Why do RPGs have rules?

[clearstream]

Anyway, why do RPGs have rules? In a nutshell, here is a proposed partial answer*


Each candidate description must be matched to a norm/rule that will explicitly state or imply its consequences. (Explicitly state more often for change to system; imply more often for change to fiction.) Along the D -> N/R -> C chain are a number of tasks -

1. Supply a candidate description
2. Match that description to a norm/rule
3. Read off the norm/rule the explicitly stated consequences, or propose fitting consequences
4. If more than one consequence is possible, select one

2. is not always a trivial task. Unless a description exactly matches a game text there is room for ambiguity. The AW game text calls attention to this (p10 in the 2nd edition.) D&D gives DM the job of matching descriptions to rules.

3. can get pretty nuanced. PbtA moves are compound rules that do a good job of directing toward the system and fiction consequences connected with any description that matched the move. D&D spells in most cases spell out the exact consequence. D&D skills on the other hand define scopes of effect that often imply a wide range of possible consequences. Again, D&D gives DM the job of fitting consequences.

In many games 4. is down to a dice roll that selects between some or all of - progress, progress+complication, no-progress, and no-progress+badness. The word "progress" shouldn't be read too literally here. Candidate descriptions are usually supplied with an ends in mind ("I climb the wall"... to get to the top. "I swing my mace"... to deal damage to the squirrel.) Progress generally means toward that ends.


*It's partial, because while rules set up to model things - simulations - can be made to fit this answer, it doesn't say quite enough about them. Likewise meta-rules - rules addressed to rules. It's one lense, not the only lense.

Continuing this partial answer to why RPGs have rules, I've written that -

So far as pre-existing norms extend, participants can often agree that a description D will have the consequences C. Rules supersede pre-existing norms, and extend beyond them. During play it can be decided if any D has the consequences C by matching that D to a norm/rule that explicitly states or implies that C.

Which positions a rule as a function mapping D to C. However, rules also do the job of inviting candidate Ds. An example might be found in rules for gaining a level. What I'm thinking of are cases where there's no natural experience to suggest a description of the sort that "I climb the wall" (to reach the top) or "I swing my axe" (to deal damage) seem to be. Level gaining is sometimes worded as an automatic mechanism and sometimes as a metagame move. To me the latter is the better framing as any supposed automatic mechanism still requires a participant to enact it (falling into what I've labelled "description"... what do I do, ludically speaking.)

As much as there are rules that supersede or extend norms for mappings from descriptions (Ds) to consequences (Cs), there are those that do so for candidate Ds. Inviting (ruling in), excluding (ruling out), or transforming some Ds.

The following jobs still need to be done

1. Supply a candidate description... now clarified as itself subject to norms/rules
2. Match that description to a norm/rule
3. Read off the norm/rule the explicitly stated consequences, or propose fitting consequences
4. If more than one consequence is possible, select one

Mechanistic or procedural rules - such as the procedure to select among consequences - can be made to fit this picture, but possibly still require separate treatment. Along with rules that serve to simulate and those addressing other rules. The lense itself should be compared with other lenses.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

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.

Are you sure the Army wargames you describe are descended from free Kriegspiel and not classic Kriegsspiel? Obviously I wasn't alive in the 1800s, so I'll borrow from The Elusive Shift's characterization:

In the pioneering Reiswitz system developed in the 1820s, players no longer moved pieces on a board but instead wrote orders just as they would to subordinates in wartime, and the referee—in consultation with the rules and sometimes dice—would determine the outcome. Reiswitz intended his game as a teaching tool that would instruct officers in the science of command, especially in drafting written orders, and so the authority of a referee in his game resembled the authority of a teacher over a classroom. By having his referee respond to player orders with only the limited intelligence that wartime commanders would receive, Reiswitz hoped his game would instill in a player “the same sort of uncertainty over results as he would have in the field.”8 Later Kriegsspiel authors such as Julius von Verdy du Vernois had learned from experience that prescriptive rules could make the game dull, overcomplicated, and unrealistic, so they granted referees total discretion in determining the outcome of game events, a movement then called “free” Kriegsspiel.9 This broad referee discretion in deciding events unlocked a corresponding principle codified by Charles Totten’s wargame Strategos in the 1880s: “anything can be attempted.” Players can propose that their forces attempt anything that people in that situation could realistically do.10 This idea was unearthed and reinvigorated by Twin Cities wargamers in the late 1960s, from whence it then exerted a crucial influence on D&D.

If 99.999% of your wargames were not subject to referee discretion that sounds quite a lot like the attitude Vernois was pushing back against by creating FK. Why do you believe your wargames were FK-descended?

Edited for tone. I'm sincerely asking, not arguing.

 

[loverdrive]

What does that mean? Is it not reasonable to expect in a very heavily D&D (and its derivitives) based and frequented forum that most posters here are familiar with D&D idioms and terminology, and that this might not be true for other games? This is a general RPG thread, but not a PbtA and the Forge thread (all evidence to the contrary).

It is unreasonable to not use pretty much the only language that has terms to talk about RPGs, though.

Everything of value about RPGs came from Forge. Rejecting Forge lingo = rejecting any kind of actually interesting RPG discussion, period.

 

[loverdrive]

For what I would call fully immersionist play it's not like that. For me game texts such as RQ, Bushido, L5R, and Traveller all provide great opportunities for that mode. There may be stuff going on, but it's just not the case that anything must happen in one place in order for another thing to happen elsewhere. It's more - oh, so this happened here, what will be the ripples of that? It's not no-myth because a ton of stuff may exist that hasn't yet been said to the group, but it is no-plot.

