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What are the biggest RPG crimes?
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<blockquote data-quote="The Crimson Binome" data-source="post: 7556544" data-attributes="member: 6775031"><p>For certain definitions of "story", perhaps. If the session transcript is just a bunch of people messing around in town, never getting into any conflict or performing any uncertain actions, then that could very well be a session of an RPG; but many critics would hesitate to call it a story, or even a story fragment. It lacks purposefulness. Everything in a novel or movie happens in order to drive the plot. Everything in an RPG happens because it happens. It's like the difference between The Sims and Max Payne. You could say that The Sims doesn't have a story, or you could say that it does; but saying that it has a story would make it more difficult to talk about the relevant differences between those two games.</p><p></p><p>Maybe it's a matter of semantics, but it's extremely relevant to the worst habits of certain GMs, which is that they treat the world like a story rather than like a world. If we can't agree on what to call that, then that's unfortunate, but failure to label does not resolve the underlying problem.</p><p>Don't conflate D&D or Pathfinder with their adventure paths. Although I wouldn't necessarily classify it as an RPG crime, using an adventure path is a huge red flag that the GM may not be up to the task of running a game without enforcing their own preferred outcomes, since straying too far from the assumptions of the book would make it unusable.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="The Crimson Binome, post: 7556544, member: 6775031"] For certain definitions of "story", perhaps. If the session transcript is just a bunch of people messing around in town, never getting into any conflict or performing any uncertain actions, then that could very well be a session of an RPG; but many critics would hesitate to call it a story, or even a story fragment. It lacks purposefulness. Everything in a novel or movie happens in order to drive the plot. Everything in an RPG happens because it happens. It's like the difference between The Sims and Max Payne. You could say that The Sims doesn't have a story, or you could say that it does; but saying that it has a story would make it more difficult to talk about the relevant differences between those two games. Maybe it's a matter of semantics, but it's extremely relevant to the worst habits of certain GMs, which is that they treat the world like a story rather than like a world. If we can't agree on what to call that, then that's unfortunate, but failure to label does not resolve the underlying problem. Don't conflate D&D or Pathfinder with their adventure paths. Although I wouldn't necessarily classify it as an RPG crime, using an adventure path is a huge red flag that the GM may not be up to the task of running a game without enforcing their own preferred outcomes, since straying too far from the assumptions of the book would make it unusable. [/QUOTE]
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