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Message: <blockquote data-quote="N'raac" data-source="post: 6122686" data-attributes="member: 6681948">Either you wheedle and cajole and/or bribe, or you respect his decision.  It can’t be both.  If you are using peer pressure to force acquiescence, then we again get the "dominant personality" calls the shots an the others, however grudgingly, go along.  I don't recall any suggestions that it was OK to wheedle, cajole or bribe you into playing out the desert scenes.Again, however, we get this binary thing.  Either I am 100% in favour or 100% opposed – I can’t, say, prefer the idea of shooting pool, but be willing to go bowling if that’s what everyone else wants. Now, if we have five people, and one doesn’t want to bowl, one doesn’t want to shoot pool, one doesn’t want to go to a nightclub, one doesn’t want to go to a movie and one doesn’t want to sit at home, where are we left?  I suspect what really happens, very often, is that the pushiest guy gets his way, and the rest go along to avoid an argument, even though they aren’t really invested in that particular activity.  Which sounds very familiar to me. Back to extreme positions, of course.  I would not enjoy a game consisting of each scene proposed being shot down  by one of the players, so we never actually game.  That is just as much a possibility in the “one guy says no, we don’t do it” model as the ”one guy forces everyone else through utter boredom” result you attribute to a “say yes” model.  I think, in any game where one player can and does use his authority, whatever it may be, to force unfun activities down the rest of the players' throats, or to prevent any fun activities being undertaken, the game will soon be over.  It doesn't matter whether "one yes rules" or "one no rules" is in effect - if the result is that only one player enjoys the game, then either that one player will get ejected or the rest will leave. Here is where we definitely disagree.  If the game is good, then the game is good.  We can agree or disagree about what makes a good game.  We can even conclude that it cannot be a good game unless everyone at the table has a say in what the game is, unless everyone has a persnal veto, or whatever other litmus test we want to apply.  But to say "I don’t want to be involved in a good game" seems ludicrous, at least to me.  "That was a great game - NEVER DO THAT AGAIN!" is not something I'd ever expect t hear from any player or GM.  Here again, we get to “doesn’t want to do” being the only other possibility to “take my top priority and move to it immediately”.  Maybe I don’t care about revenge against the Grell, and would rather move on to something else.  Should I force that on the group, or should I play out the “revenge against the Grell” scene, which is far from my first choice, and we will move on to something else when that is done? I will say again, rejecting what the rest of the group wants to do is forcing my will upon the group just as much as insisting on playing out, say, the hiring of the mercenaries is forcing my will upon the group.  Single player exclusion is in no way superior to single player inclusion.  Both can be abused.  Neither is guaranteed to be abused.  Both require some compromise to allow everyone at the table to have a “good game”.I invite you to focus your absolutism that " No one is ever obligated to quietly accept anything" to the following scenario:PLAYER 1:  Your desert will suck.  It is boring.  Fast forward so I am not obligated to quietly accept playing through it.PLAYER 2: Your desert will be the highlight of the campaign.  Game on so I am not obligated to quietly accept skipping it. Your group is either prescient in perceiving every possible decision point that may arise throughout the entire game, or the world’s single greatest hive mind.  The latter, to me, would make for a pretty boring game. Let’s go back to the city where the Whatever It Is awaits in the Wherever It Is.  When presented with the three ideas of “infiltrate”, “negotiate”, “manipulate siege”, will all the layers immediately jump to the same choice, or will there be some discussion of which approach will be pursued?  If the former, why does there need to be any choice?  The players seem pretty easy to reliably predict, so why throw out choices they won’t be interested in.  If the latter, then someone is not going to get their way, are they?  Or will we play out all three somehow?  Or, I guess, we have to play out none, because each receives at least one "NO" vote from a player.  I guess the "Whatever It Is" stays "Wherever It Is"!If we all agreed to play Shackled City, why are you refusing to play out the wasteland scenes included therein?  We all agreed to play Shackled City, didn't we?  You mean like the wizard teleporting the party across the desert without their consent (or forcing a reluctant character to Ride the Centipede), the wizard refusing to use his teleport spell to transport the party across the desert, or the fighter killing the Hobgoblin that the Rogue was questioning? In my games, the PC’s negotiate the matter and come to a decision.  In larger groups, I have had situations where a “majority rules” approach is adopted.  I have also seen party members named the “party leader”.  I don’t believe I’ve ever seen a group where non-trivial decisions are not discussed out, whether in character or outside. I have seen a game where one PC (against player and character wishes, but he went along with it) was named “Party Leader”.  The group then insisted on putting many decisions to a vote.  The “party leader” (a pretty laid back, take it as it comes, chaotic character) generally just sat back and let the votes take their course.  Until the GM got handed every PC’s secret ballot (don’t ask me how the PC’s came up with the idea of group management by hidden ballot), saw some “Yes” and “No” votes, probably an “Abstain” and one note that said “Since I’m the leader and I count the ballots, there is one Abstain, 2 No and 4 Yes votes.  Announce the results and throw the ballots in the campfire”.And no one complained about the direction the game took.  No one got shirty when the decision didn't match their character's preference.  They were there to play the game, and play it they did.  Since a good time was had by all, I guess it must have been a terrible game since it did not include unilateral player veto power. In my games, the PC’s would likely talk it out.  The fighter might agree to a return to the city to reprovision and come back.  The wizard might agree that we’ll explore for a while and see if anything looks interesting.  A disagreement between the PC’s is no big deal – it makes for good role playing.  A disagreement between the players would get talked out. I have seen one game where the PC’s were at real loggerheads.  As the discussion went on, the GM made one simple statement – PC’s have free will.  They can stay or go as they please.  However, once the decision has been made on how this group will split (which looked to be pretty likely at the time), we’re going to number each character and roll a die.  Whoever’s number comes up, that’s who the campaign follows.  Anyone who split off from that character (or the group with that character) needs a new character. The other characters can be used in another game, another time. The PC’s found some common ground, amazingly enough.  A few of the players decided their more polarized viewpoints could be softened a bit.  The people sitting around the table all want a good game, and they can work together to achieve it.  They don’t need a Group Charter, veto power or full disclosure to make that happen.</blockquote>

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