Quote from: Christopher Brady;990062Because for a lot of people, not just gamers, if it's not mentioned/listed it's assumed not possible.  It's how humans are.  We have to train them into thinking otherwise.

Not necessarily. One blog writer called it "the drop-down menu effect." When I was a kid, when the DM said, "what do you do?" the players looked up and around the table at each-other and started talking. Now they look down at their character sheets. 30-40 years of personal computing of one kind or another has taught people to look for the drop-down menu.

So I don't think it's inherently human, it's just the result of too much use of personal computers.

I think there may be some truth to the "drop down menu" effect.  I have noticed that my younger players who grew up on computer games expect clear missions and look for the win buttons in mechanics. My older players expect a sandbox.

When I ran some Metamorphosis Alpha, a game with no skills system, no experience system, etc, old school as they come, one of my players said "This is the best game ever, we can do anything!"  I run all my games like that. Tell me what you want your character to try to do, the mechanics are there to help us figure out if he does it.

Quote from: DavetheLost;990227I think there may be some truth to the "drop down menu" effect.  I have noticed that my younger players who grew up on computer games expect clear missions and look for the win buttons in mechanics. My older players expect a sandbox.

When I ran some Metamorphosis Alpha, a game with no skills system, no experience system, etc, old school as they come, one of my players said "This is the best game ever, we can do anything!"  I run all my games like that. Tell me what you want your character to try to do, the mechanics are there to help us figure out if he does it.

Some background. My players are all women. My oldest player is 32. My youngest is mid-20s. The middle player (my wife) is right in between. I'm almost 50. We've been playing on and off for ~4 years. The youngest and middle have both played MMORPGs. The oldest doesn't play computer RPGs of any type. We recently added a male co-worker who is my age with lots of RPG and computer RPG game time to one game a month. He seems to like DungeonWorld type games the most.

About the "drop down menu" effect, I think this is often related to the system.  (GM stuff aside. I could see some GM tendencies affecting this too.)

The first RPG for my oldest and youngest players was DwD Studios' Barebone Fantasy, that has skills, but anything that doesn't match a skill uses base abilities. So, aside from special stuff like magic, anyone can try anything. I had some "can I" questions in BBF, but not many. We play tested DwD's new sci-fi game, which has a lot more skills and is more detailed (it feels more like Traveller than BBF or D&D), but still has some of the same base abilities fall-back, but I got a lot more "can I" questions.

With the career-based skills (non-career skills doable at minimal levels) in our home brew that I wrote for us, I get "I do X" with almost no "can I" questions. The "can I" is usually more related to "is the monster intelligent enough for me to bluff or talk out of something" rather than "is my character capable of trying this".

From both listening to my male player talk about other sessions and watching him in our games, I don't see the drop down effect from him in play, but while my female players all seem to make their characters unique via moral code and personality quirks, my co-worker seems to like to define and make his characters unique based on skills and/or skill-related physical attributes (like a character with a cybernetic tool arm). The women also make their characters unique from each other based on skills, but they seem to care less about the skills, changing them if someone else's core concept skill is too close to a secondary skill for their character or taking skills more related to their character's personalities and background, rather than taking "useful skills" and making that part of the character's background. The women also take disadvantages (which do not grant any extras or bonuses) that have a lot more negative impact than I've seen other players interested in having.

The women also do interesting quirks, like one character _thinks_ she is stealthy, but isn't and in fact has a disadvantage in all stealth rolls.

Nobody seems to care about sandbox. The women are more likely to look for extra fun stuff to do though. But everyone jumps on the module hooks with glee.
In B1 Search of the Unknown, I populated the first level of the dungeon with feuding goblins and orcs. Totally separate from the main quest, my players are trying to broker peace and hook up the goblin princess and orc prince. But it is difficult to judge differences as we've played very different modules between the two groups and the women outnumber the single male player 3 to 1.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;990208Not necessarily. One blog writer called it "the drop-down menu effect." When I was a kid, when the DM said, "what do you do?" the players looked up and around the table at each-other and started talking. Now they look down at their character sheets. 30-40 years of personal computing of one kind or another has taught people to look for the drop-down menu.

