What are the rules for?

[mmadsen]

I think many of us on this hobby have gone through phases of studying rules and wanting more detailed rules for more elements of the game and then swinging the pendulum back the other way as we found the rules largely got on the way of playing the game and getting reasonable results. This is not a new phenomenon.

Paddy Griffith wrote about this in another context:

The nineteenth-century Prussian game started life with a rigid structure and copious formal rules. The two sides were each placed in a separate room with a model of the terrain or a map. The umpires moved from one room to another collecting orders from the players, and then retired to a third room to consult the rules and find the results of combat. A great deal of their time was consumed in leafing through voluminous sets of rules, consulting tables and giving rulings on fine legal points. By about 1870, however, this rigid system was starting to be thought rather clumsy and time-consuming. Quite apart from the many defects and loopholes in the rules themselves, it reduced the umpires, who were often very senior officers, to the role of mere clerks and office boys. clearly, such a state of affairs was intolerable.​

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It was General von verdy du Vernois who finally broke with this system, and abolished the rule book altogether. His approach to the wargame was the free kriegspiel, in which the umpire had a totally free hand to decide the result of moves and combats. He did not do this according to any set of written rules, but just on his own military knowledge and experience. He would collect the players’ moves in exactly the same way as before; but he would then simply give a considered professional opinion on the outcome. This speeded up the game a very great deal, and ensured that there was always a well thought-out reason for everything that happened. This was a great help in the debrief after the game, and it allowed players to learn by their mistakes very quickly.​

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The free kriegspiel using maps can offer many advantages for modern wargamers provided that the umpire has a reasonable background in wargaming, and a bit of common sense. If this condition is met, the game immediately becomes faster and less pedantic than if it had been tied down to a set of rules. The umpire can always think of more factors to incorporate in his decisions than could ever be true in a formal or rigid game. He can therefore spread a greater atmosphere of realism about the game.​

 

[Deset Gled]

Free kiegspiel in no way whatsoever means the game has no rules. It's just a different way of communicating and adjudicating the rules.

Personally, I play with rules because rules are fun. I like some a lot more than others, both on the individual level and the group level.

 

[payn]

Oh yeah @Snarf Zagyg wrote a lot about FKR.

 

[Deset Gled]

Oh yeah @Snarf Zagyg wrote a lot about FKR.

Thread:

D&D General Thread 'FKR: How Fewer Rules Can Make D&D Better'

May 17, 2023

A lot of the time, I fail my own wisdom saving throw. I sometimes will refer to FKR with the assumption that people will know what I'm talking about, given that I've written about it in the past. However, as @Micah Sweet recently reminded me, that is not the case. So, since it has been a while since I've gone into this, I thought I'd post some collected thoughts on the subject, and end with a conclusion as to how, even if you do not choose to play FKR games, some of the concepts can be used in your own D&D game.


1. What is FKR?
Despite being the stuff of nightmares...

• Snarf Zagyg
• Replies: 189
• Forum: *Dungeons & Dragons

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So, big question for the OP: Do you want to talk about why games have rules, or about FKR? Because those are two different discussions.

 

[Neonchameleon]

To me tabletop roleplaying is a mash-up of two very different hobbies:

• A hacked tabletop wargame where you get to try anything and subvert the rules
• A form of improv storytelling where you have better continuity and minor characters

The point of the rules for the hacked tabletop wargame is to be the wargame rules you are subverting and to provide something to push against to create the world.

The point of the rules in the improv storytelling is to allow you to have conflict and conflict resolution in ways improv fails to. Improv always wants "Yes and" because if you create a conflict you are blocking, but yes-but stories are more interesting. Meanwhile having rules lets you roll the dice to decide which way to go and move on with everyone having been listened to. It also helps pin down your continuity and what you consider important.

And in both cases rules add random elements and are an aid to the shared visualisation.

 

[mmadsen]

Free kiegspiel in no way whatsoever means the game has no rules.

Perhaps you could expand on what you mean by that, because it does literally mean that you rely on the DM’s judgment, rather than rules.

Personally, I play with rules because rules are fun. I like some a lot more than others, both on the individual level and the group level.

This came up in another thread. I think many of us on this hobby enjoy reading and thinking about rules — but the best rules for reading, which seem to make perfect sense on the page, don’t always make for a good game at the table or yield reasonable results.

 

[500 Toads]

I find a well-written, detailed set of rules important for ensuring a solid baseline of shared, internally consistent expectations regarding how the in-game world works (*). Essentially, the base rules plus any declared house rules and revisions serve to reduce the risk of misunderstandings where two or more participants have substantially different opinions on how something should work; and should allow more time spent playing the game, rather than arguing about the game.

A side benefit is that having detailed rules with objective, clear means of resolving a wide range of situations makes it easier for a GM to act as a neutral arbiter and referee; but I personally lean towards simulation, rather than prioritizing drama.

(*) Provided that the players are willing to actually read the rules, or at least their core mechanics, of course...

 

[Deset Gled]

Perhaps you could expand on what you mean by that, because it does literally mean that you rely on the DM’s judgment, rather than rules.

You are conflating the rules of the game with the adjudication of the rules. The basis of Free Kriegsspiel is, literally, Kriegsspiel. That's the game; it has rules. The people who played FK all came to the table knowing the basic rules fo Kriegsspiel. The difference is that instead of using a very complex set of hard written rules to adjudicate complex play, the players agree to appoint a referee to make decisions, address disputes, or make ad-hoc rulings as needed.

Now, in modern gaming you'll commonly see similar games referred to as "FKR", which stands for "Free Kriegsspiel Revolution" (or Revival or Roleplaying depending on who you ask). In these cases, the fundamental concept is the same, but people don't use Kriegsspiel anymore. Players simply agree on a base setup for a game, and then have a referee who adjudicates the gameplay. FKR is not itself a "game" by most definitions of the term, it is a playstyle. FKR assumes that the players and referee all agree to what the baseline is, including the situation, goals, and the underlying rules that will govern play. Most of the time, this is a very rules light set, like the "Perfected" game presented in the linked thread above. But it doesn't have to be. FKR can be used with any base rules set the players agree upon. FKR could be played with D&D, the Arkham Horror board game, or rock-paper-scissors.

In any case, the referee in FK or FKR may make up things on the fly. They could make novel rulings, or even invent mechanics as needed. But the referee is not the rules. FKR is not a version of Gamechanger where the players show up and don't know if they are supposed to roll high, roll low, or make bird sounds to settle disputes. FK(R) is all based on the idea that the players come into a game with a base understanding of what's going on, and a social contract to rely on the referee for any situation that does not have an immediately obvious solution.

This came up in another thread. I think many of us on this hobby enjoy reading and thinking about rules — but the best rules for reading, which seem to make perfect sense on the page, don’t always make for a good game at the table or yield reasonable results.

Humorously, you are again conflating two things. I didn't say reading the rules was fun. I was answering the question: What are the rules for? Fun. The rules are for fun. Why are they fun? How do the rules provide fun? What is fun? These are all different questions. It's not clear what you aim to discuss.

 

[aramis erak]

Perhaps you could expand on what you mean by that, because it does literally mean that you rely on the DM’s judgment, rather than rules.

that's one of the rules of Frei Kriegspiel... as is that the referee is supposed to be a fair arbiter.

 

[aramis erak]

To me, the point of rules in an RPG is that they provide a scaffold for understanding the setting and characters, and a means of fair resolution of reasonable attempts at actions by the characters.