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Message: <blockquote data-quote="the Jester" data-source="post: 6409273" data-attributes="member: 1210">This is true, but in my experience, it's far easier to find a new player- or even, for that matter, an entirely new group of players- than for a group of players to find a new DM if none of them wants to step up.In point of fact, for about two decades, I have ALWAYS had a list of people waiting and chomping at the bit to get into my game. I disagree. If the DM is not having fun running the game, there is absolutely no reason for him or her to run it. I play a game not because it's fun for other people. I play the game because it's fun for me, and so does each other player at the table. Yes, the group dynamic is the source of a lot of fun, but we can get that without playing a game that I'm not enjoying. We can go out to a movie, sit around drinking beer, hang out doing art together, hell, we even painted the house of a couple of our players recently and it was fun, not because of the painting, but because I was hanging out with my friends. No need to conflate the two things. I know people that I hang out with who won't play certain games- my buddies Dave and Aaron both dislike board games, for example. But the rest of us play them! We don't force Dave and Aaron to join us. They can hang out and chill with us while we play, or they can do something else. We don't have to change the game to suit the guys who aren't interested. If the rest of us want to play some Catan, we don't switch to Uno just because Dave and Aaron might come over for the game then. We play Catan with the people who are interested. Of course the game isn't about just the DM having fun. The key is to play games that sound fun to you. No, the reason a player proclaiming his power over the DM is laughed off is the exact same reason that the cover artist for a novel gets laughed off if he declares that it's his novel instead of the writer's (to use your authorship metaphor). It's because the cover artist is essentially replaceable without destroying the integrity of the novel. Likewise, only the DM is indispensable to the DM's campaign.Your perspective seems locked into an either-or, here. It's a false dichotomy. You keep reasserting that "My Game" style DMs don't care about player decisions, and it's repeatedly insulting. So I'd appreciate it if you'd stop, because that is objectively false. As a "My Game" style DM, I can assure you that the decisions that players make have a huge impact on my campaign. Just as a few examples, pc actions have led to:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The replacement of Asmodeus as ruler of Hell;</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The destruction of a major, world-spanning empire;</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The death of gods;</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The exposure and death of long-hidden monsters hiding in plain sight in the campaign world for thousands of years;</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The establishment of states large and small;</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Even the destruction of the entire campaign world, when the pcs failed to stop a world-threatening menace!</li> </ul>So to put the lie to this assertion of yours once and for all, would you let your campaign end if the pcs made crucial mistakes in fighting a world-threatening monsters? Would you let those dice fall where they may, or would you come up with some Deus ex machina to save them? I suggest that, unless your answer is an unequivocal "I'd let the world end", I have demonstrated a stronger commitment to letting the players' actions reverberate through the campaign than you would. So, frustrated novelist? Maybe sometimes, when I'm writing a novel and I hit a wall, but not during my D&D game.And this is relevant how, exactly? A crappy DM can be a player-accommodating coddler or a harsh iron-hearted DM; a good DM can also be either one (or anywhere in between). The best way to find out whether you're a crappy DM is to listen to feedback from your players, same as with almost anything you do that is based on interacting with other people. That's fine for you. It's not true for everyone, though. Part of the issue with this conversation is that you don't seem to see that not everyone likes the same things in a game that you like, and you are casting judgment on those other styles as inferior to yours. They aren't. They're just different and not for you. And that's fine! There is nothing inherently wrong with your playstyle any more than there is anything inherently wrong with mine. I just happen to prefer one very different from yours.Of course the players aren't there to entertain the DM (at least, not solely). They are there to have fun, just as the DM is. But just as they shouldn't come over to play Axis & Allies if they hate the game, they shouldn't come over to play in Bob Bitchin's D&D game if they don't like his DMing style. And I think that your grasp on the "entire purpose of tabletop gaming" is not as firm as you seem to think. But it's a perfect fit for the "entire purpose of tabletop gaming for overgeeked". There is no one purpose for TT gaming. There just isn't.</blockquote>

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