So I don't think it's inherently human, it's just the result of too much use of personal computers.

Anecdotally, I don't see that.  In the past meager 32 years of gaming and interacting with people and watching the news, the first thing I noticed was that if it does not say you can, then it's assumed you cannot.  Even if the opposite is true.  You have to state that 'just because you don't see it, doesn't mean you can't do it.'

Now, maybe it's not universal, probably isn't, but in my limited experience it's been thus.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;990208Not necessarily. One blog writer called it "the drop-down menu effect." When I was a kid, when the DM said, "what do you do?" the players looked up and around the table at each-other and started talking. Now they look down at their character sheets. 30-40 years of personal computing of one kind or another has taught people to look for the drop-down menu.

So I don't think it's inherently human, it's just the result of too much use of personal computers.

I don't buy that. Players browsing their character sheets, looking at their skills, spells and equipment to figure out what to do next was just as common in 1985 as it is today. If you sit people around a table and hand them menus, they tend to order off them. That was just as true before computers were everywhere.

It depends mostly on system, acutally.  I was running OD&D in 2008-2009 with the same group that I was playing Star Wars d20 with.  In OD&D everyone talked to each other, in SW d20 everybody looked at their character sheets.

It's because SWd20 is designed such that your character sheet is intended to detail everything you can do.

Get rid of character sheets!

Quote from: Dumarest;990528Get rid of character sheets!

I remember hearing of GMs in the '80s or '90s who held onto all the character sheets themselves to keep players from focusing on them. It always seemed a little ridiculous to me.

Gronan is right that system is a big factor. It's also a matter of GM style as well.

Ah, the days when people looked at their character sheets.  Instead of their phones.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;990557Ah, the days when people looked at their character sheets.  Instead of their phones.

Next time somebody looks at a phone, referee closes up the books and says "okay, we're done here."

Quote from: Baulderstone;990551I remember hearing of GMs in the '80s or '90s who held onto all the character sheets themselves to keep players from focusing on them. It always seemed a little ridiculous to me.

Gronan is right that system is a big factor. It's also a matter of GM style as well.

I only hold onto a sheet because I have a friend who always, always, always forgets it. And his dice. And a pencil.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;990522It's because SWd20 is designed such that your character sheet is intended to detail everything you can do.

Which was horrifying to those of us who came up on Star Wars D6 (1e) where anyone could try anything at their base attribute level.

If I recall correctly, it was kinda difficult for a Jedi to become an all-around character like Kenobi who could fix things, fly a fighter, etc. because you had to spend Skill Points on Repair that could have gone elsewhere, and Feats on Pilot Starfighter and Starfighter Gunnery that could have gone to Force Feats, etc.

In D6, you just roll your Mechanical to fly and shoot.  No penalties for not having the right "feat".

Quote from: colwebbsfmc;990695Which was horrifying to those of us who came up on Star Wars D6 (1e) where anyone could try anything at their base attribute level.

If I recall correctly, it was kinda difficult for a Jedi to become an all-around character like Kenobi who could fix things, fly a fighter, etc. because you had to spend Skill Points on Repair that could have gone elsewhere, and Feats on Pilot Starfighter and Starfighter Gunnery that could have gone to Force Feats, etc.

In D6, you just roll your Mechanical to fly and shoot.  No penalties for not having the right "feat".

All I remember Kenobi doing is a few Force tricks like frightening sand people and bypassing stormtroopers, and having a brief lightsaber fight. When did he fix spaceships and fly like an ace?

Quote from: Dumarest;990699All I remember Kenobi doing is a few Force tricks like frightening sand people and bypassing stormtroopers, and having a brief lightsaber fight. When did he fix spaceships and fly like an ace?

In those films that claim to be prequels to the Star Wars films we know and love.

Or the quite good 3d rendered cartoons that seem to be an awakening from the bad dream of the prequel films.