Cheating, Action Points, and Second Wind

[Professor Phobos]

I.e., I'm talking about, during play, when it's obviously a situation where a rule should apply, or where there are no rules, or a rule is being used inconsistently and the GM is deliberately manipulating things to get the outcome they want, regardless of what the text says. "Rule 0"/"Golden Rule" says that this is good GM'ing, because the GM is doing what is "good for the story". I'm saying that this is horsepucky.

Of course that is horsepucky. And no, rule 0 does not say that! At all!

This cultural attitude is so frustrating when I encounter it. Fiat=/=GM abuse. It's only abusive when employed abusively.

Let me give you another example. Wild Talents game, I have a psychic overloaded with Telepathy hard dice. He's picked up the psychic results of an ongoing magical assault. Now, normally psychic powers don't really interact with magic very well, but the player asked about tracking back the source of the magical attack. I figured it was outside the bounds of Telepathy if adhered to strictly, but thought it would be a good way for them to discover the source of the ritual. So I said he could do it, but with his hard dice downgraded to regular dice and therefore requiring a roll.

This particular situation is not covered by the rules. My adjudication of it actually contradicts the rules if one considers them rigid, though not so if one considers the Telepathy power description to have a 9th Amendment. And yet I don't consider it abusive at all.

 

[apoptosis]

Of course that is horsepucky. And no, rule 0 does not say that! At all!

This cultural attitude is so frustrating when I encounter it. Fiat=/=GM abuse. It's only abusive when employed abusively.

Let me give you another example. Wild Talents game, I have a psychic overloaded with Telepathy hard dice. He's picked up the psychic results of an ongoing magical assault. Now, normally psychic powers don't really interact with magic very well, but the player asked about tracking back the source of the magical attack. I figured it was outside the bounds of Telepathy if adhered to strictly, but thought it would be a good way for them to discover the source of the ritual. So I said he could do it, but with his hard dice downgraded to regular dice and therefore requiring a roll.

This particular situation is not covered by the rules. My adjudication of it actually contradicts the rules if one considers them rigid, though not so if one considers the Telepathy power description to have a 9th Amendment. And yet I don't consider it abusive at all.

Prof,

I dont think you and Buzz are arguing about the same thing necessarily.

Your rules are more like variations to the setting. Normally one cant detect magic with psi, but with some hard work in your world they can....that is really a setting-type of issues (as the 'physics' of the world work differently here) Mostly what you are talking about are minor cosmetic differences in some aspect of how the world and the characters interact

Buzz is talking about how games don't have rules that align with the type of game that it supposedly was designed to run.

A game about heroism should have rules that prevent the characters from dying in insignificant conflicts.
Many (maybe the vast majority) DMs don't want characters to die in wandering monster encounters but D&D does not have rules that prevent this and has no mechanics that differentiate a random encounter from a planned or important encounter.

Like skipping a battle- D&D rules, if strictly adhered to, wouldn't allow that. Players might get unlucky! They might use up some of their precious resources! And so on. Note that skipping some battles, or ignoring the mechanics sometimes, or whatever, is a far cry from doing this all the time. When I want a fight, I'll use the rules for a fight...

You mentioned the above. If this is an important facet in playing (being able to skip unimportant or uninteresting battles) why doesn't the game have rules that allow the players to choose when to granularize and when not to. TSOY particularly has good rules for this but BW and Sorcerer do as well.

 

[Professor Phobos]

Well, let's look at an example.

The players are fighting an Orc army. By this point the only Orcs who can challenge them are the exceptional ones; the generals, the champions, the Orcish assassins, whatever.

Your random grunt on guard duty has a statistically insignificant chance of victory against the PCs. But because those grunts still exist, the PCs naturally still encounter them. Say they're raiding some camp guarded by said grunt. Now, if I were a strict rules-come-first type, I'd actually play out the battle. But since I'm not, I'd just handwave the PCs a victory. It's set dressing, not an important part of the story.

Way back when a puny Orc posed a threat, then it'd be a fight. Now that it's just part of the world for verisimilitude's sake, why bother?

 

[marune]

Now, if I were a strict rules-come-first type, I'd actually play out the battle. But since I'm not, I'd just handwave the PCs a victory. It's set dressing, not an important part of the story.

In D&D yes, but in some RPG, skiping out mooks fight is going "strickly by the rules".

For example, in Burning Wheel, it would be considered cheating to throw the dices if there is no conflict* !


