The Origins of ‘Rule Zero’

Jon Peterson discusses the origins of Rule Zero on his blog. It featured as early as 1978 in Alarums & Excursions #38.

 

[TheSword]

That is not what play to find out what happens means when stated as a principle for Dungeon World. As the rulebook makes clear. (Have you read it?)

The claim is that Moves make following an adventure path very challenging because apparently moves can radically throw it of course. And therefore you should play it by ear. Having had a good look through the suggested moves I am utterly unconvinced by that claim.

Incidentally it is clear that the system does have rule zero as exemplified by Hacking the system. Suggesting moves as a good place to start.

The rules read like a bad team-building event at work. “I’ve had enough of this ogre!”

 

[TheSword]

Okay, but how does that square with running an adventure path that has a defined sequence of events? Paizo and our own ENWorld have made bank on them. If you truly never know whether things can go in any new direction, adventure paths and first-to-max campaigns don't work.

To some extent, you do know what can happen. But I would argue you are taking "play to find out what happens" to an out-of-context degree, particularly given Dungeon World's enthusiastic embrace of "fail forward" resolution. Failure has costs, preferably real and lasting ones, but that doesn't mean the path or destination is gone.

They don’t necessarily have defined sequence of events. They usually have characters and locations with aims and goals. That can be radically changed by what the PCs do.

 

[Maxperson]

They don’t necessarily have defined sequence of events. They usually have characters and locations with aims and goals. That can be radically changed by what the PCs do.

Further, the players can decide halfway through that they don't want to continue and take a jaunt over to the nearest desert and start looking for tombs.

 

[loverdrive]

You don’t believe these principles can apply to D&D?

• Portray a fantastic world
• Fill the characters’ lives with adventure
• Play to find out what happens
• Draw maps, leave blanks
• Address the characters, not the players
• Embrace the fantastic
• Describe actions not rules
• Give every monster life
• Name every person
• Ask questions and use the answers
• Be a fan of the characters
• Think dangerous
• Begin and end with the fiction
• Think offscreen, too

You don’t think D&D can play this way? I’m surprised because most of my campaigns run this way.

Could you explain how this is not possible?

You can, at least to a degree. You can even try to follow the principles of Monsterhearts and, with some effort, get a game about teenage monsters exploring and making peace with their nature, gender and sexuality, but this doesn't sound like the best idea in the world.

But that's not why I cited them. I cited them to show what other games have that D&D doesn't. D&D stops at truism "you can change naughty word if you want to", and doesn't have a framework for making rulings.

Like, yeah, with experience, you would get a grasp of the system and general good practices, but when somebody asks me "hey, I wanna try my hand at GMing 5E, got any advice?" I can't reply with "just read the book, follow the rules and everything is gonna be great".

 

[pemerton]

The claim is that Moves make following an adventure path very challenging because apparently moves can radically throw it of course. And therefore you should play it by ear. Having had a good look through the suggested moves I am utterly unconvinced by that claim.

Have you played DW, or AW, or Burning Wheel, or any other RPG that utilises some form of a "no myth' or "little myth" approach to play?

If you have, and found that you were able to run an AP-type adventure, I'd be interested to hear about it.

But in any event, successfully running Dungeon World while not playing to find out, not drawing maps while leaving blanks, and not asking questions and building on the answers, doesn't show that D&D can be played while following those principles.

 

[pemerton]

Further, the players can decide halfway through that they don't want to continue and take a jaunt over to the nearest desert and start looking for tombs.

Who gets to decide that there's a "nearest desert"? Or that it does or doesn't have tombs?

Typical D&D play answers those two questions very differently from the way that Dungeon World does when played in accordance with its principles.

 

[Maxperson]

Who gets to decide that there's a "nearest desert"?

I don't think I've seen a world without a desert, so there's bound to be a nearest one. I mean, if you're playing on a water world it would be silly for the players to try and find a desert, but they would know that and pick something else to go do.

Or that it does or doesn't have tombs?

The players. Hence "looking for tombs." There may or may not be tombs there, but that doesn't mean that the players cannot decide to go to the nearest desert and look.

Typical D&D play answers those two questions very differently from the way that Dungeon World does when played in accordance with its principles.

