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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6099611" data-attributes="member: 4937">Irony.  It's often impossible to make everyone perfectly happy all the time.   Making Bob happy often means sacrificing Judy's interests.   It isn't fair to make Judy sacrifice her interests to keep Bob happy, unless Bob is also sacrificing his interests to keep Judy happy.  As the GM, you have to try to balance Bob's interests against Judy's interests.   If Judy is continually sacrificing her interests to make Bob happy, because Bob is particularly demonstrative about his unhappiness or because Judy is far more sensitive to Bob's unhappiness than Bob is to Judy's, Bob either has to change his expectations or he has to - for his sake and for the groups - find something else to do.   In general, as a DM I always consider the problem player to be the one most demonstrative about his unhappiness.  He's the one putting force on the group to have his way accepted, he's the one trying to ruin everyone else's fun by reminding them he's not having fun whenever he's not having fun, and he's the one who - whether its my fault or his fault - is not fitting in at the table.   The guy who is bored but polite and patient about it, always gets more of my sympathy.  He's the guy I apologize to at the end of the session, and which I promise I'll bring more of what he wants (RP, combat, whatever it is) in the next session.  He's the guy who makes me want to make him happy, rather than the one who makes headaches for me.  The guy who is reliably indignant, angry, grumpy or shirty, he's the guy that I tell privately that I'm not sure that this game is for him.You seem to be saying it is perfectly okay to exclude everyone else, so long as one player is having a good time.   Or rather, I know you aren't saying that any more than I'm saying what you just accused, but the only way to put your theory into practice is to actually play with players who all have the exact same preferences of play or at least who are willing to play in the way the most demonstrative one-way players prefer.   As far as I can tell from your discussion of the many campaigns abandoned (including both of the ones which you've provided examples for), this is exactly what you've achieved in practice.This metaphor addresses EXACTLY my earilier comments about approaching the game 'buffet' style.   You will almost always have 'vegetarians' and 'carnivores' at your table.    The vegetarians have no interest in the meat lovers.  The carnivores have no interest in the vegetables.   The way to keep the table happy is try to get both.   This is not the optimal situation for either eater.   The vegetarians would rather all the pizzas were veggie.  The carnivores would rather all the pizzas were meat.   Everyone has to forgo some of the pizza, everyone will occasionally find their favorite isn't available immediately.   Sometimes everyone is able to get what they want at the same time.   Sometimes inevitably however, the buffet runs out of a pizza of one type or another, and then the players have to wait until a new pizza comes out (hopefully, one to thier taste).   During that time, the player has to patiently wait for their favorite to come around again.Ideally, you have players that aren't strict in their preferences.  Maybe mushroom pizza isn't there favorite, but they'll eat it and enjoy it a little.  Maybe they prefer veggie pizzas, but the occasional Italian Sausage is ok - maybe even occasionally welcome so long as they don't have to eat them all the time.  They don't like BBQ pizza that much, but if its on the buffet, they'll take one peice just for the variaty.   And so forth.   The player that is strictly a vegetarian or who is strictly a carnivore has to be viewed as a 'special needs' player, and always requires a bit more care than the guy who just loves pizza regardless of the toppings.   They guy that refuses to eat pizza and is physically disgusted by the very idea of people eating rotten milk products and meat together, just needs to probably find another table.</blockquote>

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