D&D 5E World-Building DMs

[Greg K]

I can sit here on the Internets and bitch about it, but those guys are gonna do what they're gonna do. Our styles are incompatible. I am not the audience for their games. So it goes.

And, this is the key. The player is not the audience for that DM's games. Some people have posted essentially, "DM get over thyself". No, it is player get over thyself. The DM does not owe a players a game that caters to their individual style. Yes, it sucks if one cannot find a game that caters to their preferences. Bitching about how one wishes they could find games catering to their style is understandable. Bitching about how the DM is selfish for not catering to the inclusion of player's preferred elements is acting entitled to play in a game run by someone else.
The DM should not be expected to include elements they dislike. Similarly, players have the option to choose not to play (nobody is holding a gun to their head). If I am a player and people are enjoying a game that is not my style, I don't go complaining that the DM is selfish for not running in my style. I am happy that they are having fun and go on my way. Now, I may not understand how they can be having fun (e.g., when a DM I knew ran a D&D game in which PCs were high level planet hopping /dimension travelling superheroes modeled off of DC and Marvel characters), but that is something different. The same would be a true of Spacejamming campaign, a Planescape campaign, an Eberron campaign, and a lot of homebrews.

 

[Shasarak]

And your position comes across to me comes across "I like D&D. That guy is DMing. Since we both like D&D, I am entitled to play in his game and have my playstyle/preferences catered to". My opinion is that my job as a DM is not to cater to just anyone that wants to play. I am choosing to run a game that interest me and motivates me to run. So yes, when it comes to themes, elements, etc. I am going to build around those elements that I like and exclude those that I do not. It is the players decision to either a) buy in and play within the limits that I set; or b) not buy in and find another activity/table.

Yes, so just do not buy in. DnD is too important to play in a bad game.

 

[ProgBard]

Some people have posted essentially, "DM get over thyself". No, it is player get over thyself. The DM does not owe a players a game that caters to their individual style. Yes, it sucks if one cannot find a game that caters to their preferences. Bitching about how one wishes they could find games catering to their style is understandable. Bitching about how the DM is selfish for not catering to the inclusion of player's preferred elements is acting entitled to play in a game run by someone else.

To be fair, I do think it flows in both directions. Ideally, the players should trust the DM. But, per [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] above, the DM also needs to trust the players. (This does not always come naturally. It took me a long time to stop worrying and trust my players; or maybe it just took along time to find the right group of people who I could trust. Funny how this keeps coming up.)

But more than trust, it's respect. And that respect is earned, in both directions. The nice thing is that when you start with respect, it's also easier to walk away from the things you're not the audience for, as in, "I respect what you're trying to do, but I can tell I'm not going to have any fun in this campaign. Have a great game, everyone."

A few pages back, [MENTION=6799753]lowkey13[/MENTION] drew a parallel with going out to eat and what you can reasonably expect depending on the kind of experience you want to have. And it's true that "have it your way" and "trust in the genius of the chef" can both be rewarding experiences, but I think they both have failure states on either side of the curve - IOW, Mr. I-should-be-able-to-order-anything-I-want and Chef No-changes-no-substitutions are, for my money, both acting like over-entitled jerks. They're both, by digging in their heels on a matter of "BUT MAH VISHUN!," demonstrating lack of respect for the party on the other end of the exchange.

I'm very lucky to have found a group for which this chemistry seems to be working well. When we started out, negotiating the kind of parameters we wanted for the game, I said, "I'm fine with using the Realms, but I kinda hate the metaplot. Anyone mind if we do a non-canonical alternate history?" And everyone said, "Dude, it's your world. Run with it." And that checking-in with each other goes both ways - the players come to me with, "Here's my idea for a backstory. Feel free to change anything that doesn't work for you." We seem to have earned each others' respect, in part by not acting like entitled jerks at each other. We are all mutually the right audience for what we're doing. But it doesn't happen by magic. We build that trust and respect on both sides by asking instead of demanding, making sure everyone's still having a good time, and being willing to yield sometimes and stick to our guns sometimes and stay dedicated to surprising and delighting each other. I think when that's the philosophy you start with and build on, you can build up the capital to get away with a great deal that's out of the box - both as players and GMs.

 

[Ristamar]

I approach D&D as the DM being a host, and the players are his guests. The host is expected to be gracious and accommodating (to a point), but it is ultimately his domain with his own rules. Guests are expected to be polite and respect the host's domain and rules. Some established guests may have slightly more leeway within the host's domain relative to unfamiliar guests because they have a proven, trustworthy relationship with the host.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[TwoSix]

A few pages back, [MENTION=6799753]lowkey13[/MENTION] drew a parallel with going out to eat and what you can reasonably expect depending on the kind of experience you want to have. And it's true that "have it your way" and "trust in the genius of the chef" can both be rewarding experiences, but I think they both have failure states on either side of the curve - IOW, Mr. I-should-be-able-to-order-anything-I-want and Chef No-changes-no-substitutions are, for my money, both acting like over-entitled jerks. They're both, by digging in their heels on a matter of "BUT MAH VISHUN!," demonstrating lack of respect for the party on the other end of the exchange.

