NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hussar" data-source="post: 5397843" data-attributes="member: 22779">All personal interactions boil down to power.  It's unavoidable.  It's not positive or negative, it's just there.  Your parents have power over you.  Is that negative?  Most of the time, no it isn't.  Your teachers, your coach, and your boss all have some degree of authority over you.  You are adding meaning here that is not intended.  Power relationships have nothing to do with defining the other side as an enemy.  At a game table, the majority of the authority rests in the hands of the DM.  Even if he is viewed as facilitator, that still vests the authority to facilitate in his hands.  You cannot be a facilitator without a disparity of authority.  I'm trying to avoid the use of the word power here because everyone seems to be getting hung up on the negative connotations there.I see no negative connotations in saying that the DM has power at the table that the players do not.  To me, it's just a very obvious observation.How?  How did the player improvise that cult member.  He asked the DM if there was a cult member in the group.  There wasn't until he suggested it and the DM added it.  "It is added" by the DM, not by the player.  And, there is no obligation for the DM to add that element.  At least no rules obligation.  That's entirely improvised by the DM.  It did not exist in the game world until such time as the DM added it.  The DM added it on the suggestion of the player.  In this case, the DM still retains all the authority over the game.  It could easily have gone the other way.  The player makes the secret sign and no one reacts.  At what point does the player improvise anything?  At what point can the player have any effect on the game world, or the "code" as you call it, beyond making a funny hand gesture?Semantics.  Is the campaign still running after you quit?  Yes?  Then the campaign has not ended.  That you are no longer playing does not end the campaign.  Otherwise, someone like me  has probably ended a bajillion campaigns as I've had players come and go from my table with an unfortunately regular frequency.  ((The dreaded 5th player seat.  There are 5 of us that have been together now for over a year with three of us gaming together for almost six.  Every time we add a 6th player, they invariably quit after some time, sometimes because they don't like the game, but most often due to real life issues.))Heck, my World's Largest Dungeon Campaign ran for almost two years.  In that time, four of the players were there for almost the entire campaign.  Overall, IIRC, we had twenty some people at the table.  Does that mean my campaign ended twenty times?While it is true that another DM might step up to run a campaign, it's pretty rare IME.  It does happen, but not too often.</blockquote>

Verification