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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7751867" data-attributes="member: 42582">This is true. My point is that to claim that D&D has always been about the GM doing whatever s/he wants to ensure "fun" is not correct. It's a type of homogenisation of different RPGing experiences.No one thinks that downhill skiing, water skiing and cross-country skiing are exactly the same, even though all involve skis. No one thinks that canasta and bridge are exactly the same, even though both involve playing cards. Yet there is this repeated notion, in this thread and many others on these boards, that there is a single thing called RPGing and a particular GM approach is what GMing is.When that notion is in play, it makes it very hard to talk about different sorts of RPGs, different sorts of RPG techniques, different styles of play, etc.EDIT: This post from Hussar raises some similar points:Part of the homogenisation that goes with "all GMing includes permission to fudge, "rule zero", etc" is this idea that the rules of the game don't matter, and that differences in rules don't produce different experiences.(Except for 4e, which is bad because it makes it harder to weave your magic as GM.)Another part of the homogenisation is the idea that players are, overwhelmingly, audience.The idea that the GM might be the audience for the players, and that this might require the GM to be bound by rules, bardely even gets a look-in.</blockquote>