Defining the role of the GM and the players, I want to continue this discussion here. Options

[thorya]

In D&D (3.5 obviously (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif) ) there are certain concise mechanics for stunning someone, for immobilizing someone, for inflicting other kinds of detrimental conditions, and for non-lethal damage. There is NO rule for knocking people out cold by hitting them on the back of the head. To do that, you have to hit them until they drop from the non-lethal.
Now STILL many people will want to do "knock-out-ninja"-moves on people, or knock out a person with one blow. And people might say that "it's necessary for the story". It's NOT. Change the story. The world doesn't work that way in D&D! There are classes that can make sure you can in fact do this, with class abilities. A rogue with a sap for instance can sneak-attack with non-lethal damage and hence knock people out. A barbarian might power-attack with non-lethal damage. And yes, sometimes in order to knock someone out you may have to bludgeon him repeatedly until he drops. However, that's not a bad story, it's just different from what's in the movies. Hence, it's GOOD STORYTELLING to do this the way the rules work. If a D&D GM at some point were to say: "Uh, while you are standing around someone comes up behind you and knocks you out", I would politely ask him how much non-lethal damage I got, or which condition he imposed on my character. And if I later meet that NPC and he says it's, let's say, a fighter, then I would ask what ability he used to inflict that much non-lethal in one hit. If he has an answer, fine. If not, then that's something that just won't fly, and I'll flat-out tell him that what he did doesn't work, and he shouldn't do it again.

So your problem is that you want to be a rules lawyer and you can't if a GM doesn't follow your rules? Do you ask for the character sheets of every NPC you encountered throughout the entire campaign and look at the average and standard deviation of their stats to make sure that the DM really did use the 3d6 method that the rules say a standard NPC has? Or that he at least used the nothing more than the elite stat block? Do you also expect a full accounting of the economics of the dark tower and where the evil warlord got the expertise and money to build 3 fireball traps when the ruins of the town only contained 20 goblins, so it should only be a small village and gp cost is too high for a small village to provide those traps? Do you want him to justify how the miners managed to make it through the rock with picks that cannot deal enough damage to overcome the rock's hardness? and then let the group vote on whether or not his explanation and house rule for that was plausible enough? and then make available to you a special 3d6 damage rock pick, because you can't accept that rules are be necessity abstractions?

I think you're being a bit ridiculous. Yeah, as a player it is wrong if a GM just arbitrarily said something I want to do does not work and the rules should usually be followed, but if a GM wants to say that a monster or villain does 5d6 nonlethal damage in an attack or that the Threshold to hack an ultra-high security node is 7, without having built entirely through the feat tree or scoured through Unwired to get the exact way that it works, that's fine. He or she is creating challenges and a good GM will create them at an appropriate level where they are difficult without being impossible. Obviously, the GM should not just say, "You fail, you lose, because I said so." and change things randomly, but I don't think anyone is actually expecting that from a halfway decent GM. I am fine with my GM saying, these guys do X damage, because that's how much they need to do for this to be exciting, even if the books says that they only carry X weapon which does not do that much damage.

I just quit a campaign that fit perfectly with your "ideal" way to play. I quit, because it was horrible. The GM laid out a world at the beginning, following all of the D&D 3.5 rules, and we all agreed on types of characters, races, the equipment that would be available. Then he laid out a 50 by 50 miles stretch of desert we were operating within and filled it with NPC's and PC's, he actually built entirely within the rules, buildings, monsters, treasures, etc. We spent hours rolling navigation checks, worrying about dehydration, moving through the desert, rolling for the chance of random encounters on the set schedule, talking to people that were little more than scenery, and never got anywhere or did anything fun. If the GM had been willing to just railroad us a little towards what was exciting within this desert world or towards a story, it would have probably been a great sandbox game. But he wouldn't because "He did not want to break the rules, because that would be cheating." There are times where the game is more important than the abstractions of a world that the rules represent and I prefer a GM that is willing to recognize that and act on it.

[suoq]

I'm not sure why blowing up a single building with available explosives would be an isse in a cthulhu module. It may be unexpected but I don't see why it needs to end the story.

[KarmaInferno]

A GM using fiat to be a dick has much less to do with the fiat part and more to do with the dick part.

A responsible GM using fiat only uses it for one reason: to make the game better for both him and the players.

A GM who does it to be petty or arbitrary is likely to do similar stuff even if he was in a situation where he cannot alter the rules.

