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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 6595494" data-attributes="member: 6696971">Winning!In other news, did you hear about the guy who had his whole left side cut off?He's all right now.Well I don't find the initial position very persuasive so the analogy isn't going to do much better!However, I was thinking more along the lines that the Russian Roulette player's primary interest is an adrenaline junky's fix in a morbid game of chance/tempting fate...rather than not dieing (or he wouldn't be playing Russian Roulette and risking his life!).  It is sort of the analogue to an adventurer recklessly risking life and limb for treasure and a player risking their character's death for the thrill of success over challenge and attendant advancement.  The GM is the guy who hands them the gun.  Presumably, the idea is that the GM's hands are clean with respect to cognitive bias and any perpetuation of "what comes next".  The player of the game has agency insofar as they can (a) involve themselves in the first place or not (eg pick their adventure/dungeon level) and (b) they can roughly figure their odds of success (assuming they can perform the necessary maths as rounds compound).If the GM just willfully fires a gun into the player's temple (rocks fall, you die - eg GM Force), there is a clearly no case for a lesser charge of negligent homicide.Of course I don't buy the TTRPG version nor do I buy that the guy supplying the Russian Roulette gun to the players is free of cognitive bias/agenda and concomitant liability!It is puzzling but I think I understand what  [MENTION=6775031]Saelorn[/MENTION] believes he is doing when he assumes scenario-design driven by causal logic/plausibility derivation should (a) yield more mundane scenarios that (b) must have table time committed to their mundane resolution.  And of course that (c) this approach is more free of cognitive bias than another (say one driven by pushing play toward conflict) and (d), accordingly, more rewarding as a play experience.  I just happen to disagree vehemently with a through d!Regarding (a) above, unfortunately, I think people who have not spent a significant portion of their lives in conflict-ridden scenarios really don't have a good grasp at/respect for just how brutal, relentless, and damaging it is for people who do.  Kids born in a bad neighborhood growing up on rough streets literally have their heads on a swivel 24 freaking 7.  Soldiers in theater are the same.  Ask the people in Nigeria being ravaged by Boko Haram whether they feel the majority of their days are conflict-neutral.  This includes the biofeedback of being in such neurosis-inducing situations whereby you're perpetually suffering PTS.  There are plenty of other examples (including terribly abusive/poverty-stricken families and/or school situations or multiple combinations thereof).  And there are plenty of brutal stressors in every day life for hard-working folks in the western world.I don't think it makes a lot of sense for most scenarios to be conflict-neutral...in a fantasy world with dragons, undead, orc raiders, magic (et al), with most folks living under the thumb of corrupt lords/nobility/thieve guilds/tyrants...with war and pestilence always just around the corner...where infections are deadly and broken bones yield likely lameness...all while attempting to scratch out a meager existence and raise a family.That is for normal everyday folk who are not looking for trouble.  Adventurers are the adrenaline junkies playing Russian Roulette every/single/day....in a world that is all too capable and all too happy to oblige their zest for an untimely demise!</blockquote>

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