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Message: <blockquote data-quote="N'raac" data-source="post: 6195910" data-attributes="member: 6681948">And when the GM responds that the Chamberlain waves dismissively and states "This audience is over" as you begin to speak, then summons the guards to eject you should you keep speaking, pointing to the time required, did you get to use your diplomacy?  What if the DM tells you "The Chamberlain sticks his fingers in his ears and loudly chants "LALALALALALALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU GO AWAY"?So does that mean the DM has no right to: - limit the sources of character build options? - customize, alter or remove racial or class options? - ask you to wait your turn, as it is another player's (or the NPC's) action now?I don't believe any player can just do whatever they want.[Much more apt, as the Queen is not even the notional head of the US Government.  The US is not a Commonwealth nation.]  I concur with Ahnehnois that the question is not what power the GM has, but how he chooses to exercise it (often limited by the informal social contract of the group in question).  Players have a lot more options to emigrate than Russians under Stalin, which forces a more reasonable balance.DINGDING - "Systems Mastery", to me, is not "using the system to make munchkin characters".  It is using the system to achieve a great game with interesting characters matching the player's vision.  Breaking the game accidentally is not Systems Mastery.  Breaking it intentionally is a simple violation of Wheaton's Law.  Making a character with the sole goal of as much power as possible is, to me and the players I game with, not the goal, and often not really all that fun at all.D&D and Hero are the systems I have the most experience with, and that may colour my judgement (or typecast my group), in that Hero is easily broken if one wishes to do so, making games where this is the goal unfun and quickly over.I challenge whether one of those baseline presumptions is "PC's should be designed to be as powerful as possible".  Please cite rules text that indicates the primary goal of the players should be to break the game with overpowered PC's.Unrelated to the quotes above, I'm presently looking at Mutants and Masterminds, which has the very interesting rule that the GM may fiat ANYTHING, but in doing so grants the disadvantaged character a Hero Point.  This is how I think many GM's informally use their fiat power - it should move the game forward, and be balanced in advantages and drawbacks to the players.</blockquote>

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