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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5755208" data-attributes="member: 42582">This isn't true, technically or otherwise.Theoretically, it is not true - by the rules (explicit or implicity) players often choose things like class, race, colour of cloak, weapon proficiencies, perhaps starting spells, etc. Not only in &quot;player entitlement&quot; games like 4e but in classic D&amp;D, and many other traditional RPGs also.Practically, it is not true - at most tables, all sorts of fictional content is being contributed by participants all the time, whether it be words uttered by a PC, or actions taken, or the age of a NPC such as a PC's parent or sibling or cohort.I think it's more than mere semantics. Even supposing a GM enjoys a veto over other players' attempts to introduce content into the shared fiction, failing to veto something is not the same as authoring or creating it.And then there is the question of what the GM's veto powers are, and what conditions them. Different games treat this differently in their rules text. To the best of my recollection, for example, there is no text in Classic Traveller that permits the GM to override the players' decision as to which service to try and enlist in when beginning the creation of a PC. And Burning Wheel has express rules about the players having review power over the GM's creation of new monsters or races.Furthermore, different groups have different ways of approaching these issues in play - different social contracts, to use the standard terminology. These differences aren't merely semantics. They can break up groups and games (as the OP is perhaps, unhappily, in the process of discovering).</blockquote>

[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 5755208, member: 42582"] This isn't true, technically or otherwise. Theoretically, it is not true - by the rules (explicit or implicity) players often choose things like class, race, colour of cloak, weapon proficiencies, perhaps starting spells, etc. Not only in "player entitlement" games like 4e but in classic D&D, and many other traditional RPGs also. Practically, it is not true - at most tables, all sorts of fictional content is being contributed by participants all the time, whether it be words uttered by a PC, or actions taken, or the age of a NPC such as a PC's parent or sibling or cohort. I think it's more than mere semantics. Even supposing a GM enjoys a veto over other players' attempts to introduce content into the shared fiction, failing to veto something is not the same as authoring or creating it. And then there is the question of what the GM's veto powers are, and what conditions them. Different games treat this differently in their rules text. To the best of my recollection, for example, there is no text in Classic Traveller that permits the GM to override the players' decision as to which service to try and enlist in when beginning the creation of a PC. And Burning Wheel has express rules about the [I]players[/I] having review power over the GM's creation of new monsters or races. Furthermore, different groups have different ways of approaching these issues in play - different social contracts, to use the standard terminology. These differences aren't merely semantics. They can break up groups and games (as the OP is perhaps, unhappily, in the process of discovering). [/QUOTE]

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