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Message: <blockquote data-quote="clearstream" data-source="post: 9124791" data-attributes="member: 71699">That's an interesting point. So on the one hand, I feel that there are reasonable grounds to say that an expert referee would do something that the dice cannot, such as include the effects of things in the fiction that the system as written is insensitive to. And I have on my mind additional merits such as where a referee is communicative, consistent, judicious. Very often in other domains I will prefer a person's decision over a random one.And on the other hand, when I was diagramming out the various TTRPG methods of resolution, I noticed that one could black box the step after input interpretation, where by some means an outcome is indexed. Inside that black box could be - a randomiser, a referee making decisions, an astrologer reading the stars, a quorum of voters, an AI, etc. By indexing, I mean something like what you see in a PbtA move: a range of results with numbers beside them. Apply the result whose number is output by the black box when prompted. In most TTRPG, the results require further interpretation to pass them back into fiction, with the system consequences generally concrete. Call this experiment "the remote-control dice" where I throw dice as usual, but how they land is controlled to conform with the number the black box contents supplies from a remote location.Move in fiction > is interpreted into system > prompts black box > a number comes up on the r-c dice > indexes a result.The purpose of this thought experiment is to investigate what it is about the decisions themselves - a series of numbers from the black box - that will allow us to decide that we dislike its contents?For example, I think your concerns about GM denying players the possibility of learning must rely on an apprehension that the GM will make their determinations with negative bias or intent to disrupt, seeing as inconsistency alone would surely be no worse than random. We must expect to observe a series of numbers that at moments swings to ornery and others swings to friendly, and is identifiably different over the normal course of play from the series of numbers produced by normal dice.</blockquote>

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