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Message: <blockquote data-quote="The-Magic-Sword" data-source="post: 8996770" data-attributes="member: 6801252">Largely I agree with you, I typically create characters that fit the system I'm playing in, I tend to notice that the frustration some people have is that they don't really start with the idea of playing a given system as the goal act, they tend to start with a fantasy that the game nominally provides and discover as they learn and play the game that the game's interpretation of what that experience is supposed to be like is a heavier imposition on their experience than expected.If one looks at Masks from a basic consumer perspective, its a game about teenage super heroes who fight villains and grow into the adult heroes they're becoming. It might not be clear until you start really playing the game, especially if it was the group's idea, that the game's idea of that experience involves mandatory emotional conflicts with others, and game mechanics telling you when you're angry or hopeless or what have you, and drive you into having flaws and foibles of the more sensitive kind (to be the sort of person that needs to change, rather than just overcome adversity.)The issue at stake, I think, is that to many players the purpose of the game is to help them fulfill their fantasies of engaging in the activity whereas focusing on fulfilling the game's understanding of good play feels like having the player serve the game instead. You or I might say that 'serving' the game in that way is just a part of the process to get the fun experience it's trying to produce, but to the frustrated player it's primarily showing up and trying to get them to do things they don't want to do. To them, the rules themselves are like a controlling writer or director, saying "no no no, this is not what I meant" when they try to engage in their own fun ideas of what this should be.Whether that's a valid and distinct style is probably a very polarizing question, because it probably concerns our sense of humility towards system, and what the goal of even having the system there at all is. Its why I emphasized the nature of 4e working so well as a support for our roleplaying as stepping into a supportive role, it performed the role of task resolution very well, but it was also important in that it didn't seek to restructure our storytelling, and break down if it couldn't. In that sense, I suppose I could say that the conflict between something like Masks and the Neo-Trad style boils down to a Neo-Trad preference for systems that supports freeform authorship of character (so that they can express their fantasy and structure narrative as makes sense to them), while Masks is a system that wants to drive expression of character (so that you can play to find out what that character becomes.)Personally, compared to that other player, I can shift frames deliberately and say "Yes i know what kind of game this is, so I'll put aside my impulse and play it on it's own terms to enjoy the experience it's attempting to provide" and strive to bridge the gap with some success, but they have expressed a near-contempt for doing that when it's supposed to be fun for them, because fun things shouldn't require that emotional labor. To them, the purpose of mechanics is to support the things they want to do, not to ask them to do things, so mechanics should be a minimal imposition on their play. They confessed their favorite part of masks was that the combat moves were essentially free form and mostly just boiled down to "Do we need to even question if this worked? if Yes, roll to find out if it worked" because then they could describe their character's cool powers entirely as desired, they confessed that while they liked the tactical wargame of dnd/pathfinder and the granularity of game play that provides, it was freeing to not have to have the game provide the 'perfect' kit of powers they wanted to have and make do with the ones the system did provide.Real talk, I half think I just need to sit down and play KoB (Kids on Brooms, but I think Kids on Bikes works the same way? I haven't read it) and they'll be happy as a clam.</blockquote>

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