I recall once hearing Vincent Baker say that you design a game for good players not the bad ones.

Originally shared by Larry Spiel

I recall once hearing Vincent Baker say that you design a game for good players not the bad ones.  I think that's sound advice.

We've all probably been at a game before where a player (possibly a GM) in some way makes the game less fun for the other players at the table, though.  And sometimes, it can be nice when the system does something about this - even if it's just nudging them back on track.  Let's not thinking of it as correcting behaviour - maybe, more focusing it somewhere better.

What are your feelings on systems that do this?

Can you think of any examples of games that have particularly effective tools for this?

A few examples I can think of:
Beliefs in Burning Wheel can do this.  luke crane clearly designed the game for characters that act, rather than react.

Our Last Best Hope has a bit in the character sheet I noticed where you explain why your character is there.  Not sure if this was intentional on Mark Diaz Truman's part, but I see the use.

Dungeon World has bonds, which hopefully incentivize players not to be the 'lone wolf' that, although popular, doesn't tend to work.  Again, not sure if Adam Koebel and Sage LaTorra were aiming at this directly.

And more.