Why do RPGs have rules?

[clearstream]

@Enrahim2 your previous is very interesting and I admit that I had not yet reflected deeply on these categories of rules. The terms principles and rules may map well to constitution and laws. I'll use them here to see how that works out.

I was picturing proceeding from my rule F as follows (this isn't right, but might be directionally useful)

1) Participants in the game have a preexisting capacity to form and modify principles and rules

That is neither a rule nor principle: it's descriptive of homo ludens.

2) On joining the game participants agree to suspend their use of that capacity

This is a crucial component of the lusory attitude, as Suits spells out via his examples. Participants put in force for themselves the principles and rules.

3) Many game texts imply an exemption from 2) for one participant, in relation to rules

This exemption is sometimes (unhelpfully!) referenced as rule "0." That muddies the waters because folk bundle different things under it. The designated participant becomes your law-maker, right? They're not made exempt from principles. They need not be exempt from following rules (once in place.)

4) The exemption in 3) continues to be subject to principles, and can be made subject to rules, which may further be entrenched

Principles are outlined in some game texts, discussed in articles, and often debated in forums. The law-maker isn't empowered to change the constitution willy-nilly. I suggest the possibility of entrenched rules inspired by the similar construction in company articles: even those with rule-changing power can't as easily change entrenched rules.

5) Among qualities that ought to subsist in principles, rules and any entrenched rules are those that forestall disruption of the lusory-fabric, whether from within or without, that must be preserved for players of the game

A referee must do nothing to disrupt the lusory-attitude of players, and players must uphold that attitude. This might remove any need to decide if GM is referee, player, or both; notwithstanding that I can still see some problems to solve.

 

[innerdude]

I would phrase it in relation to the R0! power holder rule more generally. It's not simply negating a game state proposition, it's constituting the ability to declare any game state at a given moment as a valid one, and other participants must accept the R0! game state.

But obviously this remains wholly conditional upon the "consent of the governed".

 

[Manbearcat]

I’m nowhere near to caught up (nor likely to be), but just some thoughts:

* No matter how much a GM loves the activity of prepping and/or loves their prepped content, it is no more TTRPG play than gameplanning is a football game in American Football. Fight prep is not an actual match. Surveying sites is not building a road on one of them.

The situations gone over, the prospects evaluated for later inclusion or discard, the contingent courses possibly charted downrange, the work to sharpen various tools…all of these are provisional, may not see deployment or use, and certainly don’t take place temporally during the execution of the game, match, build.

It might be a worthwhile activity, it might help or harm actual play, but it isn’t actual play, and calling it what it is doesn’t diminish it, but calling it actual play certainly diminishes the ability to have clear conversations and convey concepts usefully to each other and to prospective TTRPGers alike.

* Being given a budget (whether it be by system or players), building out a roster and array of challenges within those budgetary constraints, and then executing the challenge (constrained by rules and fiction) as antagonists/opposition/obstacles, is not a violation of Gamist priorities or The Czege Principle. You can have significantly distilled Skilled Play that way, so long as the participant roles are clear and the game engine is robust. Its just a particular brand of Skilled Play that is quite distinct from a brand of play where the GM’s resources are without budget constraint and the locus of the GM’s role in creating an environment of Skilled Play ability is in all of their ability to deftly prep challenges, deftly signal/signpost challenges, deftly extrapolate all the converging factors that are brought to bear upon the imaginings of the participants, and neutrally and correctly deploy action resolution machinery.

The rules do different things in these approaches to design, create different participant roles, generate different demands and constraints, and site different technical skills (for both GM and player) as important.

 

[pemerton]

my understanding of the term "social contract" do not only encompas the agreement to paricipate on the activity's terms, but also the (unwritten) agreed upon terms themselves. It is these (unwritten) terms I think might be corresponding to Suits' rules, while I think they are distinct from what we normally consider "rules" in an rpg setting.

Here's Ron Edwards defining "social contract":

It's the sum and the internal interactions of how the members of the role-playing group interact as human beings. It includes logistics (who's bringing the beer, who hosts, etc), standards of courtesy (don't pick on Steve, he's fragile), sexual interactions (who's with whom, etc), standards for gaming activities (it's OK to borrow Mario's dice but not Ron's), how games are chosen to be played, how rules are to be handled or interpreted, how talking or moving around relates to role-playing stuff, who is being shunted out of the group by miscommunicative "accidents," and pretty much anything else.

