D&D General How much control do DMs need?

[clearstream]

As I said, the force of rules in social pastimes depends on moment-to-moment agreement to accept them. Your example illustrates that: at T2 you agree to accept the rule, based on the promise you made at T1.

Should w wish to, we can get deeper into the discussion of the nature of the agreement etc. (Eg Durkheim on social facts is one interesting account.) But I don't think we need to do that in order to discuss some of the basic features of RPGing.

Yes, this is indeed what I said. I'd be interested to hear your reflections on what it means to make a promise.

 

[clearstream]

Is this a new claim that is trying to stick? AW Custom Moves aren't a principally & structurally constrained piece of transparently codified game tech? Therefore stealth Rule 0?

If whoever out there actually believes this could kindly raise your hand and point me to your take on this, I'd be curious to how you arrived at that!

If it is me who should raise their hand, then I suspect whoever you are responding to has failed to grasp my arguments. I queried an on-surface contradiction with prior positions by stating what folk might be understood as saying, in order to get at the differences between rule zero and freely hacking rules. Aside from allergic reactions, this has yielded a reasonably clear picture of what folk feel is at stake. Essentially -

Rule zero is connected with traditional GM empowerment, so to invoke it skirts invoking that empowerment.
Freedom to hack rules is either a preexisting behaviour, a principle, or a rule (it doesn't matter which and there are arguments for all three).

My contribution is to propose that if the second statement is true, then rule zero amounts to one or more regulatory rules that act upon it. Rule zero is only able to have any effect because there is a prior ability to hack rules. The practical upshot of rule zero then, is

1) to exclude others from similarly exercising their ability to hack rules
2) to put in place a prior agreement that will go on to effect moment-to-moment acceptance

 

[pemerton]

Getting back to Apocalypse World (and the start of this thread?) for a moment, I was just reading AW the other day, and I was struck by how much power the MC actually has. Possibly even more than a lot of DMs.

<snip>

I think the real difference is the strict prohibition on prepping plots or set-pieces, and the way the moves system forces rolls with meaningful outcomes in situations that might otherwise deflate or be resolved by GM fiat (with quantum ogres tempting the GM from somewhere in their peripheral vision). AW is, by its own admission, a very traditional, GM-heavy game, but it has guard-rails in place to prevent railroading, get the players to actually play their characters, and give actual results when you roll the dice.

I don't quite agree with this. I agree with @loverdrive upthread: in AW there are strict limits on when the GM can make a hard move. In particular, a hard move is never permitted just because it is what would follow "logically" from as-yet-unrevealed prep/notes.

That's a radical departure from typical ways of adjudicating D&D.

 

[pemerton]

Nope. Cut it out. My entire point was that what I was describing about people being able to change the rules is not a rule. Stop trying to make this into a rule.

Right. In social pastimes, the capacity to change rules doesn't follow from a power-vesting rule. It's just a fact about how social pastimes work!

 

[clearstream]

Right. In social pastimes, the capacity to change rules doesn't follow from a power-vesting rule. It's just a fact about how social pastimes work!

I can see arguments for that, and they dovetail with the proposal that rule zero has the form of one or more regulatory rules (regulating that preexisting behaviour.)

 

[niklinna]

That was quite rad, yes. The tentacle thing was a hacked ability from the Drowner playbook, right?

Yes, Mark of the Kraken. I also swapped one out for Perverse Dimensions (the teleport ability). I think I used each once before we wrapped up, but both uses were pretty rad.

 

[niklinna]

True, not directly, but what it does do is explicitly communicate to me that the structure of the game is expressly designed to take modification in stride. 5e specifically calls out the three changes that will unbalance the combat chassis. The combination of those two (not to mention the extensive optional rules section) gives me confidence that changes made, outside of those three exemptions, are less likely to have the negative consequences I'd rather avoid.

I contrast this with Blades in the Dark, which talks instead about the game is designed to "fail gracefully" if sections of the rules are forgotten or ignored. Which, is still reassuring, but in a very different context. It expressly says "The game is better when you use all the details, but the whole thing doesn’t come crashing down if you don’t." This sort of language actively works to suppress any desire I might have otherwise had to modify the game to fit my purposes. Which I think is the right call for Blades! It's got a lot of interlocking systems, and if I mess with, say, Stress, than that is going to potentially affect flashbacks, vices, trauma, devil's bargains, rituals, etc. When I play a game as specific as that, I want to try and follow the designers' intentions, so that I have the envisioned experience and can examine it on its proper merits. And that's what I'm looking for out of Blades, I've seen very convincing arguments about how the game is so very pointedly crafted to create the pressure-cooker environment that forces characters to act both appropriately and in exciting ways. In addition, I read posts on here that talk about GMs that run PBtAs and the like in "degenerate" form, and how they are fundamentally not actually playing the game they say they are because of misapplied principles. I'm quite concerned about ending up there just by failing to fully embody the agendas, which I already struggle to keep as forefront in mind as I'd like. Intentionally changing the rules text feels even more likely to push play into that state.

To be fair, I do know the rulebook has a section called Changing the Game, and there are extensive and varied options there. That does help to empower me, but only to the degree that I would probably generally limit myself to the options that are called out there, having been vetted by the creators.

And, to this:

That's very fair, and I probably worry more than is strictly necessary. But, I worry more than is strictly necessary about roughly 83% of the things in my life, so I can't say it's a surprising call out, nor do I think it's an issue I'm likely to leave behind me anytime soon.

