System matters and free kriegsspiel

[aramis erak]

My first exposure to "animal encounters" was Classic Traveller, and then I had played The Warlock of Firetop Mountain (and maybe some more FFGs - my memory of my childhood has faded!) before being getting Moldvay Basic in 1982. Not long after, I was exposed to White Dwarf with custom monsters.

So I don't think I ever had a strong sense of the MM as "canon" as opposed to here's some stuff that we think is good and fits our vision of the D&D setting.

I went the other direction -- Moldvay-Cook to Traveller. (With a brief stop at Star Frontiers between)... and from there, a large variety of others.
And, as we've noted before, to the 1982 TTB and US 1981 LBB editions ... I've always seen the monster lists as non-canon for any worlds other than Mystara and Oerth (D&D Known World and Greyhawk). Until the 90's, I didn't use the settings - and I only started to use them due to running games in the Retail Play program.

I see Kriegsspiel as a vital step towards RPGs, and FK as the next.

• Kriegsspiel
  • scenarios as separate from the game itself (itself an outgrowth of ideas present in training for chess by playing problems)
  • hidden information - what pass for wargames in the mid-19th century - chess and it's variants and analogs, hnaftafl, and the various Prussian boardgames - were mostly perfect information; some of the scenarios were not.
  • Genuine representation of capability - most of the other games of the era were, not unlike Feudal, more like multiple-piece-move chess variant.
• Frei Kriegsspiel
  • Actions outside the list
  • Referee determined modifiers in addition to or in replacement of rules-listed ones based upon the situation as described
  • hidden movement
    • first uses of three-board play (side A's view, Side B's view, and the Referee's view)
  • Occasionally, settings other than historical or present. (what settings weren't mentioned in the article I read).

All of these are key elements of several 1960's wargames - not all in the same game... not even to Braunstein, which is FK influenced....
Braunstein III had hidden information, capability representation, actions outside the list (printing flyers and hiring a helicopter), referee modifiers, off-board movement (the helicopter)... but it had most. In D&D, we add the missing ones, and add the potential for all players on one side, with the Referee running a wide range of adversaries.

Without Kriefsspiel, we don't get most of the 1960's wargames.
Without FK, we don't get the referee free to expand the actions and modifiers lists on the fly.
In both cases, the exact game isn't the important item, it's that a game with those qualities is pretty close to essential to get to something that looks D&Dish.

 

[clearstream]

What's the best way to answer this question in an rpg system? That is, is the role of the dm/rules in a roleplay game ever analogous to the role of umpire and rules in a kriegspiel wargame (free or not)? If not, then it would seem like your criticism of the realism of dragon flight extends to the trad approach.

Your question has many interesting aspects. I considered answers along a few lines, and ended up feeling it does more work let stand.

I think for all the emphasis put on dm trust in fkr, the more likely answer to any fiction-establishing elements would be more like, gm proposes, table confers, gm decides. High trust assumes that that conversation is not adversarial, and further that a non-adversarial social relationship among players and gm cannot be guaranteed by a set of rules or procedures.

I had an idea about why some associate trust with what they dub FK RPG. I believe the mode relies on and benefits from enhanced suspension of disbelief. Under this thesis, the group conspiracy - everyone playing along with decisions - is core to its advantages. I don't personally think of heightened SOD as a matter of more trust, but I can see how they might feel conflated.

Where players are uncertain about going along with it, a mutually accepted reference point could be useful. Right? If we were to agree on that, then kind of opposite to the concern you outline, we could expect a set of rules or procedures to be helpful. That need not lessen the amount or value of trust, but perhaps it does lower the bar for that required?

It could turn out that those associating FK with trust are casting light on one of the useful jobs done by sets of rules or procedures for a group. When a group of strangers are brought together for play that is permitted to be adversarial, trust between them can be supported by prior agreement to an objective set of rules. I recommend reading official tournament rules for games like Chess (FIDE) or Magic the Gathering to get a sense of that. If you also contemplate the few hundred pages of precise MtG rules you can see the effort needed to banish reliance upon ongoing consensus during play, given that fundamental agreement - to follow the rules - can be secured. I think here too, of neo-trad.

With historical FK, the military structure does that same work. "Yes sir!" "A dragon flies as fast as it likes, if you say so, sir!"

 

[pemerton]

I see Kriegsspiel as a vital step towards RPGs, and FK as the next.

<snip>

Without Kriefsspiel, we don't get most of the 1960's wargames.
Without FK, we don't get the referee free to expand the actions and modifiers lists on the fly.
In both cases, the exact game isn't the important item, it's that a game with those qualities is pretty close to essential to get to something that looks D&Dish.

