"Prescription" and RPGing procedures

[pemerton]

In one of the many threads debating the DMG, hawkeyefan posted this:

The books have rules and processes that are prescriptive. No one complains "don't tell me how fireball works, dadgummit".

That post prompted this one. Because it's not really about the DMG, or even D&D per se, I thought it best to start a new thread.

It's true that most RPG rulebooks - including D&D ones - have rules for both building PCs, and generating immediate effects of their actions. One example is the one that hawkeyefan points to: rules for building a character who can cast a magical fireball, and for establishing what happens when that spell is cast: X amount of damage is done to those within the explosion, which will kill those with X or fewer hit points. Rolemaster, RuneQuest, GURPS, HERO, Burning Wheel - all have similar rules.

In a literal sense these rules are prescriptive: they prescribe how to play the game. But I posit that they are often seen as descriptive, in the sense of describing the fictional world of the game. They are seen as analogous to an encyclopaedia + translation manual, telling us what the fictional world is like and how to represent it in mechanical terms.

What that sort of rule doesn't do is tell us anything about how game participants are supposed to go about creating a shared fiction. How are scenes - basic units of fictional happenings in which the PCs participate - established? How is what happens next - not in the sense of what happens when someone is caught in the AoE of a fireball?, but rather what happens to the trajectory of the fiction, given that someone has been killed by (or miraculously survived) a fireball?.

There are RPGs that do have rules that deal with those things - Apocalypse World and offshoots, Burning Wheel, MHRP/Cortex+, and notoriously 4e D&D - and these are the game typically diagnosed as "overly" prescriptive.

One characteristic of rules that are "prescriptive" in this sense is that they cannot be treated as descriptive of the fictional world of the game. No one can interpret a rule about how to open or close a scene as telling us something, encyclopaedia-like, about the nature of the fiction. (Unless playing Toon or a similarly self-referential RPG - the only other one I can think of is Over the Edge.) Rules like this are manifestly directions on how to play, most often directed at GMs. (But by no means exclusively so.)

To me, it seems that the "non-prescriptive" approach to RPGing is an approach in which the rules that are acknowledged and applied are the ones like those for fireball AoE and damage, for sword damage, even for the chance of finding a secret door that the GM has decided "exists" in the fiction; but in which rules that would tell the GM how to make decisions about the fiction are eschewed.

This is itself a particular approach to RPGing, probably the mainstream approach since the mid-1980s (so close to the whole duration of the hobby). John Harper diagrams it this way:

(I can't link to the original posting of this diagram, but thank @Campbell for letting me know about it.)

The blue stuff in the diagram is things like "I cast a fireball!". The red stuff is conflicts in the fiction, some of which have stuff like "I cast a fireball!" connected to them. The purple "GM fiat" bit is where the GM decides, unbound by particular rules, what happens next in terms of conflict and situation, and the overall trajectory of the fiction. It is the absence of rules - prescriptions - which allows this.

Introducing prescriptions to govern these things would significantly change this RPGing.

 

[MichaelSomething]

Who needs prescriptions when you have DM empowerment???
I'm sure having things decided by a DM (and/or the fiction) will never lead to bad situations...

 

[kenada]

I would offer as an example of the prescriptive approach from an actual session: my recent post in the 5 words commentary thread.

There was an interesting conversation that occurred while we were resolving the jump with the thief and the barbarian. While I was thinking out loud about a possible consequence for only success (versus complete success), one of the players suggested having the barbarian drop the thief or leave him behind, but that would have negated the intent. I even expected this kind of situation when putting together my homebrew system and explicitly proscribed it.

• Complete success (3+ over the target): You accomplish what you were trying to do without any complications.
• Success (0 to 2 over the target): You accomplish what you were trying to do, but there is a complication. The complication cannot negate your intent.
• Failure: The referee says what happens.

 

[Umbran]

How are scenes - basic units of fictional happenings in which the PCs participate - established?

