D&D General A glimpse at WoTC's current view of Rule 0

[Crimson Longinus]

@hawkeyefan whilst the approach you describe is fine and I've played that way, I do not prefer it. Now we all of course know that the game world is made up, but to me the act of making parts of it up during the play as a player calls attention the artificiality. It breaks the illusion of the world being objectively existing separate thing. It puts me from the actor mode to the author mode.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I think that's all clear. And I understand most of those preferences in and of themselves. As I said, I used to share some of them. All I'm curious about is why you have those preferences. Like, consider your games and think about the actual reasons that you prefer things that way.

For example, I used to run games with high levels of GM authority because I was far more comfortable with preparing things ahead of time than I was with responding to things at the table during play. That was one of the reasons for me... but I don't want to assume you or anyone else shares that reason, or any other that I may have.

Now, my experience is that allowing players to have more authority here in no way interferes with portraying a "real" and consistent world. You've expressed that as a concern... why? Is it a matter of there being some potential conflict between your worldbuilding and something the players try to introduce? Is there more to it? Something else?



Okay... but does that need to be a one-person job?

Some games... even ones with a very traditional take on participant authority... split that up a bit. So let's say I'm playing an elf in such a game... then when it comes to matters of elven culture and society, I'm the go to. So if someone says "why don't we seek out the elven king for some help?" the GM may say "Good question... let's ask Mike, he's the one playing an elf. Mike, would this be something the elven king would help with? How accessible is the king? Is there even a king or any kind of monarch in elven society?"

And then Mike shares his thoughts, maybe takes some suggestions from the GM or other players, and then decides what elven society is like, etc. The same can be true of characters of faith, like clerics. Let the player describe the faith and its practices and holidays and even the deity they worship. The idea here is to help invest the player in the elements of the game that are closely associated with his character.

Now... there are some people who won't like this approach, of course. I think "why not?" is a valid and worthwhile question to ask. Or "why?" to those who do like this kind of approach.

I think that given how much players are expected to just go with it... to be told truths about the game world at any and all times by the GM, and then to onboard that to their ideas about the game and what it means for their character and the setting overall... it requires some flexibility. Some ability to quickly absorb information and apply it to the game. I think that GMs... often cited as the source for the bulk of the creative energy of the game... would benefit from this kind of flexibility. I think most games, barring some strong preference of some kind, would benefit from this kind of approach... to more collaboration.

As far as I know, I don't have some deep psychological reason why I prefer the traditional separation of DM and player authority, and I don't think I need one to justify my preference. People have fun in different ways. The world feels more real to me when I, portraying a character born into that world and possessing abilities similar to that of a person living in this world (at least conceptually; as in, we are both people) don't have the ability or the responsibility to create parts of that world the character could not logically create on their own in-setting.

As a DM, I want and enjoy that responsibility.

 

[Lanefan]

BTW: What do you guys in this thread hope to achieve by writing the same things over and over?

Typing practice.

I mean, duh!

 

[Micah Sweet]

Typing practice.

I mean, duh!

Fair. I hate posting by phone and am not good at it. Long posts are torturous to me.

 

[pemerton]

One of the main ways my players create content is by writing a prose on our Obsidian Portal page and I try as best to use that when framing scenes, offering choices and introducing NPCs.

That's an interesting way of establishing player-GM communication, and managing/eliding the "meta-"ness of it.

If I followed it properly, you're using the FR proper names to play a sort-of "anchoring"/"coordinating" role, but not as an independent GM-controlled way of establishing consequences.

I'm not sure I understand your meaning about controlled way of establishing consequences?
Could you elaborate on that please?

I'll try to elaborate by describing some contrasting, and hopefully illustrative, ways of using a setting in play.

(1) Over the past several years, when I've been using GH as my setting, if we need to work out where the PCs are on the map, and where they're going, I pull out the map(s) and we all look at where the PCs are, and where they want to go. So the map is not secret knowledge on the GM side: rather, we use it to collectively to make sure we are all on the same page about where places are in relation to one another, so we can maintain a broadly coherent shared picture of the geographic setting within which the PCs are moving and acting.

That's not to say the PCs can't (for instance) get lost, but that is determined by resolving the appropriate skill checks (say, Orienteering or Pathfinder, depending on system). If that check is failed, then I tell the players where their PCs end up, which is not where they wanted to get to.

