@Sunny saying that I get it, but don't entirely believe it makes for good playspace are two entirely different things. I get the motivation behind it, and think it works very well in some non-dice playspace like superhero MUs where people go in with the expectation of diceless task resolution. I just believe that going through the task of getting a book/PDF to use in generation of a character, or using a system where task failure up to including rules about health levels, hitpoints, and character mortality, are running a weird line when adding in the element of players feeling that the results of those tasks need to fit to their liking. Seriously. Stop it with the trying slow-burn forum tactic of trying to paint me as some rules Nazi.
@faraday Cool beans. I'll pull it back a bit. We've already derailed the ass off of this thread. I would also like to note that I'm not a PKer or that guy that would join a game and scream and bitch on channels about players who have their own viewpoint on how their character works or how they think a story should go. Each game has their own view on how this should work. I'm just trying to say that when you have two camps of players getting together with differing views on whether or not the danger-level of the setting applies actual, quantifiable danger to their characters, then there will be problems. I just needs to be defined up front. That's all. Sync it up.
@Roz Not...Exactly. I'm waxing philosophical about the concept of is it really a dangerous setting if every player decides on a personal level whether or not they choose to ignore that the setting is dangerous at all? In the sense of running or maintaining a fair play space where players are expected to have their characters interact, you inevitably end up with some characters written as if being entirely unafraid of things like laws, death, personal injury, etc because the player seems to understand that there's really only risk when they choose for it to apply to them. Immersion suffers as a result. Sometimes it ends up with different groups of players seemingly playing by two sets of rules. GMs have to judge each case as it comes along. I know some people are very staunch about "this is my character, my story", and the want to write that story is reasonable, but the game element of rpgs is where sheets, dice, task resolution, hitpoints, failure, and death and dying chapters comes in. So not non-consent death, no. I'm saying non-consent other stuff, too, including just how much the setting applies to their characters and whether or not everyone is playing by the same set of rules.
Roleplay is great. I love it. It's fun, but if we also design these games to have that game element, then we should be clear about how it's intended to be used, and how it applies to people's characters whether they consent to things going their way or not.
Not everybody can win. We go through sooooo muuuuch shiiiit on these games with people getting upset because they want it this way when someone wants it to go another way.
I'm. Just. Saying. There's. Dice. For. That.