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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 6452689" data-attributes="member: 6696971">Great post by the way.When I wrote the post that MO responded to, I was expecting it would elicit the precise response that  [MENTION=5143]Majoru Oakheart[/MENTION] provided.  Further, given his prior post history on his group dynamics, and certain players' poor behavior, I was specifically expecting it from him.Your response above neatly captures my thoughts on the matter.  Is there a decent cross- section of the gaming populace that are basically dysfunctional teenagers (even if they look like adults) who attempt to use the medium as a conduit to resolve their sense of their own inadequacy (power fantasies)?  Of course.  But that sort of deal isn't remotely inherent to gaming alone.  Go to any basketball court.  It will be fraught with weekend warriors who didn't make it because a, b, c.  They lie, cheat, swindle, rage (etc) for all the same reasons.  Its a cesspool of poor behavior because the world doesn't agree with their overdeveloped sense of themselves.  Guess what?  Not all gamers are so dysfunctional and not all amateur ballplayers are either.  There are plenty of well-adjusted/humble adults who pay their mortgage/rent, raise their kids/take care of their dog, work a 9-5/go to school to earn their degree, and are just looking to play a game and have some enjoyable time amongst friends.  The difference between a court bereft of such play disruption/narcissicm/antagonism or a table bereft of the same is 100 % night and day.What I wrote directly above notwithstanding, obviously I hold the position that certain systems, certain GMing techniques/principles, and the coherency of the table agenda (with respect to the afformentioned two components) is a huge driver in whether a table will yield some dysfunction or not.  As you've written above, consider the Apocalypse World engine and its D&D derivative.  Dungeon World makes it almost (*) impossible for wierdly passive-aggressive/adversarial, "D&D play", to exist at a table and the players are extraordinarily empowered.  You've got an entirely transparent basic resolution mechanic.  You've got various currency that you can spend on specified things or to avoid specific things (hold, balance, rations, adventuring gear, etc).  You've got clear, focused GMing principles and techniques.  The totality of the system and the play agenda inexorably funnel play precisely toward the genre, the table experience, and the emergent story that it advocates for on the tin.  I've never run adventures, I've always prepped low (very consistent with DW's formalized GMing section) with antagonists and their motivations (that firm up as play manifests them) and an assortment of conflict-charged scene openers/situations that will test the players and their thematic interests/abilities (eg bonds, alignment and their archetypal shtick).  Then just let it snowball and see what comes out of it.  Amusingly enough, Dungeon World is precisely the type of coherent, elegant system that I would have expected the 5e designers to push toward given their elevation of "rules lite" (which 5e isn't even close) and "focus on the fiction" tenets.  But that was mostly just talk.  They had to satisfy a certain cross-section of D&D players' interests, and that interest includes massive and varying player-side crunch, action economy in combat, and the GM being heavily involved in the action resolution stage of play (which a rules-lite, utterly clear, basic resolution mechanic which just focuses on the fiction works 100 % against).With that formula, saying yes and empowering players is easily achieved and pretty much fundamental to play...and I've never had an issue with player agency.  The few times that I did have to bear with disfunctional players (who were disfunctional either because of having to endure past GMing or something internal to themselves), we either worked it out or I excised the cancer if there could be no meeting of the minds.  I have yet to see this "all players come equipped with bad wiring" phenomenon.  If that is all you're finding, I suggest seeking out a different pool of players or try a different system.* I could see it under poor GMing; lacking in creativity or understanding of how rules lite, fiction-first, abstract conflict resolution mechanics are supposed to work and the play experience that is supposed to follow from it.</blockquote>

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