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.

 

[R_Chance]

You, however, weren't the whole market. It absolutely wasn't doing everything its whole market needed, as even the ones staying with D&D were bolting things onto it regularly. If OD&D had stayed the schematic thing it was, that would have caused serious problems for its market over time...but it didn't. Within two years there was the Basic line starting, and within three AD&D had landed.

Actually wargamer / miniature gamers were the whole market for the game in 1974. It eventually spread to others. TSR sold miniature rules to miniature gamers. As for bolting things on, we expected that. I think I mentioned that pretty much every group I played the same miniature rule sets with had different house rules, even in the same town. It was typical. So, no D&Ds sparse three booklets wasn't a big deal, it was larger than most miniature rules out at the time. The individual booklets were a bit shorter, but three of them, in a box! That was BIG. Looking at the shelves full of RPG books I have right now (and the boxes of stuff I have in the closet) that is funny

OD&D had a three plus year run before Basic and AD&D came along. The original Basic D&D was a level 1-3 intro set based on D&D and Greyhawk (OD&D Supplement 1). That came out in 1977. AD&D rolled out over a three year period from 1977 to 1979. One hard back a year. That would drive people crazy now wouldn't it? The Monster Manual came first (1977), the Players Handbook second (1978) and, finally, the DMG (1979). As a complete rule set, 1979. Until then we treated the Monster Manual like we did the D&D supplements that came out in 1975-6. The PHB made some changes, but really not too much. After the full AD&D rule set was published they revamped Basic D&D... in 1981 iirc. At that point you could see the differences clearly.

Different world back then in terms of RPGs. It is absolutely huge now in comparison, and obviously much more diverse.

 

[R_Chance]

Compared to even referee overseen wargames by the same company?

Using referees in miniature wargames was pretty much an option. We did it when we could because it allowed for things like hidden movement on a battlefield and using campaign maps like wargame boards dragging out the miniatures when they met and having battles then. That added a real strategic element to the games.

 

[Hussar]

/snip
You wouldn’t expect the actor to go changing the script without getting it approved.

After all, we don’t want to go encouraging That Guy.

Umm, actually there are all sorts of the best quality actors out there who go about changing scripts, ad libbing, and outright ignoring scripts all the time.

Indiana Jones shooting sword guy in the market was 100% not in the script.

 

[TheSword]

Umm, actually there are all sorts of the best quality actors out there who go about changing scripts, ad libbing, and outright ignoring scripts all the time.

Indiana Jones shooting sword guy in the market was 100% not in the script.

In this metaphor the script is the rules of the game, not what characters do.

 

[Lanefan]

But they aren't supposed to be on the same footing in the fiction -- someone wielding a lance properly is going to have an edge over a dude struggling to operate two lances.

I meant on the same footing at the table: that everyone there is operating on the same basis as to how this two-lance business is likely to go.

There are rules and guidelines, and that's precisely why rule 0 is not necessary.

In the case of a dude with two lances (mechanical stuff is in parenthesis and italicized):
Ronald the Madman: I mount my mighty steed and grab two lances, readying for battle. (the players looks at the GM to find out what happens)
GM: That's very unwieldy and you ain't gonna use either of them with normal deadly precision. (GM makes a soft move, in this case: Show a downside to their class, race, or equipment).
Ronald the Madman: I'm going to charge into enemy lines anyway! (the player ignores the soft move, which is a Golden Opportunity to make a move as hard as the GM wishes)
GM: So, you charge and you crush a couple of orcs (the GM may ask for a damage roll if they want to, but that's not important to the point), but because you were wielding two lances, you couldn't command your mount good enough to retreat in time. Orcs surround you and pull you from the saddle and deliver some nasty blows, take 14 damage. So, what ya gonna do? (GM makes a soft move: Separate them, and a hard move: Deal damage to boot).

And this is more or less the same result you could easily get using D&D rules, though it'd be much more granularly played out with initiatives, attack rolls for each lance against each Orc*, probably some sort of roll to see what effect the horse's charge had; all along with return attack rolls by the Orcs against both horse and rider.

As a side note: I much prefer this greater level of granularity over the level in the example you provided.

* - and I for one would give that two-lance guy a stupendous chance of fumbling at every opportunity - that's just comedy waiting to happen!

Good framework and guidelines is... exactly what I'm talking about.

"You gonna make a great deal of judgement calls, and here's how to make them good" is very different from "here are rigid rules that don't require judgement calls, but you can change everything you want, but we won't tell you how to make changes good", just as "here are rules on character creation" is different from "here are your pregens, but you can come up with another character if you want to, figure it out".

