D&D 5E (2014) What DM flaw has caused you to actually leave a game?

[Imaro]

I don't understand how you are using the notion of "character concept".

I think I made it pretty clear in my post what I mean - that the meaning of the characer's actions can change (quite fundamentally) if it turns out that their relationships differed from what they thought they were. And I pointed to some well-known examples from literature and film. If you don't regard meaning in that sense as a component of RPGing, then your position makes sense, but you're approaching RPGing in a completely different fashion from how I do.

But your examples are the audience analyzing and gaining meaning from a 3rd person perspective that knows everything happening. What I'm saying is if those reveals don't take place during actual play and the character doesn't know about them until the campaign ends...then they have no affect on your concept or how you played it.

 

[Imaro]

The murals aren't what the demands are that allegiance to god/patron/etc makes on his/her PC. They're colour. Reread the actual play example paying attention to the way in which the players declare actions for their PCs that reflect conceptions of what the demands are that are made by their gods etc. Notice how those demands come from the players, not the GM and yet also that (i) they are clearly manifest in play (including in an extensive debate between the players-as-characters about what they should do, as well as in other actions around the revelation or concealment of the Raven Queen's true name), and (ii) they produce consequences, such as tensions between party members, decisions about whether to allow her name to be discovered, decisions about how to protect the Mausoleum, etc.

These are things which some posters in this thread - including, I believe, you - have asserted won't happen if the player gets to decide what the demands are that an allegiance makes on his/her PC.

Actually I think you need to go back and review the thread... you're doing that weird thing where you're arguing your own stance (argument A)in the middle of a different argument (argument B about backgrounding things) and co-opting/answering arguments against argument B to whatever it is you've decided your stance is. In backgrounding as it was presented in this thread that deity it's history, beliefs, tenets, etc are off limits to the DM during play... plain and simple. You've created a much more specific argument, one that some may not be as adamant against and somehow co-opted the arguments against backgrounding (again as presented earlier in the thread) for it.

 

[Imaro]

So it started out with Alignment and Deities.
Moved over to Patrons.
I asked if entire racial clans could then be off limits. The answer I received was "Why Not"
The movement nabbed a few archbishops.
Motorcycles were also included for good measure.
Past, Present and Future mom & pops.
And then we neatly backgrounded it all under a nice bow.

And even if we don't backgrounded it, it is off limits and player can move the pieces around as they like.

And all this still has nothing to do with Story Now styled games

Not sure about Story Now styled games but yep this pretty much sums up the progression in this thread... I mean along with the claims of bad DM'ing if you don't allow all of this in your game. i was originally ok with some minor backgrounding but seeing how far this has ballooned out in just this conversation alone... I'm thinking it would just be a PitA and would probably just avoid it period.

 

[Aldarc]

In backgrounding as it was presented in this thread that deity it's history, beliefs, tenets, etc are off limits to the DM during play... plain and simple.

Actually I think you need to go back and review the thread... It's not "plain and simple" really. The discussion thus far has been incredibly fluid about what the boundaries may be. Some have taken an incredibly hard stance either way, even when depicting the opposing position, about what the discussed boundaries of the backgrounding a deity actually entail, while many other posts attest to a range of grey areas. For example, the play of the deity may be backgrounded but not its "history, beliefs, tenents, etc.," which may have been determined in association with the DM or setting materials.

 

[pemerton]

But your examples are the audience analyzing and gaining meaning from a 3rd person perspective that knows everything happening. What I'm saying is if those reveals don't take place during actual play and the character doesn't know about them until the campaign ends...then they have no affect on your concept or how you played it.

Either the reveals are part of the campaign, or they're not reveals - just speculations by the GM about how things might have gone.

 

[Imaro]

Actually I think you need to go back and review the thread... It's not "plain and simple" really. The discussion thus far has been incredibly fluid about what the boundaries may be. Some have taken an incredibly hard stance either way, even when depicting the opposing position, about what the discussed boundaries of the backgrounding a deity actually entail, while many other posts attest to a range of grey areas. For example, the play of the deity may be backgrounded but not its "history, beliefs, tenents, etc.," which may have been determined in association with the DM or setting materials.

You seem to be talking about the discussion... I am speaking to how backgrounding itself was presented... as something the DM is hands off about and is not a focus of play.

 

[Imaro]

Either the reveals are part of the campaign, or they're not reveals - just speculations by the GM about how things might have gone.

Well again... the example given was that it was revealed at the end of the campaign. though I'd be open to discussing a different example if you want.

 

[Sadras]

If, in fact, you're not planning to police or override these player contributions, to what end are you asserting this GM authority?