The approach I just described of course won't work for a system in which PC movement is declared simply by the players describing which hex (or square or whatever) their PC moves into. It depends upon using check-based resolution (be that skill challenge, or simple checks, or whatever - again this will be system-dependent).

(2) As well as sharing a map, there can also be sharing of lore. Sometimes this is implicit - eg in my Torchbearer game, the Dwarf player and the Elf players just take it as given, on Tolkien-esque grounds, that Elves and Dwarves have a "complicated" relationship to one another, and have built a lot of their fiction and orientation around that. Or when I introduced an Elf NPC who had journeyed to the "Outer Dark", I took it as given that this would prompt the players to think of the Abyss, the Void, the Silmarillion, etc and conjure up appropriate ideas around lich-dom (or, as it turned out, a Barrow Wight), demons, unholiness, etc. Which it did.

Sometimes the sharing of lore happens explicitly. Early on in his exposure to GH as a setting for one of our games, one of my players did a bit of Googling. And so he learned that there are Suel nomads in the Bright Desert. Later on, when the PCs were marooned in the Bright Desert, he revealed that he had been doing some out-of-session reading: "Everyone knows that Suel Nomads are as thick as thieves in the Bright Desert!" And then proceeded to declare a system-appropriate action (it was Burning Wheel, so the action was a Circles check) to encounter some helpful nomads.

As in that example, this sort of shared lore establishes a context, a "same page" for everyone to be on, that then permits action declarations that make sense and are easily incorporated into play without risking too much confusion or contradiction in terms of backstory, history, geography etc. It also helps establish the stakes that are implicit in a particular situation - eg when the players are having their PCs explore the last resting place of Celedhring who has journeyed to the Outer Dark, they know that their PCs' souls are at risk of being burned.

(3) Sometimes the players are moving their PCs through an area, but the map is not shared (or maybe shared only in part) because part of the point of play is that the area is secret/unknown. So moving through it is part of, or at least a bit like, solving a puzzle. This happens in my Torchbearer game, because Torchbearer uses "dungeons". It has also happened a few times in our Traveller game, when the PCs have been exploring abandoned starships or mysterious installations.

In this sort of play, the map - together with its key - helps me (as GM) coordinate how I frame the PCs into (hopefully) interesting scenes/situations. The consequences for the players' declared actions for their PCs will then pertain to, or in some sense, flow from those situations. When this sort of play is working well, the scenes/situations are interesting, and there is enough information conveyed in the framing (either expressly or implicitly/by inference) that the players can see (at least roughly) what is at stake in their action declarations. If the scenes/situations fall flat, or the players are struggling to grasp what it is at stake - and so don't have a sense of what is meaningful for them to do, or how the situation they're in relates to their goals for their PCs - then it's time to bail, or fast forward, or use some other GM manoeuvre to inject a bit of "oomph" back into play.

One thing that can be interesting in this sort of play is when the players draw inferences about the meaning of a situation that is not the one that, as GM, I intended or anticipated when I prepared (or reviewed, if it's a module) the map and key. Generally, if I think the players are just wrong - for instance, I just can't see a way to connect their thinking to what I've prepare in the map-and-key - I will let them know. This is similar, I think (at least in broad structure/process), to how you worked with your player about stealing the book vs the bit of paper. Otherwise - ie if I can see how the players' idea/inference fits with what I've prepared - then it becomes like the "common knowledge" I described above in (2), and establishes a context for action declarations, stakes and consequences. Often I find this works as a type of "unfolding" - at the early stage of the players, via their PCs, exploring the unknown area the focus is on the GM providing information, and then as the players form a picture of what is going on they "take charge" and start to impose more of their will on the situation.

(4) What I have in mind when I talk about "GM-controlled way of establishing consequences" is when the GM uses their knowledge of secret setting information (an unrevealed map, or unrevealed stakes in an unrevealed key) to introduce consequences into the fiction regardless of what the players take to be at stake in their action declaration. For instance, the GM "knows" (= has decided), based on their notes, that there is nothing of the sort of thing that the PCs are looking for able to be found in a given place, but lets the players spend time futilely having their PCs search. Or the GM "knows" (again, = has decided) that a certain NPC won't accept a particular request, yet allows the players to spend time futilely trying to persuade or negotiate with that NPC. Or the GM "knows" (once again, = has decided) that a certain place is to the north of the PCs, yet lets the players (who are acting out of confusion, or on the basis of false information) have their Pcs strike out to the south hoping to get to that place, and adjudicates their travel just as would be done if the PCs were heading in the right direction, even though - from the GM's perspective - it is foregone that the journey will fail.

