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View Full Version : Gamer Drama Why does no one ever address the "DMs are selfish" problem?



90sMusic
2017-05-21, 04:13 AM
I have been an avid watcher of the Acquisitions Incorporated games and Critical Role games for years now and I love watching all of the associated content. A lot of it features the DM's like Matthew Mercer and Chris Perkins talking about how to be a really good DM. I've also watched other videos on the same topic from the likes of Matthew Colville and a number of others who are both "big names" and just random people who have played for 20+ years.

They all say very similar things about how to adapt your story and campaign and change interactions and so on to suit the players and make it more enjoyable for them...

That is what all of them say. All of them.

But the REALITY of D&D I have found to be completely different. Every DM I come across has their own little "vision" for what they want their world to be and what they want their game to be. They will deny absolutely everything that doesn't conform exactly to the little story they want to tell, sometimes even blocking out entire races or classes from the PHB just because they don't like them. They create new, arbitrary rules that disrupt the balance of the game just because they had a bad experience with something one time. They only follow the game rules when they work in THEIR favor, but anytime the game rules work in the favor of a player the DM ignores the written rules and instead changes things so they basically get their way.

I have been browsing through roll20 a lot lately going through all the 5e, weekly games and checking them out, and they all have a long list of very specific rules to follow to get into the games. I've read a lot of posts in their game forums between the players and their DM and it basically goes like this:
Player says "Why do we have this optional/variant rule? No one in the party seems to enjoy it."
DM says "Because I want it there."
Second player says "I agree, the game would be a lot more fun without it. It adds needless complication, time, and difficulty to even mundane actions."
DM says "I'm the DM, i'm god, I do what I want, if you dont like it then you leave"

I mean that is the exact OPPOSITE of what all the good DM's say you should do, but the reality is that seems to be how 99% of the DMs really act. They aren't interested in working with the players to craft a world or a story or coming to an agreement on any rules beforehand or anything like that. Instead, the DM already has an idea in their head before they even put together. They already choose all the rules they want, the world and setting and races and classes they will allow, they make all the decisions by themselves before there are even players to give any input. And while it is true the players agreed to play under those conditions when they joined the game, they had no realistic way of knowing how those various homebrew rules would interact and affect them once they actually started playing. They could've been having a great time playing except for a few nagging annoyances that are completely contrived and forced on them by the DM and then when they speak to their DM about it (which again, all the good DMs giving advice on how to DM always say you should talk it out with your players, etc) the DM basically just acts like the selfish kid who says "we play with my rules or im taking my football and going home".

I've noticed the exact same mentality on these forums too unfortunately. When people ask for help and get responses, or people just randomly comment on other threads, people always crop up talking about what great DMs they are while mentioning all the bad rulings and various rules they create and force on their players. Even here in a place that I would think would actually be open to the cooperative D&D experience has a bunch of DMs who are basically set in their ways and aren't open or tolerant to ANYTHING outside their tiny bubble of what they accept.

It is really hard to see DMs as anything more than that little brat of a kid that threatens to take their ball home, effectively ending the game for everyone, if they don't get their way.

I have been DM over many games and i've always worked with my players to make it work. I have modified my world in ways, some big, some small, in order to make their character concept work or i'll make some slight changes to their character to make it work and fit (for instance, someone wanted to play a dragonborn in a world I created that didn't have dragonborn, so i ultimately decided to let them be a dragonborn but we just labeled them as a half-dragon and modified his backstory a bit. Eventually his mother became one of the antagonists that wouldn't have even existed without that change).

Point is, I make the effort to work with people. I have changed huge parts of story elements I have had planned due to a particular choice a player has made, sometimes I change up the campaign goals entirely to something more fitting. Now I don't just do whatever the players want because sometimes they want outrageous crazy stuff like to play dragons or deities and weird stuff like that, but I do try to make things work out and I DM with the general idea that my job as the DM is to make the players have fun. Other DM's seem to only care about living out their own little fantasies or only ensuring that THEY have fun.

It is very disheartening and disappointing to see it over and over and over, anywhere you look that has people actually playing D&D. When you want to use your foot to nudge someone awake and the DM makes you roll and you roll a natural 20 so you kick their head off as a result, that is just stupid. I'm sorry, but that is the truth.

Are there any DM's out there who actually work with their players and build the world together instead of making all of the decisions themselves? Any DMs who enjoy the game vicariously through their players and focus on their players having a good time instead of changing all the rules so that YOU as the DM have all the "fun" at the player's expense?

How do you, as a player, navigate the waters of all of this douchey, selfish DM mentality that pervades D&D? Why does no one ever seem to talk about it or mention it when it is so prevalent and exists everywhere that D&D does? I mean when you have certain types of players like the min/maxer or the murderhobo, those topics are routinely addressed and made fun of, but the most common type of DM that exists never gets a mention?

Yora
2017-05-21, 04:48 AM
RPG advice is mostly by GMs for GMs. For GMs to adress the problem they have to believe there is a problem in the first place. Unless GMs start asking "why do my players always run away?" there isn't really much to talk about.

As a player there isn't really anything to do about it other than telling the GM that you only want to play in the campaign if it is played differently. The GM can then take it or leave it.

Mechalich
2017-05-21, 04:57 AM
Leaving aside the merits of the argument entirely, the key issue is supply and demand.

Players are abundant, GMs are not. There is always a shortage of GMs, whole gaming groups are forced to undertake kludges to have a game at all such as rotating GMs or badgering the most experienced player into GMing. In most cases where there's drama between a gaming group kicking out a player is a viable option while kicking out the GM is not, because it means the group ceases to exist. So no matter how valid your criticism of a GM may be, it's meaningless unless you are in a position to have someone else shoulder the burden. So long as there is a GM shortage, the bar for GM success is merely 'better than not having a game at all' which is incredibly low.

Yora
2017-05-21, 05:25 AM
There's also always "If you think you know better, do it yourself".

Which really is not that difficult as everybody always makes it. The biggest challenge to that is that RPGs never explain how to run them. The last time I've seen an RPG explain how it's played was in 1983.

Zalabim
2017-05-21, 05:27 AM
Briefly, I think the preponderance of advice in the vein of "yes, but" and "work with your players" and "Understand your player's motivations" is a tacit acknowledgement that there's a lot of GMs that need this advice.

It's sort of similar to how tech support starts with the stupid questions, and relationship advice begins with "talk to the person instead of strangers on the internet." It gets said so much because so many people get it wrong.

Yora
2017-05-21, 05:30 AM
There is a lot of great different perspectives that GMs can get from talking to strangers on the internet. It's pretty much the only way to see different perspectives of how you see your job and goals as a GM.
But for that GMs first needs to see that there is a problem with how they are doing things so far.

RazorChain
2017-05-21, 05:49 AM
How do GM's know that they are good GM's? Because the players tell them so, the players express their excitement and can't wait for the next session.

I'm old and selfish. I've been running games for almost 30 years...I have wife, kids and a career and only time for biweekly gaming. I run what I want, how I want and because I have no problem finding players that express their excitement and tell me I'm good. I don't guess I doing something right, I know goddamn well I'm running my games right because I've been told so dozens of times. I don't need those what's their names bigshots to tell me how to run my games I've been running them at least as long as them. I've run over dozen systems which is why I don't refer to myself as DM but GM because it's the most neutral term for all the systems I've run. When the time comes that players don't flock to my table and I don't have to turn people away and I sit there alone playing solo...hating my GM then I might start running something that isn't my vision or what I want to run. Or who knows? Maybe I could get to play some?


I have every right to be selfish because I pour my blood, sweat and tears into my games and my settings, I've spent hundreds of man hours on my campaigns. I'll also tell you a little trade secret, when I run my "vision", then I'm engaged, I'm excited about my games and you can bet that translates into a far better experience for my players.


I'm a selfish, dirty, bastard GM and you can bet that my players come back and beg for more.

That being said, I always work with my players to make their stay in my "vision" a fantastic experience and I'm far too old and experienced to make people roll unnecessary rolls to wake someone up, or if you manage to get on the back of your horse or if you manage to climb over that 4' fence.

So before you take a dump on all those decent GM's on these forums you should ask those whiney players to step up and run the game they want.

90sMusic
2017-05-21, 05:53 AM
Leaving aside the merits of the argument entirely, the key issue is supply and demand.

Players are abundant, GMs are not. There is always a shortage of GMs, whole gaming groups are forced to undertake kludges to have a game at all such as rotating GMs or badgering the most experienced player into GMing. In most cases where there's drama between a gaming group kicking out a player is a viable option while kicking out the GM is not, because it means the group ceases to exist. So no matter how valid your criticism of a GM may be, it's meaningless unless you are in a position to have someone else shoulder the burden. So long as there is a GM shortage, the bar for GM success is merely 'better than not having a game at all' which is incredibly low.

I suppose this is the crux of the issue and why they feel they can do anything they want with impunity.

I've DMed countless games over the years, some of which lasted for more than a year. I like to DM, but sometimes I just want to kick back and be a player sometimes too because as a DM you don't get the sense of "wonder" and not knowing that the players do and they get to solve puzzles and figure things out and make connections, and that kind of stuff is fun too.

The thing that really got me to thinking about this whole ordeal was I was browsing roll20 again tonight because I was considering looking for another group to play in and I saw an old game and DM I played with months ago. Absolutely terrible DM that railroaded you into ever encounter, always treated the players like they were disposable human garbage. Even in the applications to join his game he responded to virtually every post someone made with some sort of a meme image from the internet with some kind of disappointed face or something equally childish, without actually saying anything in response to any of them. When I played with him however long ago, all of his players left his game because the guy was so bananas and loved to change the rules on the fly to just try to make things harder on the players just because he wanted us to die now and then and force us to roll new characters. We all left and I watched that listing for about a week afterwards and he filled up with 5 new unfortunate souls. Since then I noticed that same posting up 2 more times. He keeps losing all of his players than just grabbing new ones every few weeks so when I saw his post up yet again tonight, all I could do was shake my head. And I got to thinking about it and honestly he isn't that much different from most other DMs I have played with. They just treat it like it's their own little solo adventure they're playing by themselves for their own amusement and the players are just there to give some semblance of credibility to the whole thing.

It is just such a shame because D&D has infinite potential for fun but finding a DM that isn't god awful and horrific is next to impossible. They all have so much baggage and craziness they drag around with them and none of them are willing to actually do the job or do it well, they are just in it for themselves. Reminds me a lot of most forum moderators actually. It's like they just enjoy having some tiny amount of authority over another person and try to abuse it as much as they can for as long as they can and don't actually care about doing their "job" and any resemblance of them doing their job is just a byproduct of their immense desire to use whatever power they actually wield.

I always enjoy the experience vicariously through the players. To me, the more fun they have, the more fun i'm having. When they spend the entire week group texting about what they think is going on and what they plan to do next and so on, it makes me feel good and accomplished to have gotten them all so engaged and to have them all talking about their own conspiracy theories and trying to puzzle things out and all that. They don't even have to tell me they had fun because I can see that they enjoy themselves and are all really involved in the plot and characters. To me, that is enough. I don't have to beat them down and feel like i'm "winning" to enjoy it or to throw omnipotent characters in the middle of them that are protected by plot armor to just toy with them and abuse them (I see this happen a LOT) with impunity. I keep my world consistent once they begin playing, but I will bend or change things to make the players happy before we begin. A player who can't really play what they want to play will usually be half miserable and always thinking of what "could" have been if they could have made the character they actually wanted to. Some of those little tweaks have led to some of the most interesting D&D experiences i've ever had.

I played with some DMs that were so controlling, they would take your backstory and rewrite it. I always found the opposite to be more satisfying, because instead of forcing their characters bluntly into your world you can adjust your world to them instead. You can get extra NPCs and towns from their backstories. You can get additional quests and allies and villains from their backstories. You're really denying yourself another source of content for yourself and your players to explore just because you want to have absolute god-like control over everything. It is kind of disgusting to be honest. Those people should write fan-fics instead of play D&D because they want every character to be and do exactly what they want and they certainly aren't good enough to write anything of higher quality like a book.

I'll never like or respect DM's who are self centered. They have their toys and won't let anyone else play with them unless it's entirely their game, their rules, no exceptions, no compromise, etc. They shoehorn enough players into their game who have little or no experience or they are just really desperate to be able to play at all and they have a good time because it's better than nothing. And they love living on that threat of taking their ball home if they don't get their way. I enjoy games of D&D between friends and friends have more of a communal and cooperative relationship. Dictators and control freaks aren't friends. They just "use" those people they play with for their own purposes. It's kind of sad really, but I don't think they'll ever realize what they're missing out on because whatever it is inside them that is broken in the first place won't let them ever see it. They just need a few pats on the back from players who are starved for a game to play and will take anything and they're convinced they are doing a good job and will continue to do so. And if anyone ever has a problem with them? Boom, just boot em out and replace em with the countless interchangeable cogs that they see players as instead of people and certainly not as friends.

Koo Rehtorb
2017-05-21, 06:17 AM
But the REALITY of D&D I have found to be completely different. Every DM I come across has their own little "vision" for what they want their world to be and what they want their game to be. They will deny absolutely everything that doesn't conform exactly to the little story they want to tell, sometimes even blocking out entire races or classes from the PHB just because they don't like them. They create new, arbitrary rules that disrupt the balance of the game just because they had a bad experience with something one time. They only follow the game rules when they work in THEIR favor, but anytime the game rules work in the favor of a player the DM ignores the written rules and instead changes things so they basically get their way.

I have been browsing through roll20 a lot lately going through all the 5e, weekly games and checking them out, and they all have a long list of very specific rules to follow to get into the games. I've read a lot of posts in their game forums between the players and their DM and it basically goes like this:

I'm going to be controversial here for a minute.

D&D attracts bad players and GMs. It's a system that was built on a ****ty toxic GMing culture from day one and it's poisoned the playerbase. Decades of terrible DM advice in the DM handbooks have thoroughly cemented awful DM habits (I don't want to put all the blame on D&D here, some other systems certainly have made the same mistakes). I don't want to give the impression that I'm saying you can't have fun playing D&D. It's not a system without its own merit. I'm just saying that if you want to have a good game of D&D you need a group that is actively fighting against the norm, and you don't have that pressure to contend with with every system/game culture out there.

And you're certainly not helping matters any by playing with strangers, especially internet strangers. I suggest turning your friends into roleplayers and playing with them, you're probably going to have a better time.

If you can't do that, then consider playing a different game. It's still entirely possible that you find a bad group in a different game, or even a good group in D&D. But I suggest that you're going to have better odds with a different game.

Milo v3
2017-05-21, 06:42 AM
Every DM I come across has their own little "vision" for what they want their world to be and what they want their game to be. They will deny absolutely everything that doesn't conform exactly to the little story they want to tell, sometimes even blocking out entire races or classes from the PHB just because they don't like them. They create new, arbitrary rules that disrupt the balance of the game just because they had a bad experience with something one time. They only follow the game rules when they work in THEIR favor, but anytime the game rules work in the favor of a player the DM ignores the written rules and instead changes things so they basically get their way.
Sounds like you've had some crappy experiences man.


DM says "I'm the DM, i'm god, I do what I want, if you dont like it then you leave"
Sounds rather hyperbolic.


Are there any DM's out there who actually work with their players and build the world together instead of making all of the decisions themselves? Any DMs who enjoy the game vicariously through their players and focus on their players having a good time instead of changing all the rules so that YOU as the DM have all the "fun" at the player's expense?
*Points at self and basically every DM I've ever had* (can't be certain about one of them since they got banned from the forum 1 day into the game)

sengmeng
2017-05-21, 06:58 AM
Well, I disagree in regards to myself and my experiences, and your philosophy in general. To me, a GM and his players are like an author and his readers, and one who takes any feedback or caters at all is being generous. A book that gives you 10 hours of entertainment may cost the author 10 years of work, so cut the guy some slack. GMs aren't quite that extreme, but they will be doing homework outside of game sessions to tell a better story. So you might tell them "I don't feel like doing an undead hunting campaign," but he might have homebrewed ten new undead for you to fight. You might build a cleric of the god of knowledge, and he might have meant the god of knowledge to be the ultimate villain. Long story short, you lose little whims you felt like pursuing when indulging you could mean hours of work. Me, I try. One of my players wanted to be a half orc barbarian. That's socially problematical in my setting, but I gave them a quest right off to get the local populace to accept him. I'm telling a story here and your awakened yak cleric of Olidammara just doesn't seem worth bending over backwards for.

At the same time, there's more to my viewpoint than saltiness. You can't, as a GM, allow the players to peek behind the curtain and see nothing. The world falls apart if they see it as malleable and up on the air. So even if I'm pushed off the edge of the map and making stuff up on the fly, I act like its all part of the plan, and if I actually have a plan, I don't like it getting altered. I'm not saying I fudge numbers to keep the villain alive if it's not their time to die; I reward player luck and ingenuity even when it throws a monkey wrench in the plot. What I won't do is have that villain I statted up get shelved because someone else hijacked my narrative with their dread necromancer whose even worse than the villain.

TL;DR version: By telling you no, GMs are saving themselves from hours of homework on top of already having lives and homework for a game.

Lorsa
2017-05-21, 07:04 AM
What makes you think no one ever address this problem? I believe it's been addressed multiple times, especially on this forum.

However, I do think you are mixing two things in your original post. Adapting the story, campaign and interactions to fit the players and make it more enjoyable for them is not the same as allowing all races or classes or holding to a specific set of rules.

The general framework of a setting is one thing, how the game is run is another. In an online game especially, it is not surprising that a GM (who takes the sole initiative of setting up the game) has a clear idea of the game world and the rules that will apply. That doesn't mean they should run the game in a way that makes it devoid of player input, but that is a different thing altogether.

Sredni Vashtar
2017-05-21, 08:04 AM
And you're certainly not helping matters any by playing with strangers, especially internet strangers. I suggest turning your friends into roleplayers and playing with them, you're probably going to have a better time.

Respectfully, I think you have this a bit backwards. Yes, a real life friendship can be a boon to discussing what sort of game the group as a whole wants, a la session zero. However, it can be a burden if the individual parts of the group disagree on what they want. Going online, while fraught with the usual dangers of trolls, unreliability, and inconsistent schedules, allows anyone to cherry pick exactly what they want. If I want to run an all-gnome game, I could find a number of people who want to play gnomes, and anyone wanting to play an elf could easily find another game that fits their preferences. (That's a bad example, but I think it illustrates the point.)

Frozen_Feet
2017-05-21, 08:30 AM
What makes you think no one ever address this problem? I believe it's been addressed multiple times, especially on this forum.

The topics of "how to be a good GM" and the relationship dynamics between players and GMs are flatly some of the most talked-about things in the entire hobby. Entire game companies have been founded on a difference of opinion on the issue.

So it's been addressed allright.

The real question is "why hasn't it been solved?"

Let me play a devil's advocate for a moment and give one possible answer:

Because selfish GMs are more active in starting games, majority of games end up with a selfish GM. This includes majority of good games. The reason for this is that a strongly GM-driven game only needs one motivated person who knows the rules to start; the other players can be less skilled or complete beginners and this will not majorly impact the stability of the game. By contrast, alternatives such as consensus-driven play requires several equally skilled people. This means that even if proportionately, GM-driven games are less succesfull, they make up with sheer volume.

In short: GM-driven games with selfish GMs are better at propagating themselves and the hobby than the alternatives. Hence, alternatives are outcompeted and left as a minority.

pwykersotz
2017-05-21, 09:08 AM
Simple. Most people play as a hobby. For that reason, they have no reason to improve unless they feel they want to. Professional GM's and those who have significant visibility online have a stake in being highly skilled and widely accepted. Their brand depends on it. GM Steve down the street does not.

FYI, your argument is patently false in many ways. This forum and others encourage a lot of improvement. But you don't improve if you're shut down, and honest discussion about DMPC's, fumble rules, homebrew, and other things is necessary. That means you don't get to slap down things you don't like, even if you perceive them as toxic. If you do, you're just making people dig their heels in and be more of what you hate, rather than encouraging growth by the mutual sharing of ideas. This means that bad ideas are highly visible, and so are GM's who are in various stages of learning.

I say this as someone who has now been GM'ing almost 9 years who has been on this forum since that time. Giantitp was the first community I found for D&D, and is my favorite. I was much more terrible at GM'ing in the past, and the forums here helped me grow quite a bit. So yeah, this stuff does get talked about. And fixed.

In tems of me navigating the waters of bad GM's as a player, that's easy. I tolerate bad games. I gently make suggestions, and I roll with it when I'm ruled against. I try to be a pleasant player who people want to GM for, and that lends weight to my ideas. There are obviously some games I have to walk away from because they are just that bad, and some where I find myself incompatible with the table. But for the most part, every GM I've played under has dramatically improved over time. That's not to say I take credit, but I do feel it's a stronger place to judge from than browsing random forum games.

Jay R
2017-05-21, 09:15 AM
I have never had a selfish DM. Somebody doing work so that I can play is not being selfish.

If he or she is running a game I can't enjoy, then I won't play. But far more often, the game isn't one I can't enjoy - it's just different from my original idea. That's not indicative of a poor DM. Far more often, they are just wanting to play a game tht isn't my favorite. Somebody refereeing a baseball game when I want to play football isn't being a bad football referee; she's just running a different game.

Over the years, I've had lots of fun playing in games that went in a direction I didn't want them to go. I don't have the only fun ideas, and even if my ideas are better than the DM's, playing the game she wants to run is better than not playing, and enormously better than being in a game the DM doesn't want to run.

Yes, it was originally frustrating when my would-be loner outcast thief/wizard wound up running a county, developing an army, and dealing in politics. But even though it wasn't my original concept, it turned out to be lots of fun.

D&D doesn't have to be perfect to be wonderful.

Koo Rehtorb
2017-05-21, 09:28 AM
Respectfully, I think you have this a bit backwards. Yes, a real life friendship can be a boon to discussing what sort of game the group as a whole wants, a la session zero. However, it can be a burden if the individual parts of the group disagree on what they want. Going online, while fraught with the usual dangers of trolls, unreliability, and inconsistent schedules, allows anyone to cherry pick exactly what they want. If I want to run an all-gnome game, I could find a number of people who want to play gnomes, and anyone wanting to play an elf could easily find another game that fits their preferences. (That's a bad example, but I think it illustrates the point.)

This is reasonable advice if you're trying to solve a problem of people having different tastes. A more reasonable example of this is probably a group of friends who enjoy different systems. Sure, maybe the guy who loves Pathfinder and the guy who loves FATE might not be the best match for each other. That's fine.

I think the OP is describing a different problem, though. The problem the OP is trying to solve seems to be, at least in my view, nutjob, power hungry, railroading, control freaks. And that absolutely is a problem you can solve by playing with your friends. Because, presumably, you're friends with those people because you like them and get along well with them. And also your friends are more likely to listen to you when you have a problem with the way they're running something, whereas internet strangers are more likely to flip you off and make inappropriate remarks about your mother.

OldTrees1
2017-05-21, 09:30 AM
The topics of "how to be a good GM" and the relationship dynamics between players and GMs are flatly some of the most talked-about things in the entire hobby. Entire game companies have been founded on a difference of opinion on the issue.

So it's been addressed allright.

The real question is "why hasn't it been solved?"

Let me play a devil's advocate for a moment and give one possible answer:

Because selfish GMs are more active in starting games, majority of games end up with a selfish GM. This includes majority of good games. The reason for this is that a strongly GM-driven game only needs one motivated person who knows the rules to start; the other players can be less skilled or complete beginners and this will not majorly impact the stability of the game. By contrast, alternatives such as consensus-driven play requires several equally skilled people. This means that even if proportionately, GM-driven games are less succesfull, they make up with sheer volume.

In short: GM-driven games with selfish GMs are better at propagating themselves and the hobby than the alternatives. Hence, alternatives are outcompeted and left as a minority.

Why hasn't it been solved?

Well, from my own perusing of those threads I notice 2 points that I suspect prevent consensus:
1) Different Strokes for Different Folks
DMing discussions that talk about more than one kind of DMing tend to end up with a spectrum of accepted DMing styles rather than a single style reaching consensus. Each of these styles receives validation from these discussions, which encourages those styles to continue to exist.
2) Resilience of a bad position
Sometimes DMing discussions isolate an example of Bad DMing. Someone that matches that example might be participating in the discussion, or may be reading the discussion later. The Backfire effect describes the phenomena where the DM's conviction in their style gets stronger when their style is being criticized.

