Will just said something interesting on the Fudge List: "The basic idea is that the more rules you have and the more codifed those rules are, the more the balance of power shifts away from the GM and toward the players." (http://www.phoenyx.net/fudge/2005/12) Carl has describe Forge-type games as being this way, though tending to address the social contract directly, rather than providing rules-for-every-situation: rules to protect the players from bad GMs. I tend to look at rules (in the ideal case) as serving a different purpose: codifying the gameworld so that players (including the GM) are all on the same page. That is, making sure we're all imagining things the same way, to avoid what we've come to call the "I drive the van off the cliff!" "Cliff? What cliff?" syndrome, where mismatched assumptions lead to snapping the suspenders of disbelief for some or all involved. -- Karen J. Cravens silver@phoenyx.net ---------------------------------------------------------------- GAMERS Home Page: http://www.phoenyx.net/gamers/
