It's Us vs. Them... But, who's us again?

One of the most difficult things for a new GM to understand is the type of relationship that a GM has with his players. There is a reason for this confusion, first it is a complicated type of relationship, and second because over the last decade or so there has been a shift in design philosophy that has directly twisted this. This twisting has lead to a difference of understanding between newer players and those of us who have been playing for a long time.

When I first began playing, back in 2nd edition AD&D, the game was in the midst of its first attempt to change the relationship between the GM and the players. In the older editions, notably 1st, there was a definite sense that the GM was the opponent of the Players, and that wracking up a kill count was one of the expected jobs of such a GM. 2nd edition attempted to shift that idea by removing some of the antagonism between players and GMs. This essentially amounted to saying, "You are the GM, anything you want can happen so what is the point of using that to kill the PCs?" This did help matters, as the DMs of 2nd edition were less directly hostile to their players.

It is important, however, to look at how this was accomplished and recognize what it means to the formation of the Player/GM relationship through the history of the game. In first edition it was a forgone conclusion that the GM was ultimately powerful and what he says goes. The change in 2nd edition was not the take that power from the GM, but to make them realize that there is a sense of responsibility that must come with that control. For the first time, the GM was considered responsible for shepherding the players, not simply commanding them. Being that I am a child of 2nd edition, I admit that much of my personal feelings on the subject reflect this sort of idea.

The coming of 3rd edition was a dark time for GM/Player relations. Seen as a natural extension of the way 2nd edition did things, and recognizing that 5 players per group purchased more products than a single GM; WoTC began catering directly to the players. The company began to erode the position of the GM, by presenting the books for the purposes of player consumption, rather than for the betterment of the game. This has lead to a feeling of what I call, "player entitlement". By that I mean, that the players feel like they are the only important part of the game, and that it is the GM's job to cater solely to their whim. This feeling lead to the common ideas that GM who limit player choices in class or race, for the purpose of their game worlds, are inherently bad GMs. By the end of 3.5 e, the GM was viewed as a slave to the whims of the players, who were empowered by not only the publications but the newly emerging online community in which the players tended to gather and complain about their "unfair" GMs, leading to the rapid spread of the "Player Entitlement" mentality.

This has lead, not surprisingly, to two important shortages in modern day gaming. The first is a general shortage of GMs. Many people I have talked to, got tired of being treated like the party's punching bag, and decided to simply stop GM all together. So now you are hearing of a lot more groups of 7, 8, even 10 players per GM. The other shortage, is that even among people who are still GMing, less and less of them are using homebrew worlds. Now, I want to say that I have absolutely nothing against the published worlds, but the reason that I have most heard that people are not running homebrewed settings, is that it is not worth fighting the Players if the GM chooses to limit something for the feel of his game world. This is tragic, if for no other reason than that it prevents the GM from being creative, and punished them if they wish to tell a particular story.

4th edition, while recognizing some of these problems, does contribute to them although much less than 3rd edition did. The tag line for 4th edition GMs is "Just Say Yes." While generally a good idea, it does help to maintain the player entitlement, usually by people who do not recognize the subtle shift that this statement makes. By even stating this, 4th edition acknowledges that the GM is the one in charge, as it turns to the GM, rather than the books as did 3rd edition, to make decisions. However, there is still the baggage here of the older systems. Many of the players, still read this as a call for the GM to be completely at the service of the players regardless of his own fun and the needs of his campaign world. But I must give the designers of 4th edition credit, they are attempting to move against that sense of entitlement, and help GMs reclaim their position in the game, but they have a long way to go to repair the damage done by 3rd edition.

Today, I have given the historical progression of Player/Gm interaction, tomorrow I will finish this post with a discussion of my own methods of interacting with my players and how that influences both the running of the game and the formation of my homebrew world.