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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 9610153" data-attributes="member: 4937">In that case, my objection becomes even broader.&nbsp; Depending on one's skills as a DM there are entire genres of RPGs one may not be able to run, as well as all sorts of stories where one might be dependent on other people's works to provide a framework since one lacks the skills necessary to invent stories of that type.&nbsp;&nbsp; And even then, because most adventures are written with limited page counts for economic reasons and are often very bare bones in what they communicate, and because often the very things which would be most desirable to know aren't recorded in published adventures, because they are the sort of things that the author just assumes anyone can improvise on the fly just because he could have done so, there is no guarantee you will be successful.Now I will say that culturally there seems to exist among GMs and the RPG community as a whole more of an expectation that not only is this true, but also that by applying themselves to the problem and gaining experience that they can improve and &quot;level up&quot; and become better GMs, running more and more sorts of stories successfully and more and more gaining the skill to invent you own content.&nbsp; The idea is that you can become a good GM and better entertain your players.&nbsp; Whereas there seems to be no cultural expectations that players are trying to improve and become better players more capable of entertaining the GM and their fellow players.&nbsp; Culturally players are expected to be selfish and self-centered and to the extent that we talk about and expect a player to improve themselves, it's in ideas like system mastery and becoming more capable of overcoming challenges and not in the sense of becoming a more entertaining participant in the game better able to bring to life more and more diverse sorts of characters in an entertaining way.&nbsp; There is a double standard where we talk of &quot;bad GMs&quot; but rarely talk about &quot;bad players&quot; unless we are talking about some sort of social dysfunction like &quot;rules lawyering&quot; or &quot;cheaters&quot;.&nbsp;&nbsp; We're perfectly happy to say a GM is bad if his characterization of NPCs is poor, but we rarely talk about the player not having an entertaining character.&nbsp;&nbsp; We know of GMs who say that they are working on their voices, on their acting, on their map making skills, on their ability to improvise, on their rules knowledge, on their story telling, on their pacing, on their people handling skills or whatever in an attempt to be better GMs.&nbsp; I rarely hear talk of their being an expectation players need to work at being better players.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 9610153, member: 4937"] In that case, my objection becomes even broader. Depending on one's skills as a DM there are entire genres of RPGs one may not be able to run, as well as all sorts of stories where one might be dependent on other people's works to provide a framework since one lacks the skills necessary to invent stories of that type. And even then, because most adventures are written with limited page counts for economic reasons and are often very bare bones in what they communicate, and because often the very things which would be most desirable to know aren't recorded in published adventures, because they are the sort of things that the author just assumes anyone can improvise on the fly just because he could have done so, there is no guarantee you will be successful. Now I will say that culturally there seems to exist among GMs and the RPG community as a whole more of an expectation that not only is this true, but also that by applying themselves to the problem and gaining experience that they can improve and "level up" and become better GMs, running more and more sorts of stories successfully and more and more gaining the skill to invent you own content. The idea is that you can become a good GM and better entertain your players. Whereas there seems to be no cultural expectations that players are trying to improve and become better players more capable of entertaining the GM and their fellow players. Culturally players are expected to be selfish and self-centered and to the extent that we talk about and expect a player to improve themselves, it's in ideas like system mastery and becoming more capable of overcoming challenges and not in the sense of becoming a more entertaining participant in the game better able to bring to life more and more diverse sorts of characters in an entertaining way. There is a double standard where we talk of "bad GMs" but rarely talk about "bad players" unless we are talking about some sort of social dysfunction like "rules lawyering" or "cheaters". We're perfectly happy to say a GM is bad if his characterization of NPCs is poor, but we rarely talk about the player not having an entertaining character. We know of GMs who say that they are working on their voices, on their acting, on their map making skills, on their ability to improvise, on their rules knowledge, on their story telling, on their pacing, on their people handling skills or whatever in an attempt to be better GMs. I rarely hear talk of their being an expectation players need to work at being better players. [/QUOTE]

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