So I think it hasn't been solved because there will never be a single solution and because the timescale for the good ideas to outreproduce the bad ideas is longer than one might have expected.

Lazymancer
2017-05-21, 09:38 AM
They all say very similar things about how to adapt your story and campaign and change interactions and so on to suit the players and make it more enjoyable for them...

That is what all of them say. All of them.

But the REALITY of D&D I have found to be completely different. Every DM I come across has their own little "vision" for what they want their world to be and what they want their game to be.
That's because public GMs are lying through their teeth to make themselves look good.

GMs IRL do not get fame, publicity, and/or money for running "good" games. Consequently, they don't waste time on something they don't want to waste their time on. If they try to do something because they "must" (rather then because they have fun) they'll simply burn out and stop being GMs.

Darwinian selection: only sufficiently selfish GMs can survive.


Also, quite a lot of things you listed are a consequence of poor game design, rather than personal qualities of GMs. Just like players are incetivized by rules (3.5 being the most famous) to fight monsters and put themselves into dangerous circumstances (the only certain method of getting XP), rather than try to bypass everything, like any sane person would, so are GMs are incentivized by the existing materials to make a choo-choo out of their campaign and nerf things that might destabilize situation. This is how we get hysterical roleplaying with every event being dramatized to the absurd level. I can't even remember how many times I've seen heroes breaking in at the last possible moment, when the world is a dozen combat rounds away from destruction.




I'm going to be controversial here for a minute.

D&D attracts bad players and GMs. It's a system that was built on a ****ty toxic GMing culture from day one and it's poisoned the playerbase.
I'd say it's the opposite. It was built by amateurs and poisoned by those who thought themselves Right. Except they weren't and we are dealing with the fallout.


Decades of terrible DM advice in the DM handbooks have thoroughly cemented awful DM habits (I don't want to put all the blame on D&D here, some other systems certainly have made the same mistakes). I don't want to give the impression that I'm saying you can't have fun playing D&D. It's not a system without its own merit. I'm just saying that if you want to have a good game of D&D you need a group that is actively fighting against the norm, and you don't have that pressure to contend with with every system/game culture out there.
You don't give impression to the level of not saying anything. I can't even guess if you are part of the True Real "Roleplayer" camp or of Filthy Munchkin Roll-Player camp.

Yora
2017-05-21, 09:51 AM
Let me play a devil's advocate for a moment and give one possible answer:

Because selfish GMs are more active in starting games, majority of games end up with a selfish GM. This includes majority of good games. The reason for this is that a strongly GM-driven game only needs one motivated person who knows the rules to start; the other players can be less skilled or complete beginners and this will not majorly impact the stability of the game. By contrast, alternatives such as consensus-driven play requires several equally skilled people. This means that even if proportionately, GM-driven games are less succesfull, they make up with sheer volume.

In short: GM-driven games with selfish GMs are better at propagating themselves and the hobby than the alternatives. Hence, alternatives are outcompeted and left as a minority.

I very much doubt that. It's just that people don't start forum threads about playing with a GM who does an alright job and ask for advice to help with that problem.

Tanarii
2017-05-21, 10:14 AM
You seem to be talking mostly about public games, and especially online games. In public games, the DM wants to strongly define *exactly* what rules will be used before hand, along with what options will and won't be available. Before they even begin to solicit players. Doing otherwise is a recipe for a generic game that will fall apart, instead of being compelling and unique. Or at least unique enough to draw players.

Then there's supply and demand. Public games DMs are in high demand. Players are not. There's no reason for the DM to change the rules to make an exception for them, there are plenty of other players willing to take the slot.

I'm not a fan of completely inflexible DMs, because obviously that's stupid. Nor overly complex games with tons of custom character and resolution options. But you'd be surprised how many whiny special snowflake players there are, and that tends to make public DMs move into a 'my way or the highway' point of view in reaction.

Vercingex
2017-05-21, 10:32 AM
Running a game requires a great deal of creative input. I imagine that lots of people who GM games (myself included) are drawn by the idea of creating a world and sharing it with other people as much as by actually running a game. And as with many creative types, they may feel resentment at having their vision tampered with by meddlesome players and PCs.

That being said, I don't think this GM "selfishness" is as big a problem as the OP suggested. As much as games need GMs, GMs need some sort of artistic vision in order to craft successful games outside of published modules.

It's a very tricky balance, finding someone who is both creative, and yet not so attached to their creations that they become unwilling to accommodate other people's ideas, just because those ideas weren't their own. A GM who can create a consistent, engaging world and incorporate the player's good ideas (and ruling out the bad ones- a GM has to serve as the judge of such things, after all).

On the subject of banning races/classes/features; Sometimes, some idea or concept just doesn't fit into a GM's setting, regardless of how hard they and the players try to finagle it. Clerics don't work in Dark Sun, period. Players may have to hold off on their current pet character concepts if it doesn't fit the setting.

Mendicant
2017-05-21, 10:52 AM
Why does no one ever address the "DMs are selfish" problem?

This is probably the #1 topic of discussion here. It's been "addressed" to the nth degree.

There are a lot of reasons this happens, but the issue I've seen the most frequently is the disconnect between what makes DMing fun and what makes playing fun. An immense part of what makes GMing enjoyable is that it's a creative outlet. Anyone who's ever written fiction or created art or put themselves into something creative knows how nervewracking it can be to share that with other people who might think it's crap. With GMing, that dynamic is still there, but it's compounded. There's a power disparity on one hand, and on the other, someone who inserts the cardboard tube samurai into your lovingly-crafted L5R campaign isn't just rejecting your creation but actively crapping on it. Not everybody navigates that gracefully.

Honest Tiefling
2017-05-21, 10:56 AM
Running a game requires a great deal of creative input. I imagine that lots of people who GM games (myself included) are drawn by the idea of creating a world and sharing it with other people as much as by actually running a game. And as with many creative types, they may feel resentment at having their vision tampered with by meddlesome players and PCs.

That being said, I don't think this GM "selfishness" is as big a problem as the OP suggested. As much as games need GMs, GMs need some sort of artistic vision in order to craft successful games outside of published modules.

I personally agree with this. I haven't done much collaborative world building, but when I have...It never really stuck. The GM suddenly had a lot more work incorporating random bits that weren't always coherent and learning new bits while trying to run a story. The bits put together didn't always weave together well, so it felt like a quilt of weirdness more then anything.

I always enjoy world building, and I really want to build a world to explore when DMing. It's one of the reasons I like DMing. I just have the idea of being upfront about my desires, and how I am going to be unlikely to add additional races and cultures, especially since I need trade routes and history to exist in a particular pattern. I don't think that makes me a bad DM to be inflexible on that front as long as I am honest, just a bad fit for some people.

I'd like to try collaborative world building, but I also think that the DM is a story teller. The Campaign usually has a story to tell, even if it has an episodic structure. Some people really can't make a good story if bits of the world keep changing, especially without warning. And then you have the awkward conversation of "No, that doesn't happen...For reasons. Reasons completely unrelated to the plot, I swear!"

Even the web comic attached to these forums made outright fun of the issues of collaborative world building. Ninjas, anyone?

ThurlRavenscrof
2017-05-21, 11:02 AM
And you're certainly not helping matters any by playing with strangers, especially internet strangers. I suggest turning your friends into roleplayers and playing with them, you're probably going to have a better time

Agree. I got annoyed with my LGS and just started DMing and forced my friends to play with me. Since they weren't already into d&d, they would say things like "I'll play if I get to be a werewolf adventurer" or other weird things. I got used to saying yes and then figuring out how to make their requests reasonable, balanced, and interesting (rather than just saying no or just being a push over who allows a weird choice to break the game). Now I DM a lot for friends but also for my LGS.
Recently I had a combat set up with a fomorian who I had reskinned as a mad scientist who had given himself a new eyeball with magical powers. But instead of fighting him, one of my players asked the scientist to give him a new eyeball too. He rolled high enough so I made up some eye surgery rules on the spot and gave him a formorian eye... It would have been way too powerful at his level so I made the power once a day and told him he couldn't use it until his body accepted the surgery which was after the next level up.

There's always a way to say "yes and" to your players and if your dms aren't trying to, I'd maybe find some new dms

2D8HP
2017-05-21, 12:09 PM
...The problem the OP is trying to solve seems to be, at least in my view, nutjob, power hungry, railroading, control freaks.....


When I last successfully GM'd a game it was for a largely improvised Call of Cthullu game back in the 1980's.

CoC was pretty easy, but I never enjoyed it as much as D&D, either as a player or as a GM, but my players preferred it when I ran non-D&D settings, so that's what I did, maybe because my D&D "settings" pretty much just were town+tavern, treasure-and-monster-filled-tombs, and bandit-filled-woods in-between.

Fast forward 25+ years, and now people want to play D&D again!

Great!

Except..

New D&D has way too many options for me to keep track of (as a player I only have to pick a simple class, ignore most of the rules, and have fun, but as a DM?).

So yes if I was going to handle being a DM I would house-rule the Abyss out of it (largely by red-penciling out most options leaving just the Starter Set/Basic rules core).

I'm fully aware that would make the game less fun for players (no Dragonborn Warlocks etc.), so I don't DM, but if I did I would need to change it enough for me to handle, and I would be a "jerk" DM as well.


...It is really hard to see DMs as anything more than that little brat of a kid that threatens to take their ball home, effectively ending the game for everyone, if they don't get their way...


Maybe you can DM?

ImNotTrevor
2017-05-21, 12:23 PM
There's also always "If you think you know better, do it yourself".

Which really is not that difficult as everybody always makes it. The biggest challenge to that is that RPGs never explain how to run them. The last time I've seen an RPG explain how it's played was in 1983.

I have good news.

There are games that explain how they're played. They're increasingly common now, after Apocalypse World came out and accidentally became a central pillar to build games on like D20 systems.

Honestly, Apocalypse World is the easiest game to GM that I've ever GMed. It's awesome. 10/10 best game for a first time GM. In fact, my 60-year-old dad is GMing for the first time with this system and is doing a great job. The only way you can suck at GMing Apocalypse World is if you ignore what it tells you to do and/or try to approach it like D&D. It will break a lot of your old habits fast. (It pretty much tells you that any NPC except the truly, truly exceptional will die after 3 harm. Most characters have a weapon that deals 2 harm. Your NPCs will not last. The concept of the BBEG has no place in AW)

Anyways. Sorry to rant about my favorite system, but newer games are moving towards explaining how to GM them correctly as a whole.

dps
2017-05-21, 01:10 PM
To the extent that I agree with the OP (which certainly isn't totally), the basic problem is that gaming and DMing is a hobby, not a profession. A degree of selfishness is completely justified. DMs are doing what they do for enjoyment, not the satisfaction of their "customers". If a gaming group could afford to actually hire someone to DM and pay them enough that it would count as a full-time job, because DM who didn't base their actions upon their customers' preferences would lose their jobs. Of course, really bad DMs will lose their jobs in the sense that they will lose players, but players will put up with a DM who in the players' opinions is doing a fairly bad job because it's not all that easy finding someone who is willing and able to DM. If DMs were getting paid, the same players can just hire a new DM if they weren't satisfied with the job the current one is doing.

Ask me to run a game for you and your group for free, and while I'm willing to work with you on some things, I'll run the game the way I think is best. Pay me $30,000 a year with benefits to run your game, and I'll run it your way.

FreddyNoNose
2017-05-21, 01:17 PM
I suppose this is the crux of the issue and why they feel they can do anything they want with impunity.

I've DMed countless games over the years, some of which lasted for more than a year. I like to DM, but sometimes I just want to kick back and be a player sometimes too because as a DM you don't get the sense of "wonder" and not knowing that the players do and they get to solve puzzles and figure things out and make connections, and that kind of stuff is fun too.

The thing that really got me to thinking about this whole ordeal was I was browsing roll20 again tonight because I was considering looking for another group to play in and I saw an old game and DM I played with months ago. Absolutely terrible DM that railroaded you into ever encounter, always treated the players like they were disposable human garbage. Even in the applications to join his game he responded to virtually every post someone made with some sort of a meme image from the internet with some kind of disappointed face or something equally childish, without actually saying anything in response to any of them. When I played with him however long ago, all of his players left his game because the guy was so bananas and loved to change the rules on the fly to just try to make things harder on the players just because he wanted us to die now and then and force us to roll new characters. We all left and I watched that listing for about a week afterwards and he filled up with 5 new unfortunate souls. Since then I noticed that same posting up 2 more times. He keeps losing all of his players than just grabbing new ones every few weeks so when I saw his post up yet again tonight, all I could do was shake my head. And I got to thinking about it and honestly he isn't that much different from most other DMs I have played with. They just treat it like it's their own little solo adventure they're playing by themselves for their own amusement and the players are just there to give some semblance of credibility to the whole thing.

It is just such a shame because D&D has infinite potential for fun but finding a DM that isn't god awful and horrific is next to impossible. They all have so much baggage and craziness they drag around with them and none of them are willing to actually do the job or do it well, they are just in it for themselves. Reminds me a lot of most forum moderators actually. It's like they just enjoy having some tiny amount of authority over another person and try to abuse it as much as they can for as long as they can and don't actually care about doing their "job" and any resemblance of them doing their job is just a byproduct of their immense desire to use whatever power they actually wield.

I always enjoy the experience vicariously through the players. To me, the more fun they have, the more fun i'm having. When they spend the entire week group texting about what they think is going on and what they plan to do next and so on, it makes me feel good and accomplished to have gotten them all so engaged and to have them all talking about their own conspiracy theories and trying to puzzle things out and all that. They don't even have to tell me they had fun because I can see that they enjoy themselves and are all really involved in the plot and characters. To me, that is enough. I don't have to beat them down and feel like i'm "winning" to enjoy it or to throw omnipotent characters in the middle of them that are protected by plot armor to just toy with them and abuse them (I see this happen a LOT) with impunity. I keep my world consistent once they begin playing, but I will bend or change things to make the players happy before we begin. A player who can't really play what they want to play will usually be half miserable and always thinking of what "could" have been if they could have made the character they actually wanted to. Some of those little tweaks have led to some of the most interesting D&D experiences i've ever had.

I played with some DMs that were so controlling, they would take your backstory and rewrite it. I always found the opposite to be more satisfying, because instead of forcing their characters bluntly into your world you can adjust your world to them instead. You can get extra NPCs and towns from their backstories. You can get additional quests and allies and villains from their backstories. You're really denying yourself another source of content for yourself and your players to explore just because you want to have absolute god-like control over everything. It is kind of disgusting to be honest. Those people should write fan-fics instead of play D&D because they want every character to be and do exactly what they want and they certainly aren't good enough to write anything of higher quality like a book.

I'll never like or respect DM's who are self centered. They have their toys and won't let anyone else play with them unless it's entirely their game, their rules, no exceptions, no compromise, etc. They shoehorn enough players into their game who have little or no experience or they are just really desperate to be able to play at all and they have a good time because it's better than nothing. And they love living on that threat of taking their ball home if they don't get their way. I enjoy games of D&D between friends and friends have more of a communal and cooperative relationship. Dictators and control freaks aren't friends. They just "use" those people they play with for their own purposes. It's kind of sad really, but I don't think they'll ever realize what they're missing out on because whatever it is inside them that is broken in the first place won't let them ever see it. They just need a few pats on the back from players who are starved for a game to play and will take anything and they're convinced they are doing a good job and will continue to do so. And if anyone ever has a problem with them? Boom, just boot em out and replace em with the countless interchangeable cogs that they see players as instead of people and certainly not as friends.

Well, if a player doesn't like my game they are free to take a hike. I have been running games since 74 and like my old fashion ways.

There was a point where the player base started growing and became more mainstream (compared to wargamers in the 70s) and we started getting more liberal views in the game. The "good DMs don't kill players" is part of the newer thinking I reject. We died a lot back then and it was fun. If we didn't get the stats to become a paladin you didn't play a paladin. Touch luck.

Newer players didn't like that. Why can't I be a paladin. ::cries:: No wonder they believe DMs shouldn't kill players or why a player thinks he should have a say in how a DM runs his game. It is all about them.

2D8HP
2017-05-21, 01:22 PM
...I have been running games since 74....


1974?

I think that makes you "King Grognard".

I bow to you sir.

RazorChain
2017-05-21, 01:36 PM
You seem to be talking mostly about public games, and especially online games. In public games, the DM wants to strongly define *exactly* what rules will be used before hand, along with what options will and won't be available. Before they even begin to solicit players. Doing otherwise is a recipe for a generic game that will fall apart, instead of being compelling and unique. Or at least unique enough to draw players.

Then there's supply and demand. Public games DMs are in high demand. Players are not. There's no reason for the DM to change the rules to make an exception for them, there are plenty of other players willing to take the slot.

I'm not a fan of completely inflexible DMs, because obviously that's stupid. Nor overly complex games with tons of custom character and resolution options. But you'd be surprised how many whiny special snowflake players there are, and that tends to make public DMs move into a 'my way or the highway' point of view in reaction.


I've never participated in public games and prefer my games at the table where I can look people in the eye and tell them to stop acting like jerks/idiots. I imagine that navigating the jungle of games and GM's online can be hard...I mean most of the good GM's are taken already.

And yes in RL there are lot's of special snowflake players....I ran an open table game once in the local gaming store. Down below are some real requests.

Player#1: "Can I play an amorphous blob?"
Me: "In a tolkienesque game? No"

Player#2 " I'll be bringing in my Amber character, he's an immortal shapechanger and your world is only one of the realities he's exploring, so you know he can pattern shift as well to change that reality"
Me: "So you'll be bringing an hallucinating magician I gather as we are not playing Amber diceless rpg tomorrow"

Me to player#3 "let me look at your character sheet...hmmm 18 in every stat except those two where you have 20..explain please?"
Player#3 "It's a character from another game....she's a silver dragon in human form...and I had to make up a comeliness stat because CHA 20 doesn't do her justice"
Me "Who's running this game?"
Player#3 "Me!"

Player#4 (who always wants to play out his sexual fantasies) "Can I have a teenage girl as my dependent?"
Me "Sure.....how is she your dependent? Your sister? Daughter?"
Player#4 "No my sex slave"
Me groaning "No player#4, you do not own a teenage sex slave"

So I understand completely why online GM's put firm rules about character creation in place before the game starts because for every bad, weird, creepy GM there are probably dozen players.

DataNinja
2017-05-21, 01:57 PM
That's because public GMs are lying through their teeth to make themselves look good.

GMs IRL do not get fame, publicity, and/or money for running "good" games. Consequently, they don't waste time on something they don't want to waste their time on. If they try to do something because they "must" (rather then because they have fun) they'll simply burn out and stop being GMs.

Darwinian selection: only sufficiently selfish GMs can survive.

I'll contest this.

Large communities like D&D, they have enormous numbers of all sorts of GMs, and, yes, it's hard for any one person to get well known for doing something well. Likely, you're only going to get widely known if you're a story that gets told over and over on a "Worst GM" thread, or something. So, yes, there's very little accountability, and that combines with the supply-and-demand problem to mean that GMs that are perceived as problematic still remain in circulation. And, yes, they may lie to make themselves look better, but anyone can do that for any reason.

I've had a good amount of experience in smaller communities, though. When there's (relatively) few people playing a system, it is the good GMs that get talked about. They get a reputation for enjoyable games, and people apply for those. There are still the train-wreck stories, and those get passed around too. When you've got a smaller community, the GMs that don't make their games fun... die off. They get a reputation, and I've seen many, many just disappear.

Not to mention, in general, the GMs that have successful, enjoyable games are likely going to stick with that for awhile. I myself have been running several games that have been going for over a year now. So it's (in general) the ones that lose players that will be recruiting at any given point. I've seen that a lot, too. It's the same games that keep re-recruiting, and the GM can't fathom why.

So, it's not that you'll only encounter "selfish" GMs... it's just that the logistics of the system, especially over the internet, make running into one of them that's recruiting more likely than running into a GM that satisfies the players with their game.

90sMusic
2017-05-21, 02:45 PM
I saw a couple of mentions here that talked about those "professional" DMs who aren't doing it as a hobby and so they are lying about how they have always done it because no real person would ever run a game like that. I think that mentality is part of the problem, first of all. Second, maybe instead of them "lying" about how to be a good DM once they get famous for playing D&D, maybe, just maybe, it was the fact they ARE good DMs that made them famous in the first place instead. You've got it backwards. Matthew Mercer for instance did all of his D&D stuff as pure hobby before Critical Role and he has always had the same DMing style long before he was getting paid for it, back when he was just doing it for his friends. He didn't suddenly change when he became popular and decide only at that point to start doing a good job. I think that is true for all the DMs and that is one of the main reasons they become well known for their DMing ability is because they are actually good instead of the run-of-the-mill selfish folks.

Nobody likes playing with that guy who has to get his way or he just goes home and ends the game.

As far as internet players vs real players, I don't fully agree with the idea that internet players are going to be worse. My biggest problem IRL is there aren't very many people around these parts where I live that play D&D. I have managed to scrounge up enough to play with, mostly from having been introduced to them in other people's games and who wanted to stick together after the fact. I have developed a reputation as a DM they all want to play under so now they all want me to act as DM so I never get to just "play" because I always have to DM. Also this one group is all I have access to, so it isn't like I can DM for them and then play for another group because there just isn't enough interest in my area to find that many more players. I have to go online or just not play D&D. My online experience with PLAYERS has been really good. You can get a very good idea of what and who they are just from their player applications. If the application is all lower case letters with no punctuation, or all uppercase letters, or they ignore things you told them not to ignore in the game info, or they ignore the format or leave out information you told them to include, etc it makes it easy to screen out a lot of the people. If you don't care enough and can't be bothered to even read a few paragraphs about a game before signing up, you're not a good player to have. Once they make it through the various filtering mechanisms in place, what you get tends to be pretty good in terms of players.

The problem is, again, the DMs... I think the moody artist concept is pretty accurate since they want it to be so specifically their way and they get literally bent out of shape if you ever ask them to change it or imply they should. So many control freaks though, seriously. And it seems the only responses here that are defending that completely selfish style of DMing are the "old schoolers" that are just too old and set in their ways to ever change, like they are political conservatives that just hate change regardless of what it is just because they don't want anything to ever change, even if it is for the better. I've seen a lot of folks talk about "gating" from those kinds of people where they always act like they are entitled to be jerks to everyone else because they've played for a couple of decades or more and they resent the idea of D&D becoming more mainstream and becoming appealing to more people and it not just being a "nerd" hobby anymore and boy is it true.

I have never had a single player that felt like player deaths should be impossible or shouldn't happen. The potential for death is part of the game and if you remove all the risk, it isn't as exciting and your choices aren't as meaningful. But yeah, the NEWER generation of players tend to like the fact most enemies they should be encountering can't instantly kill them in one round or one failed save. People who played older editions that are full of that save-or-die stuff still act like it should be part of the game and instead of just wanting to challenge players to make them have to work together well or use a good strategy or plan in advance, they just want dice to decide literally everything including whether or not they just randomly die on their turn. So yeah, I guess i'm in the camp of the "new school" of player who doesn't like arbitrary penalties and punishments that older editions had. And you know what, maybe, just maybe, that is why D&D is suddenly popular is because 5th edition is more casual with less restricting rules and no instant death mechanics. But there is a HUGE difference between not wanting to challenge the players or not putting the players in danger vs throwing them against things that just instantly kill them without any possibility of survival beyond making a single roll and hoping it is high enough, or just randomly killing one to prove a point, etc.

