The Trouble With Rules Discussions

TwoSix

Master of the One True Way
Sorry, what's a "Portal Gun"? I think I'm missing a myth or trope!
The classic video games "Portal" (2007) and "Portal 2" (2011), where the gameplay revolves around using a "Portal Gun" that can create breaches in space to solve a series of challenging physics-based puzzles.

The two most recent Zelda games "Breath of the Wild" (2017) and "Tears of the Kingdom" (2023) are another set of examples of games oriented around using open-ended magical tools to solve physics-based puzzles.
 

log in or register to remove this ad

pemerton

Legend
The classic video games "Portal" (2007) and "Portal 2" (2011), where the gameplay revolves around using a "Portal Gun" that can create breaches in space to solve a series of challenging physics-based puzzles.

The two most recent Zelda games "Breath of the Wild" (2017) and "Tears of the Kingdom" (2023) are another set of examples of games oriented around using open-ended magical tools to solve physics-based puzzles.
I'm not familiar with any of these games (or any video games, really) so am not sure would it would mean to adapt this sort of play to D&D magic items.
 

TwoSix

Master of the One True Way
I'm not familiar with any of these games (or any video games, really) so am not sure would it would mean to adapt this sort of play to D&D magic items.
I would say it's more of an issue of player expectation, rather than a case of that gameplay can or should be adapted.

D&D has a long history of magic items that I tend to think of "toys". Decanter of Endless Water, the Apparatus of Kwalish, Immovable Rods. Being familiar with more open-ended "sandbox" video games just primes players to think in terms of "how far can I push these capabilities", but it's not like that behavior is novel.
 

aramis erak

Legend
I'm not really talking about arguing with one's own group though. Often, when discussing with people I don't play with (such as on the internet), you'll see a discussion where person A says "this is how the game is played".

Person B will reply with "that's not supported by the rules."

And person A fires back with "I recognize the designers made a decision. But given that it's a stupid-ass decision, I've elected to ignore it. This is how the game was played, and anyone who says otherwise is lying".
And that is a troll getting to you.

As for your claims of near universality of house ruling... I've met as many who don't as who do.

And OSR GMs in both sides...

Some OSR groups don't worry about continuity of rules; the GM makes a call, they go with it, next week, the GM makes a different call for a nearly identical situation, and they have no issue. Nothing rises to the formality of a house rule. (I cannot run that way... beyond a one shot.)
Sorry, what's a "Portal Gun"? I think I'm missing a myth or trope!
Basically, it's a gun of at-will dimension door. You can place the opening and the exit separate locations. In the games, you use these portals to move self, enemies, and to use scenery objects as weapons and/or access tools. There is a LOS limit on placement.
 

Bill Zebub

“It’s probably Matt Mercer’s fault.”
Suppose that the GM had decided that open outreached hands are taken as an insult by hobgoblins, and so had applied a penalty to the roll. I think that would be pretty outrageous!

I wouldn't find that outrageous at all. To me that would be the GM spontaneously adding some color on cultural variations, in a kind of funny way. As a player I would assume that, if the GM had invented that spontaneously, it was for a good reason.

I do recognize that some GMs abuse that kind of authority, and use it to become adversarial with the players. My solution to that is to not play with those GMs.

Whereas suppose the GM had introduced that fiction to explain the poor reaction result,

I'll interrupt here to say that I'm also a huge fan of doing this sort of thing post-roll, and encourage players to do the same. "I failed because..."

then that would be integrating the unfolding fiction, plus the result of the roll, in a way that produces something interesting, has the sort of surprise you talked about (albeit for a gesture rather than an item, but hopefully you can see the point nevertheless), but doesn't involve the GM just springing a hosing on the players.

The more general point is this, I think: declaring actions for their character is the most common and important sort of "move" that players make when playing a RPG. Having the GM just decide that things fail will tend to be a let down, or even experienced as adversarial. Whereas in a game that uses luck (ie dice rolls) to help determine whether moves succeed or fail, losing because you rolled badly is part of the game.

