D&D General D&D's Evolution: Rulings, Rules, and "System Matters"

[Campbell]

Here's my personal take : The GM needs a mandate and not blanket authority for play to be functional. Authority must come with responsibility.

Rulings over rules can work as long as you have bespoke scenario design, the GM has expert knowledge of setting, plays the world with integrity, and is a neutral arbiter of the rules. The second any of that gets thrown away there is no firm foundation for the rulings.

Whitewolf's Golden Rule where the GM's mandate is to tell a story can also be functional (although I personally am not a fan). It's quite different than a rulings over rules situations. Confusing the two is not helpful.

There are also lots of other possible arrangements of authority and responsibility. They are not usually more constraining to me personally than the rulings over rules approach generally because I'm not always interested in being a neutral arbiter or bespoke scenario design.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Here's my personal take : The GM needs a mandate and not blanket authority for play to be functional. Authority must come with responsibility.

Rulings over rules can work as long as you have bespoke scenario design, the GM has expert knowledge of setting, plays the world with integrity, and is a neutral arbiter of the rules. The second any of that gets thrown away there is no firm foundation for the rulings.

Whitewolf's Golden Rule where the GM's mandate is to tell a story can also be functional (although I personally am not a fan). It's quite different than a rulings over rules situations. Confusing the two is not helpful.

There are also lots of other possible arrangements of authority and responsibility. They are not usually more constraining to me personally than the rulings over rules approach generally because I'm not always interested in being a neutral arbiter or bespoke scenario design.

I agree. I also think that it needs to be considered that bespoke scenario design is also a strong constraint, as are genre conventions and setting. You don't just jettison all constraints by freeing the GM -- you're just trading them for another set and pretending they don't exist anymore.

 

[Malmuria]

I agree. I also think that it needs to be considered that bespoke scenario design is also a strong constraint, as are genre conventions and setting. You don't just jettison all constraints by freeing the GM -- you're just trading them for another set and pretending they don't exist anymore.

I don't think it's pretending constraints don't exist, as it is seeing what would happen if you start with the minimum viable ruleset and build up from there

@Snarf Zagyg quotes Ben Milton's thoughts on the subjects in the other thread

System matters and free kriegsspiel

This thread has been prompted by some of the recent discussions of the topics mentioned in the thread title. System matters To the best of my knowledge, Ron Edwards is the person who coined this slogan. When Edwards and those influenced by him (eg Vincent Baker) talk about system they're not...

www.enworld.org

Among them:

• The idea is that a human being is better able to adjudicate a complex situation than an abstract ruleset. And they can do it faster.
• FKR prioritizes invisible rulebooks over visible rulebooks.
• FKR is a High-Trust play style. It's only going to work if you trust that the DM is fair, knowledgeable, and is going to make clear, consistent rulings.

And as I mentioned in that thread, in practice I think this style of play works best not just with high trust of the DM, but when the gameplay involves a degree of collaboration and conversation, the kind advocated for in storygames. The difference I think is that storygames are skeptical that that style of high trust play is possible without specific mechanics that constrain the gm and empower players. But both story games and fkr are skeptical that complicated, extensive rulesets (e.g. pathfinder, prussian wargames) can enable emergent play and/or be truly managed without becoming a headache for most people.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I don't think it's pretending constraints don't exist, as it is seeing what would happen if you start with the minimum viable ruleset and build up from there

@Snarf Zagyg quotes Ben Milton's thoughts on the subjects in the other thread

System matters and free kriegsspiel

This thread has been prompted by some of the recent discussions of the topics mentioned in the thread title. System matters To the best of my knowledge, Ron Edwards is the person who coined this slogan. When Edwards and those influenced by him (eg Vincent Baker) talk about system they're not...

www.enworld.org

Pointless to quote Snarf at me, he's blocked me for not being the best sport for his mockery, and disagreeing.

