Who am I to say that as the GM only my ideas count? I love it when the players are creative and try to encourage it more withoput going too far off the plot rails.
.-= Katana Geldar´s last blog ..There’s one at every table… =-.

I always though that Tomb of Horror was such a meat grinder because, like his invention of the ear seeker, he tired of people always asking him to play them through a ‘tougher dungeon’ or something like that.

Guilty to some extent on all counts. I will, however, try to refrain from hurling rocks.

In fairness to him, what the Professor wrote was more like mythology than fantasy – 99% of his imitators ended up doing something else entirely. I’ll grant you Dune, though. That world was amazing, and it’s a shame that the sequels never really measured up to the first book’s potential. (IMHO YMMV OMGBBQ!)

I think Gygax and Arneson are a murkier case, though. They knew they were onto *something* big from the get-go, even if they didn’t know exactly what – it shows pretty clearly in the (extremely excited) prose in the early rulebooks. As role-playing games matured, though, it would be tough to argue that they didn’t start to see the potential of the medium.

Dave was never really in the public eye as much as Gary, so there’s less to say about him; but judging by some of the essays and things Gary penned, I think it wasn’t so much that he didn’t see the potential of role-playing. It was more that there was a large part of that potential he had absolutely no interest in whatsoever. I remember a couple essays in Dragon where he propounded “role assumption” – making choices for your character – over “role playing” – making choices based on what your character would do. He saw that kind of role playing as a cop-out, as acting out a preset script instead of intelligently playing the game. He definitely realized pretty clearly what other people were doing with the game – he just wasn’t really a fan. Trying to play a Storyteller game or a LARP would probably have made him twitch a little inside.

Honestly, I think that while you can’t and shouldn’t enforce it on other people, his point of view is a valid way to look at role-playing. That basic premise is the same reason I hate playing unintelligent characters, and one of several reasons I don’t give out role-playing XP anymore. It also explains a lot about things like the infamous Tomb of Horrors. Then again, I also think Gary, like myself and a lot of old-school types, are what Mr Laws would call Thinkers. When the choices are all made for me, either by the DM or by my character’s existing personality, where is there a game left?

Things like ‘do not pull this lever’ and ‘this way to certain death’

You can still make a game mostly about your preference while including something for the other to have a good time. More then one type can be satisfied by a scene just by presenting it with a few subtle change.

@Wyatt: One of the subtext of the last chapter is that if the number of potential players is high, you can afford to pick and choose. If you are in a low density area, having to compromise might be the only way gamers can get a full group. Thanks for the kudos man!

Very good series Chatty.
.-= Wyatt´s last blog ..Might of Eden: Scholar General =-.

I’ll stop now before die hard grognards/Tolkien and Dune fans throw rocks at me.

@Darran: That one is totally news to me. Maybe I should try to get a review copy. I’ll inquire.

http://www.glorantha.com/
.-= Darran Sims´s last blog ..Reaching Moon Missionaries – HeroQuest Demo Team =-.