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Many of these "sins" as well as many complications that come up between players and GMs seem to stem from whether or not you create your worlds or characters without influence from players or a GM.
If you tend to create worlds without having a set player base in mind, you might be a little more strict on what you allow or discourage. Similarly, if you don't have a steady GM but have an active imagination, you might pound out dozens of character ideas that long for a home, not all of which may fit in with many worlds.
In general, a lot of these sins/styles aren't intrinsically good or bad, they are opinions on how to do things and likes/dislikes. Reggae is a popular music genre; I personally would rather have a root canal. That is how many people feel about alignments, to pull something from the list.
A roleplaying game system is like a language. Both are things used to tell a story. You can abide strictly by the rules and conventions of that language or
do some
weird
e.
e.
cummings
sense
What matters is that the GM creates something that they enjoyed creating and that the players enjoy playing. It's important that when we come to the game table, we make our expectations known.
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For me, for the list, fudging is the most problematic and it
definitely goes against what I consider old-school.
I don’t want to play in games if the DM is fudging. Glad to see so
many DMs clearly admit that they do it (so that I’ll know to not play
in their games). Some even to save NPCs/villains.
It’s less that I so desperately want to die from every trap and more
that I find that fudging is often a symptom for a way of play that I
don’t like. “Arcs”, “dramatically appropriate”, “plot”, “story”. An
interesting playstyle, but... not really what I want.
I want the “story” to be what comes out of this glorious machine of
system, fictional elements, players and monsters. Not something that
would make a good novel or tv show.
Play to find out.
To me, the OSR and the “sandbox” style have been a godsend. Yes, the
OSR community has problems but their approach to how to set up and run
a great game is perfect for me, both as a player and as a DM.
Until I found out about that way of play, RPGs was this big paradox of
“story” colliding with “game” and doing neither well.
If I have written a story, why would I gamble it with a bunch of wild
and crazy players who’re supposed to guess the way they play their
parts?
If I am playing a game (especially one so complicated and full of
mastery and traps as Pathfinder), why should I bother learning the
system when dice results are changed anyway, to fit an “appropriate”
outcome?
Yes — these two positions are straw figures. Story-writing DMs don’t
plan out everything. The game isn’t just a game,
fictional positioning and fictional elements are perhaps just as
important, or more, than mechanical success.
But they two positions more of a rhetorical device than anything else.
I just wanted to show that I just don’t think it goes well together
and why fudging feels so out of place.
The sandbox style — and it can be easy: a little town, a few encounter
tables, a few non-linear dungeons — is a perfect fit to the game
media. Players goals, alignments, choices, mechanics, skill etc get to
blossom.
I did read through the thread to see that no-one posted this. Most of
it was about “DMs set the world and players fit their characters to
that” vs “players set the characters and the DM fit the world to
that”. To me, either way sounds like it’ll create cool results and as
many has said, there are many possible mid-points on that scale.
It’s hard to say “If that doesn’t suit you, leave” whether as a player
or as a DM. People who have the luxury to say that must have access to
many potential players or DM:s. I don’t.
Yes, I’ve left groups. But that has never been an easy decision.
Anyway, I can only wish you all the best and hope you have a table
and group that works for you. I know that for me there were many, many
false starts and dead ends but now I'm happy with how the game works.
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It’s hard to say “If that doesn’t suit you, leave” whether as a player
or as a DM. People who have the luxury to say that must have access to
many potential players or DM:s. I don’t.
Yes, I’ve left groups. But that has never been an easy decision.
It is hard to do whether you are the GM saying it or the player. Sometimes, however, you have to make hard decisions. Kirth said somewhere upstream, perhaps eaten in the Great Purge of the Thread, something to the effect that no game is better than a bad game.
This is painfully true. I've not played for years at a stretch because I was in nowhere Texas, Mississippi and Alabama and my choices were bad and worse. Thankfully the Internet came along and crafted a solution to that, but for a while there it was not play or play in a game that either bored me to tears or made me really uncomfortable or made me dislike humanity.
That said, I'd do it again if forced into a corner. I'm older now and can find numerous ways to entertain myself; I don't need to play or run a game that makes me unhappy.
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(Whoops, sorry for the line endings, and you can't edit posts here.)
"No game" better than "bad game"? I guess for me it's a scale, from "good game" via "not so good game" to "bad game" and it has to be very bad for it to be beaten by "no game". I hate not having a game. (Fortunately, I'm finally in a great game now.)
Given that "no game" is so horrific (though, yes, certainly better than how bad the worst of the bad games can get), I think all advice on how to improve groups is valuable. The option of quitting is always there, but it's important to hear other options.
It’s hard to say “If that doesn’t suit you, leave” whether as a player
or as a DM. People who have the luxury to say that must have access to
many potential players or DM:s. I don’t.
Yes, I’ve left groups. But that has never been an easy decision.It is hard to do whether you are the GM saying it or the player. Sometimes, however, you have to make hard decisions. Kirth said somewhere upstream, perhaps eaten in the Great Purge of the Thread, something to the effect that no game is better than a bad game.
This is painfully true. I've not played for years at a stretch because I was in nowhere Texas, Mississippi and Alabama and my choices were bad and worse. Thankfully the Internet came along and crafted a solution to that, but for a while there it was not play or play in a game that either bored me to tears or made me really uncomfortable or made me dislike humanity.
That said, I'd do it again if forced into a corner. I'm older now and can find numerous ways to entertain myself; I don't need to play or run a game that makes me unhappy.
Pretty much the same story with me. In fact I find as I get older a game has to do a lot more for me to make me want to play it than it used to. Once upon a time I was happy just to sit down and play, now I want to sit down and play very specific things (which things exactly, vary with the mood I'm in.)
Someone GMing a new game will likely have to work a lot harder to sell me on their game idea than they used to.
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The problem with this whole thread is the assumption the DM is somehow fallable.
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LOL...I have always fudged rolls for the benefit of a good game and yes the DM is in fallable.
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tough crowd tonight.
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The GM is falafel?
Mmmm...falafel.