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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 7633828" data-attributes="member: 4937">You aren't overturning my stereotype of OSR GM's here.&nbsp; I mean I've already got people up in arms so I'm not going to really delve into this, but there is a school of GMing out there - lets call it the John Wick school - where an RPG is only fun if the players have no agency and as soon as the players start to have some control then its time to ditch the game.&nbsp;&nbsp; I don't really get it, because if you want control&nbsp; no matter how much finite agency the players have, as the GM you always have an infinite well to draw on but I guess it's some sort of mutual high illusionism going on.&nbsp;&nbsp; I also don't get it because back in the day I had a far worse problem with rules lawyers and table arguments than I do now, and while that might be in large part maturity rather than underlying system, the idea that you are somehow avoiding players challenging your ruling just by playing an old school rules set seems bogus on its face.&nbsp;&nbsp; Take the secret door example.&nbsp; OSR rules explicitly allow characters to find secret doors on a certain roll of the D6, and OSR rules have no inherent concept of the idea of difficulty.&nbsp; My expectation based on having run both is that a player at my 3e table who rolled a search check in the open to find something would have no expectation that they should have found something because they rolled well because they also know that the DC could be quite high.&nbsp; But a player at my 1e table with an elf who rolled a 1 on a d6 would expect to always find the secret door because that's what the rules said should happen, and if they didn't, there would certainly be a table argument.&nbsp;&nbsp; Point is, a rules set however vague will still attract rules lawyers, and indeed in my experience rules lawyers thrive on vague rule sets.&nbsp; A rules lawyer prefers in fact rules open to interpretation because then they have something to argue about.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 7633828, member: 4937"] You aren't overturning my stereotype of OSR GM's here. I mean I've already got people up in arms so I'm not going to really delve into this, but there is a school of GMing out there - lets call it the John Wick school - where an RPG is only fun if the players have no agency and as soon as the players start to have some control then its time to ditch the game. I don't really get it, because if you want control no matter how much finite agency the players have, as the GM you always have an infinite well to draw on but I guess it's some sort of mutual high illusionism going on. I also don't get it because back in the day I had a far worse problem with rules lawyers and table arguments than I do now, and while that might be in large part maturity rather than underlying system, the idea that you are somehow avoiding players challenging your ruling just by playing an old school rules set seems bogus on its face. Take the secret door example. OSR rules explicitly allow characters to find secret doors on a certain roll of the D6, and OSR rules have no inherent concept of the idea of difficulty. My expectation based on having run both is that a player at my 3e table who rolled a search check in the open to find something would have no expectation that they should have found something because they rolled well because they also know that the DC could be quite high. But a player at my 1e table with an elf who rolled a 1 on a d6 would expect to always find the secret door because that's what the rules said should happen, and if they didn't, there would certainly be a table argument. Point is, a rules set however vague will still attract rules lawyers, and indeed in my experience rules lawyers thrive on vague rule sets. A rules lawyer prefers in fact rules open to interpretation because then they have something to argue about. [/QUOTE]

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