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Trusting Systems vs trusting GM Judgement


Warp9

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Re: Trusting Systems vs trusting GM Judgement

 

I think' date=' since it's clear Warp9 himself prefers a rules-heavy approach to gaming, that he's trying to push us all the way into the "rules lite" camp to make some kind of point. What that point might be escapes me, unless he's trying to make us look like some kind of wild-eyed-gaming-anarchist-radicals so his preferred rules-heavy "statist" approach looks more reasonable. :D[/quote']

 

Just call me the Patrick Henry of Hero! :D

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Re: Trusting Systems vs trusting GM Judgement

 

I suspect here that Warp9 is trying to understand what function a rules heavy system serves for those who don't, to him, seem to be getting the benefit he sees it as primarily serving. Trebuchet seems to answer that for his personal choice above.

 

Me, I sit in a place where my opinion is that even the best GMs exhibit lacks of good judgment from time to time, and sometimes very well intentioned ones exhibit it with some frequency. Having a rules system that doesn't require more GM input than is strictly needed is a virtue because it minimizes the amount of times these sorts of lapses can surface.

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Re: Trusting Systems vs trusting GM Judgement

 

I hesitate to put words in Warp9's mouth, so please correct me if I'm way off base, but it may be that since he comes from a very competitive background (as he mentioned in the other thread), he's trying to find a way to make sure the rules don't grant an advantage to one player over another.

 

The guy with the rapier and the guy with the battle axe pay the same points for their 1d6+1 attacks; why should the guy with the battle axe get a (major?) mechanical advantage for his points (that is, the ability to chop down doors)?

 

Personally, I side with Vondy and Trebuchet on this issue. But I can see where the other side's argument is coming from. At least, I think I can. :doi:

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Re: Trusting Systems vs trusting GM Judgement

 

Username: got tired of VD jokes.

 

 

I used to have a supervisor named Van Deusen. His nickname was "V-D". I can see where not everyone would like to be called that, however.

 

About the rest of the post: I really appreciate the excerpt from The God Particle. I tried to rep Vondy but I must spread it around before I can. Would someone be so kind as to smite him with the Rep stick for me?

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Re: Trusting Systems vs trusting GM Judgement

 

Because With Mechanics, No One Can Hear You Scream.

 

I find the assumption that effects based definition serves the game-master who wishes to push an agenda, but mechanics do not... interesting. Some of the worst game-masters I've ever met have been power-gaming, rules-lawyering, dinks who loved crunchy systems and were more interested in the letter of the law than its intent, or the quality of anyone else's play-experience.

 

An illustrative example:

Rianna and Collette have just rifled through the Queen's bed-chamber in the North Tower and found evidence that she and her secret lover, the foreign born grandmaster fencer and gamemaster's eponymous alter ego Henri Du Yutz, are betraying the Crown. The emerge from the Queen's bed-chamber to find the nefarious Du Yutz coming up the steps. He sees them and engages in a lengthy, blow-hard, uninspired villianous monologue.

 

The players know that without their group's heavy combatants on hand they are done for. They rush back into the room and slam the three inch thick iron bound door and bolt it. There is a balcony overlooking a garden with a door out of the castle. There is no way a man with a rapier can hack through that door, and Du Yutz will not want to alert the guard because they would have a chance to reveal their evidence. He will have to go get an ax or something. Even then, hacking around the lock will take several minutes (or more).

 

Or, at least, that was what simple logic told them would happen. But sadly, the players did not count on having an idiot with an agenda for a game-master. They announce that they are turning the bed linens into a makeshift rope. The Gm ignores them and announces "Phase 12."

 

"What?!" Yell the stunned players amazed that the game-master is a dim-wit who does has thrown common sense and logic to the wind. The door is cleaved in two and Du Yutz steps through. He says...

 

The players interrupt: "There is no way a rapier could have cut that door down."

 

"Sure it could," idiot GM counters with maniac glee. "It says right here his offensive strike does 3d6 killing damamge and he haymakered for 4d6+1. His body roll was..."

 

We fade to black. Whether it is to cover the red demise of Rianna and Collette, or the game-master, I leave to your vivid imaginations.

 

The point being: mechanics offer no more or less safety than effects based definition. They can also be abused or used to drive a personal agenda. A bad GM is a bad GM no matter what mechanics are in place. A good GM is a good GM whether you have a robust or minimal rules-set.

 

The key to hero is that it has a sweet spot where mechanics and effects balance one another as an internal logic check and serve the good GM in his desire to be a fair, group oriented arbiter of results rather than hinders him, and negates the need for adding mechanics to an already robust system and rendering it cumbersome.

