Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="KarinsDad" data-source="post: 5496553" data-attributes="member: 2011">There are also reasons to not do so.Most social settings like playing an RPG have strong personality types and weaker personality types. I've discovered in over 3 decades of gaming with hundreds of different people that stronger personality types will often dominate any gaming social setting, even without necessarily realizing that they are doing so.My own personality is one where I want every player to explore options, good, bad, or indifferent, without censor from the group, without peer pressure from the group, without the strong personatility types, especially the intelligent or experienced strong personality types dominating the action.I want each player to shine.Because to me, it's more fun for each player to make their own narrative (and tactical) decisions than it is for the group (usually one or two players) making their narrative decisions for them, even if that results in some type of mistake.I would theorize that quite a few people who have strong opinions here on the boards might also be strong personality types at their games. They might often be the intelligent people who are often more tactically or narratively capable. I would think that it's precisely some of these type of people who argue so strongly for group think in the game. Cause when they have group think, they get to partially control the action without being the DM.So my suggestion is: let everyone shine at the table. Don't allow the stronger personality types to often dominate the weaker personality types, either with cross table tactical suggestions, or with cross table narrative suggestions.My own teenage daughter at our games is so excited and into the game that she will often say in combat (or out of combat) "do this, or why don't you do that, etc.". If it gets out of hand, I will say to her "it's not your turn, it's Sally's turn, let Sally play her own PC, on your turn, you get to play your PC".Group think tends to become "the same players over and over" individual think, so I tend to oppose it just on principle.I also hate the concept of psychic PCs (i.e. the group of players decides something for one PC to either do or say, without discussing it in character).That's not roleplaying either. It's group think playing. Yuck! <img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/worried.png"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":-S" title="Uhm    :-S" data-shortname=":-S" />I purposely made that example 40 feet of distance, 20 feet fall, etc. because unless the DM allows for a charge action (with a minor of getting out a weapon part way within it) or the player uses an action point, it will be a minimum of two move actions and a standard action. I was trying to push the envelope beyond a simple swing on a chandelier into the realm of "how does this work within the rules?".If one were to "just say yes" to bend the rules and allow it within a single round, it might be cinematic, but it might also be viewed by another player as "how come he always gets away with this type of bending the rules, just because his PC has Acrobatics?" (or more precisely, because he is a more imaginative player).I don't mind cinematic activities, in fact they are often a lot of fun. But I like them to be as close to the rules as possible in order for all of the players to understand that as DM, I am not trying to show favoritism towards the more imaginative players. As DM, I should be impartial.</blockquote>

Verification