Mother-May-I?

For two days I've thought about these three words and their relation to D&D, a connection made by Dennis Laffey.

Mother-may-I is a children's game; I will leave the rules and description to wikipedia.  In D&D, with players hammering at the DM with questions and challenges, the DM can be made to feel under siege.  Each player's proposal of, "Can my character do this?" demands a ruling ... a ruling that may go sour for the DM, if the player responds with resentment or outright rebellion:

"HEY, you let Barry do his thing, how come suddenly I can't do MY THING!?"

If the DM's permissive, players will vie to top themselves, inventing wilder, more imaginative things for their characters to try.  This quickly gets out of hand, until any former rules have been circumvented past the point of controlling the game ... inspiring some DMs to argue "rulings not rules," a policy doomed to failure eventually, since the players have the ultimate emotional leverage they need over the DM to force compliance with their expectations.  Take note that when reading some pundit online praising rulings, they're talking through their hat.  Either they're discounting their history games smashed by ruling disputes (something that is constant in games where the DM has absolute power), or they are side-stepping their grateful knowledge that outsiders can't see their games and judge them for the silly, sloppy half-baked get-togethers they are.  Not to mention that many of the "rulings not rules" crowd would be somewhat embarrassed to admit that as a DM they're no more than their players' bitch.

If you're find yourself running a game where the players are playing "mother-may-I" with you, best you understand up front that it's your fault.  You did not draw a firm enough line, forcing them to play the game by the rules.  Rather than rebuff your friends, and say "no," when it needed to be said, you've been the classic permissive parent, progressively moving to a place where you'd rather spoil your players than disappoint them.

It can be a hard thing.  Your player wants to hold a torch and their shield in the same hand (a misunderstanding of "strapped to the arm") and when you say "no," you can see the fleeting disappointment and frustration in their eyes as they realise, they're going to have to ditch their shield in favour of a light.  This is a moment for you as a DM.  Relent, and sooner or later you're going to be the players' lap dog.  Stand your ground, and you're an asshole.  Wow, sounds like a lose-lose.  What are you going to do?

Much trouble for people stems from the belief that before others can like us, we have to do things that will make them like us.  From there, we add a tinge of the golden rule, that states, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."  You wouldn't want your ideas as a player refused, would you?  So as a DM, you want to give to the players what you'd have a DM give to you.

This is bad policy.

Cue going around the barn.

Last week, I considered an essay about why I didn't quit D&D way back in the 80s, in my university years.  Stuck for the words, I decided to search examples on that theme from others describing why they didn't quit ... I couldn't find a one.  But I did find a spectacular collection of people's stories telling why they did quit.   The political scientist Ray Wolfinger wrote that, "The plural of anecdote is data" ... and there is a sensational amount of data out there.  A games-theorist's thesis could be written on why humans quit role-playing games.

The individual anecdotes don't matter ... but the presence of so many people who rush to agree that this is why they also quit, with such weight on side of quitting and very, very little written on not quitting, it's hard not to see a pattern.  Most stories naturally revolve around various conflicts: certain players, constant arguing, players blowing up in anger when not getting their way ... nothing we haven't all witnessed personally.  Such is a testament to DMs not knowing how to handle their players; yet I'm perfectly sure that these DMs tried to please their players.  That's evident in how hurt they were as they described their player's betrayals, unreasonable expectations and resentment.

Betrayal is a violation of a presumptive contract.  For example, we make a bunch of concessions to one of our players, Carson.  Yet, he always seems to want more.  He never acknowledges anything we've done so far.  We presume he understood those things were concessions; we presume he remembers them; we presume he is keeping them in mind when he asks for something new.  The more we presume, the more it begins to look like Carson doesn't care that we do anything for him.  In fact, he's sort of a jerk.  An especially rotten one because he knows we did this shit for him and he's deliberately ignoring that!  What an asshole!

So it goes, round and round in our heads, while Carson thinks he's just running in a game, that we're just being his DM, that we haven't make "concessions" because he supposes this is business as usual.  He has no idea we're doing favours for him, because he doesn't see them as "favours."  This is what doesn't work about trying to make others like us.  If it's not plainly stated, our actions don't look to others as they do to ourselves.

And if we do plainly state that we're trying to make someone like us, well ... that's squicky.

DMing is not a friendship role.  It is not a co-equal role.  DMing is a leadership role; and one of the truths about being a leader is it doesn't matter a good goddamn if, as leaders, we're liked.  In fact, we can be actively hated.  That doesn't matter.  To lead, we don't need to be liked, we need to be respected ... which means we must do things that earn respect.  Holding our ground on things we believe — even if that makes us hated — is key to that respect.

DMing players forces us to interact with players in a very specific way that many, many people cannot do.  For some, the idea is anathema to their belief system.  Some are too timid.  Some have the potential, but haven't worked out this is just what's needed to clear the road and make games move steadily forward.  Still others have a warped, damaged sense of what goals are meant to be achieved.

An effective DM must have the capacity to make players obey.

Just those words can send a wave of fury through some readers.  Others are saying, "what?"  The rest are thinking, "damn straight."

Let's leave this here.  See what shakes out and I'll continue this line if there's any point in it.