The Origins of ‘Rule Zero’

Jon Peterson discusses the origins of Rule Zero on his blog. It featured as early as 1978 in Alarums & Excursions #38.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

But, yes, there should be some more attention paid in the various DM's advice books as to when to use a Rule 0 and how. I've seen far too many games go pear shaped because the DM figured he or she knew better than the rules, invoked Rule 0 to change the rules, only to make the game worse because the DM didn't understand the rules in the first place. The more complex the system, the easier it is to make mistakes like that.

You need to be careful with rule 0. An important advise is that you should announce rule changes ahead of time. Only optional rules that favour players might be held in secret, as they can give a surprising edge to them.

This is exactly the kind of conversation I was hoping to see. Practical, "best practices" discussion about Rule 0 and when it is good for the game that you NOT use it, etc.

Such talk seems rather thin on the ground when the surging popularity of D&D is driven by a system that actually needs wise use of Rule 0 to function properly (which, as many have made clear, is an intentional feature).

 

[Thomas Shey]

These are social issues that game rules can't solve.

That may be, but when you have something that prominently gives carte blanche to GMs to change things any time they think its appropriate, I'm really unconvinced that's done a good job of encouraging best practice here; there's a difference between "Here's something you can do if you need to" to "here's something you can do any time you want to" and I'm far from convinced the latter doesn't do as much or more harm as good.

As others have said, I think there's always going to be a need for the ability to to respond to corner cases. And there can be room for "I'm trying for a particular effect in this campaign, and I think this rules change will produce it." But I think an overly casual attitude toward rules on the part of the GM makes it too prone to leaving players making decisions on quicksand, and also too prone to making changes in rules sets that will produce unintended ripple effects that are likely to be malign because the people making them don't entirely understand how the rules set works and interacts.

 

[Thomas Shey]

This is exactly the kind of conversation I was hoping to see. Practical, "best practices" discussion about Rule 0 and when it is good for the game that you NOT use it, etc.

Such talk seems rather thin on the ground when the surging popularity of D&D is driven by a system that actually needs wise use of Rule 0 to function properly (which, as many have made clear, is an intentional feature).

I'm afraid its an inevitable consequence of the decision to appeal to the "rulings, not rules" ethic contingent.

 

[jasper]

I don't know what that means. Rule 0 is about game rules. Your post was about apparently abusive social dynamics. I don't turn to D&D books to deal with the latter.

You are wrong. You put the rule books into a good sturdy pillowcase. And beat the player with them. EVIL GRIN.

 

[Lanefan]

But Rule 0 isn't part of the books either. I mean, they describe it, but by definition--from even those descriptions!--Rule 0 stands outside the rules.

Rule 0 is undeniably part of the books, as evidenced by the very fact that it's in the books.

It is part of the social structure surrounding the rules. It seems obvious to me that saying "don't do things that make no sense" and "no set of rules can ever be totally complete" means "engage your group socially to resolve anything that can't be resolved inside the rules given."

There's a leap of logic there that's a bit too long.

It can just as easily mean "resolve it yourself as DM"; and that's how I've always read it.

What they fail to say - and IMO this is an error - is that as much of the 'resolve it yourself' part as possible should be done before the campaign starts, rather than on the fly, so that both players and DM know what they're gettiing into and are on the same - ahem - page.

 

[loverdrive]

I think that Rule 0 is an ad-hoc patch, applied to essentially board-game rules that allows for more ad-hoc patches. PbtA and FitD don't have rule zero at all and work just fine. Fate seriously downplays rule 0 (called the Silver Rule there and talks about applying other rules in unusual circumstances, rather than bypassing rules altogether) and works fine too.

Rule 0 is needed only in rules-first games without solid generalized framework. And even there, it's something to be used carefully, when you actually know what you're doing.

