Why is "I don't like it" not good enough?

[Umbran]

Communication is good. That's true. But that truth doesn't create either a right or an obligation.

Hm, correct me if I am wrong - you use the terms "right" and "obligation" as being pretty strong stuff, yes?

I think much of the conflict of this thread might dissolve if we all understood that there's Rights and rights, Obligations and obligations.

If I let people into my home for a party, I am not under an Obligation to try to make sure they have a good time, but I do have an obligation - I have allowed an expectation to be set, and if I don't fulfill that expectation, people would not be wrong to think poorly of me for it.

Basically, it seems to me that all rights (or Rights) come with commensurate responsibilities. The bigger or more powerful the right, the bigger the responsibility or obligation it carries with it. This applies in all social situations, and games are social situations.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Hm, correct me if I am wrong - you use the terms "right" and "obligation" as being pretty strong stuff, yes?

No, you can use big letters or small letters. Doesn't matter.

What matters is whether or not you are looking in the mirror, and trying to decide what you are willing to accept (and trying to enjoy what you have accepted once that decision has been made), or just looking across the table and trying to figure out how to get others to accept what you want.

IMHO, compromise is all about looking inward, and figuring out what it is you really want, and what it is you can do without. Looking outward allows you to understand other people for the purpose of helping them get what they want, not for the purpose of helping yourself.....Ideally, anyway.

YMMV.

IMHO, if I let people into my home for a party, I do believe that I have an obligation to provide a venue wherein they can have a good time. And I have an obligation to fix it if it is not so.

BUT, if I let people into my home to watch old Hammer Horror films, and I am upfront about what I am inviting them to do, I don't have an obligation to ensure that they want to watch old Hammer Horror films. My extending the invitation offers them the chance to choose what they want.

Similarly, if Bruce Wayne comes to my party, but doesn't really want to go to a party -- say, he really wants to go pursue the Joker -- then he is free to do so. But that doesn't mean that I have to end the party for everyone else. My obligation was to provide a party (what I offered), not a chance to thrash the Joker (which is not what I offered).

Nor does it mean, if Clark Kent doesn't care for Hammer Horror films, that I can't have a get-together with Bruce and Diana instead.

Basically, it seems to me that all rights (or Rights) come with commensurate responsibilities. The bigger or more powerful the right, the bigger the responsibility or obligation it carries with it.

I agree absolutely with this; and I agree also with the obvious reverse:

All obligations come with the commensurate rights necessary to see that obligation through. The bigger or more powerful the obligation, the bigger the rights it carries with it.​

As the GM carries the preponderance of obligations for a fun games, he certainly carries the commensurate rights needed to fulfill those obligations.

There are some elements which, added to the game, mean I lack the skill to make the game as fun as it could be. To meet my obligation as GM, I don't include those elements....and I have the right to do so.

Indeed, I have an obligation to do so. Which is why I am always going on about how a GM should play to his strengths and try to shore up his weaknesses.


RC

 

[catsclaw227]

Many people have no choice but, pemerton, to play in a group with non-friends, due to real life constraints.

I think many people forget that.

Shadzar, maybe this sheds a little light on your opinions about the subject.

I have played one-shots at Cons and more often at the FLGS. And there have been many times that I haven't ever played with those same players again, either because the FLGS games were "Living" games and the tables weren't often the same mix, or it was a Sponsored Game Day and the encounters were meant to be one-shots.

[EDIT: Note, though, that most of my gaming has been with a home game, with the same group of players that I have had for 3-4 years, give or take a couple that have moved or started interning somewhere, but we still all talk often.]

Like Rel mentioned, in most of these cases, there is generally a larger group of quieter, more reserved players, than outright jerks. Though I have seen some before, it doesn't take long to figure out you don't want to play at the same table with them, and it's only a one-shot, so no biggie.

I am curious, shadzar, if you have had many long term campaigns? Not long term like 3-4 months, but 2+ years or so? And in this case, have you had games where there were never any friendships formed, either close or casual or even acquaintance? I don't mean that they are all long-term friendships with weddings and stuff, but even healthy respectful relationships developed over those gaming years.

When I moved to NC, I didn't know any gamers. I wanted to get a table together and do some gaming, but I wanted a campaign, not a series of one-shots.

So I did what I thought everyone did. I checked Meetup.com, forums like EnWorld, and asked around the FLGS. When someone showed some interest, we exchanged emails, met at coffee or something neutral and talked gaming, interest, etc. It's like a coffee date, I guess. I was trying to find out if this was someone I wanted to game with.

After a couple more of these coffee meetings (bringing along the new players to the next one, so they can be a part of forming the group), and having a player I liked bring a friend, I got a group together.

After our sessions, during cleanup and such, or over food breaks, we'd chat about interests and life and stuff. Over time, one or two would drop out due to moving or having a baby or other RL, and once a player left because it wasn't their bag. Cool. No biggie.

But we all developed adult, healthy, respectful relationships and some of us do things "offline" together and some don't. But I still consider all of them friends to some extent because of the way we treat one another.

