D&D General How much control do DMs need?

[clearstream]

I think I missed that part, I'm afraid I've been skipping pages (this thread moves frightfully fast.)

In that case, where is the "rule can change rules" occuring? It cannot occur during play. If anyone is permitted to employ that power, it would, as I said, break the premise of the game. But if it is not employed during play, it is only being employed outside of play...when there are no players yet. Just people thinking about how Mao could be played. We don't think of game designers as exercising either "Rule Zero" or "Rule-can-change-rules."* Instead, we think of them as designing, a task which precedes play and thus precedes any concept of either "Rule Zero" or "Rule-can-change-rules."


Okay. My assertion is that there is no assignment of this power, while play is happening, that is compatible with the premise of Mao. You cannot assign it, because the instant you do, at least one part of the premise is lost. To state that premise clearly: "Mao is a game where there are rules, but these rules are not permitted to be spoken, written, or shared, so that the process of playing the game reveals, by inference, observation, and experiment, what the rules must be, and thus the player who can navigate these rules successfully wins."

*NGL, that particular structure is super confusing to me--I thought it meant "the rules can change the rules," which is nonsensical, rules can't do anything, only people can.

__________________________________________

Separately from the above, it occurred to me that maybe we got off on the wrong foot. That is, it seems that you're focused on why it matters to me that something is a behavior vs a rule. That, for me, is not strictly the core issue. Instead, the core issue is, I do believe it's just a behavior--that is, something people-who-play-games just do, a part of play no different from "communicating" or "concealing" or what-have-you. Thus, the issue is not whether it can be a rule (for it certainly can), nor whether it is a behavior whether or not it is a rule (for demonstrably it is), but rather, the issue (for me) is people insisting that it is only a rule, and not a baseline behavior of people playing games. That "Rule Zero" is special and different. That it truly creates, effectively ex nihilo, the ability to change rules, especially because it is vested in only one person, who (by being just one person vested with such ability) can have the clarity and consistency and vision** to use this newly-created "can-change-rules" power to better the game.

There is no ex nihilo creation here. Changing rules is a thing people who play games do; they do not need, nor have they ever needed, an official "Rule Zero" to do it. Much less anything special or unique about assigning exclusive use of that power to a single person. Rule Zero is presented as being something new, a power that simply did not exist at all before and now does, and because it does a whole bunch of things are now possible. Yet it isn't new. It isn't even mildly unexpected; it is something people-who-play-games do and have done for as long as there have been people playing games. To make a mountain out of this molehill--especially in a "so giving this absolute power is super important!" way--is a big part of why I push back.

**I'm on record as saying I don't think DMs are actually as clear or consistent as a lot of folks seem to think.


And yet, as anyone with experience with Dungeon World will tell you, you should not break DW's rules. Doing so is a very bad idea that is essentially guaranteed to result in problems. Which can be summarized, admittedly without much nuance, as "the rules control the game."

I as GM am not allowed to give false answers to certain player questions. Ever. Doesn't matter what I feel about it; doesn't matter if I think a false answer would be better for the game. I'm not allowed to answer falsely when someone asks Discern Realities questions. I'm certainly not required to divulge absolutely every fact ever, but nothing I say can be false. In return, Discern Realities only permits six questions (unless changed, e.g. I believe my group's Battlemaster has a move that would add another question to Discern Realities, he just hasn't chosen to learn it.) Likewise, on a full success with Spout Lore (10+), I am required to give an answer that is both interesting and useful--and, in return, I can ask the player to tell me how they learned this information, and they are required to tell me the truth. Etc.

The rules of Dungeon World are very, very carefully designed. That doesn't mean they're brittle, far from it, the system is quite robust in the face of changing circumstances and interests, at least IME. What it means is, if you're going to run it, you really, really should run it as written. It is legitimately a bad idea to run it not as written. But, thankfully, one of the core parts of running DW is making new moves (monster moves, location moves, sometimes new "basic" or "advanced" moves for the players collectively, etc.) There's plenty of guidance for how to do this, and (as I noted above) several useful templates to start from. No move is ever particularly complex, and since they need either a clear trigger action (e.g. "when you closely examine a person, situation, or location..."), or a move they feed into which already has one (e.g. "when you Hack & Slash"), they're always grounded.

