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Message: <blockquote data-quote="hawkeyefan" data-source="post: 9318746" data-attributes="member: 6785785">I don't know... sometimes, it's a lot more fun for a character to do the non-optimal thing. Sometimes, it also makes much more sense for the character. I think this is one of the areas of tension in RPGs. As players, there is often an obvious optimal choice to make from a tactical standpoint. But for the characters, it may not be as clear OR they may not be interested in making the optimal choice. People don't always do what's best for themselves. People very often behave in ways that are detrimental to themselves and to those around them. I think eliminating this tension rather than leaning into it would ultimately be a bad idea for game design. I like games that incentivize the poor choice that's in character versus the safe choice that's purely player decision. I think this is actually really important. I don't know if we need to reach "terrible" before we try and improve. I don't really think I've been a terrible GM at any point (though I've probably made some terrible decisions as GM at times, I like to think those have been offset by other decisions that were good), but I absolutely have been a very traditional "the GM has total authority" type. My earliest days of GMing were very much a product of their time.... and that was the prevailing method according to most of the source material of the day. The idea that narrativist/story now games were made in response to tyrant GMs is just hyperbole. My players in my longstanding play group would have happily let me continue to run D&D for years. They weren't calling for a change of game... though I could see instances of dissatisfaction that might warrant it, no one every voiced a desire to change the game. That came from me. I was pretty much the forever GM. And I was dissatisfied with the way the game worked. Again, it had nothing to do with players railing against a tyrant GM... it was almost entirely from the GM side that we changed games. I wanted that because I wanted something different from play. I wanted to be challenged as a GM in different ways. I wanted to be surprised by what happened. I wanted to have to spend less time in between sessions preparing. There were a lot of reasons. But none of them really came from the players.</blockquote>

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