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

[Arilyn]

The issues arise because there's a great many players out there (including me sometimes, to be honest) who if given the opportunity can and will drift from using the ability to add elements for the latter bolded point to instead using it for the former, and maybe not even realize it.

The solution is to not provide the opportunity in the first place.

I find that the rare times I've had players push, the rest of the players will shut it down with a simple, yeah, dream on.

 

[pemerton]

Yes, the idea that a mystery for an RPG must be crafted the same way as a mystery novel or movie seems flawed. Most of the time, when people are trying to play through the RPG equivalent of a novel, it's pointed out as problematic for most people.

For me, a natural model or comparison for RPGs is serial fiction.

But even in a novel, it might be possible to start writing without knowing the answer. Notoriously, JRRT didn't know who Strider was when the character was first written onto the page - or at least that's my understanding.

So as a GM, I could introduce some mysterious place or being, pique the players' interest, and then - via subsequent prep, or in the course of play, as makes sense given system and context - establish answers to questions as required and appropriate.

 

[Lanefan]

Hypothetical.

Let's say you're playing a half-elf character. During the first session, another player asks, in character, if your father (you being the half-elf character) is a full-blooded elf. Do you answer, or do you check with the DM?

For my part, as we have charts and tables for family background etc. I'd defer to those, which means if we haven't rolled up my background yet the answer - while given right away in the fiction - will have to wait in reality until that is done.

If for some reason the answer is required right this minute the game would have to briefly pause while the DM and I did a quick bit of dice-rolling

(Let's assume for the hypothetical this is a fairly breezy game and you didn't do a deep backstory for your character beforehand.)

I'm very well used to those.

 

[hawkeyefan]

There are no rails laid down for your implied railroad.

Sure there are... specific secrets, who knows what, what clues there are, even possible paths. All of that describes a puzzle... it's a predetermined challenge. Its solution is set ahead of time. So if the players are to solve it, they're going to do so in a way that the DM has already determined.

And here's the thing... there's nothing wrong with that. It's not necessarily how I'd GM, but I've played in plenty of games that work that way, and still do. For Halloween, one of the guys in my long standing group wanted to run an abridged Curse of Strahd. So we did that. I had plenty of fun with it, even if there were things I would have done differently, or parts that I wasn't crazy about.

But it was what it was. Why should I describe it in any other way?

I work with the DM on the backstory to make sure that what I come up with is consistent with their campaign world. It's what I prefer both as player and DM.

So would you say that all of this requires DM approval? I don't want to repeat myself, but you didn't answer the question directly, so I'm not sure.

You think there should be house rules. I don't. The opinion of the DM at the time and my opinion is that a house rule was not merited.

You don't think that anyone should have house rules? Because we're not talking about your game specifically even though the example started there. We were talking about a hypothetical game where the DM decided to handle it differently.

If you want to have this level of intervention from the gods, go for it. I don't and wouldn't want to play in such a game. Clerics are already granted multiple abilities and I see no reason to go beyond that.

Yeah, I disagree with that, but that's mostly just aesthetic preference. Like I said, I want the decision on deity to matter to play more than what subclass it grants.

 

[Micah Sweet]

So what if it's an obvious influence? We're in a thread that is specifically about finding ways for everyone to be happy, and this is in regard to a shift in the idea of rule zero being about all participants and not just the DM.

I haven't been trying to hide my influences. I happen to play multiple types of games... that somehow makes me less qualified to talk about D&D?



What about when you GM?

Many folks have cited the "realism" or immersive elements of the world being very important to them. How about when you DM? Do you feel immersed?

I love worldbuilding more than any other gaming activity, and greatly enjoy describing the world in a consistent way and playing the NPCs appropriately, so yes, I feel immersed.

 

[Lanefan]

Far more than the concerns about immersion, I think there's a divide between how concerned people are about whether or not players would push the boundaries of their ability to narrate.

That's why issues get framed as "Well then, what stops them from just doing X?"

And I think @Lanefan spoke to that directly when he said several pages back that as a player, he of course will press the boundaries of any ability as far as possible.

As in many things in life, my go-to philosophy more or less amounts to "Do it till they tell you to stop".

