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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 9508993" data-attributes="member: 42582">When I play, which is not all that often, I design a character who has strong motivations and will drive things in directions that I think are interesting.When I GM, I look to what the players seem to want to do with their PCs, and establish situations that will provide opportunities to do that. What exactly that looks like, and how intense it will be, depends on the system. For instance, Burning Wheel or In A Wicked Age is more intense in this respect than Classic Traveller or Torchbearer 2e.When GMing 4e D&amp;D, which in its default presentation is heavily setting-oriented, I looked to the players to foreground those parts of the setting that they wanted to engage with (via their PCs). That's why our campaign made certain elements - the Raven Queen; the Lattice of Heaven; the sundering of the Elves, and their reunion; the nature and fate of the Abyss; and some other stuff too - central. While other parts of the default setting were of much less significance in our game.My role wasn't just to bring those elements that the players had foregrounded into play; but to also present them in ways that would require the players to make hard choices - eg Will restoring the Lattice of Heaven have other consequences that sit at odds with the aspirations the players (as their PCs) have? Is it possible to permanently defeat the Abyss without restoring the Lattice of Heaven? Etc.So this is not about presenting the setting in a &quot;neutral&quot; fashion. It's about pushing hard where that will be interesting for me and for the players.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 9508993, member: 42582"] When I play, which is not all that often, I design a character who has strong motivations and will drive things in directions that I think are interesting. When I GM, I look to what the players seem to want to do with their PCs, and establish situations that will provide opportunities to do that. [I]What exactly that looks like[/I], and how intense it will be, depends on the system. For instance, Burning Wheel or In A Wicked Age is more intense in this respect than Classic Traveller or Torchbearer 2e. When GMing 4e D&D, which in its default presentation is heavily setting-oriented, I looked to the players to foreground those parts of the setting that they wanted to engage with (via their PCs). That's why our campaign made certain elements - the Raven Queen; the Lattice of Heaven; the sundering of the Elves, and their reunion; the nature and fate of the Abyss; and some other stuff too - central. While other parts of the default setting were of much less significance in our game. My role wasn't just to bring those elements that the players had foregrounded into play; but to also present them in ways that would require the players to make hard choices - eg Will restoring the Lattice of Heaven have other consequences that sit at odds with the aspirations the players (as their PCs) have? Is it possible to permanently defeat the Abyss without restoring the Lattice of Heaven? Etc. So this is not about presenting the setting in a "neutral" fashion. It's about pushing hard where that will be interesting for me and for the players. [/QUOTE]

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