Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 6196750" data-attributes="member: 6696971">There is an explicit definition (upthread in a few places).  I just wrote some examples of what it is not.  Let me break out your specific questions:That depends on your frame of reference and/or current table agenda.  For some game systems (AD&D 2e, Vampire, CoC) it is literally an expectation.  For other table agendas (particularly hardcore Gamist and Narrative agendas; here fidelity to resolution mechanics are paramount) and systems, it is anathema.</blockquote>necessary?[/quote]In the systems I outlined above, it is generally expected.  It becomes more necessary the more opaque the rule system or the more incoherent the conflict resolution archetecture(s) is.  It becomes more necessary if you have players that just want/need to be "along for the ride" and they expect to just add some color to the GM's story.  It becomes more necessary as spotlight sharing becomes less an emergent property of fidelity to the synthesis of the GM-framed scenes, the PC build schemes/deployable resources and conflict resolution mechanics...and more an emergent property of GM RE-framing scenes as required to assure niche-protection and to indulge other classes their requisite spotlight time.  It becomes more necessary as climax, tension, and pacing are wildly swingy within the game system and/or one class/player has the ability to disproportionately (including the GM as a player here) stipulate/short-circuit these (very relevant) moving parts so as to sow discord for the table; discord meaning the overall table experiences suffers due to that class/player's singular control over those elements. Negative.  We are not all using it whether we think we are or not.  I'm very aware of what it is and I know its implications on play, the systems that expect/mandate it and I know when I leverage it.  If I run CoC, I am GM-forcing my way through the few hour one-offs that we play it.  My players know it, I know it.  They're good little investigators uncovering the Lovecraftian horrors of a descent into madness (of which I have composed).  Its all force.  All the time.  When I'm running Dungeon World, D&D 4e, Sorcerer, Dogs in the Vineyard, D&D 1e Dungeon Crawls, Marvel Heroic Roleplaying Game, (soon to be) 13th Age, Fate, there will be no GM-force.  When I ran 3.x for 9 years, there was no force.  When I ran (a lot of) AD&D 2e, it was via heavy use of GM-force.Are you referencing motive?  If so, then no.  Its deployed for the reasons I noted above.  I've seen the word "capricious" thrown around.  I don't think its "capricious" (it wasn't when I made use of it in AD&D 2e and isn't when I currently do in CoC) per se, but I can certainly empathize with a player on the other side of it whose expectations are that it is their right to engage the resolution mechanics and impose upon the fiction by leveraging their PC build choices...and then the GM vetoes the player's primary means of authoring the fiction.This, presumably, is genre establishment and/or table agenda establishment.  It is not a GM-force element.  This is social contract element.  If the game is a heavy process-sim game, then their should be rules to arbitrate outcomes.  Naturally, those task resolution rules will drown out the possibility of scenarios whereby players are aiming for "action movie physics" or "Greek Myth physics."  What's more, for a coherent table, the buy-in has to be consistent and well understood.  If, however, you're trying to play gritty, low-fantasy, process-sim with a ruleset that isn't built for process-simulation and adjudication by granular causal logic/real-world physics...then you may be in for a bit of disjointedness at the table.  There you will really need buy-in and good communication because if your Monks can pull off some crazy free-running stuff or crazy, spider-climbing stuff (that is seen aplenty in our own, very mundane world) while your Swashbuckling Rogues have their "tightrope walk sword duels" GM-vetoed (especially if the PC build and resolution mechanics allow for this), then expect backlash and a need to recalibrate (either system or genre expectations).[/QUOTE]

Verification