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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Campbell" data-source="post: 7796937" data-attributes="member: 16586">I am not trying to score points here. I am sharing an earnest opinion based on direct experience of the game and frustrations I have had with it in play from both sides of the screen. I had a very frustrating initial experience running it until I embraced its GMing ethos. Due to features of system design, differences in the expectations for players and GMs, and the game's culture of play I cannot meaningfully get an experience where there is shared tension over what might happen because as the GM I am not meaningfully bound by anything.The group wide flexibility of something like Blades in the Dark is dependent on a shared expectation of how the GM will approach the game. This is what allows meaningful negotiation over the content of the fiction. This is what allows us to discuss how to apply the rules of a game as a group. This is what allows the GM to approach the players as creative peers. You cannot meaningfully get these things in a game where players are not allowed to have meaningful expectations about GM behavior.I still enjoy running 5th Edition, but it is difficult for me to bear so much of the responsibility for the game. I generally do not like having to make judgement calls all the time. I do not feel like I can meaningfully play the game with the other players. In many ways I feel like I am the game. It is pretty much the only version of the game that makes me feel this way.Consistent application of GMing principles and meaningful expectations of how the game will play out result in an experience you cannot easily mimic under a set of incredibly different GMing principles and set of expectations. This is something not easily seen if you have always played games that operated under a particular set of principles.You might not think about running the game in terms of principles and expectations. For you the way 5th Edition is meant to be run with its attendant responsibilities and expectations for player and GM behavior might just be the way someone is supposed to GM. This is exactly how John Harper felt about Apocalypse World when it first come out.I have direct experience of running 5th Edition and of running games like Moldvay B/X, Apocalypse World, Blades in the Dark, and others. I do not feel more constrained when running other games. I do not feel less constrained either. The constraints are simply different ones.What you find constraining will not necessarily be the same as what I find constraining. I am glad that you feel free when running 5th Edition in a way I do not. This is sincere. I enjoy it from time to time, but it does not feel natural or freeing to me. That is also sincere.</blockquote>

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