I think this really has more to do with individual groups. I mean you can guardrail it in a book and try to prevent it. But ultimately its about the habits of the group, the personalities of the group, etc. For me, I tend not to get frustrated unless its very railroady or the Gm is not really giving our attempts at things consideration. But even then, I'm not that bothered by it. I just try to find people I game well with and game with them. I also try to keep the conversation clear about what we all want. But I don't see that as something I need the book for (in fact I don't think I want too much guidance in that respect because it is very individual how you connect with people and how you establish expectations in a group: formalizing that kind of puts me off).
I don't really disagree with you. And I don't want to seem like I'm some kind of anti-GM radical who's always looking for flaws. The whole Rustic Hospitality thing didn't ruin play for me. I continued in that game for months after that, until the campaign ended. Then another one of our group took up GMing a new 5E campaign after that one. I've been enjoying that just fine.
But 5E and many similar games simply have some uncertainty baked in. A lot is up to the GM. Like, an absurd amount. So much so, I'd say, that it's hard to escape the idea of Mother May I... they're the figure of total authority in so much of the game.
I do agree there is a greater chance of disputes arising where the rules are fuzzy, but I also think you are going to have open spaces in rules systems and it is just a question of where. You can formalize many of these other aspects of play, but at least for me, that creates an issue of detracting from the fluid nature of how I interact with people at the table. I'm not saying my way is best. Just this is always the perpetual debate because people tend to be divided around it naturally (I'd honestly be curious what other sets of preferences, interests, etc line up with these gaming preferences)
Sure, I think this is really all I've been saying. To take your idea of open spaces, some games give the GM all the authority there (either by design or by table agreement, or some combo), other games spread those open spaces around so that there is room for player authority or system authority.
I talk a lot about Spire: The City Must Fall. That game gives the players lots of options to determine facts in the game world... beyond just through declaring actions for their characters. And many of these are very obvious (I listed several earlier in this thread). The GM is not the sole authority in this regard.
Now, none of this is to say that one way is better or anything. But the more a game divides authority among the participants and the system, the less likely it will be that you have one avenue of authority. MMI is essentially "all must pass through the GM", right? So if some passes through the players and other processes are enforced by the system through rules and processes, the less likely there is one source of authority.
I mean, it doesn't really seem so contentious.
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