Quote from: RPGPundit;623923System-mongling, at best, creates mediocre GMs, GMs who rely on system/rules as a substitute for personal confidence, game-management and group-management skills.  

And worse yet, systems that essentially demand that the rules take precedent over GM authority end up hobbling potentially-great GMs by reducing them to mediocrity.  System is, at best, an equalizing force; and those particular game philosophies that insist on removing the tyranny of the GM in favor of the tyranny of the system tend to produce that very special kind of equalizing force in the same style as, say, a soviet bureaucracy.

RPGPundit

I think you may misunderstand the reason that this type of system arose.  It came about because of sponsored play (e.g. Living Greyhawk) where it was needed to make it possible to shift between tables and have the same rules apply.  It was open to anyone so the informal enforcement that I see with FlailSnails (i.e. don't misbehave) don't really work.

It made sense in that context and many people seen to have really enjoyed that type of play (I don't but I warm up to people slowly).  

It is, admittedly, a bad idea to import it to a game with a GM and a group of friends.  The rules can easily get in the way of the GMs vision.  In that case, the metric is "is everyone having fun" and there is more freedom to "paint outside the lines".  

But great art can be done with constraints (think of Haikus).  It can also be free and boundless.  Both are valid ways to approach things.

Quote from: RPGPundit;623923System-mongling, at best, creates mediocre GMs, GMs who rely on system/rules as a substitute for personal confidence, game-management and group-management skills.  

Or, reliance on GM's rather than on the rules creates extremely poor GM's that think they can make shit up as they go along, handwaving all player refutations that the rules make things possible, instead believing that somehow they are the final word on how the system does or does not work.

Bullshit.

Quote from: RPGPundit;623923And worse yet, systems that essentially demand that the rules take precedent over GM authority end up hobbling potentially-great GMs by reducing them to mediocrity.  System is, at best, an equalizing force; and those particular game philosophies that insist on removing the tyranny of the GM in favor of the tyranny of the system tend to produce that very special kind of equalizing force in the same style as, say, a soviet bureaucracy.

I find that to be utter horseshit.

As a GM, I think I'm better than average.  Part of that is because I enforce the rules, not bullshit fiat.

System is the equalizer, yes.  It has to be consistent, and the players MUST be allowed to use the rules as they are presented in the manuals.

The soviet allegory is piss-stained as well.

Granted, it might work better if your players don't know the rules and you only have one manual.  

Provided, of course that the GM doesn't know the rules either.

Any GM in my club who espoused this nonsense would quickly find themselves voted off the island for a GM who knows his game and uses the rules to adjudicate actions, rather than NOT know how the system deals with certain actions and just making stuff up on the cuff.  That said, my club has already voted such GM's off, so we don't have that problem.

The GM has much better things to do.

Making shit up on the fly constantly is basically verbal masterbation in large groups...

Quote from: Soylent Green;623932Great GMs can get away with any sort of rubbish system, it's not much of an issue.

But by definition most GMs are ordinary, which is just another word for mediocre. I see nothing wrong if a system tries to help us ordinary GMs get by.

Clearly this only means there should be fewer GMs.

With rules, a lot of people mistake "comprehensive" for "good".
 
Also, the first rule of Rifts is that we're not really using the rules for Rifts.

Many game systems are full of unbalanced options, poorly worded rules, and other things which can impact the fun and enjoyment of players.  In many cases, communication between players and DM Fiat are often needed.

A unified ruleset is good to have, for it provides a common means of understanding for everybody.  If the DM needs to use Fiat too many times, or needs to do it to fix big flaws in a system, then there's a problem.

However, the DM is a human, and subject to the follies of poor judgment and personal biases.  I know I've been subject to this a few times, but I try to learn from my mistakes and rectify problems.

An ideal solution, to me, is not to take a "DM is always right" or a "trust the system" idea, but to have an open-door policy towards the problems players might have.  If I don't understand a rule, I'll ask a player for help in interpretation.

If a player disagrees with my interpretation of the rules, or with another player, I'll hear their cases and make judgments based upon circumstances.  If nobody can make sense of the rule, or if the rule is so bad that it's going to make the game a chore, I'll rule in the way most favorable to group enjoyment.

I rarely do this, but this is how I would do things if the rule problem is particularly prominent.  If the rule is minor and/or inconsequential ("how much does a jar of olives cost?") I'll just Fiat it.

"Trust the system" can often effectively mean "Just get on with the game."

Whatever "the system" is, and whatever its origin, if it has earned our trust then it saves a lot of discussion over quotidian matters.

In my regular group, when the players say, "Hey, G.O.D., the ruling on this is already thus and so," whoever happens to be refereeing goes with it unless there's some really compelling reason to make an exception.

That's what stuff like "Roll x+y or higher to score a hit" is for: to avoid needing to reinvent the wheel all the time, so we can spend our time on more exciting things.

Quote from: flyingmice;623947Obviously, then, molding great GMs is not a game design goal for the designers...

-clash

Nor should it be, game designers should design games.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, we need a seperate document entirely, a 'GM's Bible', filled with the accumulated wisdom of near a half century of GMing. That what to do when players don't show up thread is a good example. It should have been done long before now.

Quote from: RPGPundit;623923System-mongling, at best, creates mediocre GMs, GMs who rely on system/rules as a substitute for personal confidence, game-management and group-management skills.  