Assuming, of course, you actually play by the rules. Because, sometimes, the wise course of action really is to stick to the rules as much as humanly possible. It helps, of course, if the rules are actually good rules that have been tested to make sure they work as intended across a broad range of situations!

This was an interesting post and changed my mind on one point. So that I now have a model to put forward. First of all, I now feel it works well to think of the following as preexisting human behaviours or capacities -

1. Capacity to form and modify rules
2. Capacity to follow rules

You'll notice that I haven't listed interpretation. There are complexities that I believe don't obstruct what I'll go on to say, and I'm willing to unpack those if they turn out to matter. Elsewhere, I have used the construct that for a rule R there is a Z which is the rule as interpreted, and I have that in mind that here.

1. and 2. then fit very neatly with existing theory on regulatory and constitutive rules, which is to say that my rule N. is a regulatory rule that limits the preexisting ability to form and modify rules, and rule 0. is a regulatory rule that assigns it.

So now as to Baker's claim about moment-to-moment acceptance. To address this, I propose that there is a C which is the commitment to follow a rule. C isn't a binary absolute, but rather a weight, disposition, tendency or propensity: the likelihood that the rule-follower will compy with the rule. (Note that like other models of cognition, factors like C are artifacts of the construct; chosen for their correlation to behaviour. Thus they are normally testable.)

At any moment when my compliance with a rule is tested (do I accept it or not) that is a test of my C in respect of that rule. Where I have a strong commitment to following the rule (a high value for C) I am more likely to follow it than not follow it, etc. Thus it can properly be said that rule-following is enacted as moment-to-moment acceptance, and that the acceptance itself is in conformance with Cs. So that it can also be said that earlier events that change C will form probability-deltas to the moment-to-moment acceptance relative to what would be predicted in their absence.

A GM securing vocal pre-agreement to rule 0 is an example of such an event. Reading a written rule and a written principle that it should be followed is another such event. Making oneself subject to the authority of an institution, such as to the organisers of a tournament, is yet another. And so on.

C is always referred to in determining rule acceptance in the moment. One way to picture C is as a die roll made in the moment, with modifiers, whose result determines if the rule will be followed. So that it is true that we will only find out if a rule is accepted in the moment, and it is true that we can say something about what modifiers are in play (the strength of C). That successfully explains that written rules and principles, commitments to following them, and so on, will matter to acceptance in the moment. (NB: I've simplied my construct for C for the sake of this discussion.)

 

[overgeeked]

Yes, I noted that. I strongly disagree about "schizophrenic gaming experience".

I probably worded that too strongly. Something a bit softer perhaps. Too many cooks spoil the soup. In my experience, without a central authority to unify the game experience, the table inevitably pulls in multiple directions at once so you get nothing much done until someone decides to take charge and organize the rest into something roughly analogous to a unified purpose. But, far more common (as in basically happened every single time I've played a decentralized game), the game just fails to launch.

 

[clearstream]

I probably worded that too strongly. Something a bit softer perhaps. Too many cooks spoil the soup. In my experience, without a central authority to unify the game experience, the table inevitably pulls in multiple directions at once so you get nothing much done until someone decides to take charge and organize the rest into something roughly analogous to a unified purpose. But, far more common (as in basically happened every single time I've played a decentralized game), the game just fails to launch.

I'm liking that because it's good to see that dialled back on. I think the bolded words are important. The pulling in multiple directions could well be a feature of a table who normally assign authority so that they don't have settled norms as to how to behave in its absence. Thus the solution is also the problem. My experience has been that changing power arrangements can lead to initial disruption, which then resolves as new norms are settled on.

 

[Aldarc]

I probably worded that too strongly. Something a bit softer perhaps. Too many cooks spoil the soup. In my experience, without a central authority to unify the game experience, the table inevitably pulls in multiple directions at once so you get nothing much done until someone decides to take charge and organize the rest into something roughly analogous to a unified purpose. But, far more common (as in basically happened every single time I've played a decentralized game), the game just fails to launch.

