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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Enrahim2" data-source="post: 8999990" data-attributes="member: 7039850">And here I think the key to our communication problem might be <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> I am one of those having argued D&D's flexibility over for instance dungeon world or burning wheel. And that has purely been on the trivial basis of D&D handing explicit rules control to the DM.If a group decides to hand rules control over to the GM in dungeon world or burning wheel, this would be a trivial act in your words, and would indeed "elevate" those two games to the same flexibility class in my eyes as D&D.My point is that while it might be trivial in terms of words needed, I believe those few words has profound effects on how the game would be percieved, played, and should be analysed. And this is what I think also the no rule zero proponents recognized.To illustrate how this could have profound effect, let me make another shot at explaining how this connects with the topic at hand - the DM having control over the fiction/worldbuilding. The thread starter started by describing how he during a D&D session voluntarily released control over some of this. The framing was the benefits of less DM control. The conversation then pensed onto systems that claim to give their GMs less control. And I believe those claims to be true.However a requirement for that claim to be true is as far as I can see that the GM is not granted control over the rules and procedures of play. If the game grants the GM the procedural power, any guarantees the game otherwise tried to put in place to ensure players having a word in the worldbuilding could validly become overruled as part of valid accepted play.Another buzz concept at the forge period was the concept of system guaranteeing player rights, and protection against the GM. The absence of rule zero is absolutely essential for that to make any sense. Once you do the "trivial" act of grafting on rule zero to the activity, you have changed the nature of the game to such an extent that the system no longer can provide that design value at all.So it might be that indeed from a practical standpoint given how rule zero is actually practiced, and the fact that a group can decide to override any design (and often do) - rule zero is indeed quite empty. However at least theoreticans in the past appear to have found it to be an important concept to take into account when trying to design around power dynamics at the table. When it come to flexibility analysis it is however not as obvious that it in general is relevant. Position 4 in my previous post (flexibility should be analysed as if rule zero is not invoked - just ignore that) is a valid one, and seem to be closest to the position you are advocating from as I see it? From that standpoint I agree D&D is rigid.My stance has been that as the main variables we are talking about is flexibility as a function of DM control, rule zero shouldn't be ignored - hence my position 2 analysis (allowing for any addition not conflicting with player accessible rules, but no changing of them) indicate high flexibility compared with basically any system that we are not allowing for any changes or addition to those rules.And of course if you allow for addition of any rules not conflicting with known rules to non-rule zero games the flexibility analysis might become different again. But then the comparison again seem to lose the GM control variable, so it is hard to see how that exersice would say anything about the effects of GM control? After all, wasn't the reason flexibility was brought in as a topic in this thread in the first place, that someone made the claim that a design cost of limiting GM control could be loss of flexibility? (My memory is a bit hazy, so I might have gotten this wrong. Not having time to dig for the origin now :/)And again, thank you for insightful comments! It really help me clear my own thoughts. I also hope this helps you see something you might not have seen as clearly before!</blockquote>

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