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<blockquote data-quote="Neonchameleon" data-source="post: 8251690" data-attributes="member: 87792">I'd say this applies to you and most old school GMs. And it's an approach I find actively harmful when it comes to roleplaying.Not because of the &quot;The GM is the final authority&quot; part; most GMs do that in most systems it's the &quot;character sensory input from the DM is the only real connection&quot; part. This is a pretty narrow, low bandwidth link.In most games not run by people &quot;defensive of their role as GM&quot; the GM can still create the impossible. But I have more links than just what they deign to tell me; the rules of the game provide another significant connection to the campaign setting. And they would then start trying to understand the world and figure it out. And they'd work out some of the physics of the world they were in and have understandings of it. As a player I approximate this sort of understanding of the world my character in and having learned about it from others who've been living there for longer through the mechanics. Does this make the mechanics always right? No. Exception based design is a thing.And when GMs, because they are &quot;defensive of their role as GM&quot;, use that as an excuse to deny me access to one of my key tools for understanding the world they strip me of the ability to connect with it as anything other than a blindfolded tourist with descriptions of somewhere I fundamentally am not allowed to have more than a superficial understanding of being told to me.They also strip themselves of the ability to truly surprise where they intend to. A rock floating in space is not a surprise when you don't know rocks behave differently. Rather than &quot;wow! That's odd&quot; it becomes &quot;Oh. Another thing I have no frame of reference for. Is this meant to surprise me?&quot;</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Neonchameleon, post: 8251690, member: 87792"] I'd say this applies to you and most old school GMs. And it's an approach I find actively harmful when it comes to roleplaying. Not because of the "The GM is the final authority" part; most GMs do that in most systems it's the "character sensory input from the DM is the only real connection" part. This is a pretty narrow, low bandwidth link. In most games not run by people "defensive of their role as GM" the GM can still create the impossible. But I have more links than just what they deign to tell me; the rules of the game provide another significant connection to the campaign setting. And they would then start trying to understand the world and figure it out. And they'd work out some of the physics of the world they were in and have understandings of it. As a player I approximate this sort of understanding of the world my character in and having learned about it from others who've been living there for longer through the mechanics. Does this make the mechanics always right? No. Exception based design is a thing. And when GMs, because they are "defensive of their role as GM", use that as an excuse to deny me access to one of my key tools for understanding the world they strip me of the ability to connect with it as anything other than a blindfolded tourist with descriptions of somewhere I fundamentally am not allowed to have more than a superficial understanding of being told to me. They also strip [I]themselves [/I]of the ability to truly surprise where they intend to. A rock floating in space is not a surprise when you don't know rocks behave differently. Rather than "wow! That's odd" it becomes "Oh. Another thing I have no frame of reference for. Is this meant to surprise me?" [/QUOTE]

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