"Punishing" players
Can we stop talking about "punishing" our players? It seems like you don't have to go very far online to find someone running a game of D&D whose players have done something that they think requires "punishing". Or, alternatively, to stumble across a Reddit post or four asking whether they should "punish" their players for some action or decision, or whether it's too mean, unsporting or whatever. Here's why this bothers me. The concept of punishment, and its counterpart, the concept of reward, are normative concepts. That is, they're concepts we apply to actions we evaluate as either good or bad. More specifically, punishment and reward are applied in the context of training specific behaviours ; we punish behaviours we don't want to see, and we reward behaviours we want to see more of. Now, it may just be me, but I don't think it's the GM's job to train players in this way. Doubtless the GM is responsible for training...