Social Contract isn't unique to role-playing; rather, role-playing, like any other social activity, has to occur within a Contract. I maintain that a great deal of the Contract is not verbal and indeed would be embarassing or upsetting to people to bring into the verbal realm, but clearly a great deal of it is also verbally negotiated as well. All aspects of role-playing are conducted in the matrix, or perhaps embedded in the folds, or perhaps floating in the mists, of the Social Contract.​

By "how rules are to be handled or interpreted" I take him to mean the method of resolution of disagreements, not the content of those resolutions. Otherwise he'd just say "what the rules are".

Here's Baker stating one formulation of the "lumpley principle":

However you and your friends, moment to moment, establish and agree to what's happening in your game, that's your game's system.​

Here's another statement of the principle by him: mechanics are a tool for negotiation among the players.

I think there's a reason that the sociality of RPGs, and the role of mechanics in easing negotiation by replacing the need for sheer, unmediate sociality: namely, RPGs demand shared imagination.

In a game of bridge, we need consensus on the rules if play is to proceed, but we don't need to establish consensus that - for instance - the Ace of Diamonds was just played. Assuming that all the players have typical human sensory and cognitive capacities, then the truth of that fact reveals itself at the moment of play.

In RPGing, on the other hand, if I declare "My character plays the Ace of Diamonds!" we do need some process for everyone agreeing that that it is a permissible move which hence obliges us all to now imagine some new state of affairs (ie my character having played the Ace of Diamonds). There needs to be some process of bridging from actual facts - ie that people have said certain things (eg "My character plays the Ace of Diamonds") or that certain physical objects are in certain states (eg my d20 just rolled a 13) - to imagined states of affairs. (This is Vincent Bakers boxes and clouds, and the arrows that relate them.)

So the rules are in some ways more intricate, more socially and personally "invasive", than rules for (say) bridge, or field sports: they dictate that the participants must, under certain conditions, adopt a common state of mind (ie a shared imagining, a shared fiction).

But, while recognising this is important - one could say the whole of Vincent Baker's contributions to RPG design begin from recognising this and really taking it seriously - I don't think it is helpful to, as a result of that recognition, lose clarity of the analysis of the contrast between lusory attitude and lusory means; or (to use the language of Edwards and Baker) the contrast between social contract and system; or, to use the language of my OP (also taken from Baker), the contrast between shared imagination arrived at through sheer unmediated social agreement, and shared imagination arrived at via the medium of rules that ease negotiation among participants.

 

[pemerton]

I think maybe I can try to explain my perspective a step better by bringing in yet another paradigm. In afairs of state, there are a well established distinction between constitution, law and executive orders. In a democracy changing the constitution tend to be possible, but usually require giving the entire population a chance to voice their opinion trough referendum or election. However changing the laws can be done by a legislative branch without broader involvement by the rest of the population. These laws further can empower the executive branch to issue executive orders that further elaborates the laws.

There are assumptions here that are false. In many more-or-less democratic constitutional systems (the first three I think of are the UK, the US and India) there is no need for a referendum to alter the constitution. India uses special majorities; the US uses sub-federal legislative consent; and (famously) the UK uses ordinary legislation (though perhaps with limits on the operation of the doctrine of implied repeal).

Also, in some systems of government - I'm thinking of Westminster-type ones and the US, but I doubt they cover the field - the executive has some degree of power, including what is in effect law-making power, that it can exercise independently of statute.

So I'm a little doubtful of analysis that begins from a premise that is particular to certain systems of government. It's ability to shed light may be limited by the fact that it's starting point is idiosyncratic and probably amenable to contestation.

But anyway, . . . .

For most board games the rules correspond to the constitution. The rules can be changed, but that require common agreement. In my understanding this is what Suits is talking about when he refers to rules. Most games have only constitution, and no law on top (and no defined means in the constitution to add any laws beyond those found in the constitution). Turnament games might define a judical branch, in the shape of one or more referees, and the moves they define the players to allow to make might have some slight resemblance of defining an executive branch. However, anything resembling a legislative branch is exceedingly rare.

The Crew is a cooperative card game which is basically a cooperative variant of whist: there is an "auction"; and then there is trick-taking play.

