D&D General How much control do DMs need?

[AbdulAlhazred]

This is a bit mind boggling to me. The basis for all my statements regarding rule zero is based on the background that I have read a lot of criticisms of it as a sign of bad design, and that that was a very heavy deal in the advertisement of the early forge games. The argument was that the designer claiming full responsibility for the entire ruleset and conduction of the game made for a stronger design than ones clearly deferring rules control to one of the participants.

As such your questioning if rule zero is meaningful or not seem to be in direct contradiction to the cultural context in which my statements are made. It feels a bit like me making an argument christmas trees has benefits, and you reply with - is there even meaningful to talk about such a thing as Christmas?

But I can spend a bit of time indulging this higher meta questioning. It is completely true that any group performing an game can by consensus override any rules of that game. Hence if you allow for that indeed no game can be more flexible than another. It is theoretically possible to invite people over to a game of trivial pursuit, and end up playing something identical to D&D while your group still call the activity Trivial Pursuit (with some house rules).

For any discussions of the level of flexibility of games to be meaningfull one hence have to be more clear as to what level of strictness one assumes the group to be bound by the game. The standard minimum criteria for discussing properties of games is that the group indeed follow all the rules of the game, and consider it a new game if any changes to the rules are made. For most games this sets unproblematic boundaries that allow meaningful communication. However for games with a ruleset that explicitely (or implicitely) calls for one of the participants to introduce or override rules, this become a bit more problematic. What are the boundaries for communicating about that game? Some possibilities:

1: All changes to the game is acceptable and under examination. When discussing D&D, we should consider the possibility of the DM turning it into a trivial pursuit clone trough their authority.
2: All changes not actually overriding something stated as if a rule in a resource not nominally meant for only one participant is accepted, and under examination.
3: Only additions of rules covering situations where there are no suggestions in any of the core material is accepted. If there are a presented set of suggested options for handling a situation, one of those must be chosen.
4. We are disregarding the statement about GM rules control, as something fully external to the game we examine. We assume game will restrict itself to situations where there are clearly defined rules.

My impression is that most of those posting in this thread has been sonewhere close to 2 or 3. My arguments for D&D being flexible has been from a 2 standpoint, but I can recognize that this might not have been as obvious as I would have liked as I only tried to clarify that in some of my, now drowned out posts. If I were to use an understanding closer to 3 as basis, I would fully agree that D&D do not appear very flexible indeed.

I think also I have seen some arguments that appear to be close to basis 4 as well. This is the kind of basis where questions regarding if D&D is indeed a game at all, due to it's incompleteness very easily can manifest. However for the purposes of this thread, using this basis seem a bit weird, as in this case the premise of the thread - D&D dm having large control is not as obviously valid as with understanding 2 and 3.

As such I would have expected any potential argument for rule 0 not being relevant/meaningbearing to come from a 4 perspective. That you appear to raise the argument from a more extreme standpoint than 1 (arguing all changes to any game is under examination) is a bit baffeling. I am not saying it is invalid or wrong. I am just a bit concerned with how such a basis for comunication would be likely to provide any meaningful insight into the virtues of different degrees of GM control?

I'm going to just say, if my interpretation of what you are saying here is correct, then the core issue is the idea that we cannot discuss GM authority when operating under the understanding that such authority is merely, at most, normative in effect. That is you assume rule 0 has some potency where expressed because you assume there is some level of deference to the rules, and you then assert that your 2 and 3 are roughly where you assume that deference sits. Honestly, I think most people, who are probably only passingly familiar with the rules of 5e or some other RPG they play, probably have something akin to 2 or a limited form of 1 (I would argue that there's a '1a' between 1 and 2 which constitutes "all rules are under consideration to be changed, but only to a degree which doesn't radically restructure the game").

So, it may be true that explicit total GM authority is not routinely challenged in most games. I mean, as long as the game functions well enough to continue and not give any players a strong reason to quit or ask for changes, that's probably what will happen. I go play with some GM, I'm going to go along with the table, at least to a point.

