The GM is Not There to Entertain You

[Reynard]

Serious question: why does AW (and by extension PbtA in general) even have a GM. It seems like the role as defined above could be performed by a set of charts governing situations and die roll results.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Serious question: why does AW (and by extension PbtA in general) even have a GM. It seems like the role as defined above could be performed by a set of charts governing situations and die roll results.

It cannot. You have a very incorrect view of how the game plays.

Given that D&D has had a number of successful computer game adaptations, where your argument is literally true, but there's no way to do so for PbtA, this is somewhat of an own goal.

 

[Reynard]

It cannot. You have a very incorrect view of how the game plays.

Given that D&D has had a number of successful computer game adaptations, where your argument is literally true, but there's no way to do so for PbtA, this is somewhat of an own goal.

So what does the GM do in AW if they don't decide what happens?

 

[Ovinomancer]

So what does the GM do in AW if they don't decide what happens?

You remember @Campbell's post about some example AW play earlier in this thread? You commented on it at least twice. I'm struggling to reconcile your comments about that example of play and the above question, and I'll admit it's hard to take this question as being in good faith.

 

[Ovinomancer]

The other choice you have is to not play the game. If you don’t like what the GM is doing, don’t play with that GM. That's your recourse.

I’ve been in plenty of games where the GM has broken the rules. It never had any bearing on whether the game was fun or not. Conversely I had a GM who was often a total ass, and yet who was a stickler for the rules. We stopped playing with him because he occasionally liked to make certain players' lives miserable - but he didn't have to break a single rule to do so.

This is the same thing if a player breaks the rules. Players can break rules without repercussion just as much as the GM can. The only difference is the artificial social difference that the GM is indispensable while players are interchangeable. So, of course, the answer to this is that the GM can kick the player out of the GM's game. That this structure exists -- the GM's game -- is a fairly toxic outgrowth of the hobby. It's essentially saying that since you have an assigned role in a game, that you now have real world social authority over others that play the same game but do not have your role. It's a usurping of a healthy social contract at the table. Everyone at the table should be equal outside the game, and all should have the same authority to call out others that break the norms of the social contract, which can very much include breaking the agreed rules of the game being played under that contract. GMs included equally with players.

But, no, I get it, GMs have to be better people than players because they volunteer to put in more work and gain enjoyment from doing so but that's not enough, you also need to have unhealthy social authority with which to lord it over those players.

 

[Aldarc]

"We try and sneak along the wall, staying hidden while the ritual goes on, until we can get to the prisoner cages and release them before the sacrifice begins."

Spencer from Harmonquest: "You do that."

 

[Mannahnin]

"We try and sneak along the wall, staying hidden while the ritual goes on, until we can get to the prisoner cages and release them before the sacrifice begins."
"Whatever."

Disinterested, as in not having a personal stake or bias toward an outcome, not UNinterested as in uncaring.

"We try and sneak along the wall, staying hidden while the ritual goes on, until we can get to the prisoner cages and release them before the sacrifice begins."

Spencer from Harmonquest: "You do that."

Yup.

 

[Ovinomancer]

That's not actually the argument. The rules do matter. System does matter. Absolutely. Clearly the rules matter, otherwise this wouldn't be such a contentious topic. The rules and system 100% limit and constrain everyone's imagination and focus it into certain areas. The rules define the limits and boundaries of the play. With a lot of wiggle room, of course. It's an RPG with a referee there to adjudicate things when the rules don't cover something...or to change the rules when they feel the need.

The argument is that there's no authority above the referee to force the referee to comply. Appeal to the rules? That's not going to end well, as we'll get to in a moment. It's a social situation. One person is the referee. The players can appeal to the same referee who's already decided that they want to change some rule or ignore it. What recourse do they have? Write a strongly worded email to WotC? Jump on twitter? Make a reddit post? A post here? What does that accomplish, exactly? Generally nothing. But, what they can do is...

