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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5571737" data-attributes="member: 42582">The second of these quoted passages, to which I responded upthread, makes clear the answer to the first. "She", in the second quoted passage, refers to the GM. That is, the second quoted passage describes the GM informing the player of the value of necromantic artefacts (namely, as being not evil).This is the way in which, in the approach to play that I described as foreign to me, I say that it is the GM and not the players making the evaluative judgements - whereas I prefer the converse.I had similar thoughts.Without more information it's hard to judge, but my tentative hypothesis is this: many of those who advocate for player freedom and sandboxing are advocating for player exploratory freedom - that is, players are free to explore whatever elements of the gameworld they like (perhaps, even, by playing a PC who is, per the GM's rulings, evil). But the setting to be explored - including the values of things in that setting - are determined by the GM. In this approach, it is the GM's world. Hence the classic "Wisdom check before you do something silly or contrary to your alignment or whatever" - a mechanic I personally detest, in part because of it's association with other mechanics I detest, but something which seems to be accepted as reasonable procedure by the majority of people on this thread engaged in this discussion of GMing and playing styles. This is a mechanic which reinforces the GM's control over the values of the gameworld - what counts as good and evil, prudent and imprudent, and so on.As the discussion about the destruction of treasure shows, there is also a presupposition in this approach to play that the principle aim of the players is for their PCs to amass as much wealth as possible. In the real world, I assume comparatively few people would think it permissible to execute, let alone summarily execute, a person simply for causing property damage. Yet look how many posters on this thread are saying that the other PCs are justified in killing this dwarf PC for destroying some loot. (Loot, furthermore, of arguable moral or aesthetic value - when someone attacked Piss Christ while it was being exhibited in Melbourne, not even the most ardent advocates of artistic free speech suggested that the attackers, who were motivated by religious objections to the work, should be killed!).In my experience, when this general exploratory approach to play is combined with a desire to focus on some goal other than looting, the result is the classic 2nd ed/Dragonlance-style railroad. A lot of post-1990 RPG design can, in my view, be seen as an attempt to design systems that will support non-railroad but also non-mercenary-sandbox play.</blockquote>

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