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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6347255" data-attributes="member: 4937">Well, look at it this way.  I've got 15 votes for 'I think about both equally', the result I thought the most improbable, and I've got zero posts in this thread that lead me to think that anyone who choose that option actually does think about both equally.   I think we are seeing a lot of votes for what people unconsciously think would be the answer that reflects on them most favorably.   Props to you for honestly choosing the answer that most people are going to assume reflects on them most unfavorably.  (As if I was judging them or something.)I think your general approach if fairly typical of what I've observed people do in actual character creation.  There is nothing wrong with it, and a lot of players that use that approach end up with interesting WYA.  I'm just trying to figure out how I could encourage more rapid growth in WYA skills.What I'm finding interesting in this thread is even the people who claim to prioritize WYA over WYCD seem to lack the language to even describe that choice, and invariably end up appealing to the language of WYCD (classes, feats, traits, flaws, skills, etc.) to describe what they mean.  Along with the fact that the least likely reality is leading in the poll, it makes me have very low confidence in the self-reporting in the poll, but its leading to the conclusion that probably the paucity of thought in WYA compared to WYCD relates to the fact that most game systems (and certainly D&D) spend an extensive amount of time creating concrete terms for abstract concepts related to WYCD but almost no time creating language around WYA.  We RPers find ourselves radically well equipped to discuss WYCD in concrete terms, but rather underequipped for discussing WYA.In D&D's case, this is even true of its technical jargon words like 'Evil', 'Good', 'Law' and 'Chaos' - a situation made worse by the fact that with no definitive guidelines TSR/WotC itself published over the years contradicting definitions that amounted to no more than their author's house rules/personal take on the matter.   And that situation isn't helped by the fact that by itself, alignment is radically unable to define WYA.  But even to the extent those jargon words are out there, they aren't showing up early in the discussion of what it means to have WYA as fundamental to your idea of concept.To concede a bit of what his behind this post, I think modern RPGs are a merger of two very different games - traditional wargaming as represented by the TSR parentage and theater/thespian games as might be used in improve theater or training in acting.   Think of it as playing 'Whose Line is It Anyway?' and 'Advanced Squad Leader' at the same time.  This thespian branch though is something that is largely added as an overlay on top the wargaming structure, probably out of remembrance of the simple 'let's pretend' games of childhood.   It's worth wondering what RPG would look like if the father of RPGs wasn't a wargamer, but a thespian who started adding game mechanics as arbitration to the thespian games played by his acting troupe.  I think we might have a similar range of games by this point, but we might have a whole different language set and perception as to what was 'mainline' in an RPG and what was a bit extreme and out there.</blockquote>

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