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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 8975569" data-attributes="member: 4937"><p>A GM can always do their best to be fair, but let's be honest, GM's also want their game to work out and be fun. Even if you aren't willing to use hard force to achieve your aims, you want to entertain the players. Even though you can't have a plan for every eventuality, you want your improvisation to be seamless with your planning so that everything seems real, immersive and compelling even if the party is off the rails and out in the undiscovered country. The concept of illusionism is so broad that includes every time you as a GM rule that some important coincidence happens just so the PC's will get a hook for fun and gameplay. In the perfectly simulated "real world" chances are adventures aren't popping up around every corner. If you were The Batman in the real world, no matter how many rooftops you hung out on over how many nights, chances are you wouldn't be right where you needed to be when someone was getting mugged. But in the game world, we GMs make the fun happen where the players are, sometimes even when they are running away from our understanding of where the fun is. That isn't necessarily the same as linear play. The GM doesn't have to corral the PC's back to where he thinks they are supposed to be. But it isn't the same as naturalism, realism, or pure process simulation either. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>You should always be choosing to give the players as much agency as you can and so you must resist the urge to get your way all the time or most of the time. I say 'most of the time' because there are times when using illusionism or GM force to protect a new player or a player new to a setting isn't a bad idea. You either do that or you do proposition filtering like "Do you really want to do that?" or "So your character would know that..." and both are equally railroading techniques. </p><p></p><p>But I don't think it's possible to completely get rid of your bias. Even in selecting between your options like giving the player the choice, rolling a random dice, playing a minigame, or whatever, the very fact that you have all those options available to you and that you are aware that each choice is likely to lead to different outcomes means that you can skew the result to what you want - what you think is good for the game. And that's not all bad. A good GM ought to be thinking about what will be good for the game. It's just that also that way can lead to the Dark Side if the GM gets too attached to their fantasies about how things should work out.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I don't think it is, but where I absolutely do agree with you is that I think that's good enough. Or maybe more to the point, the GM should always be conscious of when they could be employing illusionism, thinking ahead to potentially problems so that they don't have to depend on illusionism when or if they come up, and consciously critiquing their own instincts to use GM force rather than letting the player choices and the dice tell the story. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I am definitely not saying that since we can't avoid having some degree of illusionism that we should just throw up our hands and use it freely. What I am saying is that you should cultivate an internal awareness at all times of what you are doing as a GM and be self-critical of your technique with the aim of getting better as a GM.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 8975569, member: 4937"] A GM can always do their best to be fair, but let's be honest, GM's also want their game to work out and be fun. Even if you aren't willing to use hard force to achieve your aims, you want to entertain the players. Even though you can't have a plan for every eventuality, you want your improvisation to be seamless with your planning so that everything seems real, immersive and compelling even if the party is off the rails and out in the undiscovered country. The concept of illusionism is so broad that includes every time you as a GM rule that some important coincidence happens just so the PC's will get a hook for fun and gameplay. In the perfectly simulated "real world" chances are adventures aren't popping up around every corner. If you were The Batman in the real world, no matter how many rooftops you hung out on over how many nights, chances are you wouldn't be right where you needed to be when someone was getting mugged. But in the game world, we GMs make the fun happen where the players are, sometimes even when they are running away from our understanding of where the fun is. That isn't necessarily the same as linear play. The GM doesn't have to corral the PC's back to where he thinks they are supposed to be. But it isn't the same as naturalism, realism, or pure process simulation either. You should always be choosing to give the players as much agency as you can and so you must resist the urge to get your way all the time or most of the time. I say 'most of the time' because there are times when using illusionism or GM force to protect a new player or a player new to a setting isn't a bad idea. You either do that or you do proposition filtering like "Do you really want to do that?" or "So your character would know that..." and both are equally railroading techniques. But I don't think it's possible to completely get rid of your bias. Even in selecting between your options like giving the player the choice, rolling a random dice, playing a minigame, or whatever, the very fact that you have all those options available to you and that you are aware that each choice is likely to lead to different outcomes means that you can skew the result to what you want - what you think is good for the game. And that's not all bad. A good GM ought to be thinking about what will be good for the game. It's just that also that way can lead to the Dark Side if the GM gets too attached to their fantasies about how things should work out. I don't think it is, but where I absolutely do agree with you is that I think that's good enough. Or maybe more to the point, the GM should always be conscious of when they could be employing illusionism, thinking ahead to potentially problems so that they don't have to depend on illusionism when or if they come up, and consciously critiquing their own instincts to use GM force rather than letting the player choices and the dice tell the story. I am definitely not saying that since we can't avoid having some degree of illusionism that we should just throw up our hands and use it freely. What I am saying is that you should cultivate an internal awareness at all times of what you are doing as a GM and be self-critical of your technique with the aim of getting better as a GM. [/QUOTE]
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