Sometimes, the auction in Crew is done "blind", in the sense that each player makes their "bid" having no knowledge except previous bids. In this way, it resembles bridge or five hundred, though the players are aspiring to help rather than hinder one another. But sometimes, the auction in Crew is done cooperatively: the players (subject to rules about what they can and can't say) consensually determine what each of them bids. Sometimes, the auction in Crew is done by one player ("the Commander"), subject to rules-governed input/advice from the other players.

Spelling out the full form of the relevant rules would not be straightforward, but clearly they include power conferring rules - eg under certain conditions the Commander has the power to establish all the bids; under certain conditions the players as a whole have the power to consensually establish all the bids; typically, however, players have only the power to establish their own bid.

The effect of a bid in the Crew is to establish a win condition, and these are far more intricate than those in bridge or five hundred - eg maybe the player has to win all the cards of one suit, or no cards in a given suit, or exactly three 3s, or exactly two tricks on a row, or whatever it might be. We could therefore say that the bids, in Crew, are rule-changing in the sense of changing what the win conditions are. (This is what makes the game challenging; whereas the challenge of five hundred or bridge comes from the fact of having to play against opponents when all have the same goal of, to speak roughly, winning as many tricks as possible.)

I don't think it adds much insight to try and force this through a prism of legislative, executive etc - I mean, the standard analysis of constitutional conferrals of law-making power is a species of power-conferring rule, but likewise the standard analysis of a Wills Act is as a species of power-conferring rule (ie it confers a power on each individual to author a will that under certain conditions has certain defined legal consequences); so having identified a power-conferring rule doesn't tell us much about its place in a hierarchy of rules. My point is that the Crew is a pretty straightforward game, not at all radical by the standards of contemporary board and parlour games, that includes - when one drills down in an analytical fashion - rather intricate rule-changing rules (ie conferrals of power to establish the win conditions) which are a mix of unilateral, distributed and cooperative.

I think this is the thing that rule 0 does, that makes the water so murky. It at least on the surface grant legislative powers to the GM, and does so as part of the "constitution", as it is explicitely stated in the game text. This causes a situation where in these RPGs it suddenly make sense to distinguish between "constitution" (processes of play that can only be altered trough participant consensus), and other "rules", that can be changed unilaterally by the GM. In most states the constitution is miniscule compared to the total body of the law.

I don't think that this way of thinking sheds much light, for precisely the reasons I've given above.

What rule zero, as I see it used, means is that the GM has the power (i) to control the fiction, including by re-establishing as-yet unrevealed backstory; and (ii) to settle the resolution framework, both by making decisions about the fiction and also by stipulating mechanical means; and sometimes even (iii) to override any deployed mechanical means, eg by ignoring or altering dice rolls, by changing hit point tallies, etc.

In other words, it's a power-conferring rule. And the power it confers is typically presented as very extensive, in the way I've just set out.

I think Suits' analysis makes perfect sense if you read his "rules" as the legal "constitution". And for likely all the games within his intended scope of analysis this indeed covers all rules. However in terms of Rule 0, these are actually exactly describing the "rules" that is not subject to be changed - the exceptions to the rule. But I guess you would not hold it against anyone if they claim "lawmakers can change the laws" without every time adding "except the constitution" - that sort of go without saying? I think it is the same with "The GM can change the rules". It isnunderstood that this do not imply changing the social foundational assumptions for the shared activity, but rather the more arbitrary suggested structures buildt on top of those central assumptions.

I am pretty certain that Suits would have been familiar with HLA Hart's discussion of power-conferring rules, of the imagined game of "scorer's discretion", etc. (And I'm drawing liberally on Hart in my posts on these matters.)

So Suits will have no problem with power-conferring rules. As I've posted, though, within his framework it seems very natural to say that at a certain point, the enjoyment of a power-conferring rule means the activity is no longer a game, because the power includes the power to dispense with less efficient means in favour of fully efficient means. And that is what rule zero, as typically presented, does: it permits that GM to specify the content of the shared fiction without needing to go through the process of negotiation, nor the mediate process established by the sorts of game rules that Vincent Baker (and I as OP of this thread) are interested in, ie that specify who can say what when. (Here's Baker: "I don't see three different parts to mechanics' function. I see one -- to help establish what happens, via who gets to say what.")

Now, when you (Enrahim2) suggest that rule zero "does not imply changing the social foundational assumption for the shared activity", what do you mean? Does it confer power to change whose job it is to bring the snacks? Probably not. Does it confer power to change the list of options players have for establishing their starting resources (typically called "PC building")? Well, according to the canonical statement of rule zero in the 3E D&D books, yes it does!

