GMing: What If We Say "Yes" To Everything?

[aramis erak]

But if the players ask for rated R - as a dm you must just say yes

*TIC

I'd walk, instead. the idea of total open field means openness to unsafe or uncomfortable play... and that's why i thing it a «bleep»ing asinine idea in the real world.
A platonic ideal that sound nice until you attempt to go there...

 

[Starfox]

If I'm to take this seriously, I think the result would not be what we conventionally call a role-playing game, it would be collaborative storytelling. If a group of people come up with a common conceit of a situation and agree to collaborate on what is essentially a letter novella, it can surely work. It might even work with one participant having responsibility for the world and the other players taking on specific character roles. But the shared concept is absolutely necessary, and each participant needs to control themselves to stay within the agreed-upon conceit. In most cases this will not include "I leap over the moon" in a literal sense, but if the shared conceit is absurdist or that the player characters are gods, it could.

Essentially, I believe that if we remove the GMs ability to say no, then each player must internalize saying no to themselves so as to stay within the consensual reality of the story. I say above that this would not be a "conventional" RPG, but there is no need for RPGs to be conventional as long as this is part of the social contract of the game.

I have participated in some games that leaned in this direction and must admit I was not very good at it. My problem is that without rules, my thinking tends to run a bit too much out of the box, to the point where I go off the rails.

 

[DEFCON 1]

If I'm to take this seriously, I think the result would not be what we conventionally call a role-playing game, it would be collaborative storytelling.

In many games, these are one and the same. You are correct that it would not be what we conventionally call a Dungeons & Dragons-style role-playing game... but RPGs in general?

Fiasco is a roleplaying game and is entirely collaborative storytelling. There are no game mechanics used to determine what the characters can and cannot do, it's all about what the players come up with amongst themselves to create their own characters, their own desires, and then the obstacles that block the acquisition of those desires.

Now granted, there are many people who think that if there isn't a "tactical miniatures combat board game" as a part of their roleplaying game then the game isn't actually a roleplaying game... but their opinion in no more correct than anyone else's. Having a "tactical miniatures combat board game" is no more instrumental to the roleplaying game genre as "collaborative storytelling" is.

 

[DEFCON 1]

At the end of the day (as I said above)... if a player just says "Can I do X?" to circumvent every single possible obstacle we would use to create a dramatic situation and an interesting story we would be working together to resolve... then the player doesn't actually wish to engage with the game on its terms.

Which is fine. Not all players would groove to that game idea. Some players wouldn't and shouldn't engage with it.

But that doesn't mean the game idea at its core can't work.

You just need the right group of players willing to take on that challenge. And they ARE out there. But we're talking probably obscure indy RPG player numbers, not D&D audience size. So the question that really should be asked is how many RPG players out there would be willing to play this sort of game, thus warranting actually running a game in that style in the first place. If the answer is "Not enough"... then you just don't go through with it and you play something else.

 

[RenleyRenfield]

I don't think that is true. Saying "yes" doesn't mean the GM has no input. It means that the world reacts to waht the PCs succeed at, rather than just what they try.

I think this statement is understated here. So... I give it a +power level 9000

After writing several systems this became a huge revelation to all of our pass/fail GM's , so I am gonna add my own emphasis here...

Reacting.

It makes the game react to the players. Saying "No" or having a "Fail" roll result in nothing (as D&D and most all pass fail systems do), that is fine, but it results in far less of everything than just saying Yes and letting players deal with consequences of their actions.

And by having that as the default, it encourages really excellent GM habits and exceptional storybulding !

 

[Doctor Futurity]

The responses so far seem to presuppose there is some sort of competition happening and therefore "Yes" is some kind of win button. I find that odd. Surely we play RPGs for more than just "beating" the GM.

I've been mulling over your examples and this. Let's reframe the concept that there's a power dynamic/conflict between the players and the DM, and instead suggest that there's a storytelling dynamic in which we seek dramatic tension and uncertainty. In improv, they use the similar concept of "Yes, and..." which is meant to say "Sure, you can do that....and I am going to add to the circumstance this way." In RPGs, a big part of the fun is the narrative uncertainty, which is instituted by a combination of randomized mechanics and mutual player/DM participation in a storytelling tug-of-war designed to generate a novel experience, which is superior to a simple acceptance monologue. "Can I be a Half-Dragon/Half-Pizie from Mars?" can be answered with "Yes, and you should decide how you arrived in the Forgotten Realms, and what your goal is." "Can I steal the chalice from the dragon by sneaking up on him?" should be accompanied by "Yes, and you should either describe how you plan to do it, or make a stealth roll, to see if you pulled it off." But if you remove the player's right to uncertainty in their success, then you remove the reason a player might enjoy the game in the first place. Likewise, if you remove any agency of the DM beyond acting as permission-giver, then you also remove any necessary role of the DM in providing a dramatic and uncertain path to the narrative. At this point, you are playing a different kind of game, one in which the elaborate mechanisms typical of an RPG like D&D are no longer necessary or maybe even desirable, as they may get in the way of the freeform collaboration.

