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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7330574" data-attributes="member: 42582">I think the notion of trust is a red herring.What stands out to me in your post is you just do not want to play in a game where someone other than the dice decides what you can do. Now, in the context of RPGing, &quot;someone other than the dice decides what you can do&quot; means the GM tells you some fiction that s/he made up. And you are correct that, when I RPG, I don't want the GM just to tell me some fiction that s/he made up. But that has nothing to do with trust.It's like when I go to the pictures, I don't want a stand-up comedian to come out to the front of the theatre and start telling jokes. If I wanted that, I'd buy tickets to a comedy show, not a movie. That's got nothing to do with trust, and everything to do with the desired leisure-time experience.The notion of trust is particularly odd in a context where I am predominantly a GM. Are you suggesting I don't trust myself to tell my friend's entertaining stories, so that my preferred GMing style is a sign of self-doutbt? The more prosaic explanation is that &quot;Hey, let's get together to do some RPGing&quot; is not the same as &quot;Hey, let's get together so I can tell you a story.&quot;That's not to say that the GM is unimportant in my preferred approach. The GM manages the bulk of scene-framing and big chunks of consequence narration, plus is the default supplier of whatever generic backstory is needed to move things along. (Robin Law, in Hamlet's Hit Points, calls this &quot;laying pipe&quot; - I think the term is from screen writing. Christopher Kubasik, in his <a href="https://playsorcerer.wordpress.com/2008/07/23/the-interactive-toolkit-an-introduction/" target="_blank">Interactive Tookit</a> essays, called the GM the &quot;Fifth Business&quot; - a term from opera, I gather - because of the GM's role in facilitating the unfolding of the plot by managing all this stuff.)But that's not the same as deciding what a player's PC can or can't do; which is to say, is not the same as deciding whether or not a players' desire about the content of the fiction gets to come true or not. That's what I see the rules as being for!</blockquote>

[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 7330574, member: 42582"] I think the notion of trust is a red herring. What stands out to me in your post is [I]you just do not want to play in a game where someone other than the dice decides what you can do[/I]. Now, in the context of RPGing, "someone other than the dice decides what you can do" means [I]the GM tells you some fiction that s/he made up[/I]. And you are correct that, when I RPG, I don't want the GM just to tell me some fiction that s/he made up. But that has nothing to do with trust. It's like when I go to the pictures, I don't want a stand-up comedian to come out to the front of the theatre and start telling jokes. If I wanted that, I'd buy tickets to a comedy show, not a movie. That's got nothing to do with trust, and everything to do with the desired leisure-time experience. The notion of trust is particularly odd in a context where I am predominantly a GM. Are you suggesting I don't trust myself to tell my friend's entertaining stories, so that my preferred GMing style is a sign of self-doutbt? The more prosaic explanation is that "Hey, let's get together to do some RPGing" is not the same as "Hey, let's get together so I can tell you a story." That's not to say that the GM is unimportant in my preferred approach. The GM manages the bulk of scene-framing and big chunks of consequence narration, plus is the default supplier of whatever generic backstory is needed to move things along. (Robin Law, in Hamlet's Hit Points, calls this "laying pipe" - I think the term is from screen writing. Christopher Kubasik, in his [url=https://playsorcerer.wordpress.com/2008/07/23/the-interactive-toolkit-an-introduction/]Interactive Tookit[/url] essays, called the GM the "Fifth Business" - a term from opera, I gather - because of the GM's role in facilitating the unfolding of the plot by managing all this stuff.) But that's not the same as deciding what a player's PC can or can't do; which is to say, is not the same as deciding whether or not a players' desire about the content of the fiction gets to come true or not. That's what I see the rules as being for! [/QUOTE]

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