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

[Starfox]

The fear then comes in with the halfling saying "I fly up the hill", and there is no Fiction to indicate the halfling can fly in any way. I think this is actually a straw man argument. Personally, I have never ever had a player, so egregiously, dictate their character doing something that has no reason or rule or ability to back it up. And I run both PBTA and Cortex, where a player can define a power's use in pretty much any way they can imagine - and it still never happened.

I must out myself here and say I have done something like this. This happened in a freeform game where we were playing Drow (D&D dark elves) and I was playing a religious bard/spider shapeshifter. The first session saw our house invaded, and my character was too enthusiastic about engaging the attackers. I think the idea was to show us players that despite our powers, we were small fish in a big pond. My character ended up in a truly bad situation, and escaped by splitting up into a swarm of spiders, a trick I loaned from Aranea in a White Wolf book. Its not that it was defined if I could do this or not, as I said this was freeform and y powers were not defined, but I felt I went beyond the social contract of the game.

 

[Reynard]

See to me the 10th level Ranger ability "Hide in Plain Sight" isn't needed to hide in plain sight by taking the time to camouflage yourself anyone can do it if they take the time and aren't being observed. Just the ranger gets +10 bonus to stealth checks when they do. So that's something I would say yes to within the rule.

i feel like you are working hard to subvert the context of my example.

"Can I spend a few hours setting up an hiding spot so I can bevright in the middle when things go down?" Yes.

But that's not what I was talking about and I think that was pretty obvious.

 

[Starfox]

Having followed this thread, I am starting to think what it all boils down to is how we individually interpret "Always Yes". The discussion seems to be more about what "Always yes" actually means and less about what is acceptable gameplay.

If we mean that PCs are free to describe their own actions in any way they want as long as it conforms to the physical strictures of the game, we all agree on this.

Some of us argue that this is too narrow an interpretation, and that following the "Always Yes" dogma leads to absurdities as players describe actions that should be impossible in the narrative. We (I was in this faction) think this is how to play "Always yes". Those in the first camp deny that this is a reasonable interpretation of "Always Yes". Which the second camp agrees to, no-one seems to argue that it is ok to fold up the moon and put it in your pocket (unless this is included in the premise of the game). I now see this as a misinterpretation developed into a strawman argument, leading nowhere.

I think it would be more interesting to discuss the opposite of this - where the GM uses "Just say No" as a dogm. I interpret this as railroading, the GM effectively says "my way or the highway" and makes anything unexpected that would take the story off the rails automatically fail. But this is another straw man, I don't see anyone advocating this. So, what is an interesting not-strawman example of NOT "Always Yes"?

Postscript:
Aw, now I want to re-watch the "Eccentric Family" anime where one of the characters actually did put the moon in her pocket, or at least used illusion to make the protagonist think she did. Such a wonderful anime!

Uchouten Kazoku

Kyoto has been populated by groups of tanuki and tengu for years, living alongside humans who are oblivious to the existence of these creatures. Yasaburou Shimogamo is the third son of an influential tanuki family who spends his carefree days taking care of an old tengu, observing humans through...

myanimelist.net

 

[Starfox]

So, what is an interesting not-strawman example of NOT "Always Yes"?

I almost immediately came up with such a case, a board game. In a board game your options are clearly defined and thus limited. You can't say you take a Taxi to a certain street in Monopoly. This has to be so because we don't have a GM in Monopoly, we have to play with rules we can all agree on.

But this example is irrelevant to a discussion of TTRPGs with a gamemaster. It might illuminate what I mean when I think of a "Just Say No" dogma of gamemastering. There is a boardgame aspect to D&D and many other TTRPGS, and in the context of this boardgame "Just Say no" applies. You cannot simply ignore rules like attacks of opportunity or limited movement speed, if you do the social contract that makes this an interesting exercise collapses. Whch I don't think is controversial, the original "Always Yes" faction still wants to use rules.

I fail to find the conflict here, we all seem to agree.

