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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Balesir" data-source="post: 5983038" data-attributes="member: 27160">Others have already pointed out that this is nothing like universal, and I'll say that I line up with     [MENTION=99817]chaochou[/MENTION] et al in thinking it's not even a helpful one.If there is a gap in the rules and a call has to be made to keep play rolling, sure, the GM should step on up to the plate and make it, but in general it should not be the "rule" that the GM decides everything.Yes, in "metagame" terms - that's what I mean by the players having aims. Game-world aims are things the characters have, not the players. The player aims should not be too much the focus when thinking and acting in-character, but I absolutely want every player to think about what they want to be doing to have fun during the game in the time between and even during sessions. And I want them to have the wherewithal to be able to plan for those aims and successfully (or unsuccessfully!) enact their plans.That's just poor rule system design. If there is only one "optimal" choice - for anything in the game - then that is no real choice at all. And much of the fun of roleplaying games comes from making meaningful, conflicted, compromising and downright hard decisions between distinct but evenly balanced choices. In some games these are tactical choices, in others they are moral choices, or character-defining choices, or strategic choices, or even emotional choices. In all cases, if there is only one, obviously "correct" choice then the choice is no choice and the design is bad.Those are character aims. These are desirable, too, but I really was talking about player aims and objectives.You misunderstand me; I'm not talking at all about "real world" physics, here - I'm saying that the game rules are the game world's physics.As far as I'm concerned the physics of the real world means diddley squat in the game world unless the game rules say they play a role. This is, in fact, what I see as part of the problem with "DM fiat". As soon as you say (or even assume without notice) that "real world" physics are the basis of in-game resolutions to any degree, you run slap into the issue that you are relying on the GM's understanding of real world physics. In every case I have knowledge of, this has been to some extent flawed*. Add to that the plethora of mistaken ideas swilling around about how medieval combat works and even how data systems and computers work and you have a whole ocean of disasters waiting to happen as players assume one model of reality while the GM not merely assumes but enforces another. It can get really ugly, I find.*: This includes me, when I GM. It was only ~18 months ago that I finally understood why e = m.c^2, for example - and I'm sure there are many other examples I don't even realise that I misunderstand.Sure - but once again, I'm not talking about having "real world" models as the determinants of the game reality. In every field that I have actually studied, increased knowledge has taught me that one major thing we need to realise is how little we really know. Recent discoveries not withstanding, even in fundamental physics we don't have good answers; "dark matter", for all that we talk about it casually as if it were established fact, is no more than hopeful hypothesising because galaxies don't spin like our physical theories say they should!For roleplaying the answer to all this is simple; forget "real world" physics. Let the game work according to the game rules. Even with our ignorance of psychology generally, in my own day-to-day interactions I still find that I instinctively understand broadly what's going on. Body-language and a host of sensory cues let me operate quite successfully despite a staggering ignorance of the workings of the human mind. I expect RPG characters to be similarly capable - with some margin for variability, which can usually be adequately represented by the dice. Game rules - especially good, elegant game rules - can fulfill this function very well indeed, I find.If the DM has deliberately ignored a written rule without prior notice then as far as I'm concerned the DM is wholly culpable for the lack of "fun" and any unpleasantness that follows. The rules are, as I said before, a communication about the way the game world works. Going against them is effectively lying to the players about how the game world works. As such, saying that some rules in a published set are not in play is fine - as long as it's done up-front - but ignoring them in play without notice is not. It's effectively equivalent to lying to a player about what his or her character sees (absent some in-game reason - illusions or other "abnormal" causes are always admissible exceptions).Here is maybe one reason we disagree. I think GMing is almost completely unlike directing a film (movie). This is almost anathema to what I aim for when GMing, in fact. I do not seek to control the players' lines, plans or character actions in any way whatsoever. It's not "my" game to direct - it's "our" game to find out what happens.If this is how you really run your games, good luck to you - I hope your players are happy being there to fulfil your vision.The designers of the game are much more likely to have thought about and developed a rule that fits the intended aim and tenor of the ruleset than I am. If they have done their job well the rules they have produced will mesh together to create a seamless whole. If that coherent, focussed game is not what I want, then I would much rather select another rule set that fits closer to the focus that I want to promote in play than start fiddling piecemeal with a set of rules designed (I hope) to work together in the vain assumption that I can design on the fly something more coherent than a team of professional designers have been able to produce in several months of work.Such an assumption seems to me insanely arrogant.Given long enough and some helpful input and feedback, I might be able to create a good, integrated ruleset that fits precisely the game focus I want to play - but even then it would likely either ignore or misunderstand what the other players really want. Many years of believing this sort of guff have led me to conclude that, actually, a better idea is to pick a ruleset that fits something similar to what I want for this specific campaign, then let the players read that system and decide based on that reading whether they want to take part. We may not get the "perfect fit" for the game focus we all want, but at least we go in eyes wide open and know what "locus of fun" we might reasonably expect.</blockquote>

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