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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Gradine" data-source="post: 7065276" data-attributes="member: 57112">Basically, this. Everyone takes a different approach to enjoying the game. Every approach is valid. Some approaches may prevent others from enjoying the game, which is why "Session 0" is actually a pretty good idea for the DM to establish the tone and aesthetic of the game they plan to run, as well as gauge the tone and aesthetic the players are looking for. Ultimately, not every table is going to be able to support the preferred play style of every player. That's okay too.I talk a lot about aesthetics, which comes from the Eight Aesthetics of Play, which comes from a document wherein a group of people, a little over a decade ago, attempted to academically articulate the principles of game design (in their case, they were looking specifically at video game design). To this day the best attempt to explain how those aesthetics show up in tabletop RPGs comes from the Angry DM, in an article <a href="http://angrydm.com/2014/01/gaming-for-fun-part-1-eight-kinds-of-fun/" target="_blank">here</a>. On the one hand, it's the Angry DM. But on the other hand, this article is by far the Angry DM at his least... Angry-DM-like. It's easily readable regardless of your tolerance for his rhetorical style, and I consider it required reading for anyone looking to start DMing. Or really, anyone attempting to have conversations like this thread about varied play styles.It's an important article because it not only articulates all of the varied play styles one might take to RPGs, but also explains why people might tend towards specific play styles. It's a breakdown of the underlying reasons why someone might focus more on optimizing or more on role-playing. It also breaks down that this is not a dichotomy at all but rather two out of a wide range of styles and approaches and that most players encompass several styles at once, to a varied range of degrees. Think of the eight aesthetics as eight sliders on each player's character sheet; every player will their slider set to some degree or another for each of the aesthetics; for most players, one or two will be maxed, one to three will be at zero, and the rest may fall somewhere in between.Every approach is valid, but not every aesthetic may fit in well with every table. But I think if people assume good faith on behalf of most players with differing play styles, I think you'll find there's broader compatibility than you might originally think.</blockquote>

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