So I just only came across this view:

From a commenter who felt that the general attitude of players was this:

>People are extremely resistant to the idea that the DM gets to run the game they want to run and that’s okay. I’ve been heavily downvoted many times on this sub because I said the DM should just do what they want to do and the players can either enjoy the game as it is or quit.

This OP opines that this the general sentiment of reddit. I am honestly amazed that this kind of attitude exists, and I don't think it's widely true. For sure, if you are paying your GM for the game, I think being able ask for the kind of game you want is fine, as it is a paid service.

But for GMs who give up their free time and labor to make a game, is it at all fair for players to be able to dictate what kind of game they get? I feel that is wildly audacious. I've certainly never encountered this from literally 35 years of running games.

I think most people would expect the DM to take their players into account when designing a game. Certainly if they are a standing group.

If I were dming and after completing a campaign my players all asked for one set in a post apocalyptic world I'd certainly consider it, if I really hated it I'd just decline, same as if they as a group requested a house rule because there was something robbing the fun.

Sometimes downvotes get inertia. I don't think this is a common sentiment on this sub though. If anything, I see the opposite way way more on this sub, complaining about players not wanting to play the game the GM wants to run.

Why not both?

The way I see it as a GM is my players won't enjoy playing a game they don't care about, and I won't enjoy running a game I don't care about. So there's always going to be a bit of conversation about what game we'll all enjoy, then we play that.

I know some people in my group hate Warhammer. So it's absolutely pointless going "I'm running Dark Heresy" because they just won't want to play it. They know I'm not a big fan of Call of Cthulhu, so won't pressure me to run that.

I think in the overwhelming majority of cases if you frame this as "choosing what game to play is often a case of the GM going I really want to give X, Y, Z a go and then the players going Z sounds really good" or the obverse of "the group says Have you seen X game, GM and the GM going that looks fun, shall we try it"

I can't say what is or isn't the prevailing view of Reddit, but certainly there are more players that exist than GMs so the majority of views are going to be coming from players. The most vocal of whom would likely be the disgruntled...

I think, like most things in a social hobby, it's about balance. I'm all for the Storyteller selecting system, setting, and premise (assuming the game does not rely on the collaborative creation of any of those) but taking into account player's desires for character arcs, story beats, etc. is also desirable and makes the job of a Storyteller easier! I often build the game around the characters after establishing the aforementioned "big three."

People have this weird binary way of thinking - it's either pro-GM or pro-players and nothing can come in between.

Best games I had were the ones, where players influenced the stuff made by GM. However, as a GM, I would never come to my players with nothing and ask them 'what kind of game you want to play', I would always bring an idea that can be accepted or not, refine it into campaign and expand it based on their input. After all, I am doing majority of work, so this should be something I want to run, not something that is expected of me to run.

A dm is just another player doing another function. The game have to work for all the players, not just submitted to dm dictatorship

Situations like this are usually resolved by having an actual conversation. I'm pretty much a forever GM so when the time comes to run something odds are good that it'll be me. If there's something I really want to try, we'll talk about it. If there's something the players really want to try then we'll talk about it.

We'll come to a consensus, even if that consensus is "well, let's try this for 4 sessions and see what we think".

If the players want a different type of game then why dont they DM that type of game? Aw shit players got real quiet allasudden. Work for what you want? Naw, just complain.

Like its fine to ask the DM about a certain type of game to see if they might develop it for the future. Sitting down at the table and saying "forget all the work you did that youre excited to show us, i want something else" is kind of unhinged.

I think this comes mostly in the "I don't want to run D&D 5e anymore, but my players refuse to change" type of subject. In which case, the answer is quite often the one provided by the commenter.

My feeling it's more about this than about nuances in the way to play the game, although I've encountered that as well in the D&D subs where it's more about playing RAW or not, when the DM is on one side and some of the players on the other.

In the end, it's clearly about compromise, everyone should enjoy themselves including the DM, but the answer is more absolute when it's actually the choice of the game that matters.

Yeah, seems like simply talking with each other and doing a group activity that everyone enjoy is beyond some people imagination.

I really dislike this "GM vs player" attitude tbh.
Yes, without the GM there's no game, but neither without the players.
In the end, everyone at the table (or in the call) has to have fun and I don't think fighting about who gets to unilaterally decide how the game goes if particularly helpful for that.

This is the only subreddit I have come across that has any respect for GMs, everywhere else I feel the view that commenter is repeating is the default. And it is easy to see why; Most communities on reddit are made up mostly of players and people who aren't in any games, with GMs being in the severe minority, and so those subreddits are biased towards the player perspective.

By contrast, since this subreddit is strongly focused on games outsode the norm, it means everyone here is significantly involved in the hobby. And because of that, I would guess most people here have run, and as such have first-hand knowledge of and respect for GMing.