The stuff I've described just above in (4) has some overlap with (3), in terms of the techniques used (hidden information, map-and-key). But it differs in the way the GM approaches the relationship between (i) that information, (ii) framing of scenes/situations, (iii) the players' knowledge of what is at stake in scenes/situations, and hence (iv) how consequences of players' declared actions are established.

The approach in (4) is pretty fundamental, I think, to many people's ways of approaching RPGing, but is something I try to avoid. Hopefully you can see, in how I describe (3), that this avoidance can have an element of judgement and trial-and-error to it! But nevertheless is a real thing that one can aim for as a GM.

 

[pemerton]

As a player I want to focus on my character, what they're thinking and feeling.

I don't think this distinguishes you from any one else posting in this thread.

 

[pemerton]

It's not about power it's about roles of the game the player .... ugh. I've explained this a dozen times now. You know the answer. It's not about power.

Oxford Languages, via Google, gives this for "role": the function assumed or part played by a person or thing in a particular situation. For "function", in turn, it gives: an activity that is natural to or the purpose of a person or thing.

And obviously "activity" is cognate with "action", and "action" (and the cognate verb "to act") is closely related to power.

In the study of institutions, likewise, to talk about the functions of an office or body, and to talk about its powers, is to talk about closely related (indeed, sometimes identical) things.

So I don't feel the force of the contrast you purport to draw here. The roles of the participants in an RPG are characterised by functions. These include allocations of authorial power and responsibility. The relevant power/function that I was focusing on in the post that you replied to is the power to establish what element of the fiction is salient in play.

 

[pemerton]

But for this to be railroading, it would require the GM to use this power to close avenues with an intent to shut down directions the player wants to take the game into on macro level such as leaving the town on personal business whilst others stay there.

GM making isolated micro decisions based on plausibility and vibes is not that, and it is laughable to suggest that it would.

As you know, I don't regard intention as very relevant to railroading. I think - as a conjecture, based on my own experience and observation - that most railroading is not due to intention, but rather to the GM not knowing how to handle fiction that strays from what they prepared.

I don't know what you mean by macro vs micro, so can't comment on that. But as far as "plausibility" is concerned, no one has been discussing ideas that strain credulity. A nearby dude in a tavern; a blacksmith in a town; a band in a bar: none of these is implausible.

As far as "vibes" go, that is exactly the sort of thing I'm talking about. A GM who imposes their vibes, rather than responding to the players' vibes, is moving in a railroad-y direction.

If we took you idea seriously, it would mean that in order to not to railroad, the GM should allow players to assume and ask into existence literally anything that was not previously explicitly excluded.

I don't think this follows at all. Unless you think that the players and GM are not capable of a shared sense of plausibility, in which case I think the game has problems that "rule zero" will not resolve.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

As you know, I don't regard intention as very relevant to railroading. I think - as a conjecture, based on my own experience and observation - that most railroading is not due to intention, but rather to the GM not knowing how to handle fiction that strays from what they prepared.

And then they intentionally take steps to block the game veering outside of that.

I don't know what you mean by macro vs micro, so can't comment on that.

Railroading is about controlling the overall trajectory of the game, not about individual details. Now several individual details of course can be used to control the overall trajectory, but that requires intentionality.

But as far as "plausibility" is concerned, no one has been discussing ideas that strain credulity. A nearby dude in a tavern; a blacksmith in a town; a band in a bar: none of these is implausible.

Perhaps. Except if the GM has unshared information in light of which they would be implausible. Dut I assume you don't like that.

As far as "vibes" go, that is exactly the sort of thing I'm talking about. A GM who imposes their vibes, rather than responding to the players' vibes, is moving in a railroad-y direction.

No. When framing a scene as GM, do you not have something you wish to communicate? Fact,s themes, mood etc. It is the GM's job to do this, and the "vibes" of the setting are their responsibility just like the "vibes" of the characters are of the players. Though of course these will influence each other as the world affects the characters and the characters influence the world.

I don't think this follows at all. Unless you think that the players and GM are not capable of a shared sense of plausibility, in which case I think the game has problems that "rule zero" will not resolve.