Well, I just like to keep in mind the whole "play to find out" thing. If you have a change in mind, give it a spin! Explain it to the rest of the group, see if their eyes sparkle, and if so see how it rolls out in actual play. It might make things really go brrr! It might be a dud. You don't know unless you try.

My crew more often than not split up to do scores with one, two, or three PCs, run in parallel. I'm pretty sure that isn't a thing in the book, but we did it anyhow. Sometimes it was pretty awesome, sometimes I found it kind of onerous to be going it alone—it really depended on the nature of the score.

The first page of the chapter on changing the game is pretty up front about "play and iterate", which is another way of saying "play to find out.". John Harper isn't gonna bust in with the Pinkertons* if you try something to see how it goes.

* Sorry, this is either cleverly topical or already tired, I don't know which.

 

[Imaro]

So swinging back to DW and things following or not following from hidden knowledge and prep-notes ... In the DW SRD part of the GM rules states this...

Think offscreen too
Just because you’re a fan of the characters doesn’t mean everything happens right in front of them. Sometimes your best move is in the next room, or another part of the dungeon, or even back in town. Make your move elsewhere and show its effects when they come into the spotlight.

Now this, along with this (which I realize was brought up earlier, but I'm still a little unclear on why this isn't a mapping in the D&D sense especially since this seems to be the methodology many use for sandboxes)...

Draw maps, leave blanks
Dungeon World exists mostly in the imaginations of the people playing it; maps help everyone stay on the same page. You won’t always be drawing them yourself, but any time there’s a new location described make sure it gets added to a map.

When you draw a map don’t try to make it complete. Leave room for the unknown. As you play you’ll get more ideas and the players will give you inspiration to work with. Let the maps expand and change.

Seems to imply that pre-prep, mapping and actions that can be based on knowledge that is not available to the players are all viable and expected parts of DW.

To be clear I am not stating this is the definitive interpretation... but this is what I am taking from my reading of this principle. I'd be interested in hearing how those with more experience in this playstyle interpret this...and why they feel it does or doesn't differ from D&D prep.

 

[hawkeyefan]

This is true as far as it goes. I've seen far more do it on the side of non-traditional play, though. It's common to see that, where it's fairly uncommon or even rare to see it go the other way.

I don’t think that’s the case. In any given thread, certain opinions may be put forth, but I think the bulk of activity on this site revolves around D&D, and the bulk of that around 5e.

I think in the case of this thread, the point was to challenge what’s considered the standard or common way that D&D is run and played. It’s asking if the typical amount of control is necessary.

So the nature of the conversation will revolve around that. I don’t think that saying less control than is standard is all that’s needed is the same as saying that more control is “bad”.

I think its likely that people don't notice so much, as a lot of the "GM-centered-thinking" (I'm picturing Spock and Kirk on the bridge of the Enterprise in the middle of fighting Khan here) is so implicit that people don't even realize they're doing it. That, and obviously if you are talking about most D&D play you SHOULD assume it is the case, whether you like it or not...

I’d say it’s often the default assumption, that any and all games work like D&D. And while I can understand some amount of frustration when other games are constantly brought up when discussion specifically is about 5e. But in this case, we’re talking about what level of control is necessary, so of course a variety of game styles is gonna come up, and mention of other games is gonna happen.

I can see arguments for that, and they dovetail with the proposal that rule zero has the form of one or more regulatory rules (regulating that preexisting behaviour.)

But what does Rule Zero say? It’s not an actual thing, but instead is a bit of jargon that can mean a number of things. How can it regulate anything?

 

[clearstream]

But what does Rule Zero say? It’s not an actual thing, but instead is a bit of jargon that can mean a number of things. How can it regulate anything?

The top-voted definition on stackexhange gives this

Rule Zero, also known as GM fiat, is the common RPG rule that the GM has the ultimate say in all rules matters and can thus introduce new rules or exceptions to rules, or abolish old ones at their leisure.

So what is this doing? I feel like it is not contentious to say that folk here feel that all RPGs are hackable. Rule zero isn't needed to permit or enable gamers to introduce rules or exceptions to rules, or abolish old ones.

So again, what is it doing? The bolded part is what's important. Following rule zero means accepting that one person can do those things and no one else can. As you pointed out, that could be Rule Birthday. So rule zero is also naming that person: it has to be the GM. This is a regulatory rule because just as traffic lights regulate the preexisting behaviour of driving a car (something that can be done whether or not traffic lights exist), rule zero regulates the exercise of a power that everyone already possesses.

I think @Aldarc has blocked me which is a shame because if they saw that I was making statements that were intended to be as neutral as possible, then they might have also seen that the conversation has upheld many (perhaps not all) of their intuitions. I'm agreeing that the power to hack rules preexists rule zero (whether as a behaviour, or a principle, or some form of rule honestly doesn't matter.) And in a sense demoting rule zero in a way that focuses exactly on it's restrictive function.

Obviously traffic lights aren't always a bad thing - regulations aren't always bad - except on the autobahn. Which is to say that rule zero isn't a bad thing given I am comfortable with GM-empowerment. If I have any reservations about GM-empowerment, then the construction I propose detaches the underlying power to hack from rule zero. Which as a proposition is what I would want. It means that there isn't a harbour for arguments like the one I read in a recent blog that

Every tabletop RPG system has a Rule Zero. It usually goes like this, The Game Master may change, modify, ignore, or add to the rules as he or she sees fit to ensure the game is fun and runs smoothly.

In my initial draft of my first post in this particular digression, I had a postscript that explained why I was laying out the statements as I did. I deleted it fearing that folk might feel I was accusing them of constructively contradicting themselves! In hindsight, perhaps it would have forestalled much misunderstanding.