Difficulty/Success Needed as it relates to GM Fiat

[David Bapst]

Hrm. Obviously a disconnect exists between what I wanted to discuss and what could reasonably be discussed. I apologize for my error, it is easy sometimes to forget, to try and seperate yourself from the idea that all gaming occurs in the social context. The nature of authority, who holds it and why certain games get run like they do in my game... well, that leads to some nasty questions about my own group, doesn't it?

John and Landon, you hit my main point, and made some excellent points. I'm going to consider some new thoughts I'm having on this thanks to you, and how to resolve those with my unwillingness to take authority as a GM. I'll have to think about this, although I still feel like we got sidetracked. I think I misrepresented some behaviors as being more prominent than they were, but perhaps I didn't misrepresent at all.

Hrm. We've shifted out of theory discussion. I'll head to Actual Play.

[Callan S.]

This is for discussing the "GM decides the #" and whether it is (a) arbitrary and/or (b) a watered down version of GM fiat. I haven't seen any direct arguments to either yet...

Well, sans players asserting themselves (like your examples show), I fully agree. It's just cloaked GM fiat. No arguement from me.

(I have to take a step back here and ask others... Am I being overly stringent on what I see the main topic to be for this thread and asking for others to hold to it?)

Mmmm, I think that perhaps that since I have no arguement with the idea, and thus there is no meat there to chew, I moved on to the meat of fixing it. Sorry about that. :(

But really, I can't think of anything else to say. I might say that the number isn't fully arbitrary/random. Most GM's are invested in the idea that climbing a knotted rope, for example, is a very low DC. Exactly what number they think is low, will vary. But it would end up being a low number.