There are a lot of things that could plausibly happen and exist, especially in a completely made up fantasy world. If we accept as axiomatic that the GM is not to block player suggestions regarding the setting, then using this to solve problems becomes a valid gameplay strategy for the players. And like I said in another post, D&D is not designed to be played that way and will not handle it well.

 

[pemerton]

I like when divine beings and warlock patrons are more than just a “fill in this blank on your character sheet”. This is a chance for me to roleplay Odin. And everyone’s on board! Why dismiss that opportunity out of hand?

In a system that has gods and the like, I think it can be helpful for the system to also provide some guidance on these sorts of matters.

Of course, that guidance won't necessarily create the game, or fiction, someone is looking for. That's one reason for having multiple different games!

So, in AD&D the rules spell out (with only a small amount of contradiction between the PHB and the DMG) how clerics relate to the gods. At low levels, not at all - 1st and 2nd level spells are essentially "rotes" that the character can prepare and perform due to their training. At mid levels, via intermediaries - 3rd to 5th level spells are bestowed upon the cleric by such beings. And then at upper levels, directly - the god is the granter of 6th and 7th level spells.

So a low-level cleric of Odin can speak a prayer, but unless performing an Augury ritual (or similar low-level spell) is really no better off than a common person praying to Odin. So that can be resolved via the Divine Intervention rules (found in the DMG). At higher levels, the communion takes place when memorising spells, and so the GM could use that as an opportunity to have an intermediary, or Odin himself, advise or even dictate to the cleric.

I don't know if the above is fully satisfying, in fiction and game play terms, but it is a model that can be applied by GM and player.

4e D&D takes a very different approach, without imposing the same "structure" or certainty that AD&D does. In my main 4e game, the player of the paladin would very frequently pray to the Raven Queen, from 1st level onwards. As the GM, I used the improvised action and skill challenge rules to handle this. Other players (via their PCs) would also get in on this sort of action from time to time. Here's an example of the sort of approach that I took:

In the previous session, the sorcerer PC had been amassing chaos energy to try to infuse it into himself and/or items. This worked - he imbued himself with the Gift of Flame and also transmuted a jewelled horn the party was carrying into a Fire Horn. (Mechanically, this was resolved as an Arcana-based skill challenge while the rest of the party fought off the mooncalves who had been attracted by the chaotic forces.)

He also realised that, as well as the chaos energy leaking from the body of the dead dragon Calastryx (on which he was standing) and leaking from a nearby portal to the Elemental Chaos, there was elemental chaos flowing south from the mountains to the north. And as he stood in his chaotic vortex on the body of Calastryx, the apparent distance between him and the mountains closed, and he could sense the chaos leaching up from the underdark. And he could see a plateau surrounded by a ring of mountains, where an army of hobgoblins was encamped next to a temple to Torog cut into the mountainside - prompting the thought that the chaos energy was escaping because Torog had dug too deep into the world.

Now the PCs have for many levels been fighting against the hobgoblins, and the players have been planning to try and raid the army to the north, and so they decided to step through the vortex and cover the distance immediately, rather than have to spend a week or more climbing up through the mountains. They were a little concerned about arriving in the middle of the army - having only two or three healing surges across the whole party and two or three party members already being bloodied - and the player of the chaos sorcerer was getting ready to make more Arcana checks to try to shift the destination of his distance-spanning vortex.

But the wizard PC decided to use his Sceptre of Erathis (= 3 parts, so far, of the Rod of 7 Parts) to try and master the chaos - which (after a successful Religion check) resulted in the focus of the vortex shifting, to an ancient Nerathi stair at the bottom of the plateau, and at the base of a waterfall. (One property of the sceptre is its tendency to point out lost Nerathi paths and ruins.) So the PCs stepped through the vortex - taking 10 damage in the process, which most could not heal (and which left the ranger with 3 hp).

On the other side of the vortex, at the base of the stairs up the side of the waterfall, they took a short rest and then decided to look for somewhere to take an extended rest. They first spoke with the statues at the base of the stair (which I described by reference to the Argonath in LotR, only at the bottom rather than the top of a (more modest) waterfall) – I used the "dealing with the guardians" component of the running river (?) skill challenge in the DMG2 for this – and then climbed the stair to a ruined watchhouse on a bridge spanning the river at its top. And decided to rest there. (The stair, plateau, river etc are all from the old B/X module "Night's Dark Terror".)

You won't be surprised that, for me, the 4e approach is more satisfying than the AD&D approach. But both create a framework which is not just "shutting down".