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PC Limitations vs. Do Whatever You Want
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<blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 8742848" data-attributes="member: 6790260"><p>With the caveat that I don't actually run 5e, but still have strong feelings on the subject...</p><p></p><p>I've always been a "say yes or roll the dice" DM. I live on the Rule of Cool (or the Rule of Interesting, which is more about making my mental wheels turn than about making me jazzed per se.) I want my players to genuinely feel they always have the opportunity to try things they haven't done before or to grow in unexpected ways.</p><p></p><p>I find most DMs who sing the praises of "limitations force creativity" either don't realize, or don't care, that <em>players are often their own limitation</em>. All I have to do is dangle something my players care about in front of them and their behavior will instantly change. They care about the world, about its inhabitants, about the people they've grown fond of, about the enemies they revel in hating, etc.</p><p></p><p>Yes, <em>sometimes</em>, limitations can be good. There are already plenty of limitations in the game, and even more arise just from expecting things to make sense and flow consistently from the established fiction. There's very little need or reason to add more limitations there. One must strike a <em>balance</em> between the foolish extremes of "absolutely anything goes!" and "you are only allowed to use this one tool in an extremely specific way and literally not allowed to do anything else ever." I find too many people think that more limitations is always better, when this is generally not the case.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="EzekielRaiden, post: 8742848, member: 6790260"] With the caveat that I don't actually run 5e, but still have strong feelings on the subject... I've always been a "say yes or roll the dice" DM. I live on the Rule of Cool (or the Rule of Interesting, which is more about making my mental wheels turn than about making me jazzed per se.) I want my players to genuinely feel they always have the opportunity to try things they haven't done before or to grow in unexpected ways. I find most DMs who sing the praises of "limitations force creativity" either don't realize, or don't care, that [I]players are often their own limitation[/I]. All I have to do is dangle something my players care about in front of them and their behavior will instantly change. They care about the world, about its inhabitants, about the people they've grown fond of, about the enemies they revel in hating, etc. Yes, [I]sometimes[/I], limitations can be good. There are already plenty of limitations in the game, and even more arise just from expecting things to make sense and flow consistently from the established fiction. There's very little need or reason to add more limitations there. One must strike a [I]balance[/I] between the foolish extremes of "absolutely anything goes!" and "you are only allowed to use this one tool in an extremely specific way and literally not allowed to do anything else ever." I find too many people think that more limitations is always better, when this is generally not the case. [/QUOTE]
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