I'm not saying this can't work, but my experience has been that games which do this tend to be storytelling games, often using cards or gimmicks to enable players, and are often aimed at younger or more inexperienced participants for whom the goal is not an elaborate synergetic simulation of an unfolding fantasy novel, but instead is more of a lighthearted collaborative tale telling, with no specific stakes beyond having a good time. Such is a completely viable method of role playing, but it is also a different kind of game than, say, D&D and its many conventional counterparts, which are attempting a different kind of experience entirely, one which requires a much more elaborate framework and agreement to expect uncertainty and narrative limits.

 

[S'mon]

Just a thought experiment:

What if for a new campaign or just a one shot, the GM said "Yes" to literally everything the players asked or wanted to do. Not "Yes, but," but just "yes, you can do/be/use that."

Normally, the GM hedges, using die rolls or negotiation to craft play and control pacing, and sometimes to maintain a level of control over the world and the characters. What would a game look like where the GM gave up even a hint of control and just narrated the results of the PCs' choices and successful actions?

Have you tried playing D&D with an AI? It would be just like that.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I've been mulling over your examples and this. Let's reframe the concept that there's a power dynamic/conflict between the players and the DM, and instead suggest that there's a storytelling dynamic in which we seek dramatic tension and uncertainty. In improv, they use the similar concept of "Yes, and..." which is meant to say "Sure, you can do that....and I am going to add to the circumstance this way." In RPGs, a big part of the fun is the narrative uncertainty, which is instituted by a combination of randomized mechanics and mutual player/DM participation in a storytelling tug-of-war designed to generate a novel experience, which is superior to a simple acceptance monologue. "Can I be a Half-Dragon/Half-Pizie from Mars?" can be answered with "Yes, and you should decide how you arrived in the Forgotten Realms, and what your goal is." "Can I steal the chalice from the dragon by sneaking up on him?" should be accompanied by "Yes, and you should either describe how you plan to do it, or make a stealth roll, to see if you pulled it off." But if you remove the player's right to uncertainty in their success, then you remove the reason a player might enjoy the game in the first place. Likewise, if you remove any agency of the DM beyond acting as permission-giver, then you also remove any necessary role of the DM in providing a dramatic and uncertain path to the narrative. At this point, you are playing a different kind of game, one in which the elaborate mechanisms typical of an RPG like D&D are no longer necessary or maybe even desirable, as they may get in the way of the freeform collaboration.

I'm not saying this can't work, but my experience has been that games which do this tend to be storytelling games, often using cards or gimmicks to enable players, and are often aimed at younger or more inexperienced participants for whom the goal is not an elaborate synergetic simulation of an unfolding fantasy novel, but instead is more of a lighthearted collaborative tale telling, with no specific stakes beyond having a good time. Such is a completely viable method of role playing, but it is also a different kind of game than, say, D&D and its many conventional counterparts, which are attempting a different kind of experience entirely, one which requires a much more elaborate framework and agreement to expect uncertainty and narrative limits.

What about Story Now style Narrativist play? The GM has a crucial role here in framing the obstacles to the PCs and at the same time the game is generally about the PCs and their interaction with the premise.

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

I remember having an issue with this when I was playing the Dresden RPG. It ran on the FATE system. It was a while back, so my memory isn't 100%, but there was a way to spend Action Points to add features / truths to the campaign world.

In the Dresden Files lore, undead can't cross moving water. In an early combat with zombies in a city, I spent an Action Point to say there was a fire hydrant nearby. Another character blasted it away, and the moving water really messed with the undead. That was super fun!

But in the next encounter with undead, I felt really torn about using the same strategy. Since we were still in a city, it made sense there'd be sources of water around: pipes and sprinkler systems and water tanks... And mechanically, I could spend Action Points to create another source of water.

But it felt cheap, so I didn't..

In that moment, my suspension of disbelief was shattered and I was totally pulled out of the game. As a player, I want to find advantages, make clever choices, and develop strong strategies. I want the feeling of overcoming the odds.

Having to hold back from asking questions or making choices because it would solve the problem too quickly takes me out of the game. If the system allows me to say "Can I kill the dragon and save the king?" then I want the system to support that, and not punish it.

In that scenario, I would have allowed it but then given a complication. Water affects all magic, after all. It makes the street slippery, it creates mist that blocks vision etc...

That would be up to the DM to make your one-trick-pony more interesting and offer compels. (so you can earn back those tasty action points (called Fate Points) )

 

[Lanefan]

I think this is all getting a bit silly. Games have rules and mechanics, everyone is bound by them. If a player says "I leap off the cliff" then the GM says "Yes, and you take 6d10 damage, your hit points are now -5 and you are dead." It is really that simple at the core of it.

Likewise in your hypothetical God Game there must be RULES OF ADJUDICATION, and enacting those rules has nothing to do with "saying yes."

I think where this entire conversation went off into lalaland (very far off I might say) is when people who assume that a GM is some sort of meta-godlike font of all game authority try to apply any sort of 'say yes'. There are RULES folks! Games have them. If your 'game' is fundamentally just "the GM makes up stuff" then you weren't playing a game to start with and you can't make sense of something like "say yes or roll the dice" because it applies to GAMES, which have RULES, that ALL the participants MUST follow.

Though many rules in many systemts might tell the DM to say "maybe" (i.e. to invoke a die roll or other system-based adjudication) or simply "no" (what's being tried is theoretically impossible in the fiction and-or game state), forcing the DM to only ever say "yes" overwrites all those rules.

Which puts the whole concept on the fast train to gonzo-land, one-way ticket.