It may answer them differently, but it's still the players deciding to go that prompts the answer. The answer which is discovered through game play, not pre-determined.

 

[pemerton]

"Gamer's First Law: If a rule is silly, change or ignore it--just so long as everyone knows that's what your preference is ahead of time." That's got nothing to do with house-ruling the game, and everything to do with addressing the situations where the rule falls down. It certainly doesn't have anything to do with kitbashing, playtesting, or a variety of other things DMs can and should do when they desire.

A problem here is that there have (apparently always?) been two different definitions, stretching way back. In one, Rule 0 is specific: it admits the rules can't be perfect, and that DMs should do what makes sense when that happens. In this definition, other specific terms exist for the other tools in the DM's toolbox, including house-ruling, kitbashing, adjudication, etc.

<snip>

In the other definition, Rule 0 is as broad as possible: it is identical to what is in other places called the Golden Rule, "Whatever the DM says, goes."

The term pretty much stems from Step 0 of character creation in D&D 3e which is to check with the DM to see if there are any house rules for the game that impact character creation. I think this often gets conflated with White Wolf's Golden Rule which is specifically about ignoring or changing rules based on what the GM thinks is "best for the story" and Rulings Over Rules from the OSR community which about a GM making judgements about how to handle a situation based on fictional positioning, and a GM's role as arbiter/interpreter of rules of the game. These are very different conceptually.

In my view framing Rule Zero in such an expansive way is mostly about enshrining The Golden Rule using language that feels like it's an essential part of the D&D tradition and roleplaying games in general. In particular when it is farmed out as something applying to all RPGs without reference to how that particular game defines the GM role. Being able to unilaterally declare house rules, The Golden Rule, and Rulings Over Rules, GM as rules arbiter are features of some games and they are not really tied together in any way. The can exist in any combination. Absolutely none of them are required for functional RPG play. GMs are not even required.

I think these two posts are right. It's unhelpful to run together these different things - house ruling (and who is in charge of that); how fictional positioning is managed, and (related, but not the same) the role of GM judgement in adjudication; the ability of one or more participants to override the rules (when confined to the GM, this is WW's "golden rule"); who gets to pitch the "big picture" of a campaign and the extent to which other participants are expected to work with, or perhaps push against, this; etc.

I remember reading "rule zero" in the 3E PHB which, as Campbell has posted, is an aspect of the PC build process (ie check with your GM first about house rules and "big picture" of the campaign). I was puzzled when, over the course of the past 20 years reading ENworld, I started to see "rule zero" used to describe a general principle that the GM can suspend or override action resolution rules in the interests of "fun", "the campaign", etc. These are not the same thing.

 

[Maxperson]

I remember reading "rule zero" in the 3E PHB which, as Campbell has posted, is an aspect of the PC build process (ie check with your GM first about house rules and "big picture" of the campaign). I was puzzled when, over the course of the past 20 years reading ENworld, I started to see "rule zero" used to describe a general principle that the GM can suspend or override action resolution rules in the interests of "fun", "the campaign", etc. These are not the same thing.

Rule 0 is in the 3.5 DMG on page 6.

 

[pemerton]

Who gets to decide that there's a "nearest desert"? Or that it does or doesn't have tombs?

Typical D&D play answers those two questions very differently from the way that Dungeon World does when played in accordance with its principles.

I don't think I've seen a world without a desert, so there's bound to be a nearest one. I mean, if you're playing on a water world it would be silly for the players to try and find a desert, but they would know that and pick something else to go do.

The players. Hence "looking for tombs." There may or may not be tombs there, but that doesn't mean that the players cannot decide to go to the nearest desert and look.

It may answer them differently, but it's still the players deciding to go that prompts the answer. The answer which is discovered through game play, not pre-determined.

You don't have the players deciding if there are tombs. When you say there may or may not be tombs there you're implying that the GM will decide that.

And the players raising the question "Are there tombs" and then learning what the GM's answer is is by declaring actions for their PCs will prompt the GM to reveal that answer are basically the opposite of the DW approach.

Is there anyone in this thread who has played both DW and D&D and thinks that they play the same in respect of drawing maps and leaving blanks, asking questions and building on the answers, playing to find out, beginning and ending with the fiction, and describing actions and not rules? Or are those who are saying this just making it up?