The GM should stop me!
Filip Luszczyk:
I've found this situation intriguing.
The game in question handles character effectiveness primarily via player <-> player permissions. I'm in the middle of running a campaign, and our last session concluded with a significant level-up fest.
So, one of the players adds a rather unexpected new ability to the master list, and my first though is "Ouch, an automatic adventure solving skill!" That's my first thought, so I'm immediately asking the player whether it actually has any usage limits. He considers my question and restricts the ability, but really that's no real restriction.
A few seconds later, however, I'm re-assessing things. What I'm thinking is this "Oh, but I'm so silly - that's powerful, but the system is designed to support that sort of stuff, no point to worry."
That's when the player adds another "automatic adventure solving" skill to the master list, looks at it silently for a while, and goes like "Uh, this is wrong. The GM should stop me from doing this." At this point I'm shaking my head, and another player jumps in to explain why the GM shouldn't have anything to say in this matter and how those abilities are fine.
Now, what strikes me here is the player's initial refusal to accept responsibility for his own contributions. Rather than "I shouldn't be doing this," it's "the GM should stop me." There's this expectation that everything goes, but the GM will protect the game and moderate wild stuff. The player, however, seems fully aware that he might be going too far himself. Still, he goes there.
Moreno R.:
In "traditional" roleplaying, the GM has full responsibility for the game. So much that he can override any rule or any rolls (and this mean that if something go wrong, it's not the game system's fault: it's his own, because he did not override it). I think it's an absurd way to play a game, but it's widespread.
In this kid of set-up, the GM is a policeman. If you see someone violate the law, you don't arrest him yourself. You expect the policeman to do it. It's his authority, it's his responsibility.
The player in your game probably didn't consider HIS responsibility to create a character who would not ruin the game for others. His sole responsibility was to listen to "the Law", as given by the GM.
In my opinion, this kind of set-up will destroy in time any kind of functional play you could have with that group. I strongly suggest (not to you in particular, but in general) to make very clear to everybody that everybody is equally responsible for making the game fun for everyone.
Filip Luszczyk:
The game is specifically an anti-trad design, and I think all players should already be well aware of that. As in: I've been talking about this "board games with fiction, not rpgs!" thing a lot, so at this point any lack of clarity should only emerge from not experiencing hitting the invisible wall strongly enough yet. It is true that the player in question has the least experience with this sort of games in the group. So far, however, he didn't manifest a particualry trad mindset as well (in my 10+ sessions with him, at least), allowing for functional play.
Also, I didn't make it clear enough, it seems. The player wasn't creating his own character here. He was only contributing options for other players to choose from. It only related to his own character in that by permitting others to do that stuff, he had to exclude his own character from ever attempting such achievements. Still, by the rules, he was "the Law" regarding those abilities, not the GM. In this case, the entire table, GM included, had to listen to him, offering suggestions at most.
What I don't quite get is the "I don't have to moderate myself, the nanny should take my toys away when things get dangerous" mentality. I find the GM as a policeman/nanny/whatever outlook absurd in general, it annoyed me since I first tried rpgs. The specific attitude here, however, seems to be some weird byproduct of that, which I haven't observed clearly yet.
Callan S.:
Well, you can't authoritively tell someone to take up authority - because obviously when you do so, your taking the full authority. The desire to self moderate and be ones own authority has to naturally occur (though I guess it can be seeded - but that seed has to grow by itself, if it does at all).
That might actually make a good RPG in itself, one themed on taking up authority for oneself not because one is told. Or not taking it.
But I'll add that a gamer can also take so much responsiblity in moderating himself that he is practically making a/the sessions game himself. If the rules/the author of the rules doesn't also take some of the weight/responsiblity, the rules are basically non content and worthless (RPG equivalent of stone soup).
contracycle:
Quote from: Filip Luszczyk on December 26, 2009, 08:55:02 AM
What I don't quite get is the "I don't have to moderate myself, the nanny should take my toys away when things get dangerous" mentality. I find the GM as a policeman/nanny/whatever outlook absurd in general, it annoyed me since I first tried rpgs. The specific attitude here, however, seems to be some weird byproduct of that, which I haven't observed clearly yet.
Shrug. This seems totally unsurprising to me, although the context is a little strange.
I think the existence of the game world as an external entity which pushes back against the players' desires is important for a lot of people. I certainly think its critically important to really powerful Exploration, but even beyond that it adds a potency to the experience as a whole. Moderating yourself cannot reproduce that sensation because at root you always know that that is what you are doing. You cannot run at full stretch, as it were.
I don't approve of describing these responses are a desire for "nannying" or "policing". Those seem unecessarily derogatory terms to apply. It's not nearly so absurd when understood as an intimately human desire to test itself against unsympathetic reality and to thereby discover its hard limits. The appeal to the GM here is, I think, to the GM function as a genius mundi who represents those limits. Such a role can of course be taken by opposing players, but if as you describe, those players also stand to "benefit" from these abilities, then the oppositional role is not really functional at this point.
@ Moreno, I think you really misunderstand and misrepresent the form of play you try to describe. Even in strongly GM-led play, there is definitely still a responsibility for all parties to contribute to the fun. What is different is that there is a division of labour as to what sort of contribution GM's and players make. The "problem" you describe is not a problem, the play style is not absurd, there is no delinquincy of responsibility, and it can be perfectly functional as long as appropriate expectations are shared by the participants.
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