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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 7656259" data-attributes="member: 6696971">That is a fine autobiographical fact about your table.  I'm very glad for you that your players are mostly or wholly apathetic about the refereeing component of your game.  But this is so deeply an outlier as to how anyone plays games (RPGs or otherwise) that I don't even know why you bring it up in a conversation about the greater gaming culture or the impact that refereeing subjective rules language has on a game. I would have much rather that you addressed the meat of my post (which you abridged).  The process for action declaration and resolution is pretty simple (and has an analogue to every aspect of life):1)  Players and GM engage in a conversation where the sensory input that the PCs ingest is conveyed.2)  At that point, the player can orient themselves properly (through their characters) with respect to the dimensional and dramatic components of the situation at hand.3)  Using those observations and orientation, they will then consider the possible actions they can declare.  Doing this requires an understanding of the proxy by which the players and characters interface.  This proxy, of course, is the collective of the PC build rules, the resolution mechanics, and their best understanding of how all these things intersect to spit out the probability of various outcomes.  They then make a decision, declare an action, and resolve it.If any part of 1-3 is made fuzzy (be it by opacity of rules language, poor GM<img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue    :p"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":p" />layer communication, or a disconnect between GM/player inference/intuition/understanding on areas where rule subsystems intersect), a player will lose confidence in their ability to intuitively (and thus quickly - your pacing...of which I also share considerable concern) execute 1-3...eg declare an action and then resolve it and find out what happens.  In essence, they're disoriented and making wobbly decisions where they can't reasonably infer the probability of outcomes within a margin-of-error they're comfortable with.  Play slows down, at the very least, at the GM<img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":P" title="Stick out tongue    :P"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":P" />C conversation stage where the player attempts to haggle more and more information out of the GM to reduce that disorientation and attendant, uncomfortable margin-of-error.That isn't egoism.  That isn't immaturity.  That isn't being a me-first, poor sport.  I've always had great sympathy with (good faith) players when this has happened because I know that either I've done a poorer job than I would have liked or the ruleset itself is problematic.[HR][/HR]How about a (in my opinion) very relevant, real-life analogue to the impact (on play, on the culture of fans, on participants, and on referees themselves) of refereeing games in a landscape of (intentionally) subjective rules language that requires interpretation.NFL* The new "hit on a defenseless player" rules language and all of the areas of that rule that intersect (targets, location on field, posture of players moment to moment, target area).  Fans hate how damaging the vagaries of these rules are onto the competitive legitimacy of a singular game and the cross-season impact.  Defensive players utterly abhor them because they demand the physically impossible.  Referees do not want this kind of impact on games to be in their subjective hands as the margin-of-error and impact on a misapplication is enormous.  Oddsmakers and gamblers hate it.  WR and TE are liking the rule less and less as target areas are becoming knees and thighs, leading more devastating knee and ankle injuries.  The only people that like these rules are (1) NFL execs who are terrified of the continuing threat of class-action lawsuits for head injuries (and are doing everything they can - including destroying the competitive integrity of the game - to protect the brand) and (2) QBs (who find themselves in the unenviable position of hating them when their team is on defense and they're screwed by a terrible, game-altering call).NBA* The evolving incoherence and lack of uniform application (and the negative fallout on play - including the increasing propensity for flopping and making a mockery of play) of the block/charge call.NHL* The new goaltender interference rules versus the old, clear, unmistakable rules-language of "any player being in the crease at the time of the goal."There are plenty more than that, but those are three areas where there is pretty much universal disdain for the impact of these subjective rules, and the poor/inconsistent refereeing that stems from them, on the integrity of play.</blockquote>

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