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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 8999500" data-attributes="member: 82106">I guess I am not at all sure what it is exactly that 'rule 0' is good for. I mean, at any given table the participants in the game can decide to defer to the GM (or even someone else) as they see fit. Furthermore, the GM, regardless of what is written, can only exercise authority over the table which the other participants are willing to give them. Thus, IME, the concept of rule 0 is really kind of empty. It is more simply a fairly aggressive statement of an expected idea of how the designer imagines things working. Likewise the non-existence of a rule 0 in no way precludes the participants from deferring to the GM (or whomever) as they wish. Again, its non-existence is, perhaps, evidence of a certain orientation in the designer's mind (but maybe not, negative evidence being hard to interpret and all). The upshot being I'm pretty much drastically skeptical of any statement that there even ARE any meaningful categorizations of games into 'rule 0' and 'non-rule 0' categories to start with (while admitting you can certainly sort them textually this way). I might be more amenable to the notion that there are 2 categories of games, ones where it would be POSSIBLE to state a rule 0 without fundamentally undermining the concept of how the game works, and those where it is not possible. But maybe even more to the point, I reject the notion that there is some 'range of experience' which rule 0 somehow enables! Now, your scenario above might in fact 'break the rules of' games like Dungeon World, etc. However, I don't think that's really a problem. I mean, setting aside whether this would be a good thing to have happen in such a game, if the GM is a fan of the characters, etc. then what's the problem? Why does rule 0 somehow make this work, but it won't in DW? I would do something more interesting in DW, but handing over my character to the GM so they can tell a story about him for 5 minutes, not a biggy!</blockquote>

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