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Message: <blockquote data-quote="hawkeyefan" data-source="post: 7066012" data-attributes="member: 6785785">That's an effective analaogy. I get your point, and I even agree with it in the general sense. Subverting the rules in order to ensure a specific outcome is generally not good for a game. However, sports are competitive activities where a level playing field is vital. Is that also true of an RPG? In a way, sure.. [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] just posted about the players playing to win, and I think that people may debate that, but I think it's a matter of semantics. There are elements of success or failure, so there is winning and losing. And if winning and losing are involved, then people tend to expect things to be fair. What is missing in an RPG that is present in sports is the competition. There is no side being favored over the other in an RPG in order to ensure a specific outcome. In sports, ensuring a specific outcome means deciding the winner. What does it mean in an RPG? Does it mean the same thing? Who are the sides? Is the GM in competition with the players? Most of us would say no, I expect. Now, this is not me advocating for subverting the rules to favor specific outcomes...I'm not gonna say I've never done that, or won't ever do it again, but it's something I avoid at the very least. But it brings me to my second point. When we talk about storytelling, I'm not sure I understand why it's automatically a case of the GM bending the rules or influencing results to get his desired outcome. Why must the rules be broken for that? I honestly don't feel the need to alter results of dice rolls or anything of the sort to keep the game moving in the way I would like. This was my point about GM desire and player desire being in alignment. If your argument were true...that they are mutually exclusive...then they could never be in alignment. But that's not the case. If I as the GM want the players to become involved in the political machinations at court, I can introduce NPCs, story hooks, goals, and other elements that align with PC motivations or desires. If one of the PCs has a goal to discover his father's killer, then I create a connection...a clue that one of the members  of the court may have something to do with his father's death. This leads the PCs down the path that the GM had in mind. It's also the choice of the players to pursue that goal based on the one PCs motivation. It also required no subverting of the rules or anything "dishonest". The truth is that you can use a combination of techniques to achieve alignment in the expectations of the GM and the players.</blockquote>

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