As a DM I govern some social things.  Like forbidding smoking at the table and deciding who gets to play.  These things allow me to host the game at my house, which in turn allows me to play more often, as a game at home is less stress on my marriage than a game where I am away for several hours at a time.

Quote from: Mr. AnalyticalCue Balbinus First Law of Setting Design : Any setting into which a gonzo element is introduced will inevitably grow to include more and more gonzo elements of a more and more extreme nature.

Quite, the only protection is the GM Shield of Righteous Wrath TM.  As in "dude, the fact I put psionics in the setting does not mean you can play a fucking ninja."

The problem with this is it sets up the GM with absolute power and as we all know, that corrupts absolutely.

If the GM wields that authority poorly then they're going to end up playing alone.

In the dark.

In their pants.

Even if the harshest of old skool games the actual dynamic, no matter what was written in the book, was give and take between the GM and the players. The GM has to provide what the players like to play and the players have to respect the effort the GM puts in. Setting elements, background storylines et al have always been part of the games but the indie games just try to formalise it systemically. On the one hand that can be good, its expressly part of the system and people know where they stand without invisible negotiation. On the other its bad because having 'legislation' for things leaves less wiggle room.

[Edit]
I forgot, I was going to say... the two games I've found had the biggest problems with impositional and dictatorial GMing were old skool D&D and White Wolf games.

In D&D it was because the standard mode of play - as epitomised by modules - was pretty much railroading.
In White Wolf games it was because the GM often acted more like a novelist, you weren't there to tell your story, you were there to live in theirs. I think 'Storyteller' as a piece of terminoogy doesn't help there and the real role is more like 'Story facilitator' but that doesn't trip off the tongue quite so well.

Quote from: BalbinusQuite, the only protection is the GM Shield of Righteous Wrath TM.  As in "dude, the fact I put psionics in the setting does not mean you can play a fucking ninja."

Uh ... no.  It's one sort of protection, but it's not the only possible one.

At it's rock-bottom simplest, if you have a voting system, then a majority of the players can say "Uh ... dude ... no.  Psionics is cool, but ninja aren't," and that is another form of protection.  Yes?

Mind you, I dislike voting systems for other reasons, but they're a nice, simple example of what else can be done.

Quote from: TonyLBUh ... no.  It's one sort of protection, but it's not the only possible one.

At it's rock-bottom simplest, if you have a voting system, then a majority of the players can say "Uh ... dude ... no.  Psionics is cool, but ninja aren't," and that is another form of protection.  Yes?

Mind you, I dislike voting systems for other reasons, but they're a nice, simple example of what else can be done.

I wasn't entirely serious Tony.  I just like telling people they can't play ninjas.

That said, my actual play experience (admittedly in con games which may be very relevant) is that it tends to still veer over time into gonzo, now that may just be poor luck on my part but it makes me less keen on shared authorial powers.

The problem is, you just need one guy to introduce in his narration something a bit stupid or lame and you're game is starting to head south.  If he keeps doing it, you can only veto him so many times before it gets uncomfortable.  The whole group really needs to be on the same page for shared narration to work.

That's a problem of course with any high trust system, it's a risk reward thing, you can get great rewards if the whole group gets in the same groove to use the jazz analogy, but if that ain't happening it gets discordant or worse yet you get dinner jazz as people settle on whatever offends nobody.

Quote from: CalithenaI try to avoid theory discussions where possible.

Well for someone who tries to avoid them, you've certainly started a good theory discussion here.

You might not want to call it that, but that's what it is. You're not talking about a specific game, you're not talking about actual play, you're talking about a theoretical, and one of the classic "Theory" subjects.

You see, in theory, its entertaining for some people to try to come up with all kinds of formulas to replace the authority of the GM.

In practice, all of these are utter bullshit. They either produce a non-RPG or a really bad RPG.