 

[Koloth]

One question(Possibly answered in a previous post I missed) - Do the players know that the GM is always going to say yes? Or has the GM secretly gone into "Yes" mode? If the players know, I see the possibility of recreating a scene from an old cartoon where there are two humongous giants fighting each other while standing on something that seems the size of a bowling ball because each had wished(IIRC - a genie was involved somehow) "To be the most powerful person on the planet." In this thought experiment such things might be phrased by character 1 "Can I be the most powerful person on this planet?" and not to be outdone, character 2 responds "Can I be more powerful then that character?" Then they both keep asking the same question trying to outdo the other one.

Sorry but my early game sessions(think D&D before there were versions) often featured power players so I assume that once a player figures out that the answer is always "Yes", the above cartoon scene is where things will wind up.

 

[clearstream]

One question(Possibly answered in a previous post I missed) - Do the players know that the GM is always going to say yes? Or has the GM secretly gone into "Yes" mode? If the players know, I see the possibility of recreating a scene from an old cartoon where there are two humongous giants fighting each other while standing on something that seems the size of a bowling ball because each had wished(IIRC - a genie was involved somehow) "To be the most powerful person on the planet." In this thought experiment such things might be phrased by character 1 "Can I be the most powerful person on this planet?" and not to be outdone, character 2 responds "Can I be more powerful then that character?" Then they both keep asking the same question trying to outdo the other one.

Sorry but my early game sessions(think D&D before there were versions) often featured power players so I assume that once a player figures out that the answer is always "Yes", the above cartoon scene is where things will wind up.

Part of the answer could be that players role in this is not to ask what they can do, but to say what they do.

Player "Can I be more powerful than Jo?"
GM "Yes"
Player ...
GM When you're ready, let me know what you're doing to become that powerful

Player "Can I open the lock?"
GM "Yes"
Player ...
GM When you're ready, let me know what you're doing to open the lock

"Can I" could fail to move the conversation along in terms of any change to the game fiction or system.

Player "I open the lock!"
GM "Roll dice"

Player "I become more powerful than Jo!"
GM ...

What must GM say here? To me the player declaration seems to lack specifics... but it seems like ambiguous or elusive cases could turn up.

 

[Reynard]

To distill my thoughts on the matter since i started the thread:

Yes" in the context of asking things of the GM does not preclude the rules "saying no", or the milieu or social contract or even other players to some degree. "Can I play a cyborg pixie Jedi who is the secret heir to the interdimensional hegemony?" should be answered with a "yes" so long as the agreed upon game -- rules, milieu, and contract -- allow for it.

When it comes to.actions in the game world, especially those that ask of the GM, the answer should be "yes" as long as otherwise there is no inherent systemic requirement built into the rules. "Can I sneak past the guard when he makes his next round?" Should be a "yes" without having to get permission from the dice. "Can I convince the king to help us defeat the dragon?" similarly should be a "yes" but it isn't a "no" for the king to require some oath of fealty. I suppose for some that qualifies as a "yes but" and so I guess I am okay with that.

However, if the player is actually asking something of the system rather than the GM, the rules should answer the question. "Can I jump across this pit?" is answered by the jumping rules, for example. Similarly "can I kill the dragon?" is answered by the combat rules.

By the way, I want to thank everyone who engaged in the discussion in good faith, even if I disagree with you. These discussions help me figure out my own feelings on a subject and that's why I start them.

 

[RenleyRenfield]

I almost immediately came up with such a case, a board game. In a board game your options are clearly defined and thus limited. You can't say you take a Taxi to a certain street in Monopoly. This has to be so because we don't have a GM in Monopoly, we have to play with rules we can all agree on.

But this example is irrelevant to a discussion of TTRPGs with a gamemaster. It might illuminate what I mean when I think of a "Just Say No" dogma of gamemastering. There is a boardgame aspect to D&D and many other TTRPGS, and in the context of this boardgame "Just Say no" applies. You cannot simply ignore rules like attacks of opportunity or limited movement speed, if you do the social contract that makes this an interesting exercise collapses. Whch I don't think is controversial, the original "Always Yes" faction still wants to use rules.

I fail to find the conflict here, we all seem to agree.

I think your spider > many spiders polymorph spell was fine. If the word Freeform was at the table, then your theme was plenty close enough to the spirit of the spell as to cause no harm, and still allow risk and fun.

