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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5555827" data-attributes="member: 42582">I don't agree with this at all.Of course mature people can accept adversity. But adversity, in the context of gaming, is having to cancel a session because someone is sick, or I have to go to work on a Sunday, or whatever else. When I do turn up to play, I don't expect to endure the adversity of a crappy session, anymore than when I turn up to a film I'm looking forward to I expect to endure the adversity of a bad film.Of course if the film turns out to be worse than I expected I cope. Likewise if the game session wasn't as good as I hoped. But this doesn't make such crappiness a virtue of the game session.Now a good session will include adversity for my PC. Which is to say, adversity for my PC is not adversity for me. But the "say yes" philosophy doesn't mean there is no adversity for my PC. It does mean that my ideas about how my PC might respond to that adversity, and how the immediate gameworld environment might respond to that response, are taken seriously. It means that, in certain respects, my PC is closer to my conception of him/her than to the GM's conception. I don't think there's anything "pampered" or "spoiled" about my PC being closer to my conception of him/her. The GM is not my parent. The purpose of the game isn't to teach me about alternatives to pleasure or about coping without pleasure or about having my creative inclinations usurped by others. The purpose of the game is to be a source of pleasure.Now if some people get pleasure by having their PC in part built by the GM, that's their prerogative - they can play AD&D. If they get pleasure by having thir PC in part built by random dice rolls, that's their prerogative also - they can play non-points buy D&D, or Runequest, or Traveller. But the notion that such people are more virtuous than those who like to build their PC entirely themselves - because better able to cope with adversity - I find spurious. They just have a different conception of what it is to place the game, and hence take pleasure in different ways of playing the game.As far as I'm concerned, if I want to know what it's like to have my creative inclinations randomly usurped, and to have irritating and in some cases unhelpful editorial interference, I have other outlets - namely, my job rather than my hobby.EDIT:This.</blockquote>

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