Quote from: StuartAgain, it's not that Go doesn't work for you -- you just aren't very good at it.  That's ok, nobody can be good at ALL games.

It means that as an enjoyable activity, rather than a frustrating experience, Go does not work for me.  I assume that the reason why people play games is to have fun.  If they are not having fun, then the game is not doing what it's supposed to be doing.  I think that's a fairly legitimate and (nearly) universal expectation to have for a game.

If you want to frame that as an expectation problem, you can, but where does that observation get us?  OK.  So my problem is that I expected to have fun and I didn't.  Now what?  Should I adjust my expectations and stop expecting to have fun?

Quote from: StuartWhat I'm suggesting is that not all games are about roleplaying in the same way.  So you may like some more than others, or be better at some more than others.

Of course.

Quote from: StuartSaying it doesn't work for you suggests you have something in mind already.  If I want to play a wargame, then Basketball "doesn't work for me".  If I don't approach the game wanting to play something else, then it's different.  I might like it, I might not.  If I'm not very good at it "I don't work for IT".

If I buy a can-opener and it doesn't open cans, then it "doesn't work".  If I buy a can-opener and it doesn't open cans for me (maybe I'm not strong enough or my hands are too big to hold part of it or whatever), then it "doesn't work" for me.  Now, you can claim that my problem is that I expect it to open cans and there is really nothing wrong with a can-opener not opening cans.  But the fact is that it fails to do the thing that people primarily use it for.  To me, that's failing to work.

Now, if you give me a can-opener and tell me it's the best can-opener that you've ever used, and I find that I can't use it to perform its intended function, then asking you why you think it's so great just might tell me that either (A) I'm using the can-opener wrong, (B) maybe there is a trick that could let me use it differently than you do but still use it to open cans, or (C) maybe I just can't use it to open cans.  In the case of (C), then I think it's fair to say that "it doesn't work for me".

If you still want to argue that it's an expectation problem, then please give me an example of something that "doesn't work" that isn't an expectation problem.

Quote from: droogConsidering that we have an archetypal Forge-basher on this forum who thinks it's a great game, how about taking people's word for it that it is, in fact, a great game (even if not for you), and that people who like it are not 'ignorant' or 'oblivious' to the potential of other games. That line of enquiry is a dead end.

I'm asking for answers because I don't want to assume they are "ignorant" or "oblivious".  That's the easy thing to assume.  What I'm trying to understand is that if that's not the case, then what is the appeal?

As for being an "archetypal Forge-basher", what exactly are the characteristics of one?

Quote from: droogNow, nobody reading this can tell if I'm telling the truth about my experiences or not. You have to take it on faith. But that's exactly the same for someone who says "Oh, I do just what DitV does and twice on Sundays, without any rules or anything." Completely unverifiable. Also subjective – maybe if I sat in on one of these games I'd see it as boring and ridiculous (it wouldn't be the first time).

It comes down to personal preference, as I've said before. If you want to figure out what DitV actually does, you need to take a very different tack and go through the mechanics with a fine-toothed comb, analysing some actual play. Good luck – it's about as tricky as explaining why Seven Samurai is a great film.

There are no shortage of people who want to know why Seven Samurai is a great film and no shortage of people who try to explain it.  If such questions and lines of inquiry don't interest you, then you are going to find discussions like this useless.  Why not apply the same principle to the enjoyment people get out of discussing things like this that you apply to people enjoying role-playing games and just accept that some people enjoy it and you don't?

Quote from: droogI know what I like, I'm secure in my tastes, and I don't need validation. But this sort of thing is intellectually exasperating.

I can tell from the way you have to tell us that you are secure in your tastes, have to tell us that you don't need validation, get exasperated by discussions like this, and feel a need to get involved, anyway, that you are secure in your tastes.  Really.

Quote from: John MorrowI can tell from the way you have to tell us that you are secure in your tastes, have to tell us that you don't need validation, get exasperated by discussions like this, and feel a need to get involved, anyway, that you are secure in your tastes.  Really.

