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Message: <blockquote data-quote="dkyle" data-source="post: 5871202" data-attributes="member: 70707">My overall philosophy is that in-character decision-making should be rewarded.  Decisions made on the basis of out-of-character knowledge should be strongly discouraged.Optimization: the rules are the physics of the world.  Optimizing according to those rules is 100% in-character decision making, and should be rewarded.  It's only logical for people, especially those in incredibly dangerous occupations, to seek out whatever advantages they can find.  If optimization breaks the game, then the world was broken.  It's up to the DM to fix it.Preparation: in-character prep is great.  Scouting, asking questions, are all good things.  However, prep should not mean "guess what the DM is thinking, or be punished".  And I don't think 10' poles are "prep".  They're just silly.Know your DM: 100% out-of-character decision making, and should be discouraged.  Not by punishment, but by the DM making every effort to 1) avoid making decisions on whims, instead of mechanics (or at least consistent, well established principles) 2) to incorporate his tendencies into the world, so that they become "know the World" instead of "know the DM".Know fellow players: Similar to the DM.  Playing on player traits, that are not also character traits, should be discouraged.  If a particular player trait is relevant to the game, then it should also be an in-character trait.  If a player has a soft-spot of fuzzy animals, and makes character decisions on that, then their character should also have a soft-spot for fuzzy animals.Puzzles: not my favorites, but these are still in-character decisions; they just make the assumption that a character's puzzle-solving aptitude is the same as the player's.  The prevalence of them is going to need to be dependent on the group.Strategic gaming: something I enjoy greatly, and like puzzles, still an in-character decision process.  And the importance of it is entirely based on the group.Lorekeeping: again, something I enjoy greatly.  Probably the biggest common-denominator in the various games my group has played.  We love us some mystery plots.Aggressive Roleplaying: kind of a loaded term, I think.  But anyway, this'll be dependent on the group.  I'm not big on backstory.  On thing DMs should be careful of is avoiding a sense that fleshing out a backstory only ever results in complications and obstacles.  This can feel like punishment.</blockquote>

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