Why do RPGs have rules?

[Maxperson]

Could people do more to indicate which posts they’re responding to? In a very fast moving thread, posts like the ones directly above this one are unnecessarily cryptic. Thank you.

In addition to what @pemerton said, if you log out and look at the page, you can see the hidden posts so that you can gain the context of the response that is missing the quote from the person who blocked you. That allows you to respond to the poster that does not have you blocked in a way that makes sense.

Edit: Made my reply clearer.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I don't know what you have in mind here.

Think about things like keeping the map and key secret from the players (such that, say, players should not read the module in advance of play). Setting up dungeon levels (no red dragon in the first room of the first level). Designing traps and tricks so that they are detectable or otherwise fair, rather than arbitrary.

There are a host of things that a new D&D player/GM needs to learn. Moldvay Basic spells all of this out.

I simply meant there isn't one definitive way to approach it. I agree players need some guidance, but not every game will be centered on dungeons for example, some might even avoid them, but when dungeons are in play, there are different ways to map, key, plan, handle considerations like fairness, lethality, etc. I think D&D benefits from some default explanation of things like dungeons, wilderness exploration, random encounter tables, etc but it is always useful when this is framed as not the only way you can play the game.

 

[Aldarc]

It is a very different approach, unfortunately with a play goal that I don't value enough to learn that approach.

Also, they literally put a list of moves on every character sheet. To me that strongly implies that, outside of free roleplay, you should be trying to do one of those things when you engage with the game's rules. The GM has a hard list of do's and don'ts. The structure is hard-coded.

Apocalypse World was (partially) written by Vincent Baker with his wife Meguey Baker's freeform roleplay preferences in mind. There is no "free roleplay" and whatever else you are distinguishing here. There is only roleplaying your character. When your character does something in the fiction that would trigger a Move, then the GM calls for it. There are General Moves and Playbook Moves. General Moves are just things like general rules that affect all characters in D&D. Playbook Moves are similar to class features in D&D.

 

[Campbell]

I simply meant there isn't one definitive way to approach it. I agree players need some guidance, but not every game will be centered on dungeons for example, some might even avoid them, but when dungeons are in play, there are different ways to map, key, plan, handle considerations like fairness, lethality, etc. I think D&D benefits from some default explanation of things like dungeons, wilderness exploration, random encounter tables, etc but it is always useful when this is framed as not the only way you can play the game.

I find your framing (hopefully unintentionally) deceptive here. We're still fundamentally talking about the same sort of structural approach to setting design, situation design, serial exploration through the setting and action resolution. We're talking about different sorts of fiction. Not really different styles of play. At least no more different than 2 games of Burning Wheel (which exhibits the same sort of diversity in the type of fiction being explored).

Fundamentally this is part and parcel of established norms and the default structure of play being treated as privileged (being described with words like organic whereas other sorts of play get derisively labeled as artificial or bespoke). Play diversity under one structure of play gets magnified to the extreme while other structures of play get treated as these cute little bespoke games which to me is the height of elitism / snobbery.

This stuff matters a great deal to me because these deceptive claims of flexibility are used to sow doubt into people like the younger version of myself to make them believe that they are just not good enough or what they want is just impossible. It's a you problem rather than a using a game that is structurally incapable of delivering the sort of experience you are looking for problem.

Types of fictional content does not a playstyle make.

 

[clearstream]

There is an extensive literature on what rules are. The literature I'm pretty familiar with goes back to Kant, but there is obviously a literature that predates that which goes back at least to Plato. And that's without having regard to literature in non-Plato influenced traditions, in which I'm less well educated and so which I am less confident to comment on.

Framing "what are rules?" as an ontological inquiry is fraught. Wittgenstein spilled much ink arguing that this is misguided, and that the proper question is something like "What does it mean for a practice to exemplify a rule?"

Some scholars think there is utility in comparing rules across domains of human activity (eg Marmor thinks games and law can both be looked at via the relationship between rules and conventions). Others have doubts.

Here's a rule of law from the Australian Criminal Code: "A person commits an offence if the person engages in a terrorist act. Penalty: Imprisonment for life."

