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<blockquote data-quote="Pedantic" data-source="post: 8975727" data-attributes="member: 6690965"><p>This helped crystalize some of my thoughts on this. You're essentially making a case for GMing as a profession, with the same slightly murky blend of professional standards/responsibilities we expected from certain experts, like doctors or lawyers. There is a set of ethics and a wide variety of available tools, but fundamentally the role rests in a person and not a system, such that an individual must inhabit the function and make decisions that best serve the table.</p><p></p><p>This aligns with a lot of how I tend to conceptualize the role of a GM. I'm often drawing lines between the various functions a GM is expected to inhabit, and suggesting that the game's guidance/advice should make it very clear that the GM is expected to inhabit these roles impartially from each other. You are supposed to function as a wordlbuilder, make decisions for the NPCs, and resolve rules ambiguities as part of the same professional function, but to provide clear lines between those roles, simulating impartiality as you go.</p><p></p><p>I think that's the distinction I've increasingly found...uncomfortable in other forms of GM advice, or even some games that have very specific procedures for GM side play, or discussions about what a GM is doing. It should be acceptable for the fundamental GMing function to be aspirational; it isn't necessary that what is asked be completely possible, so long as the underlying responsibility and the reason for it is clear. That one person can't simulate a fictional world (and that doing so already requires some compromises to be interesting) isn't a problem in the game or activity, it's the basis of the professional ethics of the role. </p><p></p><p>Illusionism run rampant is obviously bad for the integrity of the game, but deployed sparingly, with regard for the temptation it offers, and with an eye toward mitigating its effects on both your players and play, is both a tool and a necessary component of the GM's craft.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Pedantic, post: 8975727, member: 6690965"] This helped crystalize some of my thoughts on this. You're essentially making a case for GMing as a profession, with the same slightly murky blend of professional standards/responsibilities we expected from certain experts, like doctors or lawyers. There is a set of ethics and a wide variety of available tools, but fundamentally the role rests in a person and not a system, such that an individual must inhabit the function and make decisions that best serve the table. This aligns with a lot of how I tend to conceptualize the role of a GM. I'm often drawing lines between the various functions a GM is expected to inhabit, and suggesting that the game's guidance/advice should make it very clear that the GM is expected to inhabit these roles impartially from each other. You are supposed to function as a wordlbuilder, make decisions for the NPCs, and resolve rules ambiguities as part of the same professional function, but to provide clear lines between those roles, simulating impartiality as you go. I think that's the distinction I've increasingly found...uncomfortable in other forms of GM advice, or even some games that have very specific procedures for GM side play, or discussions about what a GM is doing. It should be acceptable for the fundamental GMing function to be aspirational; it isn't necessary that what is asked be completely possible, so long as the underlying responsibility and the reason for it is clear. That one person can't simulate a fictional world (and that doing so already requires some compromises to be interesting) isn't a problem in the game or activity, it's the basis of the professional ethics of the role. Illusionism run rampant is obviously bad for the integrity of the game, but deployed sparingly, with regard for the temptation it offers, and with an eye toward mitigating its effects on both your players and play, is both a tool and a necessary component of the GM's craft. [/QUOTE]
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