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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 5085054" data-attributes="member: 4937">I can't answer that statement without I think entering into the culture wars and treading on areas that will become angry and political.Suffice to say that I think positive reinforcement is just a very small part of the learning experience, and that the most important positive reinforcement is the internal feeling of accomplishment having nothing to do with external reinforcement. However, what I can say without turning this from a specific debate about what is required from a player proposition to a general debate on education and the raising of children, is that your response is an over the top extreme reaction from what I actually said.  You have decided to get all stuck on the notion of 'force' as if I was advocating screaming at the player, or belittling the player, or maybe even violence.  This is not at all the case.  It is not too much to demand of a player that they interact directly with the shared imaginary space.  They have implicitly agreed to do so by playing an RPG.  If I must force someone to state their propositions in the form of direct manipulation of the shared imaginary space, then so be it.  As a stuttering shy 12 year old, I was forced by one of my first DM's (and perhaps the one that was most influential on me) to rephrase my propositions from the abstract third person to the concrete first person, and for maybe 30 seconds there was a bit of panic and embarassment, but I've never ever ever resented that DM for correcting me and prompting me to play correctly.  My games became better and more enjoyable, not only the games I was participating in as a player, but those I was running as the game referee.There has been much talk of 'subjective' vs 'objective' gaming experiences and generally I find such talk about a recreational pasttime to be stupid, but if there is one part of the experience of roleplaying games which I would defend as an objectively a better way to play than the alternative, it is this one.  And the reason I think I can state that it is objectively better is that 100% of players I've met prefer the DM to describe the imaginary space in a concrete, descriptive, cinematic fashion as what they are experiencing.  I've never met the player that believes the DM is playing better by giving flat rules centered descriptions and giving simple summaries of what NPC's say as opposed to actually role playing the NPC and describing his actions and the imaginary space.  I'm not saying it isn't impossible to over do it to the point that it becomes a 'DM cut scene' (but even those can be fun occassionally) with no PC interaction, but as a general rule no PC actually likes his DM to act in the way that some are advocating player's should act.  Players want their DM to be 'good storytelling DM's'.  And if anything what people enjoys can be counted as a fact, then that is a fact.Yes, if you the DM percieve that a player has particular social problems, then you should as gently and as compassionately and with the greatest understanding guide a player through the act of role playing demanding perhaps less than you would of a more experienced and less novice player, but ultimately if the player is having trouble role playing you still should force them to do so.  As I said, what's important is the brave attempt - not that you are completely smooth goIt's not like I'm advocating threats or belittlement of a player with poor social skills.  But everyone, including ultimately the player, is going to prefer it the long run.And again, if the DM is stuttering, socially inept, and unable to communicate, no one is going to cut the DM as much slack as I'm advocating the referee cut a player.  Or even if they did cut the DM slack, they'd still recognize the DM as being more skilled if he didn't.</blockquote>

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