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The Neutral Referee, Monty Haul, and the Killer DM: History of the GM and Application to 5e
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<blockquote data-quote="Jack Daniel" data-source="post: 8707894" data-attributes="member: 694"><p>There's a reason [USER=7023840]@Snarf Zagyg[/USER] tried to head these kinds of arguments off at the pass. They're <em>not interesting</em>. We're all of us here, I think, familiar enough with postpositivist incredulity to be aware that certainty is a <em>technical</em> impossibility. But it's trivial — it doesn't lead to any useful insights here.</p><p></p><p>Yes, impartial refereeing is an ideal that DMs (of this particular inclination) strive for while running the game — while wearing the Referee's Hat.</p><p></p><p>It's also an ideal that DMs may take into account while wearing the Worldbuilder's Hat, fully aware that the Worldbuilder's Hat and the Game Designer's Hat often need to compromise (such as, for example, when deeper dungeon levels have scarier monsters guarding better treasures — this makes a certain sort of sense from a perspective of verisimilitude, but ultimately it's a concession to good game design, and any in-universe justifications for it, like the "mythic underworld" principle or simply an appeal to deeper dungeon levels being naturally more difficult to plunder, are pure <em>post hoc</em> reasoning).</p><p></p><p>But ultimately, neutrality (in the sense that we mean here — impartiality with respect to PC and NPC, player and game-world; running the world as a kind of best-judgement-driven simulation) is something that happens at the game table. It's a principle that lives mostly in the Referee's Hat, and I don't think that we need overly concern ourselves with it to the same extent when worldbuilding or designing adventures.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Ninja'd by [USER=6779196]@Charlaquin[/USER] already, heh. Here's <a href="https://technoskald.me/2022/03/11/blorb-the-technoskald-interpretation/" target="_blank">another blog post by a different author</a> that gives a different perspective and summary of the notion. As one might expect, "blorb" comes out of (one small, idiosyncratic corner of) the theoretical/exegetical tradition of OSR blogging.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Jack Daniel, post: 8707894, member: 694"] There's a reason [USER=7023840]@Snarf Zagyg[/USER] tried to head these kinds of arguments off at the pass. They're [I]not interesting[/I]. We're all of us here, I think, familiar enough with postpositivist incredulity to be aware that certainty is a [I]technical[/I] impossibility. But it's trivial — it doesn't lead to any useful insights here. Yes, impartial refereeing is an ideal that DMs (of this particular inclination) strive for while running the game — while wearing the Referee's Hat. It's also an ideal that DMs may take into account while wearing the Worldbuilder's Hat, fully aware that the Worldbuilder's Hat and the Game Designer's Hat often need to compromise (such as, for example, when deeper dungeon levels have scarier monsters guarding better treasures — this makes a certain sort of sense from a perspective of verisimilitude, but ultimately it's a concession to good game design, and any in-universe justifications for it, like the "mythic underworld" principle or simply an appeal to deeper dungeon levels being naturally more difficult to plunder, are pure [I]post hoc[/I] reasoning). But ultimately, neutrality (in the sense that we mean here — impartiality with respect to PC and NPC, player and game-world; running the world as a kind of best-judgement-driven simulation) is something that happens at the game table. It's a principle that lives mostly in the Referee's Hat, and I don't think that we need overly concern ourselves with it to the same extent when worldbuilding or designing adventures. Ninja'd by [USER=6779196]@Charlaquin[/USER] already, heh. Here's [URL='https://technoskald.me/2022/03/11/blorb-the-technoskald-interpretation/']another blog post by a different author[/URL] that gives a different perspective and summary of the notion. As one might expect, "blorb" comes out of (one small, idiosyncratic corner of) the theoretical/exegetical tradition of OSR blogging. [/QUOTE]
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The Neutral Referee, Monty Haul, and the Killer DM: History of the GM and Application to 5e
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