Why do RPGs have rules?

[Maxperson]

I don't see the stretch of water. I don't see how what I posted (what you have called Rule 0!) is not a particular instance of your general form R. It assigns a capacity (power) to a participant. That power is governed by regulatory principles/rules (such as the need, when pressed, to refer to rulings and/or fiction).

This is why, as I posted, I have not made any particular assertion about "rule-changing rules" (which I think should, within Suits' framework, be characterised as a form of power-conferring rule). Whether or not they are candidate lusory means is not content-independent.

While your Rule 0! is a very narrow instance of form R(the real Rule 0), it's an abusive and very little used instance. Sure I have the power to tell Johnny that no his PC doesn't really pick his nose, but why do that? Rule 0's function isn't veto. Rule 0's function is to alter the rules by adding, subtracting or changing the rules in order to make game play better or more enjoyable.

I'd also argue that you don't need to use Rule 0 for veto power. Take 5e for example. The rules for ability checks give the DM the explicit ability to grant automatic successes, automatic failures(veto) or call for an ability check and assign it a DC. Unless the DM is abusing his authority, whenever he veto's something the player does, there's a rule and good reason to back up that veto.

 

[clearstream]

While your Rule 0! is a very narrow instance of form R(the real Rule 0), it's an abusive and very little used instance. Sure I have the power to tell Johnny that no his PC doesn't really pick his nose, but why do that? Rule 0's function isn't veto. Rule 0's function is to alter the rules by adding, subtracting or changing the rules in order to make game play better or more enjoyable.

I'd also argue that you don't need to use Rule 0 for veto power. Take 5e for example. The rules for ability checks give the DM the explicit ability to grant automatic successes, automatic failures(veto) or call for an ability check and assign it a DC. Unless the DM is abusing his authority, whenever he veto's something the player does, there's a rule and good reason to back up that veto.

In some play modes, GM validation of player move declarations is either or both of a) ensuring the lusory-means are upheld, and b) supplying lusory-means (the "inefficient means" or "unnecessary obstacle" of GM arbitration between player declaration and result.)

For me the above doesn't make play incorporating a) or b) any less or more preferable, nor do I think the bare fact of those schemas tells the whole story. Prelusory-goals, principles and rules, will all have something to say*.



*As @Enrahim2's affairs of state analogy up-thread implied, principles and rules (and probably prelusory-goals) need not all have the same weight. Participants can and do put them in force for themselves in categorically different strengths. In a recent thread asking whether folk treat rules as laws or as guidelines, many posters took the question as one about how strongly they put game rules in force for themselves. A poster commented that "I think it varies depending on the system and the specific rule in question. I think that with certain rules, consistent application is what’s best. Character abilities, powers, feats, and the like fit into this category" and it was noted that "There's no single answer because different rules serve different purposes." The characterisation "foundational rules" was used to contrast with other rules... those more readily modified. I acknowledge elision of such further qualities of these goals, principles and rules, in case that should come to matter.

 

[pemerton]

I have decided that rule zero is nonsensical jargon of the worst order. Waffle is already taken, so I think it’s best dubbed as “trad pancake”.

I hope you make sure to reiterate this very important point in every thread you post in. In fact I think you need to do it multiple times per thread, maybe even in every post, because otherwise people might be unsure about where you stand on the issue.

 

[pemerton]

For one shots like what your whiteplume mountain example seem to be, the out of game mean is the most common. The in game motivational aproach is more commonly relevant for campaign games where this is part of the downtime gameplay betwen adventures. And as you seem to point out, you in torchbearer are doing exactly that - using rules? You call it a charade, but the point isn't to present a choice, but to motivate and prepare, isn't it?

Torchbearer uses a cycle of phases - Adventure Phase, Camp Phase, Town Phase. All the players must be in the same phase at the same time. The game starts (as in, the first session begins) in Adventure Phase. It is possible to move from any phase to any other phase (provided certain conditions, in-fiction and mechanical, are satisfied) except from Town Phase to Camp Phase.

