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Why do RPGs have rules?
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<blockquote data-quote="Pedantic" data-source="post: 9011004" data-attributes="member: 6690965"><p>This gets at a fundamental question about GM authority in such games. I generally contend that GMs are inhabiting several roles, which have separate powers and separate functions. GM-as-Worldbuilder creates a setting and populates it with people, places and things. GM-as-Adjudicator resolves rules disputes and makes rulings (a role/need I think emerges primarily by having insufficient/incomplete rules). GM-as-Cast provides decision making power analogous to the players to all the non-player entities, with the caveat that the motivations thus portrayed likely vary significantly from those PCs possess.</p><p></p><p>I view these as separate, distinct functions that happen to reside in the same person, and view the GMing role as having a professional responsibility to maintain each position's distinction. Discussions about declarative authority usually press the assumption this is impossible, and further that there is no ultimately value in striving for it; authority must be constrained by some other principle.</p><p></p><p>Rule 0 is a bad piece of design, and a worse piece of rhetoric. As a design point, it's primarily an abdication of the need to build a complete ruleset. As rhetoric, it encourages the GM to inhabit another role, that of GM-as-Designer, and to conflate that role with GM-as-Adjudicator, which is corrosive to a cohesive board state and player agency.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Pedantic, post: 9011004, member: 6690965"] This gets at a fundamental question about GM authority in such games. I generally contend that GMs are inhabiting several roles, which have separate powers and separate functions. GM-as-Worldbuilder creates a setting and populates it with people, places and things. GM-as-Adjudicator resolves rules disputes and makes rulings (a role/need I think emerges primarily by having insufficient/incomplete rules). GM-as-Cast provides decision making power analogous to the players to all the non-player entities, with the caveat that the motivations thus portrayed likely vary significantly from those PCs possess. I view these as separate, distinct functions that happen to reside in the same person, and view the GMing role as having a professional responsibility to maintain each position's distinction. Discussions about declarative authority usually press the assumption this is impossible, and further that there is no ultimately value in striving for it; authority must be constrained by some other principle. Rule 0 is a bad piece of design, and a worse piece of rhetoric. As a design point, it's primarily an abdication of the need to build a complete ruleset. As rhetoric, it encourages the GM to inhabit another role, that of GM-as-Designer, and to conflate that role with GM-as-Adjudicator, which is corrosive to a cohesive board state and player agency. [/QUOTE]
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