There is also a big difference between forcing players to specifically fit into your world like puzzle pieces that don't go together vs keeping the players from doing just really stupid things. Obviously things like owning sex slaves or trying to play overpowered monster creatures and so on have to be ruled out for obvious reasons but the key difference is that when you make THOSE kinds of calls, you are making them to benefit your PLAYERS. You don't want your other players to have to suffer through that awkward RP of someone dragging around a cat girl sex slave. You don't want your players to have to deal with a dragon in human form that could win every encounter by themselves and is never in any danger. You don't want your players to have one guy who is so good at literally everything he is the star of the show in social situations, combat, solving puzzles, research, and everything else. You make those calls for the sake of your other players, that isn't being selfish. The things i'm talking about aren't done with the interest of the players in mind, it is done purely to please and satisfy you as a DM. So many of them feel they're entitled to do whatever they want and they can get away with it because there will always be more players than DMs. So even if you're the worst DM on the planet, eventually you'll rotate through enough players that some of them will think you're good and tell you that you're good just because they either don't know any better or their tastes are just so extremely radically different from your average player that it happens to overlap with whatever particular brand of craziness you're offering.

So yeah, DM's have to say no. When I said DM's and players should build the world together in a communal way i'm not saying players should have to get together in a group discussion about whether there is a town up ahead or what kind of people live in that town or what sorts of monsters are in the area. That would ruin the game honestly because it shatters the illusion and takes you out of the game. What i'm saying is players should be able to write their own backstories (within reason) to name NPCs, towns, events, and so on that all exist in the world and a good DM will work with that and fit it into the world. Sometimes those little tweaks and changes can lead to larger changes in the overall story that improve upon it. Once it's handed over to you though, it rests solely on you to decide how things may have changed or developed since the events in that story. And yeah obviously you have to reign it in sometimes when you get certain types of players who want absolutely crazy stuff in their backstory, but honestly sometimes even those crazy background stories can lead to interesting interactions. Since we were talking about dragon characters, i'll mention one particular player I recall... I'll simplify their backstory for the sake of brevity but in a nut shell he was a red dragon who defiled a particular temple to steal from it (as it had a lot of valuable offerings, gold, etc) so the deity cursed him to have to live out the remainder of his life as a gnome to teach him humility and respect. There was a bit more too it than that, but the point is it's a pretty outlandish background story but where is the harm? Statistically he's just a gnome, no different than if he'd been an orphan from a random gnome community. He didn't exactly go around telling everyone of his origin because he felt great shame and also developed a sense of fear as to what people might do to him if they found out. His dynamic in the party changed drastically over time because while he was technically evil, he was too afraid to act on it since his pride had been shattered. There were a lot of interesting interactions and conversations with him and he turned into a very memorable character that had a lot of depth to him, but that is exactly the sort of thing DM's just pull out their big "REJECTED" stamp and slap the page with it.

I've said this before, but I think a good DM enjoys the game by making his players enjoy the game and knowing that they are engaged and having a good time. A bad DM is one who sets everything up in the game world so that THEY enjoy it, even if it is at the expense of the players. All players are wildly different with some preferring only to talk, some preferring only to fight, some who want a gritty and very difficult game with loads of realism and always staying in character, some who like making real world jokes and references while acting in character, and so on. You have to find the right players to fit your style and who match each other pretty well or at least are flexible and tolerant enough to make it work.

I work in medicine, usually in hospitals, long term care facilities, occasionally doctor's offices. I interact with other people who have the same job I do and I notice that laziness and apathy causes many of them to develop bad habits. And from there, they perpetuate these habits for years and years and then if you ever actually talk to them about it, they get offended and act like it's "fine" and "its worked for me for years" and so on. They get so stuck in their bad habits it is all they really know and they simply aren't interested in doing it correctly so you either let it slide or you decide to tell whoever their boss happens to be. Some examples that spring to mind are: watching people draw blood from an arm on the same side of the body as the patient had a mastectomy which can be dangerous for the patient, i've seen people re-use the same gloves for multiple patients instead of swapping them out which carries the risk of spreading nosocomial infections while doing proper hand/glove hygiene removes that risk almost entirely, i've seen people draw blood through a patient's foot when they couldn't find a decent vein in the arms which can potentially be very dangerous to the patient. People just get lazy and then they start cutting corners and doing what they want to do instead of what they should. And once they do it for years on end, they have a hard time changing and typically don't WANT to change. In their mind, they are still doing their job successfully and accomplishing the same goals. I think these selfish DMs are in kind of the same boat... They get a little positive feedback for what they do and believe they're awesome and they have no desire to change because there will always be people who are willing to accept what they do.

I get that DM's have different styles but I think all DM's should really ask themselves if the choices they are making are being made because it's something that will make the game more enjoyable for the players or if it's just being done to satisfy yourself. That is the big difference for selfish DMs. They aren't able to get that joy vicariously through their players and can only get it when they're playing to their own benefit. It makes me very sad and disheartened when I see it. I wish the D&D community could just be a little less toxic and more open. A lot of folks treat it like it's some sort of elite club and you're just not welcome unless you're willing to accept all of their personal baggage and issues that they bring into the game.

In my life, i've seen DMs who want to get someone they know into playing D&D. In order to show them how awesome it is and how fun it can be, they often give that player extra allowances or work with them extra hard to make their playing experience more enjoyable. And a lot of the times it works and they have a good time and like the game and want to keep playing. But the rest of the time those DMs act like they dont CARE whether a player is having a good time or enjoying themselves. They treat them like replaceable components they can just swap out at a moment's notice as soon as it breaks down. They force them to adhere to their idea of law and if they dont like it they just get ejected and replaced. I think if DMs had a bit more compassion and took that extra effort to ensure the players had a good time, it would show.

Some people play pool as a hobby or snooker. Some like to play tennis just for funsies. And if you go into it playing with a couple of friends and you are all just there to have a good time, that is all that matters. But sometimes you get people who don't just want to play for fun, they want to "win" and they want to go all out and care more about winning than having a good time with their buddies. They build tension between their friends because they are too invested in trying to win than having a good time. That's just a hobby, just like D&D and it suffers from the same thing. Sometimes the DM just wants to "win", and part of that mentality is "my way or the highway".

Kalmageddon
2017-05-21, 02:52 PM
.

So before you take a dump on all those decent GM's on these forums you should ask those whiney players to step up and run the game they want.

Thank you, this needs to be said.

90sMusic
2017-05-21, 03:07 PM
So before you take a dump on all those decent GM's on these forums you should ask those whiney players to step up and run the game they want.

They do. In fact, having to play with and tolerate a terrible DM is probably one of the primary reasons that new DMs are created in the first place is because they want to do the job better than what they saw and experienced. And a lot of the time, they do correct those mistakes and dislikes that they saw.

The problem is, DMing is only part of the game. Being a player is a completely different experience and more enjoyable to most people.

It is very similar to the same situation I was in when I played World of Warcraft. I ran into tanks who were terrible at their job while my role as a damage dealer suffered from an overabundance of players and took forever to get anywhere unless you organized your own groups.

So in response, I started tanking myself. I was a tank for 10 years because I was really good at it, was accepted into high end raid guilds and ranked top 20 in the world numerous times. And it was fun and I enjoyed it, but I also still wanted to occasionally play a DPS class and every single time I did I always ran into the same exact problems: the tanks I get saddled with are terrible and there is very little demand for DPS so it always took a long time to get into a group as opposed to being a tank where you get instantly invited because you're in high demand. I'd never play a DPS for very long because the various issues I had with it just never went away, so I always stuck with tanking. Even when doing split runs and alt groups, I was still playing a tank, just a different class because that is where my guild wanted me and we all knew, myself included, it wouldn't be as quick or as easy if I didn't.

D&D is the same situation really. Lot of bad DM's out there, but the "DM yourself if you don't like it" argument really doesn't hold any water because that means denying yourself a huge portion of the game by always doing that. The exploration and adventuring is a huge part of the wonder of D&D and you don't get to experience that as a DM. Now I do love to be a DM and i'd never stop doing it, but it's nice to play as well. It would just be nice to have DM's that actually cared about whether or not their players were having a good time instead of setting up every aspect of the game solely to amuse themselves and then just hoping the players happen to like the same thing, and if they dont, easily replaced. That is a bad DM mentality. People should never be treated that way as if they are just disposable.

Darth Ultron
2017-05-21, 04:15 PM
That is what all of them say. All of them.

Well: Important Life Lesson-A lot of what people ''say they do'', especially in public, is not what they really do. Also when writing advice...most people are lost in some fairy tale world where things are perfect....at best. A lot of people say ''how they would like things to be'', but would never do that themselves.



But the REALITY of D&D I have found to be completely different.

Most people have a hard time accepting reality. It's a big reason why the fairy tale perfect world advice does not work: reality is not like that.




Point is, I make the effort to work with people. I have changed huge parts of story elements I have had planned due to a particular choice a player has made, sometimes I change up the campaign goals entirely to something more fitting. Now I don't just do whatever the players want because sometimes they want outrageous crazy stuff like to play dragons or deities and weird stuff like that, but I do try to make things work out and I DM with the general idea that my job as the DM is to make the players have fun. Other DM's seem to only care about living out their own little fantasies or only ensuring that THEY have fun.

Note how you say you ''work with people'', then say ''you don't bend over backwards'', but then say ''you do bend''. Notice how that makes you look? If you say ''no'', it's ok as you said it...but everyone else that says ''no'' is wrong.

Also note many will say it is ''not the DM's job to make sure everyone has fun''.



It is very disheartening and disappointing to see it over and over and over, anywhere you look that has people actually playing D&D. When you want to use your foot to nudge someone awake and the DM makes you roll and you roll a natural 20 so you kick their head off as a result, that is just stupid. I'm sorry, but that is the truth.

LOL



Are there any DM's out there who actually work with their players and build the world together instead of making all of the decisions themselves? Any DMs who enjoy the game vicariously through their players and focus on their players having a good time instead of changing all the rules so that YOU as the DM have all the "fun" at the player's expense?

A lot of DM's will say they do that....but then they just act like all the rest of the DMs.

You might be forgeting the point that the game must be fun for the DM too. The DM is not just there to be a slave to the players.

I change a lot of rules, and I'd say I do it so everyone has fun. But then it has to be my sort of ''fun''. My idea of fun is a fast paced deadly hard game where anything can happen..things can be dangerous or wondrous or both. So for 3X and Pathfinder I have to toss out a lot of the ''safe space'' rules or modify them.

For example: One of my house rules is that when you change shape you might loose your mind in the new form. Some players take one glance and yell and scream and rant and rave about how they don't like the rule. But I know it's a fun rule and it makes shapechanging dangerous and risky and is a huge nerf to exploiting shapechangeing. I've seen way more players embrace the rule and have a ton of fun ''acting as an animal or monster'', then players that ''can't play the game with such a rule''.



How do you, as a player, navigate the waters of all of this douchey, selfish DM mentality that pervades D&D? Why does no one ever seem to talk about it or mention it when it is so prevalent and exists everywhere that D&D does? I mean when you have certain types of players like the min/maxer or the murderhobo, those topics are routinely addressed and made fun of, but the most common type of DM that exists never gets a mention?

I think most would just put this type of DM under the vague umbrella of Railroad DM or Jerk DM.

Jay R
2017-05-21, 04:44 PM
So before you take a dump on all those decent GM's on these forums you should ask those whiney players to step up and run the game they want.

But before you do, remember that "run the game they want" is exactly what people are complaining about.

Aotrs Commander
2017-05-21, 05:28 PM
If you will forgive me the indulgence of speaking as someone who is primary DM for his group (and this will make me seem probably more obsterperous than the reality is):

If, because I am the exact opposite of an off-the-cuff DM, I am going to spend several tens to low hundreds of hours writing/preparing/converting adventurers, year-on-year, creating (extensive) indexed lists of what is available to choose from, world-building (including oft-extensive research to make sure even the trivial details like the slope of the alien space IKEA ramp is plausible and the hours of daylight available for the party of ten-to-thirteen-year-old players or the astrophysics of the tide-locked alien planet are all Right), house-ruling/updating/balancing rules, organising (especially for day games outside of the weekly games) - occasionally having to be the one in the group (whether currently DMing or not) having to deal with the problem players...

I think I can damn well expect my players to meet me at least half-way, both in terms of gameplay itself (i.e., do not deliberately decide (other than in jest) to abandon the quest and run off into the other end of the world or something 1) and in drawing from the (extensive) wealth of provided options granted (which is still not "anything that was ever printed for [x] game, especially in the case of D&D/PF; so, no, you may not play [anthropamporphic animal race no. 27] if is not on the list provided2"). That is, basically, the price of having me DM. I do not think that is an unreasoonable trade-off.

If that is not what one might be prepared to do, I am MORE than happy to let someone else have a turn behind the screen, so I can have my Mondays afternoons free to do something other than quest-write (which I do pretty much every week for most of the year, these days). And I will attempt to meet YOU halfway to the best of my ability in whatever it is you run (within reason, i.e. assuming it is something I could stand to play at all). I am quite happy and willingly to invest the considerable (and probably excessive my mortal standards) time and effort for me to DM to what I consider an appropriate standard, otherwise.



So I do say "my plan is to run this next" and I do ask if something is a bit out of the ordinary (like the magic/high-tech space Liches of the Aotrs do Stargate in Rolemaster) or if some major rules revisions are in question (like going from 3.5 number of feats to PF number of feats); but I do, ultimately, decide what games I am prepared to run. (Several of my group wanted to play Wild West for years and I always told them "sure, as soon as you run it, I'll play it (though don't expect much out of me, since it is well outside my field of interest), but I'm definitely not going to run it." And eventually one player did run such a game. (The fact they we the party botched the quest about as badly as it was possible to botch it without a TPK is neither here nor there, as it was entirely in-character botches and I did do my damnest, despite being utterly out of my depth...!))



My group numbers fluctuates a bit, but is pretty stable at about eight members in the weekly session (though we only get sometimes 4-5 each week on a bad run) and "more players than I could fit in the room if eight wasn't already a practical cap" for our day games (which include players not able to make the weekly sessions) - and some of those have been playing with me for a quarter-century. So I think I must be doing something right.





1Assuming this is deliberate and not the PCs getting the wrong end of the stick (that happened once...),m the most liekly result is not me saying "oh, I'll prepare an entirely new adventure next week," since I literally will not be able to do anything to my standard in that time anyway, but "okay, that;s the end of that campaign, then."

2If playing on Golarion, as it is much better integrated with regard to such things, if it exists on Golarion, the chances of being allowed to play it significantly increase, especially as it means soomeone apart from me is interested enough to have actually spent some time reading the world fluff. On my own campaign worlds, though? No. You have enough choices (some of them are not even humanoids and you can seriously play an actual (if young and small) dragon or a unicorn, I think that gives you plenty of options...)

RazorChain
2017-05-21, 05:30 PM
But before you do, remember that "run the game they want" is exactly what people are complaining about.

Yep it cant be fixed :D The moment they run the game they want are doing exactly what they are complaining about.

Frozen_Feet
2017-05-21, 07:14 PM
Why hasn't it been solved?

Well, from my own perusing of those threads I notice 2 points that I suspect prevent consensus:
1) Different Strokes for Different Folks
DMing discussions that talk about more than one kind of DMing tend to end up with a spectrum of accepted DMing styles rather than a single style reaching consensus. Each of these styles receives validation from these discussions, which encourages those styles to continue to exist.
2) Resilience of a bad position
Sometimes DMing discussions isolate an example of Bad DMing. Someone that matches that example might be participating in the discussion, or may be reading the discussion later. The Backfire effect describes the phenomena where the DM's conviction in their style gets stronger when their style is being criticized.

So I think it hasn't been solved because there will never be a single solution and because the timescale for the good ideas to outreproduce the bad ideas is longer than one might have expected.

Those are pretty general. Both effects apply, but I think two notes should be made:

For 1): different folks don't exist in equal numbers. As most RPG discussions don't have any statistics or studies to back them up, they're breeding ground for hear-say based false equality. F.ex. A style which is rare but with potential to become widespread may be put on the level of another rare style which has no such potential, because outside personal anecdotes no-one tried to test nor quantify such potential.
2) a lot of the time, "bad GMing" is any non-conventional GMing, with what's conventional being defined by local status-quo. RPG discussion forums are rarely large enough to give anything resembling fair representation to multiple styles, "fair" here meaning "proportionate to their actual spread, potential and success". Similar to above, no-one might notice because no-one tested nor quantified these things.

Put together, these mean that even if there is a single solution, it might simply get lost in the noise. It's possible to have entirely unsucessfull or non-constructive advice touted as common sense, and actual good practice be labeled as "bad GMing".

---


I very much doubt that. It's just that people don't start forum threads about playing with a GM who does an alright job and ask for advice to help with that problem.

Well, complaining on the internet can be expected to follow the Pareto Principle, meaning 20% of players cause 80% of problems and 20% of games create 80% of discussion.

But even after correcting for that, it's still worth considering that if you see one system propagate despite a theoretically better system being available, then the former system has some facet making it more competitive or the latter system is not actually better in practice.

---


They do. In fact, having to play with and tolerate a terrible DM is probably one of the primary reasons that new DMs are created in the first place is because they want to do the job better than what they saw and experienced. And a lot of the time, they do correct those mistakes and dislikes that they saw.

This in indeed a problem, but not just for the reasons you outlined.

Rather, that this reactive style of GMing is "primary reasons that new DMs are created in the first place" is a symptom that not enough people are teaching players to be new GMs from the start.

As you said, GMing is different from other player roles. So when you start GMing to create the sort of game you wanted to be a non-GM-player in, out of the frustration that you didn't get to be such a player in such a game, you're already setting yourself up for the fall.

It's a good idea to aim for a game you'd like to play a character in, but in order for it to be a tolerable GMing experience, it also has to be the sort of game you'd like to GM. These two don't always meet and just having been a player in a game you didn't like doesn't prepare you for the task of doing the former. Lot of the bad habits you yourself list are result of reactive players trying to dodge or fix previous bad experiences instead of building towards anything positive.

RazorChain
2017-05-21, 08:01 PM
I saw a couple of mentions here that talked about those "professional" DMs who aren't doing it as a hobby and so they are lying about how they have always done it because no real person would ever run a game like that. I think that mentality is part of the problem, first of all. Second, maybe instead of them "lying" about how to be a good DM once they get famous for playing D&D, maybe, just maybe, it was the fact they ARE good DMs that made them famous in the first place instead. You've got it backwards. Matthew Mercer for instance did all of his D&D stuff as pure hobby before Critical Role and he has always had the same DMing style long before he was getting paid for it, back when he was just doing it for his friends. He didn't suddenly change when he became popular and decide only at that point to start doing a good job. I think that is true for all the DMs and that is one of the main reasons they become well known for their DMing ability is because they are actually good instead of the run-of-the-mill selfish folks.

Nobody likes playing with that guy who has to get his way or he just goes home and ends the game.

Now I've gone to the internet and watched a the first 3 episodes of Matt Colville...running the game I think it's called. He's offering pretty basic advice for newbies on how to run games which is just fine. I cant be bothered to watch people play as I find it boring, it's like watching soccer, I'd rather play. I'm pretty sure there are amazing GM's who are zen masters of their trade that won't be making youtube videos. Those guys didn't get famous because of their skill, they got famous because they promoted themselves and had decent advice. If I was cute as a puppy and had a charming persona I could probably salvage Robins Law of good game mastering, Listen up you primitive screwheads and other books about running a game and make successful youtube videos. It has more to do with how they present good adviced than how good they are at running a game.



As far as internet players vs real players, I don't fully agree with the idea that internet players are going to be worse. My biggest problem IRL is there aren't very many people around these parts where I live that play D&D. I have managed to scrounge up enough to play with, mostly from having been introduced to them in other people's games and who wanted to stick together after the fact. I have developed a reputation as a DM they all want to play under so now they all want me to act as DM so I never get to just "play" because I always have to DM. Also this one group is all I have access to, so it isn't like I can DM for them and then play for another group because there just isn't enough interest in my area to find that many more players. I have to go online or just not play D&D. My online experience with PLAYERS has been really good. You can get a very good idea of what and who they are just from their player applications. If the application is all lower case letters with no punctuation, or all uppercase letters, or they ignore things you told them not to ignore in the game info, or they ignore the format or leave out information you told them to include, etc it makes it easy to screen out a lot of the people. If you don't care enough and can't be bothered to even read a few paragraphs about a game before signing up, you're not a good player to have. Once they make it through the various filtering mechanisms in place, what you get tends to be pretty good in terms of players.

Think of it this way, players who are always looking for a group either don't find what they are after or just suck as human beings and get kicked out of groups. Bad GMs will always be recruiting new players because they suck as GMs. I don't think internet players are worse than RL players...those are the same people you know. Maybe the bad GM's all end up online because word of mouth has exiled them as GMs in their local rpg communities. Decent GM's with decent players aren't recruiting unless somebody moves away or whatever. One of my groups has been playing together for 20+ years....we don't recruit unless somebody dies or moves somewhere else.



The problem is, again, the DMs... I think the moody artist concept is pretty accurate since they want it to be so specifically their way and they get literally bent out of shape if you ever ask them to change it or imply they should. So many control freaks though, seriously. And it seems the only responses here that are defending that completely selfish style of DMing are the "old schoolers" that are just too old and set in their ways to ever change, like they are political conservatives that just hate change regardless of what it is just because they don't want anything to ever change, even if it is for the better. I've seen a lot of folks talk about "gating" from those kinds of people where they always act like they are entitled to be jerks to everyone else because they've played for a couple of decades or more and they resent the idea of D&D becoming more mainstream and becoming appealing to more people and it not just being a "nerd" hobby anymore and boy is it true.

Us grognards don't resent the game becoming mainstream....that happened in the 90s...then magic the gathering came along and created the great recession that has come to an end thanks to computer rpgs. If you meet upon a GM that has been running games for 30 years then he's most likely a decent GM. He may be set in his ways and has perfected his style but he'll most likely be good at what he does. You may not like his style of play but that really isn't his problem...no more than it's your problem if I don't like your style of play. I've been playing for 30 years and saying that I'm conservative because of it is just stupid. I've played free form, fudge, prime time adventures, toon, exalted, Fate, L5R, cyberpunk 2020, DnD (all except 4th and 5th ed.) Warhammer FRP, Call of Chuthulu, Macho women with guns, Runequest, Ars Magica, World of Darkness (VtM, WtA, MtA) and more. I've tried troupe style play, played with plot points as currency to change scenes. I've played games with no GM's or where everyone was GMing at the same time. You do realize that those people who are innovating the hobby are people like me who have played a long time and who experiment...it isn't people with narrow experience who have been playing for 2-3 years. It's us grognards who started as children and are now in our 30s or 40s.

Darth Ultron
2017-05-21, 09:33 PM
D&D is the same situation really. Lot of bad DM's out there, but the "DM yourself if you don't like it" argument really doesn't hold any water because that means denying yourself a huge portion of the game by always doing that. The exploration and adventuring is a huge part of the wonder of D&D and you don't get to experience that as a DM. Now I do love to be a DM and i'd never stop doing it, but it's nice to play as well. It would just be nice to have DM's that actually cared about whether or not their players were having a good time instead of setting up every aspect of the game solely to amuse themselves and then just hoping the players happen to like the same thing, and if they dont, easily replaced. That is a bad DM mentality. People should never be treated that way as if they are just disposable.

Well, ''exploration and adventuring'' can be fun and wondrous to a DM too....just in a different way then the players. The DM has the fun creating things.

It's a bit of a stretch to say a DM disposes of people. If a player is not on the same page or wavelength of the DM, they really should just not game together. And it's really the same with any social group activity.

gooddragon1
2017-05-21, 09:37 PM
There's also always "If you think you know better, do it yourself".

Which really is not that difficult as everybody always makes it. The biggest challenge to that is that RPGs never explain how to run them. The last time I've seen an RPG explain how it's played was in 1983.

Maybe not difficult, but boring for some people (Example: Me). You have to make a story, plan out the encounters, plan out the dialogue, etc. If you enjoy doing that, then maybe. I figure that as long as the DM is reasonable and you haven't given them any reasons not to be by making good faith efforts as a player then it's okay. If the DM is going beyond that is where there's potentially a problem imo.

My initial knee-jerk short answer the question was: You're lucky enough to have one.

Katrina
2017-05-21, 10:10 PM
I don't consider myself a good GM, though my players argue otherwise when they comment on it. They do admit that I have my "good games" and my "Bad games." So I feel I am mediocore at best. With that said, I will bring a point of view that has been expressed a couple of times. Gming is hard.