I haven't quite thought through how this would work in the context of a magic item - the obvious way would be for use of the item to require a roll, and then to build up the fiction around failed rolls, but that may not work for D&D.

Still, I hope you can see what I'm getting at, in contrasting play of the game with storytelling.

Oh, I totally see the contrast between 'play of the game' and 'storytelling', but I just don't care as much about the distinction. I don't want a game that is ALL storytelling, but I'm flexible on where the boundary appears.

For example, I think you would agree that the GM is free to decide how many hobgoblins are in the band, and what kind of mood they are in already, without following "rules" to determine those things. I think you are suggesting that proper boundary is between "the setting" and "results of player actions". Is that correct? If so, I do see how that's a convenient (maybe the only?) place where the boundary can be precisely defined. So if one has a preference to limit "storytelling instead of rules" that's a good place to draw the line.

I am just not as personally vested in that distinction. I don't mind GMs making executive decisions if they (in their...cough...infinite wisdom) think it results in more fun and better story.

For me the important boundary...and you and I have talked about this as well...is that my character's thoughts and attempted actions are mine and mine alone, and the GM is limited to determining, using whatever method he/she chooses, whether they succeed or fail. As long as I am free to smile at the hobgoblins and hold out my hands, without the GM saying, "Your character wouldn't do that..." then I'm good. Any exceptions to the contrary is where I expect there to be explicit rules, such as mind-control spells, pre-determined monster abilities, etc.
 

Blue

Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal
Your experience is so foreign to anything I have with RPGs in the past few decades.

First, house rules need to be communicated by the DM, hopefully before play such as Session 0 or a handout before character creation. And then there cannot be the loggerheads you describe. It just cannot exist. "We play like this." "Sure, but not at this table - it's either RAW or these houserules, which you knew about." There literally is no place for those loggerheads to exist.

I can see it more possible for a DM making a Ruling, but that's explicitly for a corner case the rules aren't covering well. One of my usual Session 0 is that players are free to bring up rules and disagree, but if we can't come to a conclusion within 5 minutes, and it's not something like killing a character, then I'll make an interim ruling and we can address it after the session. No loggerheads possible, since it's already been agreed to.

Also the "pages of houserules" isn't something I've seen since AD&D 2nd. Frankly, there are so many RPGs out there that who would ever play in a game with pages of house rules - just find a ruleset that fits. With zero excuse of "but we like/familiar/want to play D&D" because your actions say you don't.

Your example loggerhead is "A DM gave me the wrong information, telling me the effect was as a spell, so I argued for that with another DM instead of what the item actually did". You weren't even wrong, the first DM who referred you to the spell was. If the rules are kept from you and then misrepresented, you aren't at a loggerhead for rules discussion, you're stuck because you've been misinformed. Whole different argument. If you had access to the actual rules, none of that would have happened.

Basically, none of this is something that I can even imagine happening honestly at any table I've played at in the past two decades, which includes multiple groups and public tables at a D&D club.
 

pemerton

Legend
I think you would agree that the GM is free to decide how many hobgoblins are in the band, and what kind of mood they are in already, without following "rules" to determine those things.
In the example of play, the Moldvay rules are followed for number appearing and creature reactions. If I sat down to play a game of classic D&D, I would expect the GM to follow those conventions for handling wandering monsters - otherwise it's pretty hard for the players to demonstrate their skilled play.

If the game was (say) Burning Wheel then it's a completely different kettle of fish. There are no random encounters, and the basis on which decisions are made about who is met, and in what mood, is quite different.

Some RPGs are less clear than either Moldvay Basic or Burning Wheel, in setting out principles that should govern scene-framing. Back in the day, I was probably inconsistent and less than fully skilled in making those sorts of decisions. These days, I do my best to apply some principled approach, that seems to fit well with the rest of the game: eg I use Apocalypse World-type principles to guide me in GMing Classic Traveller; I use BW-esque principles in Cthulhu Dark; etc.
 

