Mark Delsing yup, cool, sorry, I was reading into that. Combined with yesterday’s bit about having fun w/o system mastery — that’s the post that got out of control and now it’s a Word doc — I had you in a fucking players, amirite? slot.

Which, depending on the week, I can totally sympathize with.

I feel like a couple things are going on with player-facing thorns:

1) When a GM or designer calls for them, it’s because they want the critical feedback. They’re opting themselves into critique.

2) Encouragement is probably more than adequate for whatever goals you may have for other players (but maybe not yourself; I could totally see a “hit me with your thorns” option on a player by player basis). Kind of like how we give out artha and fanmail for good shit, but we don’t dock artha and fanmail for bad shit.