Why do RPGs have rules?

[clearstream]

So I take it you are no longer accepting Suits's account of gameplay, in so far as you are departing from his account of the role of the lusory attitude, and his account of the relationship between it, rules and lusory means, and from his account of lusory means being less efficient means?

That's not correct. Actually the antithesis of my view. Perhaps you have something in mind though: can you say what it is?

 

[Maxperson]

This is introductory stuff, and although it talks about the role of the DM, it doesn't say how to achieve those goals. I feel like your quotes, and especially your bolding, cherry picks comments, removing them from the larger context in which they are presented, in order to achieve the interpretation you want.

It also mentions that the DM is meant to "create a campaign world that revolves around their (the players) actions and decisions, and to keep your players coming back for more."

I mean, we can just as easily interpret the DM as having failed if he does not keep his players coming back for more. So if a DM says "no elves in this game" and a player says "well I want to play an elf, and if I can't then I'm not going to play" then that DM has failed at the job as described.



This is all advice on creating a setting. The offer a list of core assumptions that are kind of the default expectation, but they say that you can change those assumptions if you like.



This is about disclosing ground rules with players at the start of a new game. This isn't really about authority at all.



I don't really consider deciding to use optional rules or not to be indicative of absolute power.



Again, nothing here is about granting absolute authority.

The section starts off with "Rules enable you and your players to have fun at the table." It's explaining what rules are for. It then makes it clear that if a rule is problematic in some way, or isn't fun for your group, you can change it.



This section is so wishy-washy that it basically says nothing.

Again, though, the part you've cherry-picked removes the larger context of that passage. Here is the rest: "They're tools to help keep the action moving. At any time, you can decide that a player's action is automatically successful. You can also grant the player advantage on any ability check, reducing the chance of a bad die roll foiling the character's plans. By the same token, a bad plan or unfortunate circumstances can transform the easiest task into an impossibility, or at least pose disadvantage."

To me, this section is more about considering the fiction and what's been established when deciding how to handle a roll of the dice. It's not about establishing the DM's absolute authority.



Yeah, this is the section called the Dungeon Master's Workshop. It's about creating new monsters or alternate rules and so on. I don't think anyone would argue that a DM can introduce new rules and so on. But that's different than the absolute authority you're invoking with your take on Rule Zero.



This is advice to be deliberate and consider the outcomes before making a rule change. And when you combine it with the following stuff from page 34



I'd say that the DM is bound to consider the players' desires whenever exercising their authority. Just as these passages talk about the rules and the dice serving the DM, the DM is meant to serve the group.

So again, I think you're taking specific sentences, ignoring the larger context of the paragraphs in which they appear, and then interpreting them to deliver the conclusion you want.

I wouldn't argue that the DM in 5e is given significant authority... but very clearly, when the entirety of the text is taken into consideration, that authority is meant to serve the group. The fact that in the above passage you choose to bold anything about the DM's tastes or preferences, even though they are presented right along with mentions of the players' tastes and preferences, displays how biased your reading is.



The entire book, especially the parts I've cited above, which you either left out, or else chose to ignore.

So the answer is no, you can't show me anything that gives the players authority like those passages give to the DM. You provided not one quote. Hell, you can't even overcome the one single passage in the PHB.

PHB Page 6: "Because there is so much diversity among the worlds of D&D, you should check with your DM about any house rules that will affect your play of the game."

For your position to be correct, the players must all have the memory of a goldfish to have forgotten what house rules they used their authority to get the DM to put in.

 

[darkbard]

Hell, you can't even overcome the one single passage in the PHB.

Comments like this make it seem like you approach interactions here like some battle to be won rather than attempts at communication, understanding, elucidation, etc.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I haven't followed your complete conversation, but @pemerton's characterization of it a few posts ago as a resource used to help create the shared fiction seems right on point. It's a very important resource, but it's still only a resource used to help create the shared fiction.

Yeah, it was a mistake to claim @pemerton wasn't literally correct. What I meant was I very much value worldbuilding for its own sake as well as in play, and felt that it was being disrespected, since the literal fact being stated was, well, literal.

 

[Micah Sweet]

No it doesn't. It literally states what world building is for in terms of an RPG.



What makes Rule Zero perfectly fine to use, but a word like lusory is somehow problematic?

Commonality of use. @clearstream themselves said they got it from a specific article, and hadn't seen it outside of that. This is why jargon can very easily obscure as much as it can clarify, so I try to avoid it unless I'm reasonably sure anyone likely to get involved in the discussion knows what I'm talking about.

 

[Micah Sweet]

It's like 'Page 263 of the third book, oh by the way everything we just said is only a suggestion, do whatever, K THX BYE'.

Isn't that basically what it says?

 

[Maxperson]

Comments like this make it seem like you approach interactions here like some battle to be won rather than attempts at communication, understanding, elucidation, etc.

It just get frustrating when 100% of the quotes in the books go one way and 0% the other way, but people argue that it's the way of 0%. If the best you(general you) can argue is that if you squint sideways, twist things a bit that you can make those passages not quite read as absolute, then perhaps your(general you) position isn't very strong.

I get that they want the game to be that way, and I personally run my game that way 99.99% of the time. I go over house rules with my group and almost always we go with the majority of what the players want with me breaking ties since we have 4 players. That's my choice, though. The game gives me the authority to just put house rules into place without asking the players for input, even though the books advise DMs to talk them over with the players before making a decision.

 

[pemerton]

My point is that all that work doesn't immediately become fluid once the game begins. The setting is still the setting.

OK. In what way does that contradict anything I posted? In fact, it seems to confirm the following:

GM notes don't create a shared fiction. They create a resource that the GM can draw on when adjudicating action declarations and thereby stating what comes next in the shared fiction.

 

[soviet]

Isn't that basically what it says?

Which is the point I'm making. That would be terrible terrible games design. It would be a mic drop at the end of a very long text that says 'actually disregard the above, just do what you feel, no time for further instructions'.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Practically speaking, there's no difference between a closed game of chess and an open game of D&D as far as possible game states. The closed game of chess has an estimated(by a computer since we can't count that high without one) 10 to the 120th power possible games of chess. And while this second estimate does include illegal game states, but excludes legal states after promotions and following captures, there are about 10 to the 43rd power possible game states.

The sheer variety of "closed" game states and the number of game states possible in an "open" game of D&D are such that if you weren't told one was open and one was closed, you couldn't tell the difference. The number of states available in each are such that you won't ever be able to touch more than a miniscule fraction of either.

I don't think that really matters. As you are speaking to a math guy (I hesitate to use the term 'mathematician' as I don't really feel that my studies ever went far enough to warrant such a title) 100, 1000, and 10^43 power are all simply countable integer numbers of states. Its thus still very much true that the states of chess are limited to an infinitesimal fraction of those available in a D&D game, and in fact this is even more so in that the VAST majority of the chess 'configuration space' is filled with uninteresting chaff. The fact that chess books can give a thorough grounding in the tactics and strategy of chess by presenting perhaps less than 100 games, so maybe 5000 states pretty much tells me that this line of argument doesn't go much of anywhere useful.

I can easily tell the difference between chess and D&D. In fact, at the age of 13, in 1975, when I heard about the IDEA of D&D, I instantly and immediately grasped this exact difference! It was like an electric shock, the implications were instantly apparent! Now, had I been conversant at that time with Free Kriegsspiel or Dave and Co.'s Braunsteins I might have been less shocked, but it was definitely a revelation to my naive brain, and the 'openness' of D&D was exactly what I immediately saw as its most salient characteristic.