Playable races and classes, acceptable backstories (perhaps the player comes up with something fantastical which doesn't fit for the story or level of magic within the setting, i.e. that he is a simulacrum), possible starting items (powerful relic), permissible animal companions given geographical location and setting (do tressym's exist?)...etc

But if you are going to override them ...(snip)... then I am suggesting that you're doing yourself and your game a disservice.

This is unbelievably wrong. You're saying in EVERY instance the player knows better than the DM for his/her game. What a statement to make.

Refer below - my monk story.

and if what my player described isn't outlandish enough to trigger your threshold for overriding then what would be?

Depends on setting, campaign story and the rest of the characters surely...?

To put it another way - I don't think it is coherent to claim both that a game gets the full payoff of player creativity and conributions and that the GM is the ultimate authority. To get that payoff sometimes the GM has to yield to the player - that's the first step in finding out what the payoff might be!

DM authority does not negate the possibility of compromises and vice versa.
I once allowed a player to play a PC monk (I compromised against by better judgement). The PC's concept was SO bad the table groaned after a few sessions in as his concept was also breaking everyone's immersive experience during combat. That campaign ended. No more monks in my games. EVER

I did my game and table a disservice by not overriding that player's concept.

 

[pemerton]

I am responding to the thread as I read it. To me it seemed very clear in a range of posts that the technical device of "backgrounding" that [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] mentioned was just an instance of, or useful expostiroy proxy for, a broader range of considerations about how fiction is established, handled etc. I feel that my discussion with [MENTION=6688277]Sadras[/MENTION] is operating under that understanding and while obviously we have different views about what makes for good GMing I don't think there are any conceptual or terminological confusions affecting our discussion. (Maybe [MENTION=6688277]Sadras[/MENTION] will correct me on that!)

The argument about whether "backgrounding" prevents consequences was premised not on the fact that it is "not a focus of play" (as per [MENTION=48965]Imaro[/MENTION]'s post just upthread) but on the fact that "the DM is hands off about it" (from the same post). I have posted an example in which the GM was hands off about the demands of allegiance - ie the players decided this - but in which consequences most definitely ensued. That is sufficient to refeute the claims made. If soemone now wants to say that all the action really is not in regard to the GM being hands off but rather their being no focus, well go to town but that's a different discussion.

As far as "one man theatre" is concerned: about 70 posts upthread [MENTION=48965]Imaro[/MENTION] said " in a cooperative game where we should all be contributing and building the fiction the player wants a specific story that they have already decided upon... thus my impression that it is engaging in one man theater"

Nothing there about a lack of focus - it was all about whether the player deciding on the story of the god/patron would be "one man theatre" ie it was about the distribution of authorship responsibilities. And that is what my example addresses.

Again, if you want to talk about focus go to town but that is a different thing from the "one man theatre" claim to which I was responding. (It seems to me that, if in fact the thing is not focused on at all, then there is no theatre.)

 

[Imaro]

I am responding to the thread as I read it. To me it seemed very clear in a range of posts that the technical device of "backgrounding" that @Hussar mentioned was just an instance of, or useful expostiroy proxy for, a broader range of considerations about how fiction is established, handled etc. I feel that my discussion with @Sadras is operating under that understanding and while obviously we have different views about what makes for good GMing I don't think there are any conceptual or terminological confusions affecting our discussion. (Maybe @Sadras will correct me on that!)

The argument about whether "backgrounding" prevents consequences was premised not on the fact that it is "not a focus of play" (as per @Imaro's post just upthread) but on the fact that "the DM is hands off about it" (from the same post). I have posted an example in which the GM was hands off about the demands of allegiance - ie the players decided this - but in which consequences most definitely ensued. That is sufficient to refeute the claims made. If soemone now wants to say that all the action really is not in regard to the GM being hands off but rather their being no focus, well go to town but that's a different discussion.

As far as "one man theatre" is concerned: about 70 posts upthread @Imaro said " in a cooperative game where we should all be contributing and building the fiction the player wants a specific story that they have already decided upon... thus my impression that it is engaging in one man theater"

Nothing there about a lack of focus - it was all about whether the player deciding on the story of the god/patron would be "one man theatre" ie it was about the distribution of authorship responsibilities. And that is what my example addresses.

But the GM wasn't hands off regarding the deity... he created history, setting, icons, etc. about the deity. that's not hands off that's very much hands on. You were hands off about a very specific aspect of the deity but this is more akin to collaboration (which many posters including myself are ok with to an extent) as opposed to the deity being backgrounded by the player so that the DM must be hands off. You can't argue these things are part of a players concept and not be touched when it comes to the father example but then claim they are irrelevant in this one.