It's not difficult in that in Pathfinder/D&D especially, a lot of the work has been done for you with Adventure paths and prebuilt monsters/antagonists. But as one of those "most experienced players badgered into running" GMs, I can honestly say that there is not a lot to work with sometimes. My players aren't the best at getting into character, and tend to focus more on numbers than on story. I have come to understand that (The hard way.) and I accept that as the style of game they enjoy. But I am constantly handed the following scenario.

P1: "Hey, Kat. We wanna play Pathfinder. I'm thinking of trying a Air Kineticist because we just got the Occult Adventures book."
P2: "Oh, yeah. I wanna do an Theologion Cleric, I've been thinking of testing them out for a while."
Kat: "Uh....okay. So....what are your characters stories?"
P1: "I can't decide yet. Think I'm going to go hobgoblin for the +2 Dex and +2 Con."
P2: "I don't know."
Kat: "Uh...I've been having some Eberron Nostaglia. We can do that?"
P2: "Cool, I can go Church of the Silver Flame."
P1: "Isn't there an entire nation of hobgoblins there? That works."
P3: "I'll be a Fighter, going Dwarven Defender."
Kat: "So...this is a thing. What about the World of Darkness game we had slated for today?"
P3 (Former GM of Wod): "Well, I didn't really have anything planned anyway."
Kat: "So. Build your characters I guess. Typical starting gear, Standard stat array."

And I just have to go from there. That's Session Zero. (and how the WoD game I was enjoying died. Apparently I was the only one enjoying it.) I just have to build from there. To my credit, I've learned how to run a game that these guys enjoy, but it took some doing. It took actively pulling back from what I like in games (Story, drama, character development) and focusing on the playstyle my players like (Kicking down the door to slay monsters. Challenging, dangerous combat. Story as a backdrop to fights. Zero or completely optional intrigue.)


You might say that this is proving your point, that in order to be a good gm I had to stop putting my own expectations in the game and cater to what my players wanted, and I agree to an extent. But as someone else has already pointed out, you can only run games that you don't really enjoy for so long before you stop wanting to run them. So, in short, it is possible that "Dms are selfish" because DMs are working to put the things they enjoy into games so that they can enjoy them too.

Just a two cents.

Tanarii
2017-05-21, 11:27 PM
And yes in RL there are lot's of special snowflake players....I ran an open table game once in the local gaming store. Down below are some real requests.Open tables at gaming stores are definitely part of what I meant by public games.

Semi-public games are usually things like large email distros or easy-to-get-into sign-up pages once you make contacts at conventions and gaming store, often hosted at a mix of gaming stores around a region & in (very kind) people's homes. Very common for D&D in large cities, using official play rules so the characters can be taken to any official play location. Of course, 'selfish DM' rules are less of a problem, since those need to use official play rules.

Pex
2017-05-22, 12:32 AM
Sorry to hear you have had bad experiences, but as much as I rant against tyrannical DMing I've played with plenty of good, fun DMs. They've allowed for player input. They work with the player to get the character they envision. Of course there are limits, but a DM is entitled to them. Not everything fits conceptually for the roleplay or mechanically for the game math. I've recently joined a new Pathfinder game. Yay. I was disappointed I couldn't play the psion I wanted because the DM doesn't have the Dreamscarred Press books, but do I really have cause to complain when he does have and is allowing for the campaign all the official published PDFs? I'm trying out the Arcanist for something different. He even changed his mind after player input into allowing 25 Point Buy and average hit points when he originally wanted rolling for both.

The good, fun, cooperating DMs are out there.

Mr Beer
2017-05-22, 12:40 AM
Well I guess I'm a selfish GM in that I run the game I want to run in the way I want to run it. However, since I do 100% of the preparation work and 100% of running the game and I also host and I also provide lunch...yeah it's my game and I get to decide how it works.

That said, the same players keep coming back for more, so I must be doing something right. I've never had to say 'well it's my way or the highway' because I game with normal people and not special snowflakes. I've banned one person in 15 years and that was ultimately because every other player personally agreed that he made the game days objectively worse by being there.

EDIT

Also, I've played with 3 other GMs running games in the last few years. Absolutely none of them were the quasi-dictator types OP is complaining about. One of them is an excellent GM and I've shamelessly tried to steal some of the methods he uses to run games, because I think they make my games better.

EDIT2

Ultimately it's much easier to play games than run them and GMs have to do the lion's share of the work. So naturally they get a bigger vote on what gets played and how, some people are just more equal than others in this situation. I encourage all players who think they can do a better job to do so. Chances are your GM wants a break anyway.

Knaight
2017-05-22, 01:36 AM
Maybe not difficult, but boring for some people (Example: Me). You have to make a story, plan out the encounters, plan out the dialogue, etc.

You really don't. Planning out encounters is system dependent, whether you make a story or not is heavily style based (you'll end up with one regardless, and I find that avoiding it and letting the game be more player led often works better), and you almost never need to do much in terms of planning specific dialog if you just make sure you know your NPCs. The entire game can be improvised in systems friendly to that, and while that does take a set of skills that you can get by without if you favor planning it also represents an alternative.

Mendicant
2017-05-22, 01:45 AM
And yes in RL there are lot's of special snowflake players....I ran an open table game once in the local gaming store. Down below are some real requests.

(Weird requests)

YUP
Had a guy ask me as a "joke," "Hey, can I play as a [most loaded racial slur in America]?"

No, dude. You can't. Go away.

icefractal
2017-05-22, 02:34 AM
I have been browsing through roll20 a lot lately going through all the 5e, weekly games and checking them out, and they all have a long list of very specific rules to follow to get into the games.I think part of this is that online games open to the public have different motivations for the GM than a game they're running for their existing friends or when trying to create a lasting group.

If I'm running something for my friends, my priority is to create a good game for everyone. Obviously I'm going to run something I'm interesting in, but I'm generally willing to bend a fair amount because the point is to enjoy RPing with those specific people, not to run a specific scenario.

If I was running an online game with no particular players in mind, then it's not the players who are motivating me, it's the scenario I want to run. And so it seems pretty logical to say "I'm running X, end of discussion - if you want Y or Z, look elsewhere," if X is the only thing you're interested in.

That's not always the case - if a GM is excited about a broad category, like "I want to run this new setting, but any kind of game in that setting is fine" then they may be more flexible. But I find that's the less common case.

And occasionally there's the rare GM that is running for purely altruistic reasons; they just want to provide more games for people, and they'll run whatever is requested. But most GMs (or players, for that matter) are not that altruistic. After all, flipping the question around, would you play in a game where you didn't like the premise at all, just because that GM was lacking for players? I wouldn't.

RazorChain
2017-05-22, 02:49 AM
I have never had a single player that felt like player deaths should be impossible or shouldn't happen. The potential for death is part of the game and if you remove all the risk, it isn't as exciting and your choices aren't as meaningful. But yeah, the NEWER generation of players tend to like the fact most enemies they should be encountering can't instantly kill them in one round or one failed save. People who played older editions that are full of that save-or-die stuff still act like it should be part of the game and instead of just wanting to challenge players to make them have to work together well or use a good strategy or plan in advance, they just want dice to decide literally everything including whether or not they just randomly die on their turn. So yeah, I guess i'm in the camp of the "new school" of player who doesn't like arbitrary penalties and punishments that older editions had. And you know what, maybe, just maybe, that is why D&D is suddenly popular is because 5th edition is more casual with less restricting rules and no instant death mechanics. But there is a HUGE difference between not wanting to challenge the players or not putting the players in danger vs throwing them against things that just instantly kill them without any possibility of survival beyond making a single roll and hoping it is high enough, or just randomly killing one to prove a point, etc.

DnD isn't suddenly popular...it has been domineering the market for decades, warts and all. DnD hasn't been innovating anything in the last decades, all these cool ideas you find in 5e probably came from somewhere else, experimental indie systems most probably. But you know there is heaps of other systems out there that the grognards have played as well, systems that do things drastically different than DnD. This is mostly matter of playstyle. Some players love hardcore dungeon survival games others don't. Just because you don't like it doesn't make it badwrongfun.




There is also a big difference between forcing players to specifically fit into your world like puzzle pieces that don't go together vs keeping the players from doing just really stupid things. Obviously things like owning sex slaves or trying to play overpowered monster creatures and so on have to be ruled out for obvious reasons but the key difference is that when you make THOSE kinds of calls, you are making them to benefit your PLAYERS. You don't want your other players to have to suffer through that awkward RP of someone dragging around a cat girl sex slave. You don't want your players to have to deal with a dragon in human form that could win every encounter by themselves and is never in any danger. You don't want your players to have one guy who is so good at literally everything he is the star of the show in social situations, combat, solving puzzles, research, and everything else. You make those calls for the sake of your other players, that isn't being selfish. The things i'm talking about aren't done with the interest of the players in mind, it is done purely to please and satisfy you as a DM. So many of them feel they're entitled to do whatever they want and they can get away with it because there will always be more players than DMs. So even if you're the worst DM on the planet, eventually you'll rotate through enough players that some of them will think you're good and tell you that you're good just because they either don't know any better or their tastes are just so extremely radically different from your average player that it happens to overlap with whatever particular brand of craziness you're offering.

So yeah, DM's have to say no. When I said DM's and players should build the world together in a communal way i'm not saying players should have to get together in a group discussion about whether there is a town up ahead or what kind of people live in that town or what sorts of monsters are in the area. That would ruin the game honestly because it shatters the illusion and takes you out of the game. What i'm saying is players should be able to write their own backstories (within reason) to name NPCs, towns, events, and so on that all exist in the world and a good DM will work with that and fit it into the world. Sometimes those little tweaks and changes can lead to larger changes in the overall story that improve upon it. Once it's handed over to you though, it rests solely on you to decide how things may have changed or developed since the events in that story. And yeah obviously you have to reign it in sometimes when you get certain types of players who want absolutely crazy stuff in their backstory, but honestly sometimes even those crazy background stories can lead to interesting interactions. Since we were talking about dragon characters, i'll mention one particular player I recall... I'll simplify their backstory for the sake of brevity but in a nut shell he was a red dragon who defiled a particular temple to steal from it (as it had a lot of valuable offerings, gold, etc) so the deity cursed him to have to live out the remainder of his life as a gnome to teach him humility and respect. There was a bit more too it than that, but the point is it's a pretty outlandish background story but where is the harm? Statistically he's just a gnome, no different than if he'd been an orphan from a random gnome community. He didn't exactly go around telling everyone of his origin because he felt great shame and also developed a sense of fear as to what people might do to him if they found out. His dynamic in the party changed drastically over time because while he was technically evil, he was too afraid to act on it since his pride had been shattered. There were a lot of interesting interactions and conversations with him and he turned into a very memorable character that had a lot of depth to him, but that is exactly the sort of thing DM's just pull out their big "REJECTED" stamp and slap the page with it.

All good GM's work with their players, I think these boards are chock full of posts about communication, expectations and how just be a decent human being helps to facilitate a good game. Some people like backgrounds others don't. When I run a game background is almost a requirement and yes players can affect the world, make npcs and plots and whatnot....but this is a very, very old GM trick to get the players to buy into the game, it's almost as old as roleplaying. But you guessed it, some people don't like backgrounds, they like builds...and some like both and this is where playstyles come in. Some players think my games are the best thing since frozen yogurt, full of intrigue, drama, politics, character development and talking. You guessed it those players match my playstyle or GMing style. Then I've had players that just want to go into a dungeon and murder the crap out of things and complain that all that talking is booooriiing. See their playstyle doesn't match my GMing style. Now I can choose to cater to both type of players or find players that match my GMing style. I've chosen the latter because I'm a selfish GM and don't want to run games that revolve about killing the crap out of everything because I find it boooooriiiing. Now neither style is badwrongfun...in fact there is no badwrongfun to be had in RPGs. If GM's find players that match their style more glory to them, if a group of sweaty guys want to sit in a basement roleplaying out their sexual fantasies then there is nothing wrong with it. You on the other hand just dismissed just as I did the guy who enjoys playing out his sexual fantasies and now he will call us out as selfish GMs because we dont allow what he wants.



I've said this before, but I think a good DM enjoys the game by making his players enjoy the game and knowing that they are engaged and having a good time. A bad DM is one who sets everything up in the game world so that THEY enjoy it, even if it is at the expense of the players. All players are wildly different with some preferring only to talk, some preferring only to fight, some who want a gritty and very difficult game with loads of realism and always staying in character, some who like making real world jokes and references while acting in character, and so on. You have to find the right players to fit your style and who match each other pretty well or at least are flexible and tolerant enough to make it work.

Seems to me you are right here answering your own question, well if you are playing with a sadistic GM then you aren't going to enjoy it unless you're a masochist. Everybody and their mother knows we have hobbies to enjoy ourselves and RPG's are no different. If you are partaking in any group activity where someone is having fun at the others expense then he doesn't get invited anymore. If a GM is having fun on your expense then he's a jerk. Now I'm selfish but I'm not a selfish jerk because I want my players to have fun....in fact I want everyone to have as much fun as possible, that is why I run the games I like and find players that like my games.



I work in medicine, usually in hospitals, long term care facilities, occasionally doctor's offices. I interact with other people who have the same job I do and I notice that laziness and apathy causes many of them to develop bad habits. And from there, they perpetuate these habits for years and years and then if you ever actually talk to them about it, they get offended and act like it's "fine" and "its worked for me for years" and so on. They get so stuck in their bad habits it is all they really know and they simply aren't interested in doing it correctly so you either let it slide or you decide to tell whoever their boss happens to be. Some examples that spring to mind are: watching people draw blood from an arm on the same side of the body as the patient had a mastectomy which can be dangerous for the patient, i've seen people re-use the same gloves for multiple patients instead of swapping them out which carries the risk of spreading nosocomial infections while doing proper hand/glove hygiene removes that risk almost entirely, i've seen people draw blood through a patient's foot when they couldn't find a decent vein in the arms which can potentially be very dangerous to the patient. People just get lazy and then they start cutting corners and doing what they want to do instead of what they should. And once they do it for years on end, they have a hard time changing and typically don't WANT to change. In their mind, they are still doing their job successfully and accomplishing the same goals. I think these selfish DMs are in kind of the same boat... They get a little positive feedback for what they do and believe they're awesome and they have no desire to change because there will always be people who are willing to accept what they do.

Now I think your are mixing selfishness with something else, being selfish means putting yourself first and being chiefly concerned about your own personal pleasure or profit. By running the game that I want I'm putting my pleasure first. I'm not a lazy apathetic GM because I get excited and engaged about the game I've selfishly chosen to run and I put dozens of hours of work into my games so I can enjoy them even more!!!



I get that DM's have different styles but I think all DM's should really ask themselves if the choices they are making are being made because it's something that will make the game more enjoyable for the players or if it's just being done to satisfy yourself. That is the big difference for selfish DMs. They aren't able to get that joy vicariously through their players and can only get it when they're playing to their own benefit. It makes me very sad and disheartened when I see it. I wish the D&D community could just be a little less toxic and more open. A lot of folks treat it like it's some sort of elite club and you're just not welcome unless you're willing to accept all of their personal baggage and issues that they bring into the game.

In my life, i've seen DMs who want to get someone they know into playing D&D. In order to show them how awesome it is and how fun it can be, they often give that player extra allowances or work with them extra hard to make their playing experience more enjoyable. And a lot of the times it works and they have a good time and like the game and want to keep playing. But the rest of the time those DMs act like they dont CARE whether a player is having a good time or enjoying themselves. They treat them like replaceable components they can just swap out at a moment's notice as soon as it breaks down. They force them to adhere to their idea of law and if they dont like it they just get ejected and replaced. I think if DMs had a bit more compassion and took that extra effort to ensure the players had a good time, it would show.


Wait? What choices? I run the game for my satisfaction! If I didn't have fun running games I wouldn't do it. I don't know what twisted freaks you've been playing with but it seems you've been playing with very antagonistic GMs. Find some decent human beings and play with them and you should have a good game.



Some people play pool as a hobby or snooker. Some like to play tennis just for funsies. And if you go into it playing with a couple of friends and you are all just there to have a good time, that is all that matters. But sometimes you get people who don't just want to play for fun, they want to "win" and they want to go all out and care more about winning than having a good time with their buddies. They build tension between their friends because they are too invested in trying to win than having a good time. That's just a hobby, just like D&D and it suffers from the same thing. Sometimes the DM just wants to "win", and part of that mentality is "my way or the highway".

Decent GM's have already realized there is nothing to win....that's like my 10 year old mentality when I was starting to run games...it tooke me all of 5 seconds to realize I could kill all the PC's when I wanted.
My way or the highway has nothing to do with winning. My way or the high way has to do with me wanting to run Cyberpunk and 2D8HP hates Cyperpunk and only wants to play Elf games. So 2D8HP can play his elf games while I run Cyberpunk for somebody else.

Yora
2017-05-22, 03:34 AM
Maybe not difficult, but boring for some people (Example: Me). You have to make a story, plan out the encounters, plan out the dialogue, etc. If you enjoy doing that, then maybe.


I don't consider myself a good GM, though my players argue otherwise when they comment on it. They do admit that I have my "good games" and my "Bad games." So I feel I am mediocore at best. With that said, I will bring a point of view that has been expressed a couple of times. Gming is hard.

Well, it depends. (Obviously.) It really makes a huge difference of what you imagine a good adventure/campaign to look like when it's completed. What I think has become the commonly expected default is that the GM has to write an epic story worthy of a novel, make it look like it's actually the players' actions that determine the outcome, and then make an awesome performance as an NPC actor at the table. And I believe that this is actually the most difficult and labor intensive way you could possibly run a campaign. If you can pull it off, then the results can be absolutely amazing. But the work load for this is massive and you really need a lot of skill. Or in short, you need a big amount of experience.
Which as a beginning GM you just don't have.

I've been running games for over 15 years and I don't have the skills to do this either. It looks like a task that I don't feel able to tackle.

The key to start as a gamemaster and to become a better gamemaster is to have reasonable expectations of what kind of game you can actually run. And it really is unfortunate that these big supermodules and adventure paths have become the established gold standard for mainstream D&D because this sets the expectations for new GMs unreasonably and unrealistically high.

I find it much more valuable to set yourself realistic expectations of what you can do. And the kind of adventures that almost everyone can do with practically no experience is the reactive dungeon crawl. And I am fully convinced that everyone is going to have a lot more fun playing simple dungeon crawls looking for treasure over ten sessions than dragging themselves through the prolog of a giant epic world spannning campaign for three sessions before giving up.

And this is why there's the infamous quote that "sandboxes are less work". Which is kind of true, under certain conditions. With the main condition being that the sandbox is small. Again, expectations for sandboxes have been set unreasonably high. When hearing about preparing a sandbox, lots people think of a whole country or a whole continent with dozens of settlements and multiple regional powers, and huge numbers of dungeons. But that's way too big to be practical for a beginning GM and also too much work for most casual GMs. Big sandboxes require a lot of work. Small sandboxes require very little preparartion.They are also easier to run at the table.

There's been a big muddling up of the term sandbox and open-world to the point that there's barely any meaningful difference left. But in a more stricter sense the concept of sandbox assumed that the players can do anything they can imagine if they put the work into it to get all the resources they need. This can be pretty challenging to run for the GM and also requires a long-term commitment from everyone. In contrast to that, open-world games give players the options to go where they want and interact with what they want. An open world game can be a sandbox and allow the players to raise armies and become important regional leaders, but the options for the players can be a lot more restricted. In the campaign I am working on right now the two conditions for the creation of PCs are that they have to be a team that cooperates together, and that they are all treasure hunting. Because the open world that I am preparing is a treasure hunting world that does not cover the aspects of politics and economy. I am not preparing any material that would cover the accumulation of political or economic power. These things exist, but they won't be appearing "on the screen", This significantly reduces the amount of preparation I have to do. I need to prepare floor plans for dungeons, NPCs that can be encountered, wilderness encounters, and two or three villages where the party can heal and sell their loot. I don't need a script, villains, or a plan. All I need to do to prepare for a story is to assign motivations to NPCs If they players get into a confrontation with them, then I just have to think what the NPCs would do in reaction to the players activities. This is something I can, and have to, make up on the spot.

Though I believe all of this deserves it's own thread.

Mutazoia
2017-05-22, 05:31 AM
"Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach."

I always have a hard time with the "professional Game Master." The person who has their own youtube channel telling you how to be a great GM just like them. I call Bantha Poodoo. If you have to tell everybody how great you are, you are not that great.

If I spend 6 months putting together a campaign, you can be damned well sure I'm going to be selfish about it. That was 6 months that I could have spent on other things, like boning my girlfriend. Instead, I spent that time creating a fantasy (or sci-fi, or what ever) world for my players to run amuck in, and, for the most part, cries of "I don't like this, change it", will get you the single digit salute.

That's not to say that some minor, obscure rule that doesn't seem to have a valid reason to exist can't be cut. but then those rules won't exist anyway...I'm not big on adding superflous rules. But if you don't feel like fighting zombies, and you wander into the Swamp of Eternal Death, I'm not suddenly going to replace all the undead with fluffy bunnies simply because you don't want zombies right now. GM's put a damned lot of work into these campaigns. (Well the one's that actually work, rather than the ones that make everything up on the fly.)

I would say there are more bad (or rather coddled/entitled) players than there are bad GM's. Players who seem to think that they should always "win". Players who seem to think that there should never be a puzzle, or trap, or encounter that is too tough for their characters to overcome that instant. They don't want a challenge with the possibility of failure, they don't want to have to run away and come back when they've leveled up a bit....they want success NOW dammit. I find that a lot of the players complaining about their DM/GM not "working with them" to fall into this category.

I've read far too many threads, just on this site, where players complain about GM's not giving out magic items like candy, but they don't want to spend any of the gold they've amassed to buy their own...they want it handed to them. They don't want to have more than one mass encounter perday, because their party isn't optimized for more than one such encounter. I've seen players complain about having to use a precious action to heal themselves during combat (read drink a potion). They don't want a puzzle that has a set solution, they want to just spitball solutions until the GM picks one (from sheer frustration I'm assuming). Hell, I've seen people complain when the GM has an actual PLOT to the campaign, rather than just letting the players run around at random. (Have ou eve tried to run a game where EVERYTHING the players do is completly at random???) These are the people I see the most, complaining about GM's not "working with them".

Don't get me wrong, a good GM will be open to suggestions, and constructive criticism, and should be able to make adjustments when necessary, but they should do so when it won't compromise the structure of the campaign they have planned out. Like others have said, I make a ruling, and you don't like it, spend 6 months of your own damned time planning your own campaign and see if you can do better. It's far easier to sit back in the player's chair and cry foul, than it is to create a campaign from scratch and think of everything.

In short, if a DM/GM is shelfish, it's because they have every right to be. They are the ones putting in all the work. If they're bad at it, they either learn to do better next time, or keep cycling through an endless stream of players until they get a clue. (Which is the major drawback of internet gaming....you don' actually have to learn from your mistakes...there's an endless supply of fresh meat.)

Darth Ultron
2017-05-22, 06:44 AM
"Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach."

I always have a hard time with the "professional Game Master." The person who has their own youtube channel telling you how to be a great GM just like them. I call Bantha Poodoo. If you have to tell everybody how great you are, you are not that great.


Very true.

And again I'd point out you must always be suspicious of ''official'' advise. First of, if someone is ''at work'' or ''attached to a company'' you can bet their advise will be influenced by that. For example, if you work for a publisher then any book you review from them will ''be that best book ever!'' And second, and even worse, people often put on that public ''perfect world'' face. So people will all ways say in public ''don't do this'', and then they will do it, cranked up to 11, just one second later when they are not in public.

Frozen_Feet
2017-05-22, 08:36 AM
I've never participated in public games and prefer my games at the table where I can look people in the eye and tell them to stop acting like jerks/idiots.

Speaking as a convention GM, I'm confused - what would stop you from doing this in a public game?

LibraryOgre
2017-05-22, 09:57 AM
I started a new game of Castles and Crusades last night. Five players... two other couples and my wife. We're looking at getting a couple more players, in future games. I am using a system with which I am familiar, and the core is two published adventures (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?524998-C-amp-C-Combining-Hommlet-Keep-on-the-Borderlands-amp-C-amp-C-House-Rules), both of which which I am familiar with... I misplaced them briefly yesterday, and joked I could probably run the day 1 stuff from memory.

