Author: Peter Knutsen (---.tele.dk)
Date: 06-11-2003 11:20
... is necessary sometimes, if what makes the PCs interesting is that one of them is a lot faster than the others, and another one is a lot stronger than the others.
Disregarding such major differences is arrogant and shows a completely unacceptable contempt for the individuality of the player characters. If the player next to me decided to make his character strong, while I opted for a low Strength for my mage/diplomat character, he sure *deserves* to get away with a lot of hauling-of-heavy-stuff that would break my character's back if he ever tried it.
The player characters being different from each other (and the player characters being different from the players who play them) are a huge part of what makes them interesting.
A good rules set keeps both the GM and the players focused on those differences, and holds the players responsible for the character creation they made (like my low-Strength character needing someone to help him if he wants something heavy moved).
Also you're completely wrong about it being the GM's job to put the PCs into interesting situations. The GM's job is to create an interesting world. He should not treat the PCs differently from how he treats other characters. Anything interesting coming from the outside and happening to the PCs should happen because the PCs have particular interesting traits ("Reputation: Always gets the job done" for instance, might prompt an NPC to hire the PCs to do a difficult and dirty job for him), while the fact that they are PCs and not NPCs should be completely irrelevant.
--
Peter Knutsen
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