How Visible To players Should The Rules Be?

[Maxperson]

I don't agree.

If we characterise a GM describing things to the players as the GM deciding on auto-success for an action not declared by the player, we now seem to be positing that the GM can declare actions for the player's PC, perhaps without even telling the player that they have done so!

There is no action either on the part of the player or that the DM declared for the player. There was just knowledge that the PC automatically knew, which is one of the ways an auto success to know something works.

 

[pemerton]

There is no action either on the part of the player or that the DM declared for the player. There was just knowledge that the PC automatically knew, which is one of the ways an auto success to know something works.

What is being automatically successful, if nothing is is being attempted? How can there be success without an attempt?

 

[Maxperson]

No, you may have just bucked the prevailing trends. Your anecdotes are no more proof than mine, right? You're saying I may have run it that way despite that not being the intention. But that same argument can be applied to you.

So we have to look beyond our anecdotes.

No. This is not just about me. You are claiming that not only did I "just buck the prevailing trends," but so did the next DM, and the one after him, and the one after him, for more than a dozen consecutive DMs. That is my experience. I would have had to do the equivalent of win the lottery in order for that many DMs to consecutively "buck the trend." Far more likely is that it wasn't the prevailing trend, or if it was, not by much more than the way I played it.

I don't mean games you played. I mean like what evidence can you provide? Like we can point to all manner of historical data about how Dragonlance influenced D&D so much that it shifted drastically toward curated stories. We can talk about the impact that Vampire had, and how that forced TSR to focus even more on metaplot and curated stories.

We can look at the numerous products of the era and the advise found in Dragon magazine and similar sources, and how much of it was about maintaining the story the GM has in mind, for the GM to control the narrative. There will be exceptions, sure, but I'm comfortable saying that a significant amount of advice during this era was about GM control. Illusionism and force and all kinds of things were actively endorsed.

And just as often ignored. Back then everyone, their mother and their dog ignored or re-wrote rules left and right. You're going to need more than "The games said it was okay" to show that almost everyone played that way.

 

[Maxperson]

Here is what I described as "a characterisation of the flow of play, and the process of play, that assumes (or that places) everything into the GM's hands":

characterising a GM describing things to the players as the GM deciding on auto-success for an action not declared by the player.​

But it's not an action. By the player or by the DM.

Saying that the players have full control over their characters means nothing more than that players are doing the bare minimum necessary for the activity to count as a RPG at all - that is, they are saying some things about what their PCs do. But the framing, the stakes and the consequences are all entirely in the hands of the GM. (Just as in the AD&D 2nd ed examples that I quoted not far upthread.)

No, it doesn't mean that they are doing the bare minimum. They might be. Doing the bare minimum is playing the game like a board game. The last time I saw that happen was when I was in junior high school and we didn't know any better.

 

[Maxperson]

Well, I am quite familiar with both D&D and Burning Wheel, and I can tell you which one is more realistic by your criterion: Burning Wheel.

Yet @Micah Sweet thinks that D&D is more realistic than Burning Wheel.

So either he is ignorant of the sorts of things that are found in the fiction of Burning Wheel, or he is not applying your criterion. As far as I can tell, the latter is the case.

I wouldn't know how familiar he is with Burning Wheel. I only know that I am not familiar with it.

 

[Maxperson]

What is being automatically successful, if nothing is is being attempted? How can there be success without an attempt?

Knowing.

DM: "You walk into the room and on the floor you see a runic circle of protection." The knowledge of the circle there is automatically successful. There was no roll or denial of that knowledge.

DM: "You walk into the room and on the floor is a runic circle. You have no idea what kind it might be." The knowledge there is automatically unsuccessful for some reason.

DM: "You walk into the room and on the floor is a runic circle." The knowledge there is up in the air. The runic circle is present, but we don't know whether or not the PC knows what kind it is. That may or may not be determined later and is where actions on the part of the player would come into play.

 

[hawkeyefan]

No. This is not just about me. You are claiming that not only did I "just buck the prevailing trends," but so did the next DM, and the one after him, and the one after him, for more than a dozen consecutive DMs. That is my experience. I would have had to do the equivalent of win the lottery in order for that many DMs to consecutively "buck the trend." Far more likely is that it wasn't the prevailing trend, or if it was, not by much more than the way I played it.

And yet the same logic would apply to my anecdotes.

Hence, we must look beyond our anecdotes.

And just as often ignored. Back then everyone, their mother and their dog ignored or re-wrote rules left and right. You're going to need more than "The games said it was okay" to show that almost everyone played that way.

I never said almost everyone played that way. I can’t say what percentage of people did. But I know many did based on plenty of evidence to support it. The books themselves, common opinion about that era of gaming, many many accounts here on these forums… it goes on and on.

I think what’s most likely here is we have different ideas about what GM control means. I suspect that you would consider the old games of mine that I was talking about to not involve a lot of GM control, and that if I saw your game today, I’d consider it a paragon of GM control.

Again, there’s no way to know, so we’ll have to just agree to disagree.

 

[pemerton]

Knowing.

Knowing is not a success state. Unless one is trying to know. In the context of the play of a RPG, my understanding is that it is normally the players who decide if their PCs try to do or achieve things.

The knowledge of the circle there is automatically successful.

<snip>

The knowledge there is automatically unsuccessful for some reason.

These are not meaningful English sentences. Like the colourless green ideas sleeping furiously.

 

[pemerton]

I never said almost everyone played that way. I can’t say what percentage of people did. But I know many did based on plenty of evidence to support it. The books themselves, common opinion about that era of gaming, many many accounts here on these forums… it goes on and on.

I think what’s most likely here is we have different ideas about what GM control means. I suspect that you would consider the old games of mine that I was talking about to not involve a lot of GM control, and that if I saw your game today, I’d consider it a paragon of GM control.

Just to add to this:

When I say I don't want RPGing that involves GM control over all that matters in play, I don't mean GM control as @Maxperson or @Lanefan would understand that. I mean GM control as I, or @hawkeyefan, would understand it. And as is set out in the passages I quoted from the AD&D 2nd ed DMG (especially p 94).

It has no bearing upon my preferences, and whether or not they are satisfied, for someone else to retort that, by their standards, the GMing that I renounce is light touch.

 

[Maxperson]

And yet the same logic would apply to my anecdotes.

Hence, we must look beyond our anecdotes.

There is no evidence that players played exactly by the rules and lots of evidence that they almost universally did not.

I never said almost everyone played that way. I can’t say what percentage of people did. But I know many did based on plenty of evidence to support it. The books themselves, common opinion about that era of gaming, many many accounts here on these forums… it goes on and on.

And the opposite is also true. That the vast majority of tables altered rules left and right. The books themselves that told DMs to change the rules to fit their games, many accounts here on the forums, common opinion about that era of gaming. It goes on and on.

I think what’s most likely here is we have different ideas about what GM control means. I suspect that you would consider the old games of mine that I was talking about to not involve a lot of GM control, and that if I saw your game today, I’d consider it a paragon of GM control.

Perhaps. But I'm going by what control means, and the purpose of what I do is not to control either the game or the players. That the rules place certain aspects of the game into my hands does not make what I do about control.