Still, in the end, rule 0 doesn't 'constitute' any part of the game. It doesn't create any process of play or represent any rule of adjudication, etc. and therefor may happily remain entirely dormant, or be explicitly disavowed, and we will not have any substantive difference in play. This was the sense in which I approach the entire issue of any impact of rule 0 on game flexibility. It really doesn't DO ANYTHING. Honestly, I'm not even able to imagine in what way you believe it would be helpful in terms of allowing a game to cover a larger area of the RPG space. Are you espousing a position in which you believe that only by having some absolutely powerful GM that modifications of a game can be made effective? I'd invoke @Clint_L here and ask him about how his 'D&D Fiasco' game arose. I highly suspect it was not some sort of GM fiat situation! More likely he thought up the idea, recruited some people to play it, and then ran it. Or maybe the whole group came up with it. IME these sorts of experiments are rarely just dropped on players as GM whim coupled with a "well, rule 0 you know!"

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Not if they also wanted a skirmish-level combat minigame to be part of their courtly intrigues!

Meh, 5e is not even a decent skirmish wargame to be blunt. Take any random Errol Flynn movie fight and try to model it with 5e! There are MANY systems that are far better at various forms of this. Dungeon World does a great job with general dramatic action, and being vastly more flexible in areas like action economy than 5e is much more likely to spawn the sorts of mix of drama and combat which typifies something like 'courtly intrigue with combat' (which I would generally envisage as something akin to typical Dumasian action). Likewise there are wargames which do a MUCH better job of modeling realistic melee combat than any version of D&D ever dreamed of.

5e IMHO fills a niche of being a very mildly tactical combat system in which players are given a small menu of choices and fairly non-dynamic situations where they can generally see what is coming (IE we're taking a beating here, in a couple rounds we'll start running out of hit points, we better either flee or burn some less easily replaced resources to fix this). Not to say you can't 'stunt' or whatever, but how often is that actually making sense? Its an OK system, but it never struck me as being all that good at handling situations that aren't pretty static.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Your last sentence here made me realise another critical dimension to flexibility. That is flexibility according to which axes.

I would for instance say D&D is for instance very rigid compared to gurps or fate with regard to setting. This is due to the implied setting in the character building aspects of it. However this seem to be unrelated to the aspect of degree of DM control.

With regard to tone, genre and overall fictional flavor, I think most games mentioned here are similarly flexible, which again do indicate that this flexibility is somewhat unrelated to GM controll. However there are plenty of games out there that tightly clamps down these very tightly, and these also by necessity must have less GM control than what D&D provides - so in this case less GM controll might correlate with less flexibility.

Well, I think tone, genre, and I guess I would call it maybe sub-genre, I think its actually more complicated than most people assume.

For instance, D&D certainly can be played in a more or less serious tone, but how gritty can you actually make 5e? Not very! I mean, higher level PCs simply do not feel 'gritty', at level 4 you seem pretty much a character in high fantasy most of the time! Certainly a 9th level PC isn't going to convey much of a gritty feel. Likewise trying to pull off something like horror, OK you can do it with very low level PCs, but higher level ones have a LOT of ways to gain control of a situation, its not going to be easy to make them seem helpless or vulnerable. Not impossible, maybe, but D&D has never manged to be a very good vehicle for that. And, as you observe, outside of the fairly high fantasy sort of milieu of typical D&D it really isn't suited to another genre. WotC did its d20-based SAGA Star Wars, which is a pretty good game, and does a very 'high fantasy sci-fi' pretty well, but doing something like 'Foundation' or any other similar harder 'space opera' or 'galaxy fiction' would be pretty close to impossible to get the feel right. I love the leveling progression concept of D&D, its genius within its niche, but outside that niche it just basically does not work!

