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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ExploderWizard" data-source="post: 6152736" data-attributes="member: 66434">Yes, everyone drives the flow of play together. The differences come in the form of attitudes concerning what is a "useful"  method of contributing to that journey. If the game as seen as no more than the rules then the only thing qualifying as useful is what is mechanically defined and codified. It limits meaninful manipulation to button pressing pre-defined strings of code interacting with the matrix of the game as operating software. Rpgs run and played by humans don't have this limitation so accepting such contributions as the only useful ones fail to take full advantage of the medium. Restricting or removing options in play will generally lead to more resentment than anything else. Its far better to establish limitations at the start of play or play a game in which the power gap isn't so pronounced. This can be wrong in some situations. A thief might be weak in combat so he slinks in the shadows until finding a good opportunity to strike. " Punishing" him by springing extra monsters just to force participation is bad form. The whole point of classes with differing abilities is that they play differently. Would you force a cleric in a party of 5 to pick 20% of the locks to equalize participation? I wouldn't do that any more than I would force a thief to engage in melee.  Class based systems in general, and D&D in particular rely on distinct strong archetypes.  Forcing action contrary to intelligent play of an archetype is the negation of class differences. Metagame mechanics and narrative mechanics are different animals. Actual play is not a narrative nor is it a story. As cool as it would be to have everything our characters do narrated by Morgan Freeman, it usually doesn't happen. The DM needs to narrate on occasion to describe elements of the game world but PCs never need to. The dialogue between Sister Rebecca and morgan Ironwolf was used to illustrate the influence of alignment choice on player activity. Stories are what get created, embellished, and retold after the adventure is over. During actual play in a roleplaying game what happens during the course of a session is characters experiencing life. If the focus of play is to create stories together then you are playing a storytelling game.</blockquote>

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