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Message: <blockquote data-quote="innerdude" data-source="post: 6099423" data-attributes="member: 85870">Can't XP you, Celebrim, but this is a great post, even though I might quibble a tiny bit with the last sentence. Only because I think most of us choose a system because we already know in our heads how we're going to prepare to play said system, and how we're thinking about how it will be played. For example, the GM in my GURPS group specifically chooses that system BECAUSE to him it's utterly, totally, ruthlessly realistic. He's not into "plot protection" for the characters at all. He's not into "metagame mechanics." He's pretty up front about the notion that "If you do something stupid, I will not hesitate to kill you." As a result, he likewise expects his players to just as ruthlessly power game. Eke out every possible bonus, conditional modifier, battle tactic, and money spent on magic items as humanly possible. Because if you're not, you're not "doing your job" as a player, because he's certainly not going to "hold back" when running opposition.  Those expectations are just "there," part and parcel with the type of group he likes to run. Are there other ways that GURPS could be run? I'm sure there are, but his approach just takes GURPS down its most direct, straight-line logical conclusion ("You want gritty? Here you go"). (As a side note, personally I think he's actually playing a zero-sum game . . . because as GM, he has total control over encounters. If you make the opponents as "realistic" as the "real world," then 99% of everyone is a pretty ordinary, and the PCs are extraordinary. In most cases, a GURPS encounter between "optimized" PCs and just about everyone except the most exceptional of foes should end in a PC victory with minimal resources expended or risked. But this is mostly neither here nor there.)But this does bring up an interesting point---is it the developer's job to assume that the rules they create are, in fact, largely going to be played down their most direct, straight-line logical conclusion? For example, even supporters of 4e like Manbearcat have admitted in other posts that playing 4e by its at-launch, direct, straight-line, "logically conclusive" playstyle leads to a somewhat muddled play experience. For me, without hearing pemerton's experiences of "drifting" 4e to a more narrativist bent, and then using the mechanical underpinnings to "push" characters into "thematic roles," I don't know that I'd ever have figured that was even a valid approach. This is also particularly applicable for 5e at the moment, because I suspect part of the problem we're having, is that no one knows how to prepare for or "play" the system, because we don't know what we're going to get. The playtest packets have been so all over the map that everyone's just sort of scratching their heads going, "What am I supposed to be doing with this? What kind of game is this going to end up as?"  Deep down we WANT to know what the baseline assumptions are, because we want to be making determinations RIGHT NOW whether the whole exercise is going to be worth our time. I'm just not sure, given the obvious and required "reading between the lines" for 4e's optimal playstyle, that Mearls is particularly effective at articulating or making these kinds of "playstyle aims" transparent.</blockquote>

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