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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 6194267" data-attributes="member: 6696971">To say the least.  The "Rabbit Hole" nature of these threads (that you depict precisely above) makes engaging in them seem an exercise in futile tedium.  As you wrote above, "pages and pages" of (non edition-warring) discussion and analysis devoted to breaking out GM-technique from system expectations from action resolution mechanics and it ultimately comes back to "inept GMs can't make it work."  Except those same "inept GMs" have GMed, at length, every form of D&D with varying creative agendas/table expectations (from hardcore step on up wargaming with 1e, to heavy GM-force/right to dream/storyteller 2e, to right to dream process-sim in 3.x, to the default gamist/narrativist hybrid of 4e), and dozens of other systems with varying default agendas/GM-techniques/resolution mechanics...and can break down the various characteristics of each ad nauseum.  You can even write several thorough posts, dissecting the issues at hand and its <crickets> "inept GMs..."The thing that is baffling to me is that if I'm running a system that requires/expects GM-force (CoC for instance) to hammer the game into shape, it is no mystery to me what I'm doing.  There is no shame either.  The table expects it and some players (perhaps unknowingly, but perhaps not) want it or require it.  It is not an indictment.  But it seems like the invocation of it as a legitimate, existing phenomenon that GMs employ to circumvent/fudge/impose mechanical resolution in the interesting of "climax", "plot direction", "pacing", "spotlight sharing", etc puts people in their foxholes.  It exists.  Some GMs use it.  Some systems mandate it.  It doesn't make it generically badwrongfun.  For some groups and systems it is absolutely essential.  However, it absolutely does create a dynamic that can be discussed, broken down, and understood.  And some people can find that they do not enjoy (i) the systems that mandate it, (ii) the creative agenda/table experience that it is tethered to, and (iii) the GMing experience (who may have a great deal of experience with it...using it) in which heavy employment of it is key to functional play.Precisely.  In the same way that we can assuredly commit to the uncontroversial position that heavy use of overt metagame mechanics is jarring for right to dream play, with causal logic/process-sim task resolution, that expects deep immersion, exclusively in actor stance...why can we not break down GM-force and how it (A) is a thing and (B) manifests within play and affects the table dynamic (and how it may be adversarial to certain playstyles...yet not generally badwrongfun)? As an autobiographical note, I am certain beyod all shadow of a doubt that advancing my own understanding of what my specific table agenda is and, accordingly, what I value system-wise and technique-wise has been a boon in the removal of disfunction from my table and has yielded the betterment of my game...that includes games/times when I GM systems that employ GM-force to perpetuate functional play.</blockquote>

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