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<blockquote data-quote="GnomeWorks" data-source="post: 4710790" data-attributes="member: 162">I am constantly telling my players that it is never me, the DM, doing X or Y to them; it is the setting and its inhabitants. I never seek to kill off characters; NPCs, on the other hand, may want to do so very much.The distinction is, I feel, an important one, to the point that I try to make it very, very clear to new players that this is what is going on. The playstyle you're talking about here would seem to eventually lead to antagonistic DMing, because the players will interpret the DM's actions as antagonistic (whether intended as such or not). I'm not interested in a &quot;DM vs. the players&quot; set-up, because in such a thing, the DM always wins. The reverse, though - where it is silently understood that the DM and players are all working towards the same goal - doesn't interest me, either; there, players may get the sense that they are &quot;unique and special snowflakes,&quot; or that they enjoy some sort of plot immunity.In my mind, as the DM, my job is to set up the parameters of the setting, to determine reasonable chances of various events occuring, and to ensure that the setting remains interesting insofar as adventurers are concerned. Once the ball is set in motion, my job is purely as rules-adjudicator and as the players' means to access the world; an interface that enforces the physics of the world in question. My stance - as the DM - regarding the PCs is neutral and uncaring, just as the stance of the universe towards them is neutral and uncaring. Do I necessarily enjoy it when the game ends in a TPK? No, not really. But at the point where it becomes a TPK, the situation is ideally out of my hands: the events that led to the party's death were predetermined (by which I mean that they were placed there without consideration of the party, specifically). If a situation would logically or sensibly end in a TPK, then it should do so.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="GnomeWorks, post: 4710790, member: 162"] I am constantly telling my players that it is never me, the DM, doing X or Y to them; it is the setting and its inhabitants. I never seek to kill off characters; NPCs, on the other hand, may want to do so very much. The distinction is, I feel, an important one, to the point that I try to make it very, very clear to new players that this is what is going on. The playstyle you're talking about here would seem to eventually lead to antagonistic DMing, because the players will interpret the DM's actions as antagonistic (whether intended as such or not). I'm not interested in a "DM vs. the players" set-up, because in such a thing, the DM always wins. The reverse, though - where it is silently understood that the DM and players are all working towards the same goal - doesn't interest me, either; there, players may get the sense that they are "unique and special snowflakes," or that they enjoy some sort of plot immunity. In my mind, as the DM, my job is to set up the parameters of the setting, to determine reasonable chances of various events occuring, and to ensure that the setting remains interesting insofar as adventurers are concerned. Once the ball is set in motion, my job is purely as rules-adjudicator and as the players' means to access the world; an interface that enforces the physics of the world in question. My stance - as the DM - regarding the PCs is neutral and uncaring, just as the stance of the universe towards them is neutral and uncaring. Do I necessarily enjoy it when the game ends in a TPK? No, not really. But at the point where it becomes a TPK, the situation is ideally out of my hands: the events that led to the party's death were predetermined (by which I mean that they were placed there without consideration of the party, specifically). If a situation would logically or sensibly end in a TPK, then it should do so. [/QUOTE]

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