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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Alzrius" data-source="post: 9253146" data-attributes="member: 8461">And I've responded as to why I don't think that approach is viable, likewise with regard to the ideas in the OP. It's not like I'm the only one in this thread to do so, so I'm hardly a lone voice in this regard.Literally everyone's arguments in this thread come down to "but that's not how I (would) do it." There's no other argument to make; personal preference is all this is, and while there are a few people who seem to want to say that their insight is Truth-with-a-capital-T and that people who disagree are ignoring/misunderstanding what they're saying, the simple fact of the matter is that people disagree because they understand just fine, but have their own opinion which is different. No, the "prevailing" method need not be how it goes...but it can be, and that's okay.No one "needs" to be "beholden" to anything in a game of imagination. But there are very good reasons to stick to setting conventions, and likewise reasons not to be enthusiastic (or even supportive) of players in your group who don't want to. That deserves to be reiterated, since we shouldn't take it as a given that conventions and limitations are necessarily bad things.So have I. I've repeatedly supported the idea that the GM should talk to players and vice versa, and that a consensus being reached is the ideal. But there's a conversation to be had about what if that can't be reached, and why someone can reasonably make a case not to be supportive of overturning setting conventions.I don't recall issuing "blame" at all. I'm pointing out that if that's what you're talking about, then we're talking past each other.You have no reasonable basis for suggesting that your experiences are "greater" than mine (whatever that means), and likewise, I think that your concerns are the ones that might be theoretically possible, but carry little-to-no practical weight at the game table (and, I'd wager, as most game tables). Mine, to me, seem both more germane and more notable.As such, maybe it's a better idea to talk about the ideas at hand, and not get into pointless contests of who has the "greater" experience.It seems more like a self-evident truth to me. Most GMs that I've known can't turn on a dime when a major change happens during the course of play, and require some time to figure out how things will shake out from a huge curveball happening. Are you saying you've only ever played under GMs who were able to adapt to major alterations in the course of the game without missing a beat? Because that doesn't seem like a very common experience at most tables.Again, the issue is that such a background lends itself to that type of problem very easily. It doesn't have to come up, but by its very nature it makes it easier for it to. Recall how, of the three characters mentioned in the context of the "last mage" campaign, the other two (the inquisitor and the protector/sacrificer) were defined by their role toward the last mage. That means that their characters are defined by him, but the same isn't true (or at least, is far less true) going the other way. Can they still make an impact? Sure, but if the last mage's player decides to do something like suddenly go to another continent, they'd be expected to drop what they're doing and go also, or otherwise react to the major change somehow. The problem is one of the impact of one character's actions having an outsized effect compared to (or on) the others.So have I, which is why I'm glad to see you acknowledge that here. But collaboration will not always (and shouldn't necessarily be presumed to) lead to the player who wants to overturn convention being allowed to do so. "Collaboration" all too often seems to be shorthand for "find a way to give the player what they want."And yet, I'm not one of the people engaging in caricature.You said that "we" are starting to get into caricature. I'm pointing out that while you might be, I'm not. So it's not "we," it's "you."Which runs counter to what I said previously about imbuing the game world with a sense of immutability to better abet engagement and immersion. Yes, that immutability is illusory, but putting that aside is part of the process of role-playing.Literally analyzing an idiom is a poor way to do that. Also, I disagree with your opinion; if you have to overturn convention in order to make a particular type of character, that is indeed doing extra work for something you could almost always acquire without going that far.No, I don't think that the main paradigm of many games is "inertia" at all. Quite the opposite, really. That seems to assume that most people playing the game are simply uncreative, unimaginative, and otherwise unable to fully appreciate the nature of playing an imaginative fantasy game. It assumes the worst about other people, and with no particular reason for doing so.You'd be wrong. Simply repeating someone else's paragraph back to them with two parts transposed is flippant, rather than insightful.I agree that it's not hard to understand. I just don't subscribe to the same belief. It's not like this particular debate is at all new in RPG circles.Actually, I think this has gone fairly well for how this type of exchange tends to go. While not without some bumps in the proverbial road, this has been a fairly measured exchange.</blockquote>

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