thread: 2009-04-06 : Fistfightville
On 2009-04-09, Ben Lehman wrote:
So I had a pretty nice series of IM conversations about this aspect of GMing (providing contextual bonuses to players) and how it conflicts with other aspects (like creating challenges.) I think we came to the conclusion that these games can be fun*, but there is a conflict of interest there, which can be an incentive to cheat / be a poor sport.
yrs—
—Ben
* The example I used is softball, and umpires. The umpire officially decides the whole game, every time. Furthermore, in a lot of under-funded softball leagues, the "umpire" is just one of the players (or it's: call your own balls, call your own strikes, call your own outs). Yet, while there's the same conflict of interest, there's almost no cheating / poor sportmanship. This is because everyone can see the game space, and can tell when the ump is cheating.
There's a parallel there to GMing.
