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Why does the stigma of the "jerk GM" still persist in our hobby?
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<blockquote data-quote="Ralif Redhammer" data-source="post: 7568944" data-attributes="member: 30438"><p>I think that adversarial relationship is a big part of it – it’s too easy to default to all the challenge, all the time. And it especially becomes a problem when a GM equates the success of the monsters/opponents with their own success and fun at the table.</p><p></p><p>As to why this keeps coming up, I’d point to two historical antecedents:</p><p></p><p>1 – Back in the day, you might only know a handful of GMs. You might put up with a suboptimal GM because there was no one else to run the game. It was either that or not game (or, you know, actually run a game yourself – but if the jerk GM was a friend, there would be drama inherent with doing that, too). Much of this falls back on the Geek Social Fallacy stuff, too.</p><p></p><p>2 – If you look at the 1e books, and the DMing advice (what little there is), that’s often the behavior that’s modeled. There are numerous “gotcha” cursed magic items, myriad ways to die (sometimes without even a saving throw), stories of Gary Gygax having to put a powerful PC in their place, and the occasional, “hey, here’s a random encounter with a Beholder, good luck with that!” It would be easy to think that that’s how the game was supposed to be run.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Ralif Redhammer, post: 7568944, member: 30438"] I think that adversarial relationship is a big part of it – it’s too easy to default to all the challenge, all the time. And it especially becomes a problem when a GM equates the success of the monsters/opponents with their own success and fun at the table. As to why this keeps coming up, I’d point to two historical antecedents: 1 – Back in the day, you might only know a handful of GMs. You might put up with a suboptimal GM because there was no one else to run the game. It was either that or not game (or, you know, actually run a game yourself – but if the jerk GM was a friend, there would be drama inherent with doing that, too). Much of this falls back on the Geek Social Fallacy stuff, too. 2 – If you look at the 1e books, and the DMing advice (what little there is), that’s often the behavior that’s modeled. There are numerous “gotcha” cursed magic items, myriad ways to die (sometimes without even a saving throw), stories of Gary Gygax having to put a powerful PC in their place, and the occasional, “hey, here’s a random encounter with a Beholder, good luck with that!” It would be easy to think that that’s how the game was supposed to be run. [/QUOTE]
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Community
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Why does the stigma of the "jerk GM" still persist in our hobby?
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