A Question Of Agency?

[AbdulAlhazred]

I don't think the original (ie pre-Essentials) version of 4e D&D especially supported "rule zero" as I sometimes see it propounded. Nor does B/X, does it?

I even think it underwent change during the 3E era - in the original 3E PHB "rule zero" was a rule of PC building (check with your GM), not a rule about action resolution.

Yeah, just taking a spin through the first couple pages of the 4e DMG1/PHB1, it definitely does NOT state anything even close to rule 0. In fact its tone and terminology are REALLY similar to the prefatory material of Dungeon World. It compares a D&D game to a 'Novel' or 'Movie' and very explicitly labels the DM as working with the players to make the PC's adventures 'challenging', but where they 'ultimately succeed'. The PHB is pretty entirely consistent with that. My assumption is they were written by the same person/people as a single coherent statement. While there is a passing mention of the DM as having a role in interpreting the rules, 4e doesn't explicitly grant one participant more authority than the others.

Interestingly, Holmes Basic doesn't speak about this issue at all. It has a VERY brief introduction, which segues into an explanation of ability scores after 2 paragraphs on "how to use this book." Preceding this is a 2 paragraph intro. Here the role of the DM is specified merely as being the one who draws up the dungeon, and that the players "don't know where anything is located in the dungeons until the game begins and they enter the first passage or room." The rest of the text indicates that they 'explore' and 'map'. The text then dives immediately into the meat of the rules, I don't think anything more is said about the DM or players and their roles in the game.

Looking at the 1e material, the 1e DMG introduces the DM's role in a writing mode which is 'person-to-person' it isn't written as 'rules text', it is written almost like a lore book, passing on established information and process which is stated as canonical. It says things like "you will know when to take upon yourself the ultimate power." and "they are playing the game the way you, their DM, imagines and creates it." The rest of the 1e DMG is most certainly written with the tone being that the DM is an absolute and ultimate arbiter, even going so far as to state that he should use, modify, or set aside the rules as he sees fit to suite the situation. I don't see that 'rule 0' is really explicitly stated here, it is more like an axiom of the system, just assumed, like breathable air and dice.

The 2e DMG doesn't call it 'rule 0', but there is a statement to the effect that the rules and all other aspects of the campaign are entirely the province of the DM. It is also suggested that the rules really are not something for the players to concern themselves with (this is distinguished from things like how classes work, which are in the PHB and concern the players). Again, the rules are plainly written in a way which only makes sense when we assume axiomatically that the DM has arbitrary rules and fiction authority.

I think 3.0 actually states 'rule 0' outright, but no version of classic D&D really makes sense without that, though you MIGHT interpret the text of Holmes Basic literally enough to assert that the DM's authority ONLY extends to 'the dungeon' and not to any other possible location (but no such locations are discussed beyond the assertion that beyond the dungeon entrance is "the town"). I guess you could have fun with that

 

[pemerton]

On (3)
1. Frame it however you want but it can also be truthfully framed as the player attempting to add some setting or faction detail to the world. You don't have a problem with that, but we do. Gating the success for an act like this behind a die roll doesn't change what's going on.
2. Given how the game works the player isn't privy to all the established fiction. The DM may very well have established things in the fiction that haven't been revealed yet. Essentially making it impossible for the player to stay consistent with established fiction.

<snip>

4. The DM and player may have somewhat different expectations for agreed upon genre.

<snip>

The difference in your 1 and 2 vs 3 is so vast and obvious I don't understand why you keep asking this kind of question.

There is really only one difference you're pointing to here: the priority of GM over player authorship.

3. Besides, what is consistency? When additional details can change the entire meaning of situations, motivations, etc - is it enough to simply not violate a mathematical truth table (overwrite specific fictional details) - or does consistency demand that the meaning of situations and motivations, etc need to also remain unchanged even when new details are added? And if so, then we are back to the player not having the knowledge to be able to ensure he does this.

The sort of change of meaning that you refer to can happen if the GM introduces something spontaneously (my 2 upthread). Or if the GM picks up on player leads (eg when I picked up on the players' idea that the ghosts were Celts). I think insisting that only the GM's preconceived meaning is valid is a very strong constraint. In its strongest form it means that the GM gets to decide whether an encounter is a combat or a social one, or whether an encounter results in a new ally or a new enemy.

5. What happens on the failed check? Does that mean that such a thing doesn't exist at all, that it exists but not at the location the PC remembered, that it exists exactly where the player wanted but there's some complication around it, etc? Contrast with failure on checks 1 and 2 where existence of such things are never in question - only whether the player finds such things.

Different systems adopt different approaches to the narration of failure.

If the PCs go Streetwising or Urban Survivaling around to try and meet up with people who are interesting to them, and fail, there's a fair chance that the GM won't just narrate "nothing happens". I would expect that, more likely, the PCs meet the wrong people or perhaps the wrong people (guards, thieves' guild, old nemeses, etc) find them! Even if the outcome is you don't meet anyone interesting there's still likely to be a rider, like you waste a day not finding anyone interesting.

I don't see there being any big difference here between my (1) and my (3) - as I said, both require a check and if that check fails the GM needs to establish the consequence of failure.

 

[pemerton]

I can see how it would be difficult to do anything that involved the PCs not knowing things. Even a result like "The GM will tell you three things that are true and useful" seems as though it'd be likely to make it hard to keep secrets from the PCs.

Personally I don't find it hard to have things be secret from the players (or PCs) in "story now" play that gives a greater role to player decision-making or conjecture about the content of the shared fiction than some of the sandbox approaches being described in this thread.

But the approach is different from the classic CoC modules which have all the answers and interconnections spelled out as GM notes.

