In a game, some people take the approach that it must be balanced and break-proof before play starts. The GM will systematically go through and remove game options that he/she feels are broken and parts that a player could use to break the game. Others will take a more laissez-faire approach and leave most of the game alone aside from one or two glaring problems **coughslowcough** and trust that their players wont break the game even though they have the ability and knowledge to do so.

Which approach do you prefer as a GM and as a player and why?

I have a rule I call "There Is Nothing New Under the Sun." Put simply, if you discover a cheap and easy path to Ultimate Cosmic Power, it will transpire that you are not the first to have thought of it, and that your predecessors guard their secrets jealously. Basically, if you break the game, I will break it right back.

Which only makes everyone mad.

Assuming we *don't* have cool and mature, intelligent adults, I find that people get more angry about 'patching'. They (stupidly) feel betrayed and picked on when you 'punish' them for doing something bad. (As a player, I also dislike patching, because it often means major reworking, and I'm lazy.)

If you prevent them from doing it in the first place (ideally, from even *wanting* to do it or thinking about it at all), then they have no chance to feel that way: conflict event totally avoided. I think this principle is used pretty often in the real world?

*shrug* My method seems perfectly reasonable to me. It's implicit (at least in my experience; YMMV) that part of the GM's job is to provide a challenge to the PCs. If one or more PCs becomes so powerful that he cannot be challenged by anything short of a Firewatch regiment calling in multiple Thor shots on his location, and insists on using that power in a manner that cannot be believably ignored by the major powers, then he will face a Firewatch regiment calling in multiple Thor shots on his location.

This. If there's something that could possibly break the universe, but there's no mention of it anywhere (for example, the fact that there is no good encryption in SR4 but they still talk about online payments), I use one of the following approach (more or less in that order):

1. Try to find a flaw in the exploit. For example, I can say that online payments are done in less than a fifth of a combat round, and that decryption takes at least one combat turn. Thus, there's no way to actually intercept online payments.

2. Try to find an in-game solution to the problem. For example, if there's a huge risk of online payment hacking but corps still offer online payments solution and people still use it, then it means that either corps either can accept the loss (which is possible as long as problems are low and concern small amounts of money) or that they have a way to dissuade people of doing it, such as tracking down and punishing harshly hackers who hack online payments), or that there's an existing criminal organisation that does it in such a way that corps can accept the loss, in which case that organisation won't like it if someone else does it.

3. Try to find a simple rule fix.

4. Just say to the player "if it was possible, the world wouldn't work the same way it's described. This means that, for some reason, you can't do this." If the player complains that he should have his "I win" button, I guess I'd just say: "Ok. Congratulations, you win the game. Now that you've won, you can stop playing."

As a player, I don't try to break the world. If I see something that's possibly broken but that I'd like to have/do, I ask my GM what he thinks about it.

It's *reasonable*, Tanegar, it's just not useful. The point is not for the GM to win, but for the group to continue playing. People are stupid and get mad, which stops them from playing. So, as the question goes, would you rather be married or right?

Now, your 'method' does include a major aspect of the 'prevention' strategy, because it's basically MAD. As long as they *know* ahead of time that you'll nuke them, that should prevent their breaking attempts (and possibly even them thinking about it in the first place). So it's not quite correct that you and I were describing unrelated actions. I still think a subtler approach is better, but that's just taste and circumstance.

As a GM, I take the approach that any system can and will be broken. As a player, I make my GM aware of my views.