 

For the bad GM, nothing can help him - or you if he has an agenda. Not mechanics, not effects based definition, not good faith ('cause he aint got any, jack!). And I ask, if you don't have a group and GM who can operate on good faith: why are you gaming with them?

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Re: Trusting Systems vs trusting GM Judgement

 

 

I think you're confusing "mechanics are the perfect solution" with "mechanics help". Mechanics doesn't prevent someone who's actively malign from being so, and they don't perfectly prevent one from screwing up, but they _do_ restrain the latter, and significantly, for a very simple reason: everyone knows what they are. In your example, a set of players who knows their GM is prone to fits of dimness simply _assumes_ he won't use good sense, but will operate by the letter of the rules; if he does use good sense they're fine, if he doesn't they aren't suprised and can account for the problem.

 

On the other hand, in a rules light system, they essentially have little grounding for any specific expectations, and the lighter the rules the more this is true. By its nature it throws more and more on the judgement of GMs, and to be really blunt, nothing in my career in the hobby tells me that on the whole that's a good thing. It can produce good results under ideal circumstances, but I tend not to assume ideal circumstances.

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Re: Trusting Systems vs trusting GM Judgement

 

I think you're confusing "mechanics are the perfect solution" with "mechanics help". Mechanics doesn't prevent someone who's actively malign from being so' date=' and they don't perfectly prevent one from screwing up, but they _do_ restrain the latter, and significantly, for a very simple reason: everyone knows what they are. [/quote']

 

This isn't an accurate read of what I'm saying, or what I think. If you haven't read the mechanics vs. effects thread you need to do that. This thread is a continuation of that discussion and really shouldn't exist. It puts most of what's being said here in perspective.

 

 

In your example' date=' a set of players who knows their GM is prone to fits of dimness simply _assumes_ he won't use good sense, but will operate by the letter of the rules; if he does use good sense they're fine, if he doesn't they aren't suprised and can account for the problem.[/quote']

 

That has nothing to do with the example I gave, but your comment is interesting.

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Re: Trusting Systems vs trusting GM Judgement

 

This isn't an accurate read of what I'm saying, or what I think. If you haven't read the mechanics vs. effects thread you need to do that. This thread is a continuation of that discussion and really shouldn't exist. It puts most of what's being said here in perspective.

 

 

Fair enough.

 

 

That has nothing to do with the example I gave, but your comment is interesting.

 

 

 

Well, it sort of did because your example was partly based on them assuming the GM would not use the rules in a straightforward (and simpleminded and dim) fashion; I was simply noting that with a detailed rules set, the simple solution there is to do just that as a default assumption, and then be pleased when he doesn't. At least at the point when the GM is simpleminded about it, you have the body of the rules to use as an argument point if you need one to get what you want done.

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Re: Trusting Systems vs trusting GM Judgement

 

 

Well, it sort of did because your example was partly based on them assuming the GM would not use the rules in a straightforward (and simpleminded and dim) fashion; I was simply noting that with a detailed rules set, the simple solution there is to do just that as a default assumption, and then be pleased when he doesn't. At least at the point when the GM is simpleminded about it, you have the body of the rules to use as an argument point if you need one to get what you want done.

 

The point of the example was that the mechanics do not provide a prophylactic against abusive, moronic, asinine game-masters. It was implied pretty strongly that one of W9's reasons for wanting more mechanics was that he had bad game-master's in the past [i think we all have]. The mechanics in of themselves can help a good game-master be better, but can't save you from bad faith - or a complete lack of shiqul daat (common sense). And in both cases, fire said game-master.

 

As for effects based definition, I think it also helps a game-master, and more importantly, it adds a separate internal metric for checking your judgement against. In hero you have a double check: 1) does it make mechanical sense, and 2) does it make conceptual sense. This is the unique aspect of hero - beyond extensive character definition - that keeps me with it. It makes the system dynamic and gives it an internal logic that entirely mechanical, or entirely judgement driven, games lack. And its mechanics are not too heavy and not too light because of it.

 

I think hero would lose big if we removed effects based definition (as was strongly implied in the other thread) and went with a trust no one model. And again, I think the overaching principle of this hobby is good faith. Yes, game-masters make mistakes, but you can't ride with training wheels your whole life, and by and large, that's the role of communication. This is a social hobby. Its not all dice and calculations. People have to talk and decide among themselves what worked, what didn't, and what should happen in the future.

 

And they have to forgive the occasional honest mistake and not act like sullen, froward, resentful paranoids.

