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<blockquote data-quote="Libramarian" data-source="post: 6346454" data-attributes="member: 6688858">I want to see my friends do well and be happy in life and love but when it's gaming time I want to see the joy of victory and the agony of a natural 1. I actually think of myself as a softie in the sense that I don't like to be the one turning the screws, most of the time. I want the game to do that. I'm not a &quot;killer DM&quot;. My preference is to be an uncertain, but prone towards positive DM running a killer game.It's important not to get hung up on the fictional events rather than how risky it actually feels at the table. One of the greatest insights of GNS theory IMO is that a given transcript of fictional events could have been produced by any creative agenda. The fact that your players contrived a plan to have guards fight the cultists doesn't tell me how much tension was involved in that choice and whether they're really scrapping for advantage or it was more of a lighter, just for fun/showing off thing. I want real, player-level fear and apprehension (While being good sports and us all recognizing that this is just a game of course. The way I describe this is making me sound like I force the players to play for my own amusement.)Another game I was thinking of as an example of the &quot;efficiency optimization&quot; style is SimCity or The Sims. When I play those games I actually hate the random disasters and try to turn those off as much as possible so I can just relax and explore how the game works and gradually advance my city/person. I understand the pleasure of this but as I said in the Rob Schwalb blog post thread I don't like this in a multi-player game because it's remarkably boring to watch someone having this type of fun.That's definitely lighter than my game, but yes, the same sort of thing.&nbsp; I should say that when the player left the&nbsp; room after their character died last time it was understood that they were a good sport about it and leaving the room was partly a performance to make the event even more amusing&nbsp; for the rest of us. That one just&nbsp; hurt because he was the last of the &quot;original six&quot; and had almost made&nbsp; it to level 4. <img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/angel.png"&nbsp; class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":angel:" title="Angel&nbsp; &nbsp; :angel:" data-shortname=":angel:" /></blockquote>

[QUOTE="Libramarian, post: 6346454, member: 6688858"] I want to see my friends do well and be happy in life and love but when it's gaming time I want to see the joy of victory and the agony of a natural 1. I actually think of myself as a softie in the sense that I don't like to be the one turning the screws, most of the time. I want the game to do that. I'm not a "killer DM". My preference is to be an uncertain, but prone towards positive DM running a killer game. It's important not to get hung up on the fictional events rather than how risky it actually feels at the table. One of the greatest insights of GNS theory IMO is that a given transcript of fictional events could have been produced by any creative agenda. The fact that your players contrived a plan to have guards fight the cultists doesn't tell me how much tension was involved in that choice and whether they're really scrapping for advantage or it was more of a lighter, just for fun/showing off thing. I want real, player-level fear and apprehension (While being good sports and us all recognizing that this is just a game of course. The way I describe this is making me sound like I force the players to play for my own amusement.) Another game I was thinking of as an example of the "efficiency optimization" style is SimCity or The Sims. When I play those games I actually hate the random disasters and try to turn those off as much as possible so I can just relax and explore how the game works and gradually advance my city/person. I understand the pleasure of this but as I said in the Rob Schwalb blog post thread I don't like this in a multi-player game because it's remarkably boring to watch someone having this type of fun. That's definitely lighter than my game, but yes, the same sort of thing. I should say that when the player left the room after their character died last time it was understood that they were a good sport about it and leaving the room was partly a performance to make the event even more amusing for the rest of us. That one just hurt because he was the last of the "original six" and had almost made it to level 4. :angel: [/QUOTE]

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