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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Barastrondo" data-source="post: 5457119" data-attributes="member: 3820">Because accountability comes with ability. You don't hold a two-year-old to the same standards as an adult -- and at the same time, you don't hold an adult to the same standards as a two-year-old. If I pitched a tantrum full of "don't wanna!" at my workplace, I'd get fired. Similarly, I expect my gaming group to be able to handle ideas like "bad decisions can result in bad consequences" more maturely than an eight-year-old would, so the consequences are more serious than they would be if I were running a game for eight-year-olds.See, where I come from it seems a lot like "in-character consequences will result from in-character decisions" is part of the language we have to reason with in RPGs. Demonstrations are how some people learn best. You don't just say "you don't want to do that, something bad will happen," then when they go and do it anyway say "you really don't want to do that, why don't we say you didn't do that?" I think traps that force the player to behave in a way that the GM wants can definitely be a bad thing, but look at the history of the hobby. Adventures are full of things where careless decisions or foolish metagaming will get you in trouble, fast. Many of them are unfair, yes. But I don't believe they all are. Sometimes when a player says "I insult the ancient red dragon" it is more appropriate to have that dragon breathe fire on him than to call a time-out and explain again in exacting detail that ancient red dragons are powerful and angry and proud and maybe he doesn't want to do that.That said, although I won't decry in-character consequences as part of the dialogue of RPGs, I do agree that if you've tried several times to talk to a player and he doesn't listen, yeah, it's time to amicably say "It's not working out." I certainly can't agree that if one guy's actions are making the game less enjoyable for everyone at the table, that the most reasonable thing to assume is they're the ones with the problem. It's entirely possible that everyone in that group is a mean-spirited person except the lone poor rebel, but I personally need the context to imply that before that's what I think is likely. After all, binding and gagging a fellow party member is pretty rough -- but it's arguably merciful compared to turning him over to the orcs, knocking him cold and rolling him back down the stairs into the dungeon, or just kicking him out of the party deep in humanoid territory, all of which would potentially put the group at less risk than continuing to adventure with this rogue would. At least given the context we've seen.</blockquote>

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