Originally Posted by Milkfred


3. Players Want to Experience Everything

A solution to the Nettie thing is to just not talk to her. But players generally want to experience all the content they can in a single playthrough. Having a consequence be 'you just don't get to do something' is related to my first point. I'd put a few other things under this umbrella - like Perception checks as you're exploring - as being similarly annoying. What did I miss? Who knows, but now I have this feeling in the back of my head that I'm missing out on something. Was it something that I'd think was cool? A neat bit of lore? Something to make Lae'zel like me? I can tell myself that it was probably just two gold pieces and a fork, but my brain will insist otherwise.


Originally Posted by Sylvius the Mad

Those players are playing it wrong. They're trying to play a game.

RPGs aren't games. They're toys. RPGs don't have winning conditions. Playing an RPG successfully involves making in-character decisions and... that's it. Whether the character succeeds or fails isn't relevant to whether the player succeeds or fails.


I had to quote this exchange, because I think that Sylvius' point is exactly WHY I play RPGs (tabletop or online). To play.

I remember a gazillion years ago trying to explain the DnD blue box set to my mother and her question was "how do you know who wins?".

It's like jazz or cats - if you get it, no explanation is needed.

If you don't, no explanation will suffice.

Last edited by Newtinmpls; 13/10/20 08:17 PM.