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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8348558" data-attributes="member: 42582">I'm a little late to this thread - [USER=21169]@Doug McCrae[/USER] drew it to my attentionI think strong party play pushes against existentialism, or character-driven theme more generally, in RPGing. But it is possible to have multiple players without party play. And there are some themes that can work even with party play.I don't quite see how player &quot;meta-knowledge&quot; is meant to be a problem. We can read existentialist literature and have meta-knowledge about the protagonists; why is this a problem in RPGing?Now all that said, I'm not sure that D&amp;D is the best system for this. I'd look for something that brings personal convictions and relationship more to the fore. Of S&amp;S-ish/FRPG games the two I think of are In A Wicked Age and Burning Wheel.I would be inclined to pursue this via the fiction rather than via the PC build rules. It can be as simple as a NPC drawing the PCs' attention to the carnage they leave behind them. Or framing situations that demand a choice from the player - eg in my 4e game, at Epic tier after the PCs had killed Torog, one of them had the choice to take on the mantle of god of pain and punishment. He did so. In mechanical terms this wasn't an out-of-line power up (it fitted into the treasure parcel system); in existential terms it obliged the player to confront something he'd been dancing around in relation to his character, namely, what does he really think about the enforcement of norms and the pursuit of social order?Interesting. I don't buy many settings but when I do - eg 4e Dark Sun - it's more the mood/genre that I'm interested in.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 8348558, member: 42582"] I'm a little late to this thread - [USER=21169]@Doug McCrae[/USER] drew it to my attention I think strong party play pushes against existentialism, or character-driven theme more generally, in RPGing. But it is possible to have multiple players without party play. And there are some themes that can work even [I]with [/I]party play. I don't quite see how player "meta-knowledge" is meant to be a problem. We can read existentialist literature and have meta-knowledge about the protagonists; why is this a problem in RPGing? Now all that said, I'm not sure that D&D is the best system for this. I'd look for something that brings personal convictions and relationship more to the fore. Of S&S-ish/FRPG games the two I think of are In A Wicked Age and Burning Wheel. I would be inclined to pursue this via the fiction rather than via the PC build rules. It can be as simple as a NPC drawing the PCs' attention to the carnage they leave behind them. Or framing situations that demand a choice from the player - eg in my 4e game, at Epic tier after the PCs had killed Torog, one of them had the choice to take on the mantle of god of pain and punishment. He did so. In mechanical terms this wasn't an out-of-line power up (it fitted into the treasure parcel system); in existential terms it obliged the player to confront something he'd been dancing around in relation to his character, namely, what does he [I]really [/I]think about the enforcement of norms and the pursuit of social order? Interesting. I don't buy many settings but when I do - eg 4e Dark Sun - it's more the mood/genre that I'm interested in. [/QUOTE]

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