Quote from: PseudoephedrineIt's pretty ridiculous to pretend you own "a game", where "game" means an ongoing series of events requiring the participation and consent of a half-dozen people or so. You might own the rulebooks, or your notes on the game, or the dice the group uses or the place they play at, but saying that makes you the owner of the game is like saying that you own Christmas or Sunday.

If by "ownership" you mean "ultimate control" or "the final say," then it's been the standard model of rpg organisation at the social level for over 30 years. I'm sure your aware that the default assumption for at least 90% of the games published since White Box D&D has been one of GM authority, supported by the framework of the rules. Of course it relies on consent of the other players, but that doesn't deny it's existence as a real and viable method of play.

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine:rolleyes:

The DM is not a boss. He has authority only insofar as the players let him adjudicate rule disputes. When a DM starts pretending that he's anything more than the player who plays the other characters and who gets to arbitrate rules disputes, he's pretending to an authority he doesn't have. And someone who pretends to an authority they don't have, and then tries to use that "authority" to make you do what they want is a cunt.

Wow, I have no idea what kind of wacky games you've been playing, but I'm willing to bet you've ruined many peoples' enjoyment of games if you've ever been to a convention.

Tell me - are you actually playing in any games now?  If so, how do the other players deal with your jackassery?

-O

Quote from: obrynWow, I have no idea what kind of wacky games you've been playing, but I'm willing to bet you've ruined many peoples' enjoyment of games if you've ever been to a convention.

I basically follow that philosophy and the "wacky" games I've been playing include D&D, Vampire and Chill...

Seanchai

Spike, your "subtractive GMing" examples seem to revolve around GMs taking away things that they feel are too powerful for the PCs.

What about a different type of subtraction: taking something out of the setting because you think it's completely ridiculous/boring/contradictory/stupid? I think a GM should have every right to say before a campaign "I'm going to be taking out this feature of the gameworld, because it wrecks my suspension of disbelief and stops me taking the gameworld seriously, and I can't very well do a decent job of GMing if I can't buy into the gameworld - so please, don't make characters tied into those features of the setting, and if me taking those bits out of the game wrecks it for you don't sign up to play in the first place". (For example, if I were ever to run Dragonlance the Kender and Gully Dwarves will be out on their ear.)

Quote from: PseudoephedrineIt's pretty ridiculous to pretend you own "a game", where "game" means an ongoing series of events requiring the participation and consent of a half-dozen people or so. You might own the rulebooks, or your notes on the game, or the dice the group uses or the place they play at, but saying that makes you the owner of the game is like saying that you own Christmas or Sunday.

Actually, considering that many a DM invests a tremendous amount of time on their own world, it isn't much of a stretch to say that they own their own game. Some have rather large notebooks full of original ideas and house rules are simply a means of furthering those ideas. The game is played using material that they literally do own the rights to. It used to be at any rate that DM's talked about "their campaign." I think that usage has flagged off a bit lately, but it isn't entirely gone.And I don't think it's uncommon for DMs to assert a degree of ownership over what happens in the games they have worked so hard to create and develop.

Modifying the rules may or may not be a good idea, depending on the specifics, but it isn't in and of itself disrespect to the players. Some of the most overbearing DMs I've known have been just the opposite, rules fundamentalists in every sense of the matter. Respect and courtesy for the players can take a lot of forms. To tell players here are the rules I use, take it or leave it. If enough players walk, then it's a problem, but that approach has worked for many players and DMs alike.

Jimmy:  I see you haven't read all my posts here. I can understand that I might not have communicated my position in my initial rant, but I KNOW I've explained a more reasoned stance in later posts.

I don't like guys that gut the main rule book willy-nilly, and I think I've covered why.

I've never expressed that level of vitriol for someone who wants to build something different off of an existing ruleset/book.  There is a significant difference.

"We'll be playing Shadowrun, only without trolls and snipers' is a huge difference from...

"well be playing a game set in a dark future, in crowded laberynthine cities where everything is cramped and you can't see more than a few hundred feet. We will be using the shadowrun main rulebook, but no non-humans exist here..."

Sure, part of it is communications.  Another part of it tends to be 'asshattery', namely the GM deciding that he doesn't like something, so anyone who does like it/does do it is a jerk.   The second tends to be more constructive, and you normally can know that the GM isn't suddenly going to start using those same things you can't use against you.