Among them:



And as I mentioned in that thread, in practice I think this style of play works best not just with high trust of the DM, but when the gameplay involves a degree of collaboration and conversation, the kind advocated for in storygames. The difference I think is that storygames are skeptical that that style of high trust play is possible without specific mechanics that constrain the gm and empower players. But both story games and fkr are skeptical that complicated, extensive rulesets (e.g. pathfinder, prussian wargames) can enable emergent play and/or be truly managed without becoming a headache for most people.

I find this largely confused and an attempt to justify a conclusion by searching for facts rather than looking at facts and coming to a conclusion. The comparison of Free Kriegsspiel and "Storygaming" is rather poorly made. For one, the term "Storygaming" cover more territory even than the strongest advocate for D&D being flexible imagines for D&D -- it's a huge set of games. Some are very much Bob says games, others use various forms of conflict resolution ranging from single mechanics (which range from Jenga pulls to dice to cards to conch passing) to mechanical systems (FitD, PbtA, FATE) to a scenario and consensus (Fiasco). Trying to compare this landscape and what it says about trust to something like Free Kriegsspiel, where trust is established by vetted knowledge of a specific subject and demonstrated experience with it strikes me as very, very badly done and fundamentally failing to grasp the conceptual space offered. The reason I see this usually trotted out is to really justify putting all authority with the GM as a way to make the game better -- and this aligns with the bullets you've posted. I don't think this is borne out at all with any serious thinking, except maybe it is faster for one person to just say what happens rather than roll a die to find out.

Let me address the bullets:

1) a human is faster than rules -- I find this to be extremely fraught. In some cases, yes, this is very true, if I have a system that requires rolling dice with a very low chance of failure to walk across a room then, sure, it's easier for a human to just say yes except every now and then no than to roll the dice.

If, however, the task is more complicated, then the human has to stop and consider the ramifications and the outcome space and may have a hard time holding all the variables in their head to successfully adjudicate this situation, while a rule could have that thinking baked in an resolve it much more quickly.

I think the problem in thinking here is that it's very fast for a human to just dash off an answer, but then we're saying that ANY answer is better than waiting, and I don't think that's correct. If we're looking for the same quality of resolution, then I don't see how we can say what this bullet is saying once we consider the range of complications that may need to be adjudicated. Further, a rule may have already considered the quality of resolution needed for this action while a human might need to consider if this needs a details resolution or a loose one.

2)Free Kriegsspiel doesn't promote invisible rulebooks. The lessons taught on how to use armies were well understood, so it was a matter of application. The Umpire's judgements were visible in that they were reasonable expected to follow understood application, and it was expected that the Umpire was merely applying these understood rules with the lens of experience, not that the rules of the game were hidden from the players and they had to discover them.

But, moving to the idea that Bob Says RPG rules promote an invisible rulebook, sure, you've hidden how the world works and are expecting the players to play characters that are from the world like they are aliens to that world. I'm not sure how this actually improves things, but it is definitely a thing that happens. And this is in a high trust scenario. Lower that, and you have a rulebook that can be changed at any time for any reason. I don't have to go too far on ENW to find people aggressively advocating for this approach, so apparently high trust is much more exclusive a club than just earnest gamers.

3) this is true of any game, though. Rules are not there to police trust in GMs, although they can moderate some behaviors, it's more that such things aren't left open for the GM to have to interpret rather than the assumption they will do so for bad reasons. Trust is important in any social hobby, and RPGs aren't different. Predicating an approach on "high trust" seems like you're asking people for quite a lot -- "I'm going to do things I will not explain to you and you just have to trust I'm doing it for a reason you will agree with." I mean, sure, you can do that, but is this a selling point? There's nothing particularly special about Bob Says that engenders or allows for high trust, just as there's nothing in, say, GURPS that cuts against high trust. This seems, to me, to be aimed at claiming that those that use Bob Says as an approach should be considered to be great GMs, very trustworthy, because they've chosen a style that requires high trust. Yes, and I have a bridge to sell you -- you can trust me because I'm selling bridges and that requires a lot of trust!

