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<blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 8400080" data-attributes="member: 6790260">I disagree with the conflation of &quot;challenging&quot; and &quot;adversarial.&quot; A good DM presents a meaningful challenge, though what counts as such will vary between tables and even sessions at the same table. An adversarial DM isn't interested in providing a real challenge; in fact, I would say the term very specifically means pretending to offer such a challenge while actually offering either a genuinely unwinnable scenarios (as in, not just &quot;I didn't design this with a win condition&quot; but &quot;I will actively close off any win condition you find, so losing is the only option&quot;), or scenarios that rely on DMPCs, stupidly obtuse and bizarre logic, or otherwise various &quot;gotcha&quot; processes that theoretically permit a win but practically enforce a loss.Adversarial DMing is, for example, advocated as a way to deal with so-called problem players who have the temerity to play as non-human races, or &quot;worse,&quot; monstrous ones. That is, you intentionally make that player's gaming miserable until they stop playing the wrong choices and start playing the right ones, because obviously anyone who wants to play a dragon-person is a dirty no-good powergaming munchkin and needs to learn how to be a good player instead.Given I have been expressly told that it's perfectly cromulent to have NPCs be horrifically racist to non-human (or, more commonly, non-LOTR-hero) races in order to induce players to choose to play those races instead...yeah, adversarial DMing is alive and well, much to the hobby's detriment.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="EzekielRaiden, post: 8400080, member: 6790260"] I disagree with the conflation of "challenging" and "adversarial." A good DM presents a meaningful challenge, though what counts as such will vary between tables and even sessions at the same table. An adversarial DM isn't interested in providing a real challenge; in fact, I would say the term very specifically means [I]pretending[/I] to offer such a challenge while actually offering either a genuinely unwinnable scenarios (as in, not just "I didn't design this with a win condition" but "I will actively close off any win condition you find, so losing is the only option"), or scenarios that rely on DMPCs, stupidly obtuse and bizarre logic, or otherwise various "gotcha" processes that [I]theoretically[/I] permit a win but practically enforce a loss. Adversarial DMing is, for example, advocated as a way to deal with so-called problem players who have the [I]temerity[/I] to play as non-human races, or "worse," monstrous ones. That is, you intentionally make that player's gaming miserable until they stop playing the [I]wrong[/I] choices and start playing the [I]right[/I] ones, because obviously anyone who wants to play a dragon-person is a dirty no-good powergaming munchkin and needs to learn how to be a good player instead. Given I have been expressly told that it's perfectly cromulent to have NPCs be horrifically racist to non-human (or, more commonly, non-LOTR-hero) races in order to induce players to choose to play those races instead...yeah, adversarial DMing is alive and well, much to the hobby's detriment. [/QUOTE]

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