I agree that it's still helpful to have a moderator in a roundtable discussion. I don't think that anyone here believes that no GMs are needed or wanted or that GMs aren't helpful in what they do for the game. Many people calling to question the amount of control GMs need are very often GMs in their games as well.

However, this again takes us back to the central question of the thread: "how much control do DMs need?" Earlier you said, "As much as it takes to run the game." I tentatively agree with that assertion. But that yet again forces a new question: "How much control does it take to run the game?" There may very well be a power discrepancy that exists therein between (1) "How much control I think I need to run the game" and (2) "How much control I actually need to run the game." One potential pitfall is conflating (1) as the same as (2), particularly when self-evaluated value of (1) is far greater than (2).

This doesn't even take into account another factor: "which game?" Not all games require or demand the GM to exert the same level of control to run them.

 

[Oofta]

I probably worded that too strongly. Something a bit softer perhaps. Too many cooks spoil the soup. In my experience, without a central authority to unify the game experience, the table inevitably pulls in multiple directions at once so you get nothing much done until someone decides to take charge and organize the rest into something roughly analogous to a unified purpose. But, far more common (as in basically happened every single time I've played a decentralized game), the game just fails to launch.

I would follow up on that in that most players don't know and don't care. As a DM I can put out a half dozen ideas and people are happy to discuss it. Leave it completely open? A bunch of shrugs and suggestions so vague as to provide no direction. I run a very player-directed campaign but that's because I give people clear threads to follow and they choose which one is interesting to them.

Even when there's no "official" point person making the decisions, it seems like someone always emerges as that person leading the discussion and making the final call. So at certain points in games, the DM can be more of a facilitator but they're still typically the one setting the agenda.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

It's definitely weird that this apparently really important foundation of certain kinds of play seems so vaguely defined.

Personally, I look for ambiguity in my games because life is ambiguous.

No, I stand by what I said. Having unclear or incomplete instructions does not make D&D more open-ended than other games. The game itself is very focused, even if the text pretends (or misunderstands) that it is not.

But this response to me earlier is what I wanted to get to. I will reiterate the same thing that I continue to say- this is why these conversations are impossible. You are not going to get the satisfaction you want, simply because your ideas are not wrong, nor right, but completely orthogonal to the ideas that others might have.

Look to the premise of the thread as articulated by @Clint_L - he wanted to play 5e, but use the resolution mechanic of Fiasco. This type of hack, or mix-and-match, is not just allowed, but common and accepted in D&D. That's why, for example, someone could just say (as I alluded to earlier) that they totally grokked Everway because they are running diceless 2e. Right now, in addition to my various FKR and rules-lite games (most of which I design myself as quick oneshots), I run three different types of D&D games-
1. A heavily modified OD&D / AD&D informed by ... um ... way too many decades.
2. A heavily modified 5e that primarily relies on heuristics and resolution mechanics picked up from years of playing games like Amber DRPG and various rules-lite games, and bends heavily in the OSR direction.
3. A 5e game that is mostly by the book (for instruction purposes), albeit somewhat streamlined.

Now, this is something that you don't really see with most other systems. For example, imagine someone said this to you:
I just finished the greatest ever Blades in the Dark Campaign! But we didn't like the setting, so we played it in rural Greece. And instead of a heist, it was heroic fantasy involving Greek Gods and monsters. The flashback system didn't work for us, so we ignored it, and we had to use a static inventory. Also? Derek was going MAXIMUM DEREK so we incorporated a more prep-heavy, Game Master decides resolution system. Anyway, at a certain point after killing the Medusa, we found a portal to a spaceship that crashlanded in a post-apocalyptic planet filled with Mutants!

You would probably say to them ... um, BiTD is pretty focused. I'm glad you had fun ... but you weren't playing BiTD. And in that context, you'd be right ... or, at least a lot more right than you are with D&D.

And that's what it gets down to. At a certain higher level, a lot of these conversations will continue to be people talking past each other. It's completely awesome and acceptable that you like focused games. That you look to the rules. But if you keep ignoring what people are telling you about their own preferences, which are not the same as yours (which should be okay!) you won't see why these conversations can't be resolved satisfactorily.

