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

[FrogReaver]

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

If the unwritten rule is always say yes, what authority does he really have in the situations where that applies?

As noted, when always say yes doesn’t apply, like scene framing, then the GM retains his authority.

 

[Reynard]

If the unwritten rule is always say yes, what authority does he really have in the situations where that applies?

I legitimately do not understand the question. Saying "yes" is just the beginning of the answer in an RPG. The GM still frames the scene when they say yes.

 

[FrogReaver]

I legitimately do not understand the question. Saying "yes" is just the beginning of the answer in an RPG. The GM still frames the scene when they say yes.

So have a rule for saying yes. Have no rule for framing scenes. Not sure why you are struggling so hard with that line.

 

[Reynard]

So have a rule for saying yes. Have no rule for framing scenes. Not sure why you are struggling so hard with that line.

So, again, I am talking about a philosophy or an approach, not a system. I don't think it is necessary or desirable to "have a rule for saying yes."

 

[FrogReaver]

So, again, I am talking about a philosophy or an approach, not a system. I don't think it is necessary or desirable to "have a rule for saying yes."

Why? What’s the difference?

 

[clearstream]

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.

What is the purpose of "yes" is in that conversation? Consider

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.​

Player: I have a cousin that lives in town, who put us up and introduces us to important folks.​

​

GM: The sound coming from your cousin's millhouse is uncomfortably like rats, but bigger and very likely meaner.​

Player: I draw them out one at a time. I 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: A large, five eyed, nine legged rat thing starts to lumber out of the hole toward the cheese.​

Player: I pull the rope and get it to come fully out into the open.​

To my reading, you simply have GM and player taking turns to assert fiction. Who can assert what? For instance

GM: Your cousin in a retired miller and a widow, who lives on the outskirts of town.​

​

Can Player say "no" here? Or does the conversation flow in a series of assertions until the group hits something covered by the game mechanics?

 

[Reynard]

What is the purpose of "yes" is in that conversation? Consider

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.​

Player: I have a cousin that lives in town, who put us up and introduces us to important folks.​

​

GM: The sound coming from your cousin's millhouse is uncomfortably like rats, but bigger and very likely meaner.​

Player: I draw them out one at a time. I 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: A large, five eyed, nine legged rat thing starts to lumber out of the hole toward the cheese.​

Player: I pull the rope and get it to come fully out into the open.​

To my reading, you simply have GM and player taking turns to assert fiction. Who can assert what? For instance

GM: Your cousin in a retired miller and a widow, who lives on the outskirts of town.​

​

Can Player say "no" here? Or does the conversation flow in a series of assertions until the group hits something covered by the game mechanics?

To reiterate, I am talking about this from the perspective of a traditional game, like D&D, where players generally do not have explicit authorial control over elements beyond what they have their PCs attempt in play. So the question oft he cousin is a thing that, in traditional games, is usually considered at best something that must be determined prior to play while character backgrounds are developed.

In the other two examples, you just repeated the "yes" part without the player asking. In games like D&D, that is generally not how it works. Players can't just say "this works" -- only GMs can do that. And especially in modern traditional games, there is almost always the presumption of some sort of check or die roll to determine permission or success.

Finally, that GM stating at the outset that the PC has a cousin in town is just more setup and railroading that does not need to occur if you have engaged players willing to ask questions and insert their characters into the game.

As I stated, this was a simple example meant to illustrate the overall philosophy and approach. The point of the discussion, remember, is to think about how this would work over the long term if the GM always said yes when the question was posed to the GM. "Always say yes" is not, I don't think, the same as "roll to find out."

 

[clearstream]

To reiterate, I am talking about this from the perspective of a traditional game, like D&D, where players generally do not have explicit authorial control over elements beyond what they have their PCs attempt in play. So the question oft he cousin is a thing that, in traditional games, is usually considered at best something that must be determined prior to play while character backgrounds are developed.

Is your assumption that players will withhold from asserting anything within GM's purview? GM won't need to say "no" because players self-regulate. You then might be saying something like

what players say their PCs attempt will be added to the fiction unless it invokes a game mechanic​

​

It doesn't add anything to this for GM to say "yes", but a necessary job someone has to do is say whether what's said invokes a mechanic.

In the other two examples, you just repeated the "yes" part without the player asking. In games like D&D, that is generally not how it works. Players can't just say "this works" -- only GMs can do that. And especially in modern traditional games, there is almost always the presumption of some sort of check or die roll to determine permission or success.

I'm finding this aspect of what you're saying elusive. Given GM must say "yes" what holds up what player said from working when no game mechanic applies? It seems there must something more going on... perhaps another layer of player self-regulation?

As I stated, this was a simple example meant to illustrate the overall philosophy and approach. The point of the discussion, remember, is to think about how this would work over the long term if the GM always said yes when the question was posed to the GM. "Always say yes" is not, I don't think, the same as "roll to find out."

I don't think so either: it's more "say yes OR roll to find out". That aside, it does seem to me that your envisioned style of play requires players to withhold from saying certain things. Meaning the approach becomes something like

players self-regulate what they say, generally* limiting themselves to saying only what their characters attempt​

​

as to things players permit themselves to say, GM says "yes" or invokes a game mechanic​

​

Suppose a careless player intrudes into narrative space they aren't supposed to have any authorial control over? Does GM say "no" in that case? If not, what work is "yes" doing here?

*I added "generally" here to echo your wording in the quote at top, but doing so makes the meaning ambiguous. What are those other sorts of things players can say that aren't "what they have their PCs attempt"? Where do the boundaries of that lie? A parsimonious approach would eliminate "generally".

 

[Reynard]

Is your assumption that players will withhold from asserting anything within GM's purview? GM won't need to say "no" because players self-regulate. You then might be saying something like

what players say their PCs attempt will be added to the fiction unless it invokes a game mechanic​

​

It doesn't add anything to this for GM to say "yes", but a necessary job someone has to do is say whether what's said invokes a mechanic.


I'm finding this aspect of what you're saying elusive. Given GM must say "yes" what holds up what player said from working when no game mechanic applies? It seems there must something more going on... perhaps another layer of player self-regulation?


I don't think so either: it's more "say yes OR roll to find out". That aside, it does seem to me that your envisioned style of play requires players to withhold from saying certain things. Meaning the approach becomes something like

players self-regulate what they say, generally* limiting themselves to saying only what their characters attempt​

​

as to things players permit themselves to say, GM says "yes" or invokes a game mechanic​

​

Suppose a careless player intrudes into narrative space they aren't supposed to have any authorial control over? Does GM say "no" in that case? If not, what work is "yes" doing here?

*I added "generally" here to echo your wording in the quote at top, but doing so makes the meaning ambiguous. What are those other sorts of things players can say that aren't "what they have their PCs attempt"? Where do the boundaries of that lie? A parsimonious approach would eliminate "generally".

I think we are talking past each other. I explicitly said the GM should say yes to everything unless some previously agreed upon aspect -- setting, rules or milieu -- dictates otherwise. You seem to be trying to interpret this as the players have to be careful not to ask anything that might motivate the GM to say "no" which is nowhere in my theoretical.

What I am interested in is what potentially happens over time if the GM always says "Yes." We -- collectively as a thread -- has instead focused on trying to define what saying yes means. Which is understandable, but not really what I'm interested in.

 

[Theory of Games]

Looks more like the OP is talking past the OP