Quote from: Bill;625883And when a gm ha senemies move directly toward pc's suicidally when the npc would, by any common sense, flee.

Genre has a impact here. If a group of bandits attack Conan, do you really expect him to be unable to kill them all because they fled?

It's very common for the bad guys in action adventure movie or book to be rather suicidal. It's how the Hero is shown to be mighty, and provides a clean end to the action scene before moving on with the plot.



Personally I use a mix of reactions depending upon the NPCs. But it should be noted that a withdraw in Age of Heroes is very difficult to pull off without covering fire or a terrain advantage to assist. As in real life- most deaths come during a retreat...

Quote from: The Traveller;625882You can't be a referee if you're also participating.

For this incorrect belief and together with other errors you've displayed in previous posts,  I consider you to be practicing a different hobby only somewhat related to mine. One that I have no interest in other than avoiding it.

Quote from: The Traveller;625882...so now "an Author creating an engaging play experience" has been added to the "simple" list.

It was already listed in a previous post of mine.

Quote from: Kiero;625874The GM is not a referee in any standard definition of the role. By dint of participating they fail to be a neutral, non-participating ajudicator.

When it comes time to make a decision about implementing the rules, interpreting the role of the dice, or making ruling for something not covered by the rules, then yes, I am a neutral adjudicator. I'm neither partisan for the npcs nor the pcs.

At other times I'm both the player characters' ruthless antagonist as well as their biggest fan and cheerleader, but at the crux moves, I step back and view the action as a third party.

Refereeing a roleplaying game requires wearing multiple hats, including the one that makes me look like a penis.

Quote from: gleichman;625894For this incorrect belief and together with other errors you've displayed in previous posts,  I consider you to be practicing a different hobby only somewhat related to mine. One that I have no interest in other than avoiding it.

That's a pity, I found your objection to be thought provoking if minimalist.

Quote from: gleichman;625894It was already listed in a previous post of mine.

No, you posted "with a bias towards player success". No more and no less, to use your own hardline stance. There was no mention of "creating an engaging play experience", that's a whole other kettle of fish.

You really seem to be coming at this from a mechanics-heavy angle when you aren't tripping up your own argument with engaging play experiences, which is perfectly valid as far as it goes, it's just not the whole picture by a long shot.

Quote from: The Traveller;625902No, you posted "with a bias towards player success".

Please see post #66 in this thread and note that it comes before post #73 where you claim I suddenly added the term Author.

Quote from: Kiero;625874The GM is not a referee in any standard definition of the role. By dint of participating they fail to be a neutral, non-participating ajudicator. You don't see the ref in football picking up the ball and moving it to where they'd prefer play to be taking place.

Oh good god, here is the dictionary definition of referee from the Oxford English Dictionary.

1 an official who watches a game or match closely to ensure that the rules are adhered to and (in some sports) to arbitrate on matters arising from the play: the referee sent off two French players

Note the arbitrate on matters arising from play which is why miniature wargamers and early roleplaying used referee until it was later changed to Dungeon Master/Gamemaster.

Quote from: estar;625906Oh good god, here is the dictionary definition of referee from the Oxford English Dictionary.

1 an official who watches a game or match closely to ensure that the rules are adhered to and (in some sports) to arbitrate on matters arising from the play: the referee sent off two French players

Note the arbitrate on matters arising from play which is why miniature wargamers and early roleplaying used referee until it was later changed to Dungeon Master/Gamemaster.

Note the even earlier stress "watches a game or match" - they don't play, which is what GM does. A GM is not an observer, they are a participant, a very active one without which a game is often not possible. Whereas you can play a game of football without a referee, quite easily. Because they are an adjunct to the game, not a component of it.

As to what mini games or early roleplaying did, frankly I couldn't give a toss. Just because in the past they used a term wrongly doesn't make it valid. This is, after all, the era that produced retarded shit like The Caller.

Quote from: gleichman;625905Please see post #66 in this thread and note that it comes before post #73 where you claim I suddenly added the term Author.

I didn't claim you added the term author.

I claimed correctly that you expanded the role of the GM, which seems to happen a lot in your definitions, to include "creating an engaging play experience", which is not on your simple list and doesn't have anything in common with the items on said list.

Unless you meant "player success" as including less tangible goals like satisfaction and engagement, which while being the most charitable stretch of your comment possible, does in fact bring us to how and in what way the GM's role facilitates this success, raising a whole host of questions which this thread attempts to answer.

As I said we aren't really at odds, at least as far as I'm concerned.

