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Message: <blockquote data-quote="clearstream" data-source="post: 9002395" data-attributes="member: 71699">The top-voted definition on stackexhange gives thisSo what is this doing? I feel like it is not contentious to say that folk here feel that all RPGs are hackable. Rule zero isn't needed to permit or enable gamers to introduce rules or exceptions to rules, or abolish old ones.So again, what is it doing? The bolded part is what's important. Following rule zero means accepting that one person can do those things and no one else can. As you pointed out, that could be Rule Birthday. So rule zero is also naming that person: it has to be the GM. This is a regulatory rule because just as traffic lights regulate the preexisting behaviour of driving a car (something that can be done whether or not traffic lights exist), rule zero regulates the exercise of a power that everyone already possesses.I think [USER=5142]@Aldarc[/USER] has blocked me which is a shame because if they saw that I was making statements that were intended to be as neutral as possible, then they might have also seen that the conversation has upheld many (perhaps not all) of their intuitions. I'm agreeing that the power to hack rules preexists rule zero (whether as a behaviour, or a principle, or some form of rule honestly doesn't matter.) And in a sense demoting rule zero in a way that focuses exactly on it's restrictive function.Obviously traffic lights aren't always a bad thing - regulations aren't always bad - except on the autobahn. Which is to say that rule zero isn't a bad thing given I am comfortable with GM-empowerment. If I have any reservations about GM-empowerment, then the construction I propose detaches the underlying power to hack from rule zero. Which as a proposition is what I would want. It means that there isn't a harbour for arguments like the one I read in a recent blog thatIn my initial draft of my first post in this particular digression, I had a postscript that explained why I was laying out the statements as I did. I deleted it fearing that folk might feel I was accusing them of constructively contradicting themselves! In hindsight, perhaps it would have forestalled much misunderstanding.</blockquote>

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