Again, I don't see any value in trying to force this observation into a framework of constitution vs ordinary law. All I'm doing is pointing out the sorts of powers that rule zero is frequently taken to confer, and relating them to the notion of lusory means as less-efficient means and hence constituting a voluntary, self-imposed challenge.

The questions about what in a game text is constitution, and what is legislation is of course a tricky question I don't think I have seen any rule 0 game try to properly clarify. But it is hard to talk about rule 0 without acknowledging that rule 0 implies there to be such a distinction.

It does not imply any such distinction, and for the reasons I've given I think trying to introduce such a distinction is obfuscating.

The contrast between constitutions and ordinary laws is rooted in political history and political theory, and also connects to questions of government and administration in the modern state. None of those considerations are relevant to understanding RPGs.

Of course RPGs can bust up if their social foundation comes undone, but that can happen just as much over a single dispute about how to read a cocked die, as it can over a GM's exercise of a power to tell a player whether or not they are allowed to play an Elf in this particular game.

 

[pemerton]

Being given a budget (whether it be by system or players), building out a roster and array of challenges within those budgetary constraints, and then executing the challenge (constrained by rules and fiction) as antagonists/opposition/obstacles, is not a violation of Gamist priorities or The Czege Principle. You can have significantly distilled Skilled Play that way, so long as the participant roles are clear and the game engine is robust. Its just a particular brand of Skilled Play that is quite distinct from a brand of play where the GM’s resources are without budget constraint and the locus of the GM’s role in creating an environment of Skilled Play ability is in all of their ability to deftly prep challenges, deftly signal/signpost challenges, deftly extrapolate all the converging factors that are brought to bear upon the imaginings of the participants, and neutrally and correctly deploy action resolution machinery.

It's also possible to combine them.

So consider:

* MHRP/Cortex+ Heroic - almost pure budget (but not quite - there is no budget on the starting NPCs in a scene);

* Moldvay Basic - there is no budget in the literal sense, but there is a convention about dungeon levels, and the distribution of challenges over the imagined space of the dungeon floor plan creates a budget-like effect provided that there is proper signalling/signposting within the conventions of classic D&D play;

* Torchbearer - there is budgeting advice (as in, advice on how hard a given number of obstacles will make an adventure) and there is a high reliance on proper signalling/signposting;

* 4e D&D - at least as I played it, signalling/singposting wasn't much of a thing but there is pretty tight budgeting, in the sense that after a certain number of XPs worth of encounters the players get more stuff to go with (eg action points, level gain, treasure parcels, etc).


These are all pretty functional approaches.

 

[Emberashh]

I see this question as being tangential to the question of restraints in gameplay, and I always liked to bring up the side effects of things like God Mode in video games.

While the effective removal of all restraints in a game can be initially fun, given it allows you play through the extreme limits of the system (and beyond them), the side effect is that it can actually make the normal gameplay feel more tedious than it actually was.

Very similarly, the absence of game rules (which is effectively equivalent to '"cheat modes" mechanically speaking) can induce the same issue.

However, when the game is designed from the ground up with this state assumed, with minimal rules, then you have to ensure fun happens somehow.

In video games, freeform sandboxes, like say Teardown, are pretty close to this. Theres very few restraints or rules to the gameplay, and even with mods that remove those restraints, the game is still very fun.

Why that is is because the core gameplay loops are largely segregated from the restraints. At its core, Teardown is about wacking voxels and relishing the destruction and physics.

Things like limited health pools or ammunition exist to enhance the gameplay and induce and support puzzle gameplay. But without them, those core loops remain. Its still fun to just wack stuff.

But with those restraints, Teardowns story mode brings longevity and challenge to the game. Working through the missions is super satisfying because of the puzzles involved and the slow progression of different tools to use.

So in RPGs, rules, by way of inducing constraints, can afford the same benefits. Ultimately, as long as the core gameplay loop is fun, rules or no rules, the game is fun.

And this is even evident in RPGs as we have them; lonely fun is an emergent property of a game that directly results from the core gameplay meeting that critical mark. Lonely fun, theorycrafting, are things that largely happen outside of the game rules that govern progression and character building. Despite their absence, its still fun, but with them theres an additional inducement of satisfaction.