Again, to describe the GM as a referee is misleading. The GM does use refereeing skills sometimes but it doesn't encompass the entire role by a long shot. And I'm trying to encompass the entire role.

Quote from: The Traveller;625910I didn't claim you added the term author.

I claimed correctly that you expanded the role of the GM, which seems to happen a lot in your definitions, to include "creating an engaging play experience",

I'm concise and don't detail things that should be obvious. In this case, "creating an engaging play experience" is part of the Author role.

Why?

Because good Authors create engaging works. Bad ones don't.

Quote from: The Traveller;625882You can't be a referee if you're also participating. You can be something similar to a referee some of the time, use some of the skills of a referee, but you aren't a referee.

As much I disagree with Gliechman on many points, I agree with him on this issue. A gamemaster is a referee in every sense of the word and needs to act fair and impartial in accordance to how the adventure, NPC and setting are defined. The referee doesn't have the free choice the players have during the session. Any decision or actions he makes has to backed up by something he created beforehand or a reasonable consequence of what the players did. Or he is not being fair.

One area Gliechman and I disagree that he views refereeing roleplaying as deterministic as judging whether a sword hit or not.

My view is that there always a limited set of probable consequences arising out of the player's roleplaying of their characters. That the referee should not always pick the one he views as most probable but the one that leads to more opportunities for adventures.

Quote from: gleichman;625911I'm concise and don't detail things that should be obvious. In this case, "creating an engaging play experience" is part of the Author role.

Why?

Because good Authors create engaging works. Bad ones don't.

You added a fresh and completely different role to the position of GM which wasn't on your simple list. And if we keep picking at the loose threads I'm fairly sure more will tumble out.

This is a problem with the hobby, the assumption that if you sit someone down with a rulebook and some dice they'll get everything a GM is meant to be by intuition. That doesn't work and leads to bad games.

Some people think a GM has absolute power and can do what they like, some people think the GM can arbitrarily change rules without consulting the group, some people take the term "Master" far too literally. This can hurt much of the fun of gaming, in my opinion, since it doesn't represent an optimal arrangement, or indeed reality.

Quote from: estar;625912As much I disagree with Gliechman on many points, I agree with him on this issue. A gamemaster is a referee in every sense of the word and needs to act fair and impartial in accordance to how the adventure, NPC and setting are defined.

It appears you disagree with Gleichman again so, since one of his simple rules includes a bias towards PC success ("The GM must create the Setting and NPCs (Author) with a bias towards player success"). A referee can be many things, but biased isn't usually among them.

I do get what you're saying and I do agree to an extent, just what you're saying doesn't encompass the entire role of the GM.

Quote from: estar;625912My view is that there always a limited set of probable consequences arising out of the player's roleplaying of their characters. That the referee should not always pick the one he views as most probable but the one that leads to more opportunities for adventures.

Yes, and this is bringing the awesome.

Quote from: estar;625912One area Gliechman and I disagree that he views refereeing roleplaying as deterministic as judging whether a sword hit or not.

My view is that there always a limited set of probable consequences arising out of the player's roleplaying of their characters. That the referee should not always pick the one he views as most probable but the one that leads to more opportunities for adventures.

There's a bit of mistake in the view of my style. An understandable one I think given how narrow online debates get.


Yes- I'm quite hardcore during combat and other objective resolution sections of a game. What happens happens, the rules and dice are law. For that reason, I select rules that produce acceptable results in an acceptable way such that there is never a need to override or change them in play.

Outside those events (say, perhaps the other 50% of the game), there are no rules to apply (as they don't exist or I've removed them). So NPC reactions, role-playing, decision making and other such things are fully within my own judgement.

Here I consider a number of factors- genre, realism, personality, and many other odds and ends.

The concept of "more opportunities for adventures" is IMO covered by genre, and yes it has an influence in my games. But not during Combat.

Quote from: The Traveller;625914You added a fresh and completely different role to the position of GM which wasn't on your simple list.

No.

I didn't detail all what all was contained in each of the simple list item- nothing more. it wasn't relevant to the point I was making. I also wasn't interested in doing so, and I am not interested in doing so now.

Quote from: The Traveller;625918It appears you disagree with Gleichman again so, since one of his simple rules includes a bias towards PC success ("The GM must create the Setting and NPCs (Author) with a bias towards player success"). A referee can be many things, but biased isn't usually among them.

Sigh.

When a GM is acting as Author, he is not acting a Referee. If he does, he is a bad GM.

When he's acting as Referee, he is not acting as Author. If he does, he is a bad GM.