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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ovinomancer" data-source="post: 7919617" data-attributes="member: 16814">Yes to both.  I'll elaborate further, but I wanted to go ahead and break in and answer these questions.I disagree that your states are comprehensive, and, in fact, miss the position I'm staking.  There's a position that juxtaposes all three states, in that I may not care about Force in one aspect of a game, expect it in another, and be very upset about it in a third.  I honestly think this is a place that D&D occupies:  Force is expected due to prep concerns -- ie, the GM is largely expected to Force the prep to the forefront of the game and/or only present prepared items (ie, there's no real game outside of prep, which is a version of Force).  Force is aberrant in regards to character, though, as this is the sole proprietorship of the player.  And, Force may be not cared about in regards to other aspects of play.So, no, I don't fully agree that Force is a binary on-or-off thing, as it can be applied to different areas of the game independently.That said, if the table expectation is no Force, then, yes, it's a binary issue.To relate my experience, at a high level, I was playing in a 3.x game.  The premise of the game was that Force was involved -- it centered around a prophecy.  However, there were large chunks of the game that revolved around the characters solely.  The GM was experienced in a number of different games and did an excellent job of having a plotted game but having enough "slop" to add in character driven side-arcs.  He, in effect, ran a hybrid game -- half plotted and full of force and the other half (outside of the clearly defined plotted elements) open to player direction and focusing on character arcs.  It was, as I noted, a perfect storm of events that resulted in finding things out about my character that I didn't know, or initially thought differently.  So, in this game, there was clearly Force (the plotted elements aligned with a prophecy), but not in all areas.  My tolerance for Force is higher than others (but not infinite by any imagination) so I could accept (and did, in session zero) Force in agreed areas.  This ad hoc arrangement worked very well and delivered character arcs not just for me but for most of the other players (we had two players uninterested in arcs, and so did not have one).  Fundamentally, I think the difference here is that I see character arcs existing in a game that isn't entirely focused on delivering that play whereas you're discussion play entirely focused on character.  I'll agree with you that, in the latter case, Force in any amount is detrimental to the premise of the game.  I'll disagree, though, in that I assert character arcs can exist outside of a game focused on character, and those games may have Force.</blockquote>

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