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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 8734535" data-attributes="member: 6696971">[USER=71699]@clearstream[/USER]My end of the course of our exchange was ruddered by the first thing you wrote to me:We then had a subsequent exchange over the "conflict as golf course" analogy of which you appended this to your thoughts:My takeaway from the above was a few things.  If I've got you wrong, then please correct me.  First, I want to remove the value judgements of "harmful" (with respect to arbitrary fiat) and "against" the GM (meaning a developed, negative adversarialism-oriented relationship when Skilled Play is prioritized because the GM is, by necessity, playing the opposition).  I don't hold either of those two things as de facto orientations.  It appears that you believe I did, but I don't.  I'm just talking about games.  Arbitrary fiat doesn't have to be "harmful" (in fact, it might be necessary for some forms of play) and the orientation of player : GM relationship doesn't need to be "against" even when they're in opposition with respect to "controlling units on the board" in a Skilled Play environment (in fact...to be honest...I think the "against" orientation is actually considerably more likely to turn out "injured and injurious" Skilled Play - and by that I mean "to the integrity of the competition of the players drawing upon their abilities to defeat obstacles dynamic of the game)."Alright, so here is my takeaway of your above:* Regardless of game, GMs are always oriented toward unraveling and discovering (this is a large area of disagreement).* (I already talked about the value judgement above, but I'm going to talk about the actual process of play here) GM Fiat that is systemically and principally unconstrained (whenever you see me use "arbitrary", this is how I mean it...unbounded by narrowing game text constraints, driven by personal whim) is necessarily harmful to play. So I don't agree with either of the above bullet-points and I folded that lack of agreement into my Starting Point > Obstacles Array > Endpoint model above.  Some games and techniques require a GM be oriented toward unraveling and discovering.  Some are absolutely the inverse (the GMs aren't discovering or unraveling...if play is, in any quantity outside of extreme exception, unmoored from what the GM already knows, then something has gone wrong).  Some games and techniques require a GM be systemically and principally constrained such that their decision-making cannot be mistaken for unbounded, personal whim (while in the middle of play or upon review or even in their own head!).  At every moment their thinking is anchored to/captured by multiple constraining parameters (along multiple, often converging, axes).  Whereas other games and techniques rely upon the GM being unconstrained and work their way artfully through play by feel and whim.  They aren't incorporating various parameters of constraint in their cognitive workspace.  They're just "doing their thing."The Conflict Matrix model I composed above relies upon agreeing with my directly above paragraph and disagreeing with the two bullet points above (which was my takeaway of your position).So that is why I was flinching a bit at your seeming agreement with my model.Thoughts?  Again, happy to be corrected if the two bullet points above aren't your position and you agree with my paragraph above.Obligatory<img src="https://media4.giphy.com/media/8Iv5lqKwKsZ2g/200.gif" alt="Great Gatsby Movie GIF by Sony" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />Speaking of "complexity of Manbearcat's writing style," behold the monstrosity of this post!</blockquote>

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