Draegnoth:
That which is a turd to you may be someone else's favorite aspect of the game though.
Hence: "committee". If you love [X] but enough people at the table hate [X], the game is highly unlikely to include to [X].
Or as bbr says, (paraphrasing) "The GM runs the game they enjoy, the Players have two choices: Play in it, or find a GM who runs games they prefer."
Likewise, if a GM runs games that their
group doesn't enjoy, they have 2 choices... and I can tell which choice I've made time and again (Hint: it's not run a game for that group).
quote:
Instead of excluding things you dislike it would be better to allow it.
Nope. And for one simple reason: It's better to have the Player adjust and play something they will enjoy, than to have a terrible time and decide they hate gaming.
Now, if the Player is some "stuck in their rut, old grognard, bad-wrong-type" who twists the play into what they want despite being warned and having that premise rejected and they still end playing they rejected premise somehow*, then sure, I'll let them crash and burn against the wall of "Nope, I'm the GM and things don't work that way".
* This has happened twice to me. Both times the Player ended up leaving and never coming back to my games.
And yes, I've looked at premises and said "I don't think that's going to work in my game, but we'll see as long as you agree if it's going badly you're fine with course correcting down the road", and have it go the way I thought and needing correction as well as working fine and never needing adjustments. It happens.
quote:
Either their character will stink and not be able to contribute much or it will die and they'll have to reroll.
Or it will crush certain encounters type with ease... and then that type of encounter ceases to ever come up again in any meaningful way, or the other Players will sit around with their thumbs up their butts waiting for a moment where they can do something useful.
Frex: In
GURPS Dungeon Fantasy there is the Bard profession which
dominates social situations and has strong mind-control, but outside of that they have minimal impact (Nymph Bard is just stupidly broken that way). So the GM either has to resign to never having social encounters give the group a challenge, or they have to put their thumb on the scale so heavily that that no one but the Bard can ever manage a social encounter.
This is fine if the group and GM enjoy that. A "Back to the Dungeon" or "Orc and Pie" can be fun that way, but
I don't run those games, so I, as a GM, don't allow Bards in my
GURPS DF games (despite
GURPS DF literally being built for back-to-the-dungeon and orc-and-pie).
bigbadron:
Unfortunately, as the GM, if I find that I don't like a particular piece of content, then I probably won't enjoy running a game that includes that particular content.
...
And, as the GM, I have the final word on what is acceptable in my game.
I agree 110% with everything you said, but these two sentences stand as bearing repeating.
Players aren't entitled to my games, however they are entitled to me running the best game I can run, when I do run for them. This does mean I won't run what I don't enjoy running.
Similarly, I don't play in games I don't enjoy. This is a two-way street, and it's surprising to me when Players forget this.
This message was last edited by the user at 17:27, Sun 06 Dec 2020.