GM fiat - an illustration

[Maxperson]

I think there's a deeper problem: the very notion of "fair play". Because it's not a thing that can possibly exist, unless you change the structure of the game closer to a wargame with two opposing sides.

For obvious reasons, GM cannot ever be neutral. Because you can't be neutral when you are explicitly representing one of the sides.

The DM doesn't really represent a side unless he is an adversarial DM. It's not player vs. DM. When I DM I'm not there to win D&D by defeating the players. My goal is to give all of the players an enjoyable experience, so my bias is towards giving them all an enjoyable experience. That enjoyable experience includes being fair to the players.

You're also the mistake of equating fair with neutral. You don't have to be neutral to be fair. It helps, but is not a requirement.

 

[Maxperson]

I must say that while on paper the GM's decision making is unconstrained, in reality you can't really do any of those circumventing measures. Because you'd get called a jerk and the players will get one step closer to deciding that maybe just grabbing a few beers and playing cards all night would be a better use of their time than playing this game.

That, I think, is the biggest problem with "unconstrained decision making": it's very much constrained and the actual possibility space for stuff happening in the game is significantly less. Monsters cannot ever possibly circumvent Alarm spell, because you cannot ever possibly circumvent being a jerk if they do that.

Most of what you say here is correct. The exception being the absolute portion of the last sentence. You can in fact, under specific circumstances, circumvent an alarm spell without being a jerk. What those circumstances are vary from edition to edition. In older editions, magic resistance/SR would allow something to get in without triggering the alarm because the magic of the alarm might not be activated. Alarm can also be dispelled or turned off by antimagic, so a beholder could circumvent it.

 

[AnotherGuy]

The DM doesn't really represent a side unless he is an adversarial DM. It's not player vs. DM. When I DM I'm not there to win D&D by defeating the players. My goal is to give all of the players an enjoyable experience, so my bias is towards giving them all an enjoyable experience. That enjoyable experience includes being fair to the players.

You're also the mistake of equating fair with neutral. You don't have to be neutral to be fair. It helps, but is not a requirement.

I find, at least at my own table, there is a balancing act of sorts which exists, in that you're there, as DM, to ensure

• fair play exists for the players;
• the integrity of the emerging story remains intact; and
• an enjoyable experience is had by the participants.

The last I find comes much easier if the first two goals are addressed.

My concern is not so much the DM bias towards fair play on behalf of the players but rather the amount of illusionism that I feel may exist.

I make an effort to be transparent with much of the workings re DM fiat to the players to keep the aspect of the game ever-present. That is not to say there is no hidden backstory, I still like to surprise my players, being in service of providing an enjoyable experience. It is a balancing act.

 

[Bill Zebub]

But I think the difference between the two approaches is clear.

I read the post twice to try to understand what you are seeing so clearly. It feels to me less a 'clear' difference, and more a matter of degree/granularity. For example, if one of these Torchbearer rolls fails, the GM still has to decide how that mainifests, right? Even if the rules are specific as "the party's sleep is interrupted by a hostile intruder" the GM still decides what kind of intruder, with what intentions, appears. (Or am I way off base?). That's still "fiat", in my opinion.

But I'm glad that near the end you said it's a matter of preference, and not superior/inferior style. A lot of the phrases you use, especially "fair play", have me scratching my head. I don't worry about GMs being "fair"; I want them to run exciting adventures. Given a fork in the road, in general I would prefer the GM make an executive decision (a.k.a. fiat) that he/she thinks will lead to a better story, rather than leave it to RNG.

I have rarely seen unlimited GM power being a problem, and on the few occasions where I really didn't like their style, I found other GMs.

 

[Committed Hero]

As a D&D player in the first example, I'd be willing to entertain an explanation along the lines of "the intruder has a high intelligence, understood what the party was doing when they made camp, and knows the parameters of the spell." While it's still DM fiat, it sounds like there's enough logic being applied in this case to justify the countermeasures.

Hopefully, the DM thought it would make an interesting encounter/fun experience for the session? I'd want to know the track record for previous sessions to judge whether this was a one-off or a reaction designed to frustrate an overly cautious party.

DM fiat is a super useful tool for clearing away extraneous things, or unexpected complications they consider extraneous.

