Quote from: Kyle Aaron;300708So we have the common rules laid out for some consistency, and the GM bases their decisions on those on common law principles: "given the rest of the rules, what is consistent with them? And what about common sense?"

And as with a common law magistrate, the GM listens to arguments from those involved. The barristers in a court trust the magistrate, but that doesn't mean they agree with everything they decide, or that they don't try to influence them.

This.

A hundred thousand times, this.

Quote from: Seanchai;300780No. Again, it's not that the GM decides things that aren't covered by rules, but the GM gets things wrong.

Seanchai

So do game designers, and people who think that their GMs are wrong, and pretty much everyone else. So what?

Quote from: Seanchai;300779Because, being human, people expect that it'll happen again. And, really, given enough time, it will.

(...) No. Again, it's not that the GM decides things that aren't covered by rules, but the GM gets things wrong.

Seems to me it's a problem of trust in a human's ability to make better judgment calls than a set of rules on paper.

I don't think a competent GM makes more flawed judgment calls than rules. Quite the contrary, actually, given that rules are such broad brush strokes based on vague, theoretical situations rather than particular evaluations of situations as they occur in the game.

When I read the kind of stuff I quoted here, that really makes me wonder how the person who wrote this came up with this belief in the first place. It can't be just because of a bear's movement rate.

Quote from: David R;300655Aren't safe words, rules ?

Regards,
David R

I'd say that, if anything, they are rule breakers because they are intended to halt play (either temporarily or permanently).

Can you expect the judgement call to work the same every time?  If so, it's more or less a rule, a homegrown rule outside the scope of the original game, but at least it's part of the common language of everyone at the table.

If the call isn't the same every time, despite the same circumstances, it's GM Fiat: arbitrary, preferential, capricious, and unfounded.  The whole idea behind GM Fiat is that it's not in the rules, it goes against the rules, and there is no way to justify it by the rules.  Considering everyone else has to play by the rules, it's a complete violation of the agreement of play when the GM gets to violate everything willy-nilly on the fly.

Quote from: Gabriel2;300808Can you expect the judgement call to work the same every time?  If so, it's more or less a rule, a homegrown rule outside the scope of the original game, but at least it's part of the common language of everyone at the table.

If the call isn't the same every time, despite the same circumstances, it's GM Fiat: arbitrary, preferential, capricious, and unfounded.  The whole idea behind GM Fiat is that it's not in the rules, it goes against the rules, and there is no way to justify it by the rules.  Considering everyone else has to play by the rules, it's a complete violation of the agreement of play when the GM gets to violate everything willy-nilly on the fly.

It might be a violation of your "agreement of play", but it certainly isn't mine. The GMs I've had, with very few exceptions, I trust to make any judgment calls they feel they need to, rules or no rules, whatever the circumstances, with the possibility that I the player might never know why they made those calls, because I know them and am confident that would only make judgment calls because the circumstances called for it. My GMs weren't out to get me or the other players, and whether they made judgment calls or not, we almost always had a very enjoyable time. I don't feel the need to make rules about how we use rules. I feel very fortunate that we don't worry about "agreements of play" or "common language", or even "GM fiat", or any other labels that get tossed around like confetti every time this issue gets brought up. We just play the game like we've played it before, and if a situation arises that seems the same but the GM handles it differently we trust that it's for a reason our characters aren't aware of and roll with it. if I had money riding on the issue I might feel differently.

Quote from: Gabriel2;300808Can you expect the judgement call to work the same every time?  If so, it's more or less a rule, a homegrown rule outside the scope of the original game, but at least it's part of the common language of everyone at the table.

Will the circumstances of a judgement call be the same every time? Doubtful.

Rules are set up to fire upon in-game situations in the same way a shotgun does, by providing a wide angle to hopefully catch the target in its burst. GMs are needed to customize those "shotgun burst" rules to the ever-changing and specific situations that happen for each group during game play so that the rules function to the best of their and the GM's ability.

Quote from: Gabriel2;300808If the call isn't the same every time, despite the same circumstances, it's GM Fiat: arbitrary, preferential, capricious, and unfounded.  The whole idea behind GM Fiat is that it's not in the rules, it goes against the rules, and there is no way to justify it by the rules.  Considering everyone else has to play by the rules, it's a complete violation of the agreement of play when the GM gets to violate everything willy-nilly on the fly.