I've met them, in that exact situation. At conventions, in "living" games where GMs are REQUIRED to go strictly by the book wth zero rulesbending or fiat. Dick GMs are stil dick GMs, even in that environment. I've even witnessed GMs bragging about how they scored a total party kill in this or that convention game. It has nothing to do with fiat.

That said, I did not say that "GM is God" is any better or worse than "Consensus Rules". The only "wrong" thing is claiming one particular play style is The One True Way, better than any other. There's no such thing. Only playstyles that suit certain groups better.

In any case, it should be made clear at the start what kind of campaign is being run.




-k

[Mayhem_2006]

Uh... ok, I'll concede that Cthulhu might need that. A game I... dislike, let's say it like this, because it doesn't didn't seem to ever mechanically capture what the character are supposed to be going through, while at the same time demanding I see things which I didn't.

Looks like you are once again suffering from the problem of having a bad GM, which is not a good basis for judging an entire game, and seems to be at the root of your need to feel equal at the table.

You have had bad GMs, you don't feel you can trust GMs, so you demand an equal say in all things and insist that this is the best way of doing things.

Others have had different experiences, and are willing to trust their GMs with the mechanics as well as the story.

***

As an aside...

Lol at the idea of a "combat character" in Cthulu. Most of the creatures need fighting with brain, not brawn, and often the best use for a gun in a Cthulu situation is to blow your own brains out before the monsters get you...

If I were the GM in that scenario, I'd have (obviously, really) had Luigi ask what you wanted the dynamite for, with any mention of monsters resulting in a rapid trip to the looney bin. "Hey, ya like a son to me, but you are clearly whacked in the head. These nice doctors will soon sort you out...". Being a member of The Family doesn't give you licence to request enough dynomite to take out a house no-questions-asked unless its a house the family specifically want taken out.

Or, if you had managed to obtain it, had you attacked whilst setting up the dynamite. 100 sticks don't carry themselves into the house in one go, or set themselves up.

Or, had the dynamite destroy the house but not the monster, which is totally fair play in a Cthulu scenario. I believe the intro for the Cthulu modern scourcebook had the answer to the question "What happens if we nuke cthulu?" as "He regenerates within 5 rounds, but now he's radioactive too."

[Midas]

I once had a player who seriously thought that his character, whom he had brought from a previous game-supposedly-could carry a full sized wood chipper up the side of a 72 story building. We were so flabbergasted, our first thought wasn't to argue the difficulties of an assisted climb lobbing a several hundred pound machine up the side of a building; but rather we asked what exactly does your Street Samurai need with a wood chipper? With a straight face he answered "How do you guys dispose of the bodies in your game?"

Like it! As an aside, I would become worried if said player had a wood chipper in his backyard IRL ...

[Ascalaphus]

I'm not sure why blowing up a single building with available explosives would be an issue in a cthulhu module. It may be unexpected but I don't see why it needs to end the story.

One CoC I played in, we were a racist aryan biker gang in Mexico, with enough heavy weapons to get away with it. So we stole the Evil Artifact ™ from the cultists because it was shiny, and it drove us all horribly insane. (Except my character. Quite sane, totally doped under valium all the time though...)

Another game, we were college students having fun with an antique spellbook, and ended up eaten by seagulls sent by an angry bird-god (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)



That aside, some of the lesser monsters can in fact be killed with weapons, and I think the attic monster may have been one of those. If it happened to me as a GM, I'd take a break to think about it, but it's not the end of the world. Actually, it might be the one success that convinces a PC that hunting all these monsters is possible, which is his first big mistake. Let's see him try to blow up the Color From Out Of Space - part of the horror is discovering that the weapons you trust in are useless (IMG:style_emoticons/default/devil.gif)

[Midas]

I must admit that I find myself on the side of Paul, suoq et al in this discussion.

The GM, with the trust and acceptance of the players, sets out the game world and makes it breathe. On most tables, should something come up in game that the rules don't cover, the players usually trust the GM to come up with a fair way to resolve the situation. As a GM, I am fine if a player suggests "How about we resolve it this way?" if it makes sense to me, and if it doesn't I am happy to explain (briefly) why I don't think it is such a good idea.

However, while I will take player input on board I will not be railroaded by them, even if the majority of them want things to be done in this or that way. This is not because I am some authoritarian dick, but because as I do not have a vested interest apart from Paul's Rule 0 (by vested interest I mean a PC), I am impartial.