All of the points made to aggrandize Bob Says as an approach fail to actually address the conceptual space for Bob Says, what it actually means for play, and instead look for quick blurbs and sound bits that make it sound like it's a great thing and that rules that constrain the GM are only there because people don't trust the GM. It's a shaming technique, really - "if you don't like Bob Says, then it must be because you don't trust your GM like you should and if you did they'd be great because they can make quick decisions and hide the rules from you (won't that be fun!)!"

Gah.

 

[Malmuria]

Pointless to quote Snarf at me, he's blocked me for not being the best sport for his mockery, and disagreeing.

I find this largely confused and an attempt to justify a conclusion by searching for facts rather than looking at facts and coming to a conclusion. The comparison of Free Kriegsspiel and "Storygaming" is rather poorly made. For one, the term "Storygaming" cover more territory even than the strongest advocate for D&D being flexible imagines for D&D -- it's a huge set of games. Some are very much Bob says games, others use various forms of conflict resolution ranging from single mechanics (which range from Jenga pulls to dice to cards to conch passing) to mechanical systems (FitD, PbtA, FATE) to a scenario and consensus (Fiasco). Trying to compare this landscape and what it says about trust to something like Free Kriegsspiel, where trust is established by vetted knowledge of a specific subject and demonstrated experience with it strikes me as very, very badly done and fundamentally failing to grasp the conceptual space offered. The reason I see this usually trotted out is to really justify putting all authority with the GM as a way to make the game better -- and this aligns with the bullets you've posted. I don't think this is borne out at all with any serious thinking, except maybe it is faster for one person to just say what happens rather than roll a die to find out.

Let me address the bullets:

1) a human is faster than rules -- I find this to be extremely fraught. In some cases, yes, this is very true, if I have a system that requires rolling dice with a very low chance of failure to walk across a room then, sure, it's easier for a human to just say yes except every now and then no than to roll the dice.

If, however, the task is more complicated, then the human has to stop and consider the ramifications and the outcome space and may have a hard time holding all the variables in their head to successfully adjudicate this situation, while a rule could have that thinking baked in an resolve it much more quickly.

I think the problem in thinking here is that it's very fast for a human to just dash off an answer, but then we're saying that ANY answer is better than waiting, and I don't think that's correct. If we're looking for the same quality of resolution, then I don't see how we can say what this bullet is saying once we consider the range of complications that may need to be adjudicated. Further, a rule may have already considered the quality of resolution needed for this action while a human might need to consider if this needs a details resolution or a loose one.

2)Free Kriegsspiel doesn't promote invisible rulebooks. The lessons taught on how to use armies were well understood, so it was a matter of application. The Umpire's judgements were visible in that they were reasonable expected to follow understood application, and it was expected that the Umpire was merely applying these understood rules with the lens of experience, not that the rules of the game were hidden from the players and they had to discover them.

But, moving to the idea that Bob Says RPG rules promote an invisible rulebook, sure, you've hidden how the world works and are expecting the players to play characters that are from the world like they are aliens to that world. I'm not sure how this actually improves things, but it is definitely a thing that happens. And this is in a high trust scenario. Lower that, and you have a rulebook that can be changed at any time for any reason. I don't have to go too far on ENW to find people aggressively advocating for this approach, so apparently high trust is much more exclusive a club than just earnest gamers.

3) this is true of any game, though. Rules are not there to police trust in GMs, although they can moderate some behaviors, it's more that such things aren't left open for the GM to have to interpret rather than the assumption they will do so for bad reasons. Trust is important in any social hobby, and RPGs aren't different. Predicating an approach on "high trust" seems like you're asking people for quite a lot -- "I'm going to do things I will not explain to you and you just have to trust I'm doing it for a reason you will agree with." I mean, sure, you can do that, but is this a selling point? There's nothing particularly special about Bob Says that engenders or allows for high trust, just as there's nothing in, say, GURPS that cuts against high trust. This seems, to me, to be aimed at claiming that those that use Bob Says as an approach should be considered to be great GMs, very trustworthy, because they've chosen a style that requires high trust. Yes, and I have a bridge to sell you -- you can trust me because I'm selling bridges and that requires a lot of trust!

