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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hussar" data-source="post: 8599990" data-attributes="member: 22779">That got me thinking. Where was the first game I played that had that sort of backgrounds.  I really can't remember.  We did do a lot of different games back in the day.  Granted, the exact rules are way out of my memory now, but, I'm pretty sure the James Bond 007 game had something like that.  I remember it being the first game that I ever saw (and this was back in the early 80's) that had action points (Bond Points if IIIRC, but, don't quote me on that) that allowed the players to change the scene so that you could succeed in spectacular Bond fashion.It really was an eye opening moment for me.I'd take it even a step further than that.  Most DM's don't understand odds.  The reward has to be GREATER than the risk or it simply isn't worth it.  If you (as a simple example) double damage but double the risk of failure, then, well, why would I bother?  There's no upside to that.  If you want to double the chance of failure, you need to triple the reward.The shift in D&D to a standard 66% success rate baseline has been a huge change in the game.But, here's the part about listening to your players.  Ok, getting to B is part of the adventure - the players are supposed to overcome it.  Well, the player has brought something interesting and creative to the game and resolved the challenge.  Fantastic.  But, so many DM's are so fixated on making the players "earn" the success that they completely discourage this type of engagement with the setting.  Player must never have any authorial control.  Which in turn means that since the player has absolutely no authorial input into the setting, they become passive consumers.  Well, if i'm a passive consumer, why would I bother actually engaging with the setting beyond the bare minimum?  From that perspective, it is far more rewarding to simply react to whatever the DM places in front of the player and deal with that since no other solutions are possible.And thus we get these passive players who want the DM to roll up the plot wagon and spoon feed them scene after scene while they passively shovel down whatever the DM puts in front of them.  I've seen FAR too many players like that to think that this isn't something that DM's have trained into their players.</blockquote>

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