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There might be a distinction between exam and tests performed in class though. Different country, but at secondary scool I got deducted in class test for not showing working (I think it only happened once tough, I tend to be a quick learner). As an upper secondary teacher I would also have had...

Nah, it doesn't follow the laws of physics as we understand them. But it has a neat trick to avoid the popular special relativity issue, tough. It still require a causality chain that propagates information faster than the speed of light (the space contraction) - as their trajectory is not...

Not to everyone. You are making implied assumptions on how people understands and uses certain words. Mind you, this is formulated so that any dictionary definition you might be be coming up with is irrelevant for the validity of this statement. If you want a demonstrating example of my...

I thought the advisors still where subjects? Where is the dichotomy?

Ok. I agree you shouldn't let problems fester. You seem to agree that problems can be patched up until after session. I guess we are in full agreement here? And yet we have the entire field of law trying to cover all the really ugly conflicts humans might get into with limited success. My point...

Even if the campaign was supposed to be based on the Hobbit, with the opening scene set in Long Sea during Smaug's attack to establish some cool context? If the players somehow manage to find an exploit in my descriptions that allow them to get in position to fire off something that actually do...

Ok. Just to make things clearer: Who determines if the thing the player suggest is consistent with the fiction? If it is indeed the GM, isn't that actually just rephrasing the power? They do no longer need the power to explicitly deny use of a rule as they are instead able to implicitly...

I am sorry, but as I said I don't think I have ever encountered a situation that matches what you describe here. In particular the premise "need to be reconciled" is one I have a hard time envisioning how could be the case. The "agree to disagree" and continue amicable relations are a very well...

@EzekielRaiden This is almost uncanny. Reading your writing feels very much like something I might very well have written myself if having been exposed to slightly different experiences. I am providing detailed replies to your main sections below, but I think all of them boil down to being...

Ok, I think you are here talking about a very different phenomenon than most defending GM freedom from rules does. The whirlwind attack + great cleave + an object producing a swarm of nearby creatures could easily be a unfortunate combo in a TCG, LCG or modular board game as well. These kind of...

I absolutely cannot phantom their magic being possible without a heavy top down approach. He was very active in our local RPG theory community, and clearly extremely reflected around exactly what he was doing and why it worked. This was no accident. Now we are getting to something material...

So there we have a problem. You have a set of experiences that indicate that the chances of a breach of the unwritten premises of a game is significantly higher than the chances of a similarly problematic rules dispute. I have a set of experiences that indicate the opposite. It might very well...

Interesting that the suggested fix for the thing that can break, but I have never actually observed breaking (The unwritten agreement about what the game should be about with corresponding expectations to behavior) is something I have experienced breaking numerous times over the years. Ever had...

Ok, then that is a risk I have accepted as quite simply impossible to fully eliminate as an engineer. It make sense to limit it up to a certain point, but sooner or later you have to just push the product and hope the thing that can go wrong isn't turning out horribly bad. Interesting. Both...

Strange that I can not remember that ever happening though. Are we talking about "will be broken" as in Murphy's law? (As a minor side note - one of the things I like with being player in a TTRPG is to feel like I am not tightly bound by hard explicit rules in the way I am when playing a board...

Ok, it sound actually to me like your experiences might not e contradicting, merely that you talk about somewhat different phenomena. First off - I have actually met the mythic GM Tyrant. I was my friend. I think we were about 13 at the time, and he was running his first game ever. He ran the...

This idea go back to the forge times. It was a huge deal then. It is not about the spesific elements, but rather about the entire design philosophy of spelling out the roles of players and GM in a way that bound a GM to something, and that this something should be player visible. For instance if...

I think this has an obvious bias though. For one thing I think the worst offenders would normally not feel comfortable running a public game. The loss of control associated with running the game for strangers are likely not something someone with strong tendencies toward that trait would happily...

Ah, I think I might have evidence something has changed in this regard though. The big one being if this data is prior to the advent of online play as a real option. I think many a tyrannical DMs might have found their player base evaporate with the advent of relative ease of seeking out...

It seem to me like D&D has given up on producing solid teaching material, rather recognising that D&D community has adapted an apprenticeship approach to teaching new DMs. That is they find a group with an existing DM, learn the ropes of the game by playing, and starts their DMing career by...