 

[pemerton]

Is it right then to say that your experiences of this unsuitable wielding of R - one governed by rules and principles focused on invalidating the moves of other participants - lead you to believe that no suitable wielding is possible? For the proposition that R0! is an instance of R and can be wielded in just that way (including for instance the need, when pressed, to refer to rulings etc.) concedes that the wielder can indeed constrain themselves to obey the outlined regulations... including one that is less efficient than a simple "No."

On surface then, that seems like agreement that R can be made to submit to other rules and principles. Is that implication right to draw, or do you have something in mind that might forestall it?

Your "R" is just an abstract schema.

You are asking me whether I think there are instances of that schema that are consistent with a RPG being a game. My answer is "maybe", even "probably".

For instance, the normal rule in classic D&D (ie Gygax/Moldvay-style play), for determining a creature's reaction, is either that the GM has made a note in their key, or else the reaction dice are rolled. Under certain conditions, though, a player may have, on their list of resources, a Charm Person spell. I'm not going to try and spell the rule out in perfect technical detail, but the player who has this resource on their list is permitted, under certain conditions (some are fictional positioning eg a certain proximity to the creature to be charmed; some are mechanical, eg as governed by the initiative rules), to suspend the usual means of determining a creature's reaction and replace it with the following rule: (i) the GM rolls a saving throw, and (ii) if that fails, the creature's reaction is automatically friendly.

There are many other spells in classic D&D that work similarly as "rule-changing rules" - ie they confer on the player of the spell caster the power to change the usual processes of, or constraints on, resolution. I think Fly, Passwall, Part Water etc are all best analysed this way, for instance: they change the usual rules that constrain where a player is permitted to say that their PC moves to.

Are these consistent with D&D being a game? Yes (at least until the MU becomes high level and hence is no longer constrained by less efficient means, as the supply of these power-conferring resources becomes effectively unlimited). But there is a problem with them: namely, there is a tendency in contemporary D&D play, which one can see beginning in the notes on spell use in Gygax's DMG, to treat these spells as primarily operating to change fictional position, rather than as power-conferring rules. Treating them as changing fictional position is what causes such debates as whether one can use Passwall to sink a ship - treated as a power-conferring rule, whose function is to enable the player of the MU to change the rule about where PCs can move, it obviously has no implications for sinking ships (and whoever's job it is can create some appropriate fiction to support that should the matter ever arise); whereas treated as simply permitting a change in fictional position ("Now where there was a solid surface, there is a hole") makes it over-powered in naval adventures and tends to therefore make the RPG no longer a game. (Or, at least, makes it a broken game.)

I think the above explains two things: (1) why skilled D&D players in the classic era tended to prefer MUs as their PCs; and (2) why modern D&D generates so many of the rules debates that it does, as game elements that once had a clear place and function within the rules (even if it was often implicit rather than expressly stated) are redeployed in new ways (eg as concerning fictional positioning rather than conferring a power to change certain rules) without any real thought being given to whether or how that will make for fun game play.

Unwinding the double-negative, I think you are saying that it is dependent on content whether a rule-changing rule is a candidate lusory means. Is that right? What sort of content do you have in mind?

The content that would fill in the schema: under what conditions does someone enjoy a power to suspend or change a rule that otherwise would apply? which rule can they suspend or change? what are the parameters of such suspension or change? etc.

Edwards gives, as a simple example, Prince Valiant storyteller certificates (which despite the name are a non-GM player resource):

Resolution systems often include metagame mechanics, as mentioned above, which permit a player to over-ride the "usual" resolution system of the game. These are found in a wide variety of combinations in functional terms as well as DFK terms.

• The over-ride may occur before, after, or in place of the regular system mechanic.
• The over-ride may or may not rely on resources of some kind.
• The over-ride's version of DFK may mirror the usual system's version of DFK, or it may differ dramatically.

Example #1: a certificate in Prince Valiant may be redeemed (lost) for a player to state that the character instantly subdues an opponent. The mechanic replaces the usual resolution system (comparing tossed coins), which is simply ignored. This illustrates a Drama metagame mechanic replacing a Fortune baseline mechanic and relying on an irreplaceable Resource.​

We might say that Rule Zero is a rule that permits the GM to replace the usual resolution system with Drama (ie sheer narration) whenever the GM wants to, without having to spend a resource.

@Enrahim2 your previous is very interesting and I admit that I had not yet reflected deeply on these categories of rules. The terms principles and rules may map well to constitution and laws. I'll use them here to see how that works out.