Consider the possibility that this thinking is a square-peg, round hole situation. Some games are designed to think in terms of scenes - individual units of fictional happenings. That does not mean all games break down well into scenes - you may be trying to apply a framework that doesn't fit the game well.

Indeed, the more narrative games built with scene framing were generally designed as a response to D&D. Why should we expect scene framing and considering "trajectory of play" to be appropriate when the point of using the concepts was to get away from common forms of D&D play?

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Consider the possibility that this thinking is a square-peg, round hole situation. Some games are designed to think in terms of scenes - individual units of fictional happenings. That does not mean all games break down well into scenes - you may be trying to apply a framework that doesn't fit the game well.

Indeed, the more narrative games built with scene framing were generally designed as a response to D&D. Why should we expect scene framing and considering "trajectory of play" to be appropriate when the point of using the concepts was to get away from common forms of D&D play?

I sure thought 4e pretty much explained this...

 

[Umbran]

I sure thought 4e pretty much explained this...

If this is a potshot, please stop taking them. I find them contrary to constructive conversation.
If this has some more relevance, please explain what you mean.

 

[pemerton]

Consider the possibility that this thinking is a square-peg, round hole situation. Some games are designed to think in terms of scenes - individual units of fictional happenings. That does not mean all games break down well into scenes - you may be trying to apply a framework that doesn't fit the game well.

All RPGing includes basic units of fictional happenings in which the PCs participate, whether or not the rulebook and the participants self-consciously use the terminology of "scenes".

Here's an illustration from p 2 of the 5e Basic pdf:

Dungeon Master (DM): After passing through the craggy peaks, the road takes a sudden turn to the east and Castle Ravenloft towers before you. Crumbling towers of stone keep a silent watch over the approach. They look like abandoned guardhouses. Beyond these, a wide chasm gapes, disappearing into the deep fog below. A lowered drawbridge spans the chasm, leading to an arched entrance to the castle courtyard. The chains of the drawbridge creak in the wind, their rust-eaten iron straining with the weight. From atop the high strong walls, stone gargoyles stare at you from hollow sockets and grin hideously. A rotting wooden portcullis, green with growth, hangs in the entry tunnel. Beyond this, the main doors of Castle Ravenloft stand open, a rich warm light spilling into the courtyard.​

D&D can't be played without these sorts of fictional happenings or states of affairs being established and agreed among the participants.

We can look at this particular example and notice certain features:

*It elides time, and also movement by the PCs ("After passing through the craggy peaks, the road takes a sudden turn to the east");​

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*It assumes that information about the nature of this building, and its immediate surrounds, flows one-way (from GM to players): the GM confidently describes the castle, its architecture, the chasm, the fog in the chasm, the wind, the growth on the portcullis, etc;​

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*Some of that information imposes a certain logic onto the situation, both an aesthetic one (the narrator tells us that the towers "keep a silent watch", that the gargoyles "stare . . . and grin hideously", that the light is "rich [and] warm") and a functional one (the protagonists recognise the towers as "abandoned guardhouses" and can tell that the chains "strain[i[ with the weight" of the drawbridge).​

This raises immediate questions, such as

*When is it OK to elide time and movement in this way?​

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*Do the players ever get to provide information about the buildings and environs in which the PCs find themselves, and if so when and how?​

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*Are there limits on the GM's imposition of aesthetic logic, and do the players get to contribute to the aesthetic?​

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*When should the GM hold back from conveying a functional logic and (for instance) wait for the players to ask a question ("Do the chains seem sturdy?") and/or call for a check ("Roll INT(Investigation)")?​

Moldvay Basic provides answers to some of these:

*It's OK to elide time and movement between dungeon expeditions, and it's OK to elide time when resting in a dungeon;​

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*The players do not get to provide information about buildings and environs.​

It also tends to suggest the GM should hold back on the aesthetics (it doesn't figure in discussions or examples of the GM's role, and seems at odds with the emphasis on GM "distance"/impartiality). I think it's not entirely clear on functional logic, but tends to suggest - again from the examples - that the GM should be waiting more on questions from the players.