 

[Manbearcat]

Well different procedures lead to different types of player contributions but I'm not sure what that has to do with fiat. Fiat just means you have authority over some fictional thing we're talking about.


To create a simple version of the rules above:


If you have the time and safety to set camp you also have the time and safety to cast a spell of protection


The fiat is with whoever gets to say there is time and safety. The non-fiat bit is that this is a package deal and you get to cast a protection spell. You can't set camp and not have the time and safety to cast the spell.

All that's really happening in the Torchbearer example is that the system routine is longer before being passed back to a fiat decision. It's not fiat v no fiat but where the fiat is placed and what kind of fiat.

I'd say in the context of the long arc of TTRPG history, (#1) it (the bolded) means more than that. Or at least, despite the reality that you can reduce fiat to that, within the scope of TTRPGs, and in particular the "GM Decides/Golden Rule/For the Good of the Story" zeitgeist of the late 80s through 90s (which still predominates today), that you have to go further and discuss the presence of all three of (a) systemic and table-facing constraints on GM decision-making, (b) how stable/table-facing/knowable the procedures of play are, and (c) therefore how gameable the gamestate is (or not) for the players based on that (a) + (b).

Now (#2) gameable here can mean different things based on the agenda of play and the game's engine that is (hopefully) working in concert with that agenda. What the players are supposed to be doing (and the GM for that matter) will mean different things in different forms of play with different priorities and expressions of those priorities via participant principles and procedures. However, in a game that purports to be challenge-based, both the gamestate and the attendant decisions that players need to be able to persistently interact with need to be stable, functional, and consequential at an absolute minimum. Otherwise, tactical and strategic control over the gamestate can't be achieved via skillful play. You'll end up with some form of Ouija Play where the GM is moving the planchette of the gamestate either unknowingly to the players or indiscriminately in such a way that compromises the integrity of the whole challenge-based edifice.

(#3) So here is a quick example of procedures where stuff that could be working in concert to produce a challenge-based paradigm isn't:

* We're supposed to be playing a wilderness crawl game that features challenge-based priorities.

* The Random Encounter (RE) frequency isn't stable over any given hex/map locale. It changes and it changes indiscriminately in terms of player perception and interaction. The RE frequency isn't knowable for them in any real way that they can act upon. Like its not, "every X turns, roll Y % and consult table if N value hits" or something kindred. It is either (i) wholly unstable and GM decides when to roll for random encounters and what values matter or (ii) GM can ignore those RE inputs or (iii) simply the players have no means of knowing and acting upon this information.

* Further still, what is on those RE tables for a given hex/locale is unknowable. Or perhaps, REs are done entirely ad hoc by the GM. "Yeah, I feel like an encounter right now would be really good for pacing" or "man, their resources are basically unchecked...let's liven things up a bit...<flips through the Monster Manual> yeah, that Manticore looks good and this is the right terrain for its hunting grounds..." Something like that.

Maybe you're running an AP with an imposed metaplot that actually gives you both this express instruction. Plot point # 4 needs to be mapped upon play around this point so throw this encounter in roughly now.

* Perhaps even further still, the value of Turns in the system isn't exactly stable in terms of rules codification or perhaps the game is sufficiently freeform that the concept and value of Exploration Turn isn't or can't be consistently employed within the actual play of the game.

Without even getting into the rest of a system's dynamics (and there are myriad other things that could be a problem for players being able to assess gamestate dynamics and make persistent strategic and tactical decisions around current and future states), this alone is sufficient to flatline a game that purports to be a challenge-based crawl with players having a persistently functional gamestate to be interacted with, assessed, and skillfully gamed.

---

We on the same page on those #s 1-3 above or disagreement around something?

 

[Theory of Games]

I think there's a deeper problem: the very notion of "fair play". Because it's not a thing that can possibly exist, unless you change the structure of the game closer to a wargame with two opposing sides.

For obvious reasons, GM cannot ever be neutral. Because you can't be neutral when you are explicitly representing one of the sides.

I'm convinced you either don't know what "fair play" is, or you've played with some nasty GMs

 

[Bedrockgames]

I think there's a deeper problem: the very notion of "fair play". Because it's not a thing that can possibly exist, unless you change the structure of the game closer to a wargame with two opposing sides.

