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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6400234" data-attributes="member: 4937">One thing I've learned over 30 years of playing D&amp;D, is that the famous Zeroth rule - humorously summed up as, &quot;The GM makes all the rules.&quot; - is misnamed.&nbsp;&nbsp; In fact, it's one of only a fairly large number of unstated rules that govern how an RPG is played and it is in fact not the most critical.&nbsp;&nbsp; The true root and fundamental rule of RPGS, indeed perhaps the entire reason that role playing games have rules at all, is &quot;Thou Shalt Not Be Good at Everything.&quot;&nbsp;&nbsp; This is the rule upon which all other rules hang, and to which all other rules are subject.This rule goes back to the simple story of RPGs, which is, if you are playing a game of Cops and Robbers, or Cowboys and Indians, or Spacemen and Aliens, or Napoleon and Wellesley, or really any other game you could be playing which has conflict, and someone says, &quot;I shot you.&quot; or &quot;My cavalry charge smashes your infantry square&quot;, and the other person says, &quot;No it didn't.&quot;, how do you resolve this disagreement.&nbsp;&nbsp; The fundamental law says, &quot;Thou shalt not be good at everything.&quot;, and so RPGs must at some level require that each side has moments of failure and disadvantages to exploit.&nbsp;&nbsp; Or in other words, the story cannot be allowed to be controlled entirely by one person only - not even the game master.&nbsp;&nbsp; This is why the fundamental law precedes the zeroth law and puts it in check.&nbsp;&nbsp; The GM can in fact make all the rules, but he must not make the rules such that the GM always wins and his forces are always good at everything.&nbsp;&nbsp; Or in other words, balance is the most fundamental aspect of an RPG.&nbsp;&nbsp; When a person says, &quot;Balance doesn't matter&quot;, it suggests to me that they neither know what an RPG is or what balance is.&nbsp;&nbsp; Now granted, the balance of an RPG isn't the same as the balance of chess.&nbsp;&nbsp; RPGs are cooperative endeavors and ensuring competitive balance in an RPG isn't always foremost among your balance goals.&nbsp;&nbsp; And success in an RPG doesn't always mean victory.&nbsp;&nbsp; It can be the story goal of a player to not win.&nbsp;&nbsp; Indeed, for the player who wears the hat of Game Master in traditional RPGs, not winning is very much part of his story goals.&nbsp; But achieving equal access to the story ought to be among your RPG goals, and if that equal access is thwarted because one person is always good at everything and always achieves his story goals to the exclusion of all other input, then you really don't have an RPG in the first place.&nbsp; What you have is some sort of writing or improvisational theater script jam session, where you put together a script and act it out but there is not really any sort of game involved.&nbsp; When you say something like &quot;RPGs are about the story&quot;, you've said something true but not sufficient.&nbsp; Lots of things are about &quot;the story&quot;, but not all of them are RPGs.&nbsp;&nbsp; Two role players named Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck cooperatively wrote a novel called &quot;Leviathan Wakes&quot; and that novel has many tropes and features that suggest its RPG heritage, and Abraham and Franck negotiated among them how the story would advance and shared that responsibility, but while this process prioritized story and was social and was cooperative and had a social contract and produced a story, the actual process of writing that novel wasn't itself playing a role-playing game.&nbsp;&nbsp; My feeling is that some people who with the best of intentions want to elevate RPGs to the level of art forms have got so frustrate with the relatively slow advancement we've seen in that goal, that they are ending up advocating for short cuts that amount to importing so many techniques and ideas from what works for other art forms, that they end up advocating for the destruction of the actual elements that make up an RPG in the first place.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 6400234, member: 4937"] One thing I've learned over 30 years of playing D&D, is that the famous Zeroth rule - humorously summed up as, "The GM makes all the rules." - is misnamed. In fact, it's one of only a fairly large number of unstated rules that govern how an RPG is played and it is in fact not the most critical. The true root and fundamental rule of RPGS, indeed perhaps the entire reason that role playing games have rules at all, is "Thou Shalt Not Be Good at Everything." This is the rule upon which all other rules hang, and to which all other rules are subject. This rule goes back to the simple story of RPGs, which is, if you are playing a game of Cops and Robbers, or Cowboys and Indians, or Spacemen and Aliens, or Napoleon and Wellesley, or really any other game you could be playing which has conflict, and someone says, "I shot you." or "My cavalry charge smashes your infantry square", and the other person says, "No it didn't.", how do you resolve this disagreement. The fundamental law says, "Thou shalt not be good at everything.", and so RPGs must at some level require that each side has moments of failure and disadvantages to exploit. Or in other words, the story cannot be allowed to be controlled entirely by one person only - not even the game master. This is why the fundamental law precedes the zeroth law and puts it in check. The GM can in fact make all the rules, but he must not make the rules such that the GM always wins and his forces are always good at everything. Or in other words, balance is the most fundamental aspect of an RPG. When a person says, "Balance doesn't matter", it suggests to me that they neither know what an RPG is or what balance is. Now granted, the balance of an RPG isn't the same as the balance of chess. RPGs are cooperative endeavors and ensuring competitive balance in an RPG isn't always foremost among your balance goals. And success in an RPG doesn't always mean victory. It can be the story goal of a player to not win. Indeed, for the player who wears the hat of Game Master in traditional RPGs, not winning is very much part of his story goals. But achieving equal access to the story ought to be among your RPG goals, and if that equal access is thwarted because one person is always good at everything and always achieves his story goals to the exclusion of all other input, then you really don't have an RPG in the first place. What you have is some sort of writing or improvisational theater script jam session, where you put together a script and act it out but there is not really any sort of game involved. When you say something like "RPGs are about the story", you've said something true but not sufficient. Lots of things are about "the story", but not all of them are RPGs. Two role players named Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck cooperatively wrote a novel called "Leviathan Wakes" and that novel has many tropes and features that suggest its RPG heritage, and Abraham and Franck negotiated among them how the story would advance and shared that responsibility, but while this process prioritized story and was social and was cooperative and had a social contract and produced a story, the actual process of writing that novel wasn't itself playing a role-playing game. My feeling is that some people who with the best of intentions want to elevate RPGs to the level of art forms have got so frustrate with the relatively slow advancement we've seen in that goal, that they are ending up advocating for short cuts that amount to importing so many techniques and ideas from what works for other art forms, that they end up advocating for the destruction of the actual elements that make up an RPG in the first place. [/QUOTE]

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