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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6116083" data-attributes="member: 42582">I've been taking a different approach on this - I wasn't at the table and know nothing of the interpersonal dynamics.I've certainly had one GM from whom I barely contained my dissatisfaction with the way he ran his game - the one I mentioned upthread against whom I staged a coup - because it was frankly just terrible. Yet despite butting heads with all his players - not just me - multiple times over a handful of sessions, he seemed genuinely surprised that we all wanted out of his game, and made various promises to change his style. After our experiences with him we weren't interested, however.If Hussar has mentioned upthread exaclty how his "shirtiness" manifested I've forgotten or missed it, but I don't think it's always obligatory to sit there politely, sending no signals at all, until you suddenly leave the game.Anyway, that's already more than I really mean to say on the "social interaction" side of the discussion. I've mostly been interested in the slightly more abstract question of whether Hussar has framed a criticism of a GMing approach that is reasonable relative to a tenable (and not terribly radical) playstyle preference; and (obviously) I think that he has!I think this is an interesting point that hasn't been discussed as much in the thread as it could be (although   [MENTION=23935]Nagol[/MENTION] I think has raised it more than once upthread).I think the clearest D&D texts on this sort of issue are the Gygaxian ones - plus related ones like B/X - which make clear the exploratory focus of the game; and the 4e ones, which gesture with tolerable clarity at scene-framed play (the DMG stuff on skipping gate guards, plus quite a long discussion in DMG2) and a contrast betwee action and transition scenes (in the PHB this is the contrast between what it calls Exploration - "Between encounters, your characters explore the world. . . Exploration is the give-and-take of you telling the DM what you want your character to do, and the DM telling you what happens when your character does it." - and Encounters, which are "challenges of some sort that your characters face." (p 9)).I think 2nd ed AD&D and 3E are much less clear. 2nd ed AD&D has a lot of rhetoric, at least, about suspending the rules in the interests of the story, but in my personal view the PHB at lest is also written in a tone that emphasises a type of antagonistic use of GM force, which might include having players make riding checks so we can all enjoy the spectacle of them falling off. 3E I don't really have a handle on - but judging from these forums alone I don't have any evidence to contest your characterisation of its play culture!</blockquote>

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