What did I have to do to prepare for this one session?

I summarized the system on a single page for ease of reference. I wrote summaries for every attribute, race, and class combination possible so the players could choose quickly and efficiently among various, unfamiliar, options. I edited summaries of 5 spell levels for 4 different spellcasting classes so they could be handed to spellcasting players for ease of reference. I went through the two adventures with a comb to combine them, built two site-based adventures into a single, relevant plot, integrating them with a different campaign world for which they were not written, adapting a score of NPCs to fit a new rules system and setting, printing off maps and character sheets and the like so they could play.

My players... showed up, with a vague idea of what they wanted to play.

During most of the session, they created characters, which mostly consisted of copying down things I'd pre-printed for them, and asking questions. The big difficulty was buying equipment, because we only had one corebook to work from. While they were doing that, I answered questions, clarified some things, and took care of a toddler and a newborn. I bounced a newborn on my knee while they investigated a cheating thief in the inn, and were subtly pushed (with a large plot-hammer) to investigate the missing gnomes of the Hidden Vale. I ran combat for 5 new players, during which I handled 14 statted NPCs and 10 non-statted NPCs.

As the DM, I put WAY more time and effort into playing than the players do. I put it in for HOURS before they touch dice or pencil. I am responsible for presenting a believable world, which means that, to a large extent, it must be MY world, because I have to know who is doing what and why to make sure they can sit down at the table and play. This isn't to say I'm not without flexibility, or not open to suggestions... but I'm doing days of prep for 5 hours of gaming once a month.

Cluedrew
2017-05-22, 10:12 AM
On GM Work: That is one of my attempts to address the problem. Make the GM's job easier. Mostly because I am running the system a lot and I don't want to have to do work. Also because I want improvisation style game and so on. Tearing down the hierarchy is also part of it, I don't want one person to be the boss (or the servant) I just want to sit down with my friends and play a game.

2D8HP
2017-05-22, 10:41 AM
....My way or the high way has to do with me wanting to run Cyberpunk and 2D8HP hates Cyperpunk and only wants to play Elf games. So 2D8HP can play his elf games while I run Cyberpunk for somebody else.


:cool:

Someone has read my old posts!

In the Is there a DM shortage? What can or should be done? (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?500951-Is-there-a-DM-shortage-What-can-or-should-be-done) thread, I mentioned that the there seems to be a lot more "wannabe" players per willing DM's than used to be the case.

I started as a DM before ever playing because I didn't know anyone else who even knew about the game at first so I had to find players (i.e. my little brother, thankfully a classmate say me reading the "bluebook" and invited me to his game in which his big brother was the DM, allowing me to just barely truthfully claim that I played D&D in the 1970's).

For too soon my first DM dropped D&D (which he mixed with Arduin, All the World's Monster's, and the AD&D Monster Manual) for Villians & Vigilantes, and then a conga line of other games.

I wanted to still play D&D, but it wasn't my table, so if I wanted D&D I had to go back to DM'ing it myself, which I did for a while until my players demanded settings with guns (what is it about not-yet-men and firearms?), so I GM'd Traveller, Top Secret, and Call of Cthullu instead.

My players also wanted Champions, but comic book superheroes really aren't my thing so that was out.

I still wanted D&D (or Pendragon after 1985), but I had no willing players.

In order to play myself I sat at tables where Cyberpunk, and Vampire were the games (until I decided that they weren't worth the time, and quit the hobby).


Notice that none of us got to always play what we really wanted, so in order to play any game compromise is involved.

We can't always get what we want.

Lazymancer
2017-05-22, 10:56 AM
I'll contest this. ...

I've had a good amount of experience in smaller communities, though. When there's (relatively) few people playing a system, it is the good GMs that get talked about. ...
You aren't contesting this. It's not bad GMs I'm talking abuot, but demanding GMs. You can be both selfish and good.

My point was that either GM enjoys GMing, or stops GMing. Which is how we end up with GMs who have strong opinions about what they want to GM, unlike the public ones who don't seem to share this quality.

Pex
2017-05-22, 12:20 PM
Well, if a player doesn't like my game they are free to take a hike. I have been running games since 74 and like my old fashion ways.

There was a point where the player base started growing and became more mainstream (compared to wargamers in the 70s) and we started getting more liberal views in the game. The "good DMs don't kill players" is part of the newer thinking I reject. We died a lot back then and it was fun. If we didn't get the stats to become a paladin you didn't play a paladin. Touch luck.

Newer players didn't like that. Why can't I be a paladin. ::cries:: No wonder they believe DMs shouldn't kill players or why a player thinks he should have a say in how a DM runs his game. It is all about them.

Because it's his character. It's the only thing in the game he has any control over, so if he wants to play a paladin he should be allowed to play a paladin. Of course that's not a blanket thing. If it's a cutthroat pirate campaign on the high seas, the knight in shiny armor Saint Holy Good Man is just not going to work.

While something being old fashioned doesn't mean it shouldn't be used today, neither does it mean it was a mistake to have changed it. It's not all about the players, but neither is it all about the DM. It's not a horrendous thing for players to like playing out a story of the same character over the course of a campaign, so having his character die every other session is just not going to cut it anymore. That does not equate to a PC should never die, ever.

kyoryu
2017-05-22, 12:51 PM
Because it's his character. It's the only thing in the game he has any control over, so if he wants to play a paladin he should be allowed to play a paladin. Of course that's not a blanket thing. If it's a cutthroat pirate campaign on the high seas, the knight in shiny armor Saint Holy Good Man is just not going to work.

While something being old fashioned doesn't mean it shouldn't be used today, neither does it mean it was a mistake to have changed it. It's not all about the players, but neither is it all about the DM. It's not a horrendous thing for players to like playing out a story of the same character over the course of a campaign, so having his character die every other session is just not going to cut it anymore. That does not equate to a PC should never die, ever.

It's also important to understand context.

In the original days of D&D (like, Gygax's table), various people would show up, you'd probably have multiple characters, and you'd figure out which one you were playing on a day-to-day basis.

So not getting paladin stats didn't mean "you aren't going to be a paladin *this* campaign", it mean that this character, which was one of many, wouldn't be a paladin. Same thing with things like association rules and whatnot.

The idea of "The One True Party On Their Epic Quest" didn't come about until, really, DragonLance. And a lot of things that work great in the open table model really, really don't work at all in the One True Party model

obryn
2017-05-22, 01:00 PM
I'll go back and say that, yeah, D&D is part of the problem, such as it exists.

D&D encourages this sort of top-down power structure. The DM runs the world, players run their characters. The DM has access to all the secret info that your characters may or may not discover.

On the other hand, more modern games, such as the Apocalypse Engine games and Fate Core, demand collaboration from the players.

If you have an issue with non-collaborative GMs, try a different system.

kyoryu
2017-05-22, 01:50 PM
Which is why Gary let people run Balrogs and invented new classes when people wanted to do crazy things. Yup.

sktarq
2017-05-22, 02:40 PM
A few things.

This has been addressed to death. It's a constant thing. Whole game systems have grown up around this concept and some groups solutions.

If that is your experience I'd say you may have an issue. Either your are looking in the wrong place, in the wrong way, etc. Because lots of us have found that our experiences don't match. And the common denominator in your negative experience?

Core of the issue is DM's have a harder job.

They have to make sure everyone is having fun. They have to allow the spotlight to get passed around. They have a equal responsibly to all the players and if one's players request is likely to cause the other players issue it is the DM's problem. They shoulder the responsibility to get the story pushed ahead. If they are having an off night the game suffers far more than if the cleric is moody or late to show up. Oh and they have to make sure they have fun themselves, because nobody else will. If the DM/GM/ST isn't having fun the game goes away.

And GMING is more effort than playing. Way more rules to keep in mind, more planning, more social dynamics, etc. And frankley the more other people are involved with this the harder it can be to keep track of and not let something fall (so being able to let other people in well often only comes with years of experience during which norms and habits are set against it. And the "fun" benefits of adding a something a player wants vs the amount of added work it can cause the DM can be massively dis proportional the player has to worry about a very small corner of the world-their PC. The DM has to worry about the rest and have it make as much sense as possible. Every DM has their wall. And when that wall is hit they can just say screw it and ask to be a player. Honestly I personally wish I could recently do this but somehow every game I roped into being the GM so I'm not playing for a while.

How much control the players have to be creating their own back stories, prestige classes/splatbook use, etc you say should be "within reason". Fine but what reasonable is defined by is a judgment call. And it has a lot to do things beyond the player involved. Unfamiliarity with the rules, other PC's, the plot etc.

Also most players like "selfish DM"s. Biggest problem I have in my games is getting the PC's to do anything I don't actively prod them into doing. And open sandbox just leads to blank stares.

You don't like how the game is played? Run your own. I really mean that. Because this thread is describing a view of playing that asks the DM to serve the player(s). How to fix "selfish player" problem is of course the other most popular group of threads on the forum.

Mordar
2017-05-22, 03:07 PM
You might say that this is proving your point, that in order to be a good gm I had to stop putting my own expectations in the game and cater to what my players wanted, and I agree to an extent. But as someone else has already pointed out, you can only run games that you don't really enjoy for so long before you stop wanting to run them. So, in short, it is possible that "Dms are selfish" because DMs are working to put the things they enjoy into games so that they can enjoy them too.

Just a two cents.

You mean DMs aren't just monkeys attached to organ grinders that you wind up to entertain players?

As everyone has said, there's a much greater burden of effort on the DM and as such, absent a truly cooperative level of engagement and effort in world building, they are the final arbiter. But as Pex says...


Because it's his character. It's the only thing in the game he has any control over, so if he wants to play a paladin he should be allowed to play a paladin. Of course that's not a blanket thing. If it's a cutthroat pirate campaign on the high seas, the knight in shiny armor Saint Holy Good Man is just not going to work.

While something being old fashioned doesn't mean it shouldn't be used today, neither does it mean it was a mistake to have changed it. It's not all about the players, but neither is it all about the DM. It's not a horrendous thing for players to like playing out a story of the same character over the course of a campaign, so having his character die every other session is just not going to cut it anymore. That does not equate to a PC should never die, ever.

...there should be as many "Yes" responses as possible while maintaining the cohesion of the game. Particularly when it comes to options that should be allowable unless there is a super-solid base for exclusion (see the paladin in the "players are pirates" campaign mentioned above).

Basically, it comes down to this - disproportionate share of the work and responsibility provides disproportionate authority. (Or, "With special duties come special privileges" if you like positive messaging better).

After all, would we accommodate someone showing up to a dinner party and adding a huge dose of aniseseed to all of the dishes the host has prepared? Would we call the cook "selfish" if they didn't allow that to happen?

- M

2D8HP
2017-05-22, 03:25 PM
Well, if a player doesn't like my game they are free to take a hike. I have been running games since 74 and like my old fashion ways....


I'd gladly play in your game!

I started in '78 as a DM, and '79 as a player, and my time playing D&D ended too soon!



Back in OD&D and, to a lesser degree, AD&D I tended to play Fighters and Clerics (no thieves, One Mage, one pre-AD&D illusionist from a Strategic Review magazine article, no druids) in part because 3D6 in order seemed to make it easy to roll the former and the latter really wasn't much harder...


IIRC, at the tables I knew, we mostly played Fighting-Men/Fighters even when STR was the lowest stat.




....OD&D Paladins (before BECMI, B/X, AD&D) had pretty clear yet sparse guidance on how a Paladin works. Greyhawk was actually a nice balance between "enough" and "too much" rules. Concur.
Greyhawk page 8. The original game had NO min requirements for stats for a class, all it had was a bonus for XP for higher stats. The first Stat "min" requirement was the paladin, Cha 17, and the Ranger (Strategic Review 2) and Illusionist (Min 15 Dex, Strat Review 4)....

....I did not roll up a Paladin until a 4d6drop1 (AD&D 1e) some years later. Sometimes, you arrive at dumb luck. Did not play a Paladin in UA, I played Cavalier and Assassin.
If I had not rolled that 14 Charisma, I'd not have been able to play that Druid


Like I said before, I never rolled a Paladin (or Ranger, which I wanted to play even more), so I pretty much played Fighters (and sometimes thieves), which is mostly what I do since playing 5e as well, I really should finally step up and play one, now that I can.


True enough. My personal preference is point buy with role play over hyper-optimization orientation. I consider tens in non-prime stats viable...


Likewise.




....Don't get me started on platinum pieces...


Or electrum!


OMG, that brought back White Box memories!

Nice response.


Dude, you keep bringing back the memories (or is it flashbacks?) and making me feel old... dangnabbit.


Super glad to have you aboard the Forum ZorroGames!

FWIW, I (just barely played) D&D in the 1970's with a DM who used "white box" (and Greyhawk, and Blackmoor, etc.), but by the time I played the AD&D Monster Manual was already out and in use, so I didn't get to play OD&D "undiluted.




I'm surrounded by children.

Playing D&D in college. Not 4E, not 3e or 3.5E. not AD&D2 or AD&D1. The original three books, with fighters, magic-users and clerics. Then playing with the Greyhawk supplement which added thieves and paladins, before Blackmoor added assassins and monks. With hobbits, balrogs, and ents, before D&D was big enough for the Tolkien estate to notice

Waiting for the issue of The Strategic Review or its successor The Dragon, which could be expected to add something new to the game....


In my first serious game, my paladin betrayed and killed the entire Lawful party.

The year was 1975 or 1976, and the game was Original D&D, so Lawful means Good. I had rolled up a paladin, and joined a party of slightly more experienced characters (2nd-4th levels).

I had rolled so low on money that my paladin couldn't afford a sword, and was wielding a mace.

After a few encounters, we defeated some monsters who had knocked us down to minimal hit points. My paladin had one point, nobody had more than 3, and we were out of healing spells. In OD&D, if you reach zero points, you are dead.

The treasure included a sword, which my paladin asked for, just to have a sword. The party agreed, so I picked it up. The DM knew it was a chaotic sword, which meant that touching it would do at least two points and kill the character. The sword had a high ego, so he decided that it changed my alignment, rather than killing me. He passed me a note. "You are now Chaotic, and holding a chaotic Flaming Sword." I asked if I could ask questions in another room, so we went out and I said, "OK, I don't need to ask anything, I just wanted them to think I did." I told him my plan, we waited a couple more minutes, and walked back into the game.

"OK, everyone, listen up; this is important. This is a Holy Sword, and it's given me a quest. I have to go on the quest alone. Go back the way we came, in single file, and no matter what you hear, never turn around."

They agreed, and started to head back. The DM said, "You hear the sound of a sword blow behind you, and a body falling to the ground."

They all know the myth of Orpheus. "We keep on going, and don't look back."

"One round later, you hear the sound of a sword blow behind you, and a body falling to the ground."

"We keep on going, and don't look back."

Lather, rinse repeat. After five iterations, the DM told them that they were all dead.

After the game, I told the other players I'd try to recover their bodies, but tell me what magic items you have, so I can keep them safe. So I got a complete inventory of the items I had just looted.


My improvisation is as follows. "You want the rules set in stone? OK, make a saving throw against petrification. If you make your saving throw, you have to change. If you fail, you can stay as you are."

Of course, my characters would be saving to avoid upgrading to First Edition, because I started with OD&D. My first upgrade was Greyhawk, introducing thieves and paladins. (In fact, I just started playing with the most modern rules I've ever used -- in a 2nd edition game.)


Each "edition"/version of D&D has its quirks and strengths.

I still stand by:


If the game features a Dragon sitting on a pile of treasure, in a Dungeon and you play a Wizard with a magic wand, or a warrior in armor, wielding a longbow, just like the picture on the box I picked up in 1978, whatever the edition, I want to play that game!




...While something being old fashioned doesn't mean it shouldn't be used today, neither does it mean it was a mistake to have changed it....


Old D&D was fun, so is new D&D.

I find I like 1st level of new D&D better, but I like old D&D much better at higher levels.

Different strokes etc.

The trick is finding yourself at a "good enough" table.

I also enjoy switching the game or the version of the game too.

And honestly I think being at the right table makes a bigger difference than which rules most of the time.

Even though I really don't like anything Cyberpunk, a great GM meant that I played some really fun sessions of Shadowrun, which I credit to the GM, and my co-players for example.

90sMusic
2017-05-22, 03:45 PM
"Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach.

Like most sayings, it is blatantly false and based on stereotyping and generalization to the nth degree.

Many college professors went on to teaching as part of their retirement after already having very successful careers in their given field. Hell, I even met Dave Arneson back when he was teaching at Full Sail. Considering who he is and what forum we're on, it would be be beyond hypocritical to say he never "did" anything. Sayings like that are just there for people to try to feel clever, but they aren't based in reality.

Chris Perkins and Matthew Mercer are the two biggest names in giving DM advice and BOTH of them were put in those positions to do so by other people. People like watching both of them act as DM and approve of their methods and styles. So if you want to go on record as saying either of them are bad DMs, well thats on you, your opinion I guess but the majority would disagree. They are pressured into giving out advice and do so because other people who play D&D who have DM aspirations are CONSTANTLY asking them for tips and advice every time they meet them in person. They put those videos together to try to help more people and maybe not get asked the same questions constantly. So again, that is a very poor and inaccurate quote.

CharonsHelper
2017-05-22, 03:51 PM
Like most sayings, it is blatantly false and based on stereotyping and generalization to the nth degree.


It's not actually meant for hobbies - and to apply it there is silliness.

What it's meant for is art and business (especially business). The idea being that the successful people are too successful/busy to teach.

For example: I remember reading that the guy who started UPS got a C- on his paper describing the central shipping spots which are now standard because it was unrealistic.

Mostly in business it's a round-about way of saying that the huge successes do so with off-the-wall ideas which would be shot down in a by-the-books classroom.

2D8HP
2017-05-22, 04:04 PM
....I even met Dave Arneson back when he was teaching at Full Sail....


I met Greg Stafford, and I think someone at this Forum met Steve Perrin, but you met freakin' Dave Arneson???!!!!

Damn dude.

:cool:

Oh wait, I met Fritz Leiber (and also Michael Moorcock, and Larry Niven).

And when I was six I met Captain Kirk himself (William Shatner) at the "Federation Trading Post" on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley (he signed a record for me).

Giants walk among us.

kyoryu
2017-05-22, 04:10 PM
Honestly, the current "typical model" is, I think, busted.

By the "typical model" I mean the idea that the GM will prepare a campaign in his world, with all of hte story points planned out. Into this you drop six PCs, who are all generated independently and without knowledge of what the campaign is about. And somehow they have to work together and be compatible even though nobody has any idea of what anybody else (including the GM) is doing. And then the game falls apart if some of them drop out because you have needed roles and the game fails without them.

I mean, it's just a recipe for disaster.

Tanarii
2017-05-22, 04:36 PM
In the original days of D&D (like, Gygax's table), various people would show up, you'd probably have multiple characters, and you'd figure out which one you were playing on a day-to-day basis.This is still very common. The majority of public & semi-public D&D official play (in 5th ed., AL) is still this way.

Aotrs Commander
2017-05-22, 04:50 PM
Honestly, the current "typical model" is, I think, busted.

By the "typical model" I mean the idea that the GM will prepare a campaign in his world, with all of hte story points planned out. Into this you drop six PCs, who are all generated independently and without knowledge of what the campaign is about. And somehow they have to work together and be compatible even though nobody has any idea of what anybody else (including the GM) is doing. And then the game falls apart if some of them drop out because you have needed roles and the game fails without them.

I mean, it's just a recipe for disaster.

I do a fair bit of that, actually, with the exception that the PCs are not generated in a vaccuum (for weekly quests, I PREFER to have the PCs generate the characters as a group exercise, but there is one player at least who likes to do it beforehand. On the one hand, his enthusiasm is great, but on the other...!) I also have the ruling on backgrounds - the PCs can write me as little or as much as they like, and I will later go through and add (and localise, if necessary) the background, and provide a "this is what you are doing on the day the adventure starts." I also tend to use the opportunity to seed background information (and sometimes pertinent quest information) into the characters.

That said, my group is generall stable, and if we lose players, we don't drop the characters (and as our group, the DM keeps the character sheets (the players are welcome to make their own copy, of course)), straight away. (Given our group size, we rarely get everyone there every week nowadays, sadly, so there's usually a character or two floating around anyway. And as when I run weekly games, it's the 3.x/PF hybrid, so there is going to be no attempt made to rebalance the encounters for a variable number of characters (it's pain enough to have modified the adventure up from four to 7/8 characters in the first place, I'm not doing it for every encounter...!) so it doesn't matter too much anyway.

Pex
2017-05-22, 06:09 PM
I met Greg Stafford, and I think someone at this Forum met Steve Perrin, but you met freakin' Dave Arneson???!!!!

Damn dude.

:cool:

Oh wait, I met Fritz Leiber (and also Michael Moorcock, and Larry Niven).

And when I was six I met Captain Kirk himself (William Shatner) at the "Federation Trading Post" on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley (he signed a record for me).

Giants walk among us.

Neither of you have met me in person, so pshaw!

Darth Ultron
2017-05-22, 07:04 PM
Chris Perkins and Matthew Mercer are the two biggest names in giving DM advice and BOTH of them were put in those positions to do so by other people. People like watching both of them act as DM and approve of their methods and styles.

Except both of them are employees of the game company, so they will always, at beast, be an infomercial. But, you know they want to keep tier jobs...

And as semi-public figures they ''have to'' say the popular one sided way of things. They don't want to run the risk of being sued or worse slandered all over media. Like if Mike was to say ''instead of going to church on Sunday, how about sitting down and playing D&D.'' Just imagine the uproar..... so they have to walk that careful line.

And, well, I guess not all that many people ''approve'' of their methods and styles. I wonder if anyone even watches anything they do. There would sure be a lot less ''selfish DM''s if they all agreed with them...

obryn
2017-05-22, 09:57 PM
Which is why Gary let people run Balrogs and invented new classes when people wanted to do crazy things. Yup.
I'm not blaming chill 70's "make the game your own" Gary, I'm blaming neurotic "house rules are not AD&D" 80's Gary and all the terrible DMing advice from almost all the RPGs that followed for at least a decade. :smallsmile:

2D8HP
2017-05-22, 10:13 PM
I'm not blaming chill 70's "make the game your own" Gary, I'm blaming neurotic "house rules are not AD&D" 80's Gary and all the terrible DMing advice from almost all the RPGs that followed for at least a decade. :smallsmile:


I'm with you.

I was very exited by it, and it was edited and presented better, but I've come to regard AD&D as a mistake (and a failed attempt to keep from paying Arneson royalties).

Potato_Priest
2017-05-22, 10:24 PM
If I am going to go out of my way to create a game world for my players to screw up, It's going to be the kind of world that I want to think about.

My good friend and alternate DM is most interested in dark, opressive empires, and his campaigns are urban and centered around interactions with the various arms of the state. I am most interested in vast naturescapes teeming with fey, and that is what my campaigns include. Despite the fact that I am most taken with nature and fey, I would still rather play under my Co-DM in one of his dark empires than in one of my great forests, because he is so much better at the empires. They really inspire him, and it comes out in his work.

If I run my games in wide expanses of nature, littered with monsters and fey, and with full player freedom to explore wherever they want, I'll put more thought into my world. I'll think about it right before I go to sleep, while I'm out walking, and I will enjoy myself almost as much as the players do. In fact, the players will probably enjoy my vibrant, thought-out world more than whatever it was that they thought they wanted.

If you don't want to play my kind of game, you are free to leave it, but I'm not going to do a lot of extra work at the expense of my fun just so that the players can have their anime tropes or whatever it is that they want.

Mutazoia
2017-05-22, 11:46 PM
Like most sayings, it is blatantly false and based on stereotyping and generalization to the nth degree.

Many college professors went on to teaching as part of their retirement after already having very successful careers in their given field. Hell, I even met Dave Arneson back when he was teaching at Full Sail. Considering who he is and what forum we're on, it would be be beyond hypocritical to say he never "did" anything. Sayings like that are just there for people to try to feel clever, but they aren't based in reality.