In general, probably 99% of disagreement between GM and player is a result of a powergamer who wants an Insta-Win. You only have to look at some of the arguments on DS to see this. My players are fine with the way I GM, and they too would not welcome one at our table.

[Traul]

One CoC I played in, we were a racist aryan biker gang in Mexico, with enough heavy weapons to get away with it. So we stole the Evil Artifact ™ from the cultists because it was shiny, and it drove us all horribly insane. (Except my character. Quite sane, totally doped under valium all the time though...)

Yet another party who could not help going to the brothel in the ancient aztech temple...

Another game, we were college students having fun with an antique spellbook, and ended up eaten by seagulls sent by an angry bird-god (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

To cover all the bases, the group needs:
-a black,
-a nerd,
-a blonde with big boobs.

[Midas]

Well, it's "are the rules set it stone, and if not, who gets to change them?"

I say the group as a whole gets to do that.

I do think that good mechanics (if they exist) are there for a reason, and too much fudging or even flat-out ignoring them will detract from the fun, because now you have a world where stuff isn't fixed. Will the rock fall, or will it float on its own? Is there any way to predict that?

Which is why I think the rules are rules until the group decides to change them.

I just want to give you an example of rules implementations, and what I consider to be too much fudging (incidentally a topic I had to discuss with a player of mine):

In D&D (3.5 obviously (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif) ) there are certain concise mechanics for stunning someone, for immobilizing someone, for inflicting other kinds of detrimental conditions, and for non-lethal damage. There is NO rule for knocking people out cold by hitting them on the back of the head. To do that, you have to hit them until they drop from the non-lethal.
Now STILL many people will want to do "knock-out-ninja"-moves on people, or knock out a person with one blow. And people might say that "it's necessary for the story". It's NOT. Change the story. The world doesn't work that way in D&D! There are classes that can make sure you can in fact do this, with class abilities. A rogue with a sap for instance can sneak-attack with non-lethal damage and hence knock people out. A barbarian might power-attack with non-lethal damage. And yes, sometimes in order to knock someone out you may have to bludgeon him repeatedly until he drops. However, that's not a bad story, it's just different from what's in the movies. Hence, it's GOOD STORYTELLING to do this the way the rules work. If a D&D GM at some point were to say: "Uh, while you are standing around someone comes up behind you and knocks you out", I would politely ask him how much non-lethal damage I got, or which condition he imposed on my character. And if I later meet that NPC and he says it's, let's say, a fighter, then I would ask what ability he used to inflict that much non-lethal in one hit. If he has an answer, fine. If not, then that's something that just won't fly, and I'll flat-out tell him that what he did doesn't work, and he shouldn't do it again.

Another example:
In SR there are no wound effects beyond the DP mods. There is no bleeding to death without going into overflow first (unless some ability does that). So? That's how the world works. Shadowrun people don't bleed to death from merely a severe wound. Period. I can accept that fact and simply build my stories around things like that. If a GM went ahead and said "uh, you have 6 boxes of damage, what are you doing running around?", I would simply say "Perfectly true, I have six boxes, that means I stop running around when I have, let's say, 11 or 12 boxes". And that's it.
Shadowrun has a history of bad-ish mechanics: For instance, in SR3, a "commoner" couldn't recognise his mother as soon as he has to make a perception check. It was also pretty hard to shoot yourself in the head, because that was "blind fire" (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif) . And if you shot someone in the leg with a called shot, he would MORE probably die, because the damage code automatically went up one notch.

And if you want to have situations occur that don't incorporate those rules, then you have to change them first, because obviously they are part of the game world. I'm the first to agree that you should change them, but you actually have to do it, not just simply tell an occurance while forgetting that they exist. The GM can't just do that. It's poor scenario design and poor storytelling (for example for the table equivalent of a "cut scene").

On rule changes, like I said I am on the side that says the GM as the impartial ajudicator makes the rules with the trust, and sometimes the input of the players. To my mind interpretation of the rules, rulings for grey areas and house rules are the GM's job, not a group concensus but YMMV.

