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General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
"Illusionism" and "GM force" in RPGing
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<blockquote data-quote="Ovinomancer" data-source="post: 7920630" data-attributes="member: 16814"><p>Absolutely not! [USER=6696971]@Manbearcat[/USER] has a good definition in another thread that sums it up succinctly:</p><p></p><p><strong><em>Manipulation of the gamestate (typically covert) by a GM which nullifies (or in slightly more benign cases; modifies) player input in order to form or maintain a narrative that conforms to the GM's vision.</em></strong> </p><p></p><p>This almost always impacts rules, but impacting rules is not the definition. If the GM annunciates rule changes prior to play, then this isn't a rule change that impacts Force because the players will interact with it fairly and it won't affect outcomes by subverting player input. Or, the rule change can be through consensus, which clearly can't be Force as the players' input is paramount to consensus.</p><p></p><p>Long and short, if the GM is changing something to get their preferred outcome, that's Force. Changing rules before play doesn't cause the GM's preferred outcome, as it's prior to the outcome. That said, I can see some very abusive rules implementations to be akin to Force and possibly even Force, but we're pretty far into abusive play at that point and no theory of games survives abusive play. The assumption of non-abusive play should be the base for all of these discussions. If we're talking about abusive play, we're already off the rails for useful discussion.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Ovinomancer, post: 7920630, member: 16814"] Absolutely not! [USER=6696971]@Manbearcat[/USER] has a good definition in another thread that sums it up succinctly: [B][I]Manipulation of the gamestate (typically covert) by a GM which nullifies (or in slightly more benign cases; modifies) player input in order to form or maintain a narrative that conforms to the GM's vision.[/I][/B] This almost always impacts rules, but impacting rules is not the definition. If the GM annunciates rule changes prior to play, then this isn't a rule change that impacts Force because the players will interact with it fairly and it won't affect outcomes by subverting player input. Or, the rule change can be through consensus, which clearly can't be Force as the players' input is paramount to consensus. Long and short, if the GM is changing something to get their preferred outcome, that's Force. Changing rules before play doesn't cause the GM's preferred outcome, as it's prior to the outcome. That said, I can see some very abusive rules implementations to be akin to Force and possibly even Force, but we're pretty far into abusive play at that point and no theory of games survives abusive play. The assumption of non-abusive play should be the base for all of these discussions. If we're talking about abusive play, we're already off the rails for useful discussion. [/QUOTE]
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