Jon Peterson discusses the origins of Rule Zero on his blog. It featured as early as 1978 in Alarums & Excursions #38.
Or perhaps you are vastly underestimating the role that nostalgia, price point, nearly ubiquitous market availability, and mass familiarity play in popularity and sales. IME, Monopoly is rarely, if ever, considered a "fun game." Games of Monopoly are rarely finished: they are endured until someone (or everyone) decides to quit. Again IME, it's more often than not the used, banged-up game with missing pieces that people have sitting covered in dust on their shelves for lack of better alternatives that is then forgotten once people are exposed to other games. But I doubt that there is anything I can do to stop you from making fallacious ad populum arguments: I guess there must be something you find fun about those arguments too that I don't understand.
Nope, that's just an easy way for designers to say "ok, do whatever you want, I'm done here". What actually makes game flexible is a solid, understandable framework and loose tolerances.Rule 0 would seem to be part of what makes a game system flexible such that it can handle a greater variety of playstyles, game types, and other demands GMs and-or players my put on it.
My nickname is Loverdrive. It's Overdrive, but with a little pinch of Love. But that's beside the point.Complexity is not a vice when the complexity is fun. People like choices. When rules are homogenized into generic terms like has been described by Lowerdrive (and to a lesser extent 4e) any choice becomes no choice because there are no more meaningful differences.
I think this is where I see a noticeable difference between those who are publishers and game designers and those who just play for enjoyment. Your perspective is invariably influenced by the fact that you design game rules and see them as something that needs improving with your own take on how that should be done based on your ideas and the games you’ve had access to. You have an inherently wider tolerance for change than I do.Nope, that's just an easy way for designers to say "ok, do whatever you want, I'm done here". What actually makes game flexible is a solid, understandable framework and loose tolerances.
Dungeon World that doesn't have rule 0, but has comprehensive GM Agenda and GM Principles is more flexible than, say, D&D 5E. You want to play a high-magic fantasy with floating ships and enormous cities, lit up by arcane lamps and with glorious Academy of Natural Philosophy, where illusionists give mind-blowing shows every now and then? It works. You want to play a low-magic game, where magic is a power beyond mere human comprehension and each wizard risks tearing the Veil between the world of the living and the world of the dead with each cast spell? It works too. You make the same Moves with accordance to the same Principles, but within different fictional contexts -- in a world of ubiquouts and well-understood magic, consequence for failing to cast a spell properly probably would be something along the lines of "While you were citing magical formulas, an ork archer shot his bow at you. What ya gonna do?", but not "You feel air around you go cold, the arcane vibrations of your spell attracted something that doesn't belong to this world. In a split-second, a horrendous canine creature, dreaded Hound of Tindalos, forms from the nearest corner and latches on your leg. What ya gonna do?".
Or, maybe you want to play a superhero game, where people are thrown through brick walls, get smacked by sledgehammers and then get up and fight, maybe bruised slightly? It works -- you just don't use long-term injuries as consequences. But in a gritty game, where ribs break, lungs get punctured, internal bleedings makes people pass out -- you do, and the system works too.
You don't make any alterations to the rules, but you make alterations to the fiction.
In a more rigidly-structured game, like, again D&D 5E (or 3.5, or AD&D 2E, or even White Box), you'd either need to brew some new rules at home, or to apply ad-hoc patches with rule zero, because there's no flexibility and no framework that goes beyond "just figure it out".
My nickname is Loverdrive. It's Overdrive, but with a little pinch of Love. But that's beside the point.
It's a false dichotomy. Simple, fiction-first games can (and do, actually, the point of fiction-first approach is to maximize amount of meaningful choices) contain choices. Complex, rules-first games can have absolutely pointless choices.
In 5E, difference between a Battleaxe and a Longsword is nonexistent, they both are Versatile weapons that deal the same damage of the same type. In Dungeon World, there's a significant difference, because Longsword and Battleaxe are inherently different weapons -- you can't halfsword and axe and you can't pull down ork's shield with a sword.
Or, a rapier or a shortsword is just plain better than a dagger as a main weapon for rogue -- it's not a meaningful choice too, because the winner is obvious. In Dungeon World? Good luck using a rapier when you're held in a chokehold by a dwarven wrestler, while grabbing a dagger from your belt can certainly work.
The thing is, any kind of rule that strives to represent fiction is inevitably going to lose some context, no matter how complex. But when you have a solid framework and a human using said framework, you can meaningfully represent even the difference between sok tat and sok ngat (both are elbow blows from muay tai), let alone something as obvious as difference between a spear and a sword.
The thing is, rule 0 is used for exactly that purpose -- to meaningfully represent fiction when the rules fail to do so.
Here's a quick fix for 5E attacking rules:
When you make an attack against a creature, and you're willing and able to inflict serious harm, roll +Attack bonus. If the result is equal or higher than the target's AC, they take damage equal to your weapon's Damage stat.