I definitely think trust and respect play a large part in getting variations to the game to run smoothly. I also think it's because it's fundamentally difficult to walk into a group of mostly strangers and immediately assume that you're going to share the same vision of what the game looks like. When there's a large amount of friction between everyone's imagination, the game itself becomes hard. That's why D&D (and all roleplaying game) tropes are for, they're a shorthand to ensure that people with very different backgrounds can still share a common language that creates a shared vision between the participants.

That's why I think it's important for DMs of extensively homebrewed settings, or published settings that the players aren't familiar with, to realize their desire to play within their own vision creates a bit of a language barrier between yourself and your players until the players become familiar with that vision. It takes time, and (again) trust, and it's certainly not surprising that a lot of players aren't going to feel that the effort to fully engage with your vision is actually worth it.

 

[ProgBard]

That's why I think it's important for DMs of extensively homebrewed settings, or published settings that the players aren't familiar with, to realize their desire to play within their own vision creates a bit of a language barrier between yourself and your players until the players become familiar with that vision. It takes time, and (again) trust, and it's certainly not surprising that a lot of players aren't going to feel that the effort to fully engage with your vision is actually worth it.

This, yes. Note that this doesn't mean "don't do it"; it just means "understand the extra hurdle you have to cross in order to make a connection on this."

It also relates, tangentially, to something that's been itching me in the conversation - there's a great deal of emphasis for some folks in the "integrity" of a setting. Which is fine as far as it goes, and for some values of "integrity." But this also points to a fundamental tension between worldbuilding and GMing. The worldbuilder has made a beautiful creation that they'd like to see preserved. But stories - and therefore RPGs - are about things happening. There has to be at least an element of willingness to let your world go nova - and that means in some ways tossing the integrity of it out the window when necessary. The game can't always be about the GM fighting the players to maintain the status quo of the gameworld, which is something I suspect a lot of worldbuilders do without quite realizing what they're doing.

I think it's necessary on some level to understand you're constructing your lovingly-rendered Lego city so that the kaiju can come along in a little while and knock it all down. When you're on board with that mindset, a stray gnome in Athas can feel like a whole lot less of a dealbreaker. Maybe not for every game ever, and of course that doesn't mean every wacky player notion in chargen gets greenlit; but it can give some perspective to least a few of those out-there ideas, and maybe give the GM pause as to whether that's the hill they're willing to die on.

 

[Tony Vargas]

My issue is that trust is a two way street. Just as we're supposed to trust the DM to bring good game, why shouldn't I trust the player to do the same? Why shouldn't I, as DM, grant the player(s) the same level of trust that I expect them to grant me?

5e puts a lot of responsibility on the DM, that's the flip side of Empowerment, Emresponsibilityment - because, y'know Power, Responsibility, blah, blah, blah...

The player has to trust the DM, because he can't do anything to ensure the DM doesn't screw things up. The DM doesn't have to trust the players or the rules, he can always just rule in whatever way it takes to fix whatever trouble they might cause. Heavy-handed if taken to that extreme, but always there in the background, like the threat of force in a civilized society that abhors violence, yet is still founded upon it.

Which means, to me, that sometimes, it's better for the DM to swallow his ego, and let the player take the reins. Sure, the DM can say no to the player. That does not mean that the DM should.

Swallow your ego, sure - a good DM will be accustomed to that. Override your better judgement, not so much. The responsibility for making the game not suck is the DM's, so, yes, he has to second-guess or 'not trust' the players when they do something they think will be good for the game, just as he has to override the rules when they give bad results. Not because he's necessarily smarter or a better judge of those things than the players or designers, but because it's his role and responsibility to be such a final arbiter.

 

[Shasarak]

It also relates, tangentially, to something that's been itching me in the conversation - there's a great deal of emphasis for some folks in the "integrity" of a setting. Which is fine as far as it goes, and for some values of "integrity." But this also points to a fundamental tension between worldbuilding and GMing. The worldbuilder has made a beautiful creation that they'd like to see preserved. But stories - and therefore RPGs - are about things happening. There has to be at least an element of willingness to let your world go nova - and that means in some ways tossing the integrity of it out the window when necessary. The game can't always be about the GM fighting the players to maintain the status quo of the gameworld, which is something I suspect a lot of worldbuilders do without quite realizing what they're doing.

I find the whole term of "integrity" of setting to be absurd. There is literally no campaign that is detailed down to a sufficient degree that you can say with 100% accuracy "there are no X".

Like, for example, Dragonlance. Some people might like you to believe that there are no Orcs in Dargonlance and yet that did not stop there from being a Half-Orc in Kendermoore.

 

[Phantarch]

But stories - and therefore RPGs - are about things happening.

I think this is the important bit of information for BOTH sides of the table. I think if you distill this conversation down, what we have at the two extremes are world builders vs character builders. Both are putting so much energy into their creations, that when they meet they are both screaming "IT'S MAH VISHUN!" (I think I'm going to put that on a T-shirt...it makes me giggle every time). Where the two meet in the middle is story building, and that's where the fun stops being individual and starts being social.

Just as a world can be flexible to fit the characters, the characters can be flexible to fit the world. The real fun comes from the playing. I think once the playing starts, and the story gets rolling, those details that everyone thought were so important fade away. Darksun isn't necessarily destroyed by a single gnome. Equally, a character isn't necessarily destroyed by being a human instead of a tiefling.