Believe what you like, dude. Just don't write me ten pages about it.

But moving along, I thought I'd put this question to one group of roleplayers I know. A bit of vox populi for you:

QuoteI simply like the way it creates an esclation of tension in a similar way as to what you get in a poker game.

QuoteThe rules let you put into play how much you care...

"I'm prepared to make you mad to get you to put out that cigar"
"I'm prepared to beat you up to get you to put out that cigar"
"I'm prepared to kill you to get that cigar put out"

It supports that sort of moral positioning in a way that other games don't. At each escalation point you get to decide - do I care enough to get violent or to kill? That sort of moral switchpoint doesn't exist in most games.

Quote

QuoteIs it simply that it takes it out of the subjective realm and puts it on the table in the form of dice?

I think that is a big part of it. I also like how it forces the players to explore conflicts in more detail (btw I'm mostly talking about non combat conflicts here).

I felt a similar thing the first time I experienced extended conflicts in HeroQuest. The mechanics of the game forced us to go through the conflict in a lot more detail. Of course we could have role played it to that level of detail, but we wouldn't have. And it wouldn't have had the dramatics that dice can add.

But I reckon DitV is even better than HQ for conflicts as it also captures that pokeresque 'I raise you one' feel which I think is a bit edgier than HQ's 'I slowly wear you down' feel. I can't really define that aspect of it tho...

QuoteI think the difference is that you can infer that ethical question, but Dogs puts it in your face - it directly asks you 'Do you want to punch this guy now?'. It's like D&D and social rules - you can fudge it, but the rules don't really support it. Dogs rules really support that sort of ethical questions - it puts it right in your face.

Quote from: John MorrowYour statement was, "The choice you face here is whether or not to shoot this innocent person in the face ... if you're not willing to do that, that's cool, but you know and your character knows that the consequence of not shooting him will be that you don't win the conflict."  What I'm trying to say that that the consequences are already a part of what's going on in the character's head and the choice is a matter of the character making a choice.

Well ... now I'm confused.  Doesn't the GM (and the other players) have some say in what kind of outcomes your actions will have?

It seems to me that what you're saying is "My character has his own intuition of whether his actions will be successful or not, and if the GM's judgment doesn't match that intuition then that breaks my immersion, and I'm unable to play as I normally do."  Is that what you're saying?

Quote from: droogBelieve what you like, dude. Just don't write me ten pages about it.

I've largely been trying to avoid commenting on your posts because I figured we'd both be happier that way.

Quote from: droogBut moving along, I thought I'd put this question to one group of roleplayers I know. A bit of vox populi for you:

Interesting comments.  Thanks.  This statement:

"Of course we could have role played it to that level of detail, but we wouldn't have. And it wouldn't have had the dramatics that dice can add."

...suggests that playing out dramatic and detailed non-combat conflicts is not something the person normally expects to have happen in a conventional role-playing game.  Is that also rare in your experience?  Are DitV and similar games making these players approach non-combat conflicts in a way very different from what they'd normally do?

I'm asking because I want to make sure I'm not reading something in to the statement that isn't there.

Quote from: TonyLBWell ... now I'm confused.  Doesn't the GM (and the other players) have some say in what kind of outcomes your actions will have?

Of course, as do the rules, depending on what the action is.

Quote from: TonyLBIt seems to me that what you're saying is "My character has his own intuition of whether his actions will be successful or not, and if the GM's judgment doesn't match that intuition then that breaks my immersion, and I'm unable to play as I normally do."  Is that what you're saying?

Maybe I'm just not reading your statement correctly.  Again, you said, "The choice you face here is whether or not to shoot this innocent person in the face ... if you're not willing to do that, that's cool, but you know and your character knows that the consequence of not shooting him will be that you don't win the conflict."

I have been interpreting that as a choice between whether to fire the gun at the other person's face or not fire the gun and forego the objective my character was trying to achieve in the conflict.  What I am talking about is that decision, which occurs inside of the character's head, and not the outcome of that decision.  Whether or not the gun hits the other character in the face if my character decides to fire the gun is something that other conventional systems already deal with pretty well.

