Freeform gaming?

[Jon_Dahl]

Some time ago I had a brainstorm: To have an RPG game with only vague rules (most of them for my eyes only) and the only real rule is "GM's discretion".

One of the many reasons for this is the general ineptitude of my players to play by any sort of rules. Also the fact that I HATE spending time teaching rules to player(s) that simply don't give a damn. It gets kind of old pretty fast (also I'm not a very good person teaching rules or how to play).

So what kind of general advices and ideas would you give about this sort of gaming style?
Pros:
+ Flexibility
+ Fast
+ Beginner-friendly
+ Highly customizable
Cons:
- Everything is by DM's whim
- Not playtested so it's not balanced
- Inconsistent
- Chaos, chaos everywhere

Of course since I have no real experience about freeform games, those were just guesses not based on facts or experience.

But how to make this work and not make people pissed off? Is it possible to make this better than a game with defined rules or is it simply a bad style of gaming and doomed to fail?

 

[The Human Target]

I've seen very very rules light games before, and in the right hands they are super fun.

Get too rules light and freeform though and it becomes a game of make believe with arbitrary dice rolls added in.

Which is fine, but doesn't really count as a game IMO.

My suggestion is- make up some simple rules for characters- like say ability scores/skills and maybe some feat/talent type options. Choose a relevant dice mechanic (like a d20) and pick out some DCs for doing stuff. Figure out how you're going to measure Health and how much someone can do on their turn.

Thats all ya really need for an action game at its most basic level.

 

[steeldragons]

So I would just say: I want my character to be X, Y, and Z and the DM would just say Yes or No? Then whilst playing I say, my character does this or that and the DM would say Yes or No you can't...and I say, Yes he can. He totally can. It's how I made him...and the DM says, No you can't. It's not like that...cuz I said so.

Seems to me there have to be SOME kind of rules, even if it's just a mental consistency the DM keeps track of (players will immediately call you on any inconsistency they witness from character to character, so you don't have to worry about that

Otherwise, you're just in...well, as you noted, descending into utter chaos...which could be fun in an "we're all Looney Tune style cartoon characters" kinda way...but other than that, I'm not sure I'm seeing the "fun."

--SD

 

[Umbran]

It is not doomed to fail, in general. Many or most theatre-style live-action games would commonly be considered "freeform", and can run quite well. However, the dynamic is quite different.

For example, in traditional games, players have an objective set of rules that typically keeps folks from being casually abusive - a traditional game can be abused, but it takes a bit of malice of forethought. In a freeform game, the onus to avoid stomping on each other is placed more solidly on the players themselves.

 

[nedjer]

Freeform is the stick - but really tiring to keep up for long.

I rely on a pool of 'assets' ready to drop into a guidelines and setting 'skeleton'.

Once equipped with this Hat of Plentiful Rabbits all is well

 

[TerraDave]

Perhaps you have heard of..

 

[lin_fusan]

I would suggest these rules-light systems:
Fiasco, by Jason Morningstar
The Shab-al-Hiri Roach, by Jason Morningstar
Dread, by The Impossible Dream

Fiasco and Roach, however, are GM-less systems, which are the opposite of what the OP is looking for, but I offer them as an alternative. They are simple in terms of rules, so players don't have to learn anything too complicated.

And I maybe suggest these systems that are relatively intuitive but more complicated:
Lacuna, by Jared Sorensen
Apocalypse World, by D Vincent Baker
Dogs in the Vineyard, by D Vincent Baker

These have a stronger GM-centric take than the above three, and the rules are more complicated, but I feel they are intuitive enough for players to understand.

Of course, YMMV.

 

[steenan]

I played quite a lot completely freeform games. Such games are, in general, either very good or very bad. There are quite simple criteria that need to be satisfied to make a game session good (and it crashes violently when they are not):
1. All players, including the GM, trust eachother.
2. All players know and agree about the setting and genre they want to play in.
3. There is no direct opposition between PCs.
4. Players aim for either immersion or story; direct challenges have to be secondary.

Best sessions I ran and played in were freeform. But if such a game is approached in the same way as one with strict rules, it has no chance to work.


I'd also like to add a comment about the difference between rules-light and freeform games.
There are several games that are rules light and abstract, but are definitely not freeform - they leave less space for GM fiat than D&D. Dogs in the Vineard is such a game. It is definitely light on rules, but very strict in their use; ignoring any part or modifying it on the fly may easily break it.

 

[xipetotec]

Some time ago I had a brainstorm: To have an RPG game with only vague rules (most of them for my eyes only) and the only real rule is "GM's discretion".

One of the many reasons for this is the general ineptitude of my players to play by any sort of rules. Also the fact that I HATE spending time teaching rules to player(s) that simply don't give a damn. It gets kind of old pretty fast (also I'm not a very good person teaching rules or how to play).

So what kind of general advices and ideas would you give about this sort of gaming style?
Pros:
+ Flexibility
+ Fast
+ Beginner-friendly
+ Highly customizable
Cons:
- Everything is by DM's whim
- Not playtested so it's not balanced
- Inconsistent
- Chaos, chaos everywhere

Of course since I have no real experience about freeform games, those were just guesses not based on facts or experience.

But how to make this work and not make people pissed off? Is it possible to make this better than a game with defined rules or is it simply a bad style of gaming and doomed to fail?

If I were you, I would check out DREAD. The only real game mechanic is a Jenga tower and other than that, if the character can conceivably do it ( ruled by the GM ) then they do it, otherwise, they need to pull from the tower. The tower falls, the character is removed from the game. It's straightfoward, story-oriented and very lighht on rules. ( and a whole lot of fun )

 

[Tuft]

I've GM:ed a pretty free-form campaign for almost a year now, weekly 3-6 hour sessions. I think we did session 32 last Sunday. Two players with 20+ years experience each, while this is my first attempt at GM:ing.

The base system is "Maid the RPG", which has worked surprisingly well.

I usually go into each session with a single A4 paper with five or six basic plot ideas, and a small semi-"mind map" around each of those with possible consequences and important NPCs involved. What then happens, and what preferences the players express, serve as basis for next week's notes.

The campaign in heavy in exploration, problem-solving and NPC interaction, and light on combat.

The PC:s are an elven princess and a fairy from the Magic Kingdom, who have found themselves employed as maids in modern Anime Japan.

Right now my party's theater group has been kidnapped by captain Nemo, and forced to drive electrical steam-punk worker mechas at the bottom of a deep sea trench, where he is excavating the ancient city of Mu. What he does not yet know, is that the players have managed to interface with the city's holistic crystal-driven virtual reality system...

Previously they've managed to foil the takeover of the Japanese gods' and spirits' favourite bath house (see "Spirited Away") by cthuluid tentacular horrors from beyond space and time, and return it to the nine-tailed kitsune who was the rightful owner, as well as solve a kidnapping case involving yakuza mermaids and travel 15 year into the future to save the city from invading transdimensional frogs with rayguns, etc.. etc...