Champion

Let's return to the discussion of dungeon masters and constraints.  To set up my position, I'm going to pose a list of situations that a DM might face; and in each case, understand that after the situation described, the question being asked is, "If you're the DM, what would you say and do?"

1.  A die is rolled and a player's character dies.  The player grumbles about the character's death, saying, "It's not fair."

2.  A player rolls a die in a critical situation and gets a result that's disasterous.  The player seizes the die, shouts "fuck!" and hurls the die at the game table.

3.  During the game's running, one player begins copying their old character sheet onto a fresh sheet; this results in having to take extra effort to gain the player's attention on multiple occasions, as the player's input is required for play.

4.  Over several sessions, one player makes a habit of questioning the boundary of rule after rule, clearly seeking ways to "get the most" out of the language used to describe each rule while apparently overlooking the rule's spirit or game purpose.

5.  One of the group's players makes a special effort to move away from the party, to investigate places or speak with NPCs separately from the others.

6.  One player wants to use his character to kill another player's character.

7.  One player acts contrary to the general party's wishes on the premise of, "My character wouldn't do that."

8.  At multiple opportunities, the character seizes on a word or phrase used by the dungeon master and inserts a reference from a film, TV or a meme as a joke.  The players usually laugh.

9.  A player brings his significant partner to a game session; he or she doesn't want to play, or watch, and instead spends the session sitting across the room interacting with their phone.

10.  While in the town square, the party encounters a large crowd waiting for the local Prince to address them from a balcony.  When the prince steps into view, one of the players wants to shoot a magic missile at him.

11.  An opportunity arises to "switch the rooms" so that the one the party chooses is essentially the one we want them to choose.

12.  After giving the party three of a certain kind of monster, they destroy all three without effort through terrifically lucky die rolls; there's an easy opportunity to have three more of the same monster arrive.

13.  With creepy regularity, a player's die rolls are absurdly lucky; there's no evidence whatsoever of cheating.

14.  A character repeatedly makes tactical decisions in combat that minimizes personal danger while fellow players find themselves bereft of someone watching their back.

15.  One or more players speak in excessively purple English.

There.

I'm not going to give answers.  That sounds like an evasion, but I feel it would be redundant to do so.  We know the answers.  Even those who would take a cross-grained view on one or more of the above scenarios knows what the cross-grained view isn't ... because we were raised in schools with rules, and attended events and places that had rules, and watched media that pounded these rules on a drum.  We know perfectly well what we should say and the foundation of this society's code.

This doesn't mean we would obey that code, however.  Some won't obey it on principle.  Others who would cheerfully support someone else to sustain the code will shirk from doing it themselves, from lack of confidence or the memory of too many emotional cuts and bruises.  Others would argue for the code, except they don't know how; they don't know what words to use or how to defend the integrity they believe in.  Others feel they could, but do not, because they also believe it's not their place to be the social police.  Others pretend not to care, one way or another.

But all of them know what to say and do.

Before we credit anyone with integrity, we need to know two things: first, what convictions do they hold; and second, do they have the courage of their convictions?  Will they act upon what they believe.

In talking about constraints, I made the argument that a DM is expected to ensure the constraints of the game are observed, despite also being the individual who sets the game in motion.  I explained that this was theoretically possible because the DM had "nothing to gain" by the matters of the game falling one way or the other.  But of course, we know the DM has plenty to gain that has nothing whatsoever to do with the game played.  The DM gains status, title, authority, the entitlement of expecting to be heard, the power of life and death over the player characters, the thrill of dictating terms to other human beings who must accept those terms.  In terms of personal gratification, the DM "gets off" on being the DM.  The game is peripheral.

Is that the DM's role?  Is that aspect of the role something we factually support, or is it a "necessary evil" we can do nothing about and must tolerate.  Is the evil "necessary," however, or is it just a condition of having to play with certain persons whose character bends a certain way?  And while we're at it, is there a way to tell the DM's motive here?  Can we ascertain within reason that the DM isn't an egotist in it for the "brags," rather than someone whose motive is open-handed and concerned? 

Certainly there exists a tribal standard that both excuses and exalts DMs who are self-righteous social pariahs, running players like enhanced lab rats through their intricate dungeon mazes.  We ought to recognize that a considerable percentage of players — probably much more than half, perhaps as much as 9 in 10 — have never played a game with a selfless DM.  Which explains the constant gamesmanship I encounter with players who come from outside my immediate circle of friends and acquaintences, who approach the game with an attitude like, "If the DM's going to fuck me over with rules and judgments, then I'll get as much of my own back by pushing every inch I'm able to push."

Let me stop a moment and define "integrity" as a DM who calls the game's rules and outcome honestly; who addresses those questions at the start of this post as we know they ought to be addressed, without meanness and fault-finding, but also with directness and impartiality.

What does that look like?

To get a sense of that I want to deviate somewhat and speak about the habit of setting personal "win conditions" that are not, in fact, part of the game.  Any game, I mean, not just D&D.  My experience with these shows up most universally in the way I and others play certain video games.  For example, playing Don't Starve, my daughter avoids setting up a camp, preferring to remain constantly on the move and getting through each night by methods she's shown me.  When I play Oxygen Not Included, I like to treat chlorine as an extremely toxic, poisonous gas, which must never be allowed to float free in any part of the base, even in the tiniest amounts.  I waste all sorts of time chasing down one little bubble of the stuff.  In Two-Point Hospital, I refuse to use ghostbusters; I prefer the dead to haunt the place until they evaporate of their own accord.  In The Sims, I start with one person, get rid of all their money at the start and then play without their ever getting a job; they have to survive on what they can scavenge, or grow, or paint, or whatever the rules of that game calls for.

These win conditions don't change the presented game in any way.  The same constraints that were there before are still there.  The D&D example would be to refuse to buy armour, or to fight only with my fists ... though in most systems, that wouldn't play very well.  Take note: the goal is not to change the rules of the game.  For example, it would not mean giving experience for talking one's way past monsters instead of killing them.  There is no experience in the game, the original game, for talking.  This doesn't mean we can't talk our way around monsters, only that we don't invent "new rules" to account for new win conditions.  That's not how it works.

This last, however, describes most of the changes that have happened to the game.  People want to play differently, so they invent new rules, elminating the old constraints, to reward a new kind of play.  The new rules, however, are never as well thought out as the old rules, and in fact reward the players for LESS risk and LESS effort.  It's no problem to talk our way around a monster when the DM agrees that deserves a reward; all we need do is say what we think the DM wants to hear.  In other words, flatter.  Any half-wit can do that.

Maintaining the game's constraints as a DM means believing and supporting those constraints are right and valid.  It means the DM views the win conditions of the game and the constraints on that game as one and the same; they exist in lockstep.  The player's actions, the player's wants and needs — the player's decision to play the game differently — does not change the rules which contrive the game.  The rules do not bend to the players ... and they do not bend to the prejudices and tastes of the DM, either!  Both players and DM agree to bend themselves to operate within the constraints of the game ... the DM most of all, because the DM is there to compel others to bend exactly as the DM bends.

And here is the key.  DM's are not "cruise directors."  They are not umpires.  They are not judges or dictators.  The DM is the Game's Champion.  The one who puts aside personality and feeling, sentiment, personal belief, gain and all that additional crap found in tyrants.  The DM girds on a sword and goes to battle to defend the game, the actual existing body of rules, holding them as more important than self or any player at the table.  We sit down, we agree to play, we settle the rules between us, we agree that this or that will be the standard ... and then one individual acts as a crusader to defend that standard.

This is not what most DMs do.  At all.  They don't believe in the game.  They don't trust it.  They certainly don't live by it.