What I'm trying to say that that the consequences are already a part of what's going on in the character's head and the choice is a matter of the character making a choice.  It has nothing to do with the outcomes of those choices, which are generally outside of the character's control.

Yes, my character has intuition about various things but normally they consist of a range of possible reasonable outcomes, so as long as the results feel plausible for the setting and situation, everything is fine.  Sometimes the character will have a range of possible reasonable outcomes that is smaller than the actual set of possible reasonable outcomes for the setting.  Normally, the GM and rules have plenty of room to work in but there can be cases where the GM or rules make a call that are outside of the bounds of the character's expectations of what's possible.  

In those cases, the problem is that my character doesn't react the way a real person would (which is to deal with it) and instead it gets kicked up to the player level where the player wonders if the GM is making a mistake.  Sometimes they are.  Sometimes they aren't.  When it catches a GM mistake, it can be a good thing because it let's me point out a problem to the GM before it gets built on.  When it identifies a mistake that's not a mistake, it can be disruptive.  

Perhaps this is one of those places where more clearly defining the conflict, the stakes, and the parameters could be helpful, though I'd have to figure out how to do it in a way that doesn't disrupt the immersive in character play.  Something I need to consider.

Quote from: John MorrowWhat I'm trying to say that that the consequences are already a part of what's going on in the character's head and the choice is a matter of the character making a choice.  It has nothing to do with the outcomes of those choices, which are generally outside of the character's control.

You're talking about the consequences, but it has nothing to do with the outcome?  Dude.  I am having the worst time parsing you.  I worry that you've begun arguing against something that you're hearing in your head, which is completely unrelated to what I'm writing.

Let's say that you go in not knowing whether you can (for instance) save this town from damnation.  Those are the stakes.  At the beginning of the conflict it is completely up in the air, right?

When you arrive at a later point, where you already know that you cannot save the town from damnation unless you shoot this kid in the face ... well then, making the decision there is about things you already know.  I grant you that.

But somewhere in the middle there is the moment in which you discover that you're not going to be able to save the town without shooting the kid.  It seems to me that you could either:

• (a) Figure it out yourself
• (b) Be informed by the GM because he's decided (without rules support)
• (c) Get into a rules situation where you don't have enough dice to win the conflict, and the only way to get more dice is to escalate to gun-play

Are some of those ways of discovering that fact about the situation problematic for you?

Almost there...

Quote from: John MorrowIf I buy a can-opener and it doesn't open cans, then it "doesn't work".  If I buy a can-opener and it doesn't open cans for me (maybe I'm not strong enough or my hands are too big to hold part of it or whatever), then it "doesn't work" for me.  Now, you can claim that my problem is that I expect it to open cans and there is really nothing wrong with a can-opener not opening cans.  But the fact is that it fails to do the thing that people primarily use it for.  To me, that's failing to work.

Right.  I'm suggesting that not all RPGs are for "opening cans".  If you pick up a random kitchen aid, some are for can opening while others are for storing the contents of cans.  If you were looking for the can opener, you won't like the tuperware.  If you weren't looking for the can opener, and just wanted to find something useful in the kitchen... that's different.

Dropping the metaphor...If you go looking for a deep immersion RPG, you won't like the one that has dice mechanics for social interactions. It won't "work for you".  But if you didn't approach the game with something else in mind (deep immersion) you might be able to enjoy the game for what it is.  Or not.  But you won't complain that it doesn't work for you -- just that you don't like it.

Saying a game "doesn't work for you" suggests theres only one type of roleplaying that you enjoy.  I think you can enjoy lots of types.

Hopefully that makes sense for you.

Quote from: John Morrow...suggests that playing out dramatic and detailed non-combat conflicts is not something the person normally expects to have happen in a conventional role-playing game.  Is that also rare in your experience?

Nope.

