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Message: <blockquote data-quote="clearstream" data-source="post: 9259199" data-attributes="member: 71699">These comments aren't responsive to what I have written. I do not expect the GM to state unwelcome things, based on principles or otherwise.I expect the GM to procure that players say unwelcome things. Recollect that I have positioned GM among the lusory-means. In that capacity, features of play aren't rightly characterised as welcome or unwelcome to GM: such a characterisation only makes sense from the perspective of players. My claim is double-barrelledi. There can be principles that force the unwelcome and unwanted to be said in play. (They can be constructed, and will have the necessary normative force.) ii. They must be given their normative-force through some participant such as GM; necessitating the play to be at least procedural-freeform. I'm not strongly committed to that being GM as such, or some other arrangement.As to the sorts of objection I'd anticipate, that would matter. You could deny that GM can be part of lusory-means. You could argue that even as part of lusory-means, GM lacks the normative-force to make players say the unwelcome. You could be skeptical about the prospects of constructing the appropriate principles (although other of your comments seem to rule that out.) You could point out that Baker demands the unwelcome and unwanted to be from the perspective of everyone at the table, meaning I can't neatly tuck GM into lusory-means. (This interacts with my arguments in ways that I don't recollect Baker investigating. And connects with conversation elsewhere about whether GM must be counted in any sense as among the players. I can't recall anything in broader game studies expressly addressing whether TTRPG GMs are or are not to be engaged in play in the autotelic way that players are. To draw a brief analogy - to what extent do we expect FIFA Laws that can at times force results unwelcome to the footballer to be unwelcome to the referee? Usually, we assume referee to be neutral as to such outcomes. It is then open to say that GM is not quite like a referee, which I believe I conceded in another thread at some point. I would probably respond by proposing GM's are not necessarily all of one ilk.)Another argument I am entertaining is to say that what characterises freeform is that players are not forced to say anything in particular. Thus, such principles as have the effect - whether via GM or not - of compelling players to say unwelcome things, remove the play from counting as freeform. If so, I'd split FKR along the same lines - i.e. into freeform-FKR (procedural freeform) and non-freeform-FKR (principled in the way that forces players to say the unwelcome and unwanted.)Technically, I am leaning on an assumption that freeform play follows norms. You can read examples of the sorts of expectations I'm talking about, or if you play much freeform you'll know exactly what I mean. Reifying or putting in place a norm as a principle is thus a smaller step than it might appear. To some extent, this goes against Baker's idea that freeform must exclude mediating cues: I'm implying that they're present, just not written. See also my edit to my post just above.</blockquote>

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