Resolved,There is no point to statting up anything that is not a PC

[LemmingLord]

Originally Posted by Nymdok

If your willing to abandon dice rolls, where do you draw the line at what to throw out and what to keep? If one dice roll doesnt matter, do any of them?

A very good point and question. The answer is, like in any endeavor, they matter if people become attached to them.

Originally Posted by Nymdok

The Rules are the covenant by which we all agree to play any game. Once you start playing fast and loose with those rules, your not playing the same game any more. In the case of RPGing, your not playing a game at all, your just sitting around saying 'Wouldnt it be neat if....'

There is nothing wrong with that, but it aint GURPS.

Here we disagree. All of GURPS rules are optional. In that sense, if the only thing you keep is half a GURPS rule, you are still playing GURPS. Now if you set down with your players and say vaguely, "we're playing GURPS, make a 150 point character," you may find some players who are attached to playing out more rules than you are playing by. I think most of us would agree that the gamemaster and players should have a common understanding of what rules set is being used - if not the specific rules used, at least the spirit of the rules used.

Originally Posted by Nymdok

The hubris comes I think from the idea that 'I as GM know whats best for the story' when its the unexpected that truly drives the game and tests the imaginations of GM and PLayers alike. If this were not the case, we wouldnt use dice at all.

This is where GMing has gone afoul. GMing has become associated with story telling and we have lost sight of the fact that the story needs to be allowed to tell itself and even suprise us once in a while. It does that through dice and unexpected results.

I'm going to go ahead and half agree with you here. Yes, I think a gamemaster needs to make sure she is in tune with her players about what is rigth about the story. Yes, dice can be helpful to add a sense of fairness while pushing the story in directions the players and gamemasters may not have thought of on their own.

No, I don't think that to be a roleplaying game, the story needs to be driven by randomness. The story doesn't tell itself, the participants do. At any level of play, the gamemaster and players are making up the story and choosing when to roll dice and when not to roll dice. At any level of play, the gamemaster and players are determing what die rolls that they do make actually mean.