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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 7284303" data-attributes="member: 29398">There's a bunch of assumptions and implications weaving through here (and in other posts by other people, I'm not trying to pick on [MENTION=16814]Ovinomancer[/MENTION] but this post just happens to be the easiest to use as a jumping-off point) that are making this discussion into something it otherwise wouldn't be.First: that being in the spotlight is the main - or only - route to enjoyment of the game.  Not at all true.  Player C in this case could be getting great enjoyment and entertainment simply out of watching the show being put on by Players A and B, and the DM.  And not just in this particular case, but most of the time during the game...that's mostly what keeps him coming back every week - the entertainment value of these guys. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> (I've been Player C on a few occasions, where week in and week out the best part of the game was the entertainment provided by other players and all I did some nights was laugh)Second: that there's this "spotlight" resource that the players (not characters) are actively and intentionally always competing for in a greedy sort of way.  While it's true that a DM only has so much attention to go around, it's not necessarily true that there's always (or ever, in some cases) active competition for said attention; and it's also not necessarily true that players are unwilling to allow the DM to focus on one player (character) for a while.  If a party sends their Thief ahead scouting, for example, that's the players in effect telling the DM to focus on that character and its player for a while and to ignore the rest of them as they have willingly conceded the spotlight to the Thief for however long it takes to resolve the scouting mission.Second, part 2: that a DM can't divide her attention and-or focus on two or more things at once.  Some can, which implies there can be more than one spotlight turned on at a time and that, by extension, zero is a floating number. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Second, part 3: that the only "spotlight" that matters is that of having the DM's attention.  It's entirely possible, for example, that two PCs (and thus players) are engaged in their own private discussion while the DM sorts out PCs three and four.  Here there's two independent spotlights - players one and two have one (their own discussion) while players three and four have the other; everybody's happy, and neither group sees or knows what the other is doing unless later narration makes it obvious.Third: that system mastery is the measure of how "good" someone is as a player.  Absolute garbage.  One can be an excellent and engaged player, full of good ideas and creative solutions put forth by memorable and entertaining characters, and yet still not know what dice to roll when, or why; or how to roll up a character.Lanefan</blockquote>

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