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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mercurius" data-source="post: 9619229" data-attributes="member: 59082">A few thoughts on sense of risk. I'm reminded of what goes on in my mind when I'm searching for something to watch. Fiction or non-fiction? What genre? Series or movie? Sometimes it comes down to what feelings do I want to experience? That often guides my choice.Sometimes I want something familiar, warm and fuzzy - where it isn't about what surprises are around the corner, but more about being in a pleasant mind space. I think this relates to what people sometimes call "guilty pleasures." For me this might be a well-made rom-com (e.g. Notting Hill) or it might be a childhood favorite I've seen many times (e.g. Donner's Superman).Other times I want to feel my senses heightened with a feeling of risk, that I don't know how things will turn out. This might be a horror film, in what seems to be a new golden age of horror cinema. Or it might simply be a new film that I don't know much about.I also have favorite types of experiences that are harder to find: the sense of wonder, of experiencing something that opens my mind up; or a well-made gnostic thriller that explores existential questions.My point being, there is no one-size-fits-all for what I want to watch - and it really comes down to how I feel in the moment, what I want to experience. No singular cinematic experience that I go to, or that I "should" go to (unless I'm a pretentious wannabe auteur, in which every film I watch must have some kind of import to cinematic history).What Mearls might be missing is that different people engage with RPGs for different reasons. I think he's talking about a specific type of RPG, one that is connected to what we could call "traditional D&D." In that regard, I think he's expressing a valid perspective: that to facilitate that sort of traditional approach to gaming, a sense of risk is necessary. But this doesn't mean that there aren't other ways to play games, or other types of games to play.This is something that some folks, myself included, sometimes miss. I don't go to RPGs for as broad a spectrum of experiences as I might to cinema or music. For me, RPGs is about adventure and exploration and the Quest. There is a wide variety of experiences within that range, but there is also a lot of stuff that I don't care to experience in an RPG context, that I get elsewhere (e.g. "Notting Hill"). But I don't think it is inherently an invalid approach to look for different things from RPGs, and sometimes folks like Mearls and myself forget that.TLDR: I think what Mearls is saying is perfectly valid and true for what could loosely be called "traditional D&D" (or RPGing in general), for which a "sense of risk" is an intrinsic part of the adventuring experience. While that may still be the default mode of play that is implied by most RPGs, not only has the RPG space expanded beyond that with countless types and modes of play, but different people want different things from the game experience; in that sense, Mearls' view is too narrow and specific.</blockquote>

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