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Message: <blockquote data-quote="clearstream" data-source="post: 9015915" data-attributes="member: 71699">It wouldn't seem right to say that a referee decides play in a game of football. The players observably enjoy genuine decision-making and in collaboration have decisive impact on the game.It seems plausible to say that Tolkien in fact was an expert in the world of Middle Earth. Which is an imagined reality - suggesting it is possible to be "expert" in a non-existent world. Then, when it comes to interesting questions - interest is in the eye of the beholder - I'm mindful of immersionism as a mode of play.One way a person can be most expert in an imagined world (to the extent that it matters) is if they are the original designer of that world. Another is if they acquire expertise in a world designed by others. A corollary of Baker's concern is that expertise can turn out to be conferred upon one participant in the same way as authority is vested by players in their referee. So that what they say about the world is true because they said it.I feel this is a reasonable line to take if one hopes to argue that one participant's power to change rules must disrupt (what I've called) the lusory fabric. I need to bring judge into the game as a player so as to dispose of their otherwise clearly not disruptive conduct as referee. That step can be resisted through saying any or all of<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">a person is capable of operating in a plurality of modes in play, so that they can operate as both referee and player</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">it is possible for a person to be expert or conferred with expertise in their version of an imagined world</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">there's no need to be the most expert to be an effective referee: other qualities are more important</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">possessing an agenda for refereeing is not necessarily identical to possessing an agenda for playing: the referee does not share in the prelusory goals of the players... they're more akin to a game affordance for those goals (elsewhere I described the FKR GM as a "font of unnecessary obstacles")</li> </ul>Generally, it seems straightforward and plausible to say that GM can indeed act as referee.The way I would reframe what you say here is that there are multiple RPG modes, and in some of those modes GM is intended to be a player. In those modes, it's intuitive to picture that anyone with rule-forming-and-modifying authority must adopt a lusory attitude that forestalls their waving aside all unnecessary obstacles. There are then a subset of rules, the "why" of which is just that. Those rules are not necessary in a refereed game.Rule zero is not a fix for that mode. Rather it is available and suitable (heh) in just those cases where GM is assigned the function of referee. If I set out to assess rule zero against the standards of a mode in which GM is player, then it's almost inevitable I will have concerns about limits on its use.I would not personally go ahead and argue that all possible modes of RPG necessitate GM as player so that there is no such thing as GM as referee, not least because GM is characterised as referee in numerous game texts. To me, that is a radical and somewhat implausible argument that needs to be supported by more than has been so far laid out.EDIT Rereading your "When the point of play" paragraph, I can see that can be taken as a conditional: if it is like this, then etc. If that's what you intend, my final paragraph just above should be ignored and we might turn out to be saying similar things. It's unclear to me whether "invites" in the paragraph preceding that one indicates something you view as inevitable - it leads us to X - or possible - we're invited to consider X.</blockquote>

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