D&D General The Player's Quantum Ogre: Warlock Pacts

[Micah Sweet]

I don't accept this double standard.

If players are subject to guaranteed automatic limitations, so should GMs be.

Nobody gets a free pass. Either I have limits and so do you, or you don't and neither do I. Anything else is "I get power and you get nothing."

Do you just flat out disagree with the trad division of power? If so, please just say that.

 

[Micah Sweet]

But the umpire doesn't make all the calls. They make some calls--and they are subject to review and dispute. Further, the players have advocates. It isn't absolute authority. The umpire doesn't have the ability, for example, to tell a particular player they're forbidden from pitching in this specific game because they said something rude to the umpire's mother. The umpire doesn't have the ability to force the batter to use a pool noodle instead of a proper baseball bat.

The analogy doesn't hold, very specifically because the umpire neither has nor claims the kind of authority you are asserting here. The umpire doesn't claim the ability to remove a player's skill at baseball.

That sounds like union talk mister .

 

[Remathilis]

The GM does yield what one could feasibly call absolute power, and that power can only be curtailed by self-imposed temperance and good judgment. Should the GM want, he could take away all the powers of the all PCs via some magical curse, or have a Tarrasque burst through the floor and eat them, or have a portal to the Abyss swallow them, or have the Death Star blow up the planet they are currently on, or have a particular NPC appear and best them, etc. All of that would be horrible GM-ing, obviously, because the GM's role is to foster story, narrative and adventure, not to best the PCs on some equally-matched game.

And that finds the crux of my argument.

Sure, a DM could have Asmodeus remove a rebellious warlocks powers, but the DM could just have him show up in all his CR 30 glory and slaughter the warlock and anyone who gets in his way just as easily. To me, there is no difference in these two outcomes except collateral damage. They are both a heavy handed DM using his unlimited power to dominate the PC.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Then we simply disagree. I think (and this perspective predates my GM-ing days) that the power asymmetry between GMs and players is built into the game.

The GM does yield what one could feasibly call absolute power, and that power can only be curtailed by self-imposed temperance and good judgment. Should the GM want, he could take away all the powers of the all PCs via some magical curse, or have a Tarrasque burst through the floor and eat them, or have a portal to the Abyss swallow them, or have the Death Star blow up the planet they are currently on, or have a particular NPC appear and best them, etc. All of that would be horrible GM-ing, obviously, because the GM's role is to foster story, narrative and adventure, not to best the PCs on some equally-matched game.

When I play, I accept that I am trusting the GM to yield his unlimited powers responsibly in the interest of the shared narrative and fun adventuring. When I GM, I expect players to offer me that trust as well. I struggle to imagine a game in which this isn’t the starting point. This also isn’t too different from the trust a collaborator would place on another in other creative activities.

It's not a matter of asymmetry. I'm fine with asymmetry. Different kinds of powers, different kinds of limits.

I'm not fine with one person being given absolute total autonomy zero accountability zero responsibility zero expectations, and the other being "here are your choices: submit, or disrupt everyone else's fun by leaving." That's straight-up holding people hostage with social expectations, which is a thing I have dealt with more than once in my life and is not some strange, weird out-there thing.

Asymmetry doesn't mean one side has no limits and the other has all the limits. It means one side has its limits, and the other side has its own. There are lines, and whatever those lines are, crossing them is observable and genuinely something that people can say "hey, that's not cool, please fix this", rather than the only permitted states being completely accepting absolutely everything done, or blowing up.

Do you just flat out disagree with the trad division of power? If so, please just say that.

I mean, I don't actually know what "the trad division of power" means, so I cannot say either way.

Does it mean one side is unlimited in what it is permitted to do, while the other is beholden to both social expectations and hard rules? Because if that's what it means, then absolutely I oppose that division of power.

Does it mean that one side has limits, and the other side also has limits, even if those limits are different? Does it mean that both social expectations and actual rules, processes, procedures, govern each person's participation, even if those processes turn differently? Then I'm completely fine with it.

I don't expect the rules that apply to players to always apply to GMs and vice versa. But I absolutely expect that there ARE rules that apply to GMs, just as there are rules that apply to players--and that players can call it out when a GM breaks those rules, just as GMs can (and should!) call out players when players break rules.

GMs have power. A lot of it! I expect that, with that power, comes limitations. People are so fond of talking about how limitations breed creativity. Surely that must, then, mean that a GM with unlimited power is sacrificing their creativity? Surely GM limitations must actually force them to be creative? It can't be the case that sitting behind the GM screen magically makes limitations bad for creativity....right?

 

[Seramus]

GMs have power. A lot of it! I expect that, with that power, comes limitations. People are so fond of talking about how limitations breed creativity. Surely that must, then, mean that a GM with unlimited power is sacrificing their creativity? Surely GM limitations must actually force them to be creative? It can't be the case that sitting behind the GM screen magically makes limitations bad for creativity....right?

The realistic answer is that GM's don't have any limitations, beyond the players choosing to abandon the table. But the overwhelming majority of GMs submit themselves to the expectation of limitations, both in the service of using game mechanics to generate results instead of freeforming the outcome, and in the service of making their players feel empowered and safe in their game.

Some actions by a GM can shatterer the social contract (prompting people to leave the table) so fast your head can spin. Most probably fall in the middle ground where their GMing preferences are not quite aligned perfectly with their players, some frictions happen now and then that require discussion, and hopefully a happy and enjoyable night is had most of the time.

As for creativity, I've never found that limitations help me personally. But I have found that random results do. That is to say, I have a background in freeform roleplaying where I controlled every outcome in the game, and that grew very dull. Introducing the randomness of dice forced me to improvise wildly and rapidly in a way that absolute power didn't - I loved it! Of course, you could say randomness is a form of limitation, and you probably aren't wrong.