Recent content by Remathilis

This is the heart of the matter. Do all your players align 100% to your tastes and preferences? Of course not. So what happens when you align 95% of the way? What is done to cover that gap? The answer repeatedly has been "the DM wins, the player loses". The DM gets 100% of what they want, the...

There are two problems scenario in game that I've seen play out. Protecting a World that Hates and Fears Them: In such a scenario where the locals find adventurer's a threat, players tend to respond in kind. That is, a merchant who overcharges becomes the target for the group's thief. The...

Sorry, I trimmed out all the irrelevant tangents. I find it funny that you responded EzekielRaiden's post about the idea of the DM owing something to his players with "players are expendable, I have a wait list." This is the most Post-Capitalist mindset I can imagine. "I don't have to take care...

Honestly, if the player is already IN THE HOUSE when he drops the world-specific restrictions on the player, then yes. It was a total failure on the DM's part to not give the player the full info in the WEEK between pitch and first game. The player was expecting bog-standard 2014 D&D with the...

Not here to re-litigate the ASI thing, just pointing out that with Species (like alignment) having less mechanical impact, people are more likely to go with vibes rather than mechanics, which leads people to wanting to play a tiefling because they are red (or blue) devil people, rather than...

On the other hand, species decoupled from ASI has opened up people to try species they wouldn't have tried before. Especially for combos that would have been non-viable or even banned (things like minotaur druids to pick a nonreptilian example). Species has mostly become about aesthetics (with...

I'm honestly shocked that I've yet to hear anyone say "Of course the DM doesn't get everything every time" and "sometimes a DM has to pick his battles." Or even the famous quote from M. Jagger "you can't always get what you want, but sometimes you get what you need "

Why does the DM always and the Players usually? The implication is that in a conflict of wants, the DM wins all disputes. There is never a situation where the DM says "I didn't want this, but it made my player happy so I will sacrifice a little of my happiness to make them happy?" Is getting 95%...

Not the suggestion I was making. I'm not suggesting disruptive. I'm suggesting something you may have distaste for, but everyone else would at best not care about (like the species of another character). It lowers your enjoyment, buts its not a game-breaker. But its still treated like anything...

I agree its not zero sum gain, but it seems that if something would lower the enjoyment of the DM by any degree, even if it raises the enjoyment of a player, that is an unacceptable term. If you could measure fun in units, the DM must always be a maximum fun and will not lower his fun to raise...

Surely, but the issue keeps coming down to your happiness seems to trump anyone else's.

And we've been told that players are bratty and entitled jerks if we dare ask for anything other than whatever we're offered and the only compromise is submission or rejection.

So if tomorrow, you propose something and EVERY player decided they didn't want to play it (or even the majority didn't) are the players in the wrong for forcing their preferences on the DM? I'll give a more concrete example. DM is wrapping up a campaign and says "I want to do so different...

The quote I am responding to is this, with highlights that stick out to me. This tells me that the players are passive in their role in this game. The DM presents something and the player can provide a thumbs up or down, but no significant input. Even if the players all did fundamentally vote...

Well, elf lifespan was always a moving goalpost. Elves reached maturity at 100, and lived at least 300 years, but could live to a MAX of 700 before departing to the Gray Havens, er hearing Sehanine's call. Since to reach 700 you had to max out four d100 rolls, those were the true "woman who...