On Tue, 20 Dec 2005, Karen J. Cravens wrote:

> Right.  *Or* the player might be saying "I never want to have to worry
> about combat" because something else is important.  How can a GM tell the
> difference?  (Does the player always KNOW the difference?)

If the player understands his own motivations, then there just needs 
to be open communication among the players and GM.

This is one of the things the Forgeites have been big on, and one of 
the areas that I think they're doing something of real value.  They 
recognize that there are a million assumptions about how we're going 
to play, and that people don't talk about them enough.  Bankuei gives 
an analogy in a very recent blog post, about a culture who has never 
seen a ball before, and when given balls to play with, they invent 
games about them... except they consider them and the game to be holy, 
and it's forbidden to actually talk about the rules of playing ball. 
So to play game of Ball, they nominate a Ball King, who rewards or 
punishes people according to their adherance to the rules... but he 
can't _tell_ them the rules, because it's forbidden.  He can only 
reward or punish them and hope that they catch on.

It's goofy, and a bit over the top, but he's got a point.  The average 
roleplayer doesn't talk enough about what he is expecting from the 
game... in part, because he assumes that we're all playing the same 
game, and we all want the same thing, so there's no point in talking 
about it.

And I think the bit of discussion Karen captured and brought over here 
is a portrait of that... the player takes the biggest combat skills he 
can get because he wants something from the game that involves this, 
but you can't be entirely sure what it is he wants.  The gamemaster, 
thinking this is somehow damaging to the game, is on the defensive and 
tries to figure out how to neutralize it, but doesn't outright forbid 
taking it.  The GM _punishes_ the player for making a choice that was 
legal in the rules and not forbidden by the GM.  And many GMs seem to 
be assuming that this is a _natural reaction_ to the player's choices.

-- 
Carl D Cravens (raven@phoenyx.net)                Gamers List Owner
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