NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5787956" data-attributes="member: 42582">You may be misunderstanding my point. [MENTION=85870]innerdude[/MENTION] said uthread that, without a simulationist or narrativist purpose in RPGing, the GM's role would be reduced to that of adjudicating action resolution. My point was, that for a certain style of RPG play - Gygaxian gamism (as exemplified by the ToH), Pulsipherian gamism (as articulated in his articles in the early days of White Dwarf), etc - this was a key role of the GM, but that did not make those games any less RPGs. Pulsipher argued against GM adjudication that took into account story considerations, on grounds that it undermined the contribution of player skill to outcomes.Central to an RPG, as I conceive of it, is that (i) there is a shared imaginay space, and (ii) each of the players' primary source of influence over the SIS is a particular character (or a handful of such characters) in that SIS - the PC. (Even in games where director stance is common and/or central, the PC is typically still an important locus for the exercise of director stance.)There is nothing about this that makes non-gamist priorities more fundamental than gamist ones. As [MENTION=87792]Neonchameleon[/MENTION] pointed out upthread, action resolution in a shared imaginary space creates distinctive, arguably unique, possibilities for setting up and taking on challenges.As for whether calling the GM a referee is a deliberate attempt to preserve or promote gamism, I don't think that, didn't assert it, and didn't intend to imply it. In talking with others about my game I often describe myself as the referee, just because I (and some of my players) first started RPGing when "referee" was standard terminology.</blockquote>

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