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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 9674007" data-attributes="member: 6790260">You know of your group. Which you have made quite clear is full of ruthless exploiters.Most groups aren't like your group, in numerous ways.But that ignores the possibility of other tools filling the gap. For example, 4e's quests, which can be individual, or for the whole group. That actually pulls double duty; it rewards individuals for pursuing the stuff that matters to them, AND rewards the group for caring about one another's interests. Purely individualistic XP may avoid devaluing totally individualistic risk-taking, but it actually does devalue something else: group-centric risk-taking. Under individualistic XP, especially in the old-school paradigm where GP=XP, you are rewarded for abandoning your allies to die so you get a bigger share of the treasure and thus more XP. Having group rewards when individual characters succeed on their personal goals, on the other hand, means everyone is rewarded for looking out for everyone's interests, not just their own, and thus they're encouraged to take risks that help their allies. One path rewards one kind of risk-taking and devalues the other--and vice-versa. It's not a strict gain of rewarding risk; something is paid so something else can be bought.Surely that, too, moves the needle a bit more toward high-risk high-reward, and away from low-event plodding?And I fundamentally reject this perspective. Maybe in your games, the players are inherently disingenuous jerks actively engaging in bad faith. That's not how I play, and I consider it both openly insulting and utterly unacceptable to argue that even most players act like that, let alone ALL players.If I'm expected to presume that GMs are always participating in good faith, I absolutely demand that we presume--unless evidence has suggested otherwise--that the players are also participating in good faith. If I am expected to presume the players (whether all or merely some) will participate in bad faith and must thus be subject to a bunch of controls to prevent that, then I absolutely demand that we presume--unless evidence has suggested otherwise--that (whether all or merely some of) GMs will participate in bad faith and must thus be subject to a bunch of controls to prevent that.You cannot have it both ways. You cannot demand a presumption of total innocence (unless rigorously proven otherwise) for GMs and a presumption of guilt from players (unless rigorously proven otherwise). It's both, or it's neither. Your choice; I don't care which you pick, but you have to pick one. Nothing else will ever be acceptable. Period. (Edit: And to be clear, I would find it just as unacceptable to presume that GMs are guilty until proven innocent but players are the reverse. All should be subject to the same standard.)</blockquote>

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