Why do RPGs have rules?

[AbdulAlhazred]

It looks like from post #435 that you are saying that the DM is limited by the social contract/culture of DMing. In that I totally agree. My argument is that as written the rules do not limit the DM like that. If I want to tell the social contract to go hang(which I would never do), then by RAW I can unilaterally enact whatever rules changes or additions I want.

Rule 0 isn't dependent on the social contract. It's what the game rules allow or don't allow the DM to do unilaterally in regards to changing rules.

This is a lot like the kind of arguments that "micro nation" libertarian folks make. It works great, you go off on the high seas someplace and do whatever you want. It falls apart very fast however when some random naval vessel sails up, points a gun at you (or even a pirate, as has happened) and informs you that your little haven has now been conquered. You may complain, but you will learn the meaning of the phrase "Inter armis legis non" real fast! One can be 'right' and yet still completely wrong! Rule 0 is exactly the same sort of case, a GM may gently point it out and win some points with the table, but if push comes to shove, its all 'armis' and no 'legis'.

 

[aramis erak]

I don't find the above pedantic, but unfortunately it's not intelligible to me because it relies on unfamiliar jargon like "soft move" and "the principle, 'if you do it, you do it.'" I have purchased a copy of Dungeon World and perhaps after I read it I will come back and understand your post, but for now unfortunately I cannot.

You've misquoted the principle.

The rule for moves is to do it, do it.

"to do it, do it" - probably the least helpful words in AW for me.... but it boils down to this: To get to use the move, the character has to have narrated doing the triggering action first.

The corollary is that, "once you've done it, you've done it", and for AW and MASHed, at least, the corollary is explicitly falsified. The player can walk back a bit. Negotiate for a more intent-appropriate action.

This doesn't seem to match the definition on Dungeon World pg. 165.

"A soft move is one without immediate, irrevocable consequences."

Not finding a door (yet) can be revoked by finding a door eventually, implying that it's a soft move.

Dungeon World is often described as being poorly made by someone who doesn't grasp Apocalypse World. It's author appears to have rolled a 7.
I've not read it, but have read Apocalypse World, and several others, which get the AWE mindset better.

For comparison, AW itself doesn't define hard nor soft (i checked), it just has an MC moves list. Later terminology made the ones labeled "as established" largely as hard moves.

• Separate them.
• Capture someone.
• Put someone in a spot.
• Trade harm for harm (as established).
• Announce off-screen badness.
• Announce future badness.
• Inflict harm (as established).
• Take away their stuff.
• Make them buy.
• Activate their stuff’s downside.
• Tell them the possible consequences and ask.
• Offer an opportunity, with or without a cost.
• Turn their move back on them.
• Make a threat move.
• After every move: “what do you do?”

Mashed, however....

CO Moves Should...

• FLOW WITH THE FICTION
• SET UP SCENES AND SITUATIONS (THIS IS A ‘SOFT MOVE’)
• PROMPT THE PLAYER TO REACT (YOU SAY “WHAT DO YOU DO?”)
• NARRATE AN IMMEDIATE CONSEQUENCE (THIS IS A ‘HARD MOVE’)

Soft Moves
You’re making soft moves whenever you establish the fiction, introduce
situations, and give players a chance to react after a ‘weak hit’
(i.e., a move result of 7-9). When you make a soft move, follow it up
by asking “What do you do?” For instance, “The delirious Chinese POW
grabs a scalpel from the tray and staggers to his feet. He doesn’t see you. What
do you do?” or “Your diagnosis reveals that Private Sanders’ wound must have
been self-inflicted. What do you do?”
Hard Moves
You make a hard move when you narrate an immediate, irrevocable
consequence to an established threat. You might do this when a
player ignores the setup that you introduced with soft moves, or
when a player ‘misses’ (i.e., gets a move result of 6 or less).
Make the consequence as light or severe as you want, as long as it
makes sense and follows from what’s already been established. For
instance, you might say “The delirious soldier turns and sees you. Surprised,
he grabs your company clerk and holds the gleaming blade at his throat!”
or “Private Sanders lies there, motionless. You see what appears to be an empty
bottle of pills clutched in his hand.” As always, ask “What do you do?”

 

[pemerton]

@AbdulAlhazred

I think it's even simpler than that: unilateral, content-neutral authority is simply not a very good way of building consensus in small-scale social undertakings. Anyone who has chaired a committee at work, or who has regularly gone out to dinner with friends, must have discovered that!

