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<blockquote data-quote="Mouseferatu" data-source="post: 7656527" data-attributes="member: 1288">Of course there's a variety of feasible styles that are meaningfully different. And said variety includes both reasonable and unreasonable styles.But so far this conversation has (for the most part; obviously there are exceptions) treated the issue as though the only options are &quot;DM as tyrant&quot; or &quot;DM has no more say than any other player,&quot; when the truth is that every reasonable, feasible DMing style must, by the definitions inherent in the game, fall somewhere between the two. It's a high-gradient continuum, not a binary equation.And the cause célèbre of this thread, in particular--the manticore in the forest--is being used to represent something it's not. See, there are two facets to it--the question itself, and Hussar's reaction to his player--and they're being treated as one.Facet 1: The question and answer themselves. Some people want to treat this as being a &quot;dictatorial DM&quot; thing, when it absolutely isn't. (Talk to me sometime about the campaign I played in where player backgrounds were changed by the DM mid-campaign, and the entire thing was a tightly scripted railroad.) As Celebrim pointed out, the &quot;favored terrain&quot; thing isn't a rule. Even if the DM is going strictly by the book (and the DM always, in every reasonable campaign style, has the right not to do so), it's only a suggestion. Regardless of how reasonable or unreasonable the player who brought it up might have been, that's exactly the sort of thing the DM is supposed to make decisions on.Facet 2: How it was handled. This is the part that we weren't there for. This is the part that might have some bearing on what DM style Hussar was employing at the time. How he arrived at the &quot;Sorry, I'm keeping the manticore in the forest&quot; point in the discussion--whether it was polite and friendly, judgmental and rude, whatever--might influence whether this is an example of &quot;dictatorial&quot; or not. But the fact that he did reach that point? Meaningless, in the &quot;dictatorial or not&quot; context.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Mouseferatu, post: 7656527, member: 1288"] Of course there's a variety of feasible styles that are meaningfully different. And said variety includes both reasonable and unreasonable styles. But so far this conversation has (for the most part; obviously there are exceptions) treated the issue as though the only options are "DM as tyrant" or "DM has no more say than any other player," when the truth is that every reasonable, feasible DMing style must, by the definitions inherent in the game, fall somewhere between the two. It's a high-gradient continuum, not a binary equation. And the cause célèbre of this thread, in particular--the manticore in the forest--is being used to represent something it's not. See, there are two facets to it--the question itself, and Hussar's reaction to his player--and they're being treated as one. Facet 1: The question and answer themselves. Some people want to treat this as being a "dictatorial DM" thing, when it absolutely isn't. (Talk to me sometime about the campaign I played in where player backgrounds were changed by the DM mid-campaign, and the entire thing was a tightly scripted railroad.) As Celebrim pointed out, the "favored terrain" thing isn't a rule. Even if the DM is going strictly by the book (and the DM always, in [I]every[/I] reasonable campaign style, has the right not to do so), it's only a suggestion. Regardless of how reasonable or unreasonable the player who brought it up might have been, that's exactly the sort of thing the DM is [I]supposed[/I] to make decisions on. Facet 2: How it was handled. This is the part that we weren't there for. This is the part that might have some bearing on what DM style Hussar was employing at the time. [I]How[/I] he arrived at the "Sorry, I'm keeping the manticore in the forest" point in the discussion--whether it was polite and friendly, judgmental and rude, whatever--[I]might[/I] influence whether this is an example of "dictatorial" or not. But the fact that he [I]did[/I] reach that point? Meaningless, in the "dictatorial or not" context. [/QUOTE]

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