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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 6590216" data-attributes="member: 6696971">If your position here is that games on either pole of the continuum are extremely anomalous, I'm not so sure that is true.  My + 5 Vorpal Anecdote has revealed to me that (a) there are a lot of tables/systems that involve absolutely 0 fudging/GM Force in play, (b) the systems/tables that invoke GM Force/fudging as a virtue (or editorial control if you'd like to put it that way) have two dynamics at work:1)  The type (overt or covert force) and amount ranges all over the map (from utter subordination of player agency to somewhat minimal intrusiveness with respect to player agency) and, more importantly,2)  due to the nature of long term, campaign play, the implications of a single use of GM Force is not in a vacuum.  One moment of Force has the capacity (I would almost say tendency) to snowball and change, not just the present moment, but the trajectory of play for some time to come (if not longer).For instance, in my current Dungeon World game, the PCs won the opportunity to parley with an Ancient White Dragon that calls a stretch of alpine mountains its domain.  Dungeon World is as close to impervious to GM Force as a system gets.  But let us say that I actually roll some dice (rather than the players rolling all the dice).  This parley with the dragon was (obviously) tenuous and lurking on the edge of disaster.  Despite it, they attained leverage and used it with a successful Parley move.  Combat avoided.  Temporary dragon ally attained.  This has had a dramatic impact on play in the immediate and will likely have major ripple effects throughout the rest of this campaign.  If, for whatever reason (ie it is an AP and allying with the dragon is out of bounds), I would have suspended the action resolution mechanics or fudged them, rendered the Parley move (or any of the moves before it that may have escalated play to violent conflict), it would have led to violent combat.  Several immediate outcomes may have arisen from that one dose of GM Force and the long-term impact would have been significant.I can name dozens upon dozens of "lesser" moments that may have had a fairly sizable impact on play at the immediate moment and would have affected the course of play up to this point.  Even innocuous scenes such as "does the elven ranger track down the dog and befriend it" have a snowball effect on what emerges thereafter.  It changes the portfolio of PC assets, it changes the breadth of possible future action declarations by the players and can possibly mean life or death.  I can think of 4 different occasions where the PC took advantage of the the dog's Intervene ability to turn a 6- result (triggering a hard GM move with major fallout for the PC and + 1 xp) into a 7-9 (a still trying, but much more manageable, success with complications).  She may have died or the fiction may have changed dramatically on the strength of any of those resource deployments.  This may have triggered more Force on my end (instigating something of a spiral).I can go back to moments more innocuous than that that would have affected trajectory of play if I would have subordinated the resolution mechanics and player agency to my will.  I just don't think there are too many occasions where GM Force happens in a benign vacuum.  Are there some cases?  Sure.  But I've seen more often than not that it snowballs and compounds, leading to a potentially major divergence of story (and player agency in the emergence of that story) then if it was never used at all.</blockquote>

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