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

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.
Again though, nobody (well, certainly not me) is talking about overriding any rules. If the rules say "action X triggers rule Y" then that's what happens. There's a huge middle ground here that you are excluding.
 

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In Amber, for example, there is a lot of discussion about the characters. "Session 0" took up the entire first session, and perhaps a bit more. (Did it before it was cool, really.) There were four attributes (Strength, Endurance, Warfare, Psyche), chose your power source (Pattern, Logrus, others), and what other tricks you might have. And these other tricks could be magic, a competent army, the 19 elvish rings, the 12 swords forged by men and gods, whatever. You had a bunch of points and spent them.

One of the key things was, of your generation, one player was the absolute best at Strength. You could, be default, lift more than anyone else, punch harder than anyone else, &c. Anyone gets into a brawl with you, they're done.

But, if you had an angle, you could make it so that someone with greater Strength would lose. If you created a situation where you could outlast your opponent, the higher Endurance wins. If your situation involved tactics and strategy, the higher Warfare wins, &c. If you knew how to leverage your nine interconnected realms or endless waves of minions, you could solve the problem if a direct option wasn't viable.

P1: "Can I kill the dragon?"
B: "Yes."
P1: "Great, now that it's dead..."
B: "Hold up. Yeah, you can kill it. The question is how? Just because you can doesn't mean it just happens."
P2: "Well, can we determine it's qualities?"
B: "Yes. How do you do that?"
P2: "I inform the hive mind dwelling in my Panopticon shadow to research this creature."
B: "It is likely Alpha level Strength and Endurance, Amber level Warfare, Chaos level Psyche. It may have other specialized advantages. Such advantages are likely inherent to itself or the location, and not from leveraging its wealth."
P1: "I'm Top-Ranked Strength, how does that compare with me?"
B: "You're equivalent in might, however it gains an advantage with its mass, natural weaponry, and scaled hide."
P1: "So, If I had sufficient armor and weaponry would that bring things into balance?"
B: "Yes, but that pushes the conflict to Warfare rather than simply Strength."
P3: "I outclass it in Psyche. If we have some time I and my Swordsworn can make a ritual to impede its fighting ability."
P1: "Okay, let's plan this out then. What we do is..."



I presume this would also apply to Lords of Gossamer and Shadow, a successor game to Amber.
 

Again though, nobody (well, certainly not me) is talking about overriding any rules. If the rules say "action X triggers rule Y" then that's what happens. There's a huge middle ground here that you are excluding.
The title of the thread is "What if we say 'yes' to everything?". 'Everything' is pretty cut and dried: it means everything, no matter how ludicrous; which means there ain't no middle ground left to exclude due to its never having been included in the first place.

Had the thread been something more like "What if we say 'yes' a lot more often?" then there'd be all kinds of middle ground we could talk/argue over. :)
 

I have run a few games of DramaSystem, in which most of the fun lies in the interactions between players. It occurs to me that for anything procedural, I have always just said yes, exactly the way this thread suggests. As a GM, I set up scenes, and there are rule for how the players interact and they have to make tests and so on against each other, but when a player asks me, the GM, if something happens, I can't think of anytime I haven't simply said yes.

This is true for small things: "I win a tournament"; for creating details: "I have a cousin who hates Morgaine"; and for large things "I lead the forces of Camelot to completely defeat king Mark and bring back his head on a pole".

So although saying yes always is unlikely to promote fun in a traditional game, for other styles of game it may be perfectly fun!
 

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.
Story Now still is strongly based upon qualified yes results.
The And/But elements can be natural consequences, or can be semi/non-sequiteuer (if the players will tolerate that). It's a change in how play begins, more than how the GM role exists. In fact, many "wing it" D&D GMs are bordering on Story Now without ever realizing it... provided they let the players set the agenda of the story, and they just provide the natural consequences and logical opposition.

Now, if AW is taken at its most literal, the GM is not allowed to intervene in scene until either nothing is happening, someone states something that requires a response, the players clearly require a new scene, or someone makes a move. And in that last case, only if the roll is ≤9...

So, largely, AW is supposed to already be "The MC says only yes..." With limited, in the rules, exceptions. But it's not the sum total of story-now games. And from what I can tell, many playing it don't quite actually do that, with the MC also helping guide players into staying in genre and restating what they think the story state is when one or more players have gotten lost... I've read it, but not run nor played it, but have read a bunch of play reports and some PBF...

But AW isn't the only Story Now game. Nor even the only Story Now engine...

Ironically, several non-Story Now games are mechanically derived/descended from AW... Sentinel Comics comes to mind. (The thanks to Meg and Vincent are in the starter kit, not the corebook...) It's also a "Narrate until a move" type game... but it's got prepped villains, and GM created plot...
 

...

So although saying yes always is unlikely to promote fun in a traditional game,..

ohhh! I'll take the bait on this one :D


Trad games benefit even MORE from "always say yes" ... here is my idea as to why =

GM: "You are walking down the road on the way to town. It's been hours and you are a little tired but fine to carry one. DO you carry on or rest?"

PL: "I carry on and stay wary of dangers."

GM: Yes, ok. "Roll Perception."

PL: (Roll = Fail) "But I do my best to look out, i will see or hear danger as it approaches."

GM: Yes, ok. "You see an orc, but before you can hide, he roars and charges you, what do you do?" (Roll = init, player first)

PL: (Roll = hit) "I charge the orc, spin and when it goes to swing its giant axe, I feint to the side and thrust my sword up into it's chest, stabbing and twisting till its dead."