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Re: Trusting Systems vs trusting GM Judgement

 

The point of the example was that the mechanics do not provide a prophylactic against abusive' date=' moronic, asinine game-masters. It was implied pretty strongly that one of W9's reasons for wanting more mechanics was that he had bad game-master's in the past [i think we all have']. The mechanics in of themselves can help a good game-master be better, but can't save you from bad faith - or a complete lack of shiqul daat (common sense). And in both cases, fire said game-master.

 

 

Ah, but I think they _can_ limit the impact of bad gamesmasters. That's because when it comes down to it, whatever dim thing a GM does with a sophisticated rules set, the players have some sense of the range of results (and in fact, some sense of how dim he can be while still staying within the rules). This doesn't prevent abuse of process of course, but since my view is that GMs who are simply being stubborn and not too smart are a far larger group than the actively malign, I think that's still pretty valuable.

 

I think hero would lose big if we removed effects based definition (as was strongly implied in the other thread) and went with a trust no one model. And again, I think the overaching principle of this hobby is good faith. Yes, game-masters make mistakes, but you can't ride with training wheels your whole life, and by and large, that's the role of communication. This is a social hobby. Its not all dice and calculations. People have to talk and decide among themselves what worked, what didn't, and what should happen in the future.

 

And they have to forgive the occasional honest mistake and not act like sullen, froward, resentful paranoids.

 

I think, however, as I've mentioned here, that there's a big difference between distrust of people's motives and of their judgment. Playing with someone who's motives you don't trust is simply masochistic for the most part. Playing with someone who's judgment you don't trust is, to me, a fact of life, because almost all GMs have bad judgment from time to time. I think playing in such a fashion that you reserve the right to limit the impact of the latter is neither unreasonable nor antisocial; its simply saying that errors are going to happen, and you can't assume the GM will always be the best person to fix them.

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Re: Trusting Systems vs trusting GM Judgement

 

I think playing in such a fashion that you reserve the right to limit the impact of the latter is neither unreasonable nor antisocial; its simply saying that errors are going to happen' date=' and you can't assume the GM will always be the best person to fix them.[/quote']What's your basis for that last statement? Who would be better to fix an error than the GM running the game?
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Re: Trusting Systems vs trusting GM Judgement

 

What's your basis for that last statement? Who would be better to fix an error than the GM running the game?

 

Sometimes the player group as a set. While typically better than an individual player (though not always), GMs are individual and as such prone to tunnel vision like everyone else. Its my personal opinion that virtually from its start, the RPG hobby has vested too much assumption of quasi-infallibility in GM judgement, when in fact, GMs are just about as often the source of problems as players are.

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Re: Trusting Systems vs trusting GM Judgement

 

Sometimes the player group as a set. While typically better than an individual player (though not always)' date=' GMs are individual and as such prone to tunnel vision like everyone else. Its my personal opinion that virtually from its start, the RPG hobby has vested too much assumption of quasi-infallibility in GM judgement, when in fact, GMs are just about as often the source of problems as players are.[/quote']In other words, the players are still the cause of more problems than GMs are. That being the case, I fail to see how cutting back the GM's authority leads to improvement of the game. The GM is the one who put the work into creating the scenario and/or campaign; he should by rights get more of the authority.

 

Players and GMs should constitute a team. Making them into adversaries is a guaranteed way to destroy a campaign. Making the printed rules into some kind of Bible to pummel one group or another into submission sounds like an even worse idea.

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Re: Trusting Systems vs trusting GM Judgement

 

Because I need a system with enough meat to base GM rulings on. There still has to be some logic to the GM overruling the rules. Most GM rulings are probably just common sense applied to situations the rules didn't anticipate.

 

I find the above statement confusing in light of the statement below.

 

I'm not going to allow a character with an ordinary rapier chop through a bank vault door regardless of extra damage generated from martial arts, Skill levels, or other factors such as Find Weakness.

 

 

(A) The above conclusion sounds like a ruling to me.

 

(B) I don't see how the system helped you come to the above conclusion. Even if you'd been running a rules lite game, you still know that a rapier can't hack through a vault door.

 

© It seems to me as if you don't need a great deal of "system meat" to base your rulings on.

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Re: Trusting Systems vs trusting GM Judgement

 

I find this tack you're taking disturbing. You started it with me and are now moving on to Treb. We like Hero. That is sufficient.

One can always ask "why." ;)

 

 

The fact that we also embrace effects based definition and good judgement makes it no less our system than anyone elses. Why should we "get by" with a rules light system? What point is there in this line of questioning?

I'm just curious why you really need a more "rules heavy" system.

