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  1. - Top - End - #31
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    Default Re: Why does no one ever address the "DMs are selfish" problem?

    Quote Originally Posted by Tanarii View Post
    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.

  2. - Top - End - #32
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    Default Re: Why does no one ever address the "DMs are selfish" problem?

    Quote Originally Posted by Lazymancer View Post
    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.
    Last edited by DataNinja; 2017-05-21 at 01:58 PM.
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  3. - Top - End - #33
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    Default Re: Why does no one ever address the "DMs are selfish" problem?

    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".
    Last edited by 90sMusic; 2017-05-21 at 02:53 PM.

  4. - Top - End - #34
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    Default Re: Why does no one ever address the "DMs are selfish" problem?

    Quote Originally Posted by RazorChain View Post
    .

    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.
    Avatar made by Strawberries! Grazie paesą!

    Quote Originally Posted by Mr Beer View Post
    You win the worst GM thread BTW.
    Quote Originally Posted by Zyzzyva View Post
    From a different thread, even!.

  5. - Top - End - #35
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    Default Re: Why does no one ever address the "DMs are selfish" problem?

    Quote Originally Posted by RazorChain View Post
    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.
    Last edited by 90sMusic; 2017-05-21 at 03:09 PM.

  6. - Top - End - #36

    Default Re: Why does no one ever address the "DMs are selfish" problem?

    Quote Originally Posted by 90sMusic View Post

    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.

    Quote Originally Posted by 90sMusic View Post
    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.


    Quote Originally Posted by 90sMusic View Post
    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''.

    Quote Originally Posted by 90sMusic View Post
    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

    Quote Originally Posted by 90sMusic View Post
    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''.

    Quote Originally Posted by 90sMusic View Post
    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.

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    Default Re: Why does no one ever address the "DMs are selfish" problem?

    Quote Originally Posted by RazorChain View Post
    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.

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    Default Re: Why does no one ever address the "DMs are selfish" problem?

    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...)
    Last edited by Aotrs Commander; 2017-05-21 at 05:32 PM.

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    Default Re: Why does no one ever address the "DMs are selfish" problem?

    Quote Originally Posted by Jay R View Post
    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.

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    Default Re: Why does no one ever address the "DMs are selfish" problem?

    Quote Originally Posted by OldTrees1 View Post
    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".

    ---

    Quote Originally Posted by Yora View Post
    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.

    ---

    Quote Originally Posted by 90sMusic View Post
    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.
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    Default Re: Why does no one ever address the "DMs are selfish" problem?

    Quote Originally Posted by 90sMusic View Post
    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.

    Quote Originally Posted by 90sMusic View Post
    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.

    Quote Originally Posted by 90sMusic View Post
    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.

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    Default Re: Why does no one ever address the "DMs are selfish" problem?

    Quote Originally Posted by 90sMusic View Post
    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.

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    Default Re: Why does no one ever address the "DMs are selfish" problem?

    Quote Originally Posted by Yora View Post
    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.
    Last edited by gooddragon1; 2017-05-21 at 09:38 PM.
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    Default Re: Why does no one ever address the "DMs are selfish" problem?

    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.

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    Default Re: Why does no one ever address the "DMs are selfish" problem?

    Quote Originally Posted by RazorChain View Post
    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.

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    Default Re: Why does no one ever address the "DMs are selfish" problem?

    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.
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    Rules existing are a dire threat to the divine power of the DM.

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    Default Re: Why does no one ever address the "DMs are selfish" problem?

    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.
    Last edited by Mr Beer; 2017-05-22 at 12:45 AM.
    Re: 100 Things to Beware of that Every DM Should Know

    Quote Originally Posted by Jay R View Post
    93. No matter what the character sheet say, there are only 3 PC alignments: Lawful Snotty, Neutral Greedy, and Chaotic Backstabbing.

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    Default Re: Why does no one ever address the "DMs are selfish" problem?

    Quote Originally Posted by gooddragon1 View Post
    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.
    I would really like to see a game made by Obryn, Kurald Galain, and Knaight from these forums.

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    Default Re: Why does no one ever address the "DMs are selfish" problem?

    Quote Originally Posted by RazorChain View Post
    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.

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    Default Re: Why does no one ever address the "DMs are selfish" problem?

    Quote Originally Posted by 90sMusic View Post
    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.
    Last edited by icefractal; 2017-05-22 at 02:37 AM.

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    Default Re: Why does no one ever address the "DMs are selfish" problem?

    Quote Originally Posted by 90sMusic View Post
    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.


    Quote Originally Posted by 90sMusic View Post
    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.

    Quote Originally Posted by 90sMusic View Post
    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.

    Quote Originally Posted by 90sMusic View Post
    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!!!

    Quote Originally Posted by 90sMusic View Post
    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.

    Quote Originally Posted by 90sMusic View Post
    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.
    Last edited by RazorChain; 2017-05-22 at 02:50 AM.

  22. - Top - End - #52
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    Default Re: Why does no one ever address the "DMs are selfish" problem?

    Quote Originally Posted by gooddragon1 View Post
    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.
    Quote Originally Posted by Katrina View Post
    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.
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  23. - Top - End - #53
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    Default Re: Why does no one ever address the "DMs are selfish" problem?

    "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.)
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    Default Re: Why does no one ever address the "DMs are selfish" problem?

    Quote Originally Posted by Mutazoia View Post
    "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.

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    Default Re: Why does no one ever address the "DMs are selfish" problem?

    Quote Originally Posted by RazorChain
    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?
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  26. - Top - End - #56
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    Default Re: Why does no one ever address the "DMs are selfish" problem?

    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, 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.
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  27. - Top - End - #57
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    Default Re: Why does no one ever address the "DMs are selfish" problem?

    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.

  28. - Top - End - #58
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    Default Re: Why does no one ever address the "DMs are selfish" problem?

    Quote Originally Posted by RazorChain View Post
    ....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.



    Someone has read my old posts!


    In the 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.
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  29. - Top - End - #59
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    Default Re: Why does no one ever address the "DMs are selfish" problem?

    Quote Originally Posted by Dark Shadow View Post
    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.

  30. - Top - End - #60
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    Default Re: Why does no one ever address the "DMs are selfish" problem?

    Quote Originally Posted by FreddyNoNose View Post
    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.
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