GMing: What If We Say "Yes" To Everything?

[aco175]

This reads to me as, "the GM says 'roll' to everything." That's significantly different than the Original Premise.

Reminds me of a 2e game when we found a magic shop and there seemed to be a chance for about anything. I remember rolling a 00 when I asked about a ring of invisibility. I could not afford it, but ended up with it later.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Just a thought experiment:

What if for a new campaign or just a one shot, the GM said "Yes" to literally everything the players asked or wanted to do. Not "Yes, but," but just "yes, you can do/be/use that."

Normally, the GM hedges, using die rolls or negotiation to craft play and control pacing, and sometimes to maintain a level of control over the world and the characters. What would a game look like where the GM gave up even a hint of control and just narrated the results of the PCs' choices and successful actions?

I basically did this a decade or so ago with a crummy system I was trying, and I think the players didn't actually realize I was saying essentially yes to everything, or maybe they did and just didn't want to abuse it, it actually went really well. Like surprisingly well. I was still using some die rolls, but they didn't really impact much (terrible system as I said).

What the game looks like is hard to say because in this case, it's so very much in the hands of the players, and what they want to happen and how imaginative and thoughtful they are. It also depends very much on what the DM wants - more than people might think.

I think a lot of players genuinely won't abuse it, because they want to engage with the fiction of the game. If that's the case you have something that looks a lot like the free-form character-based RP that has gone on, particularly on the internet, for decades.

It would look a lot like the Amber game I ran back in the day. The PCs were, by definition, greater than nearly any NPC. Through character creation they defined their own strengths and limitations. They just had to describe how to evade or mitigate the obstacles in their way. I found it incredibly fatiguing; it was difficult to adjudicate some situations in a way that appeared fair when abilities and obstacles were relatively balanced.

However, people had a good time with it.

Yeah I was thinking about Amber when I read this. Definitely some similarities.

 

[overgeeked]

"Can I play a half giant, half pixie from Mars?"
Yes.

"Can I convince the king to make me a baron?"
Yes.

"Can I sneak up behind the dragon and steal that cool cup?"
Yes.

It is still a roleplaying game. Assume everything works as normal, except the answer to every "can I?" question is "Yes."

I’m not sure it would be an RPG. It might be a kind of pure wish fulfillment exercise, but there’d be basically no game to speak of.

And really no need for rules. Most rules are fancy codifications to “can I” question with math or math rocks involved. Can I carry the castle, yes. Can I cast wish at first level, yes. Can I have infinite hit points, yes. There’s no rolling for anything so no need for dice. No need for classes, levels, hit points, XP, etc as it’s all moot. Can I be level 20 in every class and have every subclass, yes.

If you literally say yes to everything, then the PCs always succeed, never fail, and there’s not much to do. At least not much point to doing anything. Any bit of prep you do is instantly solved, avoided, or otherwise overcome.

The end result is nothing more and nothing less than just sitting around a table saying yes to everything the players ask. I’m not sure what that would be, but it sounds dull as hell. There are players who’d enjoy it, I’m sure, but only for a short time. Always winning with zero challenge gets real boring, real fast.

 

[overgeeked]

Meh... sure, some players might be tempted. But there are plenty for whom it's not about the winning, it's about the story getting to the eventual win.

But there’s no story to speak of without obstacles and challenges. If the only move the referee can make is saying yes to player questions, then they overcome every obstacle without breaking a sweat.

 

[clearstream]

Just a thought experiment:

What if for a new campaign or just a one shot, the GM said "Yes" to literally everything the players asked or wanted to do. Not "Yes, but," but just "yes, you can do/be/use that."

Normally, the GM hedges, using die rolls or negotiation to craft play and control pacing, and sometimes to maintain a level of control over the world and the characters. What would a game look like where the GM gave up even a hint of control and just narrated the results of the PCs' choices and successful actions?

In this scenario, can the rules still say no?

 

[clearstream]

You are still playing a game, with whatever the game's action resolution rules are. What I am talking about is whenever there is a question a player asks OF THE GM, the Gm answers with "Yes." Not "autosucceed."