Everyone Else:

I agree with the basic principle that Psuedo put forth: The GM is just another player; the idea that he is more important or powerful inherently than any other player is traditional yet still a 'toxic meme'.

I however disagree strongly that he doesn't have any authority or control over the game, and by extension the players.  GM's go to far, in my book, all the damn time. On the other hand, the solution is not to go too far in 'limiting them', which is the overreaction from the other damn side.  Someone does have to be 'in charge', someone does have to 'run the game'.  Even board games can reflect this; Monopoly often has someone playing 'the bank', even though it's not written into the rules (as far as I can recall).

That person should logically be the person with the most on the line and the least to win, the GM.  That's the guy who sets up any 'plot' that exists, probably owns the most books, often organized the entire group activity. He also, typically, doesn't have a character (or shouldn't for reasons that SHOULD BE incredibly obvious), and thus nothing 'at stake' within the framework of the game itself.   Thus he can be 'impartial' while still being involved. He's the referee, the arbiter of rules.



Lets get back to a specific rule that seems to be 'deleted' an awful lot. The 'Hand of God' Rules from the new Shadowrun.  This is the "i survived being shot in the head' rule, designed to allow a character to survive the unsurvivable.  A lot of GM's don't like it because it's not gritty enough. Removing it can make the game grittier, sure.
Mostly, however, they seem to dislike it because it makes it harder for them to kill off players. Not challenge them, mind you (the HoG rule doesn't actually prevent them from being challenged, from failing. Just dying out of hand...). No tossing out of the airlock without a space suit, no sniper from the rooftops.  Others don't like it because they think it makes for absurd situations, like surviving falling out of an airplane at 20000 feet without a chute.

Only: GM's shouldn't be 'whacking' PC's like that all the time. Even if they do, real people occasionally survive being shot in the head at point blank. People can be surprisingly tough. Likewise, there are numerous recorded instances of people suriving impossible things, like falling 20000 feet.  That is, apparently, part of what the HoG rule was meant to portray.

So telling a player 'no, you can't use it because I think it's absurd' may fly in the face of both the intention of the rule, and real life facts.  And it may be just as jarring as suddenly finding out that no corporation office building has Troll sized doors anywhere, despite having troll security guards (don't laugh, it happened to me once and I wasn't even the troll.)  

Often the intent is to merely disempower the PC's.  To disempower the PLAYERS.  I get that you shouldn't hand the PC's the world on a platter, that you should make them work for their every success, but that's a hell of a different animal than forcing them to use Nerf guns in WWIII, which seems to be the intent behind many Subtractive GM actions.

Quote from: SeanchaiI basically follow that philosophy and the "wacky" games I've been playing include D&D, Vampire and Chill...

Seanchai

Yeap. I play D&D and d20 variants. Just finished a five year campaign I was involved with as a PC, and a short side campaign where I was the DM. I stuck with the idea of building rules consensuses between players instead of just demanding they acknowledge my authority when I was DM, and in reward, I was told that I DMed the "smoothest" game of D&D they'd ever played.

My way of arranging how players relate to one another is tremendously successful - I've used it in about a dozen PbPs with complete strangers and in person with my friends and acquaintances in campaigns ranging from a few sessions to five years - and I've never had a complaint about it until now, from a bunch of people who've never even tried it.

Quote from: DrewIf by "ownership" you mean "ultimate control" or "the final say," then it's been the standard model of rpg organisation at the social level for over 30 years. I'm sure your aware that the default assumption for at least 90% of the games published since White Box D&D has been one of GM authority, supported by the framework of the rules. Of course it relies on consent of the other players, but that doesn't deny it's existence as a real and viable method of play.

I think the idea of DM's "owning" a game and exerting "ultimate control" is an ideological position, not a real description of how people play. I've never run across a functional group that actually ceded all authority to the DM and just quietly accepted his interpretations of the rules. The assertion that a DM's word is "law" is just one made by DMs and would-be DMs to bolster their authority.

It's like a king asserting that his power comes not from the fact that he's part of an institution which acknowledges him as its legitimate leader, but because he has a divine right to be king and be obeyed.

In a real group, people are constantly debating about how the rules and story apply to a given situation, and much of what settles the debate in the end is out-of-game factors like personal charisma, precedent or the reasonability of the positions, not repetition of "I am the DM, my word is law!" or "I own the game!" or whatever.