All of the points made to aggrandize Bob Says as an approach fail to actually address the conceptual space for Bob Says, what it actually means for play, and instead look for quick blurbs and sound bits that make it sound like it's a great thing and that rules that constrain the GM are only there because people don't trust the GM. It's a shaming technique, really - "if you don't like Bob Says, then it must be because you don't trust your GM like you should and if you did they'd be great because they can make quick decisions and hide the rules from you (won't that be fun!)!"

Gah.

One of the main stumbling blocks to these discussions is the inference that thinking about or even advocating for the benefits of a particular style or type of game is implicitly or explicitly an attempt to privilege that style over others (onetruewayism and badwrongfun respectively). For me, I'm just interested in FKR as an idea that seems interesting and potentially fun, not as a way to rule out other options.

The comparison with story games is just sort of a thought I had while reading/listening through some of the discussions around FKR. I think particularly interesting for me is this discussion starting at 39:22


(apologies if you are not a fan of Magpie games at the moment)

 

[clearstream]

I don't think it's pretending constraints don't exist, as it is seeing what would happen if you start with the minimum viable ruleset and build up from there

@Snarf Zagyg quotes Ben Milton's thoughts on the subjects in the other thread

System matters and free kriegsspiel

This thread has been prompted by some of the recent discussions of the topics mentioned in the thread title. System matters To the best of my knowledge, Ron Edwards is the person who coined this slogan. When Edwards and those influenced by him (eg Vincent Baker) talk about system they're not...

www.enworld.org

Among them:



And as I mentioned in that thread, in practice I think this style of play works best not just with high trust of the DM, but when the gameplay involves a degree of collaboration and conversation, the kind advocated for in storygames. The difference I think is that storygames are skeptical that that style of high trust play is possible without specific mechanics that constrain the gm and empower players. But both story games and fkr are skeptical that complicated, extensive rulesets (e.g. pathfinder, prussian wargames) can enable emergent play and/or be truly managed without becoming a headache for most people.

In FK the umpire is a neutral arbiter between players. SFAIK they don't take actions. One might feel inspired by FK, but FKR is misleading. Taking the FK element sincerely seems to lead to misunderstanding what is being aimed for.

There needs to be a reconciliation with storytelling.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I don't think it's pretending constraints don't exist, as it is seeing what would happen if you start with the minimum viable ruleset and build up from there

It’s an interesting concept. I don’t know if I’m familiar with any games that might be considered FKR or that identify as such. I’m curious to hear about them.

It sounds to me like instead of “rulings not rules” it’d be “houserules not rules”. That may not be entirely accurate, but that’s the initial take that occurred to me.

I do think that there is a significant difference in the role of the umpire in early wargames and that of the GM in RPGs. Yes, there are similarities…but I think a few key differences as well, and those are significant.

 

[Ovinomancer]

One of the main stumbling blocks to these discussions is the inference that thinking about or even advocating for the benefits of a particular style or type of game is implicitly or explicitly an attempt to privilege that style over others (onetruewayism and badwrongfun respectively). For me, I'm just interested in FKR as an idea that seems interesting and potentially fun, not as a way to rule out other options. .

This is perhaps my baggage with the OP, who has, aggressively, attacked others in threads about other approaches and then starts his own threads where he can try to control the direction and tone and where he, again, attacks those that disagree. To me, arguments that start from there are about cementing your viewpoint first and discussion of gameplay maybe.

