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

[Oofta]

The issue being discussed, as I understood it, was the difference between the GM setting limits, the player setting limits, the interaction of the GM and player in setting limits, the use of mechanics to establish where limits might lie, etc.

Furthermore, @Oofta has not articulated any limits by reference to the shared fiction. He has articulated them by reference to the rules of the game (as he sees them - I don't agree with him as to what those rules are), by reference to what is fair and balanced, etc. None of that is about the fiction at all!

There were limits that had been expressed in the lore. That gods were distant and did not directly interface with mortals, even clerics. The player ignored the limitations.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Fate has Fate points. I don't think there's any such thing, in Fate point, as paying 12 points for a big effect. At least not in the core rules that I've read.

I did not mean it has the exact system, but it has system for paying points to edit scenes and add setting elements.

Marvel Heroic RP, which is the version of Cortex+ that I'm familiar with, does not having anything like what you described in your post.

Serenity RPG (that I think is Cortex-based) has "story manipulation" functionality for plot points, and more significant manipulations costing more points. But different Cortex-based games obviously work somewhat differently.

 

[Oofta]

It isn't just due to their class choice though.

EDIT: The same principles could apply to eg a thief and the thieves guild, a fighter and a local baron, etc. The point being that they have a relationship to a powerful entity but that relationship comes with costs, dangers, etc.

Then can anyone call upon Odin?

 

[soviet]

Then can anyone call upon Odin?

Sure, if it makes sense. Do they worship him, or have another connection to him?

 

[pemerton]

What sort of guidelines, principles etc there are in place for this?

Informal, relaxed ones. The people I play with say stuff that they think is fun, or cool, or fits their assumptions about their PC and the fiction.

Here's an example, reposted:

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".)

One player - playing a Chaos Sorcerer - takes as a premise of declared actions that energy from a dead fire drake can be harnessed and channelled into a jewelled horn, to turn it into a magical Fire Horn. Another player - playing a wizard/invoker in the service of Erathis and the Raven Queen - takes as a premise of a declared action that his Sceptre of Law can control chaotic energy, and tame it into a usable portal.

I've also posted, not far upthread, an example of a third player having his PC speaking a prayer against the undead; and further upthread the example of the player of the wizard/invoker deciding which magical operations and effects count as "rituals" and which don't.

So I don't think anyone has said it is impossible. But like you yourself observe, it is ill suited for it. So it makes sense to me that people prefer not to play it that way.

Well, I think AD&D is even less well-suited for simulationist RPGing - as is demonstrated by the fact that the classic simulationist FRPGs (RQ, C&S, RM) are all reactions to it. RQ and RM drop hp ablation combat, drop spell memorisation of the D&D sort, and incorporate skills in some fashion - thereby dropping/changing those aspects of classic D&D that are seen as the most jarring from a simulationist perspective. I'm not as familiar with C&S, but my understanding is that it makes similar sorts of changes, especially to magic.

But a lot of people who play AD&D claim to do so in a simulationist fashion. Likewise for 3E and 5e, which are just as unsuited.

AD&D is also ill-suited, in my view, to DL-ish epic/romantic FRPGing, yet is the prescribed system for that!

So I tend to take your "it makes sense" with a bit of a grain of salt!

 

[TwoSix]

I would have already established my heritage with the DM. If I had any questions about origin I'd probably verify some broad details with my DM. I wouldn't suddenly declare that my father is the high king or anything consequential such as the lead diplomat to the city we're currently visiting without checking first.

That wasn't what I asked, though.

 

[Oofta]

I did not mean it has the exact system, but it has system for paying points to edit scenes and add setting elements.


Serenity RPG (that I think is Cortex-based) has "story manipulation" functionality for plot points, and more significant manipulations costing more points. But different Cortex-based games obviously work somewhat differently.

In play, characters in my games regularly gain loyalty and are owed favors. Enemies too, of course, but if an external power (NPC or organization) can provide a significant benefit to a PC, I want it to be as result of play. Not just because they're a cleric or because they say since they're a rogue they have deep connections with the thieve's guild.

Sometimes things happen during downtime and we kind of do high level overview instead of detailed RP, but you never get to just claim someone owes you a favor. Whether that someone is a commoner a king or a god.

 

[Oofta]

Sure, if it makes sense. Do they worship him, or have another connection to him?

So they say "Umm ... sure I worship Odin." They can suddenly get a god to interfere directly with the mortal world?

 

[Oofta]

That wasn't what I asked, though.

Then rephrase because I answered the question as I understood it.

 

[pemerton]

You might allow someone to describe a tavern

I wish you would stop imputing to me things that I have never said.

I mean, this post is not very far upthread:

My posts, and I think the posts of others, have still been about what's possible or enjoyable within D&D. I don't just play storygame style RPGs. I also play and GM traditional games like D&D, MERP, and WFRP 1e.

When I run those games I do approach them differently, and I don't delegate world creation elements to the players in the same way. BUT, I have learned that such delegation can be fun, particularly at a micro level. So if the players go somewhere I haven't prepped, eg a roadside tavern, I might ask them to tell me some things about it - who the landlord is, whether there's a band, whather there's food, other details.

I don't generally do what you describe - ask the players to tell me things about stuff that's not their PCs - in any of the RPGs that I GM.

But from time to time the players make assertions about things that their PCs are experiencing or remembering, and those things get incorporated into the shared fiction.