D&D General Why the Great Thief Debate Will Always Be With Us

[Umbran]

Well you might have said good faith instead of faith and it would have been clearer.

Mod Note:
Being unclear is not a valid basis for insulting people. It was uncalled for.

Treat people better, please.

 

[Minigiant]

An absence of rules requires a clarity of reference.

Before the monk gets to run on water, did the fighter have the ability to? What about the wizard?

Because depending on the reference...

Joe might say Yes to the fighter but No to the wizard.
Bob might say Yes to both.
Minnie might say No to both.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Rules are the foundation for freedom. If you have rules, you know your capabilities and you are free. Without rules you are ignorant of your own skills.

There is no opposition between roleplaying and rules.

This is, in my opinion, the premise behind the martial/caster debate. The reason why casters are good is because they have freedom, and they have freedom because they have rules. Nobody argues that caster players cannot roleplay because they have lots of rules.

Rules are freedom because they provide a baseline of competence. A character who has an ability that says he can jump 50 feet is freer than a character who does not, because the character who does not have it likely cannot jump that distance.

Each ability that says you can do X is an assertion to that fact. It cannot be taken away. It does not rely on negotiation. It is a concrete thing. Liberating.

So I wanted to address this because I think that it is a very good articulation of why the Great Thief Debate will always be with us.

You have made a good case for rules. Or, as I put it in the essay, putting as much as possible in the Gygaxian Space. To you, rules are liberating, because you know what you can do!

From the OP, with certain parts in BOLD:

To put this in my jargony highfalutin' terms- the expression of an ability in Gygaxian space foreclosed the use of the ability in Arnesonian space. It's an eternal and evergreen debate. Does codifying abilities into rules help, because it provides certainty to the player? Or does codifying hurt, because it necessarily means that without the express ability, you can no longer do it, thereby limiting players? Or, put into the less highfalutin' terms we see on the internet ... WHY U PLAY BUTTON MASHING RPGS? Or ... WHY DO YOU PLAY MOTHER MAY I? Yeah, the original debate in D&D, the great thief debate ... it's that one that we still see. It's always all or nothing on the internet- either you are demanding that players are chained to looking up stuff on their character sheet, or you are demanding that players beg permission from an arbitrary and capricious GM to do anything.

I think what you are not quite understanding is that I am not trying to set up a dichotomy about roleplaying and rules. This essay was never about blah blah blah Stormwind fallacy blah blah blah.

It's about the very nature of expressed rules in and of themselves.

So to look at what you are saying-
To you, a rule that provides an ability gives you freedom, because you know you can do that.
The counterpoint is that this rules takes away the freedom of anyone else to do that who doesn't have that specific ability.

And the more that we see rules as the sole means to express the way a character interacts with a fictional world, the more players are forces to interact with that world only by specific rules mechanisms.

That's a little abstract- so more concretely, the more that rules define how the character interacts with the fictional world (the more that is in Gygaxian space), the more you can get to the point where it's not just that a specific rule (like an ability) for a specific ability excludes the use by others, it also means that the lack of a rule will mean that something cannot be done.

In other words, with too much in the Gygaxian space ... trying to do something new without a rule?

@Minigiant just expressed a similar concern that I touched on and we often see- that without rules, you can't predict things (as you put it, you have to negotiate, or as people put it in pejorative terms, "Mother May I").

Thing is- that's a fine opinion to have! And one that dates back ... oh, to the beginning. Just like the idea that rules restrict freedom is also a fine idea, and people argue for that ... which also dates back to the beginning.

I mean, I've heard it said that this debate has even further antecedents. People even say blah blah The Great Kriegsspiel and Free Kriegsspiel Debate blah blah ...

So what does this mean? I guess... blame the Germans?

 

[James Gasik]

Yes, whatever the Thief was intended to be pre-AD&D (either the only one who could perform Thief abilities or just preternaturally better at such things), the AD&D DMG makes it very clear that Thieving abilities have sharp limits on what they could do.

As for Backstab, well, I've been involved in many discussions where people would claim that Thieves were great because they could sneak around like ninja and backstab everything in sight, but actually reading the rules, it's extremely difficult to actually do so.

By 2e, the rules doubled down on this to the point that the victim must be surprised (not ambushed!) and struck from behind, and generally unaware of the Thief.

This means that even if you do manage to successfully sneak up on a foe unawares, and get a first strike in due to ambushing, you still can't backstab until your foe rolls for surprise in the next round, which is only a 30% chance unless you're an Elf or Halfling.

How, exactly, one remains unaware of an attacker after an ambush attack is left unsaid, lol.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

So to look at what you are saying-
To you, a rule that provides an ability gives you freedom, because you know you can do that.
The counterpoint is that this rules takes away the freedom of anyone else to do that who doesn't have that specific ability.

Why? How?