Agreed: my default description of a RPG is that fiction matters to resolution (like some wargames including free kriegsspiel) and that the default player role is a single character located within the fictional situation so that the player moves are given that I'm here, what can I do?

But just as significant as the derivation of RPGing from wargaming including free kriegsspiel, I think, is the development of RPGing to treat the fiction as having not just representational significance (as it does in wargaming) but thematic and "story" significance. And the range of approaches and techniques that have been developed to support this.

 

[pemerton]

@clearstream, @Malmuria

If the discussion keeps going along those lines, I'll be obliged to post once again one of my favourite Vincent Baker quotes, that the essential function of RPG rules is to resolve questions of negotiations and authority over establishing the content of the shared fiction.

 

[aramis erak]

Agreed: my default description of a RPG is that fiction matters to resolution (like some wargames including free kriegsspiel) and that the default player role is a single character located within the fictional situation so that the player moves are given that I'm here, what can I do?

But just as significant as the derivation of RPGing from wargaming including free kriegsspiel, I think, is the development of RPGing to treat the fiction as having not just representational significance (as it does in wargaming) but thematic and "story" significance. And the range of approaches and techniques that have been developed to support this.

That's a step that, fundamentally, cannot happen until one exits the clade of consim wargaames. For many, that's an undersirable step, as well.

The alternatives range all the way to "let the story evolve from the gamestate"... no different from character scale minis games save the on-table representation or lack thereof... through totally "no rules apply except for these few" of AW and its closest derivatives. I tend to be near the middle of that range most of the time - Using rules to create flavor and texture to the play, and a story arising from a mixture of player, GM, and mechanical inputs... I find pure roleplay exhausting and decidedly unfun. Much as I find entirely dice play to be

 

[Numidius]

The (main?) principle of FKR philosophy is to have rules completely at Gm discretion and not player facing.
An addendum might be to develop rules as you go.

I encountered the FKR style proposers a few months ago. I was coming from Gumshoe Trail of Cthulhu scenario last year (where I stripped down the rules and went mostly conversational) and a B/X game this year, that I houseruled before & during play.

The latter culminated in a wargame style scenario with Npc factions and monsters run by my players while I refereed, occasionally asking for rolls: opposed, D20 vs TN, 2D6, advantage, whatever...

I had accumulated a lot of situations in my B/X game that needed to be resolved (derived from Pcs actions and decisions during the game), and reading some examples of play from FKR rpg/wargame, made me figure out how to run it, and not worry at all about rules. I already knew all the iterations of dnd rules, after all.

I was nearly there already, but needed one last bit of advice to realize that.
Big moment for me.

Where I differ from the FKR people is in distribution of authority, action declaration a la pemertonian burning wheel stuff and the like.

 

[darjr]

How did I miss this thread? I so want to try this. I'll come back and read the thread. In the mean time Questing Beast has video on the topic.

 

[hawkeyefan]

My feelings on this are mixed. I tend to like rules-light games, generally speaking. But I can also like complex rules. I think there's a balance...and it's probably different for everyone....where additional complexity is worth it because it adds to the enjoyment. And then there's a point where it's just there. That's all subjective.

What I don't agree with from Ben's video, and with this movement overall, is the idea that the players don't need to know the rules. That's not something I can get behind.

 

[Numidius]

How did I miss this thread? I so want to try this. I'll come back and read the thread. In the mean time Questing Beast has video on the topic.

I missed it too. I've been scrolling down quite a bit before finding it

 

[Numidius]

My feelings on this are mixed. I tend to like rules-light games, generally speaking. But I can also like complex rules. I think there's a balance...and it's probably different for everyone....where additional complexity is worth it because it adds to the enjoyment. And then there's a point where it's just there. That's all subjective.

What I don't agree with from Ben's video, and with this movement overall, is the idea that the players don't need to know the rules. That's not something I can get behind.

The(ir) reason is having players engage fully and only with the fiction, not with mechanical bits and tactics.

I see it very relevant for the "trad." Gms I personally know that don't run games (anymore) because too much time and effort is needed to learn rulesets and explain'em afterwards.
Zweihander, Mythras, WFRP4, D&D5e

I personally wouldn't run 5e because of that. I might give it a try with an FKR mindset. Where I live is the most requested to be played; by far, of course.
So, having to say "Players, do not engage with rules at my table" would be totally liberating, like off-loading a burden.

Like generating characters as usual, but only noting important stuff or extreme stat number via descriptions. Ditching any type of encumbrance rules by just asking the player: "Ok, where do keep it?"
Action economy, combat procedures, all gone and instead descriptions, declaration, tactics not looking at the sheets.
Gm decides when to roll, what, and to give dis/advantage.
Clearly, a Gm one likes and trust.
In my case, it's only me, unfortunately.