I won't go into mechanics of the Other Game, but my thoughts on knocking people out in SR are as follows:
a) A prone target who is "willing" can get knocked out by a single punch/weapon butt/flat of blade. This usually happens when security guards who have done their jobsworth by sounding the alarm surrender rather than take a sammie's one-shot one-kill lethal bullet to the brainpan (or whatever body part). This may be fudging in your book, but I don't want to penalize players timewise by making it faster to shoot prone security guards in the face than subdue them. In fact, on my table, a PC who shamelessly murders a surrendered goon will have a whole lot more heat decending on his/her arse because it's not biz and that dead NPC has friends and family, and the Star has a thing about cold-blooded murdering sociopaths ...
b) I would never Insta-knockout a PC, that would always be rolled; then again, I would also never let a PC Insta-knock out an NPC if they were not willing as in (a) above ...

As for wounded people running around willy-nilly in SR, your take is right game mechanics wise. At my table, I would play up the pain the PC feels in the narrative, but not penalize him/her mechanically more than the wound DP modifier.

As Ol'Scratch has pointed out, the book does suggest fudging things if that makes for a better story, and I am all for that sentiment. If that makes me a bad GM in your rulebook, c'est la vie ...

[Shortstraw]

Name the beast with a thousand bellies and no brain.

[Seriously Mike]

Name the beast with a thousand bellies and no brain.

Congress?

[Shortstraw]

Close it's a committee.

[ravensmuse]

I think that there's a lot of good discussion to be had here, but the problem is that people are using weird terms and putting emotional impact into words that doesn't need to be there.

To start with - Brain, I was going to suggest you looking into "GM-less" games - games where the players come up with the scenarios, roll them up, and play through - but it sounds like you're heavier on the crunch, lighter on the GM. Dunno if I can think of something to suggest to you for that, but I'm sure it's out there.

However, I think you need to start looking at gaming theory material. Hell, I think everyone does; I've been trying to improve my hand at being a GM lately, and I've found a wealth of knowledge. Go poking around The Forge and Story Games and start reading. Especially Story-Games.

Honestly, I think everyone could benefit from reading that forum.

What we're all talking about here is called the social contract; the (most of the time) unconscious agreement everyone at a table makes when they sit down to game. It's also starting to get heavily suggested that you pull it out of the unconscious and into the conscious - take the first session to sit down, discuss what your goals are with the game, what you want to do - have everyone at the table do the same - and then make characters designed around those goals and aims. You'd be surprised at how that eliminates a lot of future problems.

Now, I don't think I would want you anywhere near my table Brain, and despite that sounding like a dismissal, it isn't. I just don't think you'd have any fun at my table; I run by the, "eh, whatever," rule, which is, if it sounds cool / fun / interesting, run with it. You don't; I think you're going to call that GM Fiat and call it a day.

But it's what works at my table, and I have the complicit agreement of everyone playing at my table that that's how things are going to work. It's not going to be for everyone but it suits us fine.

What I take issue with, on the other hand, is your constant need to insert "it's obvious (from the position that I stand in) that this is the wisest, best way to run a game, and the rest of you are deluding yourselves," into the conversation. No, they're not.. They're running games with their players, with or without a conscious, thought-out and group determined social contract, and it's working for them. From your position, they're freaks; their social contract doesn't work like yours does. There's no "obviously better" involved.

(I would love to hear your gaming background Brain, no lie.)

I think that this is a very interesting discussion of playstyles, and I think it would serve us all best if we stopped and listened to each other and stopped being preachy, dismissive and defensive. There are very real issues at play here - player / GM power, social contracts, shared game experience, et al - that could really help people out here, new or old. Yelling at each other that we're having "badwrongfun" is going to get none of us anywhere, and neither is defending entrenched ideas and values.

Some Reading

The Big Model (discusses social contracts and their use in gaming)
GM-Less Gaming and Games
The Play Advice section of Story-Games. Poke around here; lots of good stuff.

(I'd add links to actual gaming theory, but it's time for work. Yay?)

[Brainpiercing7.6...]

In general, probably 99% of disagreement between GM and player is a result of a powergamer who wants an Insta-Win. You only have to look at some of the arguments on DS to see this. My players are fine with the way I GM, and they too would not welcome one at our table.

You see, it starts there. Define powergaming.

I've seen people here on these boards claim that getting 4IPs at chargen is powergaming. That's just so ridiculous that I can't even laugh about it. And if that guy starts GMing he will use his GM character veto right (which of course is in the book) to veto that character. When in fact it's mostly just a matter of opportunity cost which is usually too high at chargen.

