New Year and Character creation and Game Mastering

A new year is dawning and last night I played the final "The Dark Eye"-game of the year with my little group of adventurers! During the year I think I´ve grown quite a lot as a GM, or "Storyweaver" as I prefer to call myself. The adventure has taken turns I wasn´t ready for, but that´s what happens when you cannot control the choices of the participants...and really, it´s what makes it fun! The uncontrollable/unknowable feature of telling a story to people who have no idea what I have planned for them and why I love being a GM.
I´m very thankful for the people I have got to know during the year, even those who have not stayed in the group! I hope the coming year will bring us new adventures!

Now for some ranting!
Every roleplaying game has different rules and customs for creating your alter ego. Some games are more free and offers you almost too many options while others have very few. How to create a character? Impossible to answer since it´s *you*, no one can or should be involved, more than perhaps outline the game world and if you´re really uncertain and/or new, maybe a clearification of what the different classes are and how they work.

Never in a thousand years should the GM demand or deny you anything, if you can think of a good reason to be particularly good at "X" despite your class/vocation being in a totally different direction.
The GM outlines the world, the setting and the overall feel of the game and helps with character creation and other things if need be. Of course there are rules to everything and some boundaries are in place, usually to keep a certain "air" of the class or race of your choosing, but other than that you are free to explore whatever your imagination can come up with... or should be.

I was going to join in on a game called Forbidden Lands with another group I´ve never played with before. Since I´ve been curious about this game for a while and it can be fun to get to know new players I jumped at the idea.
This is going back to my previous post about whether or not the players could and should be able to play even antagonistic asshats, but since the GM was adamant about it and the GM's word is law I bowed down and created another. This time a much more likeable fellow. A bard/chef! A singing romantic. The very staple of a bard! But my skillset and the name I chose wasn´t good enough this time! This time the GM actually went in to my online character sheet and changed the name without telling me. I felt this was a breach of trust and I was offended! When I approached him about it, I was told "that´s what happens".
My character's skillset wasn´t good enough either but instead of just asking me about why I was so very good at melee fighting he just denied me. I came up with two good reasons within fifteen seconds and when he couldn´t deny me anymore he just said "why didn´t you just say so?". "Why didn´t I just say so". Why didn´t he ask me why my character had so high a level of melee combat before tearing my character down?

As I said, every game has its own rule-set and sometimes there are even house rules permitting or preventing certain things. That´s fine! Interestingly enough "Forbidden Lands", which is made by the Swedish company "Free League" is slightly different in the English versus Swedish book. In the English you can only take the "Talents" given from your Race and/or Profession while in the Swedish you can even take the "General Talents" during character creation.
Whether this is deliberate or just a mistake I do not know, but in either case the Racial/Professional talents are preferable to take in character creation since they likely speed up your leveling or at least make it easier for the player in question to do things your chosen race/profession are good at.
That being said, more choices are nice! But *I* would still choose from the things best suited to my character.
I had no idea the translated version was different. I mean...why would I even think it was?

Given all these troubles before the game even began, I chose to respectfully leave the group. It wouldn´t have been a good experience for me and it would most likely have screwed up the experience for the other players too.
A couple of hours later I was more or less kicked out by the GM...despite me already having left the group voluntarily...this made me laugh! I was told I "made up rules"...but I can´t really be bothered to argue about these sorts of things. I have better things to do. A couple of years ago, I would have been writing till my fingers bled about it...but really, it wouldn´t have made any difference.

To those of you who could be arsed to read this far, I wish you a merry christmas and/or whatever you might be celebrating and a happy new year!