D&D General [rant]The conservatism of D&D fans is exhausting.

[Umbran]

Again you resort to the "just trust me bro" defense. It doesn't work. I'm sorry, it just doesn't.

Just because I trust someone doesn't mean I think everything they do is perfect.

No ruleset will produce perfection either, as perfect rules do not exist. So, if your desire is perfection, you are kind of hosed.

I wonder how much of the argument goes away if we stop making perfect the enemy of good.

 

[Micah Sweet]

EXACTLY!!!

The big problem with "place all your trust in the almighty GM" approaches isn't jerk GMs.

It's mediocre GMs. Merely-adequate GMs. GMs who might do certain things amazingly well and other things really poorly.

People like that are extremely common, but they're just as much a problem as jerk GMs for styles dependent on an inexhaustible well of "well just trust the GM".

I agree they're common (I expect I'm such a DM), but I don't see it as a problem requiring legislation.

 

[mamba]

If the GM is just making up what takes their fancy, how do the players know how much of their input will be incorporated? And if they don't know, then how can they make reasonably informed decisions?

I would expect a level of consistency / predictability rather than the DM just doing whatever random thing he thinks of in the moment.

I as a player also have an idea of what I consider a likely / reasonable / possible outcome, if what DM decides frequently is between highly improbable and next to impossible, then I have no way to make informed decisions. If it mostly stays in the most probable to not unexpected range, with a few surprises every now and then, then I can.

I generally do have a way of telling which of the two it is however, and if it is the former, then I won’t be interested in continuing the campaign.

If there's some sort of principle or expectation operation about incorporation of player input, that is a different matter. But such a principle or expectation obviously is a departure from "the GM just making up as takes their fancy:.

yes, it is a departure. I do not think ‘the DM is just making stuff up with no consideration to player input, probability, or logic’ to be an accurate description of what DMs do (with maybe some very rare exceptions), so I see no reason to stick to this caricature as an example for a DM or to see it as something I need protection from.

No one was advocating for that kind of DMing. The only difference to me is whether we insist on the game having rules that try to enforce ‘good behavior’ or whether we simply expect it even without such rules.

 

[Thomas Shey]

EXACTLY!!!

The big problem with "place all your trust in the almighty GM" approaches isn't jerk GMs.

It's mediocre GMs. Merely-adequate GMs. GMs who might do certain things amazingly well and other things really poorly.

People like that are extremely common, but they're just as much a problem as jerk GMs for styles dependent on an inexhaustible well of "well just trust the GM".

Yeah, the people who are big proponents of GM empowerment almost always seem to pull out the idea that managing it implies that most GMs are obnoxious twits. While there are some like that, rules are going to rarely rein them in because they'll just ignore them.

Its the people for whom constantly going to the well to apply judgment calls, and being resistant to being challenged on them (for any number of reasons, good, bad and in-between) that it serves, because it reduces the frequency of bad calls (especially on-the-fly ones, but even ones with more time where the only person who gets to think about them is themselves). Rules aren't immune to being bad either, but the difference is if you see a bad rule, you can talk to everyone about it and change it in a time frame where everyone has time to think about it and discuss. The only counters I see to this are usually "Players don't have perspective" (to which my reaction is "Then help them learn to get it"), or "there's too many bad rules" (to which I say "Then why are you using that rules set?").

 

[robertsconley]

The solution to the issue of mediocre referees isn’t to bury everything under new systems.

It’s to teach, coach, and train referees to improve their craft. That’s how it works in countless other disciplines, education, coaching, software, even military and emergency services. There’s nothing unique about refereeing tabletop roleplaying that makes it immune to skill development.

We should be investing in helping referees become better, not assuming the only answer is to offload their responsibilities into system design. That’s one of the main reasons I write my blog and books like How to Make a Fantasy Sandbox.

The critical thing to remember is that, regardless of technique, philosophy, or approach, it’s always a way, not the way. Much like teaching someone the arts, it’s about building foundational skills and judgment.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I can only speak from personal experience over decades with dozens if not hundreds of players and GMs, that it works quite well in my experience 99% of the time. Since I've played with people all over the country, I doubt my experience is particularly unique..

And I've been playing and interacting with gamers since 1975 either directly or remotely, and I've seen plenty of cases where "tolerate" is, if anything, a charitable description. So here we are.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Yeah, the people who are big proponents of GM empowerment almost always seem to pull out the idea that managing it implies that most GMs are obnoxious twits. While there are some like that, rules are going to rarely rein them in because they'll just ignore them.

Its the people for whom constantly going to the well to apply judgment calls, and being resistant to being challenged on them (for any number of reasons, good, bad and in-between) that it serves, because it reduces the frequency of bad calls (especially on-the-fly ones, but even ones with more time where the only person who gets to think about them is themselves). Rules aren't immune to being bad either, but the difference is if you see a bad rule, you can talk to everyone about it and change it in a time frame where everyone has time to think about it and discuss. The only counters I see to this are usually "Players don't have perspective" (to which my reaction is "Then help them learn to get it"), or "there's too many bad rules" (to which I say "Then why are you using that rules set?").

Precisely.

When there is an actual rule, spoken, in the open, where we can see it? We can criticize it. We can do something about it.

When everything is social-contract, unspoken, "just trust me bro" etc., etc., etc., how do we fix anything? How can we even see where the problem is, entirely before considering what needs to be done about it?

I agree they're common (I expect I'm such a DM), but I don't see it as a problem requiring legislation.

"Legislation"? Really?

We really have gone off the deep end now. I'm done.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I don't want to play a game where I don't trust the GM to try to provide me with the best experience they can, and I don't want to run a game where the players mistrust me either. In both cases the experience won't be fun. And I definitely don't want to play or run a game with rules seemingly designed to constrain the GM from possibly making a decision I don't like. All of this is preference of course, but on this topic what else is there?

The key word in this post it "try". There are plenty of people who try to do things that they end up failing at with various degrees of frequency. Limits to competence are far more common than malevolence.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I don't want to play a game where I don't trust the GM to try to provide me with the best experience they can, and I don't want to run a game where the players mistrust me either. In both cases the experience won't be fun. And I definitely don't want to play or run a game with rules seemingly designed to constrain the GM from possibly making a decision I don't like. All of this is preference of course, but on this topic what else is there?

Yeah I think there is a very fundamental difference in approach here. One, if I truly distrust a GM, I just won't play with that group. A bad GM isn't much fun in my experience. But I am also not too concern about imposing my own style or preference on a GM. When someone runs a game, I play wanting to experience their approach, and so I won't feel the need to second guess every choice they make. I mean if they are railroading, that is a problem. But I really haven't had that much issue with this with GMs I find I connect with and like playing with. And GM authority has never really been an issue. I'm also open to different styles. If someone is more accustomed to running a kind of 90s storyteller session, I can enjoy that even though it isn't how I run things, and it is a style that normally wouldn't be my first choice. I don't come to the table expecting a pure experience of X or Y. I find if the GM is good, I can enjoy just about any style

 

[Thomas Shey]

No ruleset will produce perfection either, as perfect rules do not exist. So, if your desire is perfection, you are kind of hosed.

I wonder how much of the argument goes away if we stop making perfect the enemy of good.

I don't expect perfection. I do think its a valid attempt to reduce bad experiences caused by bad decisions. The latter does not require nor even imply pursuing the former.