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<blockquote data-quote="Alzrius" data-source="post: 6266868" data-attributes="member: 8461">I have to go back and read this, but on reading your summary, it sounds like Gary had a good point. I find that a lot of the time there's a subtle pressure on the GM to make things &quot;fun&quot; for the players - &quot;fun&quot; here means that they not only survive, but are generously rewarded for their questing. Otherwise, the game isn't one that the players will want to come back to. Personally, I think being cautioned against this is good advice, as it's easy to let this unspoken pressure shape the game.Admittedly, not everyone has players that do this, and some GMs certainly enjoy giving their players what they want, and that's fine. If you're a GM who feels that rewards should be hard-won, however, you can face a quiet uphill battle from your players.Jon Peterson's Playing at the World largely seemed to bear this out, at least as I read it. As you noted, while Dave came up with the original idea of a multi-session campaign where the players played a single character whose abilities improved over time, Gary was the one who took that idea and ran with it.Essentially, Dave was the guy who got chocolate in his peanut butter. However, his ambition for that extended to sharing his homemade snack with friends who came over; Gary, by contrast, improved on the recipe and started a company to market the new snack. Having an innovative idea is impressive - it's the spark that lights the fire. But there's a lot of coaxing that needs to be done between that single spark and growing it into a roaring flame.While I think the hype about CoDzilla is overstated by armchair theory-crafters, I do agree that spellcasters have seen their limitations removed with each edition of the game. I'm all in favor of adding some of them back in, though I doubt it'd be a popular decision.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Alzrius, post: 6266868, member: 8461"] I have to go back and read this, but on reading your summary, it sounds like Gary had a good point. I find that a lot of the time there's a subtle pressure on the GM to make things "fun" for the players - "fun" here means that they not only survive, but are generously rewarded for their questing. Otherwise, the game isn't one that the players will want to come back to. Personally, I think being cautioned against this is good advice, as it's easy to let this unspoken pressure shape the game. Admittedly, not everyone has players that do this, and some GMs certainly enjoy giving their players what they want, and that's fine. If you're a GM who feels that rewards should be hard-won, however, you can face a quiet uphill battle from your players. Jon Peterson's [i]Playing at the World[/i] largely seemed to bear this out, at least as I read it. As you noted, while Dave came up with the original idea of a multi-session campaign where the players played a single character whose abilities improved over time, Gary was the one who took that idea and ran with it. Essentially, Dave was the guy who got chocolate in his peanut butter. However, his ambition for that extended to sharing his homemade snack with friends who came over; Gary, by contrast, improved on the recipe and started a company to market the new snack. Having an innovative idea is impressive - it's the spark that lights the fire. But there's a lot of coaxing that needs to be done between that single spark and growing it into a roaring flame. While I think the hype about CoDzilla is overstated by armchair theory-crafters, I do agree that spellcasters have seen their limitations removed with each edition of the game. I'm all in favor of adding some of them back in, though I doubt it'd be a popular decision. [/QUOTE]

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