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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 9033300" data-attributes="member: 42582">Stipulating that someone's job is to decide something impartially doesn't make their decision-making impartial.What makes a decision about weather impartial? Is the only impartial decision on that specifies that the weather is typical? But that wouldn't be very realistic, given that realistic weather (quite notoriously) departs from the typical!This isn't a strange thing to ask, either. The impact of this sort of question on RPG play and design is evident, especially in the late 70s and early 80s. Classic Traveller doesn't ask the GM to impartially stipulate a cargo: it has a cargo table. Rolemaster doesn't ask the GM to impartially stipulate an injury: it has crit tables. Etc.The move to purist-for-system design can be seen as driven, at least in part, by doubts about the meaningfulness of &quot;impartial decision-making&quot; in these sorts of contexts. (In contrast to, say, decisions about whether poking a certain curtain with a spear will reveal the empty space behind the curtain: it's clearer what it means to impartially adjudicate these sorts of exploratory action declarations, although the history of concerns over &quot;gotcha&quot; GMing of traps shows that these aren't foolproof either.)</blockquote>

[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 9033300, member: 42582"] Stipulating that someone's job is to decide something impartially doesn't make their decision-making impartial. What makes a decision about weather impartial? Is the only impartial decision on that specifies that the weather is typical? But that wouldn't be very realistic, given that realistic weather (quite notoriously) departs from the typical! This isn't a strange thing to ask, either. The impact of this sort of question on RPG play and design is evident, especially in the late 70s and early 80s. Classic Traveller doesn't ask the GM to impartially stipulate a cargo: it has a cargo table. Rolemaster doesn't ask the GM to impartially stipulate an injury: it has crit tables. Etc. The move to purist-for-system design can be seen as driven, at least in part, by doubts about the meaningfulness of "impartial decision-making" in these sorts of contexts. (In contrast to, say, decisions about whether poking a certain curtain with a spear will reveal the empty space behind the curtain: it's clearer what it means to impartially adjudicate these sorts of exploratory action declarations, although the history of concerns over "gotcha" GMing of traps shows that these aren't foolproof either.) [/QUOTE]

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