My reaction this post on GM Fiat is to rephrase the same thing in a different way. So when play with GM Fiat works – when you delegate lots of resolution to a GM and everyone is satisfied – then there’s no problem, right? We have Good Stuff. But when it doesn’t work?
When it doesn’t, here’s the problem: the players have to consistently check themselves against the approval of the GM for advancing player content, and this provides lots of opportunities for disappointment and miscommunication. Perhaps I think it’s a great idea to have my pirate try to sweet-talk his way into the arms of a nice pirate grrrl, and I suggest that given our common piratical heritage, I will in fact play up my nature as a hardened sea-bitten rum-swilling seadog to my advantage. However, perhaps my rules do not say clearly if this is or is not okay, and I have to wait for the GM to decide if this is alright, or I will nonetheless automatically fail by virtue of my low Charisma score.
Chris calls this phenomenon mother-may-I. Most don’t play it that badly, and GMs have become quite good at using GM Fiat right. Nonetheless, it’s a bit of a buzzkill that the only thing you’re holding off on is permission.
I call the opposite effect, when done, right, a free fire zone. Basically, imagine some cool roleplay material, and the rules are really clear about what you can and cannot bring into it. This means that, within those rules, I can simply put my input in there without waiting for approval. If the D&D rules say I can swing my sword, than nobody is going to stop me from swinging that sword; if I have a certain number of Wire-Fu tokens I can use to add absurd narration to my actions, then no one is going to stop me from backflipping over my enemy before cutting him down with my pirate cutlass.
This isn’t an either/or; rather, it’s about getting the rules to minimize mother-may-I zones and maximize free fire zones.
December 19th, 2005 at 10:36 am
Yep! The key thing is being clear on what stuff is important, giving folks structure and mechanical backing to run with it, and letting them know what is open field.
For example- how you swing your sword in D&D is free fire, but whether it hits and how much damage it does- that’s mechanically backed. The Mother May I of it comes in if the GM uses “Rule 0″ and nixes you at the gate.