Puff! Now you don't need to invoke rule zero when someone completely caught in Web is trying to swing their sword, which seems absolutely ridiculous -- because now they are not able to inflict serious harm.
Maybe it does, and probably it has a dozen or hundred other changes that the DM doesn't want to make. Games tend to be very different from one another and most changes are minor, not major.I think what was meant is that if a Game Master were to Rule Zero a game (perhaps with a lot of rule changes), then perhaps there is another game that addresses the problem the GM is trying to solve.
Calvinball is a game with no rules. Rule 0 is primarily used to change a few rules, so 99+% of the game rules are still going to be shared. You won't have wasted your money if you play a game and find out that Halflings have been given darkvision.I took @pemerton to mean that the rules, as contained in a rule book that both players and GM have purchased, constitute a shared set of rules that everyone has (and hopefully have familiarised themselves with), and a GM who has chosen to change a number of rules can surprise the players because they expected to be playing Game X, not Game sort-of-X-but-with-these-quote-fixes-end-quote. This is likely more pertinent to a group of people who have just met than a group that has been together for a few years, but I wager there have been a few groups surprised by their GM presenting their list of rule fixes to a game on the first day.
Plus if I were to have purchased game, I'd like to play it as is otherwise I might feel that I've wasted good money.
Totally agree. Calvinball is an expression I usually see used by people who expect an unreasonable amount of perfection in a game system. For me 1% wrong is pretty good going. I can adapt to/ignore/change 1% wrong. I could probably go up to 5% wrong. I can enjoy the game for the 95-99% I like.Maybe it does, and probably it has a dozen or hundred other changes that the DM doesn't want to make. Games tend to be very different from one another and most changes are minor, not major.
Calvinball is a game with no rules. Rule 0 is primarily used to change a few rules, so 99+% of the game rules are still going to be shared. You won't have wasted your money if you play a game and find out that Halflings have been given darkvision.
@loverdrive also got it wrong when she said that Rule 0 is for rules forward games. It's actually used more for her style of gameplay. She once gave an example in a thread where the DM ignored a rule, because it would be cool for the scene if the rule didn't take effect like it was supposed, and the game was about cool story. That's a prime example of Rule 0 in play. Ignoring/changing/adding to the rules to make a cool scene like roleplay forward gameplay likes to do, uses Rule 0 far more often than a rules forward game does. People liking rules forward games tend to stick to the rules more often and use Rule 0 less.Rule 0 isn’t a patch. It’s a foundation, that reminds us that this is a creative game that shouldn’t be limited if a written rule doesn’t make sense in that moment for that GM.
The niche games may have different approaches. They are still niche and as long as they remain so they aren’t a reasonable comparison. Obviously there are other things that make D&D more satisfying for people to play than Fate.
Your opinion about rule 0 is not a fact. It's also not a patch, but rather a DM tool. There's a difference.And that doesn't change the fact that rule 0 itself is an ad-hoc patch (and each application of it is an ad-hoc patch too) either.
And I think your posts say more about your feelings towards D&D than anything substantive about Rule Zero.I think your feelings about Monopoly say more about you than they do about the game to be honest.
I think this is where I see a noticeable difference between people who can't handle any criticism of games they like and those who can.I think this is where I see a noticeable difference between those who are publishers and game designers and those who just play for enjoyment.
I am no designer so you will have to find a different excuse to dismiss my opinion as you are doing now with Loverdrive's. I like playing different card games, board games, video games, and TTRPG games because I also like cultivating different gaming experiences and some games are better suited for certain play styles, game types, etc. than other games. Simple as that. But the idea that Rule Zero is somehow necessary to run any TTRPG seems absolutely ridiculous given the sheer number of TTRPGs of various complexity, genre, or system that do not fall back on this notion and work swimmingly well.I suspect that’s a different approach to a designers desire to see as many different systems as possible to broaden knowledge.
Because it's how most other games already operate. The thousands of house rule variations of Monopoly, again for example, did not require Rule Zero to empower. People simply did it, and then Milton Bradley was super surprised to learn from their own internal research that people were not necessarily playing with the rules as written.I find claims that a base rule of flexibility is redundant to be bizarre.
I think Monopoly is a fantastic game. I especially love when I win a free fries or Big Mac. I never seem to be able to get the third property to win the car, though. I think the game is rigged.Or perhaps you are vastly underestimating the role that nostalgia, price point, nearly ubiquitous market availability, and mass familiarity play in popularity and sales. IME, Monopoly is rarely, if ever, considered a "fun game." Games of Monopoly are rarely finished: they are endured until someone (or everyone) decides to quit. Again IME, it's more often than not the used, banged-up game with missing pieces that people have sitting covered in dust on their shelves for lack of better alternatives that is then forgotten once people are exposed to other games. But I doubt that there is anything I can do to stop you from making fallacious ad populum arguments: I guess there must be something you find fun about those arguments too that I don't understand.