It is in particular with regard to process of play I have had in mind when I have made my claim. Handing npc control to players, giving players xp tokens to grant as they see fit to others during session and having each player stating one thing that will happen during a session at session start is all exampes of procedural grips I have felt has been easy and natural to introduce in D&D mid campaign. None of these conflicts with any stated rules of the game as far as I can see, and the game explicitely encourages such in the text. It can also be mentioned that I did not impose any of these on the players. General social decency dictated that this was the kind of measures that should be tested for social acceptability. The critical observation I think is that there were never any question if this would be within the boundaries of the rules provided by the game to introduce such procedures, as the rules explicitely defer the decission power it would normally have over the matter to the DM.

OK, but why wouldn't any of those techniques work just as well if 'rule 0' said "everything rests on table consensus, whenever a rules decision, modification, or other similar decision must be made regarding how the game is played, everyone at the table must agree." Dungeon World comes pretty close to saying that, and I don't see how that is going to impede hacking the rules at all. Yes, someone may dig their feet in and say "no I won't go along with that solution/house rule/whatever" but so what? I mean, anything can still be proposed and likely accepted if its a good idea.

It is this social dynamic I claim is altered in a game where the rules are claiming more complete procedural controll, without control delegation to the GM. Introducing procedural changes would of course still be possible, but would require the group to buy into actively going against the stated rules of the game they decided to play. For some groups that might still be trivial, but I expect most have no problem envisioning a player of the kind that would counter any such suggestion on the basis of it going against RAW - and the professional designer probably know better than us amateurs what is best for us

Well, OK, someone who is a designer might design better than us random people off the street, but I still don't see how that relates to this rule 0 thing. I don't see games that lack a rule 0 'delegating to the rules', rules never DO anything, they're simply a set of instructions and whatnot that you can use to play a game. Either the GM role has a certain authority, or the player role does, or nobody does. Yes, its possible for the game to describe how that authority is exercised, but in terms of making rules changes, or simply playing in a way not envisaged by a loose set of rules, I again state, I don't think rule 0 is even REALLY very relevant, it isn't constitutive of anything, ignoring it, fully or partially, doesn't really have much impact on actual play.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Are you saying that rule 0 isn't needed, because a table that wants to use it will count it among their exogenous rules?

That does feel like weasel-wording to get around the potential flexbility inclusion of rule 0 in a game text facilitates. It's like saying - don't worry about any of the rules because if we need them we will count them among our exogenous rules. Is that what you mean? If so, how can we judge which game text is the more flexible, given that the latent text is unlimited per your reasoning!?

Again, show me this flexibility that arises because of rule 0!!!!! It has been asserted, but I have yet to see any convincing argument describing the reason for this conclusion! It falls into the category of "why yes, red cars are faster!" Uhhhhhh, really???

 

[niklinna]

Again, show me this flexibility that arises because of rule 0!!!!! It has been asserted, but I have yet to see any convincing argument describing the reason for this conclusion! It falls into the category of "why yes, red cars are faster!" Uhhhhhh, really???

Ask any cop.

 

[pemerton]

Well, OK, someone who is a designer might design better than us random people off the street, but I still don't see how that relates to this rule 0 thing. I don't see games that lack a rule 0 'delegating to the rules', rules never DO anything, they're simply a set of instructions and whatnot that you can use to play a game. Either the GM role has a certain authority, or the player role does, or nobody does. Yes, its possible for the game to describe how that authority is exercised, but in terms of making rules changes, or simply playing in a way not envisaged by a loose set of rules, I again state, I don't think rule 0 is even REALLY very relevant, it isn't constitutive of anything, ignoring it, fully or partially, doesn't really have much impact on actual play.

I recently saw a link to this Vincent Baker blog, anyway: Very Briefly about Authority, which seems to go along with what you've said here:

Some very good designers consider the assignment of authority to be the point of rpg design. I do not.

As a designer, it's my job to make as sure as possible that the game won't break down into moment-to-moment negotiations about raw assent despite the game's rules and the players' upfront commitment to them. But the brute assignment of authority is NOT how to accomplish that.

When my games assign authority they do so in strict service to what I consider the real point: setting expectations and granting permission.
​

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

So if the kingdom was inconsequential enough then it's okay to add. Which ... would not be a major change to the lore of the world. Which has been my stance all along.