That answers my question above, although it seems to contradict "yes, you can do/be/use that." In cases of doubt or dissent who decides how to apply the rules? If it's GM, does it count as a "no" if they enforce a rule that stymies the players? Is it that they are allowed to rule on doubt, but not dissent?

What difference do you perceive between, when asked, GM always says "yes", and playing with no GM at all? Supposing the answer to lie around GM playing the world, does it count as "no" when GM has some aspect of the world - such as an NPC's actions - stymie the players?

 

[DEFCON 1]

But there’s no story to speak of without obstacles and challenges. If the only move the referee can make is saying yes to player questions, then they overcome every obstacle without breaking a sweat.

As I mentioned previously... the players who would be into this type of game would be the ones to create their own obstacles, then work together to get over them. The point of the game of course being to create a compelling and dramatic narrative, not to "win".

Players who play to "win" are the ones who want and need an outside authority to put roadblocks in their path so that they have something to overcome via their own ingenuity and imagination. Players who play just to create an interesting story will throw roadblocks in front of themselves and fellow players in order to enjoy the process, not the result. Heck... that's the entire premise of a game like Fiasco.

 

[Reynard]

Let's say the game takes place where a dragon has captured the king and is demanding tribute or else it will eat the king.

In this scenario, the players could, I suppose, ask "Can we kill the dragon and save the king." Yes. Now go home and make room for players that actually want to play the game.

The point is that there is still an adventure, still obstacles and NPCs and puzzles. But when a player ask something of the GM -- "Is there anyone in the kingdom that knows more about the dragon?" -- the answer is always "yes." And because that is true, when the players ask something, they are telling the GM what kind of adventure they want to go on.

And this isn't going to work for a player who thinks it is their job to beat the GM's adventure. One of the first things were are told about RPGs is that there is no winning or losing, and yet there always seem to be players that absolutely must win, to the detriment of their own fun, even.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Let's say the game takes place where a dragon has captured the king and is demanding tribute or else it will eat the king.

In this scenario, the players could, I suppose, ask "Can we kill the dragon and save the king." Yes. Now go home and make room for players that actually want to play the game.

The point is that there is still an adventure, still obstacles and NPCs and puzzles. But when a player ask something of the GM -- "Is there anyone in the kingdom that knows more about the dragon?" -- the answer is always "yes." And because that is true, when the players ask something, they are telling the GM what kind of adventure they want to go on.

And this isn't going to work for a player who thinks it is their job to beat the GM's adventure. One of the first things were are told about RPGs is that there is no winning or losing, and yet there always seem to be players that absolutely must win, to the detriment of their own fun, even.

This premise of yours is how and why the indy RPG market came into being. The players who were more improvisors rather than wargamers at heart deciding to create RPG formats that removed most (if not all) of the trappings and remnants of wargaming and just focus on the improvisation.

There's a whole wide world of diceless RPGs out there on the market for those that want them. Granted... they aren't an "upgrade" for a large contingent of Dungeons & Dragons players (as many of them enjoy and want both sides of the improv/wargame coin in their game), and I wouldn't ever bother to try and put forth the idea of a "diceless" Dungeons & Dragons game, because that defeats its own point of existence.

But as a thought-experiment? Sure, it's a potentially interesting thing for some people to think about. Not a lot of people by any means... but for some the concept and the idea of trying to change it that much might be a compelling idea (even if they wouldn't ever bother playing it.)

 

[hawkeyefan]

This sounds a lot like the idea of “say yes or roll the dice”, which I believe was first coined in Dogs in the Vineyard by Vincent Baker.

It may be a little different in that with “say yes or roll the dice” the intention is to simply grant success on all but the most potentially consequential actions. This helps avoid less meaningful rolls. It pushes the game to moments of consequence. You don’t call for rolls whenever the urge might strike. The player wants his character to scramble up a rope to a nearby rooftop? He succeeds with no roll. He wants to search a room? He finds what’s there. And so on. It’s about getting to the good stuff quicker.

So it’s not as much about “can I play this homebrew class” or what have you, but the spirit is largely the same.

I generally approach GMing just about any game with this mindset.