A GM's Woes: "Why Should I Care?"

Marionette wrote:What did you mean by "I doubt you care"?

Pretty much that it makes little sense for me to list credentials.

Other than that it's bad to be character dependant because if a player drops your RP crumbles. This can be circumvented, but because nobody ever does I advise GM's against making games character-dependant. It's a very practical advise that will make managing things a lot less stressful for GM and players. It's putting survivability and versatility on a higher rank, because I'm sure that if you've GM'd you should know that in most cases at least half your original players will drop. Most games die because of this. It's easier if characters are a medium and not the centre of the RP than to deal with taking over characters that are the centre of the RP; which takes a lot more thinking, additional motivation and improvisational ability, not to mention time. Most people just don't have all that.

Again. You're free to disagree. If you can keep games alive and bring them to a good end by doing the complete opposite of what I do; more power to you. There's simply two factors that, aside fun, I consistently see in lasting RP's; either a strong social core or a very versatile style of player management. I advocate the latter 'cause it's easier to influence.

Note that I constantly say things like "if you're taking this approach" (because, yes, of course there are others) and specifically state that having background is not vital, that there are players (and GMs, by extension) who don't care, and that I respect that. My point is not that background is important always and forever, just that it can be a seriously valuable weapon for those inclined to use it.

Okay. I can agree to it potentially being a useful tool should you choose to make backgrounds important.

Ahh, I see! Sorry, the internet just makes tone hard to judge sometimes, so I wanted to ask. Anyway, I think it is entirely relevant to discuss your success with certain methods. I mean, most of what we have to go on is what we've had success with in the past.

While I acknowledge that character dependency can decrease survival (although this is not a guarantee, especially if you do keep contingency plans; I've had pretty long-running games this way), it has other pros which for me make it at least worth considering. If character-dependent plots appeal to you, and they do appeal to a lot of people I know, you can make it work. There are also varying levels of character dependency; it's not an either/or matter (at least not to me). There are certainly cons, but I kinda balked at calling it "bad" in general. It's YMMV for me.