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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 9637657" data-attributes="member: 42582">I don't know if it does as a matter of principle. I think it might tend to, in practice. I say this because of the influence of the notion of "neutral refereeing".In the abstract, this can cover multiple considerations: designing a setting, or a situation, without regard to player-established PC priorities; narrating a consequence without regard to such priorities; making decisions about the fiction in a blorb-esque way; etc. I think these are separate things, because eg the setting can be "neutral" (eg I often use World of Greyhawk) but situations not (I use WoG in Burning Wheel and Torchbearer); situations can be neutral but consequences not (Marvel Heroic can be a bit like this - the "adventure" is standard super-hero stuff, but the consequences bring the focus in on the characters and what matters to them); a situation might be non-neutral but the GM might extrapolate from it in a blorb-eseque way (my Rolemaster play sometimes looked like this); etc.But these different things often get run together in discussions of sand-boxing and neutral refereeing. And the more that happens, the less room there is for bearing on characters, themes, etc in a fundamental way.</blockquote>