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Well, of course the game designed with the specific intent of constraining the GM does so more than a system that empowers the GM to make judgement calls as they see fit. I can't see anyone disputing that. I will dispute any claim that one method is inherently superior to the other.

I think this is in large part because it's all very context dependent. But first, and politely, you're exaggerating and changing the things I just said, so I'd ask you to take a small step back. I absolutely did not describe anything as an "example of problematic DMing that no player should...

If the players are offered a naturalistic, plausible game, but don't feel they're getting it, they affect the situation by telling the GM how they feel. The involved parties then discuss the point of contention and hopefully arrive at an understanding and a closer alignment on what is...

Fortunately, I'm far more rigorous about lake and ocean placement than my players are about analysing it. As such, even though my placement might not be rigorous enough to satisfy a geologist (or whatever other 'ists study planetary formation, rainfall patterns, processes of erosion, fluid...

So you think he might agree he's accountable even though not responsible? What does it mean to you if the the GM is accountable but not responsible? I can't see how accountability can be considered irrelevant to a discussion of responsibility unless you're using some extremely strange...

No, because at no point has he claimed that he is not responsible for his decisions or not accountable to his players. He has, in fact, stated clearly on multiple occasions that his players are welcome to question him and that he will be completely open with them about his processes. I can...

The GM is always ultimately accountable to the players at the table. The players are always ultimately accountable to the GM and each other. It doesn't matter where the GM gets their information or what their process is. It doesn't matter whether the setting is independent or not. It doesn't...

I overlooked this part of your earlier post, until @Faolyn quoted it. We would resolve it through a conversation. As GM, if one of my players was telling me they had reliable research to suggest the penalties were too harsh and the rules were realistic enough for it to matter, I'd probably rule...

If we are talking about irreconcilable differences of perspective then I can't see any method of GMing working for me. If we're not, then, in my experience, disagreements do, indeed, usually come down to miscommunication. However, if the reason wasn't a miscommunication and wasn't the result...

We don't need need some objective rating of plausibility that can be reduced to some hard, numerical rating, though. Do the players feel it's plausible? Do the players feel that less plausible things fall within an acceptable range as plausible outliers? Then it's plausible enough, which is all...

I explain my position, the GM explains theirs, we reach a decision, we move on. Most likely, the root cause of the disagreement was a miscommunication and we both had slightly different understandings of the situation, so once we identify that point of confusion, it's generally easy to reach a...

This response seem to have little or nothing to do with what I said. A DM being required to automatically discount a resolution as soon as any player questions it also sounds pretty dysfunctional to me. My expectation is that players and GMs are able to arrive at mutually agreeable...

A game where the players' opinions just don't matter is a dysfunctional one, and I am confident that no one in this thread is advocating for dysfunctional games. "This playstyle won't work if the GM doesn't care what their players think," is a given, as far as I'm concerned.

You may well have seen such things; I'm just leery of people who then apply those experiences to specific individuals they don't know in a general conversation or treat their experience as universally applicable. I've certainly seen people claim that I probably don't or might not really know...

To be clear, I wasn't trying to assert that you're a member of any particular group, simply that anyone drawing on EnWorld (or any other similar online source, there's nothing unique about this site in that respect) conversations as a source of data is necessarily drawing a reasonable amount of...

My advice is assume that anything you see in mainstream reporting of science is embellished, taken out of context and the conclusions being drawn by the author based in their own dreams and hopes (or a desire to feed on the hopes and dreams of the reader). Quanta Magazine, I think, is one of...

Yeah, I think it's really impossible to know. I assume your feelings on the matter are based on extensive personal experiences so it's natural that you'll form an opinion that something you rarely see is probably an outlier. But then my extensive experience tells me the exact opposite thing. My...

People can even enjoy completely contradictory styles. I'm currently running a game in a style that is in complete opposition to everything I'm arguing for in this thread. Last session, a player voiced a belief about what might be going on and I decided to make that the reality, even though in...

I will absolutely agree this style of play requires a group where everyone is sufficiently aligned in their expectations and understanding and there there are processes to deal with misunderstandings. For those people who haven't been in a position where there is that level of alignment within...

How many digits of pi do you need? We can calculate millions, but only 15 or 16 get used for interplanetary navigation and I think for the most precise earthly engineering tasks 5 or 6 is more than sufficient. More precision is simply not necessary for most tasks. Similarly, GMs don't need to...