I was picturing proceeding from my rule F as follows (this isn't right, but might be directionally useful)

1) Participants in the game have a preexisting capacity to form and modify principles and rules

That is neither a rule nor principle: it's descriptive of homo ludens.

2) On joining the game participants agree to suspend their use of that capacity

This is a crucial component of the lusory attitude, as Suits spells out via his examples. Participants put in force for themselves the principles and rules.

3) Many game texts imply an exemption from 2) for one participant, in relation to rules

This exemption is sometimes (unhelpfully!) referenced as rule "0." That muddies the waters because folk bundle different things under it. The designated participant becomes your law-maker, right? They're not made exempt from principles. They need not be exempt from following rules (once in place.)

4) The exemption in 3) continues to be subject to principles, and can be made subject to rules, which may further be entrenched

Principles are outlined in some game texts, discussed in articles, and often debated in forums.

The most common principle that I see mentioned is "for the good of the game" or "to make things more fun". I don't think these are very effective principles, and I think they are in obvious tension with "less efficient means".

A principled statement of a rule-changing power is found in the early pages of Gygax's DMG (p 9):

[T]he rules call for wandering monsters, but these can be not only irritating - if not deadly - but the appearance of such con
actually spoil o game by interfering with an orderly expedition You have set up an area full of clever tricks and traps, populated it with well-thought-out creature complexes, given clues about it to pique players’ interest, and the group has worked hard to supply themselves with everything by way of information and equipment they will need to face and overcome the imagined perils. They are gathered together and eager to spend an enjoyable evening playing their favorite game, with the expectation of going to a new, strange area and doing their best to triumph. They are willing to accept the hazards of the dice, be it loss of items, wounding, insanity, disease, death, as long as the process is exciting. But lo!, everytime you throw the ”monster die” q wandering nasty is indicated, and the party’s strength is spent trying to fight their way into the area. Spells expended, battered and wounded, the characters trek back to their base. Expectations have been dashed, and probably interest too, by random chance. Rather than spoil such an otherwise enjoyable time, omit the wandering monsters indicated by the die. No, don’t allow the party to kill them easily or escape unnaturally, for that goes contrary to the major precepts of the game. Wandering monsters, however, are included for two reasons, as is explained in the section about them. If a party deserves to have these beasties inflicted upon them, that is another matter, but in the example above it is assumed that they are doing everything possible to travel quickly and quietly to their planned destination. If your work as a DM has been sufficient, the players will have all they can handle upon arrival, so let them get there, give them a chance. The game is the thing, and certain rules can be distorted or disregarded altogether in favor of play.
​

But precisely because it is principled, this is a very particular rule. For instance, it doesn't have any application, at least that I can see, in contemporary D&D that takes it for granted that the GM (rather than the players) exercises primary control over scene-framing; or that the GM is largely at liberty to change the backstory, and bring bits of the backstory onto the "stage", at will.

So it seems to me to be a long way from "rule zero" as that seems to be commonly understood.

 

[Pedantic]

There are assumptions here that are false. In many more-or-less democratic constitutional systems (the first three I think of are the UK, the US and India) there is no need for a referendum to alter the constitution. India uses special majorities; the US uses sub-federal legislative consent; and (famously) the UK uses ordinary legislation (though perhaps with limits on the operation of the doctrine of implied repeal).

Also, in some systems of government - I'm thinking of Westminster-type ones and the US, but I doubt they cover the field - the executive has some degree of power, including what is in effect law-making power, that it can exercise independently of statute.

So I'm a little doubtful of analysis that begins from a premise that is particular to certain systems of government. It's ability to shed light may be limited by the fact that it's starting point is idiosyncratic and probably amenable to contestation.

But anyway, . . . .

The Crew is a cooperative card game which is basically a cooperative variant of whist: there is an "auction"; and then there is trick-taking play.

Sometimes, the auction in Crew is done "blind", in the sense that each player makes their "bid" having no knowledge except previous bids. In this way, it resembles bridge or five hundred, though the players are aspiring to help rather than hinder one another. But sometimes, the auction in Crew is done cooperatively: the players (subject to rules about what they can and can't say) consensually determine what each of them bids. Sometimes, the auction in Crew is done by one player ("the Commander"), subject to rules-governed input/advice from the other players.