I seem to hold the awful, murderous, genocidal opinion that if I make a reasonable argument, I expect others to feel the force of its reason, and in return, I will acknowledge reasonable arguments made by others as such, even if it's merely a reasonable argument about a game. I think people who want to prevent me from being able to do that are jerks, especially if their authority to prevent me from doing so is as petty as just being the DM.

Quote from: SpikeI agree with the basic principle that Psuedo put forth: The GM is just another player; the idea that he is more important or powerful inherently than any other player is traditional yet still a 'toxic meme'.

I however disagree strongly that he doesn't have any authority or control over the game, and by extension the players.

I'm not saying that either, though. I'm saying that whatever authority the DM has, he has only by virtue of the other players consenting to give it to him. I then went beyond that and said two further things:

1) I, as a player, do not consent to the DM having the authority to ignore reasonable arguments made by the other players.

2) I do not play with people who pretend as if I have given them that consent, and I call them bad names to indicate that I am displeased with their presumption.

Pseudo:

There is a lot of wiggle room in your position. On the one hand you are addressing questions about the authority to make a decision, but on the other you are also talking about the heavy-handedness with which those decisions are sometimes made. Two very different problems.

Rejects a player's argument is not ignoring it. Reasonable people can and do often fail to see each others points, and the notion that the DM is the ultimate arbiter does NOT mean that he feels free to ignore his players. It means push comes to shove, he will make the decision.

Some DMs can do this reasonably and others are jerks about it, but the approach is not inherently unreasonable. It does not smack of hubris (the Divine Right of Kings Example ignores that presidents, Judges, and a variety of people assert coercive authority without claiming such power), nor does necessarily entail dissmissal of the players.

I understand you have a different approach, that you rely on consensus, and that you have had success with it. This is great, and I don't know about the others, but I respect that. What I object to personally (and yes I realize I am a newbie here, so for what it's worth) is the assertion that those who do not employ your approach are behaving as willful tyrants.

Quote from: PseudoephedrineI'm not saying that either, though. I'm saying that whatever authority the DM has, he has only by virtue of the other players consenting to give it to him. I then went beyond that and said two further things:

1) I, as a player, do not consent to the DM having the authority to ignore reasonable arguments made by the other players.

2) I do not play with people who pretend as if I have given them that consent, and I call them bad names to indicate that I am displeased with their presumption.

I am not disagreeing with either the words you put down, nor the intent behind them.  I will suggest that if that is as far as you mean to take it, then you really should work on your communications skills because you present a much stronger stance farther out than you apparently intend... and this isn't the first time I've seen you do it.

Quote from: SpikeI am not disagreeing with either the words you put down, nor the intent behind them.  I will suggest that if that is as far as you mean to take it, then you really should work on your communications skills because you present a much stronger stance farther out than you apparently intend... and this isn't the first time I've seen you do it.

I say exactly what I mean. People read much into my posts that isn't there. I'm not sympathetic to their misreading.

Quote from: PseudoephedrineI say exactly what I mean. People read much into my posts that isn't there. I'm not sympathetic to their misreading.

Obviously you are welcome to that position. However, you should know that there are several parts to communication. The three key parts we are talking about, however, are these

the communcator
The message
the reciever.

You are obviously covered on the first two, however, without consideration for the third you are not, in fact, engaged in communication.  You might as well be talking to yourself.

And I know you might suspect I'm talking out of my ass, or stating the obvious; I am not. Those three parts are taught in communications and leadership classes. Insamuch as communications is a science they are as fundamental as Newtons laws of physics.

Quote from: SeanchaiI basically follow that philosophy and the "wacky" games I've been playing include D&D, Vampire and Chill...

Seanchai

Sorry, I quoted the wrong post. :deflated:  I was referring to the games where he stands up and calls people cunts if they play differently than he does.

-O

Quote from: SpikeObviously you are welcome to that position. However, you should know that there are several parts to communication. The three key parts we are talking about, however, are these

the communcator
The message
the reciever.

You are obviously covered on the first two, however, without consideration for the third you are not, in fact, engaged in communication.  You might as well be talking to yourself.

And I know you might suspect I'm talking out of my ass, or stating the obvious; I am not. Those three parts are taught in communications and leadership classes. Insamuch as communications is a science they are as fundamental as Newtons laws of physics.

I acknowledge that those are parts of communication. That is why I always post additional material clarifying my position. However, I have little patience for people who are not careful reader and who do not speak carefully. I try to be one myself, and I think it is better to be one than not. I am only willing to concede so much to the audience.