Quote from: David R;292224This is about the Pundit's contention that players should fear the GM and not the GM should fear the players.

Which goes to an earlier point of, if you fear the people you are gaming with, then why bother playing?

Exactly jeff. The commonality IME between all "functional groups" is that everyone is there of their own free will playing the kind of games which are fun for them. How exactly they play varies from group to group and indeed may not seem very fun to outsiders.

Regards,
David R

Quote from: jeff37923;292232Which goes to an earlier point of, if you fear the people you are gaming with, then why bother playing?

I don't think my players fear me, nor do I fear them.

But that's Forge thinking for you: "We can't give the GM power because he'll hurt us! So we have to have power over him and hurt him first!!"

The only reason to want to take away power from the GM is because you fear him.  So which of us is really afraid here, David?

RPGPundit

Tools know no fear.

The player empowerment movement has three sources:

* The casuals dropped out of RPGs and left only the hardcores. It used to be that hardcores were GMs, and the casuals were players. The GMs had gaming systems and setting material to make them happy, and the players showed up and rolled some dice. The GM was the keeper, judge, and interpreter of the rules. Once the casuals dropped out of D&D, the hobby became dominated by hardcore players, and publishers had to cater to the demand for complex, hard-coded, universal rules. GM discretion became a fly in the ointment.

* The need to keep publishing supplements meant more books aimed at players. Players didn't want to see the books they bought with hard-earned money overruled by GMs.

* The success of MtG revealed the enormous market for analytical min-maxing, an almost solitary hobby of cracking systems. D&D clearly went for this market - the guys who would spend lots of money to build the optimal character/deck - with 3E. This is also a tremendously popular style of boardgame - dubbed the 'multiplayer solitaire' game on Boardgamegeek. Simply put, there are millions of gaming geeks out there who like nothing better than to crack and optimize systems. The less interference from outside sources (luck, DMs, etc.), the better.

Quote from: RPGPundit;292269The only reason to want to take away power from the GM is because you fear him.

I disagree.   The forgie games I have tried seem based on player envy of GM power, not fear of its misuse.    They envy the narrative control of the GM and want that power over their characters.

I don't mind little narrative bumps like drama dice in 7th Sea, but more narrative control than that negates immersion for me and kills the air of mystery/fog of war that I enjoy as a player.

I think there has been an unfortuneate choice of words here.

I would speak of players respecting the referee's authority rather than fearing his power.

There's a slight difference.

Quote from: Haffrung;292285The player empowerment movement has three sources:

* The casuals dropped out of RPGs and left only the hardcores. It used to be that hardcores were GMs, and the casuals were players. The GMs had gaming systems and setting material to make them happy, and the players showed up and rolled some dice. The GM was the keeper, judge, and interpreter of the rules. Once the casuals dropped out of D&D, the hobby became dominated by hardcore players, and publishers had to cater to the demand for complex, hard-coded, universal rules. GM discretion became a fly in the ointment.

I'd quibble about this because I think a lot of the casuals got wrapped up in videogames as well. RPGs just became less cool socially than other forms of entertainment and never recovered their popularity from the 80's. I don't think that the hardcore players were being catered to by publishers that much, though.

Quote from: Haffrung;292285* The need to keep publishing supplements meant more books aimed at players. Players didn't want to see the books they bought with hard-earned money overruled by GMs.

* The success of MtG revealed the enormous market for analytical min-maxing, an almost solitary hobby of cracking systems. D&D clearly went for this market - the guys who would spend lots of money to build the optimal character/deck - with 3E. This is also a tremendously popular style of boardgame - dubbed the 'multiplayer solitaire' game on Boardgamegeek. Simply put, there are millions of gaming geeks out there who like nothing better than to crack and optimize systems. The less interference from outside sources (luck, DMs, etc.), the better.

I fully agree with both of these reasons.

Quote from: Spinachcat;292287I disagree.   The forgie games I have tried seem based on player envy of GM power, not fear of its misuse.    They envy the narrative control of the GM and want that power over their characters.

I've got a tough time buying that because the players have total control over their character's actions in a game unless the GM is being an asshole. Even then, if a player gets up and leaves the game, that player takes that power of the GM over their characters away with them.

Quote from: Spinachcat;292287I disagree.   The forgie games I have tried seem based on player envy of GM power, not fear of its misuse.    They envy the narrative control of the GM and want that power over their characters.

I don't mind little narrative bumps like drama dice in 7th Sea, but more narrative control than that negates immersion for me and kills the air of mystery/fog of war that I enjoy as a player.

Ok, you're right. Envy is as much a motive as fear.

RPGPundit

Quote from: jeff37923;292311I've got a tough time buying that because the players have total control over their character's actions in a game unless the GM is being an asshole. Even then, if a player gets up and leaves the game, that player takes that power of the GM over their characters away with them.

