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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Campbell" data-source="post: 8025939" data-attributes="member: 16586">[USER=29398]@Lanefan[/USER]My stance is that roleplaying games just are not fundamentally special. I treat the rules in a roleplaying game exactly the same as a board game. We can all agree to change the rules, but unless that agreement is made the expectation is that we are playing the game by those rules including how it defines the GM and player roles. Some games provide a certain degree of latitude to the GM, but constrain how they are intended to use that latitude. Other games provide less latitude. Some provide a great deal of unconstrained latitude. Regardless I believe in following the direction the game provides you.The entire point of game design is to get us to do things we would otherwise not do - to allow us to have experiences we would otherwise not get to have. If we are not constrained by the game we are not really playing a game. You are certainly not refereeing a game if you are not following the instruction it provides for how to referee it.Generally if I am sitting down to play a roleplaying game where story is an important component (i.e. not a dungeon crawling game focused on skilled play) I am looking for an environment where everyone (including the GM) experiences the story together. I am looking for creative collaborators - not someone who will place their vision of how things should go above what we are all doing together. I do not care how artfully it is done. It ruins the alchemy for me. What's happening at the table (or recently across Discord) is like so much more important to me than the final result. Those creative relationships are worth nurturing.For me meaningful tension is a huge part of why I play roleplaying games. For me that tension does not feel real if I even suspect a man behind the curtain. I just cannot really put my energy into a character if we are not all playing to find out what happens. I can enjoy it, but I just cannot expend meaningful emotional energy on the game. I will not put myself out there if relationships are not equitable.That's pretty much true of the Fifth Edition game I am a player in. I take my story cues, casually enjoy it, try not to push too hard either mechanically or in the fiction, and enjoy the company of my friends.  I do not really have a meaningful creative connection to my character, other player's characters or the setting. The GM is skilled at that style of play. I just am not able to invest myself into the situation.</blockquote>

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