But I don't think you're taking the quote as a whole. Note:

Quote from: Player Xthe dramatics that dice can add

He's saying that having the dice in the conflict adds something for him. He's the same guy that says:

Quote from: Player XI simply like the way it creates an esclation of tension in a similar way as to what you get in a poker game.

Which seems pretty straightforward.

QuoteAre DitV and similar games making these players approach non-combat conflicts in a way very different from what they'd normally do?

I'll ask them for you.

Quote from: TonyLBYou're talking about the consequences, but it has nothing to do with the outcome?  Dude.  I am having the worst time parsing you.  I worry that you've begun arguing against something that you're hearing in your head, which is completely unrelated to what I'm writing.

The way that I'm using it is that the "consequences" are the range of hypothetical things that could happen as a result of the character's action, hence the plural.  The "outcome" is the single thing that does happen.  And, yes, I know it's perfectly reasonable to consider them to be synonyms for each other, which is what it sounds like you are doing.

Quote from: TonyLBLet's say that you go in not knowing whether you can (for instance) save this town from damnation.  Those are the stakes.  At the beginning of the conflict it is completely up in the air, right?

If I understand the question correctly, OK.

Quote from: TonyLBWhen you arrive at a later point, where you already know that you cannot save the town from damnation unless you shoot this kid in the face ... well then, making the decision there is about things you already know.  I grant you that.

Yes.  The capacity to answer that question exists within the character.

Quote from: TonyLBBut somewhere in the middle there is the moment in which you discover that you're not going to be able to save the town without shooting the kid.  It seems to me that you could either:

• (a) Figure it out yourself
• (b) Be informed by the GM because he's decided (without rules support)
• (c) Get into a rules situation where you don't have enough dice to win the conflict, and the only way to get more dice is to escalate to gun-play

OK.

Quote from: TonyLBAre some of those ways of discovering that fact about the situation problematic for you?

Well, if I'm thinking in character, (a) is the one that makes the most sense and fits most naturally.  Are (b) and (c) problematic, then?  Usually, yes.  And there two aspects to the problem.

The first aspect is that to add any such epiphany to my character's thinking, it has to make sense in character for the character to think those thoughts.  If it doesn't makes sense for the character to have that realization in character, I can't force it and maintain immersion.  In practice, this problem can be overcome if handled properly, so it's the lesser of the two aspects, I think.

The second aspect is that for me, a large part of the fun of role-playing is watching how my character interprets the game and responds to it.  So both (b) and (c) rob me of the experience of figuring out the mystery in character if they replace (a).  I enjoy experiencing that moment of discovery in character and replacing it with a GM or some dice and rules telling me that I've reached that moment robs that moment of discovery from me.  In other words, I enjoy the process of thinking things out and experiencing things in character.  I don't want to be not doing that.  And this is where I think a big part of the "Why would you want to do things that way?" gut-level incredulousness comes from.

There are, however, some exceptions.  There are situations where the realities of what I'm doing prevent the internal character model from doing something that it should be able to do.  A huge example is telling if an NPC is lying or not.  When a GM portrays an NPC, they are acting so when I get an intuitive sense, in character, that an NPC is lying, it's very difficult for me to tell if the NPC is lying or if the GM's portrayal is just off.  So I'll often ask for something like a "Sense Motive" roll to tell me what my character is feeling.  There are several other cases like that, some more common than others.  But I'm using those rolls (or the GM telling me something that my character would know) not because I prefer them but because they are necessary.  Where I don't have to roll, I don't want to roll.  In other words, when you talk to me about (a), (b), and (c) being choices, I wonder why I wouldn't just want to pick (a) and use it all of the time if it works, and only use (b) or (c) as a fallback, which is what I do.

So the answer here is that I can do (b) or (c) if I have to because, while it's a bit problematic, I can often overcome the problem depending on how it's presented.  But the bigger problem is that I want to be doing (a) so that (b) and (c) become problematic because they are "not (a)".  It replaces (a), which is something I want, with something that I'm indifferent to at best.