*DM and players agree on what should happen in the shared imagined space.

 

[apoptosis]

Well, let's look at an example.

The players are fighting an Orc army. By this point the only Orcs who can challenge them are the exceptional ones; the generals, the champions, the Orcish assassins, whatever.

Your random grunt on guard duty has a statistically insignificant chance of victory against the PCs. But because those grunts still exist, the PCs naturally still encounter them. Say they're raiding some camp guarded by said grunt. Now, if I were a strict rules-come-first type, I'd actually play out the battle. But since I'm not, I'd just handwave the PCs a victory. It's set dressing, not an important part of the story.

Way back when a puny Orc posed a threat, then it'd be a fight. Now that it's just part of the world for verisimilitude's sake, why bother?

That is fine to do.

What we are saying is that some games have rules that say "no conflict" (which is what is happening above) then just say Yes (basically the PCs get their way). These allow you to play the game without having to "break" the rules.

 

[Professor Phobos]

That is fine to do.

What we are saying is that some games have rules that say "no conflict" (which is what is happening above) then just say Yes (basically the PCs get their way). These allow you to play the game without having to "break" the rules.

And what I am saying you can just "Say Yes" in any game, and you don't need some kooky indie system to do so, though those are often fun as well.

 

[Raloc]

What I use Rule 0 for is much closer to what Prof. Phobos gave examples of, than to subvert the regular rules in place in a detrimental fashion (I may in fact subvert them from time to time in order to allow a player more freedom though*).

* - I said above I think action points should be used more for when a player has some off the wall idea for a maneuver or strategy that just isn't supported by the rules than for dice bolstering. I think anyone that has DMed or played for any amount of time knows of a situation where a player comes up with a really great solution to a particular problem or encounter, but the rules for dealing with it just aren't there. They don't have enough actions, don't have the items or abilities, etc. In certain circumstances, I'll allow the player to roll some sort of appropriate check and let them complete such an action. I don't, however, have them roll arbitrary dice for penalties unrelated to anything, or prevent them from doing something via fiat.

 

[apoptosis]

And what I am saying you can just "Say Yes" in any game, and you don't need some kooky indie system to do so, though those are often fun as well.

Sure you can.

But say it is a different situation.

Say you are playing a heroic game and you don't want the PCs to die in anything less than a heroic fashion or situation.

D&D has no rules for this (and frankly is not the preferred system for this type of game but using it as an example).

The DM can always just say, you cant die in any encounter which i dont consider important, but then many of the mechanics of D&D (like resource use etc.) become somewhat irrelevant.

Maybe you want a StarWars type game where the heroes dont ever die fleeing the DeathStar. Then the game should not have death in that type of scenario as an option mechanically.

If you want a 'heroic' type of game, the game should have rules that cater to this paradigm.

It is not so much that you cant GM-fiat anything and everything, but at what point are you really not playing the game anymore and it is just GM-fiat.

I think the point is, if people are constantly doing a certain thing that is not in the rules (or breaks the rules) rewrite the official rules to align with the way people play the game.

 

[buzz]

And what I am saying you can just "Say Yes" in any game, and you don't need some kooky indie system to do so, though those are often fun as well.

Oh, you certainly don't need a kooky indie RPG to do so. There are lots of bigger name RPGs that include some sort of nod to the idea, e.g., HERO's "don't roll unless the PC is under time pressure" and even d20's Take10/20 rules. It's unfortunate that a lot of these games don't canonize the concept, though, and even sometimes advise doing the opposite.

I'm more talking about looking at to what you're saying yes (and no), and whether the rules are supporting those decisions or constantly at odds with them. The assumption I was questioning above is that rules by their very nature will get in one's way. I don't think they have to, and I've luckily had the chance to play a good number of games in which this is true, and I really enjoy it. Ditto bringing this attitude to games like D&D.

 

[buzz]

And no, rule 0 does not say that! At all!

I guess it would depend on the wording of Rule 0 you're using. I'm basically assuming the version called the "Golden Rule" that you see in WoD products, and can see in similar form in the GM advice of games like HERO and GURPS, i.e., as far as the GM is concerned, the rules are just guidelines, can be ignored at any time by them, and they always have final say.

Fiat=/=GM abuse. It's only abusive when employed abusively.

Possibly, but the common advice (see above), all but insures abusive use of the privilege, IMO. I'd rather simply play a game where the technique wasn't (or at least mostly wasn't) necessary.