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Message: <blockquote data-quote="hawkeyefan" data-source="post: 8417524" data-attributes="member: 6785785">Because the character in the fiction is also filtering their decisions through a number of considerations....risk versus reward, the chance for physical or social harm, fight or flight.....any number of considerations. A character who is about to climb a mountain has very likely given thought to his chances of success, or the necessity of the action, and so on. They have an understanding of their world that cannot be perfectly translated to a player. They consider these factors when they decide on how to act. A player considers the rules of the game.I have a reasonable understanding of my chances of sinking a free throw in basketball. If I was an RPG character and someone were controlling me, how would they know what my chances are? "Pretty good" per the GM? Does that mean as much as "you've got a 70% chance" or similar mechanical game expression? Now, that's not to say that all rules are like this. I agree with you that some become a tail wagging dog type of situation. But your insistence that this applies to all rules is just not true.Woo-hoo!!  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> "Don't be a weasel" is a Player Best Practice for Blades in the Dark. It addresses the fact that players should be principled in their choice of what Action to use in a given situation. So in Blades, the GM doesn't say "give me a Stealth roll" or the like, it's actually the player who chooses what Action they will use. So the player may say "I'm going to Prowl to silently sneak up on this guard" or they may say "I'm going to use Finesse to carefully pick my path toward the guard". It's up to the player to choose which Action they use. "Don't be a weasel" is telling them that this power comes with responsibility, and they should choose the action with integrity, and not just based on their highest score.Well, I would say that left unaltered by the GM, it being the "physics of the world" is a pretty specific interpretation. But I can agree with you that not all rules will always make sense. That sometimes, they lead to absurd conclusions. When that happens, the GM can use his judgment to tweak things in a way that better suits the situation. Now, if you want to say that D&D is overloaded with rules, I'm not really going to disagree....I have plenty of criticisms of D&D rules and processes. So I absolutely get where this approach comes from.Well you use DM a lot instead of GM, so that may be the issue. Not every game says "The GM is free to decide whatever they like". There are games that limit when and how the GM can act. If the GM ignores those rules and just does whatever he wants, he'd be breaking the rules, and everyone at the table would be aware. Could there be a time when it would make sense to do so? Sure. But there's no way for the group as a whole to no be aware that it's happening. Yeah, I'm not sure I can get on board with that. I've seen GMs improve. I've improved as a GM. Very often, it's as a result of messing something up and having a player point it out, or having a conflict with a player because we have differing expectations, and then realizing that's largely on me as the GM. GMing is a skill, and can be improved.Is it a given that your players will want to engage with whatever story you've come up with as a GM? Or that they'll agree with the judgments you make as a GM just because they may not be aware of what has informed your judgment?So what is it that makes GMs trustworthy and not players? Why aren't GMs subject to the same gamism that you think consumes all players? How do I know I can trust the GM to honor all the rolls and rules even if it means the NPC that he created with the intention of being a badass threat to the PCs winds up getting beat down like a chump? Why is a GM immune to seeking an advantage through the rules? And how would increasing his authority in any way lessen this possibility? Also, how can I as a player trust that, should I decide that my character is indifferent to the badass NPC and his plot, that the GM won't take that cue and drop the content he created in favor of what the players decide to do?</blockquote>

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