of what is said in this thread makes any sense. But maybe this thread isn't actually about having fun.

 

[mamba]

This again assumes a GM somehow can never deal with anything they may be unhappy about.

no, it just assumes that, just like the player, the DM has some things they won’t compromise about, not that there is nothing they will ever compromise on

 

[mamba]

It's not the first time the framing has already been wrong.

certainly true

Or did you not notice the half-dozen times where folks presented it as "The general impression I get from GMs who don't care about setting consistency or GM enjoyment"?

not what I was thinking of, in fact I am not sure I even understand it (other than your general blame-the-DM stance). I feel like there is something missing to make this a complete sentence