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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5606598" data-attributes="member: 42582">This is interesting - that you self-consciously make the switch, and also that you find it takes work.I'm in a different situation as a GM, because I tend to GM only the one long-running campaign for the same established group of players. So my GMing experience has been a gradual transition to self-realisation - reading Lewis Pulsipher and Gygax and Dragon Magazine as a kid made me think that exploration-heavy play was good roleplaying, and so this is what I tried to do, although I wasn't that good at it and it tended to make for boring games. For me the change came (oddly enough, given its simulationist leanings) with AD&D's Oriental Adventures - the change in flavour and context, the suggestions on family relationship charts and political rivalries, etc, all helped me run a game that was a lot more free-flowing and responsive to the players in the framing and resolution of ingame situations.Since then, it's mostly been an ongoing effort to dial down the simulationist mechanics that get in the way of what I want (The Forge has helped me a lot in thinking clearly about this), while still running a pretty traditional fantasy RPG that has the sort of mechanical crunch that I and my players enjoy. Which is why, I think, 4e suits me so well. (I think that Burning Wheel probably would suit my group too, and perhaps The Riddle of Steel, although both perhaps lack that gonzo element that D&D, Rolemaster etc are so good at!)EDIT TO ADD: I sometimes read posts on these forums that suggest that exploration-heavy play, and/or play in which the GM exercise very strong control over theme and story, should be the starting default for RPGing, and that more free-flowing play, in which the GM responds to the players as much as vice versa in shaping gameworld situations, is "trickier" or for more advanced/sophisticated players. The most reductionist version of this thesis (and one which WotC seems to endorse, given some of its introductory scenarios) is that new players should begin with "kick-in-the-door-and-kill-and-loot-the-monsters" play, before graduating to "real" roleplaying.Because I have a very long-running core play group, I haven't introduced all that many players to the hobby, but where I have (either as GM or as a more experienced player helping out a new player) I haven't myself seen much evidence in favour of this notion. At least in my experience, new players can be very keen to get involved in shaping the fiction of the campaign world and the unfolding ingame situation, and to the extent that they hold back it is because they feel resistance from GMs who want to assert sole authority over backstory (shutting down the new player's PC background), and/or authority not only over framing situations but over the resolution of them (ie plot authority, in Forge jargon).I think that this relates, in part at least, to [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION]'s remarks upthread about trusting the players. For me, it also makes Tomb of Horrors suspect as the apotheosis of the game - that's one way to do it, sure, but by no means the only way.</blockquote>

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