 

[overgeeked]

I'm liking that because it's good to see that dialled back on. I think the bolded words are important. The pulling in multiple directions could well be a feature of a table who normally assign authority so that they don't have settled norms as to how to behave in its absence. Thus the solution is also the problem. My experience has been that changing power arrangements can lead to initial disruption, which then resolves as new norms are settled on.

Maybe. Certain kinds of players have zero interest in being a referee, even if it's a shared responsibility. Some players are not good at being a referee. For some players, having to be a referee even part-time destroys their ability to play the game. Like me, for example. I'm far more interested in immersion than anything else while I play. Having to referee would prevent me from being able to play the way I want. To the point where I'd rather just be the referee or just be a player.

I agree that it's still helpful to have a moderator in a roundtable discussion. I don't think that anyone here believes that no GMs are needed or wanted or that GMs aren't helpful in what they do for the game. Many people calling to question the amount of control GMs need are very often GMs in their games as well.

Well, that's very clearly a few posters' position, that referees are somehow inherently bad and entirely unnecessary.

However, this again takes us back to the central question of the thread: "how much control do DMs need?" Earlier you said, "As much as it takes to run the game." I tentatively agree with that assertion. But that yet again forces a new question: "How much control does it take to run the game?" There may very well be a power discrepancy that exists therein between (1) "How much control I think I need to run the game" and (2) "How much control I actually need to run the game." One potential pitfall is conflating (1) as the same as (2), particularly when self-evaluated value of (1) is far greater than (2).

Absolutely. Some referees think they need not only the power to control the entire world, but to also make decisions for the players (i.e. railroading and illusionism). They really, really don't need that power. It's perfectly easy to run a game without taking control of the PCs along with literally everything else. That's generally how I run D&D-like games. I control the world, the players control their PCs. Never the twain shall meet. To me, just like it's an egregious overstep on the part of the referee to control the PC, it's an egregious overstep on the part of the player to control the world.

But that feeling is also largely because, in my experience, players given the authority to alter the world or narrate outcomes will simply abuse that to engage in petty power fantasy. "A billion gold coins fall from the sky and we're rich forever." "With one swing of my sword I behead the Demon King and we win forever." In my experience, most gamers are terrible storytellers. If given an "I win" button they'll simply smash that until it breaks everything. Worldbuilding, storytelling, obstacles, drama, tension, arcs, etc be damned. Pick anything that makes for a good story and gamers inevitably want the opposite. There are a few decent-to-good storytellers who happen to play RPGs, but they are vanishingly rare. A table full of them? That's a one-in-a-billion occurrence.

The referee can absolutely disclaim responsibility or authority for some given thing, permanently or temporarily, but games simply run smoother with the referee as default. Not all game have to be that way, obviously. Not all games are designed that way, obviously. I also run with a lot of random charts. Because I like to be surprised, too. It would be trivial to have the players make those rolls, but that destroys immersion. So I do that behind the screen.

This doesn't even take into account another factor: "which game?" Not all games require or demand the GM to exert the same level of control to run them.

Sure. But the vast majority of games have some version of a referee. Even some games that claim not to still have a referee. Take Fiasco as an example. There's no referee, right? Wrong. The spotlight character in each scene is explicitly given the authority to run the scene, excepting the bit that the other players decide with the dice.

I would follow up on that in that most players don't know and don't care. As a DM I can put out a half dozen ideas and people are happy to discuss it. Leave it completely open? A bunch of shrugs and suggestions so vague as to provide no direction. I run a very player-directed campaign but that's because I give people clear threads to follow and they choose which one is interesting to them.

Yeah. It sounds like we run similar kinds of games. Even when there's only two glaring options, the players will find a way to invent a third, fourth, and fifth...and then get analysis paralysis about which route to take. It's their PCs, so it's their choice and I'm fine running whichever thread they pull on...even the ones they invented*...but there's something about committing to a decision that just stops a lot of players dead. They seem to think there's an "optimal" choice or that I have some secret "right" choice up my sleeve. Nope. Just make a choice already. Let's go.