 

[Micah Sweet]

This might be true for actual detectives in the real world. For instance, events stand in causal relations to one another, and those unfold through time via various sorts of physical and social processes.

Why is it true for a fiction, though? An author can establish clues, and things that they point to, without everything that is pointed to being known when the first clues are presented.

This is a special case of the general principle that the writing of a fiction - as a causal process - need not be correlative to the causal processes that are imagined within that fiction.

And the same point can actually generalise beyond fictions, to other games. For instance, it would be possible to do a treasure hunt at a children's party, where each clue is placed just in time, so that when the children have solved the previous clue they are able to find the newly-placed clue that the previous clue points them to. But there is no need to have the final piece of the treasure hunt in place until the final clue is written and placed.

Serial fiction is often written similarly.

And of course there a matters of degree. It is possible, for instance, in a RPG to establish the sense of a conspiracy, which the players become aware of and begin to penetrate, without every detail of the conspiracy or its participants being known from the outset.

A fairly well-known example of this is found in B2 Keep on the Borderlands. The write-up includes a chaotic priest in the Keep, who pretends to be trustworthy; and a chaos cult in the Caves. Is the priest related to the cult? The module doesn't say. A GM might make that link during the course of play, perhaps in response to the players, via their play, making it a salient question. This wouldn't preclude the players from (in the fiction, as their PCs) penetrating a chaotic conspiracy to bring down the Keep.

I am not writing a story. I am generating a setting that exists outside of the PCs wills which they then interact with. For that to work, any mystery needs to exist prior to contact with said PCs.

 

[Micah Sweet]

And yet:

You have encountered the phenomenon known to the ancients as: different strokes.

 

[Lanefan]

Your way of playing D&D is not "the rules" of D&D.

For instance, suppose that, in a game of D&D, it is established that a PC is in a tavern. There is no rule of D&D that requires the player, before declaring "I punch the nearest guy", to ask the GM whether or not there is a nearest guy.

Is the play loop itself not a rule?

Because if it is, it's up to the DM to narrate whether there is a "nearest guy" before that action can be declared by a player; and if the DM hasn't narrated the presence or absence of said guy then it's on the player(s) to ask for clarification and-or addional description before declaring that action.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I run and play a variety of rpgs. If I'm in a game where players do not have input into the setting during play, I'll be happy. If the GM encourages player input, I'll be happy. If the game is interesting and engaging I can go either way.

As a GM, I'm realizing I really enjoy encouraging player input, however. When kids are introduced to role playing games, they dive in and add stuff constantly. It's how they play. I think as adults we can do some of this too. I ran a long PF1 game that was amazing because the whole group added to the lore as we went. Epic narratives emerged, and I didn't have to do much prep. Player input sparks joy for us.

This is the main reason I'm not thrilled with 2024's direction. It reads like Magic cards and the backgrounds and bastions give players' little room to breathe because they are tightly prescribed. Of course, we can house rule but the game does little to encourage this beyond a brief few lines on Rule 0. The role playing pieces are gone. Game consequences are discouraged. I'm sad that this will be new players' first introduction to the hobby.

Getting off my rant, I'm sure I'd be happy in a @Micah Sweet or @Oofta game as well as @pemerton or @hawkeyefan. Variety is cool.

I totally understand that! The way I prefer to GM doesn't mean I'll never play a game that doesn't work that way. I mean, I'd never get to play D&D with my friends again if that was the case.

It's also not always the way I GM. I just ran the first "season" of a Mothership campaign. This is a very OSR type game, and mostly plays out in that fashion. The only time I let the players kind of have any input was in the technology. Because there's not a specific setting, just an implied one, it's not exactly clear what all the technology there is. So at one point a player was like "Do I have a communicator? Like a cell phone type thing?" and I said "Of course" because why not?

I played in a Delta Green game not long ago that was awesome. It was very much a mystery, with details set ahead of time. I enjoyed the game quite a bit.

These games kind of scratch different itches.

I find that the rare times I've had players push, the rest of the players will shut it down with a simple, yeah, dream on.

Well yeah, this is something that can come up, too! You want to make sure that everyone's on board.