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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 3399302" data-attributes="member: 4937">Will Wright is innovative.  I've got a ton of his work.  But, he's just flat out wrong.  It sounds really nice in theory, but it just won't and doesn't work in practice.1) We don't demand or expect that of any other artistic media.  We may select a general theme or style, but we don't expect when watching a movie or reading a book that the story conform to our wishes.  We don't actually want stories that only have in them what we ask of them to have.  We want stories that surprise us, sometimes shock us, and are frankly better that we ourselves imagined that they would be.  We wanted to be delighted as well as satisfied.  It's those stories where the author gave us something we didn't expect that we remember best and longest.  And for most people who sit down at the table, that's what they are expecting.  2) There is a reason that there is one DM and many players.  The problem with giving the players more story control than they already have - and they already have alot - is that no two players are necessarily going to agree over what the story should be.  Only one player can really have the veto.  Only one player of the game can really have full creative control.  At the very least, someone has to break the ties.3) Will Wrights games are great object lessons in why the approach he's always advocated doesn't really work in general.  First of all, most of his games are pretty dreadfully dull once you get beyond the 'Gosh, look at the thing grow' stage.  Will makes interesting toys that approximate something organic and alive.  You play with it.  You tend it, but it has more in common with gardening than gaming.  Without the graphics that give you that sensation of watching something organic, what do you have?  Also, Will Wrights games are so open ended as to go nowhere.  I've never had the experience of playing Sim City and ever feeling like I accomplished something.  I always plan to accomplish something, and look forward to doing it.  But once done, it never seems to have the gloss I wanted.  But even more to the point, Will Wright's games are fundamentally solo activities.  The Sims are the only successful multiplayer game he has and even then, you don't so much have a game as a good looking chat room.Of the prior comments, I think I most agree with RFisher.  I do agree that the problem is not that the game can't be played by either party in a reactive role, but rather that there is a problem mostly when both parties (DM and players) try to forcibly take the same role.For example, while I'm one of those DM's firelance complains about, I wouldn't have any problem per se with a group of players that wanted to steal a ship and go pirating.  I've had players take the story in directions I've never expected before.  But my experience with PC's that take the active role is that they generally don't make very good choices.  For example, stealing a ship and going pirating is a fine choice for generating adventures, but since they are more or less declaring thier intention to take on the whole world single handedly, it might not be the best choice for generating sustained campaigns especially if the players plans turn out to be not the most well thought out.  When players do that, its almost like they are insisting I allow them to succeed at anything no matter what they choose to do.  At that point, I tend to wonder what they need a DM for.I mean, while it's typically very hard to lose at one of Will Wrights games, it is often possible in theory - usually if you deliberately try to do so.</blockquote>

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