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

[clearstream]

Would it be good to summarize it this way?

“Whenever the answer is left up to the GM rather than some other means of resolution, the answer is yes.”

I'm wondering if "some other means of resolution" includes assertions and implications in the rules?

An example of what I have in mind is the Wilder form that Grimalkin's can adopt in Dolmenwood. That could be seen more as an assertion than resolution, and it's presence implies that others cannot adopt that form (for why would one need a mechanic to adopt it, if anyone could?)

I wondered if you might have intended "resolution" rather broadly, to include any case where the rules do the lifting?

 

[clearstream]

It is, logically, elimination of the GM role as a contributor. Once you add invoking the rules, you've crossed the stated question's bounds.

Taken sincerely, that seems to be the consequence. Or it confines GM to roles that add nothing to the fiction, such as referee (arbiter and enforcer of rules).

Who gets to decide what is consistent with, or follows from, the fictional position? As per @hawkeyefan's point, if the GM is making those decisions not having regard to any goal of play but just based on maintaining their own aesthetic, then I think we have an approach to GMing that is different from what the OP was suggesting. (At least if I've made sense of the OP.)

Hence my suspicions regarding "milieu", "setting", "goals of play" and all other manner of divvying up what sort of thing ought to be said by who.

"What a player says stands unless there is a rule that articulates something different."

Due to practical limitations no one really goes that far, at least with respect to written rules. It's always "what X says stands unless it contravenes a norm... some of which are recorded/adopted as rules." One way of saying this is simply that exogenous rules are inevitable.

Incidentally demonstrating the worth of articulating principles in a game text, as a means to corral unwritten norms.

 

[clearstream]

As best I can tell, you are working with some intuitive notion of action declarations that are resolved mechanically (eg jumping, combat) versus action declarations that are resolved by GM's free narration (talking to people, sneaking around, etc). But I'm not sure where, or why, you're drawing those boundaries.

"Resolved" here means both "resolving the effect" and "what doing it looks like" right?

"Resolving" the action declaration and the anticipated effects attached to that action. In PbtA one might think that action declaration itself is not at issue given players say what they do, so resolution can be all about effects/consequences. But there are possible outre action declarations: they're just typically avoided through self-regulation. Groups look to MC at times they're not sure a member ought to be able "to do" X.

Always say "yes" seems like it would relieve GM of any obligations in that regard. They'd have to say (at most) "Well, what do you think? Can Jo-halfling flap their arms and fly down from the tower?" Given here that Jo-halfling has no moves or gear available that would amount to being in a fictional-position to do that, readers might feel drawn to saying "well, of course Jo-halfling can't do that: it doesn't follow from their fictional-position"... but why not? They're applying some sort of internal rule to get there no matter how strongly normed that is.

 

[clearstream]

I honestly appreciate the explanation by way of games that you believe work in a way compatible with what I originally proposed and later more clearly defined.

I guess I might quibble with the idea that any time there are measurable stakes we should roll the dice, and only automatically "say yes" if there aren't measurable stakes. I think you can say yes without dice even if the action ups the stakes or changes the game state noticeably. But that's really me quibbling with the specific game rules. I, personally I mean, would just use rules that align better with my preferences regarding what is an ask of the GM, versus an ask of the rules.

One thing I think is relevant here is how we define the GM's role in the game in question. I have been assuming a pretty traditional GM authority, and that has colored my perspective on the thing. A game that takes that authority out of the GM's hands and gives it overvto either the rules or distributes it amongst the other participants changes the thought experiment significantly, I think.

A perspective that occurred to me is to consider the two related questions

what ought GM to say (under examination is "ought they to say yes?")​

​

when ought GM to speak at all (under examination is "what prompts GM to speak?")​

​

When GM is silent, what player describes stands just as well as if GM had said "yes", but I'm not sure that the two questions are identical. One reason is that GM speech need not be triggered passively.

Picture the following setup

players normally self-regulate, following fictional position, milieu, their goals of play, their understanding of the game text, etc​

​

players confer and decide in cases where they feel unsure whether an utterance follows​

​

players turn to GM in thorny cases, where they persist in feeling unsure or perceive conflicts of interest​

​

Now in this setup, players don't want GM to be obligated to say "yes"! They want GM to be free to supply a judicious "no" sensitive to the terms of the ludonarrative.

 

[Reynard]

A perspective that occurred to me is to consider the two related questions

what ought GM to say (under examination is "ought they to say yes?")​

​

when ought GM to speak at all (under examination is "what prompts GM to speak?")​

​

When GM is silent, what player describes stands just as well as if GM had said "yes", but I'm not sure that the two questions are identical. One reason is that GM speech need not be triggered passively.

