Rel
Liquid Awesome
Back from another job this afternoon and still woefully lacking any bourbon in the liquor cabinet. Shame because I feel like it would really go well with this thread.
Shadzar, I have neither the inclination nor energy to go through point by point upon whatever issues we may disagree. I will however, because for some bizarre reason I'm semi-obsessed with the headache that this thread has become, make an effort at a couple of clarifications that are important in my own mind.
The notion that we all have our own, limited perspectives is of course tautological. Suggesting that, without having had extensive experience with all these various types of gamers, one is less qualified to offer up an opinion on this, or any, topic seems counter to the whole point of a messageboard such as this one. We are here precisely for the purpose of gathering diverse opinion on topics that interest us as gamers.
I can only ever offer an opinion based on my personal experience, tailored to whatever specifics are offered by the OP, and generalized to what I believe will apply to most such situations. That is exactly what I have done in this thread in every post I've made.
I believe that it is most beneficial to most GM-Player relationships for the GM to be willing to answer a few (Yes, somewhere between 1 and 20) questions about why something is banned from the game. I believe that consideration and communication are of benefit to most relationships, even those of gamers with one another.
I don't believe that this general rule has exceptions based on whether the player in question is a friend, somebody you hope might become a friend or somebody you have no particular intentions of making a friend. No doubt there will be personalities and situations where such an approach is not the best one. Those are, in my opinion, the exceptions that prove the rule.
By way of answering a point that I'm about to claim is largely irrelevant, I have never been to MACE (though I'm considering going this year - problem is that it falls too close to the April NC Game Day for comfort) or StellarCon. I have been to another local Con, TriNoCon because it was a lot more geographically close and I knew the organizer.
My experiences at GenCon have focused on gaming with people that I already know or whom I am looking forward to meeting from ENWorld and Circvs Maximvs. About my GenCon experiences I can say definitively that nearly all of them have involved friends and nearly all of them have involved meeting somebody new, many of whom I have since made friends with. Also, ENW/CM GenCon games are AWESOME. That's another General Rule that can be relied upon.
However I would point directly at all such gaming experiences at conventions and say that they have almost nothing to do with the point of this thread. Regardless of whether your players at a Con are friends, acquaintances or strangers, there simply isn't a lot of Q&A going on between them and the GM. Most such games that I've ever seen involved pre-generated characters. Furthermore there simply isn't enough time to spend on asking why some feature might be absent from a particular game setting. And lastly, one of my favorite things about one-shot games at Cons, you don't have to worry about setting precedents. There is never a better time to "Say YES!" than in a one-shot game where it is likely to jack up the Awesome with no lasting repercussions.
Yeah I'd say that about covers it for now.
Shadzar, I have neither the inclination nor energy to go through point by point upon whatever issues we may disagree. I will however, because for some bizarre reason I'm semi-obsessed with the headache that this thread has become, make an effort at a couple of clarifications that are important in my own mind.
The notion that we all have our own, limited perspectives is of course tautological. Suggesting that, without having had extensive experience with all these various types of gamers, one is less qualified to offer up an opinion on this, or any, topic seems counter to the whole point of a messageboard such as this one. We are here precisely for the purpose of gathering diverse opinion on topics that interest us as gamers.
I can only ever offer an opinion based on my personal experience, tailored to whatever specifics are offered by the OP, and generalized to what I believe will apply to most such situations. That is exactly what I have done in this thread in every post I've made.
I believe that it is most beneficial to most GM-Player relationships for the GM to be willing to answer a few (Yes, somewhere between 1 and 20) questions about why something is banned from the game. I believe that consideration and communication are of benefit to most relationships, even those of gamers with one another.
I don't believe that this general rule has exceptions based on whether the player in question is a friend, somebody you hope might become a friend or somebody you have no particular intentions of making a friend. No doubt there will be personalities and situations where such an approach is not the best one. Those are, in my opinion, the exceptions that prove the rule.
By way of answering a point that I'm about to claim is largely irrelevant, I have never been to MACE (though I'm considering going this year - problem is that it falls too close to the April NC Game Day for comfort) or StellarCon. I have been to another local Con, TriNoCon because it was a lot more geographically close and I knew the organizer.
My experiences at GenCon have focused on gaming with people that I already know or whom I am looking forward to meeting from ENWorld and Circvs Maximvs. About my GenCon experiences I can say definitively that nearly all of them have involved friends and nearly all of them have involved meeting somebody new, many of whom I have since made friends with. Also, ENW/CM GenCon games are AWESOME. That's another General Rule that can be relied upon.
However I would point directly at all such gaming experiences at conventions and say that they have almost nothing to do with the point of this thread. Regardless of whether your players at a Con are friends, acquaintances or strangers, there simply isn't a lot of Q&A going on between them and the GM. Most such games that I've ever seen involved pre-generated characters. Furthermore there simply isn't enough time to spend on asking why some feature might be absent from a particular game setting. And lastly, one of my favorite things about one-shot games at Cons, you don't have to worry about setting precedents. There is never a better time to "Say YES!" than in a one-shot game where it is likely to jack up the Awesome with no lasting repercussions.
Yeah I'd say that about covers it for now.