Please bear in mind that even if we come to the conclusion that it just won't work well with what I want to be doing (we may be approaching that conclusion), part of what I want to understand what other people do get out of it (What's the fun of using the mechanics?) even though that may be very difficult to explain (and my differ from person to person).  Why?  Because I think why people enjoy certain things is an interesting question, even if I don't enjoy the same thing.

Quote from: droogNope.

But I don't think you're taking the quote as a whole.

I didn't know the quote was a whole.  They were offered as unlabeled and separate quotes.

Quote from: droogHe's saying that having the dice in the conflict adds something for him.

No, I got that.  That's why I left it in the quote. He's saying that it "adds dramatics".  Adding suggests that it gives him more dramatics than he was getting before.  Is that correct?

But what did he mean by, "Of course we could have role played it to that level of detail, but we wouldn't have."  Why wouldn't he (and the group) have role-played it to that level of detail?  If they could, why wouldn't they?    I'm not trying to be judgmental.  I'm just a little puzzled by the path not taken.

Quote from: droogHe's the same guy that says:

QuoteI simply like the way it creates an esclation of tension in a similar way as to what you get in a poker game.

Which seems pretty straightforward.

Yes, it is.  And that suggests that he's experiencing the tension as a player making choices about the dice and so forth, correct?

Quote from: droogI'll ask them for you.

Thanks.

Certain kinds of game mechanics encourage certain types of play. Nothing determines play except the players and GM, the people. People determine play style, but setting and system encourage play style.

I believe I know the people droog's quoting from, and in discussing with them, they asked me what I'd seen different in playing the same setting (Tiwesdaeg, dark ages saxon low fantasy) with three different systems. I replied as below, and it may be relevant in showing how the system can influence play, encouraging certain playstyles. In brief, if it's on the character sheet players tend to focus on it; if it's not, they tend not to.
   
Note: sorry for the long post, but when you ask me about this stuff, well this is stuff I think about quite a bit

Other systems? Well, if you mean other versions of RQ I don't know, as far as I remember I've only tried third ed out of all of them. If you mean other games entirely, then yes, it does give a different feel.

First Tiwesdaeg was GURPS 4e, Second Tiwesdaeg was Fate, now this third one is RQ III.

GURPS
GURPS I found somewhat hindered the style of play I and most of the players enjoyed. That style was focusing on character personality and relationships, rather than on tactics, etc.

Fussing about looking up rules for an extra +1 or -2 to some skill check, I couldn't be bothered with it, I figured the range of randomness of dice (3d6) was larger than the range of randomness of GM handwaving decision (about -2 to +2). Also, the players tended to come up with unusual solutions, like when they wanted to spread a rumour that some particular guy was the father of a child... "um... Propaganda skill."
"Strangely, dear GM, I did not think to take Propaganda skill for my fisherman."
"Nor I for my healer."
"Nor the huntsmaster's apprentice."
"Especially not the warrior."
If you didn't have the exact skill, you had very little chance of doing it successfully. Obviously this was ridiculous - anyone should be able to spread a rumour in a small town! Time for more handwaving.

One player just wanted to have a character who was tough and could fight with two broadswords, so he loved GURPS I did think that spending half the earned x on something that he only got to use (the double-attack) in two sessions out of fourteen  seemed like a waste, but he was happy, and if the players are happy I won't argue with them!

So in conclusion, most of us were able to have the sort of game we wanted despite, not because of, the GURPS rules. Its strengths - fiddly detail about your character, and tactical play - were things most of us weren't interested in.


Fate
Fate we found more to our taste. Though only one of the four players from the previous campaign was still with us, the group still had more or less the same tastes in play, except for Emil who didn't care as long as there was something to laugh at in the session, and he got a bit of stuff to think about.