And worse yet, systems that essentially demand that the rules take precedent over GM authority end up hobbling potentially-great GMs by reducing them to mediocrity.  System is, at best, an equalizing force; and those particular game philosophies that insist on removing the tyranny of the GM in favor of the tyranny of the system tend to produce that very special kind of equalizing force in the same style as, say, a soviet bureaucracy.

RPGPundit

I agree with what you say although I would use milder language. But I also feel that anyone with a jot of life experience and self-awareness will call bullshit on a system before they are hamstrung by it.

It's not that "Trust the System" leads to poor GMs, or even that "don't Trust the System" when written in a book leads to good GMs (or good people). It's more that people with independent thoughts never automatically trust any system.

If all of us were wiped off the face of the earth and only the "Trust the System" dogma remained I have faith that new people of character would come from the outside with the confidence to ask why should I trust your system.

I tend to look at rules as tools.

I can give someone a great hammer, and they can still be a shitty carpenter.

Conversely, even a great carpenter will get frustrated with shoddy tools.

And while I can use a hammer to get a screw in, it's better for me to use a screwdriver, since it's built for the job.

Quote from: estar;623926The human referee is THE feature that sets tabletop roleplaying apart from other forms of roleplaying games. What important for individual referees is to know there are a variety of techniques and tools to use. That they should to take the time to learn and consider which work the best for them given their abilities and interest.

This is a concept that just keeps getting overlooked.

Quote from: ggroy;623954If I wanted to play everything strictly by-the-book rules, then I wouldn't even bother with tabletop rpg games.

Agreed. I can always just go and play a MMORPG if I want limited choices and a lack of options.

Quote from: Spinachcat;623966It's not an issue for me because I drop the Old School DM bomb on the table regardless of what I am running. But I know that its a BIG issue for a great many GMs (based on how often it comes up on forums).

Just because something shows up often on forums does not necessarily mean it is a problem out in the Real World.

Quote from: Spinachcat;623966And you are right, rules lawyers aren't new.

No shit?

Quote from: Looter Guy;623989Making shit up on the fly constantly is basically verbal masterbation in large groups...

Depends on the imagination and talent of the GMs involved. To use a musical analogy, improvisation in Jazz is transcendental to the performance at its best and is merely interesting at its worst.

Quote from: Novastar;624056I tend to look at rules as tools.

I can give someone a great hammer, and they can still be a shitty carpenter.

Conversely, even a great carpenter will get frustrated with shoddy tools.

And while I can use a hammer to get a screw in, it's better for me to use a screwdriver, since it's built for the job.

I also agree with this.

Just to get my point across in a more succinct manner, quoted below is the Wikipedia definition of Improvisation in Jazz.

Quote from: Improvisation in JazzImportance of improvisation

While jazz is considered difficult to define, improvisation is consistently regarded as being one of its key elements. The centrality of improvisation in jazz is attributed to its presence in influential earlier forms of music: the early blues, a form of folk music which rose in part from work songs and field hollers of rural blacks. These were commonly structured around a repetitive call-and-response pattern, but early blues was also highly improvisational. Although European classical music has been said to be a composer's medium in which the performer is sometimes granted discretion over interpretation, ornamentation and accompaniment, the performer's primary goal is to play a composition as it was written. In contrast, jazz is often characterized as the product of group creativity, interaction, and collaboration, that places varying degrees of value on the contributions of composer (if there is one) and performers. Summarizing the difference, pianist Earl Hines in 1975 remarked that,

"When I was playing classical music I wouldn't dare get away from what I was reading. If you've noticed, all of the symphonic musicians, they have played some of those classical tunes for years but they wouldn't vary from one note — and every time they play they have to have the music. So that's why for some classical musicians, it's very difficult for them to try to learn how to play jazz."

In jazz, therefore, the skilled performer will interpret a tune in very individual ways, never playing the same composition exactly the same way twice. Depending upon the performer's mood and personal experience, interactions with other musicians, or even members of the audience, a jazz musician may alter melodies, harmonies or time signature at will. The importance of improvisation has led some critics to suggest that even Duke Ellington's music was not jazz, because it was arranged and orchestrated. On the other hand, the solo piano "transformative versions" of Ellington compositions by Earl Hines were described by Ben Ratliff, the New York Times jazz critic, as being "as good an example of the jazz process as anything out there".

The composition and the instruments are the rules of a particular game system. The GM is the Jazz musician in this case and may improvisationally expand upon those rules in adjucation to the extent of that GM's ability to make the same game played by many to be that GM's own unique game to be experienced. The rules are the starting point and define the game, the execution of those rules by the GM interacting with the Players are what defines the game experience.

The Jazz thing is not a good analogy, because GM'ing is NOTHING like playing music.

It doesn't matter if the DM is good at making things up, it's the fact that he IS making things up as he goes in the first place.  The DM is a REFEREE...and if there is no material to referee...what's he doing?  Telling a story.

In other words, if all he says all the right things to make everyone have fun and feel good, and just changes rules on the fly (most of the time in the favor of the players or his "Story" which the players must suffer through) it's like...well..

That sort of play is more easily likened some sort of circle jerk with one guy in the middle shouting about elves, rather than almost any sort of musical art.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;623991With rules, a lot of people mistake "comprehensive" for "good".
 
Also, the first rule of Rifts is that we're not really using the rules for Rifts.

The Rifts that can be perceived is not the true Rifts.

Quote from: CRKrueger;624075The Rifts that can be perceived is not the true Rifts.

Hehe, yep.