Player skill vs character skill?

[Xamnam]

GMs saying things fail because they're inadequately impressed

I don't necessarily interpret things in the best possible light, but this isn't a binary situation where the alternative is interpreting them in a negative light.

We are pretty much on the same page regarding competence, assuming there's no explicit reason to assume incompetence.



Based on what you've actually said in this thread, as long as you were willing to participate in good faith, I would see no reason not to want you at my table and no reason to think you wouldn't fit in. It's entirely possible that you're not looking for the same things as me in RPGs, but I don't see any reason to believe my GMing style would lead you to feel a loss of agency or as if you're playing mother-may-I, unless you enter the game already convinced that's what it's going to be.

I'm going to snip out the majority of this, because it's very kind of you to acknowledge everything you're agreeing with. It sounds like you do an excellent job of calibrating your players expectations, and working with them to make sure they can achieve their goals. I like to think that your table would be a different experience than the ones that have soured me. The three things I left included above are what I have been on the receiving end of, that pushed me away from OSR games for a long time. They very much made me the player feel like a failure, like I was not smart enough to play the game. It's fair to say I should be careful how much I let those experiences color me. Again, appreciate your consideration and understanding.

 

[SableWyvern]

I have had experiences...and I'm sure others have, too...where GMs, faced with an unexpected move by players, "save their plot" by preventing the idea from succeeding.

OK, but that's a reason to have a problem with railroading GMs, not player-skill GMs.

I can see how some players, having experienced the same, get a bad taste in their mouth for letting GMs have the authority to judge the soundness of their plans. They want rules, dammit.

I have little time for the idea rules can protect you from bad behaviour. Further, as mentioned earlier, as far as I'm concerned, it's the fact that the participants are able to make judgements about outcomes without being beholden to specific closed rules that is fundamentally what makes RPGs worth playing. But sure, if you want a game constrained to operate within fixed rules, you're welcome to do so.

However, none of that seems to relate to the specific point that was confusing me, which was GMs who claim to be running a player skill game, but who also claim the PCs can only succeed if the GM is impressed, and drive people away as a result. This just seems far too narrow and specific a scenario to be something that someone has heard has occurred to a lot of different people. Alternatively, the point being made is that player skill as a concept tends to drive people away, but I'm not seeing any actual evidence of this.

People are driven away either by outright bad participants (whether GM or player), or mismatched expectations, but not typically by the simple fact that a game focuses on player skill.

But it's just bad GMing, not bad game philosophy.

Exactly

 

[Bill Zebub]

For the record, I consider myself a neutral arbiter…on average.

Sometimes I am a benevolent god arbiter. Sometimes I am a vindictive god arbiter. It all averages out.