GM: Yes, ok. "Panting hard, you put your boot to the orc head chest and pull hard to get your sword out. As you do, you see five more orcs roar their hate and charge you."

PL: "Yeah, but they are a ways away, so I run for the side of the hill where rubble is and try to get them to thunder across the rubble, maybe it will landslide them down to death or at least slow them down." (Roll = init, player first)

GM: Yes, ok. "You run across the rubble, and the bigger, heavier orcs stumble and slip across." (orc fail Dex) "They are greatly slowed. You can run on and leave them in the behind or something else. What do you do?"

PL: "I start throwing bigger rocks up the hill, and make a full on landslide to carry them away." (Roll = STR = success)

GM: Yes, ok. .....

.......................

At no point did the GM ever say "No". And even on a failed roll, the GM still respected the player's intentions and said "ok, you are still vigilant."
- And I obey all Rules of D&D

I feel this manner of GM'ing elevates D&D and Pathfinder very very much.

#NeverSayNo
 

PL: (Roll = hit) "I charge the orc, spin and when it goes to swing its giant axe, I feint to the side and thrust my sword up into it's chest, stabbing and twisting till its dead."

GM: Yes, ok. "Panting hard, you put your boot to the orc head chest and pull hard to get your sword out.
Just to be clear, in this moment of play the player and GM are dispensing with the damage roll/hit point mechanic?

Also, is the player rolling before they describe their PC's action?

As you do, you see five more orcs roar their hate and charge you."

PL: "Yeah, but they are a ways away, so I run for the side of the hill where rubble is and try to get them to thunder across the rubble, maybe it will landslide them down to death or at least slow them down." (Roll = init, player first)

GM: Yes, ok. "You run across the rubble, and the bigger, heavier orcs stumble and slip across." (orc fail Dex) "They are greatly slowed. You can run on and leave them in the behind or something else. What do you do?"

PL: "I start throwing bigger rocks up the hill, and make a full on landslide to carry them away." (Roll = STR = success)

GM: Yes, ok.
What happens if (i) the player loses the initiative roll, or (ii) the GM succeeds at the DEX roll for the Orcs, or (iii) the player fails the STR roll? Would the GM have to say (i) "the Orcs get to you before you reach the side of the hill", or (ii) "the rubble doesn't slow down the Orcs at all", or (iii) "the rocks are too big and heavy for you to move"?
 

Trad games benefit even MORE from "always say yes" ... here is my idea as to why =

GM: Yes, ok. "You see an orc, but before you can hide, he roars and charges you, what do you do?" (Roll = init, player first)
To me, always saying Yes as a GM implies the player can override GM inputs. If the GM says that a PC fails at anything, the GM is not saying Yes unless the player agrees. If the player introduces a new plot in the narrative an Always Yes GM cannot say No.

So at this point the player can can simply say:

"I hide and he fails to spot me."
"He steps on an imaginary invisible deceased turtle, falls to the ground, and crushes his head against a rock."
"I travel to the next town, ignoring all encounters."
"A group of 40 knights charge out of hiding and kill all the orcs."
"The orc captures me, ties me up, carries me to their camp and a group of orcs [Redacted]."

If Always Yes allows the GM to make a stated action fail, the GM is not actually saying Yes. Nothing can have a consequence without player agreement, making this collaborative storytelling rather than a game.

I realize this is not how you see Always Yes, and you likely think my view here is absurd, and that's ok. Maybe this can illuminate why people on this thread don't agree with one another - we mean different things when we say Always Say Yes. An in-depth discussion here requires that we first agree what Always Yes actually means.
 

Just to be clear, in this moment of play the player and GM are dispensing with the damage roll/hit point mechanic?
Naw, I just being brief. HP, and a few rounds of combat changes nothing there.

Also, is the player rolling before they describe their PC's action?
Naw, I just marking rolls for reference.

What happens if (i) the player loses the initiative roll, or (ii) the GM succeeds at the DEX roll for the Orcs, or (iii) the player fails the STR roll? Would the GM have to say (i) "the Orcs get to you before you reach the side of the hill", or (ii) "the rubble doesn't slow down the Orcs at all", or (iii) "the rocks are too big and heavy for you to move"?
No change?

Fail Init too low to go first? so what, player still says what they do on their turn, GM still says "Yes." No changes.

My whole point here is that Rolls do not equal GM saying "No".

GM saying "Yes to everything" has nothing to do with Rolls.

...

Now, if a player wants to ignore the rules. They want to just tell everyone what happens, that changes nothing much.

PL: "I kill the orc" (no rolls, just taking narrative fiat)

GM: Yes, ok. "Orc is dead, you are exhausted, and here are five more to fight"

PL: "I kill all those orcs too using rock slide at nearby hill."

GM: Yes, ok. "And now you are so tired, when you camp you don't hear the kobolds steal all your stuff."

PL: "I go hunt down the kobolds and get my stuff back."

GM: Yes, ok. ......
result = not as dynamic, but we still did all the stuff, just sans rolls

.....
TL/DR
Like, does doing rolls and dice make it more uncertain for player and GM? sure.

But do the do rolls remove the GM ability to always say "Yes' = no not at all.

Does GM say yes all the time ruin stuff? = not in any way.

If anything, its the player who now needs to adjust to keeping things interesting. What the GM is doing, yes to all, is fine and interesting regardless of rolls/no rolls.

In fact, saying yes to everything kept pacing up, kept player feeling like they were playing the game, and prevented bad GM habits... IMHO...
 


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