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Message: <blockquote data-quote="overgeeked" data-source="post: 6408458" data-attributes="member: 86653">This attitude stems from two related things. First, as you mention, the disparity in time commitment involved. Second, the wrongheaded belief that the admonition "They can't play without me" only cuts one way, namely, from DM to players. Shocking surprise, the DM can't game without the players either.The DM chooses to put in the work, they want to -- for whatever reason -- run a game session for other people. An area may not have a DM so that person decides to run something so the group can have fun. Note that's not so the DM can have fun, rather so the group can have fun. To then turn around and say, "The players can sit out if they don't like what I'm doing," is to betray the entire purpose of the game in the first place, namely, telling a good story that's entertaining for everyone involved, not just one person at the table.The gaming session isn't only about the DM having fun, likewise, it isn't only about the players having fun. But, due to the power discrepancy between DMs and players, DMs have no shame when they proclaim their power over players, whereas if a player made the same proclamation, most would simply shake their heads and laugh. Why? Because it's accepted in gamer culture for the DM to simple brush off the players as secondary to their game, rather than the entire point the game is happening. Unless of course the players are irrelevant to the game, in which case it's fairly clear the DM just wants to tell their story and players, and player decisions, be damned.Dunning-Kruger effect. "In order to know how good you are at something requires exactly the same skills as it does to be good at that thing in the first place... if you are absolutely no good at something, at all, then you lack exactly the skills that you need to know that you're absolutely no good at it."I think the real solution is to not keep up the antagonistic stance of DMs and for everyone to accept that it's a symbiotic relationship between the DMs and players that lets the game happen. The players are not just there to entertain the DM any more than the DM is just there to entertain the players. It's mutually assured destruction... erm, entertainment. So anyone digging in their heels and saying, "My way or the highway," is, by definition, not only antagonistic but also anathema to the entire purpose of tabletop gaming.</blockquote>

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