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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 3814690" data-attributes="member: 4937">No, I understand you perfectly.It's this part that you state so axiomaticly that I disagree with it.&nbsp; Yes, it is usually a good thing to be able to say, &quot;Yes.&quot; to a player.&nbsp; But players (and people in general) often don't know what they want or how to obtain it.&nbsp; They often want contridictory things, for example, they want to game to be challenging but they don't want to lose (so they don't want it to be too challenging).&nbsp; When one or more players want contridictory things, you have to juggle thier different desires and come up with some sort of comprimise that is still gameable.In your particular case of Conan sneaking about the place, you want sneaking to work in a way that sneakiness doesn't work.&nbsp; And, intuitively you think, &quot;Well, everyone should be sneakier.&nbsp; That'll solve the problem.&nbsp; Then we can all be heroes.&quot;&nbsp; But it doesn't, because even if you are all sneakier, sneaking doesn't work like that.&nbsp; You played with some numbers, robbed the truly sneaky player of his cool, and you are still largely in the same boat.&nbsp; The better solution is to try to make game rules that make sneaking work more like it does, massage it a little so that situations which feel like you should intuitively be able to sneak you can, and hope you can do so and still make the rules simple and intuitive enough to game.&nbsp; And that's an even better solution for what the player really wants (to vicarously feel like a hero), because more of his player input goes into achieving the success and validation he craves.Now alternatively, you could come up with rules for making sneakiness not work like it does (as some other people have suggested), but then you get cheese and that is ultimately disatisfying to the player to because it stops feeling real and beats him over the head that this is just a game.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 3814690, member: 4937"] No, I understand you perfectly. It's this part that you state so axiomaticly that I disagree with it. Yes, it is usually a good thing to be able to say, "Yes." to a player. But players (and people in general) often don't know what they want or how to obtain it. They often want contridictory things, for example, they want to game to be challenging but they don't want to lose (so they don't want it to be too challenging). When one or more players want contridictory things, you have to juggle thier different desires and come up with some sort of comprimise that is still gameable. In your particular case of Conan sneaking about the place, you want sneaking to work in a way that sneakiness doesn't work. And, intuitively you think, "Well, everyone should be sneakier. That'll solve the problem. Then we can all be heroes." But it doesn't, because even if you are all sneakier, sneaking doesn't work like that. You played with some numbers, robbed the truly sneaky player of his cool, and you are still largely in the same boat. The better solution is to try to make game rules that make sneaking work more like it does, massage it a little so that situations which feel like you should intuitively be able to sneak you can, and hope you can do so and still make the rules simple and intuitive enough to game. And that's an even better solution for what the player really wants (to vicarously feel like a hero), because more of his player input goes into achieving the success and validation he craves. Now alternatively, you could come up with rules for making sneakiness not work like it does (as some other people have suggested), but then you get cheese and that is ultimately disatisfying to the player to because it stops feeling real and beats him over the head that this is just a game. [/QUOTE]

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