Bill Zebub

“It’s probably Matt Mercer’s fault.”
In the example of play, the Moldvay rules are followed for number appearing and creature reactions. If I sat down to play a game of classic D&D, I would expect the GM to follow those conventions for handling wandering monsters - otherwise it's pretty hard for the players to demonstrate their skilled play.

I don't think I understand what you are saying. It sounds like that leaves no room for GMs to write their own adventures, or make up their own monsters.

I'm also confused about how you are defining "skilled" play. If I ignore the wandering monster table and instead of 2-8 Hobgoblins I pick 20, and instead of "neutral" I pick "hostile", there is still plenty of opportunity (and more urgency!) to demonstrate skilled play. Unless 'skilled play' means 'knowing the rules so well that you know when hobgoblins are rolled on the wandering monster table you also know that their disposition will be neutral...'

Since you're pretty thoughtful about all these things, I suspect I'm just not understanding you.
 

Doesn't matter. You are ignoring the reasons why a GM might feel the need to make such a call in order to attack the call they made based on the irrelevant excuse rather than trying to justify why shooting from walls & ceilings while moving is not terrible for the game as described in the post you quoted.

I literally explained it.

"Physics nothing, gravity was the excuse to counter what would have obviously forced an immediate choice between adversarial encounter design or ignoring how one PC deciding to godmode through every indoor encounter impacts the fun of the other players" That part should be pretty clear as both choices are bad for the overall health & fun at the table where there is at least one player other than the rogue.

I didn't stop there though & connected a few other dots you are overlooking the statement immediately following . "The very fact that the rouge was using a sling when no player uses a sling unless they have no better option even hints that "ok I'll use a sling" very well may have been the first step in adversarial loophole seeking when the GM said don't along the lines of "but your thrown daggers is down there and quivers tend to empty when turned upside down."


yes it was a 2e game and my statement remains true because they had better options
One of those options being the shortbow that would rely on the quiver I mentioned. Either way it doesn't matter because having one player at the table running around in combats with the previously described godmode is still bad for the game in ways previously described

This No True Scottsman style Real GM belt buckle thumping is simply not relevant & continues to avoid the very real game health reasons why a GM might make a call like the one described in order to complain about it based on the in fiction excuse used to hang the call on.
I teach argumentation for a living and if you wrote anything like this for a paper in my class you'd get an F.
 

James Gasik

We don't talk about Pun-Pun
Your experience is so foreign to anything I have with RPGs in the past few decades.

First, house rules need to be communicated by the DM, hopefully before play such as Session 0 or a handout before character creation. And then there cannot be the loggerheads you describe. It just cannot exist. "We play like this." "Sure, but not at this table - it's either RAW or these houserules, which you knew about." There literally is no place for those loggerheads to exist.

I can see it more possible for a DM making a Ruling, but that's explicitly for a corner case the rules aren't covering well. One of my usual Session 0 is that players are free to bring up rules and disagree, but if we can't come to a conclusion within 5 minutes, and it's not something like killing a character, then I'll make an interim ruling and we can address it after the session. No loggerheads possible, since it's already been agreed to.

Also the "pages of houserules" isn't something I've seen since AD&D 2nd. Frankly, there are so many RPGs out there that who would ever play in a game with pages of house rules - just find a ruleset that fits. With zero excuse of "but we like/familiar/want to play D&D" because your actions say you don't.

Your example loggerhead is "A DM gave me the wrong information, telling me the effect was as a spell, so I argued for that with another DM instead of what the item actually did". You weren't even wrong, the first DM who referred you to the spell was. If the rules are kept from you and then misrepresented, you aren't at a loggerhead for rules discussion, you're stuck because you've been misinformed. Whole different argument. If you had access to the actual rules, none of that would have happened.

Basically, none of this is something that I can even imagine happening honestly at any table I've played at in the past two decades, which includes multiple groups and public tables at a D&D club.
Coughs. Well, uh, actually, I have nine pages of houserules for my current 5e game myself, not including the Stronghold rules I cobbled together over the last couple weeks, which take up fifteen pages...
 

Remove ads

Top