NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DEFCON 1" data-source="post: 8955477" data-attributes="member: 7006">I appreciate you taking the time to go over your way of thinking on all of this.  You wrote a lot of stuff trying to get your point across (the whole train thing took me a little time trying to make the connection between that and D&D, but I think I got it) and I understand conceptually where you are coming from.  You have certain beliefs that you think are important and a part of the game... and I imagine you think are so standard that everyone probably follows it (whether they realize it or not.)But as I parsed all of it... it was the quoted section above that seemed to me to be the heart of the whole thing of what it is exactly that the players are supposed to learn.  Making wiser decisions and to "play the game better".But that turns out to be the exact thing that I've sort of gotten from you all along... and unfortunately has nothing to do with how I myself run my game.Why?  Because I AM the game.  The game is me.  I am coming up with everything that is happening.  "Learning" about the game is pointless, because at any point I can and probably will CHANGE things.  I am not following a script.  I am not using an Adventure Path or module and just running it as-is like I am some computer-- reading what each bit says and doing exactly what the book writes as what is meant to happen.  No... I am adapting material.  I am creating material.  If the players choose to do something that I haven't thought about yet then I am inventing material right then and there.  Players can't "learn" things, because that assumes there is a STANDARD that the game has that they can figure out.  And in my experience, Dungeons & Dragons does not have that unless you just run every written adventure you have bought by rote.  There is nothing to learn about the game, because the game is always different.  And what was true in one adventure might not be true in another.  What is true in one dungeon corridor might not be true in another.  Especially when I am making stuff up as I go along.I can't remember every single ruling I've ever made and I think it is ridiculous to even put that thought upon myself to try.  All in the name of some standardized thing that the players at the table can "learn"?  No thanks. Especially when I don't even know what they gain by doing so.  So the players "learn" something about the game.  Okay.  So what?  Did it affect their characters at all?  Did it affect the story at all?  Or is it strictly an ego thing where the players are just giving themselves a pat on the back for "learning" about X thing and "playing great"?Perhaps for some people learning to "play the game better" has meaning.  But I can tell you straight away that for me and the players I play with... it does not.  Because playing "well" can oftentimes be incredibly boring.  Making sure you do everything by the book using all the tools you've "learned" about how to play the game so that everything comes up roses.  To me... that seems like death.  No creativity, no playing towards character strengths and weaknesses  (rather than player strengths and weaknesses), no making intentionally bad choices because that's what the character would do (even if the player knows it's going to be a bad idea) and being happy just seeing the calamity that results from it.I fully expect my players to screw around and play "sub-optimally" on occasion because they are playing their characters, who themselves are sub-optimal.  And any and all "learning" those players may have picked up?  Will go right out the window.  They might as well never have even learned it in the first place.  And that's my biggest thing when I say I don't see the need for players to "learn" how to play the game.  Something you learn that is never actually used?  It's as though you never even bothered.But of course, that's just my opinion... I could be wrong.</blockquote>

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