On the other hand, a lot of characters I see people post on these boards are really extremely optimised, because the game itself probably demands that you do it to even have a chance at both competence and a bit of well-rounded-ness. A lot of those characters I would have no interest GMing for, because they seem so contrived, but I would still not veto them. I would rather give the players more points and tell them to min-max less.

Lol at the idea of a "combat character" in Cthulu. Most of the creatures need fighting with brain, not brawn, and often the best use for a gun in a Cthulu situation is to blow your own brains out before the monsters get you...

I got that idea, too, but hey, the character couldn't know that, right?

The main problem I had with Cthulu was that the entire set up of going insane seemed poorly set up, mechanically.

So your problem is that you want to be a rules lawyer and you can't if a GM doesn't follow your rules?

No, I'll give him any amount of leeway as long as I have the feeling he is generally following the rules. That does not mean he can't introduce new content. However, D&D is a system with a transparent library of abilities. Anything not available to player characters should have a focal function and be suitably packed in new fluff to explain the rarity. You can't just give it to a run-of-the-mill thug.
Of course, these things exist - I have primary bad guys who have abilities not covered in the books. However, of the PCs in my current campaign most have at least something they could homebrew, which makes them just as unique.

Also, suddenly changing things for plot events destroys the believability of the game world. I'll give you video games as an example: So often do you find games where the main protagonist (or bad guy) has just survived being shot in the nads for 5000 times, and then you get a cut-scene where a single bullet or a knock to the back of the head suddenly knocks him out. That just ruins it for me. At that point it's clear that the game mechanics obviously are either not what the designer of the plot really wanted, or whoever wrote the plot was too lazy to let the world actually use those mechanics.

That being said, the campaign you talked about seems tedious and hardly exciting. The GM should have gone ahead and thrown out those tedious world mechanics (which don't really work, anyway) and either taken his liberty of being the designer of the scenario, or created house rules for his world.

The miner problem is a bit unique among those things you mentioned: Generally D&D3.5 approximates a medieval world pretty well at low levels, even level 1. The numbers are mostly right. That miners can't actually damage rock is a problem, I guess. However, first of all, the miners aren't attacking the rock. (Although hitting it with a pick comes close.) Secondly, they could be using teamwork and power attack - but at their BAB of 0 that wouldn't work. However, things are not as bleak as you make them seem:
Stone has a hardness of only 8. A two-handed miner's pick should deal 1d8 damage, which means they only need 12 Str and roll an 8 to get through on a regular hit, which they can do automatically (the hit) once per round. It's probable that you don't deal a lot of damage. But the D&D rules are yet better than that: After taking a few hours to deal a few hundred packets of one point of damage at a time to the rock, you take a huge lever, a giant crowbar so to speak, and do a teamwork strength check using Aid another to split off the piece of rock. You need 14 guys to do this (a +1 bonus and 14x+2 for Aid another and +2 for the giant crowbar makes +31, so you need to roll a 19 to succeed, because you've previously reduced the piece of rock to half its HP, which reduces the breaking DC to 48.) So you see that the D&D rules are actually fully functional in that respect.

And now that I know this I can safely say that people can mine in D&D. In addition, in my games people get XP for free just for getting older, which means that eventually you might have level 10 miners who easily destroy the rock.

Do understand that I'm not this petty for everything.

[Shortstraw]

Umm.... steel is hardness 10 so it ignore stones hardness of 8.

F'n Dig!!! - warcry of Rio Tinto

[suoq]

What I'm seeing more in more in this discussion is what we used to call the "Art Garfunkel school of consensus".

Paul Simon wrote "Bridge over Troubled Water" in the key of G.
Art Garfunkel, however, sings in the key of E-Flat. That's it. No compromise. If Simon is performing with Garfunkel, G is not on the table.
So, Jimmy Haskell picks up a Grammy by transposing "Bridge over Troubled Water" into the key of E-Flat.

I've had to work with a lot of Art Garfunkels over the years. They often think their way is best because we all so often do it their way and make it work and when we do it any other way with them it fails. Over time they're convinced that any methods other than theirs fails even though it works when groups that don't contain them use those methods. But since they aren't a part of those groups, they don't see why those methods work.

I fully agree with Brainpiercing that any group he's in should use his methods. What I (like others) disagree with is that his methods are the best methods for the rest of us to use. We don't all need to sing in E-flat. It's a great key. And it works for you. But that doesn't make it the best key.

