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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 7599946" data-attributes="member: 4937">There is a difference, but it is a finer and yet more important distinction than you make here.   What you say about it being something that PCs cannot do is true only for most traditional RPGs and most traditional processes of play.   There are a variety of games where there are processes of play that validate the PC making calls* of the sort, "I have contacts in the city, in fact Bob is captain of the guard so of course he'll let us in."(*As I'm using the term, assertions or potential assertions about the myth of the game world.  These differ from propositions, which are assertions about the actions or intended fictional positioning of the player in the game world.  A call helps establish what the situation or problem is.  A proposition offers some way to solve it, often one that involves a certain amount of risk.   Note that a call is not part of the normal action resolution cycle that others in the thread are referring to as "goal-method", although calls of various sorts are allowed in most games through some process.)But if you examine those games, you'll find that they still share something in common with traditional RPG play - the power of the player is limited.  If the player character has chalk, then chances are the have chalk because the game gives the play some limited resource to acquire chalk.  The same is true of every one of the player characters resources - they had a cost and are finite.The first call refers to the players limited and defined resources and clearly recognizes that they are limited and thus may not apply.  Every RPG limits the resources of the players, for the reason that it - being a game - requires the players to have limits.  All games are defined by their limits, and thus have illegal moves or propositions.   The limits are actually what makes a game fun and challenging.  If a game doesn't have limits, it's not a game but a form of play.   (Yes, I recognize the words play and game are controversial and people that study these games argue over what they are, but close enough for us amateurs, and better than some of the pros.)But the second call is, sans context, a call that suggests the power of the player is basically unlimited.   That sort of call suggests the player has the power of fiat - that Rule Zero applies to the player as well - and if the player can declare things by fiat then they can resolve pretty much any situation.  The reason that the GM of an RPG is not called a player, even though they are participating in the game, is that they have no limits and thus cannot (or should not) play the game any more than a referee can or should play in a game of soccer that they are officiating.Now, in clearer context, we might find that there are actually limits on the second call.  Some RPGs allow calls of that nature within a framework that places limits on the their effectiveness or on how often they an be made and so forth.   But unless those limits exist, its probably not even a game.As for the declaration that if there exists some call you can make about the fictional world, which will not be validated by the GM as true, that the GM is somehow playing your character for you... You can certainly aver as a player that your character is the ultimate author and ruler over reality, but if you do, it's no more likely to be true of the fictional universe than it is of this one.  You are free to assert that your character believes this to be true, and as the GM I cannot overrule you.   But I'm not obligated to affirm that the belief is true.  If you claim something delusional, you may be ill at ease if I don't affirm your delusion is true, but that is not interfering with your thoughts or your play.  Indeed, it is impossible to interfere with your thoughts - that's what makes a delusion a delusion rather than merely a false belief.   Your character can certainly try to be the ruler over reality, just as your character may try to leap over the ocean in a single bound.  But you cannot assert that anything you wish to be so is so, even perfect agreement between your character's mental image of the world and what the world actually is.   You cannot in the real world assert that just because you think something is so that it is.   You should have no expectation that you can do so in a game, unless provided for by the game.</blockquote>

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