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Personally, I don't have a problem with that. Now THAT's a problem.

The questions I get are passed through the prism of the genre, the setting, and the rules of the game, not some personal predisposition to say yes or no.

A "litterbox" is a sandbox gone wrong. Maybe the players go tharn, unable or unwilling to act. Maybe the referee's setting is so bland that it's best described by the flavor of something before the vanilla is added. What are your crappy sandbox experiences? Mine was a Traveller referee who...

I don't have a default answer - in my experience, the questions players ask and the situations which prompt them are too varied for stock answers.

Three copies of The Traveller Book and five Top Secret boxed sets.

I was one of the investigators of a mountain lion attack in Orange County, California. The cougar attacked an adult cyclist and dragged her into the bushes as a second adult cyclist fought to pull the victim from the cougar's jaws. The cat didn't release its grip on the victim until two more...

It's a distinction without merit when it crushes your neck in its jaws and drags your carcass into the brush. Jaguars are, or were, North American big cats, too, depending on where one draws the line between the Americas.

Last major fight in our Flashing Blades campaign resulted in three dead, two fled, and two prisoners. The previous big battle ended up with something like four wounded, one killed, two prisoners, and one escaped. Only once did the adventurers kill all their opponents, during a duel in an alley...

Note to self: the adventurers in my Flashing Blades campaign cannot go out for spaghetti with marinara while they're in 1625 Italy. (But they can get salsa in Spain!)

North America doesn't have big cats anymore? And would someone please XP Hobo for me? I loves me the Ice Age megafauna in my D&D games.

So, it's okay for the players to dictate to the referee, but not the other way around?

Worth repeating, quoted for truth, plus-one, and hell yeah. Could some kind poster drop an XP on Janx for me? In the Mort example of the adventurer seeking a shortcut, that isn't the end of engaging the mechanics in the games I run. If, based on my knowledge of the setting, a short cut isn't...

In our Flashing Blades campaign, the first time the adventurers took prisoners, one escaped and the other they killed, slitting his throat and slipping the body into the Seine. The last time they took prisoners, they turned both of them over to the provost-martial. Way back when, our free...

Because in the words of Boris Badenov, "It's good to be bad!" I only played one memorable evil character, a ruthless, low-key megalomaniac lawful evil cleric. He was actually very diligent in working with the party, as he saw them as a means to his eventual domination. Mostly I enjoy games in...

I read your linked post and noticed that you edited part of it out. Here's the post with the edited bit restored. I agree that roleplaying games are not novels, but describing the adventurers as "pawns" molded by an "all-knowing writer" strikes me as pretty over-the-top and nothing like the...

Our Flashing Blades campaign will be going to Skype next month, as one of our players moved home to Europe. The rest of us will still get together face-to-face here in the States; this means fewer potential linking issues, and lets the player who runs an IT department handle the software and...

It's not the weapons themselves that are silly; it's the environment in which they're used. The rapier was a weapon for gentlemen dueling other gentlemen, not cutting down armored men in battle. In my experience, "cinematic realism" is used to dismiss any possible appeal to physics, as a blanket...

Ah yes, I forgot that "cinematic fantasy" means there is no floor and no ceiling for silliness.

There are some days this site is just crying out for a roll-eyes smiley. What isn't productive is rejecting D&D for being D&D and not GURPS or Rolemaster or Burning Wheel.

It's the thought that counts. :)