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What is adversarial DMing?
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<blockquote data-quote="overgeeked" data-source="post: 8398475" data-attributes="member: 86653"><p>People talk about it fairly regularly and seem to assume everyone just knows what they mean by it, but what is it? A particular attitude towards the players and/or the game? Specific actions in isolation? What? DMs that are out to get the players. DMs who try to win the game against their players. Killer DMs. Rocks fall, everyone dies. DMs drunk on power and abusing it. The extreme end of combat as war. Laughing at players when their characters roll badly. Cackling when monsters crit PCs.</p><p></p><p>But how much of it is adversarial vs a misalignment of expectations? People not used to the harsher early days of the game could easily mistake that style of "the world is dangerous and if you're not clever and careful, you will die" for adversarial DMing. Granted, sometimes it absolutely was, but more often than not it's just the style of play rather than the DM out to get the PCs. And there's a lot of really adversarial advice for DMs in the AD&D DMG, so that doesn't help.</p><p></p><p>My experience with adversarial DMs is the DM who will agree to anything, any character, any race, any class, any homebrew, any magic items...just to get you at the table, then once play starts, punish you for those choices he allowed. Some examples, a player wanted to have a drow character and the DM allowed it, but promptly had the town guards murder the character at the first town...this was five minutes into the game, if I recall. Someone else was playing a drunken master monk and wanted an everfull mug (we started at 5th level for that game)...the DM allowed it, but in the first combat...again, less than five minutes into the game...the DM forced the character to drop the mug (I think it was a disarm) and described the mug shattering when it fell. I'd played with that DM long enough to know better than to get "creative" with characters. To me that's a clear example of adversarial DMing. If you're not going to actually allow someone to do something, play some character, or have some item, just say no. Don't say yes then snatch it away.</p><p></p><p>Most people seem to agree on a few extreme cases of adversarial DMing but not so much on the rest. So help me out. How do you define adversarial DMing?</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="overgeeked, post: 8398475, member: 86653"] People talk about it fairly regularly and seem to assume everyone just knows what they mean by it, but what is it? A particular attitude towards the players and/or the game? Specific actions in isolation? What? DMs that are out to get the players. DMs who try to win the game against their players. Killer DMs. Rocks fall, everyone dies. DMs drunk on power and abusing it. The extreme end of combat as war. Laughing at players when their characters roll badly. Cackling when monsters crit PCs. But how much of it is adversarial vs a misalignment of expectations? People not used to the harsher early days of the game could easily mistake that style of "the world is dangerous and if you're not clever and careful, you will die" for adversarial DMing. Granted, sometimes it absolutely was, but more often than not it's just the style of play rather than the DM out to get the PCs. And there's a lot of really adversarial advice for DMs in the AD&D DMG, so that doesn't help. My experience with adversarial DMs is the DM who will agree to anything, any character, any race, any class, any homebrew, any magic items...just to get you at the table, then once play starts, punish you for those choices he allowed. Some examples, a player wanted to have a drow character and the DM allowed it, but promptly had the town guards murder the character at the first town...this was five minutes into the game, if I recall. Someone else was playing a drunken master monk and wanted an everfull mug (we started at 5th level for that game)...the DM allowed it, but in the first combat...again, less than five minutes into the game...the DM forced the character to drop the mug (I think it was a disarm) and described the mug shattering when it fell. I'd played with that DM long enough to know better than to get "creative" with characters. To me that's a clear example of adversarial DMing. If you're not going to actually allow someone to do something, play some character, or have some item, just say no. Don't say yes then snatch it away. Most people seem to agree on a few extreme cases of adversarial DMing but not so much on the rest. So help me out. How do you define adversarial DMing? [/QUOTE]
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What is adversarial DMing?
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