Even at one-shots at the FLGS, we'd have 5-10 mins of surface conversation during clean-up or something, so it's possible to get to know people more.

So, shadzar, when you are gaming, do you prefer to stick to the game and not develop relationships with your regular gamers? I am genuinely interested because it sounds like you don't really make friends while gaming and I wonder if your stance on DMing and communication may be one of the reasons.

Do you get high turnover, or do you have an established set of players you generally game with?

 

[Crazy Jerome]

We can talk about communications and cooperation and courtesy all we want, but in the end this thread, and all the others like it I've read over the years, comes down to one thing: WHO DECIDES?

Is it the referee who creates the setting? Is it the rules of the game? Is it the players? Is it consensus? Ultimately someone, or something, is the final authority, and in my opinion these threads go 'round and 'round trying to decide who or what that is.

I agree with that, but my personal concerns are rather orthogonal to that take.

From the "human relations" angle, I'm just rather sick of the "all problems are communication problems." I hear that too much in ill-thought business presentations. The last place I want to deal with it is in my hobby. Because, frequently the people saying it know full well that it isn't true, but they have a subset of problems and assumptions for where it is true (or close enough). However, inevitably one or two of their listeners will buy it at face value, and this will cause trouble for months.

At its most comical (putting a good face on it), you get some manager or customer with a big problem and a small budget that thinks you can solve it--if we just get enough people in the room and talk long enough. I've seen something like that work exactly once--when the customer and I excluded everyone else from the discussion and hammered out in frank terms just how far his budget could take him--and believe me, I was far more "creative" in our technical approach than I've ever been in a game. But I digress ...

On the gaming front, it isn't for me about GM integrity of the game world (though I do care about that to varying degrees in different campaigns). It isn't about who gets to say. My take, is that as the DM, I am the "player" tasked with providing the "glue" that holds everything together. This is a descriptive, rather than prescriptive statement (i.e. this is statement of how things are for me, in fact.) Sometimes other players help, which I appreciate, but still the bulk of the effort is mine. With the acceptance of this responsibility comes the obligation to look out for everyone's interest (mainly "fun"), mine included.

A lot of my "exclusions" are not for me, but for the players. And often they are even expressed in those terms: "X is out unless a majority of the players say they want it in." What I am asserting here is often something I have no preference for one way or the other. I just am the guy paying attention enough to know that 3/4 of the players don't like X being in the game.

If you sat and watched our game when these kind of issues arose, I'm fairly certain that there would be a roughly even split amongst these categories:

1. Where I took authority because X mattered to me, and I wasn't going to run a game without it (e.g. no horror games, period).

2. Where I took authority because no one else would (e.g. campaign background direction).

3. Where I took authority on behalf of some of the meeker players, to protect their wants (e.g. limited domination magic).

4. Where I made the players take authority, to fill a similar gap as in #2 (e.g. naming every minor NPC).

5. Where a player asserted authority, and others backed them (e.g. party goals--which I tend to stay out of).

6. Where the players took collective authority against me (e.g. few rule changes during a campaign).

7. Where no one really cares as long as the thing is done reasonably well, so someone just pipes up and makes a decision (e.g. marching order).

Why someone decides is often more important than what they decide. Can you play Race X in one of my games? If it's a mind-flayer, see #1. If it's a dryad, see #3. If it's mid-campaign and rules bending, see #6.

Most stuff falls in #7, which means we can seem fairly easy going from the outside perspective for a long time. Bump up against one of those harder limits, though, and see us in a different light.

Edit: Jeff, probably "pronoun trouble." You'd think I'd know better, being a fan of Daffy.

 

[Umbran]

Many people have no choice but, pemerton, to play in a group with non-friends, due to real life constraints.

I think many people forget that.

I don't forget that many folks can only game with folks they don't know well. But, let us remember that they *always* have the choice not to game.

It is not a perfect world - you can't always have it the way you want it. If you do choose to game with folks you don't know, that choice comes with some baggage that you can't really discard just because it is inconvenient.

You walk into the game, there are some things you owe the others at the table. Which is not to say that you can't jettison someone who is really obnoxious, but you do have to have higher tolerances for some things that you'd not have to take from friends.

 

[The Shaman]

The Shaman, I don't think that there necessarily has to be a final authority - certainly not a single final authority for all these calls.

When we're talking about small group decision-making that typifies RPGing, consensus is sometimes possible. Or final authority can be distributed informally from decision-event to decision-event . . .

Group consensus, even one which shifts from event to event, still answers the question of WHO DECIDES?, which is why I included consensus as one of the possibilities.

It can be distributed and informal or it can be vested in one person, by social contract or by the rules of the game, but however that authority is constituted, at some point that authority is called upon to render a decision: yes or no, in or out.

And that's what this thread, and others like it, are asking: WHO DECIDES?

Communication and cooperation and courtesy are, or should be, part of the process, but the process isn't the authority; it's how one exercises that authority. In my experience, fetishizing process may obscure what's really important, and I see a little bit of that in this thread.