The GM is instructed, as the players begin winding up their Town Phase actions, to introduce the "hooks" for the next adventure. These have three functions, as far as I can tell: (i) to let the players know where the action is; (ii) to provide information that skilled players can use to get an advantage (eg when my players worked out that the next adventure might involve undead, they purchased holy water; and when they knew the next adventure would involve trying to abjure a spirt, they purchased religious medallions that would boost some of their rolls); and (iii) to provide a type of fictional "fig leaf" to maintain the continuity of the imagined in-fiction events (this is the "charade" I mentioned).

The motivation for play isn't provided by any of (i) to (iii), I don't think. That's already presupposed, insofar as the players have turned up to the session. The introduction of the hooks that underpin (i) to (iii) is done following the usual rules of the game.

I'm missing the connection between this and rule zero.

 

[pemerton]

Perhaps "under any conditions" works to exclude ordinary refereeing, which has the job of declaring any player's move invalid that does not fall within the lusory-means.

I don't see how your "ordinary refereeing" has anything to do with rule zero.

This touches on a point of contention. So long as I don't count GM as a player, it's of no concern to me whether they employ more or less efficient means in performing their functions. That includes establishing a shared fiction.

Fair enough.

But if their functions are dictating the state of the shared fiction at any time, that does raise a question as to what the players' functions are!

In the most canonical version of "rule zero" heavy, GM-driven play, the function of the players - it seems to me - is to provide suggestions to the GM as to what the shared fiction should be.

Now in the past, when I have suggested the above, it has been regarded as controversial. But if the players' contributions to the shared fiction are not merely suggestions to the GM, that must mean that at least in some cases the GM is bound to accept them. In which case, there is a rule that governs the GM, and that the GM can't suspend at will. Which means that the game does not include "rule zero".

Introducing talk of "making the game better", or "only using rule zero in a principled fashion" (see eg @Maxperson not far upthread) doesn't change this, if better or in a principle fashion are themselves things for the GM to judge. (If they're for the whole table to judge, then of course it's not rule zero at all - the capacity of the table to consensually change the rules they are using or the content of the shared fiction (outside of a tournament-type context) is not in doubt.)

Foremost, the wielder of R0! is going to engage with players, their move declarations, have in mind bits of fiction and prepare house rules. They are going to accept a range of goals and rules of conduct that are unnecessary in the first place. Within that, they will wait upon player move declarations. Why? If the aim is to be efficient, why not rule out such declarations in the first place?

Taking suggestions is not an inefficient means of crafting a shared fiction.

Suppose that among the lusory means is a condition that a move is valid iff it either 1) satisfies a game rule, 2) is validated by referee. This isn't speculative - many RPGs contain text to that effect.

The point about rule zero is that it permits the "referee" to validate their own moves! Which has the consequence I've described just above.

 

[Maxperson]

I hope you make sure to reiterate this very important point in every thread you post in. In fact I think you need to do it multiple times per thread, maybe even in every post, because otherwise people might be unsure about where you stand on the issue.

I don't know. If he posts that too often someone might pour syrup on him.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I hope you make sure to reiterate this very important point in every thread you post in. In fact I think you need to do it multiple times per thread, maybe even in every post, because otherwise people might be unsure about where you stand on the issue.

It is a little ambivalent. I'm still not sure where he stands. Pancakes are really delicious

 

[soviet]

It is a little ambivalent. I'm still not sure where he stands. Pancakes are really delicious

Is this 'the impossible thing before breakfast'?

 

[Micah Sweet]

It is a little ambivalent. I'm still not sure where he stands. Pancakes are really delicious

I made pancakes this morning for my wife to celebrate Mother's Day. They were indeed delicious.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Is this 'the impossible thing before breakfast'?

Pancakes are never an impossibility for breakfast