RPGPundit

Quote from: jrientsAs a DM I govern some social things.  Like forbidding smoking at the table

Not pipe smoking, obviously?

RPGPundit

I'm not interested in how other dispersals of GM/player authority produce bad play in this thread, though...I'm interested in (a) what it means for the GM to have authority over (i) the social contract (ii) the rules (iii) the imaginative content) and (b) concrete examples of how this contributes to positive experiences in play.

If you want to call that sort of question theory, OK. I'd just as soon think about it as talking about gaming though.

Of course, I'm not the DM of this thread, so you all can talk about whatever you want, but that's what I'm looking for here.

Quote from: RPGPunditNot pipe smoking, obviously?

Actually, I don't smoke at home either.

Oh!  I forgot secrets!  Central GM authority rocks for playing out secrets and puzzles and stuff.  The players know the secret's just within their grasp (because of the way the GM is smiling) and that adds a lot of tension and engagement.

It can also suck for secrets (when the GM gives wrong hints, or not enough hints, or the players are just stupid), but that's cool.  Those are the risks you take.

*cough* move to Game Design & Theory  *cough*

Quote from: TonyLBOh! I forgot secrets! Central GM authority rocks for playing out secrets and puzzles and stuff. The players know the secret's just within their grasp (because of the way the GM is smiling) and that adds a lot of tension and engagement.
 
It can also suck for secrets (when the GM gives wrong hints, or not enough hints, or the players are just stupid), but that's cool. Those are the risks you take.

That's a very good point.  One of my roles as a GM that I love is that of Information Broker.  Give this piece of the puzzle to the Bard, this one to the Scholar, this one to the Cleric...dealing out bits of information over time to the players as the story elements begin to weave themselves together.  There's also Red Herrings, sideplots, background noise, and all those other wonderful things that go on.  As a GM, I generally play off my players (and vice-versa) for that, but I love being able to witness that tension and engagement Tony speaks of by being Ground Zero for a lot of the intrigue.

I think that gets into sort of a gray area.  Because secrets need not be limited to GMs.  Now secret rules perhaps, because it is hard to control and know the scope of those without everyone effectively knowing the secret. Or at least the GM. But secret rules IME are more prone to really big, feeling bruising screwups. The hickup in RPGPundit's Immortals campaign is just the latest in a long line of the one's I've seen.

Of course the problem with player secrets is as you increase the number at the table, even of the limited scope variety, is just like the GM secrets. You increase the complexity of the game and the risk of overlap and a screwup.  But I've seen these is play before. They can work just as effectively as the GM secrets.

P.S. I believe that David R has one is his game still. The secret about how that one PC on this 24-hour reprive before death died.

Blakkie:  Yes, but games (and game-groups) where the emphasis is on exploring each other's characters are not as common as games where the emphasis is on exploring the world.

Me?  I like exploring other people's characters.  But I recognize as a fringe-within-the-fringe sort of group.

Having the GM as the central authority helps by...having a central and final authority. I can only explain this by comparing my experiences with games that use more dispersed authority. (I agree with Grim that even in, say, D&D, you don't get completely centralized authority.)

In the games I've played with more dispersed authority, I find a lot of extra-game "checking" going on as people try to coordinate their use of the distributed authority. As if to say, "I'm going to do this, is that okay?" Or if not, you do run the risk of slipping off into gonzo.

Whereas with a centralized GM, I find it easier to play in a no-holds-barred sandbox fashion, yet still have a unified game vision. Where a traditional board game has well-defined rules, which allows you to exploit them fully without having to worry about "playing in the proper spirit", the rulings of a GM who has a strong, consistent vision also provide the predictability that's necessary for meaningful manipulation of the game-world as an external object. (I think it's a little easier to be consistent with oneself than with a group of others.) One might compare, in real life, the effect of an impartial judiciary which respects case law, as opposed to a more political process, on the ability of people to carry out their business independently without worrying about the sands shifting under their feet.