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<blockquote data-quote="pawsplay" data-source="post: 5454456" data-attributes="member: 15538">I feel obliged to state that it is psychologically impossible not to have your style affected if you have a PC in the game. However much you may tell yourself you are playing it fair, your decisions are affected, and whether you are too hard on yourself, too easy, or basically fair, you cannot and will deliver or receive the same experience. The way humans are built, with our natural empathy, with our biases, with our cognitive structures, dictates that we see things differently when we have skin in the game. That said, it's neither good nor bad. I generally do not recommend it. I don't mind investing in a favorted NPC or two, but from the moment they are created, they were born to die, if necessary. When I was about nine, I ran my first couple of D&amp;D sessions. For one, I played a cleric, while my brother played a dwarf. At 2nd level, I sent the characters up against a white dragon. That's a pretty improbable fight. Predictably, the dwarf died, but thanks to some good die rolls, my cleric actually defeated the dragon, gaining a very high amount of XP and treasure and leveling up. Even though I did not favor my character in any way, neither cheating for my cleric or to the detriment of the dwarf, I was engulfed in the guilty feeling that I had improbably profited while my brother had predictably lost. I became at once at the disparty between us in the information we had about the risks and rewards, and I realized that he would have no vantage to truly know how I may have manipulated the situation. Since that time, I have vowed never to play a PC myself when I GM except when strictly necessary. It doesn't matter that I didn't cheat; what was important was that I saw both sides of the screen.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="pawsplay, post: 5454456, member: 15538"] I feel obliged to state that it is psychologically impossible not to have your style affected if you have a PC in the game. However much you may tell yourself you are playing it fair, your decisions are affected, and whether you are too hard on yourself, too easy, or basically fair, you cannot and will deliver or receive the same experience. The way humans are built, with our natural empathy, with our biases, with our cognitive structures, dictates that we see things differently when we have skin in the game. That said, it's neither good nor bad. I generally do not recommend it. I don't mind investing in a favorted NPC or two, but from the moment they are created, they were born to die, if necessary. When I was about nine, I ran my first couple of D&D sessions. For one, I played a cleric, while my brother played a dwarf. At 2nd level, I sent the characters up against a white dragon. That's a pretty improbable fight. Predictably, the dwarf died, but thanks to some good die rolls, my cleric actually defeated the dragon, gaining a very high amount of XP and treasure and leveling up. Even though I did not favor my character in any way, neither cheating for my cleric or to the detriment of the dwarf, I was engulfed in the guilty feeling that I had improbably profited while my brother had predictably lost. I became at once at the disparty between us in the information we had about the risks and rewards, and I realized that he would have no vantage to truly know how I may have manipulated the situation. Since that time, I have vowed never to play a PC myself when I GM except when strictly necessary. It doesn't matter that I didn't cheat; what was important was that I saw both sides of the screen. [/QUOTE]

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