D&D General Why do people like Alignment?

[EzekielRaiden]

I don't know how many times at work we were told there was no manager, no project leader. But before too long there always was a de facto leader, usually the one that spoke loudest or refused to compromise.

Businesses do, in fact, have hierarchy. Often one actually backed up by the force of law, ultimately.

Friendships, in general, do not.

If you wish to assert that a leisure-time activity has an innate and inherent hierarchy, you'll need to defend that, not just assert it.

Because, as I said above: The GM only has authority by group consensus. How does the GM achieve anything at all, if there isn't a group consensus giving them that authority?

And if there isn't a group consensus giving them that authority, but they somehow exert it anyway, what force are they using to make people obey them who reject their authority?

 

[pemerton]

The GM only has authority by group consensus. How does the GM achieve anything at all, if there isn't a group consensus giving them that authority?

And if there isn't a group consensus giving them that authority, but they somehow exert it anyway, what force are they using to make people obey them who reject their authority?

There's a widespread view, at least among D&D players, that the GM has the sole authority to make things true in the fiction.

This leads to the idea that if the GM decides something is true (say, in their notes) then it is true, as part of the fiction, even if never shared with the other participants at the table. It also leads to the idea that every player description of what their PC does, or feels, or knows, is provisional until the GM approves/accepts it.

Once this idea about the GM's authority is accepted, it follows (more-or-less - the extra premises needed to make it a fully logical inference are probably not worth spelling out) that the GM has sole authority over the rules: because all the rules are is a means of coordinating and generating fiction, and if the GM has sole authority over the fiction then it makes no sense to give them less than sole authority over the means of coordinating and generating it.

I personally think that this way of thinking about the GM completely misconstrues the social dynamics of RPGing. But, as I said, it does seem quite a widespread view.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Out of curiosity, do you also feel that consensus-based leadership models would work in other areas of life that typically have leaders like classrooms, sports teams, fire departments, hospitals, engineering firms, video game developers, animation studios or musical theater groups?

In your estimation, which of those would also benefit from a shared group leadership model?

Well, just for one of them, Classrooms objectively benefit from incorporating some elements of collaboration in addition to hierarchy. Teaching students to express autonomy and actively participate in learning, rather than being reduced to passive rote-memorization observers with no agency, has consistently been shown to result in better overall outcomes. Disruptive students will, of course, exist; but by and large the vast majority of students respond well to having some degree of control over their own learning.

I certainly think that collaboration is of significant utility in hospitals and development studios, and probably has significant utility in musical theater groups. I don't know enough about engineering firms nor fire departments to speak to those things. Sports teams already have a mix of collaboration and hierarchy.

To turn your question around: do you feel that hierarchy-based leadership models would work in other areas of life that typically employ consensus, such as friendships, marriages, legislative bodies, professional associations (e.g. the AMA), or academic consortia?

Because I can cherry-pick associations of humans that do not have a rigid, top-down hierarchy just as easily as you can cherry-pick associations of humans which do in fact have one. For example, you forgot armies.