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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Alexander Kalinowski" data-source="post: 7559877" data-attributes="member: 6931283">How is claiming that something is a de facto standard way of handling thing one-true-wayism? The statement was descriptive, nor prescriptive. It is either a correct observation or not.Maybe you're a bit too fond of using that word here. I am demonstrating that the ultimate limit to GM power is in the willingness of his players to put up with it. There is no WotC police you can call to keep an unruly GM in check. Whether a rulebook states that a GM may break any rule or not is (a priori) fairly meaningless. What matters is what the players want and how much they want it: do they want a game strictly by the book? Or are they fine with the GM going against rules whenever he sees fit? Or do they want him to go by the book but not so much that they're willing to walk out? Or maybe they are willing to tolerate smaller infractions...So if any rule in any RPG book has any meaning, it's because the GM is delberately sticking with it or the players' willingness to make sure it's being adhered to.Still, most of the above is a thought experiment and not likely real world scenarios, thank goodness. Gentle reminder that the debate has moved to the context of very traditional RPGs. Not in the context of, say, more recent narrative games which may have different approaches to player agency and/or distributed story-telling. And to make my point more clear with a less absurd example - I have seen GMs in games like Shadowrun or D&D go: "Ah, your characters movement rate is X... but that enemy is X+1 meters away. Ah, what the hell, you do make it into close combat. Roll for attack." The "fictional positioning" (LOL) didn't allow the PC to reach the enemy, strictly going by the rules. The GM just gave the guy a break. In traditional games, the standard mode of operations is that the GM can take such decisions. Single players can't and player consensus can't either.Well, yes, if the entire group objects strongly to the GM's style, there is no game. That was part of my point. And this part of the discussion isn't so much about MMI but about whether players can declare actions or only intent. I hold that in your average RPG, it is the latter because GMs possibly can interdict the translation from intent to action. They might need a convincing fictional reason to keep the players from balking though, depending on group.</blockquote>

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