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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6311358" data-attributes="member: 42582">Thanks!Like you say (or at least imply), he does like to push them, and I'm pretty permissive. A strong factor there is that the player is quite self-limiting - he often has very clear conceptions of how certain metaphysical or magical things work, and what is or isn't possible, and I let him take the lead on that. So sometimes another player (in or out of character) will ask &quot;Why can't you do XYZ?&quot; and he will explain why he thinks it can't be done, without reference to me but just drawing on his own sense of how the campaign world works.With this sort of player, I don't need to impose my own limits when his are just as interesting!Another factor is that he is a notorious builder of deliberately quirky or underpowered PCs - his last Rolemaster character was a competent fighter, but had as his best skills armour- and weapon-smithing. His current PC has multiple skill focus, linguist and skill training feats. This inclines me to being liberal in respect of those parts of his PC that he has built up and wants to do stuff with.The sorcerer player likes to do wacky stuff too (but has only a few rituals, from a Mark of Storm and an ad hoc Epic Destiny deal that I reached with him, so mostly with Arcana checks) but I'm stricter with him, and like to punish these check failures with chaotic backlash - because he is playing a strongly optimised striker who already has a heap of impact on the game without getting to take over the utility magic side of things as well.If I was GMing for strangers, or in a pick-up game, I'd probably have to approach things differently. But given that I know my players and we have long-established relationship (both within and beyond the gaming context), I take all that into account in my GMing. And hopefully am not too unfair most of the time.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 6311358, member: 42582"] Thanks! Like you say (or at least imply), he does like to push them, and I'm pretty permissive. A strong factor there is that the player is quite self-limiting - he often has very clear conceptions of how certain metaphysical or magical things work, and what is or isn't possible, and I let him take the lead on that. So sometimes another player (in or out of character) will ask "Why can't you do XYZ?" and he will explain why he thinks it can't be done, without reference to me but just drawing on his own sense of how the campaign world works. With this sort of player, I don't need to impose my own limits when his are just as interesting! Another factor is that he is a notorious builder of deliberately quirky or underpowered PCs - his last Rolemaster character was a competent fighter, but had as his best skills armour- and weapon-smithing. His current PC has multiple skill focus, linguist and skill training feats. This inclines me to being liberal in respect of those parts of his PC that he has built up and wants to do stuff with. The sorcerer player likes to do wacky stuff too (but has only a few rituals, from a Mark of Storm and an ad hoc Epic Destiny deal that I reached with him, so mostly with Arcana checks) but I'm stricter with him, and like to punish these check failures with chaotic backlash - because he is playing a strongly optimised striker who already has a heap of impact on the game without getting to take over the utility magic side of things as well. If I was GMing for strangers, or in a pick-up game, I'd probably have to approach things differently. But given that I know my players and we have long-established relationship (both within and beyond the gaming context), I take all that into account in my GMing. And hopefully am not too unfair most of the time. [/QUOTE]

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