* Invented here meaning a thread that isn't really a thread but they've decided to pull on it. Sure, you can absolutely go harass the mayor about how she murdered the local sage, but in "reality" she had absolutely nothing to do with it. So it looks like your reputation with the mayor is about to tank. Hope you don't need her help with anything soon.

Even when there's no "official" point person making the decisions, it seems like someone always emerges as that person leading the discussion and making the final call. So at certain points in games, the DM can be more of a facilitator but they're still typically the one setting the agenda.

Exactly. Generally the person at the table with the least amount of patience. The rest of the table waffles endlessly so the impatient player gets frustrated and either kicks in a door* or tells the rest they're going to do X or go to Y location...and the rest just follow along. It's like the group is resistant to actually making decisions. And people want that same decision-resistant group to have all the authority of the referee? No thanks.

* In XDM2E, Tracy Hickman tells a funny story about him doing just that in an early D&D game.

 

[Aldarc]

Well, that's very clearly a few posters' position, that referees are somehow inherently bad and entirely unnecessary.

Nah.

But that feeling is also largely because, in my experience, players given the authority to alter the world or narrate outcomes will simply abuse that to engage in petty power fantasy. "A billion gold coins fall from the sky and we're rich forever." "With one swing of my sword I behead the Demon King and we win forever." In my experience, most gamers are terrible storytellers. If given an "I win" button they'll simply smash that until it breaks everything. Worldbuilding, storytelling, obstacles, drama, tension, arcs, etc be damned. Pick anything that makes for a good story and gamers inevitably want the opposite. There are a few decent-to-good storytellers who happen to play RPGs, but they are vanishingly rare. A table full of them? That's a one-in-a-billion occurrence.

A wise man once said that all TTRPGs are all high trust games. However, from the sound of it here, the trust to use authority wisely only extends from the players to the GM but not the GM to the players?

Sure. But the vast majority of games have some version of a referee. Even some games that claim not to still have a referee. Take Fiasco as an example. There's no referee, right? Wrong. The spotlight character in each scene is explicitly given the authority to run the scene, excepting the bit that the other players decide with the dice.

This feels like you are countering claims and arguments that I have no interest in making. If it would make you feel better, I could set up a sock-puppet account who sets up low-hanging baskets for you to dunk against.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I agree that it's still helpful to have a moderator in a roundtable discussion. I don't think that anyone here believes that no GMs are needed or wanted or that GMs aren't helpful in what they do for the game. Many people calling to question the amount of control GMs need are very often GMs in their games as well.

Yeah, equating a desire for lesser GM control with a desire for no GM is just mistaken.

However, this again takes us back to the central question of the thread: "how much control do DMs need?" Earlier you said, "As much as it takes to run the game." I tentatively agree with that assertion. But that yet again forces a new question: "How much control does it take to run the game?" There may very well be a power discrepancy that exists therein between (1) "How much control I think I need to run the game" and (2) "How much control I actually need to run the game." One potential pitfall is conflating (1) as the same as (2), particularly when self-evaluated value of (1) is far greater than (2).

Absolutely. I think it's just a matter that no one wants to say "When I DM, I want more control than is necessary".

It's not a bad thing to admit. I'm in a 5e game now as a player, and the DM of that game has more control than what I take when I DM. It doesn't make his game bad or mine better or anything like that. It's just a preference.

Some styles of play or games are intended to give the players more freedom.

Well, that's very clearly a few posters' position, that referees are somehow inherently bad and entirely unnecessary.

Whose?

There are a few decent-to-good storytellers who happen to play RPGs, but they are vanishingly rare. A table full of them? That's a one-in-a-billion occurrence.

I play or run in three regular games, and all three involve tables full of good storytellers. I don't think it can be one-in-a-billion for it to work out that way for me. It's not a miracle.

 

[Vaalingrade]

I play or run in three regular games, and all three involve tables full of good storytellers. I don't think it can be one-in-a-billion for it to work out that way for me. It's not a miracle.

Same.

In fact, the whole group (around 10 people) have or currently run games save for one who is fixing to run something this summer. And this is the second group I've been in like that, having moved states. And some of the new players we've picked up came from similar gaming backgrounds. So not exactly a rarity.