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Message: <blockquote data-quote="piou" data-source="post: 9153391" data-attributes="member: 7042024">I apply with rules the same approach I use with cooking recipes: I always try not to change them before trying them a few times unmodified.I think your analysis is missing an important chunk. On one hand I agree with you that ultimately what matters is that people have fun playing the game. If you're having fun as a group, you shouldn't feel ashamed of playing the way you do.But if you focus on what you think is best and disregard what the game is trying to do you can end up playing only one game: "Let's play Traveller, but I don't like the dice system, I'd rather have d20 like in D&D. And the random character creation is stupid, I want players to build the characters they want to play. I'll just write some D&D-like classes based on the common archetypes you find in traveller. And what's that about being in debt for the ship? That doesn't sound fun, let's just get rid of it." etc etc. Does that mean you're going to have a bad time with your players? No. But at that point are you really playing Traveller anymore? Or are you just playing D&D in space? That example can seem obvious, but it can come in more subtle flavours when considering games that aren't D&D.D&D is a game that doesn't really care about how you GM it. There's some guidance, very generic advice not to hard railroad your players and ensure everyone is having fun… But overall D&D is a game that leaves it up to the DM to find the style of GMing they want to use. This is in line with the fact that D&D is a game that's made to be hacked. But when you consider something like Apocalypse World, that's another beast entirely. Apocalypse World cares deeply about how you GM, and is so convinced that there is a DMing style that fits the game best and will produce the best experience that this GMing style is codified as rules. And frankly, yeah, it does fit the game very very well, and it's not a style that is very common among D&D GMs so you can't just assume people will use it naturally.But here the idea that it's perfectly legitimate to ignore the rules push many GMs to ignore these DM rules and rule the game as they would any other (by which I mean, generally whataver their D&D style is) and often these styles don't make the game shine and people end up frustrated and not understanding how anyone can like that game that just doesn't work properly. I take Apocalypse World specifically here because it's a clear example where we can see many such complaints and many people being annoyed to be told that they're playing the game wrong when often (not always of course - plenty of people very legitimately dislike PbtA games after giving them an honnest try) they are indeed playing the game wrong. And by that I mean they are changing rules in a way that prevents them from experiencing what the game is designed to let them experience and that is harmful to their enjoyment of the game.So all in all what I'd say is:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Fun is paramount. If you have fun, don't let anyone or anything shame you for it.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">If you change the rules, you're doing it at your own risk. If you don't have fun, it may be that the game is bad, or it may be that the rule change you made is bad. Don't take it out on the game, you haven't actually played it yet.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">For that reason, it's better IMHO to try playing the game on its own terms first. That way you also avoid essentially always playing the same game with different flavoring.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Different games can be more or less tailored to a specific experience. Some games do care about how you GM them. Some games do care about how you roleplay them. Some games do care that you use minis. Not every game has the same stance as D&D that essentially everything is optional and you shouldn't approach all games with that mindset.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">But if you tried a game and  made a change and found it awesome, that's great! Talk about it, share it, play it. You shouldn't be afraid to tinker, you should only be afraid to judge something you haven't actually experienced.</li> </ul></blockquote>

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