On Thu, Mar 09, 2006 at 11:40:46AM -0600, Karen J. Cravens wrote:

>It isn't exactly about "cheating" as in breaking the explicit rules of the 
>game.  It's "cheating" as in "forcing a story instead of letting the story 
>happen," if that makes sense.

I think I understand what you're getting at, but I remain unconvinced
that any possible rule system is the way to get interesting stories to
happen. Cooperation between players and GM seems to me something that
either happens (as I'm fortunate enough to have with the groups in which
I play) or doesn't; rules that try to force the effects of cooperation
end up annoying a substantial fraction of the players (see rants from
T. M. Neeck and me, among others).

>Most of the time, story happens.  Well, all of the time, depending on your 
>definition.  But I want the unsatisfying stories to not happen, where the 
>dice or (less often) taking events to their logical, inevitable, but 
>unforeseen conclusion results in characters not being protagonistic.

I try to do that by shuffling things around behind the scenes. So the
players didn't spot the clue to where the bad guy is? OK, he's in the
place where they worked out that he _ought_ to be. I don't do this
_every_ time, and I never talk about specific cases when I might have
done it (because that breaks that "our decisions matter" illusion on
which some of the players' enjoyment relies - I try to make that
illusion a reality as far as possible).

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