General RPG DiscussionDiscussion of all RPGs and non-system-specific topics. DM/GM/player issues, settings, etc. Rules discussion belongs in one the forums below.
I don't think it is so much people would be used to "no" as much as people are still used to the whole DM vs. Players mentally that has been fostered in the past.
I should probably have said "in our other games", though that may also be part of the reason. "No" pretty much was the default answer you'd get from one DM for a while. He had a tendency to allow the most broken stuff as long as it had the WotC seal, but was still afraid that a "Yes" to the littlest thing in-game could upset the precarious imagined balance.
Another had a clear vision of how the story would unfold, cut-scenes and all, and if you wanted to do something in those, you'd pretty much get the same answer (a style that may work, but 3.5 is a decidedly poor framework for, in my opinion). A problem that was less pronounced when he ran published modules.
Also, was the rule of yes the one in the 4e book that had the example of the DM being told what to do? Because that was like the worst argument ever for that rule
You mean where the designer was playing with his 8-year old kid?
Yeah, it sucks when kids are encouraged to use their imagination.
The "rules of yes" is nice and all, but sometimes you do have to say "No, you cannot dual wield great crossbows that are two sizes bigger then normal."
The value of the 'rule of yes' is directly proportional to the quality and trustworthiness of your players.
For example, my players rock and I trust them more-or-less implicitly. Once, when the party was mucking around in the Afterlife, one of them wanted to "bottle some of the absence of God, for future study". I said "yes". Wackiness later ensued.
__________________ "We're pimps and killers, but in a philanthropic way." -- Boyd, Dollhouse.
For example, my players rock and I trust them more-or-less implicitly. Once, when the party was mucking around in the Afterlife, one of them wanted to "bottle some of the absence of God, for future study". I said "yes". Wackiness later ensued.
Saying "Yes" can get you into some very cool situations like that. In general, it allows for interesting roleplaying options above and beyond what the DM would have come up with.
I ran "no" games for a very long time. I was always under the impression that if you started letting players get what they wanted, they'd screw up your games. If we're going to talk about things like Dragon and whatnot, there is a considerable body of advice for DM's that states pretty much exactly that. After all, how can you be an adversarial DM if you say "yes"?
It wasn't until a few years ago, on En World, listening to people talk to about various Indie Games that I realized that relaxing the grip on the reins makes for one heck of a lot more fun at my table.
I think the reason that a lot of players, particularly experienced players, won't ask is because years of DM's like me told them no. It's a bit of a paradigm shift for some of us. Something that I've really tried to incorporate into my current games as well.
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Sadly, I've been more of a "no" DM. But I believe that to be a result of the players I was DMing. Far too much "Can my character with no points in Jump jump around like a wuxia?", or "Can I kill the BBEG in one hit if I describe it really cool?" I must admit, human that I am, I am much more likely to grant a given request if it comes from a reasonable player than if it comes from one asks for munchkiny power-ups a few times per session.
I want to be a rule yes DM, but it hasn't come up much. I think partially its because we are running KotS currently, which is primarily a dungeon crawl plus several of the players have read or dm'ed the game elsewhere. (We're just using it as a training wheel sort of module.) Once we move into stuff that the party is unfamiliar with, I expect to see more of that in the future.
Plus I think I'll make it a point to explicitly call out that I'm in favor of the say yes philosophy.
edit: Actually, I think its more that I'm in favor of the "do something awesome" philosophy of gaming which basically says that if it'll look cool if you can pull it off, then you should give it a try.
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I actually learned the "Say Yes" rule from Piratecat about six years ago now; heck, he might be where some of the WotC crew initially learned it from.
I've used it in several sessions, but not that often because the players don't use it themselves all the time. I do use a variant of it, the "don't give the DM any ideas" rule. Sometimes I listen to them trying to puzzle out some mystery in my plot, and if what their wild imaginations dream up sounds actually better than what I really had in mind, then *POP* that's what really happened. The players are clever in that they deduced the nasty convoluted plot, and I have a better adventure to throw at them.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Nebulous
Saying "Yes" can get you into some very cool situations like that. In general, it allows for interesting roleplaying options above and beyond what the DM would have come up with.
Absolutely. It facilitates that little thing called synergy. That's what groups are for anyways. When synergy happens between players, and players and DM, really cool things happen. I think saying NO as a default answer completely stifles group synergy (although I agree there are times to say no - it should just be the exception, not the norm).
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I've used it in several sessions, but not that often because the players don't use it themselves all the time. I do use a variant of it, the "don't give the DM any ideas" rule. Sometimes I listen to them trying to puzzle out some mystery in my plot, and if what their wild imaginations dream up sounds actually better than what I really had in mind, then *POP* that's what really happened. The players are clever in that they deduced the nasty convoluted plot, and I have a better adventure to throw at them.
Heheh oh man, I live by that idea. It's the reason I tend to preffer a campaign style that leans a little more on the improv side... It's just so easy to let the players unwittingly drive the story.
As for the rule of yes... they should change it to the rule of "sure give it a try."
I don't think the rule of yes should imply that every action a player wants to take will automatically work. It just means that you should do your best to never say outright that a player can't even try to make something work.
I wouldn't even say it's a DM vs the Players issue. It's more of an issue with players purposefully asking dumb things they know won't fly, but ask it anyways just in case.
The "rules of yes" is nice and all, but sometimes you do have to say "No, you cannot dual wield great crossbows that are two sizes bigger then normal."
I advise finding better players. It solves most of these issues.
Quote:
Also, was the rule of yes the one in the 4e book that had the example of the DM being told what to do? Because that was like the worst argument ever for that rule
Page reference? I have read the DMG and dont remember anything like this.