Huh?

I'm sorry, but based upon this statement I've got to wonder if you have ever actually played a RPG or have just talked about them online.

Quote from: jeff37923;300816I'm sorry, but based upon this statement I've got to wonder if you have ever actually played a RPG or have just talked about them online.

The last refuge of a poster here with nothing to say.

Quote from: Gabriel2;300808Can you expect the judgement call to work the same every time?  If so, it's more or less a rule, a homegrown rule outside the scope of the original game, but at least it's part of the common language of everyone at the table.

If the call isn't the same every time, despite the same circumstances, it's GM Fiat: arbitrary, preferential, capricious, and unfounded.  

Why? I mean, if one game session I tell a guy that his dwarf in chainmail can jump over a 10' wide pit on a 1-2 on a d6, and a couple game sessions later I tell a guy that his dwarf in chainmail can jump over a 10 foot pit on a 1-3 on a d6, nobody I game with will notice or care if my call is inconsistent. Because the guys I play with are not number crunchers. They aren't fixated on hard rules and analytical constistency. Not when we play RPGs anyway (boardgames are an entirely different story).

Quote from: Gabriel2;300808Considering everyone else has to play by the rules, it's a complete violation of the agreement of play when the GM gets to violate everything willy-nilly on the fly.

It's not a violation at our table. Because at our table, the agreement to play means we play briskly and with as few stoppages to look up rules as possible. At our table, a GM who kept pausing the game to find the exact ruling would be breaching the shared assumption of play.

I have to admit - I might be bitter too if I couldn't play RPGs with my friends, and instead had to play with acquaintences I didn't trust. That must be truly shitty.

Quote from: Gabriel2;300818The last refuge of a poster here with nothing to say.

Well, in over 28 years of gaming, I've never run into a problem with the players disliking GM fiat at the game table. Not once. We never debated the "social contract" of getting together to game or the "agreement of play" we were suppossed to be operating under. These discussions seem to only appear on the internet, not at the game table in real life.

If the Players thought that the GM was being a dick with the rules, that GM would soon find himself with no Players. I've never seen Players put up with abuse from a GM through "GM fiat" for longer than a couple of sessions. They usually give their opinion of the GM's expertise by not showing up for that GM's games anymore.

Gabriel2, you seem to believe that if a GM does not fully the rules of a game, then that GM is "doing it wrong". Yet you are discounting the use of GM fiat to keep a game running (by avoiding a TPK frex) or to improve the enjoyment of the Players involved in the game.

This is why I think you lack experience in playing or running RPGs.

What Kyle and Old Geezer said is evident to anyone that is familiar with law. No roleplaying game can cover every situation without someone at some point making an adjudicatory ruling on what happens. The same with statutes. Not everything in life can be covered, so you have written rules (in law called statutes and in games called systems) that are used to govern most situations. When a situation comes up that is not covered you look at what a similar rule does and make an educated conclusion on how to handle the situation that wasn't covered by rules. Now how many statutes are necessary varies from country to country just as how much needs to be included in an rpg varies from system to system.

Quote from: jeff37923;300830...

This is why I think you lack experience in playing or running RPGs.

For whatever reason you thought it, accusing someone of having not actually played RPGs isn't exactly civil or productive.

Quote from: The Worid;300837For whatever reason you thought it, accusing someone of having not actually played RPGs isn't exactly civil or productive.

Didn't know I needed your approval. I'll make sure to ask it in the future. :rolleyes:

On a lot of these forums there are people whose only experience with the subjects being discussed comes from other online discussions. Without any real world actual play input into the gaming opinions, the opinion is garbage in my view.

I would and do say that the opinion that GM fiat is "arbitrary, preferential, capricious, and unfounded" comes from limited and negative experiences gaming.

Quote from: jeff37923;300842I would and do say that the opinion that GM fiat is "arbitrary, preferential, capricious, and unfounded" comes from limited and negative experiences gaming.

You're telling me that you've never had a bad GM in your life? If I wanted to, I could take that as evidence that your "only experience with the subjects being discussed comes from other online discussions.". I won't, but if I had, my opinion about you would have had equivalent grounding as yours did about Gabriel2.