Why do RPGs have rules?

[pemerton]

This is a general RPG thread, but not a PbtA and the Forge thread (all evidence to the contrary).

The OP does take as it's starting point some important contributions by Vincent Baker. It's not unreasonable for posters to assume some familiarity with Baker's ideas.

 

[pemerton]

You're trying to draw a distinction which doesn't actually exist--it's not actually the case that FK and Braunsteins have no elements of subjective judgment to them. Rather, in both cases, the referee's subjective judgment is all that ultimately matters. You don't get to tell your referee that your battleship didn't really blow up

I've never trained as a soldier or a commanding officer. But I do participate in some different sorts of simulation-based training (moots). The issue of technical competence on the part of judges is very important, given that the goal is to ensure that winning the game corresponds to has the requisite technical knowledge and skills.

Braunsteins don't have the same institutional context, but my understanding is that technical accuracy is still a normative standard to which a Braunstein judge can be held.

 

[clearstream]

Braunsteins don't have the same institutional context, but my understanding is that technical accuracy is still a normative standard to which a Braunstein judge can be held.

They could be said to have the institutional context of wargaming, within which their technical accuracy can be contemplated.

Contemporary RPG extends beyond wargaming, so the standard for technical accuracy can be of accuracy to genre, accuracy to a preexisting fiction, or accuracy to the shared imagined world of a local group. A good ToR LM might be held to a standard of Middle Earth lore (as the title implies). A good L5R GM (FF version) could be held to technical accuracy with Rokugan and the distinct rules of the game. The standard for technical accuracy of a good FKR GM (acknowledging the misnomer, but it wouldn't be the first nor is it likely to be the last) is in their invisible rulebooks.

Each of those - ToR, L5R, and FKR - has additional standards suggested by the ongoing discourse in their relation, and in relation to RPG.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

I've never trained as a soldier or a commanding officer. But I do participate in some different sorts of simulation-based training (moots). The issue of technical competence on the part of judges is very important, given that the goal is to ensure that winning the game corresponds to has the requisite technical knowledge and skills.

Which still doesn't mean you get to override your ref if you think you are more "competent" than they are, or if you would make subjective judgment calls about the fictional world differently. ("Would the civilians run away?")

Technical competence serves similar functions in both cases, unless I've misunderstood what kind of GMing is happening in the hypothetical dungeon crawl. "What would actually happen?" is the question both refs/GMs are trying to answer, not "what would make the most interesting narrative?"

Higher quality GMs produce higher quality extrapolation.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I am happy to share every dice roll or DC with players except for ones their character couldn’t know about. I eat my cake and have it, too.

I get that. I've done plenty of that, myself.

But, for me, what my game gains by sharing all DCs... informed players able to make their best decisions... is far better than that little bit of verisimilitude from that one little moment of play. Also, I think it's rare that folks wouldn't have some sense of risk or difficulty... so in my opinion, hiding DCs provides less verisimilitude than not. I think people would at least have an approximation of what the difficulty would be... so something like "the DC for this lock is somewhere between 16 and 20" would make more sense than not having any idea.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I get that. I've done plenty of that, myself.

But, for me, what my game gains by sharing all DCs... informed players able to make their best decisions... is far better than that little bit of verisimilitude from that one little moment of play. Also, I think it's rare that folks wouldn't have some sense of risk or difficulty... so in my opinion, hiding DCs provides less verisimilitude than not. I think people would at least have an approximation of what the difficulty would be... so something like "the DC for this lock is somewhere between 16 and 20" would make more sense than not having any idea.

As I said, it rarely comes up. My players almost never ask for the DC, so I don't bring it up either.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I get that. I've done plenty of that, myself.

But, for me, what my game gains by sharing all DCs... informed players able to make their best decisions... is far better than that little bit of verisimilitude from that one little moment of play. Also, I think it's rare that folks wouldn't have some sense of risk or difficulty... so in my opinion, hiding DCs provides less verisimilitude than not. I think people would at least have an approximation of what the difficulty would be... so something like "the DC for this lock is somewhere between 16 and 20" would make more sense than not having any idea.

