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<blockquote data-quote="clearstream" data-source="post: 8494573" data-attributes="member: 71699">Agree on not necessarily predictable. And influencing: I feel like decisions influenced by consistent principles can come out different, and will still feel to players consistent. They have cohesion.Perhaps it is on the level of game as game that systematic abstractions drive consistency, and that consistency drives interest (of that sort.) Some cultures of play leverage this, others look elsewhere. Consistency can sustain the fiction along the lines Tolkien described. It's not a single fixed point: it's fuzzy. It can bring together disparate cases on their similarities, where those are crucial.Without a baseline, surprises are unsurprising. Contrast!My take on this link is that it rightly says that good DM is good, without settling how we should best grasp game rules. Presumably best DM with best rules, grasped in the best way, is most good. I don't see trust as differentiating the argument: it's exactly as useful in any case. We don't want players to distrust DM, granted.Rules have various jobs that they perform for RPGs. DM is defined up front in 5th as narrator and referee. Consistency is just a tool. Written rules feed into consistency. For example, generally players can expect their paladin to use a d10 for Hit points. That consistency drives meaningful choice. A lot of consistency in application is like that: more or less invisibile.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="clearstream, post: 8494573, member: 71699"] Agree on not necessarily predictable. And influencing: I feel like decisions influenced by consistent principles can come out different, and will still feel to players consistent. They have cohesion. Perhaps it is on the level of game as game that systematic abstractions drive consistency, and that consistency drives interest (of that sort.) Some cultures of play leverage this, others look elsewhere. Consistency can sustain the fiction along the lines Tolkien described. It's not a single fixed point: it's fuzzy. It can bring together disparate cases on their similarities, where those are crucial. Without a baseline, surprises are unsurprising. Contrast! My take on this link is that it rightly says that good DM is good, without settling how we should best grasp game rules. Presumably best DM with best rules, grasped in the best way, is most good. I don't see trust as differentiating the argument: it's exactly as useful in any case. We don't want players to distrust DM, granted. Rules have various jobs that they perform for RPGs. DM is defined up front in 5th as narrator [I]and[/I] referee. Consistency is just a tool. Written rules feed into consistency. For example, generally players can expect their paladin to use a d10 for Hit points. That consistency drives meaningful choice. A lot of consistency in application is like that: more or less invisibile. [/QUOTE]

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