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

[Oofta]

But it literally is less collaborative. Contributions to the game that hawkeye or myself would say yes to, you would say no to. Players are less able to collaborate with you in creating the world around them.

You may say that's a kind of collaboration you don't want, or your players don't want even. That's fine. And no-one is saying that collaboration is the only measure of a game's worth or enjoyment level. You presumably feel that having a lower level of this kind of player collaboration enables you to have a higher level of GM auteur vision, or a better focus on IC exploration. That's fine too.

What does collaboration even mean? If it means a very specific type of collaboration where the players add minor things to lore, yes my game is less collaborative. If it means the players help shape the flow of the campaign in substantial ways? I have a very collaborative game.

I just think there are different ways of collaborating. I've worked on many collaborative projects at work where different people had different roles - we don't have to all be doing the same tasks for it to be considered collaborative. We just need to work together to determine goals.

 

[LordOfTheWaffleHouse]

But it literally is less collaborative. Contributions to the game that hawkeye or myself would say yes to, you would say no to. Players are less able to collaborate with you in creating the world around them.

You may say that's a kind of collaboration you don't want, or your players don't want even. That's fine. And no-one is saying that collaboration is the only measure of a game's worth or enjoyment level. You presumably feel that having a lower level of this kind of player collaboration enables you to have a higher level of GM auteur vision, or a better focus on IC exploration. That's fine too.

I disagree. Let me make a comparison for you: We all know the rules of Tag, yes? One person is "It", and whoever that is must chase everyone else and try to touch them. Whoever he touches is "It" and now has to do this. Pretty simple ruleset, yeah? Well let's add some more options.

Safe Zone: Everyone who is not "It" is trying to reach the flag or pole or whatever is the "safe zone", and while they touch it they cannot be tagged as "It". Now the game is mostly the same as before, it just has a general goal. Everyone who is not "It" is trying to reach the safe zone. Generally, the game ends if everyone gets onto the safe zone, though that's not a requirement.

Well Ned doesn't like that rule, so let's use another option: Freezing. Instead of becoming "It", when you get tagged you have to stop moving and stand in place until another not-frozen player tags you, then you can run again. The game generally would end if the person who is "It" can "freeze" everyone. Cool.

Then Kenny comes up with another new rule: Zombies. Anyone who is tagged by the person who is "It" now joins the Zombie Team and has to chase the people who are not "It". The game ends when everyone is caught.

Then Tina comes up with an expansion to Zombies: The zombies are the ones who now have the base and everyone gets a dodgeball. You can throw the ball at a zombie. If you hit the zombie, the zombie has to return to the zombie base before it can tag anyone else.

Most people generally accept one or more of these rules when it comes to tag, I'm sure any one of us on these forums will have played most, if not all of these rules when we were little kids.

BUT THEN ALONG COMES MIKEY, who just thinks the game is boring but still wants to play. Mikey announces another new rule: you can only tag people who are wearing a specific colored shirt, determined by your own shirt. Red shirts can tag blue shirts, blue can tag green, green can tag white, white can tag black, black can tag yellow, yellow can tag brown, and brown can tag red. Gonna be honest, this is why no one likes inviting Mikey around; because this rule is tedious and doesn't do anything besides make the game more obtuse, so everyone tells Mikey that they really don't want to use that rule, and that's really all there is too it. Mikey can go find people who WANT to use that rule if he wants to, but uh... Well good luck Mikey.

Your argument is that if anyone tells Mikey that his rule is kinda trashy and they veto it, they are wrong for doing so simply because more options are always a good thing. Your argument, as you have made it, is that even though some of these rules do NOT mesh well together, if any or all are suggested, they should be incorporated into the worlds most obtuse game of safe-zone-color-based-zombie-freeze-tag. That's dumb dude. I'm not going to pretend that it's not dumb. Not all options are good options, and not all options are even that popular. Some are designed for "hard core" players, some are designed for power gamers, some for casual players, and some for players who don't like combat, and some are just badly designed and unpopular with one or more or all of the above crowds.

 

[soviet]

What does collaboration even mean? If it means a very specific type of collaboration where the players add minor things to lore, yes my game is less collaborative. If it means the players help shape the flow of the campaign in substantial ways? I have a very collaborative game.

I just think there are different ways of collaborating. I've worked on many collaborative projects at work where different people had different roles - we don't have to all be doing the same tasks for it to be considered collaborative. We just need to work together to determine goals.

Do you consider that your games have any ways of collaborating that for example mine and hawkeye's do not?

 

[soviet]

I disagree. Let me make a comparison for you: We all know the rules of Tag, yes? One person is "It", and whoever that is must chase everyone else and try to touch them. Whoever he touches is "It" and now has to do this. Pretty simple ruleset, yeah? Well let's add some more options.

Safe Zone: Everyone who is not "It" is trying to reach the flag or pole or whatever is the "safe zone", and while they touch it they cannot be tagged as "It". Now the game is mostly the same as before, it just has a general goal. Everyone who is not "It" is trying to reach the safe zone. Generally, the game ends if everyone gets onto the safe zone, though that's not a requirement.

Well Ned doesn't like that rule, so let's use another option: Freezing. Instead of becoming "It", when you get tagged you have to stop moving and stand in place until another not-frozen player tags you, then you can run again. The game generally would end if the person who is "It" can "freeze" everyone. Cool.

Then Kenny comes up with another new rule: Zombies. Anyone who is tagged by the person who is "It" now joins the Zombie Team and has to chase the people who are not "It". The game ends when everyone is caught.

