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What does it mean to "Challenge the Character"?
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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7599910" data-attributes="member: 42582"><p>This is interesting and really worthy of its own thread, about the burdens (or otherwise) of GMing.</p><p></p><p>Well, it started by just following some thoughts where they took me.</p><p></p><p>But one place they ended up taking me is that I think some of the constraints/rules that are being taken for granted in the 5e context aren't actually found in the rules but are imported from some more generic conception of RPGing.</p><p></p><p>To elaborate: in one of these recent threads, someone posted about GMing a couple of kids. Kid A, in character, tells Kid B (also in character) to scout ahead. B does so. A asks "What was up ahead?" B starts answering, without waiting to be told by the GM. And it's not only kids - the last time I introduced a new player to RPGing, he took for granted that he had a fair bit of liberty to establish context, background etc for his PC.</p><p></p><p>If all I know of RPGing is the 5e Basic PDF, I don't think I can fully work out how I'm meant to create and play a character like Tika Wayland, who (as advertised in the sidebars) has friends who care for her, a history and a home. The example of play - scoping out the gargoyles - gives some sort of indication that establishing the context is the GM's role. But the stuff in ch 4 strongly implies that establishing PC backstory is the player's role. I don't see much advice in the Basic rules on how to handle the interaction of these two things, and frankly it would just seem weird to be "playing my character" and yet to be having the GM tell me all about my intimate connections to the various NPCs I'm meeting, what our shared memories are, etc. Those look like player-side, not GM-side, elements of the fiction.</p><p></p><p>And so I guess I feel that, once it comes to light in this way that the game is in fact assuming people can bring some externally-generated expectation to bear on managing this aspect of it, then the claim that certain approaches are notably more consistent with the game taken on its own terms starts to look a bit weaker. To use a metaphor: if everyone has a bump in their rug, I find the claim to have identified the canonical floor covering a bit less persuasive than it might otherwise have been.</p><p></p><p>(Postscript: if everyone is playing "Man with no name" type characters; or characters whose backstory is all in the past, and/or somewhere else, and so not apt to actually come up in play; then the issue won't arise. But I don't think the 5e Basic PDF tells me that that's the sort of character I should create, or the sort of play experience I should expect. In fact, chapter 4 tends to suggest quite the opposite. Although maybe this is a case like the Foreword to Moldvay Basic, where the game text suggests one thing, but in its implementation very clearly delivers a different thing. But I don't see much account in 5e postings of playing "situated" characters, and how that works.)</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 7599910, member: 42582"] This is interesting and really worthy of its own thread, about the burdens (or otherwise) of GMing. Well, it started by just following some thoughts where they took me. But one place they ended up taking me is that I think some of the constraints/rules that are being taken for granted in the 5e context aren't actually found in the rules but are imported from some more generic conception of RPGing. To elaborate: in one of these recent threads, someone posted about GMing a couple of kids. Kid A, in character, tells Kid B (also in character) to scout ahead. B does so. A asks "What was up ahead?" B starts answering, without waiting to be told by the GM. And it's not only kids - the last time I introduced a new player to RPGing, he took for granted that he had a fair bit of liberty to establish context, background etc for his PC. If all I know of RPGing is the 5e Basic PDF, I don't think I can fully work out how I'm meant to create and play a character like Tika Wayland, who (as advertised in the sidebars) has friends who care for her, a history and a home. The example of play - scoping out the gargoyles - gives some sort of indication that establishing the context is the GM's role. But the stuff in ch 4 strongly implies that establishing PC backstory is the player's role. I don't see much advice in the Basic rules on how to handle the interaction of these two things, and frankly it would just seem weird to be "playing my character" and yet to be having the GM tell me all about my intimate connections to the various NPCs I'm meeting, what our shared memories are, etc. Those look like player-side, not GM-side, elements of the fiction. And so I guess I feel that, once it comes to light in this way that the game is in fact assuming people can bring some externally-generated expectation to bear on managing this aspect of it, then the claim that certain approaches are notably more consistent with the game taken on its own terms starts to look a bit weaker. To use a metaphor: if everyone has a bump in their rug, I find the claim to have identified the canonical floor covering a bit less persuasive than it might otherwise have been. (Postscript: if everyone is playing "Man with no name" type characters; or characters whose backstory is all in the past, and/or somewhere else, and so not apt to actually come up in play; then the issue won't arise. But I don't think the 5e Basic PDF tells me that that's the sort of character I should create, or the sort of play experience I should expect. In fact, chapter 4 tends to suggest quite the opposite. Although maybe this is a case like the Foreword to Moldvay Basic, where the game text suggests one thing, but in its implementation very clearly delivers a different thing. But I don't see much account in 5e postings of playing "situated" characters, and how that works.) [/QUOTE]
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