The point isn't whether the players are competing with the DM. The point is that there's two people playing a game and one person can just screw over the other whenever they feel like it. Painting that in a competitive setting hits closer to home for a lot of people since they're more likely to have experienced that themselves. It wasn't meant to be indicative of how I perceive a good player/DM relationship.
I'm sorry, I had no idea it would confuse so many people so badly.
Maybe I'm in the minority here, but to me I'd consider throwing a god-level NPC at your players explicitly to punish them for their behavior to fall pretty squarely under "screwing them over". Not to say players should be allowed to do whatever they want, but I'd expect a smoother escalation than that.
Maybe I’m in the minority here, but to me I’d consider throwing a god-level NPC at your players explicitly to punish them for their behavior to fall pretty squarely under “screwing them over”.
yeah obviously that's how you see it because you only see things one way, throughout this entire convo.
I get that.
the rest of us playing ttrpg's don't see it as 'oh they've sent punishment' - no, the dm is tailoring the world to react to the player's shenanigans. should the DM just drop everything and cater to whatever whims the PCs devise?
If that's the expectation that's been set up for the table, sure. But jumping straight from murderhobo shenanigans to "Ok here's a god to stop you, roll initiative" isn't the way I'd handle people playing the game in a way I don't like. I've been over this all already with another poster; it causes problems and might not even solve the ones you're using it to solve.