Quote from: lacemaker"I just make that up on the fly" is always wrong, but it means it's impossible to have an argument about optimal crunchiness with someone who thinks "I just make that up on the fly" trumps enumerated rules always and everywhere.

The best games I've been in were based of things made up in reaction to what our characters did that the GM had no way of predicting.

QuoteRules represent (conditional) promises to players about how the world will react to their characters' actions.  That's useful - it allows them to put themselves in the world, and it allows them to plan strategically based on known odds of success.  .

Of course this discounts the promise of the GM role--I will make things entertaining, and fun--and I will use whatever means I have at my disposal to do so.

Rules can only create a certian framework--the very fact we have a human being behind the helm means one can leave the framework or dispense with it sometimes if that makes a particular moment of play better. The Golden Rule in a lot of games is 'change what you wan't' it doesn't say WHEN, or How--just that you should and could do so.

If rules were the sole factor every MMORPG in existance would have swallowed whole the RPG industry. But the rules themselves create a framework--they do not create the whole experience. Anymore than the best script of a play, creates the best play. or the best script of a movie creates the best movie.

Example: A lot of criticism has come down the pipe about how bad the Star Wars sequals are--I've seen long, long writeups by critics who feel that a big factor of this is because he digitally shot the movies. Digitally shooting wouldn't have hurt the film, EXCEPT because the expense was lower, he could litterally pick every single shot, frame by frame and with modern tools mix them to his hearts content. The problem with that is that a given moment of an actors act--may be more interesting because it grows from a moment before it naturally and organically. When you mix one action and one reaction that didn't originally flow--it MIGHT be better mechanically/technically. But in a lot of cases the emotional weight, the transition is lost because of subtle cues humans can read in facial expresions, movements etc.


The point I'm trying to say, is rules are a framework, that are only as good as the people using it--and using it often means knowing when to depart from them to create a better experience. Movie directors for example can depart from scripts, and some better actors can too--so why can't Gm's?
Its a similar art we draw from, to create an emotional, weighted and interesting experience for those both involved and onlooking.

Let's be clear - I'm not opposed to GM fiat - I just think that GM fiat is at its best when it's an exception to the rules, not when it is, itself the rule.

Obviously flexibility is one of the key advantages rpgs have over competing forms of entertainment, but that's flexibility within a framework of rules.  When a gm fudges a dice roll to keep a deserving character alive, or adds a bonus for a great plan or description then you're stepping outside the rules (with attendent costs, like the players thinking they're invulnerable) but if it's done at the right time it's probably going to add to the fun.  That's why we all do it.
But if the gm always just makes up whether people live or die on the fly, if the gm always determines your chance of success based on whether he thinks you could do that or not, then you're talking about something radically different.  That's not a GM jumping in to break the rules when they give a bad result, that's a GM who doesn't like to be bound by rules at all.
They're fundamentally different scenarios, and no amount of arguing for "I give out bonus experience when someone really impresses me" gets you to the justification for "I give out experience as and when I feel like it".  That's not to say that the first is good and the second bad, just that they're more or less unrelated phenomena.

To repeat, pundit, as a gm, is on the record as saying that he likes to have no rules that bind him for experience awards, no rules that bind him for the social interactions that take up the bulk of his games, no rules for the limits on the powers his characters possess, no restrictions on his ability to decide which characters to gm for (in that he assigns pre made characters to players) and no rules to determine unusual combat situations.  He just makes it all up on the fly, based on what he thinks would happen.

On their own, each of these would be consistent with a normal preference for rules lite.  None of them are self evidently bad.  Likewise, if he was saying "sometimes I just decide whether something ought to work that way instead of relying on the rules" he would be being a normal gm.  But he's not saying that, what he's evidencing is a clear preference not to have the gm bound by rules, more or less at all.  That's defensible, but it's radical.  it basically means the players throw ideas at the gm and he tells them what he thinks would happen.  That doesn't look much like D&D, and it doesn't look all that much like 99% of rpgs.  

Recap:  
Rules as a framework which don't attempt to define everything, and from which you depart when it seems satisfying: A Good Thing.
Rejecting rules as a framework more or less all the time: Unusual and a bit worrying.  I argue that pundit does the latter.

Quote from: lacemakerLikewise, if he was saying "sometimes I just decide whether something ought to work that way instead of relying on the rules" he would be being a normal gm.  But he's not saying that, what he's evidencing is a clear preference not to have the gm bound by rules, more or less at all.  That's defensible, but it's radical.  it basically means the players throw ideas at the gm and he tells them what he thinks would happen.  That doesn't look much like D&D, and it doesn't look all that much like 99% of rpgs.  

Recap:  
Rules as a framework which don't attempt to define everything, and from which you depart when it seems satisfying: A Good Thing.
Rejecting rules as a framework more or less all the time: Unusual and a bit worrying.  I argue that pundit does the latter.

And you know? I don't really care about the Pundit's view. I'm talking about MY view. Pundit has his--I don't begrudge him--in fact I respect it, just as I respect yours--I don't agree with yours but I can respect it.



I feel that rules are at best a tool--no better or worse than any other for creating fun, having been educated as a "storyteller" (that is a person who stands before people and tells stories--as part of my efforts towards a speech/communication minor)--I know that even relatively freeform stories can be exciting, interesting, and weave something important for the listener (and contrary to a lot of the negative "storytelling' in RPG's---this kind of storytelling often involves details brought by the audience--'Know your audience" is always the first rule of this kind of storytelling. )

In short---I've not said no rules-you need to examine what /I/ have said--all the rules mentioned MSH, Truth & Justice, Hearts & Souls have solid ideas on handling power stunts--what they mean, how they're used. While its not so much a rule--it is information to let the GM judge such actions as appropriate for each character.

Yet if all people at the table are having fun--rules or no rules. Where is the harm?