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I agree, although I want more than that: not only do I want the game to be consistent, I want it to feel plausible, especially w/rt probability curves and modifiers. It's easy to give a game complete-but-implausible Stealth rules: "when you try to do something stealthily, roll a DC 15 Stealth check, and on a success nobody notices you."

That's a complete rule (the outcome is always clear, at least in the context of 5E where 'DC 15 Stealth check' has a meaning). But it's also garbage. Waiting until the dead of night doesn't make stealth any easier than doing it in broad daylight. Camouflage and ninja slippers don't help. Arranging a diversion doesn't help. Smelling like raw sewage doesn't hurt. Trying to sneak at top speed while on fire doesn't hurt. The rule is very clear about whether I achieve my goal, but it's ignoring my means and approach, which means it's ignoring all the things that matter to me in the name of a mechanically simple resolution procedure.

TTRPGs that I consider well-designed do a lot of the homework up front for you, specifying probability curves for common situations, while also making it easy to model other situations plausibly. E.g. fighting on bad footing should be more difficult than fighting on level ground, but good equipment should help (or even make it a net advantage, if you have good equipment and your foe does not), and fighting while sitting down should be even worse, even if "fighting while sitting" is not in the rulebook.

$0.02.

Blades in the Dark gives you both Position, and Effect as considerations relative to the type of ability you are attempting to use, its applicability to the situation, and the context. Honestly though, in the end if the GM, or some sort of negotiation between the player and GM is setting these values, its going to be judgment of one sort or another. I mean, its like the whole argument about the meaning of AC in 1e vs AC in 4e. Yeah, 1e AC can be translated into a specific fictional element (AC4, chain and shield) but the GM just sets the AC and picks whatever equipment that implies, there's no real substance to the world that gives it any more ultimate meaning than the pure "you are level X, so your AC is Y" of 4e. I mean, admittedly, 4e fails to tell you how to describe AC18, but BOTH games run off the scale and slide things around with magic, etc. so much that if it means anything at all in AD&D it is only in the first few levels.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Without rendering judgment on anyone, it feels darn arrogant for one participant in a game (of any sort) to say "my way or the highway." I'm guessing if a player recounted to you the IDENTICAL same policy with regard to some other rule(s) your response would be 'shove off'.

As I said, there are a lot of rules I don't have a strong opinion on and am willing to run either way. There are a handful I have very strong feelings about. Do you think I'm incapable of understanding that players might have strong feelings of their own, or do you just think I'm somehow offended by a hypothetical player saying, "I don't want to play in a game without round robin initiative"?

In that case I'd shrug and say, "Thanks for telling me and good luck."

Why would anyone waste their free time running or playing a game which sets their teeth on edge?

P.S. I don't deny that arrogance is one of my prominent personality traits. However, what's relevant in this case is that I am not a hypocrite: I don't object to others doing this thing that I have said is a reasonable thing to do.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

You've misquoted the principle.

"to do it, do it" - probably the least helpful words in AW for me.... but it boils down to this: To get to use the move, the character has to have narrated doing the triggering action first.

Ah. Thanks, that's more intelligible than the version I was quoting. Thanks for the page ref too. I'm still digesting, may come back to this later, but I appreciate your effort to clarify. Thanks, aramis erak.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

There are two reasons why the players do not always want to hedge and downplay the fiction so as to avoid triggering player-side moves: (i) basic principles of sincerity and pleasure in the unfolding events, but also and importantly (ii) sometimes they want to achieve decisive results for their PCs, rather than simply have the escalation of soft moves by the GM, and hence need to trigger player-sie moves.

I think the more typical reason is simply that it is unavoidable! The bugblatter beast is looking straight at you and licking its chops! Either you shoot it with your gauss rifle, or else the GM is going to go ahead and make a hard move ANYWAY. Sure, volley entails some risk and commits the character to a 'hard' course of action, but usually at the point where this happens such is already inevitable. That is, GMs may 'only' make soft moves, but those soft moves can, and will, CREATE 'golden opportunities' which allow for hard moves, unless the players commit first! Its actually a bit like the 'stakes raising' processes in certain games AFAICT (DitV being a famous one that I am not really knowledgeable about).

