engine:
A negotiation can also involve chips falling. One doesn't know what the other will propose or agree to.
and that's still not "where they may". That's "to one's whims"
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Most systems leave it up to the GM's interpretation of when it is appropriate to roll, and even to ignore the outcome of rolls.
Is an acceptable level of fairness possible for you, given such an arrangement?
Usually, but where it's not, it isn't the system's fault.
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steelsmiter:
In freeform, all interpretations are entirely subjective. Even when players team up and declare another being a Mary Sue/Marty Stu. There's no accounting for fairness to a given granularity outside opinion, and let's just say that I have the opinion I should never have paid taxes.
There's really no accounting for fairness in a given ruleset, either,
The accounting for fairness is that everyone is subject to most of the same rules, and that most of the rules are codified statements with statistical relevance rather than being outright whim. I don't join games that are "heavily houseruled" if I can avoid it, because I may not know how the math works out. Depends how clearly delineated and how unambiguous the rules changes are. With a freeform game, I always see the "no godmodding" which is as ambiguous or at least subjective as you can get. And says nothing about statistical relevance of characters.
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at least not outside of perfectly symmetric games like chess. Designers have illogical preferences for certain outcomes and they might miscalculate things.
That can occur, yeah. I don't play the 3 games that are most famous for it.
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It's common for groups to negotiate and decide how to reform the rules to what they decide is fair, and then to play out games based on those decisions. I'm interested to know how that sits with you. If you don't like it, I would understand:
I'm playtesting 3 systems right now actually.
I have to like it, or at least accept that some tweaking will need to be made to fix my games in a way that makes them fair to the level of granularity expected by system players. One of my games has 154 posts in the thread designated for system tweaks. About 2/3 of them are dedicated to actual system tweak discussion that have fruitfully lead to system changes.
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I myself prefer to stick to rules as much as possible, even when designers agree that they're unfair or broken. But if I advocate for that as a player or GM, I'm going to have to negotiate it.
I aim for a combination of rules and verisimilitude, with rules winning out slightly if only because some rules are specifically required to break verisimilitude to fit the source material. A rule that's good for a criminal sandbox won't necessarily be good for a visual novel or a horror game after all, and several won't fit hyper realistic. Not without already incorporating some level of ambiguity anyway.
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Thinking about it, I suppose a rules designer doesn't have a specific intent to advantage or disadvantage a particular person at a particular table, the way an actual player (who is not-very-well-trusted, apparently) might. That seems to be the primary concern.
No, I'd trust 1shinigami with my actual life. But I won't be in a freeform game if he ever decides to run one :D
Jokes aside, yes it's a relevant distinction. "Is not", and "may not" be are also factors, but the two are different things with regards to trust.
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Folks. I think a gamist-narrativist-simularionist discussion would be a great topic for a different thread.
It's the core of my problem with the idea of a black box game if it isn't done right, will ruin it for me. So it is very much not for a different thread. I'm actually somewhere in the simulation assisting narrative camp, and only care about gameism inasmuch as it aids the simulation I need for a fair(ish) narrative.
This message was last edited by the user at 22:50, Fri 17 Nov 2017.