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Message: <blockquote data-quote="innerdude" data-source="post: 7567695" data-attributes="member: 85870">I began reflecting on this while authoring a reply in <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?656781-A-GMing-telling-the-players-about-the-gameworld-is-not-like-real-life" target="_blank">this thread</a>, and it's stuck with me since then. Why is it that this particular hobby is so prone to producing narratives that involve having to put up with / get away from dysfunctional, misanthropic GMs? Why does this remain such a broadly-familiar trope in our hobby?The obvious, easy answer is to say that it's no more prevalent than in any other hobby, that the world is filled with jerks in all walks of life, and that RPGs are no more prone to having jerks within our ranks than any other sector or leisure activity. But it feels to me that there's something more to it than that. If you've never read the book Code by Lawrence Lessig, I highly recommend it just on general scholarly principle. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> He's a former dean of Stanford Law who's argued numerous copyright and IP cases within the United States Supreme Court. In the book on page 123, he essentially lays out a set of four basic constraints that tend to regulate individual behavior. <ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Legal constraints --- systems of laws and statutes with prescribed punishments for breaking them (fines, incarceration).</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Social norms --- the socially constructed norms that outline good behavior, polite behavior, moral behavior, etc.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Architecture --- physical, real-world constructs that either serve to disincent or outright prevent certain behaviors (example: locks on doors don't prevent all thefts, but they do disincent thieves who go around looking for "easy pickings").</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The Market --- economic incentives or disincentives that drive certain behaviors (Lessig's example is taxation of cigarettes---make something more expensive, it impacts buying behavior).</li> </ul>Lessig states that while these are distinct, they're obviously interdependent; changing or moving one "pillar" has ripple effect on the other three.Interestingly, when I look at his four pillars, the only one that constrains behavior in regards to the "act of being a GM" is social norms. <ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">It's not illegal to be a jerk GM (sadly, some might say <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" />).</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">You can't physically architect a solution to constrain this behavior. Though it would be cool to have RPG books that physically handcuffed the GM to the table if/when (s)he was being a jerk.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">There's no market-driven solution---if a jerk GM has the money to buy books and can remain civil enough to run games in public settings, (s)he has access to all the economic capital they need.</li> </ul>So based on this, the only real constraint we have to offer is to drive social norms into more positive directions to curb crappy GM behavior. (I realize that on some level, this is probably over-analyzing the problem; if a jerk wants to be a jerk, it's their prerogative, live and let live, and all that. I really am just sort of exploring this out of curiosity.)So what factors of the social dynamic in our hobby seem to create this repeated narrative of the jerk GM? Is that overbearing, jerk-ish GMs aren't really jerks at heart, they just GM that way because they don't know better? Is it simply a function that "jerk GM-ing" is pretty far up the pyramid of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, and as such, isn't worth wasting much energy over even when we encounter it first hand? Since there's no real virtue or reward in pushing back on the jerkiness, do we figure there's no point in bothering?I ask this in light of the context that I think all of us would love to have a hobby near and dear to our hearts continue to grow and be welcomed as an increasingly popular way to spend leisure time.</blockquote>

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