Fate's Aspect system is one where Advantages, Disadvantages, Attributes etc are all rolled into "Aspects"; you have Skills as well. You might have a guy who's Strong As An Ox, or another guy who's a Mummy's Boy. Aspects are invoked by the player with skill checks, to get a reroll. "So I failed on my "get up from being knocked down by a woman's slap" roll. Hmmm, but surely since I'm Strong As An Ox, that shouldn't happen?" The player knocks off a box of it and rerolls; the box regenerates at the end of the game session.

The GM can invoke Aspects, too. So for example, the player says, "I slap that girl back! Not hard or anything, though." The GM offers an xp and says, "ah, but since your are Strong As An Ox, perhaps you don't know your own strength and do actually hurt her." At this point the player either matches with an xp of their own, saying, "er, no, I don't do that," or says, "okay," takes the xp and the poor woman gets a nasty whack.

The xp they call "fate points", and they basically as "hero points" or "drama dice", giving bonuses to rolls, letting Aspects and Skills improve, etc. You could acquire new Aspects in play, and alter one to another. So for example Unknown Enemy could become Rival to Egric once you knew who your enemy was, and if you killed him, the Rival to Egric could become Guilty About Killing or Glorious Victor, etc. Change, rather than improvement in characters. A bit more like real people...

In this way, traits can sometimes hurt characters, and sometimes help them, but the player always has a choice about it. The GM shapes, but does not determine the flow of play. And there's no fussing about with a few points here and there.

The granularity, though (basically only seven levels of ability), for some players led to a feeling of blandness in it; though my feeling was that this was more to do with the roleplaying of people than with the system itself.

My GMing style was to make every PC and NPC, as much as I could, a real person - unfortunately that meant the PCs hesitated to just lop off the heads of NPCs when they could; and the combat rules I wrote made it easy to fall down, but hard to die, so killing was usually an actual decision made, rather than just accidentally happening in the heat of battle.

Overall, I found Fate most to my personal taste. As player or GM, it encouraged thinking of characters as literary characters, and the thing as a whole as a "story". On the other hand it was pretty terrible if you wanted to kill things and take their stuff However, that's more a product of my GMing style, and the combat rules I wrote for Fate, rather than Fate itself.


RuneQuest III
We've only had one session, so it's hard to judge, really. The immediate feel is Old School. Random character generation makes the players begin as not very invested in their characters. They'll have to play with them for a few sessions before they give a shit about them.

Also, that it's random means that in contrast to point-buy systems, the players don't have to ask many questions about the game world, so they don't think of ways to tie their characters to it. That's why we see in the first session the PCs leaving the province to seek adventure - whereas the last two groups found adventure at home, and rarely left it. I tried to bring up NPCs and the history of the place, but they weren't interested - rolling up their characters and getting equipment had put them in the "adventure!" mindset, so off they went.

I think my approach with RQ will be different to the other games. In Fate (Tiwesdaeg 2), the PCs had asked if Barrenkeep had any lost loot to find, I just handwaved it away, because that wasn't what the campaign was about, and whenever I'd given the PCs combats they shied away from making them lethal or finishing them - so if I'd given them a dungeon crawl they'd have run away from it anyway, why waste a session finding that out? But this time, again I'm letting the players decide what the campaign will be about, I don't have any preconceived ideas or plots, and they've decided to wander off and loot... so this time there will be some kind of dungeon there.

That's about the best I can make things out. The campaigns have had players in common (N. for Tiwesdaegs 1 & 2, A. for the end of Tiwesdaeg 2 and the start of this 3rd one), and my style is to respond to what the players do and seem to want (while adding in what I like, too!) rather than have a pre-written module or whatever. So it's quite hard to separate the different styles of player-groups from the different styles of the game systems themselves. If I'd played all three with the same group...

Quote from: JimBobOzI believe I know the people droog's quoting from, and in discussing with them, they asked me what I'd seen different in playing the same setting (Tiwesdaeg, dark ages saxon low fantasy) with three different systems. I replied as below, and it may be relevant in showing how the system can influence play, encouraging certain playstyles. In brief, if it's on the character sheet players tend to focus on it; if it's not, they tend not to.