Exactly. The people involved can discuss it. And they can come to an agreement. But there's basically five options here. 1) The referee relents. 2) The referee is adamant, the players accept it, and everyone keeps playing together. 3) The referee is adamant, the players don't accept it, and everyone quits playing together. 4) Everyone reaches a compromise. 5) Split result of some players staying and some players walking.

"But the rules!?" you say. The referee is in charge of the rules. It's in the rules that the referee is in charge of the rules. The players accepting that the referee is in charge of the rules is literally the players following the rules. So appealing to the rules about how the referee needs to follow the rules is not a winning argument.

"The rules don't say the DM's in charge of the rules!"

Yes, they explicitly do.

"A Dungeon Master gets to wear many hats. As the architect of a campaign, the DM creates adventures by placing monsters, traps, and treasures for the other players' characters (the adventurers) to discover. As a storyteller, the DM helps the other players visualize what's happening around them, improvising when the adventurers do something or go somewhere unexpected. As an actor, the DM plays the roles of the monsters and supporting characters, breathing life into them. And as a referee, the DM interprets the rules and decides when to abide by them and when to change them." DMG, p4.

So, we're back to one. The referee can change the rules. The players can accept any given change or walk. There is no appeal to a higher authority, like say the rules...because the rules explicitly give the referee this power. WotC staffers are not standing by to come to your referee's house and take their DMG away.

The argument about trusting the referee is utterly bizarre. So...you trust this person enough to invest your time, energy, and creativity with them...spend hours talking, laughing, enjoying each other's company (hopefully)...share meals, if you're friends outside the game you might work through good times and bad...and generally become really close with each other over years of playing together. In meatspace, in the before times, I've heard tell that people actually met up...went to each others' houses...met each others' spouses, kids, and pets. So this other human being that you're letting into a significant part of your life, literally your dreams and imagination, into your home, or they're letting you into their home...that same person can be trusted with all that...can be trusted to I dunno, not steal from you, not harm you, etc...can be trusted to not shout "rocks fall, everyone dies!" and mean it...can be trusted to provide some level of gaming entertainment, interesting description and storytelling...to do or not do the laundry list of most gamers' basic expectations, such as fairness, not playing favorites, etc...but that same person absolutely cannot and never should be trusted to decide on a rule change in an elfgame.

Honestly. If you don't trust the referee, why are you playing with them? You put all that trust in them, generally without batting an eye. Yet the rules is a line too far? Come on.

The fault here is the assumption that the GM is specially privileged at the social contract level. I absolutely can appeal a ruling in the game, I can appeal it to the table. The continuing idea that the GM is socially privileged because they have a role in the game being played is bogus. This hobby has a particularly toxic attitude that players complaining about how the GM runs the game is bad behavior. GM's are above reproach. You see this in so many statements like 'there are always more players.'

 

[Mannahnin]

The fault here is the assumption that the GM is specially privileged at the social contract level. I absolutely can appeal a ruling in the game, I can appeal it to the table. The continuing idea that the GM is socially privileged because they have a role in the game being played is bogus. This hobby has a particularly toxic attitude that players complaining about how the GM runs the game is bad behavior. GM's are above reproach. You see this in so many statements like 'there are always more players.'

Ugh. I'm definitely somewhere in the middle. The GM is by no means above reproach. But in most groups they ARE put in a position of doing a lot more work to create the game and make it enjoyable, and entrusted with a lot of responsibility both as author of the game's content and referee of its conflicts. I will quote Uncle Ben once more that "with great power comes great responsibility", which is applicable; the GM is indeed normally privileged and given benefit of the doubt/deference, while still within the bounds of a social contract.

 

[Reynard]

You remember @Campbell's post about some example AW play earlier in this thread? You commented on it at least twice. I'm struggling to reconcile your comments about that example of play and the above question, and I'll admit it's hard to take this question as being in good faith.

Take it however you want.

The way I understood his explanation was that the GM in AW does not have the same authority to conduct the trad loop of explain-listen-explain. So I was musing and thinking that the model seems like a reasonable base for a GM-less game, since you can use procedural generators to "make life hard for the PCs."

But feel free to continue to respond in bad faith.