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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hussar" data-source="post: 5260978" data-attributes="member: 22779">See, IME, leaving it up to the players means that one or two more dominant players will run roughshod over everyone else.  Not intentionally I don't think.  It's not like they're being deliberately jerks and stealing spotlight.  Nothing like that.It's just that some people like to talk.  So, they start into talking.  And talking.  And talking.  Delving into every little nook and cranny.  They're having a blast.  Meanwhile, the other half of the group is playing with their Iphones or whatnot.I think it's absolutely incumbent upon the GM to keep an eye on pacing.  To make sure that things move along, and, maybe move along just a hair faster than the players want.  Don't beat every scene to death, stringing it out as far as it can possibly go.  Cut it short.  The shopkeeper gets another customer, excuses himself and doesn't come back.  That sort of thing.You asked earlier:Why not?  Does it REALLY matter if I have "Sword, Normal" written on my character sheet?  I trust my players that they will not abuse things and they trust me not to screw them over for it.  If you really wanted ten thousand feet of rope, meh, fine.  Take it.  It's your game, just as much as mine.  If this will make you happy, let's run with it.It's very Zen to let go of all these niggling details.  And very liberating. Maybe it's because I've been playing a lot of rules light systems lately.  In Sufficiently Advanced, for example, any equipment that is of equal to or less than your inherent capabilities, your character can be assumed to have.  So, if I have a very high attack score (for example) and I declare that I draw my Zooper Nootron Blaster and blow up something, not a problem.  I do it.Now, again, I can honestly see why some people don't want to play like that.  I get it.  For some people, the level of detail is important.  It's not to me.  Whether you have five days of food or six, I don't care.  The only time it's going to matter, there will be an in game event where you lose all your food anyway and now you have to deal with that situation.Again, it gets back to pacing.  My group will never, ever run out of food accidentally.  It just won't happen in my games.  I don't track rations, nor do I force the players to.  If they write "food, for the purposes of eating" on their character sheet, that's good enough for me.  And, honestly, they probably don't even have to do that.  I presume, just like I don't have to ask the players when their character's are going to the little fighters room, that their characters have enough survival instincts to know that carrying food and water when traveling cross country is a good idea.However, if an event occurs - forest fire during the night and the PC's are forced to jump into the river without their equipment to get away (since they would drown if they actually carried their equipment) - now I can go into the whole survival thing.  Is it DM forced?  100%.  Totally.  I'm the GM, and I'm a good enough GM to engineer a situation in a realistic, logical fashion without straight up rail roading the players.  The fire destroyed your food.  You're lost in the desert, your water runs out.  What do you do?  (ok, easy one, the cleric casts create water, but you get the point)The idea that everything must occur organically, with the DM only reacting is not how I like to run a game.  I am far more pro-active as a GM.  There's pro's and cons to both approaches.</blockquote>

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