Quote from: BalbinusThe second one I quote I think is a fiction, I think the way I game is actually quite common in which one sets up situations, adds PCs and sees what happens.  In my experience opponents of plot talk a lot about how everyone else thinks it's an absolute requirement, but I think it's a straw man with little relation to how a great many people play their games.

I haven't said anything about it being an absolute requirement or something, but I do think it's a common assumption. Most of the core game books I own have advice to GMs about setting up plots and running the PCs through them. Alternity, D&D, the various oWoD and nWoD lines, and Heavy Gear, for example, all seem to have the view that a GM is responsible for the plot, with the players reacting to that and developing their characters within that story. Only Exalted, Burning Empires and Unknown Armies (of the games that I own) have much emphasis on PCs directing the course of the game, and even they vary in how much this is really supported in the structure of the game vs. how much is offloaded onto non-system group dynamics.

QuoteI also think for those who do follow the plot model, most do it because the players actually want a plot and want to be the protagonists in that plot, I think the impossible thing before breakfast is not only not impossible but is actually precisely what an awful lot of people play for.

I've heard the reference before, but I'm unfamiliar with its use in RPG discussions. I do think plenty of people want plots, and I don't begrudge them that. I've enjoyed playing games with complex plots with the GM's goals and ideas at the core of them myself. But I don't think that it's necessary for RPGs to have this, and I do think it's a common assumption.

... That basic traits (STR, CON, etc) are fixed, outside of a fairly narrow range (for aging or character advancement).  Lift weights all you want, it won't make you stronger.  Spend a point on CON, though, and you can sit and watch TV and eat nachos for a year and you'll be just as fit.

Quote from: PseudoephedrineI haven't said anything about it being an absolute requirement or something, but I do think it's a common assumption. Most of the core game books I own have advice to GMs about setting up plots and running the PCs through them. Alternity, D&D, the various oWoD and nWoD lines, and Heavy Gear, for example, all seem to have the view that a GM is responsible for the plot, with the players reacting to that and developing their characters within that story. Only Exalted, Burning Empires and Unknown Armies (of the games that I own) have much emphasis on PCs directing the course of the game, and even they vary in how much this is really supported in the structure of the game vs. how much is offloaded onto non-system group dynamics.

Most GM advice in game books is not only bad, I think most of it is actually positively harmful in terms of getting a good game going.

The number of games that out and out advise the GM to railroad the players, lie to them in order to keep things moving, move the plot in front of them so that whatever they do they encounter the same stuff, it's staggering.

I think we get decent GMs despite the advice in rpg books, not because of it, most of that advice is as you rightly note all about the plot trail and making sure the players stick to it.  Bizarrely Robin Laws is really bad for this when one would naturally expect him to be more empowering.

Anyway, with the further explanation I get your drift and I think you're right, it's a common assumption and it ain't necessarily so.