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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 6585113" data-attributes="member: 6696971">Beyond the resolution mechanics and the GMing advice being insufficient to the task of fulfilling a full-bore, objective process-sim agenda, there is another huge, huge angle that works against things (hence driving GMing toward covert GM force - illusionism - or a passive participationism by the players).  That angle is that a purely objective process-sim agenda does not lead to satisfyingly dramatic outcomes (from a genre/literary conceit/trope perspective) as an emergent aspect of authentically applying play procedures.  Once folks sit around the table for 1 hour, 2 hours, 3 hours, a full session, 2 sessions (etc) and there are maybe 1 or 2 moments (at best) that are satisfyingly dramatic, an enormous amount of conflict of interest begins to manifest.This is The Forge's idea of "agenda incoherency" (there is also system incoherency; eg when a system doesn't naturally propogate its alleged agenda as a result of authentically applying play procedures), which I happen to be a big subscriber to; Multiple agendas that are at tension or flat-out diametrically opposed.  The inevitable consequence of which is that the players (GM is inclusive here) have to go outside of the prescribed play procedures and force/drift play toward their sought ends.  For hardcore sim that doesn't lead to satisfying dramatic outcomes, the answer is illusionism.  This illusionism is aided by opaque or incoherent rules and/or something like WW's Golden Rule.  The more clear the rules, the more coherent the interactions with PC build mechanics, the more coherent and transparent the GMing agenda/principles, if all dice are rolled on the table and/or by the players, (all of which constrain GM latitude), then the more difficult it is for the GM to covertly force the outcome they're looking for (be it dramatic, challenge or other).I should note that a gamist/simulationist/narrativist hybrid agenda is even more prone to illusionism (if the aspects of the system I've mentioned prior and directly above are in place).  This is because you are looking for:1)  satisfying challenge2)  satisfying physical causal logic as an emergent property of apply play procedures/consulting resolution mechanics3)  satisfying dramatic outcomes and sufficiently addressing thematic premiseThose 3 are almost always brutally at tension with one another (and again, sometimes diametrically opposed).  This is why AD&D 2e is the mother-load of illusionism play.  It purports to value all 3 of those agendas simultaneously (in equal measure) while the system itself doesn't consistently produce/satisfy any 1 of those 3 (merely by the authentic application of play procedures) by themselves...let alone all 3 simultaneously!  How do we get consistent challenges, a world driven by empirical/reproducable causal logic, and satisfyingly dramatic outcomes (from a genre conceit/literary trope perspective)?  Covert GM force.  Illusionism.  That is how.  And you see it advocated for on this board left and right (even if people don't realize that illusionism - the subordination of player agency to GM will - is precisely what they're advocating for).</blockquote>

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