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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5744620" data-attributes="member: 42582">When you say the player must accept the GM's authority, and that the GM's authority is absolute, what is the force of the "must" and the "is"? Are you saying - otherwise it would not be D&D? Or that, otherwise, the game won't work?Although D&D has a strong tradition of authoritative GMs, I personally don't think that this is inherent to the game. And I certainly don't think that absolute GM authority is essential to the game running well. As Crazy Jerome points out, other games do things other ways:As Crazy Jerome said, I don't have any strong view on whether the BW way of doing things is better than the D&D way. But at least is shows that other ways are viable.And there is at least one respect in which I think 4e ought not to be houseruled unilaterally by the GM, namely, in the setting of DCs, ACs, damage etc by level. These codifications of the system scaling are part of what ensure the mechanical balance of the game, and hence provide the players with the assurances they need to confidently take risks with their PCs. They are the device for avoiding tedious, turtling, Tomb-of-Horrors-flying-thief-on-a-rope-style play. A GM who changes these is changing these fundamental elements of the system is really changing the nature of 4e as a situation-based, player-driven game, and I don't think that's something a GM should or needs to enjoy unilateral authority to do.</blockquote>

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