A couple of years back I had two last-minute cancellations which meant that I couldn't run what I wanted to run and it was too late to phone and tell everyone that it was off. So I had two friends on my door step looking at me with puppy-dog eyes and nothing prepared
So I grabbed GURPS Discworld off the shelf (I'm one of these people who buys GURPS sourcebooks without ever playing GURPS) and flicked to one of the adventures at the back that I'd always wanted to run (if you know the book, it was the one about the missing bananas)
I looked at my players. I looked at the GURPS rulebook: thick, menacing and largely unread. I looked at my players
"Whose your favourite minor Discworld character - needs to be associated with the UU in some way?" I asked
"Ponder Stibbons." said Woody
"Wee Mad Arthur." said Darryl
"Wee Mad Arthur?"
"Pest control."
"Fair enough. Ok, we're doing this freeform."
We started off by cutting cards as a randomiser, but quite quickly abandoned any rules at all. It turned out to be the most fun we'd had in a session since the infamous "Screw you fleshbags - you're on your own!" incident
Up until recently, I thought that this was a role-playing game - it was a game, we were playing roles. Apparently some people think that this is not the case. Can anyone explain to me why?