Now at this time, I have a bit of Art Garfunkel in me as well. I don't want to sit around the table and attempt to get the entire group into consensus about the goals of the game, the characters we're going to run, and the rules. I'm not going to try and deal with the person who insists their way is the best way and says things like "I see that you are busy defending your GM chair that is in danger of being reduced in altitude a bit. I don't need to want my argument to be superior, because I already know it, but you don't, apparently." I'm going to ignore them and mentally prepare to go home early because I've already resolved not to game at their table. I'm just going to hang with friends until it's time to create characters and then I'll head out.

Because the group that operates that way is just a bad fit for me, at least right now, and I know it.

[Traul]

Paul Simon wrote "Bridge over Troubled Water" in the key of G.
Art Garfunkel, however, sings in the key of E-Flat. That's it. No compromise.

No need to.

[KarmaInferno]

Do understand that I'm not this petty for everything.

We do.

What you're not understanding is that what's best for YOU is not necessarily what's best for EVERYONE.

It boils down to trust.

Do you trust your GM to be an impartial and fair arbiter? If so, then single authority works.

If not, then yes, you may prefer group consensus.

Note that none of the examples you have given of GM fiat have been fair or impartial. In fact, it seems greatly that you don't trust your GM. Which may be justified, I don't know your GM. But not everyone is in the same situation as you.



-k

[Yerameyahu]

Honestly, that's the biggest issue here. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) If you'd said, 'I've found that "democratic gaming" is cool, guys', we'd be *done* here. Instead, you said, '"GM-choice" (aka, normal) gaming is morally wrong, bad, and *obviously* inferior to my way".

[Paul]

Careful, we're perilously close to logical, rational and reasonable discussion! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Shortstraw]

Well lets fix that - turquoise bicycle shoe fins actualize radishes greenly - thus proving gm fiat is greater than player consensus.

[Yerameyahu]

Hold on, we have to draw a syntax tree for that…

[Brainpiercing7.6...]

Ok, seriously this is not a matter of what's best for different people. There are objective criteria by which you measure the success or quality of a method, and applying them reveals a best method. Note that a best method doesn't mean only method, and doesn't mean that it's best in every individual situation, just in the majority of situations, or at least if it doesn't per se promise a better result, then at least it should have fewer potential problems.

That being said, there may be other methods that also work for different people, but when applying objective criteria they cannot be the overall best.

If the default were a democratic process in gaming you could STILL just always say yes to everything the GM says. Which first of all proves that in fact trusting your GM to make a decision for you (I won't call it authoritarian now, because it's voluntary) gaming is actually a possible subset of democratic gaming. And secondly, it's an option that doesn't exist the other way around. Every one of you could come to my table and play, because all you need to do is say yes whenever I suggest a house rule or ruling. I cannot come to any of your tables, or at least I would be making a far greater compromise in doing so, because as soon as I were to say "Ok, I'm sorry you have to make a house rule for that and I disgree with it" then we both have a problem.

So really, NORMAL should be a way where a consensus is reached, because we are a group of adults at the table who can discuss things and work things out. Anything else is voluntary submission (for example to the imperfections of reality, which may necessitate a different approach in borderline cases. )

Now look at things logically:

We have A and B (being gaming quality and the lack of aggravation potential for authoritative gaming
And C and D (being the same for democratic gaming)

And now A=C, because you can still voluntarily say yes, and B < D, because objectively if you give people a voice there is objectively a smaller chance of quarrelling and problems

Or let's translate it to the mantra of gaming: fun.

With democratic gaming there is a greater chance that everyone will have fun because everyone has a voice, and need not hide his opinion, or find it suppressed by a single other opinion. (But indeed by a group consensus that opposes him, but which is more likely?)

So the end result is really clear to me. Obviously for ME there are many MORE reasons why democratic gaming is better, which don't apply to everyone.

[KarmaInferno]

There is no "best", because every table is different and has different needs.

Flat out.

And there is no reasonable situation where you are involuntarily playing at a "GM rules all" table, and you don't trust the GM to be fair and impartial and apply fiat only to make the game better. Because that situation is one where you stop playing with that group.



-k

[Paul]

Sorry but that's a crock of shit. Yeah it's shit you strongly believe in but once again you're portraying your personal preference as the objective standard.