Picture the following setup

players normally self-regulate, following fictional position, milieu, their goals of play, their understanding of the game text, etc​

​

players confer and decide in cases where they feel unsure whether an utterance follows​

​

players turn to GM in thorny cases, where they persist in feeling unsure or perceive conflicts of interest​

​

Now in this setup, players don't want GM to be obligated to say "yes"! They want GM to be free to supply a judicious "no" sensitive to the terms of the ludonarrative.

I think you and @pemerton are talking about something different than I am.

I am not talking about shuffling around authority. I am talking about the GM saying yes whenever the game gives them the authority (as opposed to giving the rules or players authority). Again, I am talking about largely traditional RPGs like D&D and explicitly NOT talking about narrative or story games.

The distinction of asking something "OF the GM" is important to my conception of this, and I don't feel like others are addressing it. It goes beyond action declaration. In fact, in many games, player action declaration doesn't grant the GM authority, but instead relies on the rules. For some reason, though, we seem to be stuck talking about action resolution.

 

[FrogReaver]

I think you and @pemerton are talking about something different than I am.

I am not talking about shuffling around authority. I am talking about the GM saying yes whenever the game gives them the authority (as opposed to giving the rules or players authority). Again, I am talking about largely traditional RPGs like D&D and explicitly NOT talking about narrative or story games.

The distinction of asking something "OF the GM" is important to my conception of this, and I don't feel like others are addressing it. It goes beyond action declaration. In fact, in many games, player action declaration doesn't grant the GM authority, but instead relies on the rules. For some reason, though, we seem to be stuck talking about action resolution.

I think @clearstream talked about it at length. The basic idea being that if the GM always says yes then the GM isn’t actually contributing to the fiction.

Though maybe you disagree with that assessment. I’m not sure I agree either. Scene framing still seems like a place where the GM doesn’t say yes or no and still contributes to the fiction.

But I do think that ‘anything the GM can say yes for he does so’ can be transformed into a rule that simply removes the gms power to say yes or no in those situations. The rule would say in these situations the answer is yes or what the player wants happens, and then explain what the GM should do instead.

 

[Reynard]

I think @clearstream talked about it at length. The basic idea being that if the GM always says yes then the GM isn’t actually contributing to the fiction.

Though maybe you disagree with that assessment. I’m not sure I agree either. Scene framing still seems like a place where the GM doesn’t say yes or no and still contributes to the fiction.

I think this is close to how I feel. I don't think "always say yes" particularly inhibits GM input, because the gm builds the whole thing that the player questions are coming up in in the first place.

But I do think that ‘anything the GM can say yes for he does so’ can be transformed into a rule that simply removes the gms power to say yes or no in those situations. The rule would say in these situations the answer is yes or what the player wants happens, and then explain what the GM should do instead.

This is don't find convincing. "Yes" is just the first step in what the GM does naturally in play, and the GM still has to do all that other GMing stuff.

 

[FrogReaver]

This is don't find convincing. "Yes" is just the first step in what the GM does naturally in play, and the GM still has to do all that other GMing stuff.

Isn’t that what I said??

 

[Reynard]

Maybe I should talk a little about how I actually think this might work at the table, as some have suggested.

For Session 0 stuff, this is easy: if a player asks to play a certain thing, the answer is Yes. Maybe that means there is no setting, milieu or even ruleset established at first and these requests define the game to be played. or maybe there are and the players are expected to paint within the lines. In either case, players get to play what they want and the GM says "Yes."

During regular moment to moment play, I imagine it looking something like this:
GM: You have arrived in town on the caravan. The foreman pays you for your work guarding it and sends you on your way to explore Threshold.
Player2: Can I have a cousin that lives in town, who will put us up and introduce us to important folks?
GM: Yes. ::rolls some dice:: Your cousin in a retired miller and a widow, who lives on the outskirts of town.
[later]
GM: The sound coming from your cousin's millhouse is uncomfortably like rats, but bigger and very likely meaner.
Player2: I want to draw them out one at a time. I'll tie that hunk of stinky cheese to the end of my rope and toss it toward the hole in the wall where the sounds are coming from.
GM. Yes. Okay. You do that and within a few moments, a large, five eyed, nine legged rat thing starts to lumber out of the hole toward the cheese. [no roll needed]
Player 2: Gah! I pull the rope to get it to come fully out into the open.
GM: Yes. It does. [no roll needed]
Player1: I shoot it in the eye with my crossbow!
GM: Okay, roll to hit [the rules take over here] and then everyone roll initiative [signaling moving fully into the rules as control aspect of play].

That is a very simplistic example, of course, but I think it gets across my general meaning.

 

[Reynard]

Isn’t that what I said??

I meant the part about the removing of the GM's authority.