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Re: Trusting Systems vs trusting GM Judgement

 

Yes.

 

He is ignoring effects based definition.

 

Effects based definition is written explicitly in the rules.

 

He is ignoring a basic premise of the system.

 

There is the letter of the law, and the intent of the law.

 

He's got one and not the other.

 

Nor much horse sense.

But there is nothing in the rules which tell us what impact that "effects based definition" should have.

 

I'm not going to argue that many people would believe a rapier should hack through a metal bound oak door. But what about a highly magical rapier, or what about a slightly heavier weapon? What does "horse sense" tell us then?

 

You say that the GM is breaking the rules if he allows a rapier to hack through a iron bound oak door, but is he breaking the rules if he allows a magical short sword to hack through such a door?

 

We know what the letter of the law says---but the intent of the law requires some quessing.

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Re: Trusting Systems vs trusting GM Judgement

 

What that point might be escapes me' date=' unless he's trying to make us look like some kind of wild-eyed-gaming-anarchist-radicals so his preferred rules-heavy "statist" approach looks more reasonable. :D[/quote']

OK, you've got me there. :D

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Re: Trusting Systems vs trusting GM Judgement

 

(A) The above conclusion sounds like a ruling to me.
So what's your point? Rulings are what GMs do.

 

(B) I don't see how the system helped you come to the above conclusion. Even if you'd been running a rules lite game, you still know that a rapier can't hack through a vault door.
Yes. That's why I didn't need rules, lite or heavy, to come to that conclusion. It's common sense.

 

© It seems to me as if you don't need a great deal of "system meat" to base your rulings on.
It seems to me as if you don't need a great deal of evidence to base a conclusion on. On the basis of one hypothetical example, you've analyzed my gamemastering style and decided what kind of game system I need? Hero provides the level of rules I need. No more, no less. You have no objective basis to make any other presumption about my GMing style or capabilities other than the fact I've run a single Champions campaign (with two spinoffs) for 15 years. Obviously my players have voted with their feet; including the ones who waited literally years for an opening.

 

Just because you feel incapable of playing in a roleplaying game without rules to hold your hand through every conceivable situation doesn't mean the rest of us suffer from the same shortcoming. All I can say is that if satisfying your desires is the path 6th Edition ultimately takes, our group will be sticking with 5ER. :no:

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Re: Trusting Systems vs trusting GM Judgement

 

I hesitate to put words in Warp9's mouth, so please correct me if I'm way off base, but it may be that since he comes from a very competitive background (as he mentioned in the other thread), he's trying to find a way to make sure the rules don't grant an advantage to one player over another.

 

The guy with the rapier and the guy with the battle axe pay the same points for their 1d6+1 attacks; why should the guy with the battle axe get a (major?) mechanical advantage for his points (that is, the ability to chop down doors)?

 

Personally, I side with Vondy and Trebuchet on this issue. But I can see where the other side's argument is coming from. At least, I think I can. :doi:

Yes, that is a BIG part of it. It seems pretty unfair to give major advantages to something which didn't cost any more points.

 

However, it's also an issue about where one would stop.

 

It may be obvious that a rapier wouldn't cut down the door, and an axe would, but there are plenty of other weapons in the world. If my rapier can't cut down the door, then I'm going to be upset if Pete's character is allowed to destroy a similar object with his weapon which is only slightly heavier.

 

It just seems as if this situation opens up a whole big can of worms.

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Re: Trusting Systems vs trusting GM Judgement

 

Because With Mechanics' date=' No One Can Hear You Scream.[/size']

 

I find the assumption that effects based definition serves the game-master who wishes to push an agenda, but mechanics do not... interesting. Some of the worst game-masters I've ever met have been power-gaming, rules-lawyering, dinks who loved crunchy systems and were more interested in the letter of the law than its intent, or the quality of anyone else's play-experience.

 

An illustrative example:

Rianna and Collette have just rifled through the Queen's bed-chamber in the North Tower and found evidence that she and her secret lover, the foreign born grandmaster fencer and gamemaster's eponymous alter ego Henri Du Yutz, are betraying the Crown. The emerge from the Queen's bed-chamber to find the nefarious Du Yutz coming up the steps. He sees them and engages in a lengthy, blow-hard, uninspired villianous monologue.

 

The players know that without their group's heavy combatants on hand they are done for. They rush back into the room and slam the three inch thick iron bound door and bolt it. There is a balcony overlooking a garden with a door out of the castle. There is no way a man with a rapier can hack through that door, and Du Yutz will not want to alert the guard because they would have a chance to reveal their evidence. He will have to go get an ax or something. Even then, hacking around the lock will take several minutes (or more).