If it was there I might well be tempted to applaud it. The idea of the Viking Hatted GM ruling by dictat from his Ivory Tower is one that needs to die.
Yes I am exaggerating for effect and no I am not comparing you to said GM however its pretty obvious that such people do exist.
Page reference? I have read the DMG and dont remember anything like this.
If it was there I might well be tempted to applaud it. The idea of the Viking Hatted GM ruling by dictat from his Ivory Tower is one that needs to die.
Yes I am exaggerating for effect and no I am not comparing you to said GM however its pretty obvious that such people do exist.
No, it's the example where the kid tells the DM exactly what they're going to find in the dungeon. "I'm going to find a chest around the corner that has x item in it."
It has nothing to do with the kid using their imagination. Imagination is great, but telling the DM what to do is why so many DMs hesitate to say "yes" in the first place. If you want to go in and make your own story exactly how you want it, you're not really playing the right game.
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No, it's the example where the kid tells the DM exactly what they're going to find in the dungeon. "I'm going to find a chest around the corner that has x item in it."
It has nothing to do with the kid using their imagination. Imagination is great, but telling the DM what to do is why so many DMs hesitate to say "yes" in the first place. If you want to go in and make your own story exactly how you want it, you're not really playing the right game.
Can you provide a page reference?
Also, how would you react to a player wanting to detail say, the beliefs and structure of his church, the organisation of the Wizards Guild he is a member of, the smugglers in the city he used to work for or his old mercenary company?
That sort of stuff is bread and butter to our group. Our current setting started with perhaps 80% of the setting material having been written by the players and I am always asking them for their input into it as the game moves along.
Something amazing happened one time I was playing D&D with my 9-year-old son. When we finished an encounter, my son took over. He decided that he was going to search around one of the statues in the room, that he was going to get hit by a trap (an arrow would shoot out at the statue), and that he’d find a treasure there. Hey, wait a minute. I thought I was the DM!
That was my first reaction. But I bit my tongue. I rolled damage for the trap, and I let him have his treasure. (I determined what it was—I wasn’t about to relinquish that much control.)
He never enjoyed the game more. I learned the most important lesson about D&D that day. I remembered that this is a game about imagination, about coming together to tell a story as a group. I learned that the players have a right to participate in telling that story—after all, they’re playing the protagonists!
—James Wyatt
9 year old dude... 9 year old son.
Seriously the quote isn't about letting the players have all control. It's about not imediately saying no simply because the player thought of it, and you didn't. It's about the game being a group effort, and not an adversarial game.
Seriously the quote isn't about letting the players have all control. It's about not imediately saying no simply because the player thought of it, and you didn't. It's about the game being a group effort, and not an adversarial game.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jensun
Can you provide a page reference?
Also, how would you react to a player wanting to detail say, the beliefs and structure of his church, the organisation of the Wizards Guild he is a member of, the smugglers in the city he used to work for or his old mercenary company?
That sort of stuff is bread and butter to our group. Our current setting started with perhaps 80% of the setting material having been written by the players and I am always asking them for their input into it as the game moves along.
I don't know what ProffesorCirno thinks, but I think that's awesome. If my players understood the game and fantasy in general a bit more I'd encourage them to do this also. Sounds like your group has tremendous buy-in to the game.
__________________ Mark "El Mahdi" Armstrong - Semper Operor Verus
". . . after all, that is why we're here. Kill the last bad guy and then there's cake." - Major General Jack O'Neal
"Don't Just Do It, Just Do It Right!"
"Right, without Reason, is unmitigated Foolishness."
"If you make a mistake, Acknowledge It, then make it Right."
Honestly, I wish my party would ask more so I'd get more chances to say "Yes". I've gone ahead and allowed them some things they did not even ask for, to get the message across, but everyone's probably a bit too used to the default answer being "No" in other games.
Guesse it is a two-way street. Maybe as a player, we should come to the table with some wild ideas. Or just be more open to our imaginations. If we don't give our DM's the chance to say Yes/No, then we can not wonder why they don't change. And if we do, eureka! Either assumption could be self-fulfilling.
I don't know what ProffesorCirno thinks, but I think that's awesome. If my players understood the game and fantasy in general a bit more I'd encourage them to do this also. Sounds like your group has tremendous buy-in to the game.
To me its the biggest benefit of creating the setting co-operatively.
The majority of in game problems would be solved by three very simple things:
1. Talking about the game you want to play beforehand
2. Creating the characters together, not just mechanics but story
3. Playing with people you would choose to socialise with away from the gaming table
Imagination is great, but telling the DM what to do is why so many DMs hesitate to say "yes" in the first place.
My experience is that DM's hesitate to say 'yes' mainly because 1) they lack confidence in their ability to improvise and 2) they can only conceive of their players asking for some sort of freebie or unfair advantage (they don't consider that the players might simply want to narrate some things to make the game more interesting/entertaining).
Quote:
If you want to go in and make your own story exactly how you want it, you're not really playing the right game.
How in the world does getting to establish one (or even several) in-game elements equate to making "your own story exactly the way to want it"? A DM can say "yes" to the players --frequently-- without relinquishing control of the campaign.
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I routinely give my players narrative control during the game.
If a player asks if there is a contact to his old guild in town I turn the question back on him. Is there a contact, if so tell me who he is and why he is here. Give me a quirk or an issue or a complication surrounding them.
I also use it routinely if we are using the skill challenge system or when just using straight forward skill checks.
We routinely set stakes during skill challenges and when using skills. We agree, in advance, what each side wants and what the outcome for success or failure might be. If the player succeeds then they get to narrate the "how" of their success.
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