Spelling out the full form of the relevant rules would not be straightforward, but clearly they include power conferring rules - eg under certain conditions the Commander has the power to establish all the bids; under certain conditions the players as a whole have the power to consensually establish all the bids; typically, however, players have only the power to establish their own bid.

The effect of a bid in the Crew is to establish a win condition, and these are far more intricate than those in bridge or five hundred - eg maybe the player has to win all the cards of one suit, or no cards in a given suit, or exactly three 3s, or exactly two tricks on a row, or whatever it might be. We could therefore say that the bids, in Crew, are rule-changing in the sense of changing what the win conditions are. (This is what makes the game challenging; whereas the challenge of five hundred or bridge comes from the fact of having to play against opponents when all have the same goal of, to speak roughly, winning as many tricks as possible.)

I don't think it adds much insight to try and force this through a prism of legislative, executive etc - I mean, the standard analysis of constitutional conferrals of law-making power is a species of power-conferring rule, but likewise the standard analysis of a Wills Act is as a species of power-conferring rule (ie it confers a power on each individual to author a will that under certain conditions has certain defined legal consequences); so having identified a power-conferring rule doesn't tell us much about its place in a hierarchy of rules. My point is that the Crew is a pretty straightforward game, not at all radical by the standards of contemporary board and parlour games, that includes - when one drills down in an analytical fashion - rather intricate rule-changing rules (ie conferrals of power to establish the win conditions) which are a mix of unilateral, distributed and cooperative.

Admittedly, my experience is with one specific variant of Crew: Deep Sea, but I don't think that game supports your conclusion here. Victory conditions have unique properties that are not generalizable to the larger set of rules, and I don't think they are in any real sense rules at all. They guide, but do not constrain action.

I would look askance at a player that voluntarily have up points in a competitive game or took as strictly malicious action in a cooperative one, but I would not hold the action illegal in the context of the game. Victory conditions represent a social contract outside the game and serve as the basis for evaluation of gameplay, but they aren't part of the system of constraints I'd call rules.

As for the changing nature of bidding, I'd content that each mission is arguably better understood as a different game with shared components and transferrable skills. Rules never change in the course of a game, but during setup, before a game has commenced. I don't think that's analogous to the standard deployment of rule 0.

 

[pemerton]

Admittedly, my experience is with one specific variant of Crew: Deep Sea, but I don't think that game supports your conclusion here. Victory conditions have unique properties that are not generalizable to the larger set of rules, and I don't think they are in any real sense rules at all. They guide, but do not constrain action.

They are rules in the same way that football has rules about how goals are scored. In both cases, they are constitutive of the activity.

I would look askance at a player that voluntarily have up points in a competitive game or took as strictly malicious action in a cooperative one, but I would not hold the action illegal in the context of the game. Victory conditions represent a social contract outside the game and serve as the basis for evaluation of gameplay, but they aren't part of the system of constraints I'd call rules.

It's not against the rules of football to not make an effort to score goals; but that doesn't change the fact that there are certain rules that determine what counts as winning.

As for the changing nature of bidding, I'd content that each mission is arguably better understood as a different game with shared components and transferrable skills. Rules never change in the course of a game, but during setup, before a game has commenced. I don't think that's analogous to the standard deployment of rule 0.

This gets into the question of what counts as identity of a game, which I personally think is not all that interesting.

The point is that when, for instance, the commander has unilateral authority to allocate the task (ie settle the bids), they therefore have a unilateral power to establish the rules for victory in that hand. It is a type of rule-establishing power, and a non-trivial one (eg do we give the same person the job of winning no 9s and winning the 8, which means that one obvious way of winning an 8 becomes a loss condition when otherwise it wouldn't be?).

My overall goal, with the analysis of the Crew and the comparison to rule zero, and likewise with the comparison to Prince Valiant "storyteller certificates", is to try and reduce the "mystery" and - frankly - obfuscation that is often erected around it. Rule zero is reasonably straightforwardly analysed, in my view, as a power-conferring rule that takes as the subject matter of its operation (i) the fiction of the game and (ii) the default rules of the game. We can then ask about the conditions that govern it, and in turn then ask whether - in light of those conditions - it is a lusory means compatible with adopting a lusory attitude. We can also consider whether the role that exercises it is one that is expected to adopt the lusory attitude, or is an "external" role like that of a judge or referee (see eg the example I quoted from Gygax's DMG).