I'm just saying, I have a vastly lower concern for some kind of absolute consistency than, say @Lanefan obviously does... More than that, I value the inputs of the players and their connectedness to the game more than questions about why a map appears to be at odds with a backstory.

Are we talking lifestyle or "Hey everybody we were running a bit low on healing potions so I need you to help my manservant to unload the wagon"? Again, it's a question of scale. I can be a cheap-ass DM most of the time, combined with having a curated list of magic items for sale. So not having enough money to buy anything the PCs want has a significant impact.

Yeah, I understand the concern. If there is a question of necessary assumptions of milieu or genre, or gamist constraints that are important and where some backstory were, hypothetically, to be breaking the game, then clearly it is going to have to be subject to some discussion of how things work. I'd assume that there are rich people in the world, if a PC is going to be one of them, and thus either piles of healing potions are already a thing, at least somewhere, or else there are other constraints on their availability besides simple pecuniary ones. Again though, its kind of a matter of priorities. I'm happy to solve those sorts of minor issues on the understanding that interesting backstory is probably a lot more important than the appearance of subverting some resource game (IE once the PCs get lost in the wilderness and the cart falls down into a ravine and is lost that pile of healing potions is doing anyone a fat lot of good, right?).

It comes down to backstory fiction giving one PC a leg up. After all, is the thieves guild an issue? Just have the parental units task the guard with shutting it down doesn't sound like an interesting scenario. Unless everybody is rich but has limitations, I just don't see it not causing conflict in the campaigns I run. I've just seen people abuse their backgrounds to the point were the group talked about it when they were late. We all explained to the DM that it was a major issue and we had what amounted to an intervention to tell the player it was just too much and they had to change things. So I try to avoid that.

I haven't run into this sort of issue. I'm not sure what 'abuse' is TBH. Given the sort of narrative play I'm mostly involved in running, I don't find one PC's ability to call in some favors to mean much. OK, the thief's guild isn't bothering you right now, but the once impoverished Orcus Cult they were extorting all its income from is now growing in power! When Dad sent a bunch of guardsmen to take care of THAT, they all came back as ghouls! lol. The world is always filled with challenges, roll with it! Or just have Dad tell the rich son PC "Are you crazy! Do you know how much dirt those little rats have on us!!!??? Don't you dare go anywhere near them!" Obviously you don't want to thwart every creative use of this kind of resource, but there's no reason why rich kids are any more gifted than anyone else.

For instance, my cat person PC in one 5e game was a street waif (Urchin background, very sweet for a Tabaxi, I could basically appear on any rooftop in the whole city without even needing to make a check). Beyond that, he knows like 500 other beggars and urchins. Yeah, they don't do favors totally for free, but he got a LOT of mileage out of that, and I doubt being an ultra rich kid that can call in Dad would have been significantly superior to what Mrrreowwww! was able to do!

If I could come up with some way that each PC had significant support from their background, it might be fun. But just one having extra benefits that actually impacts game play? Pass.

Well, sounds like someone could put on their thinking cap. I mean, I'd leave it to the players. Just tell them "yup, Fred's Dad is a rich and powerful guy who will, sometimes, get Fred what he wants. YOU on the other hand may also have significant resources." I mean, I think that's exactly what the PC Themes in 5e are aiming for, isn't it? In our other 5e campaign my character was a Hero of the People. He got a good bit of free victuals and hidden from his enemies, etc. though honestly I only really used it once or twice. I tend to think that MORE is better than LESS in these areas. The PCs are remarkable people, let it do some work.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

So ... we agree? Toons is on one end of the spectrum, that's why I chose it as an example. Many games are somewhere else on the spectrum and I am making no judgement where other games fall.

That's what keeps confusing me. I agree that there are other games as flexible or more flexible than D&D. Some are also less flexible. I happen to like where D&D falls. So what's the issue?

