On Fri, Dec 16, 2005 at 01:16:05PM -0600, Carl D Cravens wrote:

>"Bankuei" (in his blog) is really big into this... he says 95% of 
>roleplayers aren't having any fun, but keep going through the motions 
>in the hope that it gets better.

There are several possible explanations for this, some more charitable
than others. I really don't know how much non-fun role-playing is out
there; I know that if I didn't enjoy it I wouldn't keep doing it (and I
have occasionally dropped out of campaigns for just this reason). I do
know that it's rare in my experience, and I rarely get players leaving
my campaigns either.

>The thing going wasn't just "this game" but "any game."  That you 
>should be playing _every_ game exactly as written, or that game isn't 
>right for you.  Which I think is BS, because no game is a perfect fit 
>for any group of people.  Even game _authors_ don't always play their 
>games exactly as written.

There's a two-fold consideration there: (1) Game Authors are somehow
"above" Normal Gamers, perhaps because they are enlightened (at least
_proper_ game authors); (2) they _should_ play the games as written,
because only by strict adherence to the (social) rules can a bad
player/GM be prevented from ruining the game.

The sorts of rules that I see in indie-type RPGs are indicative of the
sorts of bad GM they're trying to stop, I think: the GM who has just one
clue to lead to the bad guys and lets the players spend all evening
looking for it, or the GM who doesn't want his favourite NPC killed so
will fudge the numbers so that he gets away.

R

-- 
Roger, gaming grognard
Lots of role-playing stuff: http://tekeli.li/
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