The role of the GM

[trooper6]

Originally Posted by ak_aramis

I detest it because, in a great many cases, all it does is encourage (to use Bill's IMNSHO mediocre taxonomy) mediocre GM's to become bad ones.

It's absence isn't the same as its existence. Competent GMs will make changes as need be with or without it, and inform players of them. Bad GM's won't inform players until "gotcha" time. It's the Mediocre GM's who will take it as given that they can change the rules on the fly, and become bad GMs in the process.

Rules are best when presented as a social contract, and Rule 0 being included in that actually removes the contract nature of them, dumping all the authority on the GM and making the contract simply to "whatever the GM feels like using"...

And that's before the absolutely toxic advice Gygax wrapped around it...

The GM, however, does have the authority to decide what will be used. That is part of the job of a GM. As a matter of fact, not only do they have the authority, they have the responsibility to make those decisions.

I am a good GM. And historically, I was one of those GMs who followed all the rules without alteration and never introduced house rules. But you know what? That didn't make me a good GM. I only became a great GM when I embraced Rule 0 and started making some choices about what would and wouldn't be happening in the game. I credit GURPS, with its modularity, back in 1988, with starting me down the path of not just being the person who executes what is written down, but who actively shapes the experience, thus coming to know myself and the players, and thereby being able to achieve greatness.

I want to say, that I have had very few bad GMs--and I've been gaming in many different places, with many different people, for decades. I've had some GMs that weren't to my personal taste, though I imagine they would be to the taste of some others, but very few bad GMs...and even fewer abusive GMs. And those people? I stop playing with.

That said, the bad GMs I had? Maybe one or two were amplified by the arbitrary use of rules changes to "Gotcha"---but most were bad because they made no choices about rules...because they didn't follow Rule 0. Everything was as was presented in any and every book. I have been in way too many unsuccessful D&D3.5 games where every supplement was available, because they were official...where we players could do whatever we wanted...because it is in the rules...and the GM did whatever was written in the module...resulting in a terrible mess.

Giving the GM authority doesn't make GMs bad.

And anyway, in my time of gaming, the worst people I've had to deal with around the table weren't bad GMs, but bad players.