tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2465863144787683153.post4387026134469283019..comments2024-03-27T19:02:58.368-04:00Comments on BARKING ALIEN: Prepare Yourself For Being UnpreparedAdam Dicksteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04840144928096089178noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2465863144787683153.post-39133884835732547612014-10-27T16:34:30.448-04:002014-10-27T16:34:30.448-04:00I will confess to playing Devil's Advocate in ...I will confess to playing Devil's Advocate in my comment.<br />It's a somewhat purist notion, grounded on the fact that perhaps GM's can not be trusted to just act on common sense, logic, and genre, or that this just guarantees a non-biased response. Or that they can just go into autopilot when they GM.<br /><br />Or, as I suggested before, some people just like the creative process of writing down all those variations. WQRobbhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17436898737750581192noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2465863144787683153.post-46851600130552695302014-10-27T15:28:01.662-04:002014-10-27T15:28:01.662-04:00As far as 'straw man rhetoric', yes, of co...As far as 'straw man rhetoric', yes, of course I'm exaggerating things and tossing in a healthy dose of snark. I call this series of posts 'What Other GMs Do Wrong' don'tcha know.<br /><br />At the same time, go to Dyvers site. The quoted text comes from there, and that's what it says. I didn't exactly make it up.Adam Dicksteinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04840144928096089178noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2465863144787683153.post-29097924822857928432014-10-27T15:15:24.645-04:002014-10-27T15:15:24.645-04:00I certainly will. ;)
The thing is, the separation...I certainly will. ;)<br /><br />The thing is, the separation you make here is one I find intriguing because I see myself (and the best GMs I've gamed with as a player) as being Narrators-Who-Neutrally-Negotiate-The-Game-World. There is no difference or division of the two concepts/roles. <br /><br />I am simply of the mind that your fair and unbiased arbitration be based on common sense, logic, and elements you and your players have established about your milieu, not random rolls of the dice. Furthermore, I advocate this because that way leads to posts like the one Dyvers made and I linked. The belief that a dynamic approach is a lot of hard work. It's not, or at the very least, it need not be.Adam Dicksteinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04840144928096089178noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2465863144787683153.post-321970454786457082014-10-27T12:46:33.291-04:002014-10-27T12:46:33.291-04:00I love you, man, but I suspect you are using a lit...I love you, man, but I suspect you are using a little "straw man" rhetoric in this post. No one is going to to stat out the breakfasts of the subway workers in a campaign, and I don't think people are creating scads of spreadsheets for dungeons unless they really want to. There's a weird fetishist element to creating those charts, and the people who do it are doing it because that's their fun.<br /><br />One continual gaming philosophy/conflict I keep seeing in your bashing of fantasy RPG's is the whole GM-as-narrator versus GM-as-neutral-world-negotiator mindset. It seems (and I can be mistaken) that you tend to see the GM's job to tell a story, to present conflicts for the PC's to solve as they see fit. Some GM's (especially the OSR contingent) do populate their world with antagonistic beings, but they tend to see themselves as neutral arbitrators, letting the PC's just wander about where they will, with the charts and graphs you malign regularly representing a contract with the players that they will be fair in how they respond.<br /><br />Now, you can argue all those points, and in fact should. Because that creates blog content. :)WQRobbhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17436898737750581192noreply@blogger.com