Then Tina comes up with an expansion to Zombies: The zombies are the ones who now have the base and everyone gets a dodgeball. You can throw the ball at a zombie. If you hit the zombie, the zombie has to return to the zombie base before it can tag anyone else.

Most people generally accept one or more of these rules when it comes to tag, I'm sure any one of us on these forums will have played most, if not all of these rules when we were little kids.

BUT THEN ALONG COMES MIKEY, who just thinks the game is boring but still wants to play. Mikey announces another new rule: you can only tag people who are wearing a specific colored shirt, determined by your own shirt. Red shirts can tag blue shirts, blue can tag green, green can tag white, white can tag black, black can tag yellow, yellow can tag brown, and brown can tag red. Gonna be honest, this is why no one likes inviting Mikey around; because this rule is tedious and doesn't do anything besides make the game more obtuse, so everyone tells Mikey that they really don't want to use that rule, and that's really all there is too it. Mikey can go find people who WANT to use that rule if he wants to, but uh... Well good luck Mikey.

Your argument is that if anyone tells Mikey that his rule is kinda trashy and they veto it, they are wrong for doing so simply because more options are always a good thing. Your argument, as you have made it, is that even though some of these rules do NOT mesh well together, if any or all are suggested, they should be incorporated into the worlds most obtuse game of safe-zone-color-based-zombie-freeze-tag. That's dumb dude. I'm not going to pretend that it's not dumb. Not all options are good options, and not all options are even that popular. Some are designed for "hard core" players, some are designed for power gamers, some for casual players, and some for players who don't like combat, and some are just badly designed and unpopular with one or more or all of the above crowds.

man what

 

[Oofta]

Do you consider that your games have any ways of collaborating that for example mine and hawkeye's do not?

I don't know what kind of games you run. As far as I know you run very linear games with the players only adding cosmetic inconsequential things.

I also don't think it matters because I'm not judging your games.

 

[Lanefan]

It's more along the lines of:

Player: I walk into the inn.
DM: You take 1d4 damage as you bang your head; this is a halfling inn and you didn't check the size!

That's a fairly obvious DM-side description fail if it wasn't mentioned that the ceilings are half-height.

But if it was mentioned then one might expect the player of a 6-foot-tall character to include some mention of crouching down or kneeling etc. (or even just waiting outside!) rather than just declaring "I walk into the inn".

This very thing came up in my game not long ago: a PC Gnome mage had built himself a lab area in his house and, having no need of 10-foot ceilings as he's well under 3 feet in height, had put in an extra floor halfway up. When another mage PC stopped by to check it out most of the checking-out was by looking in the windows, as the visiting mage is over 7 feet tall.

 

[Lanefan]

I think of it more like arcade beat-em-ups from the 90s. I can die over and over again, but as long as I keep pumping quarters, I can’t really lose.

As long as you keep pumping quarters it means you haven't won.

Most* arcade games were, in effect, rogue-likes: no matter how far you got or how well you did, sooner or later you'd lose. Beating the game was either impossible or extremely difficult.

* - the exceptions were those like original Pac-Man where if you knew the right pattern you could in theory go on forever.

 

[Lanefan]

I suspect part of that tension has to do with a certain degree of "play to win" mentality that is a portion of the play culture of D&D, many traditional games, or even video games.

I'm reminded of how @Campbell has in the past talked about how other non-traditional games sometimes let them roleplay their characters with (in his words) "greater integrity," because the other players will know and expects that "feces happens" as part of play, so they can focus on roleplaying their character without worrying as much about whether they are playing optimally or any sense that "suboptimal" play will have consequences for other player characters. That resonated with me and my experiences with these other games or even traditional games.

In my experience the two bolded pieces above are almost always in near-perfect harmony.

Both as a party and as individual characters you play to win, sometimes crap happens when you lose, and sometimes the crap-happens effects impact others than just the one(s) who lost.

And after a loss you pick up the pieces and carry on; unless it's a true TPK which IME are exceedingly rare (DMed one, played through none, over a whole lot of years and play).

By no means am I casting aspersions at anyone's roleplaying when I say that sometimes I do think that there can very often be a certain degree of "characterization fudging" of PCs when it comes to a variety of out-of-character factors: optimal play to "win" the game, playing nice with the other PCs, keeping the group together, taking your bad day out on the game, etc.

There can be that degree of "characterization fudging" (good term for it!); it's rather common, and it's something I'm not a fan of. If the PCs don't get along, let 'em fight. If splitting up is what the group would do, let it happen. If it's what the character would do, do it.

 

[Lanefan]

This is also a good opportunity for something connected to our bar scene earlier in the thread!


GM: You’re in a tavern.

Player: I set it on fire!

GM: You didn’t ask if the structure was stone or wood-framed. It’s all stone.

Player: I set the table on fire!

GM: The tables are stone.

Player: I set my chair on fire!

GM: Again, you have to ask what it’s made out of. Your chair is stone!

Player: The bar?!

GM: Stone!

Player: The barkeep?!

GM: Stone. It’s a gargoyle barkeep . Ask first, dude.

< 3 minutes later >

Player: Now that we've established that the tavern along with everything (and everyone) in it is completely made of stone, I cast Transform Rock to Mud on the lot.

GM: Aw, crap.

 

[Lanefan]

I love that line. It codified a lot of the impulses I have towards play into a simple metaphor.

I was playing my characters like stolen cars long before I heard the phrase, and it was inevitably to those characters' great regret and abbreviated lifespans that I did so.