The approach to composition is more step-by-step, building on what comes before. The "soft move"/"hard move" approach from PbtA games becomes important - a lot of revealing of unwelcome truths which don't initially escalate to hard moves, and so leave room for more narration or elaboration as things develop.

I don't know if something as complex as (say) Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy could be done this way. My view - from experience - is that a pretty standard Cthulu-type mystery can be done.

 

[aramis erak]

Which edition and book are these in? I'd like to read those rules.

the Traveller Book has the adventure Exit Visa... which is a hair shy of a programmed solo, but boyhowdy, there is an entire adventure about getting permission to take off...
Plus, any of the CT cores has the bribery skill, and the admin skill, which have mini-mechanics in the skill section.
So, Books 1-2-3 in the CT basic set, or the deluxe set (be they either the 1977-1980 printings, aka CT 1E, or the CT2E of 1981-1988), Starter Traveller, or The Traveller Book, or the QLI reprint. Or the GW version(s) of Bks 1-2-3.

 

[aramis erak]

Well, 'Toon' is that game, it was actually produced in the mid-1980's. NOTHING that happens in the game relates to reality in any substantial way. I mean, there MUST be some sort of way for a player to come up with criteria for what moves they make in the game, so "Hit someone with a hammer" in Toon and the target is likely to 'fall down', and there's a mechanic that you can call out that is likely to produce that result. However, 'falling down' is in no real sense similar to injury, disability, or death in the real world, it is just a genre convention (like when a Loonytoons character hits another one and they see stars for a few seconds and stop moving). And yes, I would consider Toon to be an early example of a game evincing a lot of Story Now type characteristics.

It is especially worth pointing out that at the level of "the world" in Toon there is essentially nothing. There are zero fictional constraints on the PCs that relate to anything in the world. A player can simply "have some dynamite" or "go get a shotgun" or "build a wall", "dig a tunnel", etc. and none of those things have any logistical or even logical aspect to them at all. There is essentially no set of rules for "the world", there are simply some rules for 'setting a scene' and what elements can appear, which relate only to facilitating 'toonish results'. It is a quite playable game too, though I admit it is not one you will likely play as an ongoing activity as your primary RPG.

Except that there ARE constraints in Toon. You have to have the hammer to conck the guy with in order to hit him with it, or a schtick that lets you produce it.

 

[aramis erak]

I think there are some tensions in the notion of a "flowchart", because a flowchart implies a network of options/choices over time.

This can be at odds with "no myth" approaches, and I'm not 100% sure it works for dungeon-crawls either (I've heard dungeon maps described as "flowcharts", but I'm not sure I agree with that).

Maybe I'm taking your flowchart metaphor too literally?

A standard dungeon is 95% reproduceable as a node map. And a node map is a form of flow chart, just one that often has bidirectional links. Unless the characters can bypass the walls, the walls constrain flow of PC's (and monsters) to specific directions and encounters.

The walls govern which way you can proceed. Some, especially those in solo-modules, severely restrict backwards movement. The other 5% of the time, one goes through the walls or back in directions not envisaged.

Of the 4 times I've run the hatching caves dungeon in Hoard of the Dragon Queen, 3 of them, the party went the wrong way round, and got the halfdragon in their 3rd room.... as 2nd and 3rd levels. they're not supposed to look for that route, but can spot it, so...

 

[pemerton]

A standard dungeon is 95% reproduceable as a node map. And a node map is a form of flow chart, just one that often has bidirectional links.

A dungeon isn't just movement. There's listening at doors, forcing them open or failing to do so, encountering traps, wandering monsters, etc.

 

[aramis erak]

A dungeon isn't just movement. There's listening at doors, forcing them open or failing to do so, encountering traps, wandering monsters, etc.

All of which can be done with a node map just fine, with cases where it cannot done on a given link being marked by a colored or otherwise differentiated link.

The map creates a branching (usually, at least) path through the dungeon. It reduces the directional choices, both for players and many monsters.

The times when it's not equivalent involve ignoring walls, or abstracting out the hallways.

I've seen one too many hintbook for Infocom games - all of them are node maps, and all of them are essentially flow charts.

 

[Fenris-77]

Even if my end game is to draw an actual map for a dungeon, whilst in the design phase it exists as a flow chart, which is actually a better design tool than a rough map IMO. IN the design phase I'm concerned with paths and connections and gates, not so much the details of the physical space.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Hitting people with hammer's isn't reality? Houses, rivers, lakes, trees aren't reality? Walking and falling isn't reality?

I think if you did a dip dive over everything real in looney toons and everything unreal, you would find a huge percentage of what's in it is realistic. I think what happens is we tend to focus on the unrealistic elements as those are what stands out about it. But that doesn't mean there aren't a ton of realistic elements there.

None of it is driven by logic of the sort which is like "these are the laws of physics about hammers, and these are the facts of human physiology about being hit in the head." They are driven instead by 'genre logic' and by various tropes (I won't link to TVTropes because half the thread will vanish down a black hole). Now, are those tropes/genre logic, to a degree, modeled on reality? Of course they are, that's what makes them relatable, but in NO CASE is an argument like "this wouldn't happen in the real world" or "being hit with a big hammer will critically injure you" going to have ANY PLACE WHATSOEVER in Toon, or in a cartoon of this ilk. And if instead of being hit with a hammer causing a character to fall down, instead it caused a herd of rainbow farting unicorns to fly from their head, this would not even cause the viewers/participants to bat an eyelash. In that sense, Toon is utterly ridiculous, and players have no expectation that their actions will produce sensible results. As I said, the game is not really about achieving anything, etc. It is just about slapstick and silly jokes. At best it might rise to the level of sly commentary on life.