Torchbearer discusses most of these:

*It has clear rules about when and how time and movement get elided, with adventure phase, journeys as a subset of that, camp phase and town phase;​

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*The players don't get to provide information about buildings and environs - even for their friends and family, a roll is made on a table (and a comment in the rules notes the unreliability of the PC's memory of the family home);​

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*There is a good discussion of when and how to convey a functional logic, call for checks, etc.​

It doesn't say much about aesthetic logic. The only RPG rulebook I can think of that does expressly discuss that is In A Wicked Age, which (p 10) tells the GM, when describing things, to "Use your senses, including senses beyond the five, like your moral sense, your sense of humor, your sense of direction. Give your observer a voice."

Anyway, the assertion of the OP is that the objection to "prescription" is an objection to including rules or principles that address the sorts of questions I've identified. (And others too, that are also about these sorts of aspects of RPGing - managing scenes, and establishing what flows from them.)

 

[Fenris-77]

I tend to try and provide as many descriptive handholds for potential action as I can when I GM. I'm not a big fan of waiting to be asked either. I'd prefer to have the players actively problem solve woth good information than spend 5 minutes playing mother-may-I with the details.

As for player additions to description, I first follow the game, as some games overtly encourage or even demand this. Second, even in systems that don't encourage it, I still do it to some extent especially as regards PC connections to the fiction. I don't want to tell a player where they learned to uae a sword, I want them to tell me.

 

[pemerton]

I tend to try and provide as many descriptive handholds for potential action as I can when I GM. I'm not a big fan of waiting to be asked either. I'd prefer to have the players actively problem solve woth good information than spend 5 minutes playing mother-may-I with the details.

As for player additions to description, I first follow the game, as some games overtly encourage or even demand this. Second, even in systems that don't encourage it, I still do it to some extent especially as regards PC connections to the fiction. I don't want to tell a player where they learned to uae a sword, I want them to tell me.

Linking this back directly to the OP:

Does, and should, the rulebook for a given RPG tell the GM what approach to take here? And what is the result if it doesn't?

Torchbearer 2e expressly tells everyone that the first time a PC visits the home of a friend or their parents, a roll is to be made to work out (roughly) whether it's a hovel or a mansion. The player can make up whatever they like about their PCs' backstory, but as the rulebook says (SG p 121), "The old place isn’t quite as they remember it". The book is clear that players' authorship of PC recollections is not binding in relation to the PC's current fictional position.

This fits with the game including "hidden gameboards" and also a lottery element (found also, for instance, in the camp and town event rolls). Having these elements be transparent reinforces to the players that everyone at the table - them and the GM - is working under these same constraints.

By way of contrast, Burning Wheel is quite different - the player gets to author backstory, and make action declarations (especially Wises), that do have the capacity to be binding relative to current fictional position. There's no hidden gameboard, and not much lottery, in Burning Wheel.

The "non-prescriptive" approach, which I've connected in the OP to John Harper's diagram, does not permit players to directly author binding backstory. It has to be mediated by the GM. But (unlike, say, AW's "ask questions and build on the answers" which obliges the GM both to accept and to say "true" things about the fiction) there are no principles or rules that govern that mediation. So nor is there transparency. The GM is the one who holds it all together, treating player contributions as true or keeping the gameboard hidden as they think is appropriate.

That's a distinctive (though quite widespread and very mainstream) approach to RPGing.

 

[Fenris-77]

I dont think think the rulebook needs to precisely, although depending on design it might want to (like AW, for example). I think that it more cases than not the rules are somewhat mum on this topic, leaving it open to a variety of GMing styles, which is fine IMO.

I have no issue modding games that I feel are overly restrictive in terms of player input either. Torchbearer is something of an exception there for me as it's already so exquisitely balanced I don't want to mess with it. Mostly though, I just GM as I see fit, regardless of system, which usually means transparency and plus player agency to some degree.