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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ovinomancer" data-source="post: 8339075" data-attributes="member: 16814">So, a person selected because of the role in a game is more likely to be successful at safely controlling a social group than a randomly selected member of that group?  I mean, aside from the fact that you're still assigning authority and duty to a single person and just switching the method, I fail to see how this actually improves things.  For this to be true, you have to assert that GMs are naturally better at social conflict resolution than randomly selected players.  Is this what you are asserting?  Because, if so, that's exactly part of why I've been characterizing your positions as saying players need to be treated as children and supervised by the GM.  You're asserting that GMs are naturally better suited and players are largely worse and need the supervision.For the record, I think that GMs are likely worse at conflict management, because they get blinded to conflicts that arise from themselves.No, it expressly says that people need supervision because they are incapable of doing the job for themselves.  This is infantilization.  Supervision to improve efficiency, such as at work, or direct work is not infantilization, it's organization, but we're dealing with a small social unit, not a work unit, so there is no efficiency to achieve at the social contract level.  Your argument, therefore, hinges on incapability and the need to be parented.Goodness.  GMs are on a different tier of relationship?  As in, they're higher than the others (clearly you don't mean lower)?  Yeah, this is getting healthier all the time.  "I assert that the GM is more important in thing A, so should be more important in thing B."  Even given I have issues with the GM being more important rather than willingly accepting more responsibility, this statement just doesn't follow regardless.Not if the entire group is on equal footing and empowerment with regards to the social contract.  Then, players are empowered to tell the GM to can it, and the group can decide on a game format that aligns with the group -- or dissolve and find groups that do align.  Placing authority in the hands of the GM and stripping it from the others with the assumption that the GM is the arbiter of social issues at the table doesn't solve any problems and enables many.  I say it doesn't solve any issues because doing this is a crap shoot, and any good results are due to luck rather than the structure.  If you get a GM that can handle social issues and is aware of their own impacts you can have a great result of them being in charge.  If you don't, though, then your choice to elevate the GM is part of the problem.It's worse to empower everyone at the table and place the duty on all of them to call out issues when they arise?  Interesting -- clearly you feel that people must be placed under others for society to function, even in the smallest units.  Yeah, we disagree about that.  We seem to share the same dim view of people, but you think rolling the dice and putting someone in charge is the best option whereas I think enabling the individuals and charging them with protecting the collective makes more sense.It works great -- been shown to in lots of organizations.  Empowering your people to own their own space is very good.  Your argument has to be that RPGs are special if the general case, shown often, doesn't apply because reasons.Those reasons, in my opinion, are largely because there's a long tradition of treating GMs as authority figures outside of the game, and making it bad to question them.  This establishes a hierarchy were gatekeeping and abuse can easily flourish.  The very argument that players cannot be trusted to deal with problems at the table and need the strong hand of the GM to handle things is right up this alley.  I find it more interested in defending a position of privilege and power than interested in solving the problem.Paul's the GM, so I guess your model fails as well.  Or was it Angela?  Or maybe it was Betty, or Bob?  I mean, one of them is the GM, and things have failed, so... you've defeated your own arguments in the rush to defeat mine.</blockquote>

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