You have said that this is a thing. Why is it a thing? Why is it that person A being able to do thing X means person B cannot do thing X?

That's a little abstract- so more concretely, the more that rules define how the character interacts with the fictional world (the more that is in Gygaxian space), the more you can get to the point where it's not just that a specific rule (like an ability) for a specific ability excludes the use by others, it also means that the lack of a rule will mean that something cannot be done.

Again, you keep saying THAT this is true, but you have not said WHY it is true.

What is it about the existence of the rule which makes it so you cannot do something a different way?

The rule is a formal, explicit way things DO work. Why is it you can't...also do things in another way, that hasn't be pre-defined?

In other words, with too much in the Gygaxian space ... trying to do something new without a rule?
View attachment 382355

Why not?

@Minigiant just expressed a similar concern that I touched on and we often see- that without rules, you can't predict things (as you put it, you have to negotiate, or as people put it in pejorative terms, "Mother May I").

Thing is- that's a fine opinion to have! And one that dates back ... oh, to the beginning. Just like the idea that rules restrict freedom is also a fine idea, and people argue for that ... which also dates back to the beginning.

But it's not just "an opinion." It is a claim, and a rebuttal. It rebuts the claim that an absence of rules ensures that the player is able to do the things they want to do. In the genuine absence of rules, where absolutely everything becomes a topic of negotiation...and where one and only one party has all the bargaining power...you're gonna run into a lot of situations where--to use your own phrase--you will have no idea whatsoever how to pursue your goals, or even whether those goals can be pursued at all. That's one of the major functions of rules, to provide an identified path forward.

And none of this has anything to do with whether a road from Rome to Paris means that you can't also get to Paris without taking that road. Maybe you decide to go to Venice first, and then to Paris. Or maybe you just hoof it across the Alps because you're a crazy person. Or maybe you take a ship, or you fly. Why does having a road from Rome to Paris mean that nobody is ever allowed to reach Paris any other way?

 

[jmartkdr2]

An absence of rules requires a clarity of reference.

Before the monk gets to run on water, did the fighter have the ability to? What about the wizard?

Because depending on the reference...

Joe might say Yes to the fighter but No to the wizard.
Bob might say Yes to both.
Minnie might say No to both.

Incidentally, this is my main takeaway from playing Fate: if the genre/setting is clear and well-understood, it flows very easily. If the genre/setting is unclear, it's hard to get anything done.

 

[MichaelSomething]

I would never design a game to fix bad DMs. Inexperienced DMs by all means. Teach them the right ways. But a bad DM is just someone who doesn't want the game to be fun. Ditch that DM.

But who will liberate players from the Tyranny of Fun??

Or those who want to experience things in TTRPG besides fun???

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Incidentally, this is my main takeaway from playing Fate: if the genre/setting is clear and well-understood, it flows very easily. If the genre/setting is unclear, it's hard to get anything done.

This is something I've commented on before-

One of the main advantages that often goes unremarked about other games (from PbTA/FiTD games to FKR/Rules Lite games) is that they benefit from the limited scope of the genre and system.

That's not a backhanded compliment. Instead, it's a statement that the limiting of genre and rules beforehand allows for consistent understanding and buy-in.

If you're playing BiTD (for example) and the players decide that the characters don't want to do scores, don't want to be in Duskvol, and think heists are lame, you're going to run into problems. But because of the narrow(er) focus, we often overlook the necessary buy-in that has already occurred.

If the table has agreed to limit the play/narrative experience, either through agreed table buy-in or through the table agreeing to limit it due to the adoption of a limited play experience provided by those rules, then that consistency happens.

But that's not a function of the rules qua rules. That's a function of the a priori limiting.

It's a subtle distinction that I think people often overlook, and it's why indie games (like FiTD and Rule Lite/FKR variants) achieve that consistency, although people argue about the differences because one is more rules-defined, and one relies on the setting; but both benefit from the a prior limiting.

D&D, on the other hand, has the gift and the curse of not having that specificity.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Why? How?

You have said that this is a thing. Why is it a thing? Why is it that person A being able to do thing X means person B cannot do thing X?

If you haven't understood it from the many words already used in the OP, I don't think that further explanation will help.

If, on the other hand, you do understand what I am saying, but wish only to argue, you are welcome to do so; but it is preferable that you don't demand I keep explaining the same thing to your satisfaction (which is not going to happen, based on the prior evidence of every prior thread that you've brought up this same issue) simply because you don't agree with what I have already stated.

 

[Voadam]

Anyway, I wanted to go back over something I reference every now and then- "The Great Thief Debate." I realized that I never made a full post about it, and why it matters, and what it tells us about current issues and debates in RPGs.

I think your earlier thread on Context Switching Paralysis or Why we Will Always Have the Thief Debate constitutes a full post on your idea of "The Great Thief Debate."