benlehman

RPG is by nature collaborative. If you can't accept/trust your other collaborators, I really think you'd be better off in a different medium.

Now no, Ben, you know perfectly well that different games have different levels of collaboration, but they can all be called RPGs. You can have an RPG where the players do *not* have an equal say in the story. You can have an RPG where there is no GM, and all players are equally responsible for all aspects of the game.

non-sytem MUSH games, for example, are fully collaborative story-telling, where there is no GM and actions/reactions are a shared responsibility of all players. Etiquette and precedence dictate what players can do to each other. This is a role-playing game. But we're not talking about something like this.

We're talking about where System Rules Go Bad (tonight on Fox, 8ET/9CT!). I gave you an example of when System Rules Go Bad, and I don't think it's an appropriate answer to say "Well, then it should have been a book." You're not allowed to meta- the conversation! It's in the rules, dammit! :)

It is perfectly possible to have a game, the purpose of which is to tell a story. The negotiable bits are how much influence on the outcome of the story the players have. A good GM will collaborate with the players to produce a mutually satisfactory outcome. That is not the same as allowing the players to use the rules to bring the story to (what the GM, who has more knowledge of the World than the players) a premature conclusion.

If you can't accept/trust your other collaborators, I really think you'd be better off in a different medium.

This particular river flows both ways. The players, then, should trust the GM when he says "You can't use your Summon The Eagles card for that. The Eagles refuse to take the Ring to the Crack of Doom. They say now is not the time for them to Act." even if the damn card Gandalf is holding says "Can summon The Eagles to perform any one task of which they are physically capable".