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Message: <blockquote data-quote="innerdude" data-source="post: 9497181" data-attributes="member: 85870">Thanks for the suggestion, I'll take a look!This is a good question. It wasn't so much the desire to improve gear, accrue funds, etc. that was problematic. It was definitely more the manner and attitude towards it. I, in most cases as a GM, am more than willing to let characters spend money to improve their gear. It was the underlying motivation and sense of extreme urgency around it that led to the conflict with the player. Frankly, part of me as GM basically stopped caring about player gear at some point, since I know full well, it doesn't matter what gear I give them, I can upscale the enemies accordingly. So sure, they can have awesome starting gear or upgraded gear, what do I care? It makes the players feel good, and I get to be seen as a wise, benevolent GM (or something). <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />So to put it bluntly --- yes. Yes, I want them to invest in their character at a level that delivers higher emotional stakes. And I as a GM am willing to bend over backward to accommodate them in delivering stuff that plays to those emotional stakes if they'll actually do the work to get there with me. So this is interesting, because this very point was brought up in an article about the Last of Us TV show adaptation vis-a-vis the video game --- <a href="https://www.vulture.com/article/the-last-of-us-is-not-a-video-game-adaptation.html" target="_blank">The Last of Us Is Not a Video-Game Adaptation</a>The article makes the point that to have narrative, in a game sense, you as a player have to allow for a sense of caring about the character narratively separately from caring for the character as an avatar --- "One may care about a character on television, but one must care for a character in a video game. In fact, The Last of Us suggested that care, by definition, means choosing to have no choice, holding onto another person so tightly their survival becomes an inescapable necessity."Playing a narrative-style game naturally posits this effect; places it front and center. You have to choose to have no choice if you want to implement elements of character narrative arcs. In most cases, narrativist-style games push their chips all-in on this. The premise of a "Story Now" game naturally intersects with character positioning in ways that the exploration of the premise will happen. As a player, you're supposed to just accept this. Ironsworn's core mechanic of the "Iron Vow" literally wills this exigency into play.</blockquote>

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