Monte Cook and Tracy Hickman

[wizofice]

It occurred to me when reviewing the article and letters that Monte seems to expect good DMing and Hickman is expecting or at least allowing for bad DMing. So there's one underlying difference in assumptions. Also, it does seem a thin line betweeen being a catalyst and being a PITA. Not sure where that line is myself. Anyone?

 

[Theron]

What Tracy was also advocating was the players taking an active role in moving the adventure. If the DM has painted you into a corner with an obscure riddle no one can crack, that doesn't mean everything has to plod on for hours while you agonize over what the meaning of "is" is. His view in the article was to take up the reins and do something, ANYTHING. Chances are, if the players are sitting their stymied, the DM's not having any fun either, and any screenmonkey worthy of the name is up to adapting to player actions if it moves things along.

I'll admit, it's not universally applicable, but it can be a lot of fun. I remember GMing a Champions session years ago where I knew who the bad guy was and what he was doing, but other than that, had no clear notion of how the players were going to figure it out. I just let them run. If something they did seemed to point them in the right direction, I went with it. If they went off track, I'd move the path subtly to get them re-oriented. I ran the entire thing with the plot sitting about thirty seconds ahead of them and it worked.

Though I'm not sure I'd want to do it on a regular basis.

 

[Ambrus]

If I recall Tracy's article correctly, a lot of his advice might have had some merit in certain circumstances, but his suggestions were exagerated to a ridiculous degree. As I recall, he suggested having a character state something akin to "this puzzle was obviously devised for those wiser than I" and to have one's PC leave if he were unable to figure out the solution to a DM's riddle/puzzle within 1 minute or so. It amounted to forcing your DM to give you clues or abandon the use of puzzles altogether or risk PCs going off and doing something silly or stupid.

The PC type he was describing sounded like he suffered from A.D.D. I remember reading it in disbelief, dumbfounded that anyone with an ounce of maturity would seriously advocate this type of behavior. It sounded, to me at least, wildly disruptive and I equated it with a PC holding a campaign hostage by threatening suicide if every situation he encountered didn't work out for him within seconds.

As I recall, Monte disagreed stating that he'd refuse to play with such a selfish player. A position I agreed with. Heh. Now I'll have to dig out the two issues to re-read them.