I assumed what he meant was that the players wanted narrative control over external events that happen to their players.
Its not enough for Forgie players to control their PC's actions, they also want to control what can happen as a RESULT of those actions, hence setting up bullshit like "stakes".
They also want control of events that happen to their characters interacting with their environment, hence bullshit like "say yes or roll the dice".

RPGPundit

Casual gamers, by definition, value convience highly.  Videogames scratch the itch of most casual gamers far more conveniently than tabletop RPGs due, purely due to the hassle of getting together to play.  Solo-friendly games, that you can start or stop on a whim, and aren't too demanding mentally--New Mom Friendly stuff--are the games that most casual gamers want.

Quote from: RPGPundit;292269The only reason to want to take away power from the GM is because you fear him.  So which of us is really afraid here, David?

I'm not the one hung up on the players using the rules to question the GM. I'm not the one who thinks of the GM as a benign dictator. I'm not the one who thinks that players are envious of the GM's "narrative" control. I'm not the one whose terrified of losing his socalled authority as a GM.

I am the one however, who thinks that each group determines how they play their games, how much influence their GM has and the groups fidelity to the rules.

Regards,
David R

Quote from: Haffrung;292285The player empowerment movement has three sources:

* The casuals dropped out of RPGs and left only the hardcores. It used to be that hardcores were GMs, and the casuals were players. The GMs had gaming systems and setting material to make them happy, and the players showed up and rolled some dice. The GM was the keeper, judge, and interpreter of the rules. Once the casuals dropped out of D&D, the hobby became dominated by hardcore players, and publishers had to cater to the demand for complex, hard-coded, universal rules. GM discretion became a fly in the ointment.

* The need to keep publishing supplements meant more books aimed at players. Players didn't want to see the books they bought with hard-earned money overruled by GMs.

* The success of MtG revealed the enormous market for analytical min-maxing, an almost solitary hobby of cracking systems. D&D clearly went for this market - the guys who would spend lots of money to build the optimal character/deck - with 3E. This is also a tremendously popular style of boardgame - dubbed the 'multiplayer solitaire' game on Boardgamegeek. Simply put, there are millions of gaming geeks out there who like nothing better than to crack and optimize systems. The less interference from outside sources (luck, DMs, etc.), the better.

This is a little contradictory.  The enormous success of Magic: The Gathering showed that even ordinary gamers had an interest in crunchy rules sets.  MtG players tended to be more casual in many senses than RPG players, though less so in others.  Note that hardcore players and crunchy rules among RPGs long predate MtG -- with Champions (1983) being a leading example of complex, hard-coded universal RPG rules.  

Also, when you speak about the "need" for supplements, it's a little deceptive.  There were plenty of efforts at more casual games that didn't have chains of supplements, like the many variations of Basic D&D along with Toon, Ghostbusters, and others.  However, they weren't big hits and the evolved wisdom was that you needed a chain of supplements to get a successful game.  

Also, I'd distinguish between the "player empowerment" of having a dependable rules system like Champions or D&D3, which is by now quite mainstream, with the "player empowerment" of story games that is still a niche within a niche.  There is some relation, but they are very distinct, I think.

First up, I don't know why this is two threads. It seems like needless duplication, or forum fluffing for the appearance of more content.

To the point: I think "rule over GM" comes - not that it's very strong, it's been way overstated by Pundit et al - from the same place that the multiple editions of games have come. It's the nature of all systems to make themselves larger and more complex.

The thing is that you begin with some rules, and find they don't cover everything, or contradict each-other or common sense, so the GM makes rulings. If the same ruling is made a few times, then it becomes a house rule. The idea bubbles around and appears in a supplement to the 1st edition of the game; the ruling has become a rule.

In addition, player imagination and munchkinism both mean that the GM needs to make rulings. It was common in AD&D, for example, for the GM to be pushed by their players to make up rules for firearms and explosives. Long before Unearted Arcana came out there were already PC barbarians and ninjas. So this player drive for more options and more power also drove the supplement and rules bloat.

Eventually all these supplements start to outweigh the original rules by a huge amount, and be full of contradictions of each-other. So then it's time for a 2nd edition which will condense and streamline all these things. Then the 2nd edition goes through the same cycle. This is why each edition has a bigger pagecount than the last.

The system becomes larger and more complex. It's expected to be relied on for more and more of the success of the game session. If the system has 48 pages then you expect a lot of rulings, and a lot of call on the GM to use their judgment. But if it's got 576 pages then you expect less rulings, and less need for GM judgment.

You start to dream of some sort of Platonic ideal of a game where the rules cover everything, and the GM doesn't have to decide anything at all. And it's not only players who dream of this, GMs dream of it, too. How nice not to have to figure anything out and deal with player arguments, how nice to just be able to look up the rule...

So the "rules over GM" thing doesn't need player distrust or anything like that. It can just come from the game system, like all systems, tending to make itself larger and more complicated over time.