I'm not arguing that we should strip the rule 0 from existing rigidly-structured games or people shouldn't be allowed to change things (lol) or something, I'm arguing that good design removes the need for an implied asterixis "*you can change this if you want" after every rule.

You quite correctly used the word 'guidelines' two or three times in your post; and it's that they're guidelines rather than rules which in part makes Rule 0 necessary: it's Rule 0 that turns guidelines in the books to rulings (and thus rules) at each individual table.

 

[aramis erak]

I think Rule 0 is about making decisions when the rules either don't exist, are otherwise inadequate for the situation at hand, or just interfere with the fun.

Seeing Gygax's own advice in dragon magazine, Gygax advocated for a somewhat toxic "punish your players for knowing the rules" approach. I often wonder how much of that was wanting the company to fail?

 

[Maxperson]

The problem you'll run into with that is the people most capable of generating opinions of the rules were wargamers; and the wargamers split pretty heavily on how accepting they were of the RPG idea. So its going to be hard to tease apart the people who disliked OD&D because the rules were crap and the ones who disliked it because they were hostile to the idea of RPGs that were also cutting into what they viewed as their turf.

On the other hand, I can't recall back in the day anyone complimenting OD&D on its rules. It was either a case of "good enough", doing their own reworks to various degrees, or, in extreme cases, writing whole new games. It wasn't until the OSR days I saw anyone seem to think much of the rules, and that was amid the pile of various editions.

Now, as always, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, but if there was a big set of respecters of the OD&D rules, they hid it pretty well. The best you'd say was that there were people who thought AD&D was bloated, but it seemed like most of those were in the B/X camp or its close kin. So if there were many people who really thought OD&D was a good rules set, they hid it pretty well, and there were plenty who clearly thought to the contrary.

That was a lot of words just to say, "no."

 

[Maxperson]

* - and I for one would give that two-lance guy a stupendous chance of fumbling at every opportunity - that's just comedy waiting to happen!

Sir Ganador, inventor of the pole vault. As a side note, not only did he invent the pole vault, but he simultaneously came up with a new way to get inside castle walls during a siege.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Actually wargamer / miniature gamers were the whole market for the game in 1974.

Not by the fall. I could point to massive chunks of active SF fandom who were playing it who'd never touched a wargame, let alone a miniatures game in their life playing it by then. It was a very well developed subset of fandom. There was some overlap of course, but I'll go as far as to say in some areas wargame players were the minority of D&D players even by then.

At the time the three original books dropped, and I'd guess for the first six months you were probably right, but the heavy spread of the game was not through wargamers, even if they were the first ones to see it.

It eventually spread to others. TSR sold miniature rules to miniature gamers. As for bolting things on, we expected that. I think I mentioned that pretty much every group I played the same miniature rule sets with had different house rules, even in the same town. It was typical. So, no D&Ds sparse three booklets wasn't a big deal, it was larger than most miniature rules out at the time. The individual booklets were a bit shorter, but three of them, in a box! That was BIG. Looking at the shelves full of RPG books I have right now (and the boxes of stuff I have in the closet) that is funny

I think there's issues of scale, however; when you have people doing whole extra subsystems and character classes, I'd be willing to bet that's beyond the degree of houseruling most wargamers were doing (though I can only speak of the hex-and-chit end of it, not the miniatures end of it).

OD&D had a three plus year run before Basic and AD&D came along. The original Basic D&D was a level 1-3 intro set based on D&D and Greyhawk (OD&D Supplement 1). That came out in 1977. AD&D rolled out over a three year period from 1977 to 1979. One hard back a year. That would drive people crazy now wouldn't it? The Monster Manual came first (1977), the Players Handbook second (1978) and, finally, the DMG (1979). As a complete rule set, 1979. Until then we treated the Monster Manual like we did the D&D supplements that came out in 1975-6. The PHB made some changes, but really not too much. After the full AD&D rule set was published they revamped Basic D&D... in 1981 iirc. At that point you could see the differences clearly.

Different world back then in terms of RPGs. It is absolutely huge now in comparison, and obviously much more diverse.

But the real buildup of the system, the place where most people were encountering it was not at the beginning of that. I also should note that there was already a great degree of third party support for the game by then, so that the upward pressure was reduced; people who found OD&D insufficient could be buying Arduin or a million more obscure add-ons, because the hobby was still small enough for that to propagate around a bit during that period.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Using referees in miniature wargames was pretty much an option. We did it when we could because it allowed for things like hidden movement on a battlefield and using campaign maps like wargame boards dragging out the miniatures when they met and having battles then. That added a real strategic element to the games.

I was being very specific, and comparing is to games that did expect a referee, because blind orders (i.e. simultaneity) were the gig.