I don't think you and I have any particular issues. There has been, historically, on these boards, and come up with some posters in this thread, this idea that somehow D&D is this magically flexible game. I think we agree, Toon is NOT flexible, certainly not as written, and I see no reason to base other games on it. 5e clearly can do more than Toon, maybe more than some other games too. And there are clearly games that are even more flexible in some sense than 5e. I also note what @clearstream is trying to point out in his post the @pemerton about 'affordances' (I would just say system features or traits myself). Its not really very possible to rate games that are in different spaces. Like how would you compare 5e D&D and Classic Traveller? The only way would be in terms of enumerating characteristics of some desired game play and figuring out which one can be altered to do whatever that is, but you will effectively have to design the concept of that hypothetical target game before you can do any of that. Its really a very fraught debate, at best.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

So do Backgrounds matter at all in your game? Or do they just consist of a pair of skills and a tool proficiency?

LOL, as usual someone has asked my question in many many less words...

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

The thing is, it's not clear to me what RPG doesn't exemplify this approach. What RPG disputes that anything is possible to attempt?

But reference to "rulings over rules" often reminds me of a story I read from Luke Crane (on some now-deleted forum I think) about his foray into Moldvay Basic. The player of a fighter declared that their PC hid from some Hobgoblins (or a spider - some monster, anyway); and Luke resolved that as a "roll under DEX" check.

It was only later that he realised that he'd given the fighter a better chance of hiding than the thief class's Hide in Shadows chance.

Generalising from that example, the issue with "rulings over rules" is when it collides with other elements of the resolution system, especially those that players have paid for with build resources. This is an area why I personally find D&D can be quite tricky, because there are so many somewhat arbitrary build elements (like Hide in Shadows as a thief class ability; or in 5e D&D the cleric's divine intervention ability as an obvious example).

On the other hand, this is not an issue that I've had in Cthulhu Dark, because it relies on very simple descriptor-based rules for putting together a dice pool.

That's not to say that Cthulhu Dark is better than (or worse than) D&D. But it certainly does "rulings not rules" pretty well!

Precisely. When I run Dungeon World, its not like there's a move for every possible situation, but there's always the simple dialog of the GM and the players describing what they do and what happens, and what happens next, etc. Pretty soon we'll land on 'Defy Danger' almost for sure! It isn't even meaningful to say what situations Dungeon World's rules don't 'cover' at some level. With 5e it is perfectly possible.

Here's an example, the Dwarf decides to ski down the mountain. Neither DW nor 5e has any explicit skiing rules, right? Nothing! Obviously we fall back on DD (and maybe DR, etc.) along with perhaps uses of equipment or something in DW. In 5e we are going to rely on ability checks (and thus probably proficiencies with skills and maybe tools) with equipment also maybe playing a factor. So far so good!

Now, in neither game do we have an absolutely clear mandate as far as granularity, stakes, consequences, etc. These factors are open in each system. That is to say one DD check could get the dwarf all the way down the mountain with or without issues, or not. Likewise 5e (bog standard at least) could have one Athletics check do the same thing, though you would need some optional rule to work in the 'with our without issues'. So, DW seems a bit ahead here, but not to any deeply meaningful degree, and the partial success rule for 5e is not exactly obscure. But I do feel that DW handles things in a bit more sophisticated way in terms of being geared up to deal out complications and such! We have a really natural way to create tension and almost create the equivalent of a subsystem. The dwarf player rolls an 8, one ski flies off! Now, think about how D&D works, the 5e PC is presumably on some sort of map, there's other rules out there that we may ignore, but now if the 5e dwarf's ski flies off, we're in more of a tactical/overland/travel kind of place. In DW I really don't have to go there, I can just let the dwarf player make up some solution (I snowboard the rest of the way down!) and that's very natural. Its true, I could start playing 5e closer to this sort of style. Now FOR ME, because I have done this for 45+ years, none of this is going to matter much, but I think the DW version is going to work better 'out of the box' as it requires much less thinking about how to deploy the rules, you just do it.