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Message: <blockquote data-quote="chaochou" data-source="post: 7729227" data-attributes="member: 99817">That happens. I messed up a lot of games unlearning techniques I no longer wished to employ while GMing.But let's assume, given sound intentions and a solid understanding of the game, its design intent and principles, that you were GMing just fine.Lots of players want their RPGs to be competence ego-boosts. Spot the 'right' thing, get rewarded. Pick the 'right' feat combo, get rewarded. Pick the 'right' spell load out, get rewarded. Spot the optimal build / equipment combo, get rewarded.'Character' is just a silly voice and bit of empty banter with the mission-of-the-week patron and obviously telegraphed 'important NPC' informant - or in WoW, completely non-existent. Equally important, the subtext is that there is a 'right' thing. That the mission is pre-determined (by the GM or programmer) and the players' job is to exploit the available micro-mechanics to ensure optimal performance in a series of tightly constrained challenges. Usually that is an utterly anodyne combat model in which fatigue, fear, pain and memory are surgically removed from the human experience. Real combat is petrifying, brutal, mind-shattering, facts which are conveniently ignored by players who imagine that heroism means not being affected by such things, instead of seeing heroism as accepting and dealing with such things.These players are going to hate Dungeon World, or similar games in the genre like Burning Wheel or Apocalyse World  - which can be harsher still. Such games aren't there to showcase competence. They ask you to reveal your character's emotions, desires, fears and failings through hard decisions, which get harder as the walls close in. They ask you to struggle and show what happens when that struggle becomes critical.My current group wanted more player freedom and it still took maybe two or three years and three or four different games for them to unlearn 30 years of play and understand how to create characters with dramatic needs and play them with conviction.</blockquote>

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