Part of the trick is to not care if all the locations get visited. Characters don't visit Dykene? Doesn't matter. I feel like folk who enjoy world creation (as distinct from story-telling) will often enjoy GMing in immersionist mode. I'll read folk relating how they spent a pleasant few hours in solitary world development. The point being that one isn't attached to it appearing in play because one has enjoyed the work for its own sake.

This makes me question is there a reason to, y'know, run a game in the built world if the main source of enjoyment is world building. An RPG seems to be a dubiously effective way to "bring that world to life".

I'm engaged in two separate world building "games" right now, in one we're collaboratively writing a travel guide to a fictional city, in another I'm answering questions about a fictional civilization through the notes and writings of an archaeologist exploring its ruins.

I enjoy both, and both sound pretty cool, but the idea of playing or running an RPG set in either of the settings sounds like abysmal. They're not built for RPGing.

 

[clearstream]

This makes me question is there a reason to, y'know, run a game in the built world if the main source of enjoyment is world building. An RPG seems to be a dubiously effective way to "bring that world to life".

I'm engaged in two separate world building "games" right now, in one we're collaboratively write a travel guide to a fictional city, in another I'm answering questions about a fictional civilization through the notes and writings of an archaeologist exploring its ruins.

I enjoy both, and both sound pretty cool, but the idea of playing or running an RPG set in either of the settings sounds like an abysmal idea. They're not built for RPGing.

This seems to be a question about why I should prefer pears over peaches. I enjoy pears. That does not impinge upon your enjoyment of peaches. Sometimes I like peaches, too.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

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.

I imagine it to be highly dependent on the Braunstein. You have to understand, this sort of training, like your moots, has been pretty well-understood for 150 years or so at least. So, depending on the context, a 'Braunstein' might be simply an RP exercise, possibly a game, and have the same standards as a D&D game. In effect your murder mystery party is one of these! So are things like 'escape rooms', though they have their own kind of niche criteria. OTOH a US State Department/National Security Council crisis drill is clearly going to be very much like a classic FK, with the most expert people serving as judges, ones who can justifiably say that they understand what will happen in real world situation X when you take action Y, or at least articulate a defensible justification for it being a likely outcome.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

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.

Well, these forms of accuracy you mention, are EXACTLY what Edwards discussed as agenda!

Accuracy to genre/world - 'genre simulation'
Accuracy to preexisting fiction - purist for system
etc.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

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.

How is one high school student or office worker a greater expert on fantasy dungeons than another? FK is, in its serious form at least, a highly technical training tool where the referee is a PhD level expert on EXACTLY the situation being simulated. In the 'FK' (The US Army uses different terminology, but it IS an FK) we did in ROTC we did things like: Joe - you are the commander of a mixed tank-heavy company team defending hill 406 in the Fulda Gap. You have the following artillery mission resources.... the following air support... You may position your forces anywhere in and around grid square 40-72. Recon indicates a Red Army tank regiment sized component of the 1st Guards Tank Army is moving towards your position and will arrive in approximately 1 hour. Your mission is to halt the enemy's advance, inflict maximum casualties, and delay them for at least 5 hours. Now a US Army captain (in our case, because its ROTC) runs this game. This guy has commanded this type of force, and been deployed in this very area. The terrain on our table is totally realistic, we have realistic information, platoon commanders played by other players, and its up to Joe to create a defense and execute that against a realistic armored assault.

That's nothing like a dungeon where some kid is GMing. That kid may be smart and do a fairly realistic job where that's possible, but its nothing like that ROTC scenario and that tank commander refereeing it.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

In the 'FK' (The US Army uses different terminology, but it IS an FK)

Still waiting for your answer on why you think Army wargames are free Kriegsspiel despite having very little referee discretion. (0.001% according to you.)

Pemerton asserted that refereeing a scenario in a fictional world in FK and refereeing an agendaless dungeon crawl in a fantasy world in an RPG are qualitatively different activities. I have argued that they are not because the agenda in both cases is faithful extrapolation, and both require subjective judgment calls which cannot be disputed by the participants. You tried to argue that FK is almost entirely rules-driven with little referee discretion, based on your experience with US Army Wargaming, and now seem to have switched to arguing that since fantasy worlds are fictional, all human beings are equally good at extrapolating answers to questions about them and therefore they are qualitatively different from FKs after all. Am I understanding you correctly?

 

[clearstream]

How is one high school student or office worker a greater expert on fantasy dungeons than another?

I asked an epistemologist what it might mean to be expert in an imaginary domain, and they gave this reply

If it's an imaginary domain, then one might argue that the internal facts about that domain are true whether or not anyone does, in fact, imagine that domain, merely in virtue of the domain's coherence (that is, the domain does not depend upon any contingent actual imaginings, for its existence as a possible conceptual structure). If so, then what the expert is doing is not 'making' the (internal) facts about that domain true, per se, but simply selecting which imaginary domain, from the set of open possibilities, is being referred to. They are, however, making some external facts about that domain true (such as the fact that Domain A, and not Domain B, is the domain to which we have chosen to refer for our purposes, or the fact that Domain A, and not Domain B, is the best domain for those purposes).

I think this dovetails quite well with my suggestion that expertise in such circumstances is conferred. Alternatively, or I suppose additionally, I could say that it is not their expertise in the imaginary domain that I'm most concerned with, but their expertise in other domains useful to the project of RPG play.