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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Umbran" data-source="post: 5323606" data-attributes="member: 177">Adolescent, yes.  Male?  Well, if you want to stereotype, sure, I guess.I have to disagree.  The GM cannot force a player to have an internal conflict.  However, if the player wants to play through internal conflict, and tells the GMs abut the nature of that conflict, the GM can aid and abet quite well.  I've got a Deadlands game running, and about half the party is working through issues of conflicting loyalties or psychological trauma - two are deserters who love their countries, but saw their military forces doing things that were just... wrong.  Another is dealing with post traumatic stress and what he feels is proof of his own cowardice having broken in the face of a supernatural enemy.  I'm having a great time pushing their buttons.Overcoming social anxiety to become a Nobel prize winning neuroscientist isn't difficult to do in a game because it is an internal conflict, but because it is pretty mundane, and so is unlikely to engage any escapist fantasy desires of the player.Mundane stuff ("Woke up, got out of bed, dragged a comb across my head...") is difficult to do well in any RPG.  To engage the imagination of a player, you tend to need to be a bit extreme - you can play normal people, but you typically need to put them in extraordinary circumstances.</blockquote>