Chris Perkins and Matthew Mercer are the two biggest names in giving DM advice and BOTH of them were put in those positions to do so by other people. People like watching both of them act as DM and approve of their methods and styles. So if you want to go on record as saying either of them are bad DMs, well thats on you, your opinion I guess but the majority would disagree. They are pressured into giving out advice and do so because other people who play D&D who have DM aspirations are CONSTANTLY asking them for tips and advice every time they meet them in person. They put those videos together to try to help more people and maybe not get asked the same questions constantly. So again, that is a very poor and inaccurate quote.


It's not actually meant for hobbies - and to apply it there is silliness.

What it's meant for is art and business (especially business). The idea being that the successful people are too successful/busy to teach.

For example: I remember reading that the guy who started UPS got a C- on his paper describing the central shipping spots which are now standard because it was unrealistic.

Mostly in business it's a round-about way of saying that the huge successes do so with off-the-wall ideas which would be shot down in a by-the-books classroom.

In this case, DM/GMing IS an art. Just as much creativity goes into creating a campaign, as will go into a painting, or a song, or any other artistic endeavour. The main difference being that the DM/GM's work is meant to be more interactive than any painting.

But the quote was more in reference to people who don't DM/GM, but have nothing but "lessons" and "advice" for people who do. Such as people on this forum who have never run their own game, but have no problem complaining and telling every DM/GM on here how they should be running their games.

Pex
2017-05-22, 11:56 PM
In this case, DM/GMing IS an art. Just as much creativity goes into creating a campaign, as will go into a painting, or a song, or any other artistic endeavour. The main difference being that the DM/GM's work is meant to be more interactive than any painting.

But the quote was more in reference to people who don't DM/GM, but have nothing but "lessons" and "advice" for people who do. Such as people on this forum who have never run their own game, but have no problem complaining and telling every DM/GM on here how they should be running their games.

A player has every "entitlement" to suggest based on his playing experiences what DMs have done to make the game fun or not fun. The DM is not lord and master to be obeyed without question how dare the peasant players speak their mind who do they think they are the ungrateful whiners.

Mutazoia
2017-05-23, 12:44 AM
Honestly, the current "typical model" is, I think, busted.

By the "typical model" I mean the idea that the GM will prepare a campaign in his world, with all of hte story points planned out. Into this you drop six PCs, who are all generated independently and without knowledge of what the campaign is about. And somehow they have to work together and be compatible even though nobody has any idea of what anybody else (including the GM) is doing. And then the game falls apart if some of them drop out because you have needed roles and the game fails without them.

I mean, it's just a recipe for disaster.

The "typical model" is not busted. It just doesn't exist in online play venues, such as Roll20. Internet games rarely have the same players for ver long. With a physical group that meets regularly, the group discusses the type of game they want to play, and the first session (or two) is typically devoted to group character creation.

The model is not "busted", it is just ill applied to an online format. This, sadly, places even more work on the shoulders of a would-be GM, as they now have to be sure to list everything about the kind of game they intend to run, including desired classes, house rules, etc. They don't get the luxury of crowd sourcing all of this over months and or years of playing with the same people...they have to re-do all that extra work, every single time they want to start running a new game.


A player has every "entitlement" to suggest based on his playing experiences what DMs have done to make the game fun or not fun. The DM is not lord and master to be obeyed without question how dare the peasant players speak their mind who do they think they are the ungrateful whiners.

Sure, the players have every right to make suggestions, and the DMs should listen and follow said suggestions when plausable. But that doesn't mean the DM HAS to take EVERY suggestion.

When you get a group of people who play together regularly, the group eventually reaches a synergy...everybody knows what they like and don't like, and the group discusses the type of game they want to play next, and come up with house rules that they all agree on, etc. When you introduce a new player to the mix, it behooves him/her to take time to get acclimated to the group dynamic, before trying to assert their own personal brand of creativity....they need to learn what the rest of the group likes and doesn't. You don't sit in on a game at your local game store, and then start throwing homebrew stuff at the GM after a week (subjective) of play.

And even when you do reach that level of familiarity with the group, your suggestions should be more than "I want to play my own homebrew class that is just like this other class but with different fluff" or "I want to create my own language, just because it's neat-oh" Those are the things you suggest at the start of a new campaign, before everybody starts rolling characters, not smack dab in the middle of things.

LordCdrMilitant
2017-05-23, 01:14 AM
Like most sayings, it is blatantly false and based on stereotyping and generalization to the nth degree.

Many college professors went on to teaching as part of their retirement after already having very successful careers in their given field. Hell, I even met Dave Arneson back when he was teaching at Full Sail. Considering who he is and what forum we're on, it would be be beyond hypocritical to say he never "did" anything. Sayings like that are just there for people to try to feel clever, but they aren't based in reality.

Chris Perkins and Matthew Mercer are the two biggest names in giving DM advice and BOTH of them were put in those positions to do so by other people. People like watching both of them act as DM and approve of their methods and styles. So if you want to go on record as saying either of them are bad DMs, well thats on you, your opinion I guess but the majority would disagree. They are pressured into giving out advice and do so because other people who play D&D who have DM aspirations are CONSTANTLY asking them for tips and advice every time they meet them in person. They put those videos together to try to help more people and maybe not get asked the same questions constantly. So again, that is a very poor and inaccurate quote.

So, explain to me again what your argument is? There's some people out there, and they make videos about D&D. Cool, good for them. What does this mean for me?


Honestly, the current "typical model" is, I think, busted.

By the "typical model" I mean the idea that the GM will prepare a campaign in his world, with all of hte story points planned out. Into this you drop six PCs, who are all generated independently and without knowledge of what the campaign is about. And somehow they have to work together and be compatible even though nobody has any idea of what anybody else (including the GM) is doing. And then the game falls apart if some of them drop out because you have needed roles and the game fails without them.

I mean, it's just a recipe for disaster.

Typically, at least in my groups, players know about the world before generating characters, and I always now specify that characters must know each other at the end of character creation. It's part of your character creation to explain why you're all together.


If I am going to go out of my way to create a game world for my players to screw up, It's going to be the kind of world that I want to think about.

My good friend and alternate DM is most interested in dark, opressive empires, and his campaigns are urban and centered around interactions with the various arms of the state. I am most interested in vast naturescapes teeming with fey, and that is what my campaigns include. Despite the fact that I am most taken with nature and fey, I would still rather play under my Co-DM in one of his dark empires than in one of my great forests, because he is so much better at the empires. They really inspire him, and it comes out in his work.

If I run my games in wide expanses of nature, littered with monsters and fey, and with full player freedom to explore wherever they want, I'll put more thought into my world. I'll think about it right before I go to sleep, while I'm out walking, and I will enjoy myself almost as much as the players do. In fact, the players will probably enjoy my vibrant, thought-out world more than whatever it was that they thought they wanted.

If you don't want to play my kind of game, you are free to leave it, but I'm not going to do a lot of extra work at the expense of my fun just so that the players can have their anime tropes or whatever it is that they want.

I agree with this. One guy runs eldritch horror, because he likes that stuff. We play Call with him. [We also play Deathwatch with him]

I like Sci-Fi with big guns and spaceships, and run Dark Heresy and Traveler.

This works out, we have fun.

Mutazoia
2017-05-23, 01:56 AM
Typically, at least in my groups, players know about the world before generating characters, and I always now specify that characters must know each other at the end of character creation. It's part of your character creation to explain why you're all together.

This is the time you suggest your own homebrew class, or house rule...when the campaign is over and the group is spitballing about what they want to do next. But don't come up to me, mid campaign and expect me to retcon everything that's happened over the last few weeks/months/years of actual play time and expect me to shoehorn your idea into a game in progress. Unless your idea is the Holy Grail of gaming, and it's hard to see how RPG's survived for a half centry with out your little nugget of wisdom, it's not happening, Snowflake. Next time, possibly, but not this time.

Aotrs Commander
2017-05-23, 04:49 AM
Typically, at least in my groups, players know about the world before generating characters, and I always now specify that characters must know each other at the end of character creation. It's part of your character creation to explain why you're all together.

My groups tend to be the exact opposite. Aside from Faerun, which some of us know a little bit about (and most of that is from the CRPGs), usually, only the DM tends to know much about the world. Honestly, a lot of the players in our group aren't that bothered; they'll turn up and play almost anything. (Actually, getting input out of the majority of them is like getting blood out of a stone. Important decisions like "do we want to icnrese the number of feats" requires poking, prodding and asking several times in person, before the answer of "sure, whatever," tends to come out...! So giving them extra reading material is a bit pointless.) Which is why I do the aforementioned background policy where I localise (and sometimes have to come up largely oout of the whole cloth!) their backgrounds.

(I, on the other hand, buy and read Golorian fluff for fun, as well as run the APs there.)

I also sometimes use the backgrounds set-up the characters to meet, since it lead to more interesting starts that "you are at the inn...!"

Twizzly513
2017-05-23, 08:09 AM
I'm a GM. However, I'm not offended at all by what you said because it's true. I play with other GMs and if my character concept changes their "awesome story" from what they want it to exactly be, then it's basically trash and I have to change it. But the problem with GMs is that they're not mature or experienced enough.

It's like the one bully who gets away with everything because no one stands up to them. If every time you say you'd like something changed and they say no, and you go "Oh well okay I'll keep playing then," then they won't ever feel a need to change it. But really leaving and showing that they can't be a tyrant over everybody's enjoyment of the game probably will show them that they either need to fix something or not GM.

For instance, in one campaign I'm running, my characters are in a dungeon. It was originally made by the titans to keep people out of their little demiplane where they were imprisoned because they didn't want to be bothered by people that weren't powerful. But then the dungeon was raided and inhabited by a civilization of lion-people. Well one character died by a boulder, and I changed it to just lions to many kinds of cats so that he could play a panther person. Originally they were going to have to get past all the fortifications and fight the sorcerer king that ruled over them. However, with the new character they just kind of roleplayed their way in and talked to the sorcerer king, who let them pass. I think that's what you mean when you say changing the story.

Lorsa
2017-05-23, 08:30 AM
To 90sMusic:

I have given it some thought, and I realized your question is part of a larger problem.

Namely: Why does no one every address the "People are selfish" problem?

There are plenty of idealized "good-natured" people we look up to whom speak about looking out for your fellow man and against being selfish. Yet I seem to run into selfish people everywhere. How come there is so little talk about this?

Since DMs are typically part of the larger subset group called "people", it is little surprise that if there are selfish people, there are selfish DMs.

So solving the problem of selfish people will automatically solve the selfish DM problem, with the added bonus of improving the world in a greater way.



"Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach."

I am sorry, but I really hate that quite. Apart from being flat-out inaccurate, it is also demeaning to what is arguably the most important profession (discounting farmers and other food producers).

Pex
2017-05-23, 08:35 AM
Sure, the players have every right to make suggestions, and the DMs should listen and follow said suggestions when plausable. But that doesn't mean the DM HAS to take EVERY suggestion.

When you get a group of people who play together regularly, the group eventually reaches a synergy...everybody knows what they like and don't like, and the group discusses the type of game they want to play next, and come up with house rules that they all agree on, etc. When you introduce a new player to the mix, it behooves him/her to take time to get acclimated to the group dynamic, before trying to assert their own personal brand of creativity....they need to learn what the rest of the group likes and doesn't. You don't sit in on a game at your local game store, and then start throwing homebrew stuff at the GM after a week (subjective) of play.


That's a far cry from your complaint of players on these forums who have never DMed offering advise on what makes for a good DM.

redwizard007
2017-05-23, 09:32 AM
News flash. I am a bad DM. I have railroaded. I have had seedy inns that usually get burned down. I have let PCs actually ascend to godhood. I have TPK'd. I have killed PCs individually. I have argued with a player over what his vampire spawn did after his death. I have misinterpreted rules. I have used dream sequences. I have allowed my girlfriends to play. I have shoehorned players into settings and styles that weren't exactly what they wanted. I have also grown.

In a few of these games things did not go well. In the TPK, a black dragon got a lucky shot in the surprise round and I had miss judged the challenge. The look on my players' faces was pure shock. I owed them an apology, and they got one. I still catch **** for that. But guess what? We still play.

I am one of 3 or 4 DM options in our group that has been going off and on for 20 years. If one of us does stupid crap the others will roll with it in game, but post session feedback is a big deal with us. If mistakes were made, they are recognized, fixed, and put behind us. That's the key. If you have a toxic DM, or someone who is running a game you don't enjoy, then bow out or speak up.

Mutazoia
2017-05-23, 10:44 AM
That's a far cry from your complaint of players on these forums who have never DMed offering advise on what makes for a good DM.

Not really, no. The two are not mutually exclusive, as there is a difference between "Hey, I notice your making me roll a dex check every time I try to tie my shoes, how about we not do that." (hyperbole example) and "hey, how about you just make a huge sandbox and let me do what ever the hell I want and just make stuff up with little to no notice on where I'm going or what I'm going to do when I get there, because I think that having a central plot to a campaign is railroading." or "hey, I want to make my own homebrew class and drop it in the middle of your game with no warning at all, and you need to let me because it's MY character dammit."

Scathain
2017-05-23, 10:50 AM
My homebrew campaign world is going through a war right now, and though I have a vision for how I want certain events to unfold, I always consider the players a worthy wildcard.

An example: players are tasked by King X to kill evil fire giant warlord Y during the height of King X's war with king Z. Now the players were just in it for fame and fortune, not out of any love for King X or nationalism.
However, King X NARRATIVELY is extremely important to me, was once a character another one of my players managed to get to 20 and achieve his wildest dreams, and I would be awfully sad if they had decided to kill him.

But instead planning for divine intervention on the part of King X, or WORSE, railroading be players into falling in line, I planned in the case of his death AND in case of his success. Guess what the players did? They turned against the king, but instead of killing him they had him exiled.

I guess my point is: trust your players. They know what's best in their characters' minds, and it's up to the DM to create a story around THEIR choices. If I decide to go back and write the book on my world, THEN I'll go back and change things as I see fit.

neonchameleon
2017-05-23, 12:30 PM
I have been an avid watcher of the Acquisitions Incorporated games and Critical Role games for years now and I love watching all of the associated content. A lot of it features the DM's like Matthew Mercer and Chris Perkins talking about how to be a really good DM. I've also watched other videos on the same topic from the likes of Matthew Colville and a number of others who are both "big names" and just random people who have played for 20+ years.

They all say very similar things about how to adapt your story and campaign and change interactions and so on to suit the players and make it more enjoyable for them...

That is what all of them say. All of them.

But the REALITY of D&D I have found to be completely different. Every DM I come across has their own little "vision" for what they want their world to be and what they want their game to be. They will deny absolutely everything that doesn't conform exactly to the little story they want to tell, sometimes even blocking out entire races or classes from the PHB just because they don't like them. They create new, arbitrary rules that disrupt the balance of the game just because they had a bad experience with something one time. They only follow the game rules when they work in THEIR favor, but anytime the game rules work in the favor of a player the DM ignores the written rules and instead changes things so they basically get their way.

This sounds pretty close to what was advocated in the 90s based on Dragonlance and the metaplot that was being churned out. It is also what seems to be indicated by the rulebooks for D&D and Paizo's adventure paths also point fairly hard at the DM writing the plot and the players not derailing it much.

Fundamentally I am aware of three basic ways of running a non-GMless RPG.


"Classic" Sandbox/Dungeoncrawl. The GM creates the world and the players explore it (common in the OSR)
The game has a world and a plot. Both created by the GM.
Shared authority. Common among Indygames/Storygames.


People frequently decry the first option as "hack and slash" - when as D&D was set up you'd messed up if you were in a fight. It's a game of risk and reward and what you value. I could say more about it but it's for another thread.

The second is what's being talked about here as the problem.

The third is what's being advocated by the big name DMs. But here's the kicker. Sharing authority requires negotiation - and D&D has almost no tools to do so. It doesn't have the aspects of Fate, the ties to the world of Dungeon World or Blades in the Dark, or the guidance of those games. And the guidance such as there is tends to be poor.

This means that for a new D&D DM to manage the more collaborative playstyle they more or less have to invent the tools (like the session zero, means for the players to endow, fast improv statblocks, scene handling mechanics, character arcs that are highlighted by the rules, etc.) by themselves. Some do - but most don't in part because the books barely even hint they are possible and instead publish adventure paths that imply that the GM dictates the plot.

kyoryu
2017-05-23, 01:31 PM
"Classic" Sandbox/Dungeoncrawl. The GM creates the world and the players explore it (common in the OSR)
The game has a world and a plot. Both created by the GM.
Shared authority. Common among Indygames/Storygames.


Eh, I think there's room for a non-railroad plot without delving into the shared authority space. It's certainly how I try to run a lot of games.


The third is what's being advocated by the big name DMs. But here's the kicker. Sharing authority requires negotiation - and D&D has almost no tools to do so. It doesn't have the aspects of Fate, the ties to the world of Dungeon World or Blades in the Dark, or the guidance of those games. And the guidance such as there is tends to be poor.

Or "set up a situation, and respond to it". That doesn't require authority, and doesn't need to be hack and slash.


This means that for a new D&D DM to manage the more collaborative playstyle they more or less have to invent the tools (like the session zero, means for the players to endow, fast improv statblocks, scene handling mechanics, character arcs that are highlighted by the rules, etc.) by themselves.

Not all of these are required (you don't need scene handling mechanics, or character arcs highlighted by the rules). You do need fast improv - but that predates the current "narrative" games and really goes back to old school games. Heck, even Apocalypse World, which is in many ways the poster child for narrative games, doesn't have a lot of these.


Some do - but most don't in part because the books barely even hint they are possible and instead publish adventure paths that imply that the GM dictates the plot.

Adventure Paths rely on the "GM (or the publisher) writes the story" model because that's the only way their business model works. If you don't know (within a fairly reasonable degree) the state of the important bits of the world after the first module, how can you write the second?

Yora
2017-05-23, 01:51 PM
Fundamentally I am aware of three basic ways of running a non-GMless RPG.


"Classic" Sandbox/Dungeoncrawl. The GM creates the world and the players explore it (common in the OSR)
The game has a world and a plot. Both created by the GM.
Shared authority. Common among Indygames/Storygames.


People frequently decry the first option as "hack and slash" - when as D&D was set up you'd messed up if you were in a fight.

I think this resulted from the reasoning of "If you take away the plot, then senseless fighting is all you have left". This happens when you already have the plotted adventure internalized as the only possible way to run a campaign. This kept me away from dungeon cawling for years.
I think the 3rd Edition DMG is also to blame for presenting this as the alternative to plotted adventures. Don't know if later editions did any better in that regard.

draken50
2017-05-23, 02:12 PM
Responding late in the game, but personally I don't think there is a problem with GM's being selfish... maybe bad communicators about what to expect by playing in the game they are running/hosting, but I don't see selfishness as the problem.

I am the kind of GM with a this is the game I'm going to run, if you don't like that kind of game go somewhere else. I don't show up to a show by an AC\DC cover band, demand they play Iron Maiden and call them selfish if they don't. That just doesn't make any sense.

That being said, if I show up to see a show billed as an AC\DC cover band and they play journey covers the whole time, there's a problem with communication or a least a joke I wasn't in on.

Every GM is free to run whatever game they want, and every player is free to not play in that game at any time. By the same token, the GM is always free to not involve whatever players they want even if for some smattering of social blah blah blah they don't think that's the case.

In ideal circumstances the GM will explain the game they want to run clearly and have buy in from the players in that game. If the GM isn't happy with what the players want them to run, or the players aren't happy with what the GM wants to run, then you have a mismatch, and its a bad idea to play that game.

Additionally, one GM's ability to adapt to player preferences, or adjustment of rules, or lack thereof has absolutely no bearing on any other GM's ability to do the same thing. I don't care if you're previous GM was happy having his campaign turn into a giant power rangers reference or that some guy on you tube lets his players play as Elminster or what not... He's not GMing the game. What I do at my table is what I do at my table, there may be overlap with others, and some GMs may have differing ideas on how to run a good game. That's nice... but my table is my table and my game is my game, and I expect that to be true of any GM who understands that no one is "entitled" to play the game any specific way.

FreddyNoNose
2017-05-23, 05:49 PM
1974?

I think that makes you "King Grognard".

I bow to you sir.

Thanks but not really. Just a gamer. Lived south of Lake Geneva and had access.

Solaris
2017-05-23, 10:33 PM
You seem to be talking mostly about public games, and especially online games. In public games, the DM wants to strongly define *exactly* what rules will be used before hand, along with what options will and won't be available. Before they even begin to solicit players. Doing otherwise is a recipe for a generic game that will fall apart, instead of being compelling and unique. Or at least unique enough to draw players.

I once tried the "have the players participate more in game world creation" mistake.
One did.
The rest whined about how little there was to the world because I was left having to fill in the gaps when they got lazy and didn't even get so far as describing their home towns.
Never again.

After having been burned by that experience and a couple of others, I'm nowhere near as lenient as I used to be. If something doesn't fit in my setting, thematically or otherwise, then it doesn't fit. Period. My protesting your shoehorning your special snowflake race into my carefully crafted setting isn't being selfish, it's refusing to let someone vandalize my art. When a player puts as much effort into the world as I do, or even just puts effort into integrating their idea, then we can start talking. Even then, my answer is probably still going to be 'no' - but at least I'm going to be nicer about it and appreciate your efforts rather than react like someone taking a baseball bat to my Warhammer armies. I'm afraid there's simply no way that half-fiendish druid is going to fit in with Star Wars, nor will that evil centaur assassin work in a Knights of the Round Table setting. Player autonomy is a beautiful thing, but letting someone bring in something that doesn't work in the game is going to damage it for everyone who isn't them.

After all, by the "GM shouldn't be selfish" logic, it's perfectly acceptable for a player to be a murderhobo whenever they feel like it. GM's got a story going? Everyone else is having fun? Too bad! This guy wants to run around killing things, and it's selfish to stop him!


I met Greg Stafford, and I think someone at this Forum met Steve Perrin, but you met freakin' Dave Arneson???!!!!

My dad has a character sheet signed by Dave Arneson.
He's rather proud of it.

Re: "Those who can't do, teach."
My English professor thinks the Brothers Grimm were English (and we're not gonna go into her hilariously bad comprehension of medieval law) and that the most important parts of characterization are the character's name, gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and other external identifying factors as opposed to how they interact with their setting. The adage is not without a basis in reality.

Mutazoia
2017-05-24, 12:25 AM
Re: "Those who can't do, teach."
My English professor thinks the Brothers Grimm were English (and we're not gonna go into her hilariously bad comprehension of medieval law) and that the most important parts of characterization are the character's name, gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and other external identifying factors as opposed to how they interact with their setting. The adage is not without a basis in reality.

The quote is not always deragatory. Many great, professional ball players have reached an age where they cannot keep up with the newer, younger players. They retire from playing, and instead become a coach. They can't play, but they can teach.

However, we often get the other end of the spectrum. The end implied above, and probably better summed up by my favorite quote (applied to corporate gibbons who run businesses they've never actually worked in). To wit: "I don't know what it is you do there, but I know how you can do it better."

Lorsa
2017-05-24, 03:04 AM
Eh, I think there's room for a non-railroad plot without delving into the shared authority space. It's certainly how I try to run a lot of games.

+

Or "set up a situation, and respond to it". That doesn't require authority, and doesn't need to be hack and slash.

It's how I try to run my games too. So I agree there is definitely place for non-railroaded plots without shared authority.

sktarq
2017-05-24, 06:17 PM
On the trying to be non-railroady but in charge. It is the ideal of many but issue is often how.

I know for me session zero was how I solved much of it. It allows for the communication that get both sides what they need.

Basic idea of what the group would be like.
What kind of feel and adventures the players wanted (for these I'll usually list options I like running and the group discusses what options they like and I'm willing to listen to new stuff at that point)
I mentioned what books are fair game-by saying so before anyone has created a character people seemed pretty relaxed about it. Nobody is attached to an idea yet.
Either create the character with the person in a one-on-one session or have them create a quick concept sketch (a paragraph or so) for a few options emailed to me and I'll say what works or doesn't about each (usually related to how each would fit in the party and world) before they work up a final character
While the builds are going on is when I build out the world/plot/etc.

