Quote from: jeff37923;300872Funk? Funk?!?

Damnit, I've already showered twice today! Now I'm going to have to do it again!

The funk is a medicine ball shaped head covered in teets.

Quote from: Seanchai;300879So all we have to do is find a "competent GM" every time we play. That's a tall order.


Seanchai

Bullshit.

If it is that difficult to do, then why play at all?

Quote from: Idinsinuation;300880The funk is a medicine ball shaped head covered in teets.

Now I've got to shower again to get that image out of my brain...

Quote from: jeff37923;300882Bullshit.

If it is that difficult to do, then why play at all?

Word.

GMing (like pimpin') is in fact very easy.

Quote from: Idinsinuation;300880The funk is a medicine ball shaped head covered in teets.

Then let's whip us up some funk shakes, posthaste!

Well, I think I see where you're coming from but.....

Quote from: Seanchai;300879This has nothing at all to do with trust. It has to do with perception and preference. Hence my comments about it coming down to not a series of questionable calls, but, really, a few calls that are memorable.

I still think it has has everything to do with trust. Trust is about how the GM relates to the (most times) diverse preceptions and preferences of his/her players. How GM fiat is applied to make the game fun for everyone even though what constituties fun varies from participant to participant.

Regards,
David R

Quote from: jeff37923;300869Fuck your semantics. Show me that you aren't some puddinghead who is just regurgitating a line of crap you read on some other forum.

That's what you're doing.  So, fuck you.

Quote from: Gabriel2;300890That's what you're doing.  So, fuck you.

This just confirms what I suspected.

Quote from: Seanchai;300780Are we talking about GMs breaking rules or why, in general, people seem to prefer rules to GM fiat?

Dunno, you tell me, starting with what you mean by "GM Fiat". That was the point of my post: when people say "GM Fiat" sometimes they're referring to the GM overruling the printed rules. Other times they're talking about the GM making decisions about stuff that isn't covered by the rules.

QuoteNo, I didn't mention rules at all. I mentioned a specific example in which the GMs

Something is missing here...

QuoteNo. Again, it's not that the GM decides things that aren't covered by rules, but the GM gets things wrong.

Look, there are only three ways of dealing with the problem of the GM getting things wrong.

1) Have a rule for everything. ("On p. 143 the speed of a bear is written in black & white.")

2) Let someone else decide things...

a) ...either collaboratively/socially ("The game will have to pause until we agree on the speed of a bear")...

b) ...or via mechanical apportionment of decision-making authority ("Brenda had the high roll, so a bear's speed is whatever Brenda says it is")...

c) ...or via a hybrid ("I'm willing to accept that a bear is slow if you win this die roll, provided you're willing to accept that a bear is fast if I win the die roll", or "my 5 Plot Points say the bear is fast, if you want it to be slow you need to put up at least 6 PPs", or "let's vote on it")

3) Get another GM.

Only option (1) removes the possibility of someone's jackassery slowing down or ruining the game. Unfortunately, it's also impossible without severely limiting the breadth of the game.

Quote from: jeff37923;300855See, you are now confusing a bad GM with the idea that "GM fiat" is bad. The two are not the same.

Absolutely. To continue me and Old Geezer's "magistrate" analogy, just because we have some bad magistrates who've made bad decisions does not mean that the magistrate's power itself is bad.

The difference of course (apart from what's at stake!) is that a magistrate if they're bad, well there's always the Court of Appeal, maybe a couple of them up the chain. They can't all be bad, eventually you'll hit a good one. We don't have that in rpgs, there's just the GM and that's that. Which is why, as Jeff notes, players just vote with their feet.

Quote from: BenoistEither a GM comes up with a bad call every once in a remote while and then I've got to wonder what makes you focus so much on that one bad call and not the rest of the game, or it happens all the time, and then I wonder why you're playing with that GM at all.

When it's just one player who thought it was a bad call is where you get problems. When they all think it's bad, usually there's a big noise and the GM gives in - or they change the way they'll handle it in future, but the stick to the current decision for the sake of their pride.

If the GM simply won't change their decisions in the face of player criticism, sometimes the GM finishes up or postpones the game indefinitely, and ends up being one of those players who's always talking about the awesome game they'll run someday.

If the GM simply won't change the way they GM, and insists on being a GM, gradually they lose their players and are without a group. A few bad GMs manage to have groups, though. Ever see those John West adverts? "It's the fish that John West rejects that make it the best." Well, I see gaming in the same way: it's the gamers we reject that make our groups and campaigns the best.

So the bad GMs who insist on GMing despite players leaving, some of them end up with groups of "the fish John West rejects."  There aren't really enough really bad players to fill all the really bad GMs' groups, though. That's because bad GM or player, it's just basically a stupid person; but stupid people want to spread their stupidity, so there are equal numbers of stupid GMs and players - unless they all game one-on-one, so while some bad GMs can have groups of freaks, most bad GMs end up lonely and take to rpg theory.

Quote from: jeff37923;300892This just confirms what I suspected.

That when you cuss someone they refuse to dance for you?  Yep.  Bright, aren't you?

Examples from play are good. Abstruse theory and semantic arguments, not so useful.

Examples from play are good.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;300896.... so while some bad GMs can have groups of freaks, most bad GMs end up lonely and take to rpg theory.

:rolleyes:

Sure, this explains it all.

Regards,
David R

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;3008932) Let someone else decide things...

a) ...either collaboratively/socially ("The game will have to pause until we agree on the speed of a bear")...

This is my favored option. I don't mean that all parts of the game should be subject to collaboration (I'm no Forgie), and ultimately the GM's say is law. However, my groups tend to stop everything when a question comes up, at which point we dive for the encyclopedia (or dictionary, or whatever) to find the proper answer. I acknowledge that this style might not be agreeable to everyone, but I view the learning of arcane knowledge pertaining to the game as part of the fun.

So, in this case, I would be pausing play to find the average real-world speed of a bear, so that we can convert it into play terms and continue; if it takes to long, I would give up and fudge it, of course. Because the answer then corresponds to the real world, there's less of a chance that people will feel cheated.

Quote from: David R;300908:rolleyes:

Sure, this explains it all.

When rpg theorists begin their essays by telling us that,

   "My straightforward observation of the activity of role-playing is that many participants do not enjoy it very much. Most role-players I encounter are tired, bitter, and frustrated."

or,

   "Roleplaying is twenty minutes of fun packed into four hours."

I think it fair to say it's very likely they're just crap GMs.

When theories of how best to design rpgs and run game sessions are developed by the people who are the crappiest in play, this shapes the kinds of discussions we have. It's like having a cookbook written by someone who always burns their toast. Things that most gamers do instinctively or without much trouble - like accepting GM fiat - become strangely controversial.