TOO MANY IDEAS!

Just wanted to say that we had this conversation in our group last night, and I think it went really well. I was able to use the line, "To be truly frank, DMing a game where I am basically a gear vendor and controller of monsters to kill does nothing for me. That is not a game I am interested in playing," and still not come off sounding like a self-righteous prick.

About 75% of their complaints were actually them giving me a hard time, and I knew this. But I truly wanted to address the 25%. I realized that I have been playing a passive-aggressive war of attrition with two of my players. They want to loot all the bodies and take everything to town and sell it. My solution? None of the bodies had any treasure, and there was nothing available in the few towns they've seen. Neither is realistic; you can't loot and carry 3 sets of half-plate armor on what amounts to a long term camping-backpacking-hiking excursion which just happens to include numerous battles with powerful monsters. On the flip side, towns are going to have vendors and enemies are going to have loot, that's the way of D&D.

We came to a compromise. I'm accelerating their leveling up slightly, which is good because I thought they were one level higher than they are currently. I also did a quick ret-con and made some of their items that had very minor magic properties have better ones. I allowed one of my "problem players" to backtrack on his Sorcerer build. They are all using characters I rolled for them, and I think he was unhappy with the Wild Mage features. He seemed much more excited about his character after he had retooled it. For my second "problem player", I promised him game breakingly powerful magic items if he could complete his character's Bond of finding the Dwarven homeland and retaking the kingship for his family (and I'll come through; if he can kill the Death Knight shade of the last Dwarven king and reclaim the Axe of the Dwarvenking, the Armor of the Dwarvenking, and the Onyx Crown; he will also be able to make a claim on the Kingship of all Dwarves). His character is already extremely powerful (lvl 6 Paladin with 20 Str), so despite not getting new loot and items, he seemed satisfied and even began making interesting RP decision for his character (that are completely out of his personality in RL).

So, let this be an example for all DMs dealing with troublesome players (so, all DMs): A little frank talk among friends and a bit of compromise to a player's desires can go a long way toward improving one's table experience.