And, there is indeed a moment of "the rules answer that, consult the rule for your results", which then can be overridden by the player requesting the GM make a ruling to allow them to ignore some aspect of the mechanics in order to "do the thing", in which case, Always Say Yes still works, and even in the most obnoxious of requests, will serve everyone at the table better than saying No. In fact, in any given situation always say Yes will always give an equal to or better result than a No would.

Lastly, where the mechanics are incomplete, D&D has Skill: Persuasion is example of this. Where there are no rules/mechanics on exactly what the Persuaded character Must do. Only that a Persuasion roll was successfully made, and thus the GM is given full fiat to determine what that results as = always say Yes works far far best here, as it gives credence to the player's roleplay, and moves the plot forward, and gives weight to the roll result of success.
(an example of a NO for this would be the player roll to Persuade the king to send knights to aid, player makes roll, and GM says he likes you but wont send anyone as he does not know you well. That is flatly ignoring the player's stated goal of the roll 'get knights help', and the GM saying 'No' to that despite the roll - which is 100% a valid ruling as per D&D rules)...

Anyway, this is my long winded way of saying, agree, and interesting conversation. I have updated my own to-be-published game GM section to annotate a few ideas that spawned from this. Cheers!

 

[Bagpuss]

i feel like you are working hard to subvert the context of my example.

"Can I spend a few hours setting up an hiding spot so I can bevright in the middle when things go down?" Yes.

But that's not what I was talking about and I think that was pretty obvious.

Not really the the Ranger ability "Hide in Plain Sight" is a minute, not a few hours. But please continue to ignore the main point of my post to pick apart one little example, that has very little to do with the main question.

You original post was an interesting thought experiment from the title

"GMing: What If We Say "Yes" To Everything?" to the premise in your post "Yes" to literally everything the players asked or wanted to do. No GM control through dice rolls or negotiation, just narrated the results of the PCs' choices and successful actions?

But since then you've back-tracked saying the game can still say no, even if the GM doesn't due to something like it is built into the rules, setting or milieu.

At which point isn't that generally how most people GM? I'm not seeing the reason to discuss "Why don't we try carrying on playing as normal?" Your original post had legs (we are on page 16), I'm think you should be making a stronger case for it rather than saying you can still say no, using the rules or setting.

Your original post at least let us consider should the boundary at where we say no, should be moved, or why we might say no in order to make for a better or more interesting game. It being watered down doesn't really leave much for discussion.

Perhaps normally we would say no to magic in a cyberpunk setting because it would drastically alter the game, but because someone said yes we have the Shadowrun setting. Maybe there are things as GM's we might say no out of reflex but if we say yes we will open up something different and new.

Conversely I'm very much of the camp that we don't say no enough in D&D. We allow stuff because it is in the PHB and players expect it, but I think the game becomes more interesting when we say no to things like divine magic, it totally changes the game, but that would be a different but related topic.

Stick to your guns and argue for Yes to everything, even if it is game breaking, it will produce more interesting ideas, than "Yes but...".

Although in actual play I think "Yes but..." is much more interesting than just "Yes" or "No", but there is also room for a "No, but...".

 

[pemerton]

To distill my thoughts on the matter since i started the thread:

Yes" in the context of asking things of the GM does not preclude the rules "saying no", or the milieu or social contract or even other players to some degree. "Can I play a cyborg pixie Jedi who is the secret heir to the interdimensional hegemony?" should be answered with a "yes" so long as the agreed upon game -- rules, milieu, and contract -- allow for it.

When it comes to.actions in the game world, especially those that ask of the GM, the answer should be "yes" as long as otherwise there is no inherent systemic requirement built into the rules. "Can I sneak past the guard when he makes his next round?" Should be a "yes" without having to get permission from the dice. "Can I convince the king to help us defeat the dragon?" similarly should be a "yes" but it isn't a "no" for the king to require some oath of fealty. I suppose for some that qualifies as a "yes but" and so I guess I am okay with that.

However, if the player is actually asking something of the system rather than the GM, the rules should answer the question. "Can I jump across this pit?" is answered by the jumping rules, for example. Similarly "can I kill the dragon?" is answered by the combat rules.

I don't follow the contrast between the final and second-to-final paragraph.

Why is sneaking past the guard not handled by the sneaking rules, or convincing the king not handled by the convincing rules? Are you assuming that the game doesn't have those sorts of rules?