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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6202927" data-attributes="member: 42582">But many D&D groups - including, by the evidence provided on these board, many 3E/PF groups - allows the players to choose race and class, and have group consensus over starting level and build points.Well that's precisely what we are discussing. Not everyone runs the game this way. [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION], who's been playing D&D for a long time, was shocked when he realisd how literally you meant this assertion. That on its own should be enough to show that your approach is not any sort of universal default.I don't know how much weight you intend to put on this consideration, but for me at least it is very striking [MENTION=205]TwoSix[/MENTION] has mentioned multiple times upthread that a player driven game relies upon the players not being absurd. And [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] (I think it was) suggested that one way to get the players to take responsibility is to give them power. (And this is an approach to encouraging mature behaviour that some people at least think is applicable in wider contexts beyond playing RPGs.)I have never GMed a game with the sort of personality mechanics you describe. Yet with my playing group I have not had a problem of players wanting to play psychopaths. (Nor have I ever had players who want their PCs to stay in taverns hitting on "hot elven chicks".) Because generally that makes for a boring game.My players have played a wide range of PCs, from vicious manipulating power-hungry characters who would be villains in standard fantasy fiction (eg the wizard PC who manipulated his drug-addicted "friend" into joining him in conquering their home town; to a paladin so committed to the welfare of the mortal world that he turned aginst the gods and their ancient pacts that would doom that world; to a heroic younger son of a samurai family who saved the world, got the girl, and pledged his family line to maintaining the integrity of the gate keepin the voidal entities at bay.Conversely, I personally could think of no approach to running a game more likely to produce players whose PCs are psychopaths with no ambitions that transcend self-interest and no concern but for what they can take by force from others, than one in which their attempts at diplomacy, and peaceful negotiated resolution, are routinely vetoed by a GM because it's not yet time, in the story, to make friends with this or that person. (Treating combat mechanics as more reiable than social mechanics would tend to reinforce this, at least in my experience.)</blockquote>

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