> >
>
> Well, I'll gladly plead guilty to being a "storyteller" DM, if by that
you mean
> I actually have some idea what I'm going to be doing before a gaming
> session....
>
No, by that I mean the type of DM who knows exactly what is going to
happen, and what the outcome of the adventure will be, before the
characters even get started. That's a "Storyteller" (as opposed to a "DM"
who is familiar with the rules, is well prepaired, and ready and willing to
accept player creativity & initiative without deciding they must be
punished for getting "off track").
>
> Hmmm. This makes me think that you and I may not really be disagreeing
with
> each other very much.... Just butting heads over a matter of
perspective.
>
Actually, that's probably true.
>
> In all honesty, it's been very successful for the past several years, so
I just
> don't see a real big need to endorse a new "style" of play, especially
when I
> don't see that style as being particularly new and different.
>
It is your emphasis on a particular slice of play (everyone must play
nicely) that I don't think is nearly as appropriate in BR games as they are
in a normal adventuring party.
>
> Guys, I feel compelled to mention that the "innovative thinkers" here are
> arguing that attacking their neighbors and justifying it with racial or
> religious intolerance is basically just a better (they've called it more
> "realistic" or more accurately medieval) method of play.
>
An inaccurate, distorted portrayal of what is being argued. What is being
argued isn't that everyone should behave that way all the time, but that
the ritualized denunciation and punative response which invariably follows
when *some* people try to play a character (remember, we're talking a
fictionalized person in a fictionalized world, and it almost seems like
you're responding as if we held these opinions in real life for having the
temerity to think they might be appropriate to be acted out in a game).

Your "Guys, I feel compelled" speal is, by the way, exactly what you
criticize "us" (if there is an "us", as opposed to discrete individuals
holding similar but not identical opinions, "hive mind" humor not
withstanding. Where was I:) is exactly what you criticize "us" of doing:
attempting to force our view on others. In your case, you use an ad homenem
device to try and discredit the argument.

By the way, please go back and read my own posts - I have never said it
would be "more realistic" to play this way (though it may, or may not be. I
frankly don't care). I *have* said that it might be more enjoyable to break
out of the typical box. And yes, the typical box is the one you advocate,
your effort to call our suggestions the "old" way of doing things
notwithstanding. I've played for nearly two decades now, and I think I am
able to judge what is and isn't the "established, accepted norm" of play
fairly well.
>
>
>
> bartender. I'm just a guy who wants to play some D&D.
>
And so are we.

> I've put a lot of work
> into PBeMs before as a player just to have the game fall apart because
somebody
> decided to attack other players apparently because he had a lousy day at
work.
>
Who suggested doing that was acceptable? Name the person who argued "I
should be able to attack others simply because I had a bad day." Name the
person, if you can.
Otherwise, I must say you have a very bad debating style: setting up false
straw men, calling them "our" point of view, and then knocking them down. .
.all the while ignoring the real arguments, then pretending you
"successfully showed them as being false."
I'd absolutely hate to play in a PBeM where no player would be allowed to
oppose or attack another PC realm, though that *seems* to be what you are
arguing for (that all participants of Birthright games, including PBeMs,
should react as if they were members of the same adventuring party, and
only engage in conflicts with NPCs - c.f. your arguments about the
situation "not being very different.")
No one, as far as I can tell, has said that character's should not be role
played. But role playing Grabrend Sontrene (nice work, btw, Tripp, if
you're on the list. You should post more in the C-House. I miss his style.
. .) is not the same as role playing Gerad el-Arrasi is not the same as
role playing Hierl Diem is not the same as role playing Eirene Mierelen is
not the same as role playing the Count of Taeghas (who's name slips my mind
at the moment), and role playing any of them is not nessisarily the same as
role playing one's own character who assumes rulership over that realm.
Note also that I picked all realms that have the TSR stamp of approval for
"PC use". It would be. . .unusual to say the least. . .to play these
Regents as if their interests were compatable (as if they were all members
of the same adventuring party), as if there were no potential for conflict
amongs them, and as if that conflict could not take the form of warfare of
some kind. And yet that *seems* to be the point you are arguing.


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