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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Enrahim" data-source="post: 9674224" data-attributes="member: 7025577">This is actually the problem I have with your use of the word presume.If we had fully acted as if the defendant was beyond all doubt innocent, then why is there a trial at all?A court has a lot of procedures in place for trying to determine the guilt of the defendant. However during the court case there are not the same level of procedure for scrutinising the judge (The mechanisms for that happens outside the context of the court case).So in this context "presume not guilty" clearly we are not to mean "arranging the entire activity in the way we had done if we had known for an absolute fact that the person in question is not guilty"The same can be said about how to arrange a game. I think noone is saying that all players are scoundrels. It can still be sensible to arrange the game so that even if one of the players tend toward taking egoistic decissions over the common good, the game is fun. This can be done by introducing incentives and procedures that make the egoistic choices align with the common good. If there are procedures that can acheive this with minimal disruption, that seem very tempting to introduce it doesn't it? Blanket dismissing it on the grounds of "we should presume innocence" sounds like pure naivety?And this is where the justification for asymmetry come in. We have found a structure that allow for only one point of failure with minimal limitations on the activity. Unfortunately this involves procedures that are applicable to everyone but one of the participants. Analogous procedures are not applicable to that last participant due to differences in role (like not earning xp). While I believe everyone would agree that if there is found procedures that would apply to the final participant while being similarly non-distruptive, that would be very welcome. However so far that has not been found to my knowledge.So with this backdrop: "Assume the players are up to no-good" is a practical advice in that it is a call for the group to look for and apply the wealth of knowledge we has in how to make a game work even in the presence of somewhat egoistic players. Similarly "Assume the GM is fair" is practical advice that despite no lack of attempts, we have yet to find a generally accepted design for how to procedurally ensure the GM to actually be fair without side effects many players feel strongly weakens the experience. As such looking for that, or insisting to introduce checks for fairness is likely to be worse than just accepting the suggested assumption.As such these assumptions is in no way a statement about the persons inherent moral character. It is solid practical advice for how to get good game experiences.</blockquote>

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