@lordbelh
I tend to agree with that Staff should always enforce theme, but I've always been on the theme-strict side of the equation. In fact, I can recognize that my theme-strictness as Staff has helped cause the dwindling or death of a couple of games in the past (Dark Times and The Fifth World if anyone's curious).
There is definitely such a thing as holding on to theme too tight, and not letting players push the boundaries. That much I have learned. Players don't like to be constrained, or told that they're wrongfunning. It tends to make them less likely to try to be proactive in the future. And proactive (non-idiot) players are a treasure.
On the other hand, you need some way to gently nudge people back into theme when they go haring off into some wild-eyed version of what they want to do.
Say they're in the early Dark Times and they want to steal a full-stocked Imperial-class Star Destroyer from its crew with a half-dozen non-Force Sensitives by shooting their way to the bridge, and then go marauding around blowing up Imperial bases. If this is a good player and you want to guide them into a way to pull something like that off, maybe run a planning scene that a Staffer attends as an ex-Imperial Navy officer, where you can guide them into something a little less insane (pick a Victory-class or a frigate instead of an ISD, arrange for the Stormtroopers and Naval Troopers to be dropped planet-side for some purpose, suborn the Captain to relay your orders to the remaining crew, etc).
I've become a big fan of "No, but" and "Yes, if" for enforcing theme. Either the general goal works, but the plan needs some changing, or the plan works, but the goals need to be shifted, or something like that. Even if you're shutting down part of the player's idea (or even most of it), there definitely still has to be something that you can encourage them with. This is, of course, barring people drinking Coca-Cola in ancient Egypt or flirting with the Prince at Court in your Crinos form and expecting hit to flirt back.
On original theme games, this becomes even trickier, because you have to be able to express the theme clearly, lead players to the expression of that theme, and guide their exuberance for exploring that theme. To use an example from The Fifth World, when players started talking about using a weapon of mass destruction on the Hostiles (invaders from another world within the planetary system), I pretty much just straight-up shot them down on OOC channels. I clearly shouldn't have done it, despite our emphasis on a blending of fantasy and sci-fi, rather than straight-up sci-fi. It drove off a couple of players and made several others grumbly for a while. Looking back, I would have very much preferred to see how they were thinking about using the WMDs, how it could build RP rather than shutting down the war, and if there was a plotline to develop that made sense within the theme. Channeling the enthusiasm while retaining theme.
