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Message: <blockquote data-quote="takasi" data-source="post: 4863944" data-attributes="member: 20194">DMing is like obedience training.  There are positive rewards for good behavior, like a pet or a treat, and there are negative rewards for bad behavior, like a swat on the nose with a newspaper.  Most obedience trainers would not encourage negative rewards.Event based world evolving games are very negative.  If you don't do a certain thing by a certain time then the world will change for the worse.  I think rat bastard DMs tend to lean towards this style of gaming.  Also, a good writer will probably prefer this style.  It's easier to make players follow his story, and even though he won't admit it that's a better thing for him because he's a better writer. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />  I think this may also be why many modern day module authors who get far more kudos today through email and message boards prefer to encourage these types of games, to the point of writing an entire group's campaign for them in advance.  Site based status quo games are primarily positive.  If a player does absolutely nothing, they will not be punished.  The world will pretty much be exactly as it was last week, month or year.  If they want to live their entire life in an inn, so be it.  The only time the world changes is when players do something good.  This makes the DM follow their story.  In site based games, DMs have no idea what changes will happen in the world, because it depends on what the players do next.  In event based games DMs can say 'I can make story changes even if the players do nothing', and this is exactly how the slippery road to railing begins.A positive rewarding DM will help build an exciting world that evolves as players take action, not devolves as players take inaction.  This is a good theme for medieval fantasy.  There are monsters, and life sucks.  Only when heroes step up and conquer evil will there be progress. People within the world understand this.  But some DMs prefer to offer a dark spiral of death, with dark plots and events in place that threaten a cushy starting point (that honestly, most players really won't care about when they first start playing).  I play medieval fantasy because it represents dark times, when evil has won and society has crumbled.  Where monsters are real and all hope is lost until heroes emerge.I know not everyone plays this style, but I prefer traditional sword and sorcery.  Where civilization is ruled by evil and/or ignorant leadership.  Where most people live in slavery and/or poverty.  Where there are signs everywhere that things were better at one time.  Adventurers rise up from the ashes and make a change in the world for the better.  There is little to no consequence if you die in battle, because hope was lost long ago.  Only the greatest of all can deliver society from evil.</blockquote>

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