 

[Manbearcat]

Okay, I read the rules for Dungeon World, and I love them. They are very similar to Monster Hearts, though much more extensive, though that makes sense as both have origins in PBtA, yeah? In reference to D&D, because that is the common touchstone, I would characterize them as having relatively high completeness and relatively low complexity. In particular, the move system is a really great way of building narrative in terms of shared storytelling and RPing. It is kind of lousy in terms of tactical miniatures-based play, which is a thing I love to do, but you can't have everything (I would describe D&D as okay at the latter, but not good at the former).

I really want to play in a DW campaign, though I doubt I'll get the chance any time soon, unless I run it (but I'd rather play it before I try to run it).

One thing that it keeps from D&D is GM control of the environment - the GM remains the more or less omniscient God of the game world. So it is not shared storytelling in the mode of, say, Fiasco, but more or less a traditional RPG in that sense. The big difference seems to be that the GM is no longer a referee to anything like the extent of a D&D game.

One thing that I think the rules (intentionally) lack is a lot of the crunch of a game like D&D, Pathfinder, etc. This is interesting to me because I think that increased complexity creates opportunities for logical problem solving that DW avoids in favour of narrative problem solving.

My initial takeaway is that, if we go back to the original genesis of RPGs in a kind of half-baked fusion of miniature wargaming and fantastical storytelling, DW's rules lean heavily into the latter at the expense of the former.

Edit: Honestly, the guidelines for how to GM are fantastic and should be studied by everyone who wants to run any RPG. Also, the prose is really clear, and I am a fan of good, direct writing. The GM section is about a million times more practically useful than the DMG; WotC should be taking notes.

I'm GMing far too many games right now to make a significant commitment, but I could run like a 4-6 session DW game for you and one other person that you feel would both be interested and that you're comfortable with. Would have to be probably Monday or Sunday evenings and start time somewhere in the neighborhood of 8:30 PM EST. If that is something you're interested in, PM me and hit me with an invite to a Discord or something (I'll exit stage left after the game) or we could do it via Skype.

Always happy to give people opportunities to play new games.

EDIT - @FormerlyHemlock , for whatever reason ClintL's quote didn't come through in my post (probably misclick by me). He expressed interest that I just saw so I figured I'd offer.

But don't feel awkward, I'd gladly run a game for you if you expressed similar interest (though you've done the opposite so I didn't feel like an extended invitation was warranted!). But if you do change your mind on interest, let me know! I appreciate your response (and your engagement with the thread at large)! Apologies for the murkiness of my post due to lack of quotes!

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

I'm GMing far too many games right now to make a significant commitment, but I could run like a 4-6 session DW game for you and one other person that you feel would both be interested and that you're comfortable with. Would have to be probably Monday or Sunday evenings and start time somewhere in the neighborhood of 8:30 PM EST. If that is something you're interested in, PM me and hit me with an invite to a Discord or something (I'll exit stage left after the game) or we could do it via Skype.

Always happy to give people opportunities to play new games.

Thank you but no. There are some ideas I may want to steal from Dungeon World (the terminology around Fronts and Imminent Dooms seems useful for organizing my notes) but I'm simulationist at heart, not narrativist. I appreciate the offer, Manbearcat. It's very generous.

 

[pemerton]

Apocalypse World (original version), p 12 (emphasis original):

The rule for moves is if you do it, you do it, so make with the dice.​

The point of the rule is that there is no "say 'yes' or roll the dice" (cf DitV, Burning Wheel, 4e D&D), nor any need for the GM to decide whether or not an action has an uncertain consequence (cf 5e D&D). If the salient fiction occurs, the dice must be rolled as part of the process of establishing what happens next.

It's not a rule about takebacks. In fact AW is quite clear about takebacks (from p 12 again):

. . . when a player has her character take action that counts as a move, but doesn’t realize it, or doesn’t intend it to be a move. For instance: “I shove him out of my way.” Your answer then should be “cool, you’re going aggro?” . . .

You don’t ask in order to give the player a chance to decline to roll, you ask in order to give the player a chance to revise her character’s action if she really didn’t mean to make the move. “Cool, you’re going aggro?” Legit: “oh! No, no, if he’s really blocking the door, whatever, I’ll go the other way.” Not legit: “well no, I’m just shoving him out of my way, I don’t want to roll for it.”​

In other words, the point of "if you do it, you do it" is to make the unwelcome and unwanted part of the shared fiction, because at certain points the fiction is not established by consensus, nor just by one person saying stuff about the parts of the fiction they "own".