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

[Bagpuss]

I have never been in a group that didn't include at least one person (often several) that would push the boundaries of what the DM would let them get away with as far as they could.

That one person, Is it you?

 

[Lanefan]

The play loop says that the GM describes the situation, and the player declares their action.

It doesn't say anything about the extent to which the player's action declaration is allowed to foreground matters that, in the GM's description, were left implicit.

Where does the play loop say that?

The DM describes the situation (or maybe scene, I forget the exact wording).

That right there tells me that the non-DM player does not describe the situation. Which means, if for whatever reason the DM's description lacks enough information for the player to declare a given action it's not the player's place to add or assume any further information but to instead ask for more description. Until-unless that "more description" is given, the play loop is stuck in place.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

That one person, Is it you?

More likely to be me. How do you learn where the boundaries are if you don’t test them? It’s all in the name of science.

 

[Lanefan]

Where I would quibble with this is that - as I see it, and tried to convey in my post - it's not about prioritising story over character, but rather fiction over expedience.

In particular, having a conception of my character as someone in the fiction, located in a fictional position, is something that I can do without prioritising a story. And if I have that sort of conception, then naturally I will start to have a sense of what I can and can't do, what requests (or demands) I can and cannot make of my patron Odin, etc.

As I-as-player come to realize I can get away with a little bit more each time, so too would my character in the fiction very likely come to the same realization.

So if in-character I one day ask Odin for a very minor boon and get it, then later ask Him for a slightly more significant boon and get it, etc., it won't be long before my character has Odin on speed-dial.

 

[AnotherGuy]

That one person, Is it you?

I stand to be corrected, but @Micah Sweet is usually the DM, so no it would not be him.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

If you create a murder mystery and you know who did it, why, and how and you also decide what clues are available to he found… how is it you aren’t going to anticipate the solution?

Maybe an example would help. I ran an adventure using the Ravenloft carnival (VGR). A serial killer is horribly murdering the artistes, and it falls to the PCs (because of the power of narrative tropes) to track them down. Eventually the killer will run out of NPCs, and switch to targeting the PCs, so it's pretty much inevitable that they will discover who (or what) the killer is eventually (unless they decide to leave the Carnival). However, there are clues that the players can discover (largely by asking the right questions) that can lead them to the killer earlier, which means fewer NPCs will be murdered.

As it happened, when I played the adventure, two more NPCs were murdered that could potentially been saved if the players had been better at puzzle-solving. Two other NPCs had been murdered before the PCs arrived, so there was no way they could be saved.

 

[pemerton]

The DM describes the situation (or maybe scene, I forget the exact wording).

That right there tells me that the non-DM player does not describe the situation.

"I punch the nearest dude!" is not describing the situation. It's declaring an action.

Which means, if for whatever reason the DM's description lacks enough information for the player to declare a given action it's not the player's place to add or assume any further information but to instead ask for more description. Until-unless that "more description" is given, the play loop is stuck in place.

That's your interpretation. It's not what the play loop states expressly, and it's not the only tenable implication of what is expressly stated.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

"I punch the nearest dude!" is not describing the situation. It's declaring an action.

"The nearest dude" is most likely another PC, assuming they enter as a group. Is that actually what you intended, or were you insufficiently specific?

 

[AnotherGuy]

This murder mystery discussion is quite an interesting one in that forever I had thought that the mystery needs to be predetermined, however, one of my absolute favourite 5e modules is Murder in Baldur's Gate (BiBG) wherein the Lord of Murder, Bhaal, is looking for a host as his murderous essences grips the city of Baldur's Gate and all unfolding events become heightened.
3 suspects, behind the unravelling chaos in the city, immediately come to the fore and the party's direct actions determine which of the 3 becomes the most suitable, with one exception - should a party member's actions result in more death, during their investigation, than any of the 3 suspects, they become eligible to win Bhaal's favour and allow him to be reborn.

Only one thing is certain: There will be blood!

 

[TwoSix]

"The nearest dude" is most likely another PC, assuming they enter as a group. Is that actually what you intended, or were you insufficiently specific?

The initial "punch a dude" hypothetical, introduced in post #1108, assumed that the character had already been present in the tavern for a length of time (enough to get drunk, certainly.)