The comparison with story games is just sort of a thought I had while reading/listening through some of the discussions around FKR. I think particularly interesting for me is this discussion starting at 39:22


(apologies if you are not a fan of Magpie games at the moment)

That's a good segment, but I think that the top left (EDITED) guy (I don't know who these people are) quite nicely showed how the idea of a Bob says approach has problems. Rules that establish clear themes, and that execute the necessary parts of that theme, but then don't go too far so as to strangle it are great. Personally I find PbtA to be pretty good at this, overall, with some absolute standouts and some not great hacks. I recently started playing in an Aliens game, and have read those rules thoroughly, and I'm seeing some places where I'm concerned. First, the game has some rules that are absolutely amazing -- they hit the tone and impact of the themes out of the park! But, then, I also see points where I think, maybe, the rules are going to get in the way. For example, the combat system seems a bit, well, heavy for the concept space, with details about weapons types used, positioning, being prone, etc. All of this going into the combat rolls, which finally engage the really good concept space of the panic dice! However, I think that combat looks like it's getting bogged down in the minutia of tactics and such while the main concept and indeed the main mechanic are about the drama (and the horror). I'm excited to see it in play and find out if my concerns are valid.

Simply put, Free Kriegsspiel as an ideal is often badly misunderstood and then badly applied to the RPG space. It works in it's original context because a Polish Army officer tried to put all of his understanding about warfare into a set of rules for other officers, and it got in the way of the point -- to learn how to conduct war before the shells fly. So, it turned out that in the context of a wargame about real war, using the playbook of current military tactics and understanding, that having an Umpire make the calls that the rules were trying to worked out a bit better -- mostly because of how complex the rules had to be to model the game. Instead of using the rules to find out if your artillery barrage set the target village on fire along with the other effects by using cumbersome rules, you had an Umpire who would just arbitrarily say so. Instead of having to look up in the rules to find out if the mud in the fields slowed your foot's advance, you had an Umpire who remembered a dreadful slog under fire and said what happened. This worked in the context of the wargame for officers of the Polish Army who were trying to get better at the task of commanding forces successfully in the face of adversity. What it doesn't do is provide any actually useful input into whether or not a fantasy RPG should be run primarily or solely by GM fiat, or Bob says. These are different contexts, different goals, and different things.

The answer to that question is up to a table. Maybe it is the right way to play for a given table -- I can't say. However, I can address the arguments made that suggest that this is a preferable state of affairs that try to leverage Free Kriegsspiel as top cover when they don't really apply, and I can address the arguments that suggest that Bob Says has better results that another given approach. It has different results.

Also, I find the entire argument that undergrids the high trust arguments to be essentially attempts to shame people so that they don't disagree, because the counter almost universally applied is to be sorry that the respondent doesn't trust their GM.

 

[Malmuria]

It’s an interesting concept. I don’t know if I’m familiar with any games that might be considered FKR or that identify as such. I’m curious to hear about them.

It sounds to me like instead of “rulings not rules” it’d be “houserules not rules”. That may not be entirely accurate, but that’s the initial take that occurred to me.

I do think that there is a significant difference in the role of the umpire in early wargames and that of the GM in RPGs. Yes, there are similarities…but I think a few key differences as well, and those are significant.

Sometimes I see advocates of more crunchy editions/games remind people that dnd grew out of tactical wargames. While true, it's also interesting that such wargames have a long history of those who wanted more extensive and codified rulesets and those who reacted against that and wanted more gm arbitration to make the game go fastser.

 

[Ovinomancer]

It’s an interesting concept. I don’t know if I’m familiar with any games that might be considered FKR or that identify as such. I’m curious to hear about them.

It sounds to me like instead of “rulings not rules” it’d be “houserules not rules”. That may not be entirely accurate, but that’s the initial take that occurred to me.

I do think that there is a significant difference in the role of the umpire in early wargames and that of the GM in RPGs. Yes, there are similarities…but I think a few key differences as well, and those are significant.

Sneaky of you, to steal my main point with a simple statement of it while I write the opening chapter of a thesis.