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<blockquote data-quote="Thomas Shey" data-source="post: 9130431" data-attributes="member: 7026617">As an aside, I wanted to just make a (hopefully) small bit of side commentary that has some bearing here.Frequently you'll get someone who says something to the effect of &quot;If you don't trust your GM, why are you playing with them?&quot;Skipping for the moment people for whom distrust of GMs is a default state, but who still want to play, I often say &quot;There's a big difference in not trusting a GM's motives and not trusting their judgment&quot;, but I've concluded even that is a bit too simple.There's a whole range of degrees of trust people are willing to extend to GMs that cover a world of different issues; and not all of them imply moral failings on GMs, or in cases where they do necessarily imply severe ones (unconscious favoritism isn't a virtue, but its also common enough that it sets the bar pretty low to call someone &quot;bad&quot;).So its entirely possible to consider some amount of rulings necessary, while still wanting to keep them to a minimum, because you take it as a given that they're a field ripe for the limitations of knowledge, judgement or self-awareness a GM has who otherwise may have any number of strong virtues in the role to express themselves in unfun and potentially unpleasant ways.&nbsp; The fact keeping the rules centered and to your understanding or alternatively pressing the GM on his ruling can have its own malignancies sometimes does not make that any less true.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Thomas Shey, post: 9130431, member: 7026617"] As an aside, I wanted to just make a (hopefully) small bit of side commentary that has some bearing here. Frequently you'll get someone who says something to the effect of "If you don't trust your GM, why are you playing with them?" Skipping for the moment people for whom distrust of GMs is a default state, but who still want to play, I often say "There's a big difference in not trusting a GM's [I]motives[/I] and not trusting their [I]judgment[/I]", but I've concluded even that is a bit too simple. There's a whole range of degrees of trust people are willing to extend to GMs that cover a world of different issues; and not all of them imply moral failings on GMs, or in cases where they do necessarily imply severe ones (unconscious favoritism isn't a virtue, but its also common enough that it sets the bar pretty low to call someone "bad"). So its entirely possible to consider some amount of rulings necessary, while still wanting to keep them to a minimum, because you take it as a given that they're a field ripe for the limitations of knowledge, judgement or self-awareness a GM has who otherwise may have any number of strong virtues in the role to express themselves in unfun and potentially unpleasant ways. The fact keeping the rules centered and to your understanding or alternatively pressing the GM on his ruling can have its own malignancies sometimes does not make that any less true. [/QUOTE]

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