 

[Maxperson]

But Rule 0 isn't part of the books either. I mean, they describe it, but by definition--from even those descriptions!--Rule 0 stands outside the rules. It is part of the social structure surrounding the rules. It seems obvious to me that saying "don't do things that make no sense" and "no set of rules can ever be totally complete" means "engage your group socially to resolve anything that can't be resolved inside the rules given." It would seem to be literally the POINT of "proper use of Rule 0" to talk about social dynamics.

This is not correct. The rules say that the rules serve the DM, not the other way around. That's not a social issue. The abuses you described earlier in the thread have nothing to do with Rule 0 at all. They are bad DM issues that would be present even if Rule 0 wasn't.

 

[pemerton]

A group of friends playing a game together is free to adopt whatever rules they prefer.

A group of strangers playing a game together will need some sort of framework (eg Hoyle) to settle on the rules that govern the game, if they want to avoid potential instability and even fallings out.

Rule zero is pointless pedantry for the first group. And is unhelpful for the second group.

As @loverdrive has posted not far upthread, the useful function of "rule zero" is to acknowledge the limitations of a certain sort of game design, that has its origins in wargames and so (i) is oriented towards a limited range of fictional concerns (eg terrain matters; the colour of shoelaces typically doesn't) and (ii) has a tendency to work by way of "subsystems" - for movement, for fire, for morale, for casualty clearing stations, etc.

I'm currently GMing a RPG that is designed somewhat along these lines: Classic Traveller. The game comes with a pretty good range of subsystems to deal with the range of fictional concerns that might come up in play, but it's not complete. For instance, in our first session I had to invent an ad hoc subsystem for recruiting a broker to assist in the sale of commercial quantities of ambergris. The rulebooks expressly contemplate this as the sort of thing the referee might have to do. There are some other subsystems that have been part of our game from the beginning but are taken not from "official" Traveller rules but Andy Slack's articles in White Dwarf, eg for criminal trials.

I think it's a strength of Classic Traveller's design that its range of subsystems is pretty solid in its coverage of the sorts of fiction the system can produce, and that some of them generalise nicely (eg we have generalised the system for small craft evasion to work for other contexts, like ATVs trying to evade orbital bombardment). Conversely, I think a reason that "rule zero" figures so prominently in the context of "classic" D&D is that the classic D&D subsystems are pretty narrowly focused - eg there is no system for races/chases other than the outdoor evasion rules - and generalise poorly (eg due to different rules for dice, for stat mods, for the importance of level, etc).

As @loverdrive says, an express "rule zero" would add nothing to a system with comprehensive and/or general resolution processes. In addition to the games s/he has mentioned, I would add D&D 4e.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I think it's a strength of Classic Traveller's design that its range of subsystems is pretty solid in its coverage of the sorts of fiction the system can produce, and that some of them generalise nicely (eg we have generalised the system for small craft evasion to work for other contexts, like ATVs trying to evade orbital bombardment). Conversely, I think a reason that "rule zero" figures so prominently in the context of "classic" D&D is that the classic D&D subsystems are pretty narrowly focused - eg there is no system for races/chases other than the outdoor evasion rules - and generalise poorly (eg due to different rules for dice, for stat mods, for the importance of level, etc).

Yeah, while there's always some need for flexibility in most games with anything but a very narrow scope, there's a big difference between games that have easily extendable bits, and the "every resolution is a custom process" thing early D&D did, when it did anything at all. That almost mandated GMs willing to pull ad-hoc resolution out of the air on occasion.

 

[Maxperson]

A group of friends playing a game together is free to adopt whatever rules they prefer.

A group of strangers playing a game together will need some sort of framework (eg Hoyle) to settle on the rules that govern the game, if they want to avoid potential instability and even fallings out.

Rule zero is pointless pedantry for the first group. And is unhelpful for the second group.

This is a False Dichotomy and wrong to boot.

For the first group, the group isn't always(often really) adopting rules together. The DM will often use Rule 0 on his own to improve upon the game.

For the second group, the DM can use Rule 0 in the same way, to make the game better by avoiding ridiculous situations that the rules often comes up with if you apply them verbatim to every situation. It is often helpful for the latter group type.