That may very well be true for the players you've played with but it's really not true for the main group I play with, nor for the D&D group I've recently been playing with.  The players role-play to great detail and make dramatic decisions regardless of how much non-combat detail is on their character sheet and the role-playing (non-combat) experience is pretty similar whether we were playing hight rolls are good (about the only rule) or a heavy system like Hero or d20.  

In the D&D game I've been playing, the characters got about 6 levels in 25 sessions or so, with fairly generous experience awards for finding things out and solving mysteries rather than combat.  Combat was pretty rare and when it did happen, it was more of a punctuation mark or disruptive incident than the point of the game and the game was more soap opera than action movie.  It was more about romances and interpersonal relationships and dark happenings around town than toe-to-toe battles with the bad guys.  All the players spoke using in character accents, there were lots of intense in character debates, and so on.  None of this was because of the rules or what was on the character sheets, but because the players just wanted to do it.

And that's what I find so mysterious about some of these claims.  If players could just role-playing through situations in detail, what's keeping them from doing it?  Do they need rules that reward them for doing it?  Rules that make them do it?  Rules that show them how to do it?  Something I'm not thinking of?

Quote from: John MorrowThat may very well be true for the players you've played with but it's really not true for the main group I play with, nor for the D&D group I've recently been playing with.

Yes, we've got that by now. But I wasn't saying my experience was universal, I was just sharing my experience, and noting that different games often encourage different kinds of play. I don't claim my experience is universal, but I think it's certainly quite common.

Quote from: John MorrowIf players could just role-playing through situations in detail, what's keeping them from doing it?  Do they need rules that reward them for doing it?  Rules that make them do it?  Rules that show them how to do it?  Something I'm not thinking of?

What I've found is basically that if it's written on their character sheet, then it comes up in play; if not, it doesn't. This isn't an exclusive rule; for example, one player in the Fate of Tiwesdaeg campaign played his character as avoiding violence, or lethal violence, and a bit cowardly; none of the character's Aspects had anything like that, that's just how the player imagined the character. Likewise in RuneQuest, players are giving their characters personality traits, virtues and flaws, where there's nothing at all about personality written on their character sheet. Another player in Fate was a big fan of GURPS, and just plain didn't get the idea of giving your character "negative" Aspects, or even Aspects which gave some personality to the character, and the character had Strong, Agile, Warrior, etc; the player power-gamed the system.

So the game system doesn't imprison anyone in that style of play. But it certainly influences them, quite often.

I think that you can talk about two types of roleplayers - those who develop their character before play, and those who develop it during play. Those who have a strong character concept before picking up their dice, I think they're likely to play a certain way regardless of the system (like the GURPS person playing Fate). Those who develop their character mostly in play, they're more likely to be influenced by what's on their character sheet, they're sitting there thinking, "what now?" and for inspiration look down at the sheet - so what they see there will come forth, what they don't see usually won't pop into their minds.

Of course I'm speaking in generalities, and these things are not absolutes. But I think it's fair to say they're general trends - that what's on the character sheets will come up in play, and what's not, won't, that systems encourage play styles, but don't determine them.

I posite this thoery: If a RPG has no in-game challenge to the characters then the challenge isn't in play, then the players new challenge becomes the entertainment.

Exalted works well under this model. If you play a game of Exalted where the characters can not be stopped, then the fun comes not in what they do but how they do it. If they cannot lose, then the strategy and fun comes from figuring out and imagining ways to kick ass even more.

So again, making it easy for the characters is part of what makes Exalted such a fun game.

I think 3/5 roleplayers roleplay for the escapist nature of the games (ie as at least one of the reasons they roleplay). So this would probaby bring them great enjoyment to know they will not be punished in game for roleplaying out their escapist fantasies to any degree they wish. Any game involving those players would probably be funner for them if they met nothing but easy challenges.

It's like the people who put in the cheat codes when the play a videogame for the first time. They don't want the challenge, they want the experience. The job of GM is to make their experience a positive one.