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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Balesir" data-source="post: 6284090" data-attributes="member: 27160">I came to the realisation sometime around the early 2000s - and I think [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] has come to the same view - that there is a very serious issue that runs far, far deeper than "DM impartiality".However impartial, a DM - like any human being - has a "world view" that describes (models, even) the way that they think of the world as working. It informs how they believe any circumstance arises, how any event works. And these world models all have one important thing in common. They are all wrong.I'm not being superior or contentious, here - my own model is most definitely included. The sum total of human knowledge does not understand everything, so far, so it remains quite impossible for any individual human to hold a correct and accurate view of how the world works.What does this mean for RPGs? Quite simply that basing "the way the world works" on one person's world model is a problematic way to proceed for two reasons. The first is that the others involved will certainly have different models; one consequence of the "all models are wrong" circumstance is that "no two models are the same". This can lead to "assumption clash" and in extremis can lead to one player having actual experience that demonstrates that the GM's view of "how something would play out" is flawed.The second reason that the approach is problematic is that, in order to give the players of the game a sufficiently good idea of how the game world really works, a huge amount of communication is needed. Worse still, this communication is likely to cover large areas that the GM does not consider needs communicating because it's "obvious". It is, after all, their baseline assumption (even if wrong) for life.My own experience, looking back and over the last few years, is that players end up not playing by any model of "how the (game)world works". They end up looking to the GM for social cues and body language that tells them whether or not their "great idea" fits what the GM can slot into his or her world model. In other words, they end up "playing the GM" rather than "playing the game".The best way I have found to avoid this situation (which I now find rather unsavoury) is to shift the burden of communication about the "way the world works" to the rules. That way, several books and crafted game mechanisms can convey a heck of a lot about how situations in this world will be resolved. It is in the nature of RPGs that some gaps will remain - although the likes of 4E's "page 42" can go a long way to give a good picture even for some of these - but those can be so seldom met as to be resolvable by negotiation and chance without holding up play unduly.In other words, GM impartiality is needed, yes, but it still doesn't address the core of the issue. Even an "impartial" GM has 'biases' that arise simply from the way they believe the world is. You can't remove that - it's part of being human.</blockquote>

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