For obvious reasons, GM cannot ever be neutral. Because you can't be neutral when you are explicitly representing one of the sides.

Being a fair GM is a goal. Whether or not it can fully be achieved, what matters is that is what the GM should strive for. You can have two GMs one who is more fair and one who is less fair. Also the Gm can solicit player input to gauge how fair he or she is being seen as, and the GM can do things like show what is going on under the hood to help demonstrate how they are making decisions. One question I often ask my players after I propose a ruling, is "Does this sound reasonable and fair?" It can be very helpful because sometimes they don't think it is and I can hash it over with them and propose a new approach.

On fiat, folding the creation of background material and city details into fiat seems a little odd to me. I tend to think of Fiat as more about the GM brining down their authority, frequently in ways that go against the rules themselves

 

[hawkeyefan]

So when it comes to games, most of the time when we talk about being fair, we’re talking about playing by the rules. The rules define what’s fair for play.

But in the absence of rules to establish what is and is not fair, how does each participant determine what’s fair or not? And how can participants adhere to fairness?

 

[bloodtide]

I think there's a deeper problem: the very notion of "fair play". Because it's not a thing that can possibly exist, unless you change the structure of the game closer to a wargame with two opposing sides.

For obvious reasons, GM cannot ever be neutral. Because you can't be neutral when you are explicitly representing one of the sides.

This is not true as the DM does not 'represent' a side.

A good, true DM is impartial and neutral. They present a world that makes sense in the simulated game style, with the twist of "it's a game" not "reality". The easy example here is when the DM creates foes. A good true DM creates foes that are a fun challenge and make sense in the game. If the DM was "on the foes side" they could just make the foes unbeatable, auto kill the PCs and laugh.

That, I think, is the biggest problem with "unconstrained decision making": it's very much constrained and the actual possibility space for stuff happening in the game is significantly less. Monsters cannot ever possibly circumvent Alarm spell, because you cannot ever possibly circumvent being a jerk if they do that.

I see the bigger problem here is this type of player. Anything and everything can be gotten around or circumvented. There is no guarantees. The player does not get to declare "my character has cast a 1st level spell to alter game reality to my wishes". Any player that thinks like that is a jerk.

Sure, some more casual clueless players will just get upset when anything bad happens to their character in the game. Better players understand "anything can happen".

My concern is not so much the DM bias towards fair play on behalf of the players but rather the amount of illusionism that I feel may exist.

I make an effort to be transparent with much of the workings re DM fiat to the players to keep the aspect of the game ever-present. That is not to say there is no hidden backstory, I still like to surprise my players, being in service of providing an enjoyable experience. It is a balancing act.

I like to keep my game unfair. It just works better as no two people....let alone four players, plus me as DM will ever agree what is 'fair'.

I read the post twice to try to understand what you are seeing so clearly. It feels to me less a 'clear' difference, and more a matter of degree/granularity. For example, if one of these Torchbearer rolls fails, the GM still has to decide how that mainifests, right? Even if the rules are specific as "the party's sleep is interrupted by a hostile intruder" the GM still decides what kind of intruder, with what intentions, appears. (Or am I way off base?). That's still "fiat", in my opinion.

Really 'fiat' is the wrong word here as it is more "DM Creation".

TB: Has Game Rules, Encounter Rules and most of all direct GM rules. So even when a GM is sort of "free" to make hostile intruder encounter, the GM is still following a bunch of rules at to what, where, how, when and such they can do anything.

D&D is just DM whim to do whatever they want.

I have rarely seen unlimited GM power being a problem, and on the few occasions where I really didn't like their style, I found other GMs.

As the unfair 'anything' DM, I can say I lot of players get really upset at the idea that they have to follow the rules, like they have to gain xp in the game play to level up a character; and a DM can just make a character of any level on a whim. And anything else.

And just as many players play the game "on edge", just looking for something to whine, complain and attack the DM with. So as soon as a the DM says "a goblin with a whip" the player will go on a crazy rant about "the rules" or whatever(because the rules don't say goblins can use any weapon...and whips are 'powerful' to clueless players)