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Message: <blockquote data-quote="TwinBahamut" data-source="post: 5986487" data-attributes="member: 32536">The problem with this is that there is always going to be a difference between the reality as the DM imagines it and the reality as the players imagine. It is simply impossible to express every nuance of a complex situation to multiple people with only vocal cues. This is simply because, regardless of what you may feel, you are not creating "tangible, objective reality", you are creating a virtual, subjective reality, and the subjectiveness is going to cause discrepancies and disagreements, simply because of human error, miscommunication, and different interpretations and imaginations that different people have.This is why people do things like play with actual miniatures and grids, rather than the theater of the mind. Unlike the subjective reality of theater of the mind, a grid has actual objective reality. It doesn't different between different perspectives and is always going to be consistent.Also, as much as people try to play fair, "mother may I" play tends to introduce the DM's biases into the game. For example, a DM who prefers that Fighters emulate historical warriors will tend to rule against a player who likes flashy techniques if the reliability of such techniques is left to DM fiat, rather than concrete rules. A player who enjoys such techniques will be stifled by such a situation, even without the DM being inconsistent or deliberately unfair.The reason people even have rules in the first place is to clearly establish the way the game will work from the beginning. Having actions require judgement, rather than rules, works against the entire point of having rules in the first place, and undermines the ability of a group to build genuine consensus about critical elements of the game.This subject isn't really about removing the DM's role of combat referee. The DM is indeed the best person for being the combat referee. If I were to remove powers from the DM, it would be the DM's monopoly of world design and story control, rather than the role as referee.Instead, the real issue is about how much power, responsibility, and freedom the DM should be allowed in that role. Basically, the question is whether the DM should act as a combat referee the same way referees work in other sports (only making clear judgements when the rules say they should, otherwise just letting the players play the game and trusting them to be able to play on their own), or whether the DM should be empowered in a way beyond that, and be given the power to control all information given to players, have veto power on all actions in the game, and have the ability to bend or change the rules on the fly.Really, "mother may I?" play is based on the DM having far more power than is necessary or needed by a simple referee.</blockquote>

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