So yeah. It's more work for me this way but I can't say I've had players not feel as though they are being railroaded. Yeah it's my world and I do have final say of what goes in (no I don't want to deal with Psionics or beastmen thankyou) and players get a good idea of what is expected of them too. But they also know they shaped the game world and an idea of a functional group dynamic which gives them emotional buy-in that is often key.

How do you guys splits the control but not railroad issue? Or at least what do you do that you thinks works?

Asha Leu
2017-05-25, 09:06 PM
Quite a few different things being discussed in this thread, so I'll try my best to address each of them. Warning: very long post ahead.

First of all, I think it's important to bear in mind that with something like D&D (and other tabletop games), everyone has their own rather unique preconceptions of what a "good" or "bad" game is, and are pretty heavily biased by their own experiences.

This is particularly the case if you usually play with a semi-consistent group of real-life friends. Generally everyone in the group has either been introduced to and taught the game by other members of the group or were the ones doing the teaching, perhaps with one or two who learnt about it from an older relative or a different friend. This was definitely my experience growing up - most of us were introduced to D&D by one friend of ours, whose older brother had introduced him to the game. Newer players were then brought in and taught the game by us.

Environments like that become a bit of an echo chamber, with the group gravitating to certain play-styles and house-rules which, to them, are just "how D&D is played." I remember being shocked when I first started visiting D&D forums back in high school and learned that, in most games, the player comes up with their character's backstory, not the DM. The way we would handle backstories was: in the first session, the DM would quickly come up with a brief backstory (generally on the spot, but sometimes it would be written out ahead of time, depending on how prepared the DM in question was) for each player based on their race, class and the campaign itself. We never knew there was any other way of doing it.

Likewise, people's opinions will be significantly biased by their own play experiences.

If they mostly DM, their gripes will generally be with players. If they mostly play, they will have a lot more gripes about DMs. If they're used to DMs who railroad players into their intricate, unchangeable plots, they may be desperate for more free-form, sandboxy games, or they may just think that's what D&D is and have no desire for anything different (in which case, if they DM their own games, they will do the same thing). If they're used to DMs who are never prepared, just make it all up as they go, and run chaotic, anything-goes games, they may be desperate for some actual structure and story, and not give a damn about being railroaded, or they may just think that's what D&D is and have no desire for anything different (in which case, if they DM their own games, they will do the same thing).

If they DM for players who are obsessive rules-lawyers, optimize their characters to the hilt, and use twenty different sourcebooks for a single character, they may be desperate for some easy-going players who just want to have fun and roleplay, or they may just think that's what D&D is and have no desire for anything different. If they DM for players who are hopeless with remembering the rules, don't own their own books, and continually forget which dice to roll after years of playing, they may be desperate for some rules-lawyers and optimizers, because, hey, at least they are guaranteed to own and have read the rulebooks. Or they may just think that's what D&D is and have no desire for anything different. And if they DM for players who intensely roleplay through every encounter, spend ages on in-character conversations between party members without an NPC in sight, and deliberately make un-optimized characters for roleplay purposes, they may be desperate for some people who just want to kill **** and get gold. Or they may just think that's what D&D is and have no desire for anything different.

My point being that much of the things that cause conflict between players and/or DMs playing together for the first time come from their own unique experiences and preconceptions about what D&D is.

As far as my own biases go, for example, I've had little experience with optimizers, and a lot of experience with players who are fuzzy on the rules and don't own their own books. The one serious optimizer in my group is also the one most into role-playing. My group played 3.5 for 4-5 years without using anything besides the core rulebooks and one or two extra Monster Manuals. It wasn't until I visited online forums that I learnt that martial characters were apparently underpowered compared to spellcasters - we had no idea! I was the only one who ever bought Dragon magazine and splatbooks (well, one: the Expanded Psionics Handbook), and would make futile efforts to encourage players in my game to use them. This would be a regular conversation during character creation:

Me: "Okay, guys, just remember, you can feel free to use anything in this pile of Dragon magazines, and I have the Psionics Handbook too. No class or race restrictions."
Player: "Nah, I think I'll just be a human fighter again."

So, I personally don't have any issue with "min-maxing" or the sheer amount of source-books certain D&D editions have. Someone engaged enough in the game to spend time properly optimizing a character with lots of different splatbooks is probably someone who owns their own books, knows the rules, and will be paying attention during combat. Sounds like the ideal player to me!

Additionally, as I mostly DM these days, my own frustrations are almost always with players. But when I do have issues with DMs, said issues are based on my own experiences with less-than-stellar DMs - and these gripes are very different from the OP's. I couldn't give a damn about being restricted from certain material or character concepts, or DMs who don't let players co-design the setting, or even a bit of railroading. What drives me up the wall, however, is DMs who are lazy and unprepared (unless the DM is really good at winging it), who don't allow player agency, who fail to run combat smoothly, and generally don't bother keeping the game moving.

On DM's not allowing stuff:

Yeah. Got to be honest here, I reckon you should just deal with it. It's their game and their setting - if they don't want a particular race or class or whatever, that's up to them. Which isn't to say that the DM in question is correct to restrict whatever they are restricting - it can definitely be taken too far - but if you don't like it, don't play in their game.

I take a pretty dim view of special-snowflake players who just have to be a certain character. As I said in another thread: if you play so much D&D that you're already bored of all the options that are available, then you will almost certainly get a chance to play your desired character in another game very soon. And I definitely have zero sympathy for anyone who complains about not being allowed to use homebrew material, particularly homebrew stuff they designed themselves, especially if I've specifically said "no homebrew" in the game listing. Or people set on being something that there's just no balanced option for in that particular game, like a lycanthrope that can control their transformation in 5E (seriously, what is it with everyone wanting to be a lycanthrope?)

DM's don't exist solely to serve players. They've got to have fun too, and part of the fun of being a DM is creating a world and telling a story, and elements that break the verisimilitude of the setting interfere with that (not to mention affect the enjoyment of players who dig that sort of stuff). DMing is a lot of work for no real reward beyond the actual enjoyment of running the game. There's no doubt that many DMs are ********s, or control freaks, or just idiots - every demographic unfortunately has their fair share - but when I hear people complaining how there's a "selfish DM" problem, I wonder if they've ever actually DMed before.

On sandbox games, player agency, and co-operative worlds:

I think that it's definitely possible to create a heavily player-driven, sandbox game without any player input on the setting itself.

My own games wouldn't really be considered "sandboxes", but I do try to make them pretty player-driven: generally, I do detailed prep for the upcoming session but rarely write out much beyond that (though the broad strokes are planned out in my head). That way, I can plan the next session based on what the players did in the previous session, and account for lots of potential routes the players may take in my campaign notes without being overwhelmed with work. It results in individual sessions that are heavily structured but an overall campaign that has a more sandbox feel, without being caught in too many situations where the players just do something insane and I have to wing it for a while (though, of course, in inevitably will happen).

The whole "DM and players design the setting together" thing is very new to me, and something I've rarely incorporated in my own games. Players will write their own backstories, and if they're from some tiny village or tribe or some far away land, they can come up with the names and details, but otherwise I give them a list of towns/areas/whatnot their character is likely to be from and they can take it from there. I'm not opposed to the idea of a co-operative setting - though it did surprise me the first time I played in a game that used this - but it's not something I feel is especially needed either, and it's certainly not something a DM is obliged to provide. And it definitely isn't a necessary component for a good sandbox or player-driven game... though it would probably mean less work on the DM's part.

Certainly, I can only think of one player in my RL group who'd have much interest in playing a game like that, nor do I particularly have much of a desire for it when I'm playing in someone else's game. I spend enough time coming up with that sort of stuff when I'm DMing - when I play, I just want to play. But I'm probably pretty old-school in that regard. I was brought up with the idea that the DM designs the world and the players interact with it, and it is a mindset that has stuck with me.

On Roll20 and other online games:

This is an issue of supply and demand. There are much, much more players than DMs on platforms like Roll20 (and in the tabletop gaming community at large). It is very difficult to get accepted into games as a player, and very easy for a DM to find players. So, yeah, if you're going to DM a game, you might as well design the game on your own terms.

Personally, when I DM a game for strangers on Roll20, I will pick a (mostly) non-negotiable play time, detail the premise/setting and any race/class/book restrictions upfront, and tell people to only apply if they are okay with all of this. I have enough headaches trying to organise compatible game times and the like with my RL friends - Roll20 is a chance for me to DM on my terms.

I'm going to be flooded with people wanting to play regardless of what's in the listing, so I may as well tailor it towards my own preferences. Anyone can find players on Roll20. I could put up a listing for a game where players are only allowed to use the Commoner statblock from the Manual Manual, never level up or get new equipment, and every so often find their characters under the DM's control, and I'd have at least twenty applications within hours.

Now, I'm actually pretty easy-going in what I'll allow - I'm generally cool with nearly anything from official 5E sourcebooks, along with most Unearthed Arcana content - but I don't bemoan DMs with more strict restrictions at all. Their game, their choice. If you don't like it, don't play in their campaign.

CaptainSarathai
2017-05-26, 05:42 AM
Yeah, gotta say - I ban stuff out of hand because I don't want it. I'll shut characters and whole players down, if I don't want them.
Straight up? I don't care.
I put minimum age limits on my group and they're high, like "out of college" high. I want new players vetted, no stranger just jumps in mid-campaign.
I cannot abide edgelord characters. That is my A-number-1 pet peeve. That, and Mary Sues.

I play at an FLG and started up an Arthurian campaign using 5e rules. Right off I banned any race outside the PHB except Goliath, and also banned Drow, Tieflings, and Dragonborn. I banned Druids, Sorcerers, Wizards, and Warlocks. I also banned some backgrounds.
I did it because I want to run a certain kind of campaign. Don't want to be part of it, find another table.

I have DMed for a decade now, straight through. I have seen horrible players. I've only met a few other DMs and I didn't like half of them either, but I have seen far more bad PCs.

I want people to have fun and enjoy my games. I put time and effort and money into running my games. But I'm also spending time with real people, and I need to enjoy their company more than I enjoy staying at home drinking wine and playing Skyrim in my underpants. So if someone is immature, whiney, or I just can't stand that they named their character 'Kotaru' and only communicate in obscure anime references... Yeah, they're out.

Truly, honestly, it's my goal to sit down and collaboratively build a world with my friends and really explore it together, players and DM. Problem is, everyone is a selfish DM, given the chance. If I say we're collaborating, people won't compromise and then they'll be mad. Sometimes, our friends are idiots. Sometimes the people we like best, aren't equipped to help invent a cool new world - all their ideas just suck and the group only agrees 'anything but that.' That's why the DAM exists - to cut through all the noise and chatter and come up with something that pleases mostly everyone.

2D8HP
2017-05-26, 08:03 AM
....That's why the DAM exists - to cut through all the noise and chatter and come up with something that pleases mostly everyone.

What is DAM?

Fable Wright
2017-05-26, 08:11 AM
Are there any DM's out there who actually work with their players and build the world together instead of making all of the decisions themselves? Any DMs who enjoy the game vicariously through their players and focus on their players having a good time instead of changing all the rules so that YOU as the DM have all the "fun" at the player's expense?

Yep. I'm lazy, creativity is hard, and I have no idea what players really want out of my games.

So they each get one little bit of the setting to tell me about, and I string it together and fill in the blanks. They each tell me what their character goals are, and I tell them just how many mountains are between them and their goals. When the players fight, I assume that they're going to steamroll the encounters given the fact that they're both creative and absurdly powerful; I instead put all the difficulty in getting the players to arrange their battles in such a way that they actually advance their goals. If I have big, overarching goals, I want to be on the player side of the screen so I can feel vindication when I make them happen.

Then again, my entire group is basically made of people who are GMing other games, and we met on forums for discussing a really niche game that relatively few casual players know about. We've got investment, trust, and buy-in, while games with a lot of first-time players would disintegrate with this style of direction.

So, to answer your question: Based off personal experience, I'd say that 'good' GMs definitely exist, but it would be terrible if only they existed. Also, that they're a lot more likely to build a group based off the people they know, rather than doing online recruitment of randos.

LibraryOgre
2017-05-26, 08:21 AM
I'll also add... collaborative worlds are, in many ways, harder. They require more buy-in from the players. A DM-led world requires relatively little effort from the players... they need to understand their character's part in it, and not much else. This is fantastic when you've got a bunch of people with plenty of lives and responsibilities, using some of their free time to play a game.

ImNotTrevor
2017-05-26, 06:21 PM
I'll also add... collaborative worlds are, in many ways, harder. They require more buy-in from the players. A DM-led world requires relatively little effort from the players... they need to understand their character's part in it, and not much else. This is fantastic when you've got a bunch of people with plenty of lives and responsibilities, using some of their free time to play a game.

It's strange. I've had no problem with collaborative worlds even with absolute novice players who only have one day per week to play, inconsistently.

It's as simple as occassionally making it a matter of asking players questions within the starting context.

"What is a rumor going around that you hope is not true?"

"There's a festival on today. What's it for?"

"You see someone who you recognize, and you immediately know things are about to get worse. Who is it and why do you think that?"

Questions like that give threads for players to pull on and elaborate their own world. In systems that support such play, these types of questions are great! And in my experience they enhance player buy-in, rather than requiring it up-front. (Any more than any other method requires buy-in, anyways.)

Solaris
2017-05-28, 11:31 AM
Y'know the most annoying part of the surplus of players? Half of them are still gonna disappear, despite the fact that they beat out a bunch of other players for the slot. It rather galls me that they snatch up a spot they don't seem to actually want simply for the sake of, apparently, making a character and keeping someone else from getting the slot. It seems rather... unethical.


I'll also add... collaborative worlds are, in many ways, harder. They require more buy-in from the players. A DM-led world requires relatively little effort from the players... they need to understand their character's part in it, and not much else. This is fantastic when you've got a bunch of people with plenty of lives and responsibilities, using some of their free time to play a game.

They also have the problem of utterly eradicating the lead-time I usually like to use to develop the world. It's been my experience that players want to start now, and if they don't then they're going to lose interest fast. I haven't come across too many groups that were very interested in spending a couple of weeks developing a setting before they got to play in it. I can see why collaborative world-building wouldn't appeal to a lot of players, actually; helping to make a world robs the player of some of the mystery and wonder of looting exploring it.

I think collaborative world-building could work for a New World/colonization type campaign, though. It provides the broad strokes of a setting, and it's not like the PCs would actually know anything about the new and unexplored territory.

2D8HP
2017-05-28, 01:02 PM
Honestly, the current "typical model" is, I think, busted.

By the "typical model" I mean the idea that the GM will prepare a campaign in his world, with all of hte story points planned out. Into this you drop six PCs, who are all generated independently and without knowledge of what the campaign is about. And somehow they have to work together and be compatible even though nobody has any idea of what anybody else (including the GM) is doing. And then the game falls apart if some of them drop out because you have needed roles and the game fails without them.

I mean, it's just a recipe for disaster.



Y'know the most annoying part of the surplus of players? Half of them are still gonna disappear...


One thing that I've noticed with PbP games at this Forum is typically the DM selects players based on the back-stories submitted by the players. Often there's little in the way of hints as to what sorts of PC's will fit the "campaign", and presumably the DM selects players whose PC's fit, but more often they just seem to pick the one's with the highest word count, or snazzy illustrations.

At the start of the "game", the players lovingly narrate their PC's introducing themselves, and that's it, the players drop out.

The current model of selecting players encourages those who's chief interest is making and sharing PC's and their back-stories, but not actually playing a game much beyond that.

A bit of competitive soliloquies and nothing else.

Maybe a different model?

How about DM's ask for volunteers to play pre-gens that fit the world already?


...I think collaborative world-building could work for a New World/colonization type campaign, though. It provides the broad strokes of a setting, and it's not like the PCs would actually know anything' about the new and unexplored territory.

Um, that seems completely opposite.


It's strange. I've had no problem with collaborative worlds even with absolute novice players who only have one day per week to play, inconsistently.

It's as simple as occassionally making it a matter of asking players questions within the starting context.

"What is a rumor going around that you hope is not true?"

"There's a festival on today. What's it for?"

"You see someone who you recognize, and you immediately know things are about to get worse. Who is it and why do you think that?"

Questions like that give threads for players to pull on and elaborate their own world. In systems that support such play, these types of questions are great! And in my experience they enhance player buy-in, rather than requiring it up-front. (Any more than any other method requires buy-in, anyways.)


I don't like that because it diminishes my sense of exploring a world. When a DM says, "What do you want to find there?", my response is, "A setting, not an Empty Room!".

The only time I've thought that "Collaborative Worldbuilding" works well is when a player has their PC give a tour of their old-neighborhood/village to the other PC's. One amusing (to me) example was a player who made up a striving working-class mixed human and orc community for his half-orc to come from, that had a meek baker surnamed "Dwarfsplitter", and the sweet old lady school teacher "Bloodshedder".

Theoboldi
2017-05-28, 03:05 PM
The current model of selecting players encourages those who's chief interest is making and sharing PC's and their back-stories, but not actually playing a game much beyond that.

Maybe a different model?

How about DM's ask for volunteers to play pre-gens that fit the world already?


This is actually quite an interesting idea, because I absolutely see where you're coming from with this idea. The current set-up does pose the problem of attracting players who are interested in creating a character, but then swiftly lose interest in the game once that character loses its novelty or the game doesn't move at the pace they hoped for.

While these are not the only players who enter games only to leave them (sometimes it comes down to real life suddenly interfering, or the campaign's style being completely different from what they've envisioned, etc.), they certainly are a big problem.

I'm actually interested to see if your proposed model would work. The big issue I see with it as is, however, is that I usually ask for a backstory to see which players are actually interested in the same kind of tone you want, what kind of character the players imagine for themselves, and if they are ready to work to fit their character into the setting I propose.

By what criteria would you suggest the GM chose the players for that game? How should he decide who gets to play those pre-gens? I'd consider asking for references and prior games, but that would just end up discriminating against newer players who can't have them, and I find references to be of little use to actually find people that will enjoy your campaign while causing me additional workload having to read up on them.

Perhaps the GM could present several short situations, and ask the applicants to provide a short writing sample the length of a usual post to see how they'd approach each of them with the pre-gen they want to play?

Max_Killjoy
2017-05-28, 03:21 PM
The DM runs the world, players run their characters. The DM has access to all the secret info that your characters may or may not discover.

On the other hand, more modern games, such as the Apocalypse Engine games and Fate Core, demand collaboration from the players.


Someone has to manage all the things that the PCs, and thus the players, don't know or don't have control over.

2D8HP
2017-05-28, 03:36 PM
....Perhaps the GM could present several short situations, and ask the applicants to provide a short writing sample the length of a usual post to see how they'd approach each of them with the pre-gen they want to play?


Oh, that's good!

Unfortunately it does sound like more work for both the potential players and the DM (a player can't just re-use an old backstory, a DM has to write a preview), but that proposal does seem to model an actual game better.

Except that it would probably make it less likely for me to be picked, but if I was I think the games would last longer.

I like it!

Koo Rehtorb
2017-05-28, 03:53 PM
I don't think you're going to avoid the problem that PbP is inherently a bad format to have a game in.

Max_Killjoy
2017-05-28, 04:01 PM
Honestly, the current "typical model" is, I think, busted.

By the "typical model" I mean the idea that the GM will prepare a campaign in his world, with all of hte story points planned out. Into this you drop six PCs, who are all generated independently and without knowledge of what the campaign is about. And somehow they have to work together and be compatible even though nobody has any idea of what anybody else (including the GM) is doing. And then the game falls apart if some of them drop out because you have needed roles and the game fails without them.

I mean, it's just a recipe for disaster.


The other extreme I've seen suggested is that character creation and campaign creation should all be collectivized to the extent that the world has no secrets, the plot has no secrets, and the PCs have no secrets, at least not at campaign start. Players get to meddle -- not suggest or exchange ideas, but outright meddle -- in each other's characters, and nothing about the world or ongoing events can be established unless it's openly shared.

IMO, this is an overreaction to the sort of problem you're pointing out, and is a cure that's at least as bad as a malady.

I think there's a middle ground, a healthy medium in which the players know enough about each others' characters and collaborate enough to not clash, and the GM takes player preferences and PC builds into account, and players know enough about what sort of campaign they're in to integrate their characters into it.


E: Looks like you and Yora both beat me to to it, anyway.



Eh, I think there's room for a non-railroad plot without delving into the shared authority space. It's certainly how I try to run a lot of games.


Or "set up a situation, and respond to it". That doesn't require authority, and doesn't need to be hack and slash.


Not all of these are required (you don't need scene handling mechanics, or character arcs highlighted by the rules). You do need fast improv - but that predates the current "narrative" games and really goes back to old school games. Heck, even Apocalypse World, which is in many ways the poster child for narrative games, doesn't have a lot of these.


Adventure Paths rely on the "GM (or the publisher) writes the story" model because that's the only way their business model works. If you don't know (within a fairly reasonable degree) the state of the important bits of the world after the first module, how can you write the second?


I think this resulted from the reasoning of "If you take away the plot, then senseless fighting is all you have left". This happens when you already have the plotted adventure internalized as the only possible way to run a campaign. This kept me away from dungeon cawling for years.
I think the 3rd Edition DMG is also to blame for presenting this as the alternative to plotted adventures. Don't know if later editions did any better in that regard.


There does seem to be that idea floating around that we have only the choices between firm DM preplotting, or no plot/story at all... between authoritarian DMs, or absolute chaos.

Solaris
2017-05-28, 04:10 PM
One thing that I've noticed with PbP games at this Forum is typically the DM selects players based on the back-stories submitted by the players. Often there's little in the way of hints as to what sorts of PC's will fit the "campaign", and presumably the DM selects players whose PC's fit, but more often they just seem to pick the one's with the highest word count, or snazzy illustrations.

At the start of the "game", the players lovingly narrate their PC's introducing themselves, and that's it, the players drop out.

The current model of selecting players encourages those who's chief interest is making and sharing PC's and their back-stories, but not actually playing a game much beyond that.

A bit of competitive soliloquies and nothing else.

Maybe a different model?

How about DM's ask for volunteers to play pre-gens that fit the world already?

I go with Skype, either for at least part of the gaming or for the OOC conversation. That seems fairly unpopular, but the players who do go for it tend to stick around longer. Most importantly, I now look for the players who are most active and engaged.
The last time I ran a game where I picked out the players that way (one guy dropping because I kicked his friend out for being an ******* rules lawyer who interrupted a combat for a fifteen-minute argument over an utterly pointless point aside) the game lasted until I wasn't able to get interwebs anymore on account of not having a place to live. That wasn't even a very good game, either; it was the one where I learned players tend to have a vastly different definition of collaborative world-building and sandbox-style play than I do. I was able to rescue the 'miscommunication' on sandbox by throwing in rails and a plot, but because of the slapdash nature of everything it was a far from satisfying experience for anyone involved and they still stuck around. Heck, they're the first group of online players I've had where I could honestly say that if they were to apply for another one of my games, I'd take them instead of making a pointed reminder about how they vanished from my last game.


Um, that seems completely opposite.

Then think about it differently, because you're looking at it the wrong way. Players tend to contribute broad, little-defined components - in this case, it doesn't much matter whether they be for the new world or the old. The exploratory nature of such a campaign gives the GM time to integrate said components from the new world, and they'll likely never return to the old world so those components can remain vague.

Contrast that with Eberron, Krynn, and the Forgotten Realms, which are all entirely filled in and have hundreds of pages describing them. Players used to that expect to know the map and everything on it, have hundreds of pages of material available (that they'll never read, of course), and if you have anything less than that your world is crap. More to the point, given the typical D&D player's apparent allergy towards creativity, you're going to need to define everything around them for their special little snowflakes to set their tragic pasts in. If you're very, very lucky, they'll even give you some idea of what they're looking for instead of complaining or pouncing on you for having made the mistake of being a human rather than a machine perfectly designed to provide them entertainment.

Not that I'm bitter or anything.


Oh, that's good!

Unfortunately it does sound like more work for both the potential players and the DM (a player can't just re-use an old backstory, a DM has to write a preview), but that proposal does seem to model an actual game better.

