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<blockquote data-quote="Jim Hague" data-source="post: 2889493" data-attributes="member: 17550">I love how the otherwise mild anti-authoritarian streak among a lot of gamers explodes into this &quot;Down With the Man!&quot; attitude in these threads.&nbsp; Really, I do.&nbsp; I love the loaded language (like &quot;ramrodded&quot;) that gets used, I like the flase emphasis employed to make it seem like the GM/DM is some kind of ogre for wanting a game that's controllable, which is especially important for a new DM...like Elephant, say.&nbsp; This isn't a 'control' issue, nor is Elephant being some sort of iron-fisted dictator.&nbsp; I've GM'ed for most of my 20 year gaming history, and the lesson I've seen repeated again and again is don't bite off more than you can chew.&nbsp; A first-time/inexperienced DM is perfectly within their rights to lay out the house rules&nbsp; - things like a core-only game, for example.&nbsp; This is neither unreasonable nor dictatorial.&nbsp; Maybe when they pick up the rules better, it's reasonable to introduce extra rules beyond Core.&nbsp; But at the beginning?&nbsp; Get outta town.Folks like you, Shadowslayer, seem to expect the DM to roll over and blithely accept kitchen-sink games, even though it's pretty well-established that a lot of kitchen-sink games are a PITA to adjudicate, let alone keeping track of the rules that players introduce.&nbsp;&nbsp; Even myself, as an experienced GM, got to 'enjoy' the horror of a kitchen-sink game and what effect broken or untested rules have.&nbsp; It wasn't fun for me, and it was only fun for the powergamers and min-maxers at my table, which left half the group scrambling for an even playing field, which ended up wrecking the campaign.In the meantime, for Elephant's critics, I direct you here:<a href="http://sean.chittenden.org/humor/www.plausiblydeniable.com/opinion/gsf.html" target="_blank">http://sean.chittenden.org/humor/www.plausiblydeniable.com/opinion/gsf.html</a>Compromise, it's said, is everyone giving up something so nobody's happy.&nbsp; Listening to player wants is one thing; letting them wreck the game and make things difficult for the DM is another entirely.&nbsp; And that, IMO, is what kitchen-sink games do most of the time.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Jim Hague, post: 2889493, member: 17550"] I love how the otherwise mild anti-authoritarian streak among a lot of gamers explodes into this "Down With the Man!" attitude in these threads. Really, I do. I love the loaded language (like "ramrodded") that gets used, I like the flase emphasis employed to make it seem like the GM/DM is some kind of ogre for wanting a game that's controllable, which is [i]especially[/i] important for a new DM...like Elephant, say. This isn't a 'control' issue, nor is Elephant being some sort of iron-fisted dictator. I've GM'ed for most of my 20 year gaming history, and the lesson I've seen repeated again and again is [i]don't bite off more than you can chew[/i]. A first-time/inexperienced DM is [i]perfectly[/i] within their rights to lay out the house rules - things like a core-only game, for example. This is neither unreasonable nor dictatorial. Maybe when they pick up the rules better, it's reasonable to introduce extra rules beyond Core. But at the beginning? Get outta town. Folks like you, Shadowslayer, seem to expect the DM to roll over and blithely accept kitchen-sink games, even though it's pretty well-established that a lot of kitchen-sink games are a PITA to adjudicate, let alone keeping track of the rules that players introduce. Even myself, as an experienced GM, got to 'enjoy' the horror of a kitchen-sink game and what effect broken or untested rules have. It wasn't fun for me, and it was only fun for the powergamers and min-maxers at my table, which left half the group scrambling for an even playing field, which ended up wrecking the campaign. In the meantime, for Elephant's critics, I direct you here: [url]http://sean.chittenden.org/humor/www.plausiblydeniable.com/opinion/gsf.html[/url] Compromise, it's said, is everyone giving up something so nobody's happy. Listening to player wants is one thing; letting them wreck the game and make things difficult for the DM is another entirely. And that, IMO, is what kitchen-sink games do most of the time. [/QUOTE]

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