Should everyone treat everyone else at the gaming table with courtesy and respect? Well, yeah, of course. That's a "No , Sherlock" answer.

But in my opinion there's an undercurrent of, "Courtesy and communication mean saying 'Yes' to your players," for some gamers, which is why I think we need to be clear that the process is not the authority.

I agree with this.

My answer, though, would be: Everyone gets to decide for him- or herself.

The GM gets to decide what he is willing to run.

Each player gets to decide what to play and how.

Sometimes, those decisions preclude certain groups of GMs and players, such as when one player only wants to play something that the GM is unwilling to run a game for, or when one player wants to run a character in such a way as to creep another player out.

I agree with this as well - with the possible exceptions of institutional settings or clinical dysfunctions, everyone decides for themselves if they're in or out - but I think that's operating on a different level. WHO DECIDES? is a question of how the gaming group agrees to work, once it is constituted as such.

Taking your ball and going home is an option, but that's ending the relationship between the participants; the question of how that relationship will function is no longer relevant.

Communication is good. That's true. But that truth doesn't create either a right or an obligation. . . . It is nice if you are both compromising, and everyone gets something that fulfills his or her strongest desires. But the only person you have a right to demand compromise from is yourself. And no one else has a right to demand compromise of you.

Yup.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Ever witnessed the situation where two people were so hell-bent p) on compromise and being nice that they agree to something that neither one of them wants? And then later, they find out that they both really wanted the same thing, anyway?

Like a goofball romantic comedy, it can be amusing for outsiders, and even funny, later, for the participants. Also like a goofball romantic comedy, it often isn't very amusing for the participants at the time. When it is a whole group of people doing it, this effect is magnified.

I think this is one frequent instance of the valuing of process over results that the Shaman discussed.

 

[Cyronax]

You walk into the game, there are some things you owe the others at the table. Which is not to say that you can't jettison someone who is really obnoxious, but you do have to have higher tolerances for some things that you'd not have to take from friends.

This.

Earlier sarcasm aside, I believe the whole idea of gaming with a DM, is designating someone who is the creative leader of the group. Why snipe at him/her for wanting to set up the exposition? The DM might give you a big say in it (oh yay I can play a shardmind, even though the DM hates them) or he might say 'humans only'. Whatever the case, questioning the DM during the session, when the DM in 'on stage'/running the game is not necessarily the best time.

If they say 'no' and move on. Let them. There is always time for sniping during the after game drinks/other out-of-session social situations.

C.I.D.

 

[Obryn]

But how did we get here? There had to be at least one question before. The one to which "I don't like it" was the answer to. So I see it progressing more like this which actually puts this "why" looking for more information to be a 3rd question in a line of question:

Player: Can I have X?
DM: No.
Player: Why?
DM: I don't like it.
Player: Why?

Doesn't look very much like communication to me, already looking very close to badgering the DM at this point.

I can honestly say, unless it's joking around, I've never seen a conversation go like this except with children. This is a caricature of a conversation.

I'm running a Dark Sun game right now. So, I'm not allowing Divine classes, and I'm keeping a fairly restrictive list of races. I didn't have any players question the restrictions in the first place because they trust me as a DM, and understand I'm trying to work with the world. (I also gave bennies for picking a role they hadn't played before, and picking humans and Dark Sun-specific stuff, but that's another story.)

If one of them had wanted a Cleric, the conversation probably would have gone like this...

"Can I be a cleric?"
"Nope. Check shamans out, though - or the new druid."
"Why not?"
"Well, there's currently no divine spellcasters; everyone believes the gods are dead, and if they're not, they certainly don't care. You can roleplay someone who believes in gods, and if you want to go that route, Primal characters like shamans - or any character with the Elemental Priest theme - will work out great. But right now, there are no divine classes. If you want to make bringing the gods back to Athas an eventual campaign goal, we can work that in; this is going to be something of a sandbox game."

I also don't think it possible if the conversation went something like this:

DM: In this world there will be dragonborn and goblins, but no kobolds, <interrupted>
Player: Why?

That already shows signs the player would be disruptive for not waiting until the end of the description where they might have found out more had they kept there questions to the end.

Again, that just means you're either playing with jerks or with children. If you're playing with children, ease up a bit! If you're playing with jerks, well, that's your decision to do so, but don't pretend it's a universal condition that everyone operates under. Lots of us are friendly, social people who game with rational adults.

There is way too much stuff to get done to allow too many questions form players if you intend to play a game. "Can I have/use...", is always allowed, and asking for a reason why not after that is sometimes allowed, but once you have ben given a reason by the DM, anything after that is badgering. To me that means this player will be problematic and disruptive during the game.

Oh, come on. How long does an answer take? 20-30 seconds at most? If I'm running the game, these are questions that I should have already asked myself. And again, if your players are just asking for stuff non-stop, examine the population of people you're gaming with and recognize that your experiences are nowhere near the norm.

-O

 

[pemerton]

Most stuff falls in #7, which means we can seem fairly easy going from the outside perspective for a long time. Bump up against one of those harder limits, though, and see us in a different light.

Good post, can't posrep you at this time.