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<blockquote data-quote="ExploderWizard" data-source="post: 5937453" data-attributes="member: 66434">Actual history might disagree with you here. Its easy in today's world of having a plethora of rules heavy training wheels systems to lose sight of the fact that many GMs learned through experience without the benefit of these training tools.&nbsp;I know because I am one of them. During my first few years of play, all I had rules wise was 128 pages of the Basic &amp; Expert sets and no extended online community to ask for help.&nbsp; These rules only covered the most fundamental and basic facets of play. Everything else was supplied by the gaming group. &nbsp;What would things have been like if I had a set of 3E core books in 1980? Would I be as flexible a GM as I am now if I learned from a more heavily codified ruleset or would the result be closer to the opposite? &nbsp;Part of the problem I think lies in the expectation the players have of their GMs. Back in the day none of us knew what the heck we were doing at first and both players and DM got a bunch of stuff wrong. It was fun anyway. I think there is too much pressure on fledgling GMs these days to perform and &quot;get it right&quot;. The GM is after all, just another person and sometimes just the guy who drew the short straw. Rules adherence and procedural fixation can sometimes blind us that this is supposed to be fun. &nbsp;As Monte points out in his post, the logic in use by a particular group of players will vary from table to table. Procedural hand holding rules text may be applicable for one approach to logic but ends up being confusing for a group that uses another approach.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="ExploderWizard, post: 5937453, member: 66434"] Actual history might disagree with you here. Its easy in today's world of having a plethora of rules heavy training wheels systems to lose sight of the fact that many GMs learned through experience without the benefit of these training tools. I know because I am one of them. During my first few years of play, all I had rules wise was 128 pages of the Basic & Expert sets and no extended online community to ask for help. These rules only covered the most fundamental and basic facets of play. Everything else was supplied by the gaming group. What would things have been like if I had a set of 3E core books in 1980? Would I be as flexible a GM as I am now if I learned from a more heavily codified ruleset or would the result be closer to the opposite? Part of the problem I think lies in the expectation the players have of their GMs. Back in the day none of us knew what the heck we were doing at first and both players and DM got a bunch of stuff wrong. It was fun anyway. I think there is too much pressure on fledgling GMs these days to perform and "get it right". The GM is after all, just another person and sometimes just the guy who drew the short straw. Rules adherence and procedural fixation can sometimes blind us that this is supposed to be fun. As Monte points out in his post, the logic in use by a particular group of players will vary from table to table. Procedural hand holding rules text may be applicable for one approach to logic but ends up being confusing for a group that uses another approach. [/QUOTE]

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