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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 8922560" data-attributes="member: 6790260">"Calvinball" is a fictional game from the comic Calvin and Hobbes, though the term is usually used in a looser sense than what was used in the comic itself. Formally, Calvinball is a "sport" where the rules are made up by the players as they play; it's explicitly intentional that no two games of Calvinball will be the same. However, TVTropes uses the term in a broader sense: games where any "rules" are fluid, ever-changing, and (usually) never explicitly spelled out anywhere. This is the sense I intend: a game where the only rule is "DM says" is a game where the rules (other than "DM says") are fluid, ever-changing, and never explicitly spelled out anywhere. There is nothing to rely on, no decisions to make (other than "will this be what the DM says?"), and no strategy to learn (other than learning to read the DM's mind.)So, you are more intelligent, self-aware, and understanding than your players? I assume this isn't what you meant, but it is what your reply means in the context of the question I asked.Yet that is what follows from "the rules are only suggestions." The game becomes "DM says," and thus the only element of play which matters is predicting what the DM will say before she says it. Hence, gameplay is reduced to "read the DM's mind" (whether literally or merely figuratively, e.g. "I know Dave very well, he adores Big Damn Heroes moments, so if I spin this action as a Big Damn Heroes moment, he's sure to agree.")There can surely be degrees of badness, however, and reducing the entirety of gameplay to "DM says" must surely be pretty bad!And yet the style you are explicitly advancing is one that requires a group that all thinks the same and is agreeable. That's literally the argument I'm making here: unless the whole group is of one mind, and thus no mind-reading is required (because everyone consistently agrees on what should happen), things necessarily devolve toward nothing more than "DM says." How do you prevent that slide? What do your players have that they can make use of, rely upon, or reason from which isn't just another way of saying "DM says"?</blockquote>

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