 

Or, at least, that was what simple logic told them would happen. But sadly, the players did not count on having an idiot with an agenda for a game-master. They announce that they are turning the bed linens into a makeshift rope. The Gm ignores them and announces "Phase 12."

 

"What?!" Yell the stunned players amazed that the game-master is a dim-wit who does has thrown common sense and logic to the wind. The door is cleaved in two and Du Yutz steps through. He says...

 

The players interrupt: "There is no way a rapier could have cut that door down."

 

"Sure it could," idiot GM counters with maniac glee. "It says right here his offensive strike does 3d6 killing damamge and he haymakered for 4d6+1. His body roll was..."

 

We fade to black. Whether it is to cover the red demise of Rianna and Collette, or the game-master, I leave to your vivid imaginations.

 

The point being: mechanics offer no more or less safety than effects based definition. They can also be abused or used to drive a personal agenda. A bad GM is a bad GM no matter what mechanics are in place. A good GM is a good GM whether you have a robust or minimal rules-set.

 

The key to hero is that it has a sweet spot where mechanics and effects balance one another as an internal logic check and serve the good GM in his desire to be a fair, group oriented arbiter of results rather than hinders him, and negates the need for adding mechanics to an already robust system and rendering it cumbersome.

 

For the bad GM, nothing can help him - or you if he has an agenda. Not mechanics, not effects based definition, not good faith ('cause he aint got any, jack!). And I ask, if you don't have a group and GM who can operate on good faith: why are you gaming with them?

 

If the GM is basing things on his own judgement, and I disagree with him there is not much I can do.

 

But if he is following the rules then it is at least possible that the rules can be used as a defense.

 

Here is a quote from over at RPG.net (from a thread called "Who is playing rules-lite and why?")

 

http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=189176&page=2

 

The third reason is that' date=' in reducing the amount of rules present, you also effectively reduce the arsenal a rules lawyer may have for disrupting a game. Give the rules lawyer less of a leg to stand on, and you (as a GM) get more leverage on them and keep the game going.[/quote']

 

As a game disrupting rules lawyer, I think that pretty much says it all. ;)

 

As I've mentioned previously I had one of my very best role playing experiences in spite of the GM. So, yes, I know first hand that sometimes a rule heavy system can be a gamer's friend.

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Re: Trusting Systems vs trusting GM Judgement

 

I think you're confusing "mechanics are the perfect solution" with "mechanics help". Mechanics doesn't prevent someone who's actively malign from being so, and they don't perfectly prevent one from screwing up, but they _do_ restrain the latter, and significantly, for a very simple reason: everyone knows what they are. In your example, a set of players who knows their GM is prone to fits of dimness simply _assumes_ he won't use good sense, but will operate by the letter of the rules; if he does use good sense they're fine, if he doesn't they aren't suprised and can account for the problem.

 

On the other hand, in a rules light system, they essentially have little grounding for any specific expectations, and the lighter the rules the more this is true. By its nature it throws more and more on the judgement of GMs, and to be really blunt, nothing in my career in the hobby tells me that on the whole that's a good thing. It can produce good results under ideal circumstances, but I tend not to assume ideal circumstances.

 

Exactly. There seems to be an idea that there are GMs with good judgement vs GMs with bad judgement.

 

My experience is that nobody is perfect.

 

If I know what the rules are, then I don't get any surprises.

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Re: Trusting Systems vs trusting GM Judgement

 

It seems to me as if you don't need a great deal of evidence to base a conclusion on. On the basis of one hypothetical example' date=' you've analyzed my gamemastering style and decided what kind of game system I need? Hero provides the level of rules I need. No more, no less. You have no objective basis to make any other presumption about my GMing style or capabilities other than the fact I've run a single Champions campaign (with two spinoffs) for 15 years.[/quote']

Actually I'm just assuming that if other GMs can make their calls using a rules lite system, then so can you.

 

I have faith in you! :)

 

How can you disagree with that? :P

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Re: Trusting Systems vs trusting GM Judgement

 

Actually I'm just assuming that if other GMs can make their calls using a rules lite system, then so can you.

 

I have faith in you! :)

 

How can you disagree with that? :P

Because I don't want to use a "rules lite" system. Not only do I like Hero a great deal just as it is, but I also have co-GMs who have differing levels of comfort with the level of provided rules. I concede I could probably run with a lighter rules system, but why switch systems when this one works quite well, I have decades of experience with it, and I also have to take my co-GMs own preferences into account (as well as that of my players who are not GMs)?
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