The only time I'll get coy is in the case of perception-adjacent rolls, and even then I'll provide some information.

 

[Enrahim2]

This has nothing to do with rule zero that I can see.

Yes it doesn't have anything to do with rule zero. It was only my second paragraph that you did not quote that had anything to do with rule zero.

Also, I'm not persuaded that, within the confines of Suits's analaysis, that the goal of play to generate an emotional state in the players; any more than that the goal of play in football is to create an exciting match. The emotional states are (desirable) byproducts.

No problem. I did not try to persuade anyone about that. It was merily an idea I thought might be interesting to examine as an example of how a potential alternative goal for a GM might roughly look like. I doubt I would have hit gold on my first try to formulate anything along this lines. Maybe you could help see if you could find a formulated goal that better match the feeling of playing an "allmighty" GM is reported to experience?

I think it likely has to relate to some sort of state of mind manipulation of the players, but I agree that emotions might be the wrong thing to look at. Maybe it is more like the manipulative gameplay of the game Diplomacy, where you try to get your competitors to do moves that benefit yourself?

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Do they not understand the D&D-based terms being used, or is this just an empty complaint?

Part of the problem is, when I speak only using 'D&D-based terms' there are concepts that SIMPLY DON'T EXIST in D&D, so I'm not able to talk about those? Or I have to go to some special forum where certain people are not going to come so I can shield them from having to hear a naughty word? I don't get it! But beyond that, your terminology has all sorts of baggage and connotations which I don't want. So I use language which people have carefully constructed so as to clearly delineate the concepts I'm talking about from the ones I'm not, and their 'baggage'. This is pretty much why ever subject has terminology. People do it all the time. Its not like we're using more than maybe 5 terms that are already well-known a LOT of people!

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Emphasis mine.

You're trying to draw a distinction which doesn't actually exist--it's not actually the case that FK and Braunsteins have no elements of subjective judgment to them. Rather, in both cases, the referee's subjective judgment is all that ultimately matters. You don't get to tell your referee that your battleship didn't really blow up; you don't get to tell your referee that nunchucks are actually awesome weapons; you don't get to tell your ref that the French cities being invaded have not actually been evacuated yet; you also don't get to tell your GM that his Spartan-flavored society actually produces weak and dysfunctional armies. The fact that the FK ref is running a slightly-fictional world and the GM is running a more-highly-fictional world is not in fact relevant, especially if they are both trying to perform the same job: good-faith extrapolation.

In both cases, the quality of the extrapolation (and overall simulation) depends on the quality of the GM/ref.

There's another role, scenario/adventure builder, but that isn't universally considered part of the ref's/runtime GM's job.

I don't think your depiction of FK is accurate. I was in ROTC, we played actual US Army wargame, which is a direct lineal descendant of FK. A US Military Officer (Army Officer) acts as the referee, and each side is assigned a task, forces, and initial conditions. From there the game is played out, with the referee consulting a VERY voluminous set of rules which generally handles most all situations. It may be that a given scenario might include additional non-canonical conditions, or that one participant might choose to attempt to do something that is 'not in the book', however this is going to be very limited in nature. This is a wargame, purely, with the objects being military objectives. If your radio guy is knocked out, maybe you try using a signal fire, whatever, the ref can wing that, but 99.999% of FK is a highly expert referee with an extensive rulebook deploying that book to adjudicate actions. This is rather different from D&D!

I haven't participated in a Braunstein, but I would tend to agree that they introduced the form of FK, roughly, into a much more open world where it is likely that the rules are highly incomplete and the referee has to both make up elements of the scenario on the fly when players 'go off the reservation' and come up with answer to situations where he has no particular reason to know an answer, but needs to supply one. This is a lot closer to RPGs, maybe even could be considered a form of RPG.