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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Balesir" data-source="post: 6163004" data-attributes="member: 27160">I concur very much with this. When I do things in the real world, I rely on a constant stream of information, feedback and cues from personal interaction and body language to what I see others try or do and what I try myself. I am constantly doing the things that I might rely on in a crisis situation, but in low stakes, often trivial situations that an RPG would never bother to model. For example, take jumping. When I walk in daily life, whether it be in the country or down the street on a rainy day, I might make several little, low-stakes jumps over puddles or bits of boggy ground. The stakes are really low - usually the worst I could get if I fail is a wet foot - but it gives me frequent and useful feedback to be internalised. This feedback will inform my view of a really high-stakes, tricky jump, should I ever need to make one (which I hope I don't!).When I roleplay, my knowledge and understanding of the system substitute for that internalised knowledge. My character will very often have totally different capabilities than me - as would be only right for a professional adventurer - but the game system substitutes in a myriad little ways for the knowledge that I would expect every person - especially one who relies on knowing their own limitations and capabilities intimately - to have at their command.When every rule and ruling is left to the GM, I find that one of three things happen:1) The GM creates a rule system through consistent rulings and recorded norms and standards. This is like having a written system (after an initial period of flailing around), but it requires more work from both the GM and the players. As a player, constantly asking what the system is can be tedious and precludes me getting much character identification; as a GM I have sooo many things I would rather be spending my attention on...2) The GM runs an internalised set of rules that amount to "the way s/he thinks the world actually works". This is inevitably wrong on several counts, since we are all unavoidably limited by our own experience and the model that human science has as a whole is still imperfect - and likely always will be. There's nothing wrong with that - it's just inevitable. The best a player can do with this is to try to discover what that model is and how it works. As a player this tends to be frustrating (in areas where you know the GM's model is wrong) and hard work. As a GM it's more pressure than I care for, unless I am being particularly heedless of my players' frustrations.3) The GM responds to ideas s/he likes and rejects those s/he doesn't. The player does best by learning the GM's peccadilloes and pandering to them, combined with using as much charm and persuasive ability as they have available to them. There is nothing wrong with this style of play, as such, but it got old for me years and years ago. These days, as a player it bores me and as a GM I loathe it.Overall, then, I would much prefer to have good, flexible, general rules that cover the most common situations expected in the game explicitly, and cover all other cases generically or via well defined structures that can be adapted on a case-by-case basis. Luckily, I already have several games that do this pretty well, and more seem to be coming along all the time.</blockquote>

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