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<blockquote data-quote="The Shaman" data-source="post: 5554793" data-attributes="member: 26473">The idea of &quot;breaking the game&quot; presumes that the players know what it is their characters are 'supposed to' be doing per the referee or the module author, or are deliberately trying to be disruptive, which is why I take the original post as pejorative.Both of these are problematic for me for a number of reasons. Players may not realize they're off the reservation; their characters are doing what they believe to be best in the context of what they know, without realizing that's not what the module designer 'intended.' If the referee feels he needs to put them back on the path, he might as well just hand the module over to the players and let them read it, 'cause basically he's saying, &quot;Here's the story I want to tell, and I don't want your choices to interfere with it.&quot;I can't recall personally playing with many players who were deliberately, self-consciously disruptive, who were attempting to screw with the referee or the group by their behavior for kicks. I can recall players being bored or disinterested and trying to find ways to make the game more interesting for themselves. If it's one player, that can be rude; if it's the entire group, then the referee needs to seriously consider why that is.But let's be clear, the decision by the players and the adventurers to pursue something they find interesting in the game isn't, in and of itself, disruptive. In fact, once upon a time, that was simply what players were expected to do.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="The Shaman, post: 5554793, member: 26473"] The idea of "breaking the game" presumes that the players know what it is their characters are 'supposed to' be doing per the referee or the module author, or are deliberately trying to be disruptive, which is why I take the original post as pejorative. Both of these are problematic for me for a number of reasons. Players may not realize they're off the reservation; their characters are doing what they believe to be best in the context of what they know, without realizing that's not what the module designer 'intended.' If the referee feels he needs to put them back on the path, he might as well just hand the module over to the players and let them read it, 'cause basically he's saying, "Here's the story I want to tell, and I don't want your choices to interfere with it." I can't recall personally playing with many players who were deliberately, self-consciously disruptive, who were attempting to screw with the referee or the group by their behavior for kicks. I [I]can[/I] recall players being bored or disinterested and trying to find ways to make the game more interesting for themselves. If it's one player, that can be rude; if it's the entire group, then the referee needs to seriously consider why that is. But let's be clear, the decision by the players and the adventurers to pursue something they find interesting in the game isn't, in and of itself, disruptive. In fact, once upon a time, that was simply what players were [I]expected[/I] to do. [/QUOTE]

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