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Message: <blockquote data-quote="eyebeams" data-source="post: 3462649" data-attributes="member: 9225">I don't think so. I'm responding to the dynamic you describe, which is "players at the whim of the GM" thing. You haven't explored ways in which GMs can make positive contributions, and the example you gave made the GM the penalty guy. I really do think it's relevant; I'm not tossing it in for the hell of it.Nah, it's a probability fudging mechanic that uses subjective story hooks instead of traditional templating. I've already talked about an instance I'm aware of where it failed to save the game, and discussed a further critique that it leads to players relying on cliched channels of action.Here's the thing: a traditional "sim" design supports more flexible approaches than any other, because we can add additional elements onto that base and apply them, in whole or in part, as the situation demands. In other words, such games have more possible "sockets." Simulation has this property because the outcomes of simulation are necessary to story. No matter what values you attach to it, there is, on the narrative level, a guy shooting another guy. It's a materialistic phenomenon that can symbolize lots of things, but those symbols can't exist without the guy shooting the guy (or other activity).It depends. People have different expectations about different things. It's entirely probable that the most popular form of roleplaying (as an activity, not a product) in the 'Verse is something utterly repellent to many, many tabletop roleplayers: <a href="http://www.labarc.com/Black/" target="_blank">fanfic-based online freeform</a>. In other words, totally subjective, GM-dictated outcomes wedded to a rigid sense of canon (because thats how those communities work). That's about as far from your tastes as you can get, butIt's not really the same thing, though. He talked about things like Track, where the GM sets up situations where it might come in handy. Your "Joss Points" are just like that, if the GM gets to hand them out. I think it's more accurate to say that you don't want an explicit "buck stops here" with the GM.Well Chris Chinn lost me the moment he decided that anybody who liked games he didn't approve of was fooling himself -- and even provided a chart. People who think gamers are self-deluding fools are categorically excluded from serious consideration by me.But leaving that aside, how are we creating trust? Trust is not a rigidly defined social relationship with set rules. I suppose you could say it creates trust in the way parole or probation creates trust, but who the hell wants to give games the character of probation or parole? Conversely, how many films and plays have benefited from the application of a rigid social contract that limits the director's input?Now, people will be saying, "The GM isn't a director!" That was my reflex until doing theatre and seeing the relationships at work. Directors don't necessarily have a lot of direct control over everything from the writing to even the performance itself, and like a director, the GM exists to push people to possibilities outside of what seems obvious in the text.And a director or GM listens. It's probably the most difficult thing to listen, make sure you know what's on everyone's mind -- and to *not* always provide easy access to cliches or instant gratification. And it requires mature players who are willing to devote themselves to the process. And it means that when things don't go down 100%, it gets talked out and resolved in a continuous process.And this goes back to a primary problem with how games are written: Most of them don't provide structured guidance about this process, because they're working with the core assumption that roleplaying is such an unusual activity it needs to emphasize GM authority to  create a functioning game, and that exploring the necessary interaction would weaken it.</blockquote>

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