Except that it would probably make it less likely for me to be picked, but if I was I think the games would last longer.

I like it!

It doesn't do anything for the real problem, though, which is unreliability.
Being a good - or even great - writer does not make a player reliable. It doesn't matter if you have George RR Martin and JRR Tolkien in your PbP if only one of them is actually going to bother posting anything.


I don't think you're going to avoid the problem that PbP is inherently a bad format to have a game in.

I agree. The farther I get from the standard PbP model, the more success I've had with games.

Lord Raziere
2017-05-28, 04:35 PM
I agree. The farther I get from the standard PbP model, the more success I've had with games.

Yeah, freeform PbP is better, because there is no system to hold you back and the medium makes you think through your actions and responses so that they make sense. Just make a world, let whoever come in and post and it generally works better than trying to systematize it, because a normal PbP will cut out most of the players who'd want to play just arbitrarily, as well as make you have to go through pdfs and books to look things up, make you remember how to roll stuff, just a lot of stuff that isn't needed in a PbP medium that'll bog things down and make you unable to post anything more because your so tired from just making the character according to the rules, since most resolution systems do not work well over the internet, because they are all meant to be played in real time, and PbP is anything but.

DataNinja
2017-05-28, 04:46 PM
I go with Skype, either for at least part of the gaming or for the OOC conversation. That seems fairly unpopular, but the players who do go for it tend to stick around longer.

I definitely agree with this. I admin on a strictly PbP site, and had some PbP experience prior to that, and I've found that the average lifespan of our games has gone up drastically since we began encouraging some form of RT conversations. Any game that is just PbP, with only an OOC thread for communication, if that, tends not to last long. There are exceptions, of course, but as a general rule, more immediate communication equals a better experience.

So, yeah, that feeds into another point made, which is that the games aren't designed for PbP. And, this is true. You can make the most out of the situation given, though, by having some way to easily socialize with your GM and fellow players outside of the game. I've made several friendships that way, that have long outlasted the original games that we were in together.

2D8HP
2017-05-28, 05:21 PM
I go with Skype, .


Yeah, I'm never going to "Skype".


I go with Skype, More to the point, given the typical D&D player's apparent allergy towards creativity, you're going to need to define everything around them for their special little snowflakes to set their tragic pasts in.


You don't need to a "World" at all!

Once I sussed that DM's tend to go by word count, and how many dead relatives you pile into the back-story, and since others have noticed the same thing it's become easy to systemize PC back-story production:

Names:

Edgy name generator! Roll 3d20!



d20
First name
Last name (1st half)
Last name (2nd half)


1
Agony
Beast
Arrow


2
Dagger
Black
Blade


3
Ghost
Blood
Blood


4
Ghoul
Cold
Bone


5
Gloom
Dark
Crow


6
Misery
Despair
Dark


7
Mist
Doom
Demon


8
Moon
Ever
Death


9
Pain
Fright
Eye


10
Raven
Fury
Flame


11
[Refuses to state first name]
Grim
Heart


12
Shadow
Hate
Ice


13
Shudder
Never
Mark


14
Spider
Pain
Martyr


15
Talon
Poison
Scar


16
Twilight
Razor
Shackle


17
Venom
Steel
Skin


18
Wander
Storm
Skull


19
Whisper
True
Snow


20
Wolf
Vengeance
Sword



A few try-outs:

Talon Despairmartyr
Dagger Razorflame
Twilight Poisonice
Venom Darkcrow
Misery Whisperdeath

Working as intended, it seems.


Class, Race, and Tragic Events:

Well, here is an edgy character generator I made for 5th edition D&D. Use with the name generator. Enjoy!



1d6
Race


1
Human


2
Half-orc


3
Drow


4
Half-drow


5
Tiefling


6
Ghostwise Halfling






1d10
Class


1
Fiend Warlock


2
Shadow Sorcerer


3
Assassin Rogue


4
Undying Warlock


5
Death Cleric


6
War Cleric


7
Berserker Barbarian


8
Hunter Ranger


9
Vengance Paladin


10
Shadow Monk






1d8
Backstory p1
1d8
Backstory p2


1
I was abused by
1
Family member(s).


2
I hate
2
Dragon(s).


3
My family was killed by
3
Orc(s).


4
I am a transformed
4
Demon(s).


5
I am in love with a
5
Devil(s).


6
I killed a
6
Drow


7
I have the soul of a
7
Ghost(s).


8
I work for
8
Assassin(s).




Alignment:

I'll add some stuff to the class table.

Alignments that are edgy? I would say CG, CN, TN, LN, LE, NE. Gives us a nice 6 alignments.


1d6
Alignment


1
Chaotic good, Probably racist.


2
Chaotic neutral, 'classic' edgy character.


3
True neutral. Pragmatic to the core.


4
Lawful neutral. Probably serves an evil higher power.


5
Lawful evil. Lives by her own code.


6
Neutral evil. Like chaotic good, but probably racist towards more people.



Edit: The characters that are being ended up with are awesome. My tables do have a lot of bugs (killing an orc isn't much), but with the working for your family, what if your family is evil?


Drop in a physical description:

Grimblade Mourncloud rued birth into this world of pain and especially wearing spiked bracelets and skull epaulets to the mall that matched those adorning Darkfire Stormwind who's tragic deal and awesomicity had no match. THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE!
Verily if Darkfire Stormwind had any tears left to shed, surely they would turn to steam upon release due to the bitter fires that rage inside one such as Darkfire Stormwind! Just a gaze from Darkfire Stormwind steel colored eyes (which were set off well by the spiked bracelets, and skull epaulets) was enough to turn one such as Grimblade Mourncloud into a mere tepid stain at the mall!
Darkfire Stormwind tragic deal and awesomicity were such that Darkfire Stormwind only spoke of Darkfire Stormwind in the third person. Darkfire Stormwind just liked to say Darkfire Stormwind!


And a personality:

Well, hold on, I think we're missing one of the most important parts of the proper edgelord here.

He's got to be misunderstood! His misanthropic nature is simply the outward manifestation of a deep-seated insecurity, resulting from the internalization of the notion that he is apart from others and always will be, that he somehow stands alone, and that no one will ever truly understand the incredible, titanic struggle within himself, nor will he ever truly be able to relate this to another person, no matter how close they become.

Darkedge Shadowblade's behavior and affectations are, in large part, due to this deep-seated need for understanding and acceptance. And yet, as a half-tiefling, half-aasimar assassin, given incredible gifts in the art of death that, in truth, are more of a burden than a boon, who can truly claim to understand or know him? Of course, he does what he must do to survive, and so he will tell himself, as his black-edged knife cuts the throat of one more unsuspecting nobleman, fatted on the wealth of the nation that he's enslaved with his unjust regime; but there will always be that shadow of self-doubt. The kind that can usually only be expressed during brooding internal monologues while Darkedge Shadowblade crouches, hunched and ready to leap at a moment's notice, on the silent gargoyles of the largest church in the city -- itself an impossibly large symbol of greed and lust for power given form in unfeeling stone -- as the rain pours down his hooded and implacable face.

You gotta' have the rain. That makes the whole scene.


Voila!

A PC with a backstory product perfect for most games!

:amused:

You're welcome.

pwykersotz
2017-05-28, 05:32 PM
Huh...Apparently I'm Agony Blood Blood, Half-orc Shadow Sorcerer. I killed a Dragons. I'm Chaotic Good, probably racist.

Those tables are amazing, I'm going to mandate them for my next one-off campaign. :smallbiggrin:

Lord Raziere
2017-05-28, 06:00 PM
the fact people can make tables about the common backstories for PC makes me feel better about my own character concepts that I come up with. because I see the results and know that I can do better just by putting even a little thought and softness into their character and lives to balance them out and make them more than just edgy caricatures.

like just take a normal edgy character and instead of being grim and broody, just make them talk normally and make them try to find happiness, just actually make an effort to crack a joke, or play a song or something to make them being capable of being silly and soft if only for the moments when they are not being shell-shocked badasses, and boom instant humanization. because most people don't want to actually remind themselves of their past traumas by being bringing them up and being broody about them, they try to find ways to ignore it so that they can get a sense of normalcy.

or you can pull a false edgelord, where the person ACTS like a complete edgelord, but really is just from a sheltered background where everything that happened to them is comparatively light in relation to what everyone else has suffered, and so when they meet everyone else they start realizing "oh frack, I don't know ANYTHING, I actually have it pretty good, my life was awesome in comparison!" and thus their attitude changes to be more caring to everyone else.

or even, and this is a radical idea: a complete softlord. Their parents are not dead and are in fact their parents good aligned badasses on par with angels themselves. they were raised in the best possible conditions imaginable, and all the villains that tried to make their backstory tragic complete failed when their parents kicked their asses and made sure their town was safe. So they are inspired to be an adventurer by watching their parents do it and think it looks easy, but the entire point their parents do this is so that their child would live a better life than being an adventurer, so they are actually AGAINST him being an adventurer for their own protection, and they run away to prove that they can be a hero just fine on their own and save people just like mom and dad, not realizing how hard it really is.

Honest Tiefling
2017-05-28, 06:19 PM
or you can pull a false edgelord, where the person ACTS like a complete edgelord, but really is just from a sheltered background where everything that happened to them is comparatively light in relation to what everyone else has suffered, and so when they meet everyone else they start realizing "oh frack, I don't know ANYTHING, I actually have it pretty good, my life was awesome in comparison!" and thus their attitude changes to be more caring to everyone else.

One day, I want to play a tiefling attempting to go full edgelord because they hate being compared to their much more reasonable and successful human siblings. And make up a completely cliche backstory when the character actually comes from a decent and loving middle class family of grocers who are mildly confused as to why the child they sent to wizard school turned out a bit weird.

Theoboldi
2017-05-29, 01:18 AM
It doesn't do anything for the real problem, though, which is unreliability.
Being a good - or even great - writer does not make a player reliable. It doesn't matter if you have George RR Martin and JRR Tolkien in your PbP if only one of them is actually going to bother posting anything.
Well, duh. Players being unreliable is not something you can ever eliminate with internet gaming. The possibility to stay anonymous and just disappear one day is always there, making it trivial to just slip away if a game doesn't turn out to be to your liking. It's not even all that much better if you create chatrooms on skype or discord or whatever. From what I've seen, best case scenario is that people still disappear at random, and eventually just stop posting there or start missing sessions like they would with just an OOC thread, while in the worst case scenario they'll ignore the chat entirely, and just post on the OOC thread unless they have to.

The only way to really avoid that is a community effort to blacklist players who slip out without giving a word. Otherwise, there's no negative consequences for them doing that, other than that particular GM becoming unavailable to them. Which isn't exactly a big problem, given that they probably didn't like his campaign in the first place.

But yeah, my suggestion was just for that one particular problem 2D8HP mentioned, and just a small examination of a possible solution to it. And as I said, it's (mostly) not about the quality of the writing sample. It's about the tone and approach the player uses, about letting me see how they'd play their character. That's more important to me than anything else.

ImNotTrevor
2017-05-29, 02:43 AM
Someone has to manage all the things that the PCs, and thus the players, don't know or don't have control over.
There are plenty of things my players don't know about even in Apocalypse World.



I don't like that because it diminishes my sense of exploring a world. When a DM says, "What do you want to find there?", my response is, "A setting, not an Empty Room!".
That's not what these questions ask about. You'll notice that these questions are about things that a character living in this world would already know.

Your character, to a certain degree, already knows much more about the world than you do as a player. When I ask "What is this festival about?" Your character would have no problem telling me. And I ask you for a variety of reasons. Some of them include:
1. Most people care more about a thing they had a hand in making. You tell me about your character'a hometown festival, and now you'll fee something when I threaten it.
2. Throwing more creative brains at a thing tends to improve it.

You'll also note that my questions establish a scene but request input about details. There is a festival happening, but you can tell me WHY it's happening.
I decided you were about to have an encounter with a rival, you just give me a name and a reason for the rivalry.



The only time I've thought that "Collaborative Worldbuilding" works well is when a player has their PC give a tour of their old-neighborhood/village to the other PC's. One amusing (to me) example was a player who made up a striving working-class mixed human and orc community for his half-orc to come from, that had a meek baker surnamed "Dwarfsplitter", and the sweet old lady school teacher "Bloodshedder".
In many ways, this is essentially what I strive for in a different form.

You don't decide the problems, not really. I do. I just let you have input on what those problems will look like or who will put a face to them.

And of course, I need a system that will help me in that regard.

MrStabby
2017-05-29, 05:26 AM
The DM doesn't have to be good, just better than the next best DM who could step into their place. Likewise DMing just has to be slightly more fun than being a player to keep the DM in the DM chair.

There are so many things that makes people able to find other things to do than DM. It is hard work and too often people complain about DMs rather than support them. With this kind of environment is is natural that many want to play instead. Given that so many prospective DMs would prefer to avoid the abuse and judgemental language of their players it is natural that there is a shortage of DMs, thereby forcing the player base to accept what they are given.

It is the player's job to make the game fun for the DM as much as it is the DMs job to make the game fun for the players. Sure the DM has more power to change the game, but everyone should be aiming to make things work at the table. Personally I don't like to change rules too much but in certain styles of game certain abilities may become a little too powerful - in D&D for example running a campaign with a strong element of mystery in it kind of falls apart with a lot of divination spells.

One thing I would say is that DMs should explain well any changes they make, or their baseline for any interpretations they are going for. This at least splits the issue up into more manageable questions: is the issue an issue? is this the best approach to solving it? does the DM's proposed adjustment fix it? Is the proposed fix worth the cost of using new rules and making changes?

JAL_1138
2017-05-29, 06:08 AM
One day, I want to play a tiefling attempting to go full edgelord because they hate being compared to their much more reasonable and successful human siblings. And make up a completely cliche backstory when the character actually comes from a decent and loving middle class family of grocers who are mildly confused as to why the child they sent to wizard school turned out a bit weird.

Another fun thing to do is give the character traits that point to being an edgelord, then subvert them. The tragic orphan is happily adopted, well-adjusted, and never angsts about "not having a family;" the necromancer is a cheerful, extroverted twit who gives his skeletons silly nicknames like "Mister Rattlybones" and might even go so far as to dress them in fancy clothes; etc., etc. It's kinda easy to go overboard with it and be really annoying if you're not careful, though. Still, the "should be an edgelord, but isn't whatsoever" can be a good bit of fun if done right.

Mutazoia
2017-05-29, 09:47 AM
One day, I want to play a tiefling attempting to go full edgelord because they hate being compared to their much more reasonable and successful human siblings. And make up a completely cliche backstory when the character actually comes from a decent and loving middle class family of grocers who are mildly confused as to why the child they sent to wizard school turned out a bit weird.

You'll have to name him Bee-Rah'd.

Knaight
2017-05-29, 12:47 PM
Well, duh. Players being unreliable is not something you can ever eliminate with internet gaming. The possibility to stay anonymous and just disappear one day is always there, making it trivial to just slip away if a game doesn't turn out to be to your liking. It's not even all that much better if you create chatrooms on skype or discord or whatever. From what I've seen, best case scenario is that people still disappear at random, and eventually just stop posting there or start missing sessions like they would with just an OOC thread, while in the worst case scenario they'll ignore the chat entirely, and just post on the OOC thread unless they have to.

The upside to Skype, Discord and the like is less that people can't vanish and more that you can have an entire game session in only slightly longer than the time it normally takes to have an entire game session (there are some mild delays due to the particulars of the internet and there's inevitably a tech problem of some sort, but it's minor) instead of the equivalent amount of material taking six months. This helps the attrition rate dramatically compared to play by post.

2D8HP
2017-05-29, 12:57 PM
The upside to Skype, Discord and the like is less that people can't vanish and more that you can have an entire game session in only slightly longer than the time it normally takes to have an entire game session....


Unfortunately that wouldn't work for me, because if I had enough of a block of time free for that, I would just have a regular face to face game.

Solaris
2017-05-29, 03:24 PM
Unfortunately that wouldn't work for me, because if I had enough of a block of time free for that, I would just have a regular face to face game.

You don't even need the block of time for a game. I've seen beneficial results simply from spending an hour or so on Skype a couple-few times a week while running a PbP game. A cynical sort such as myself would suggest the near-real-time interactions make the other people more like people to the players, thereby making them less likely to want to skip out because they feel bad for doing it. A less cynical sort might suggest that the increased interaction increases and maintains interest in the game.

ImNotTrevor
2017-05-29, 08:07 PM
I just run effectively in-person games via Skype and Roll20. Makes it super easy to schedule, and distance is not an issue.

Psyren
2017-05-29, 08:49 PM
I very much doubt that. It's just that people don't start forum threads about playing with a GM who does an alright job and ask for advice to help with that problem.

Ding ding ding, we have a winner.

"My game is awesome and drama-free" is not a very interesting thread, so it never gets posted. Even if it were, the only replies would be "good for you!" and then it would fall to the bottom of the forum pile.

PersonMan
2017-05-30, 05:41 AM
I don't think you're going to avoid the problem that PbP is inherently a bad format to have a game in.

I'd disagree there. It really depends on what you're trying to get.

There are some kinds of games I couldn't really get in-person, that PbP makes easier. There are some aspects of things that PbP covers easily, while in-person games would have issues - party splitting is a great example.

On the other hand, there's things I can't get from PbP, because they're things you get in a face-to-face (or at least real-time) game. More combat-focused games, playing with specific people who aren't that good at translating things into text, etc. all work much better in those media.

So, really, it's that PbP is an inherently bad format for FtF/RT games. Similarly to how a scrap of paper and pencil is an inherently bad format for a complex modern boardgame. Trying to make coffee with milk and cocoa powder is going to disappoint everyone, but the chocolate milk you get at the end is still a perfectly fine beverage if it's what you want.

---

As an example, I'm currently in a fairly long-running PbP game that had a bit of an odd start, but is thoroughly enjoyable. It's also the sort of game I'd never play in person, is focused almost entirely on character interaction, a bit of exploration - and pretty much zero action. Having that game played in real time, or worse, in person, would make it much worse, in my opinion. But it's certainly not what I, or most people I think, would imagine when they think "I wanna play some DnD".

Beelzebubba
2017-06-01, 01:49 PM
Are there any DM's out there who actually work with their players and build the world together instead of making all of the decisions themselves? Any DMs who enjoy the game vicariously through their players and focus on their players having a good time instead of changing all the rules so that YOU as the DM have all the "fun" at the player's expense?

Absolutely.

When we did our first character backstories, the DM said, "This world isn't really defined. We all create it. Tell me where you're from, add cool details or events, we'll add it to the world. Feel free to add plot hooks that I can work with." We now have a list of organizations, locations, etc. that are giving us all sorts of possible plot hooks.

Our group grew so quickly that we needed to split into different gaming days, and I'm one of 3 different DMs, and we share the world. In the adventure I just ran, I built on the locale the first DM created by adding a riverside city. While the characters were rumor mongering, I made up a historical event on the fly that made the place more interesting. ("Three years ago, the land shook as huge spires of rock thrust out of the riverbed - blocking all but the smallest barges from docking for trade. Their income flow is strangled, and the town is steadily dying.") The original DM smiled and said, 'I have a great idea for that' and now he'll run with it. We do that for each other.

The dream is real.


How do you, as a player, navigate the waters of all of this douchey, selfish DM mentality that pervades D&D? Why does no one ever seem to talk about it or mention it when it is so prevalent and exists everywhere that D&D does? I mean when you have certain types of players like the min/maxer or the murderhobo, those topics are routinely addressed and made fun of, but the most common type of DM that exists never gets a mention?

Oh, it gets mentioned a lot. Look at the 'Player Nerf' thread. That DM is almost certainly a weapons-grade idiot, and half of the thread is being apologists for that behavior, so when it is brought up, it's interrogated almost out of existence by 'are you sure?' second-guessing.

The problem is not only poor DMs, it's players that lack judgment of what good behavior is, so even if it feels wrong somehow, they don't know how to articulate why it's bad, don't have the will or the stubbornness to push back on it, or don't have the heart to leave the group because they don't know if they'll find another one.

A LOT of it is age-related. The average age in our group is early 30's. We're all grown, in relationships, have jobs, etc. so the indulgent anti-social BS you can pull off as a kid was trained out of us a while ago.

Ninja-Radish
2017-06-02, 02:17 PM
Well, as others have mentioned, the OP's issue is that he's gaming online with strangers. Online gaming is a pit of despair populated by trolls. I refuse to play anything online with strangers, whether it's D&D or a video game like Borderlands or Gears of War.

ImNotTrevor
2017-06-02, 11:05 PM
Well, as others have mentioned, the OP's issue is that he's gaming online with strangers. Online gaming is a pit of despair populated by trolls. I refuse to play anything online with strangers, whether it's D&D or a video game like Borderlands or Gears of War.

My whole group is online and we are, at worst, doofuses and at best really chill dudes from around the globe.

Ninja-Radish
2017-06-03, 12:46 AM
My whole group is online and we are, at worst, doofuses and at best really chill dudes from around the globe.

Do everything possible to keep that group together. I've heard many, many more horror stories about online gaming than good experiences.

ImNotTrevor
2017-06-03, 03:13 AM
Do everything possible to keep that group together. I've heard many, many more horror stories about online gaming than good experiences.

That's probably because nobody takes to the forums to complain about how good their group is. The only cases worth noting are the bad and the exceptional. The majority, which are pretty much the same a normal groups, don't merit starting a thread on a forum.

Solaris
2017-06-06, 09:45 PM
That's probably because nobody takes to the forums to complain about how good their group is. The only cases worth noting are the bad and the exceptional. The majority, which are pretty much the same a normal groups, don't merit starting a thread on a forum.

This.
I know I have made more mention of my problem children than of my actually functional group, if only because opportunities to brag without looking like a doucher are fewer and farther between than opportunities to gripe.

gadren
2017-06-07, 01:12 PM
Another thing I didn't see mentioned (though I may have missed it) is that you're never going to find a perfect GM. You play long enough and you are likely to run into a GM that seems bad in every possible way, but even GMs I enjoy the most have glaring weaknesses to go with their strengths. The one I currently play with is far more of a tyrant than I'd normally tolerate (going so far as to saying he doesn't need to discuss rules changes he makes with us because, quote "I am the god of my world, and gods don't need to explain their decisions"), but he is a really, really fantastic story teller and role player and I just can't stay away. On the flip side, I GM almost exactly as the OP suggests is the "best" way and have my own set of long-time devoted players, but my storytelling and role playing is mediocre at best. One of my other favorite GMs ran one of my favorite campaigns I ever played in, but the one after that was a complete bore and I realized it was because I played a bard in the first one and a barbarian in the second one and his adventures only ever catered to intelligent and charismatic characters with very little combat no matter what the party makeup is.

Darth Ultron
2017-06-08, 07:21 AM
Another thing I didn't see mentioned (though I may have missed it) is that you're never going to find a perfect GM.

True. The same way a GM can't ever find a perfect player.

All you can really do is get ''close'', and ''close'' is good enough......it's far better then ''bad''.

kyoryu
2017-06-08, 10:40 AM
Another thing I didn't see mentioned (though I may have missed it) is that you're never going to find a perfect GM.

There is no such thing, because different people want different things in their games.

A GM I think is amazing you might hate playing with - for the exact same reasons.

About the only universal thing is to avoid antisocial behavior in GMs, as that will sink a game quicker than anything.

Dragonrider99
2017-06-08, 02:58 PM
I think a dm has the right to be selfish. A sucsessful one puts a TON of time between games into the story and world. Has to seed and plan treasures, plan encounters, create npc personaltys, come up with what is said by who and where and why and when. Has to plan for ALL contingencys in case the players don't go according to plan (almost always) and on top of that have to deal with each player and their own egos. A player only deals with himself and the gm. All of that work entitles a gm to a measure of selfishness. If a person is whining about a selfish gm - the first thing I'd like to know is has that person ran a sucsessful game themselves? Are they aware of all the work entailed? Maybe they feel single out and targeted - but I've learned that if you treat your players with kid gloves and "spare them" often this becomes expected and players start taking crazy risks and actions. Kill a few characters when they behave like a moron (and it's obvious such action would end Bad) don't spare the rod.