Here's a rule of law from the Victorian Crimes Act: "A person must not, without lawful excuse, intentionally cause serious injury to another
person in circumstances of gross violence. Penalty: Level 3 imprisonment (20 years maximum)."

Each of these two rules has a different syntax: the first is a conditional definition of a particular offence. The second is a statement of a prohibition. Neither instantiates the general form you have suggested, of extrapolating a consequence from a description. (One could insist that your form is the general one, and that these rules really have the logical form you've set out. That would require argument.)

Nor does either of these rules rest upon the rule/norm contrast you have deployed. The second, at least, seems amenable to analysis by reference to Finnis's account of the precisifying function of some legal rules. More generally, what the "ontology" of these rules are is something that is hotly debated among (inter alia) legal positivists and anti-positivists. And of course there are also scholars who argue that those "ontological" debates are meaningless or pointless.

In any event, I don't think we need to engage in these sorts of arguments - about the nature of rules; their general form, syntax and sense; their ontology or "grounding"; etc - in order to talk about RPGing.

If one reads the OP as asking Why do players of RPGs deploy normative standards for their play - which is a voluntary activity - beyond sheer socially-negotiated agreement, one will have understood the question fine and be in a position to address it.

It should be clear that I am looking at TTRPG rules. Rules generally would be far too broad a question for me, and as you say there has been much thought on that already. In my defense, this is a thread on TTRPG in a forum dedicated to TTRPGs.

I share doubts about comparing rules across domains. Although I would hold that TTRPG is a sub-domain of games, notwithstanding arguments raised earlier in the thread. Perhaps rules can't really be compared across sub-domains, as others above have opined.

 

[clearstream]

If one reads the OP as asking Why do players of RPGs deploy normative standards for their play - which is a voluntary activity - beyond sheer socially-negotiated agreement, one will have understood the question fine and be in a position to address it.

That question, taken as the focus of your OP, was the one that by my lights I grabbed hold of by suggesting a working definition for TTRPG rules.

TTRPG rules supersede pre-existing norms and extend beyond them.

That forcefulness (that superseding of what might otherwise be normal) is what Baker's use for them is relying upon. It's not enough to say the standards are normative - if that's all we wanted to do we don't need rules. It's that a rule once followed will oblige us to do what we do not want to do, including things that we hadn't thought to do up to the moment we grasped the rule.

My contention is that rules go beyond the normative to the prescriptive or enforceable*. Not "you ought to do something like this" but "do this". Normative standards is too broad because they lack forcefulness. We're interested here only in those normative standards that have the force of rules.

The why question contains an implied what? What's possible? Baker seems to say that of all the possible things we could do with the force of rules, we should do the unwanted and unwelcome. Seeing as there are many other possible things we could do with the force of rules, this is as you said just a matter of aesthetic preference.

Forcefulness is a big deal. In TTRPG we also need rules to extend beyond the normal. To say what happens in cases where we otherwise have no normative standard to deploy.** What we do with that is also down to aesthetic preference.

Being about aesthetic preferences, the why question becomes subjective; anyone answering it here will be met with other voices either endorsing or decrying their preferences. For example, I can say that subjectively, I would extend the force of rules to answering what the weather is today in an imaginary Bronze Age world where magic and gods are real. Some might endorse that, others decry it. Either way, it's absolutely true that answering questions of that sort can be a why of using rules for me as a player.

I therefore suggested or if you like re-emphasised an objective answer to your question. We use TTRPG rules for their forcefulness and capacity to extend. That's why.


*One could say that for standards to be normative entails that those standards be prescriptive or enforceable. I take it that it is possible for a standard to be normative without being prescriptive or enforceable. Either way, emphasis rightly remains on forcefulness.

**Deploying a standard could include fabricating one. I take it that it does not, but if so then emphasis rightly remains on the capacity to extend.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I find the attitude rather elitist (even if unintended) and can't stop myself from firing back.

Mod Note:

Honestly, that’s problematic. Also problematic is that you seem to demand respect for your views on gameplay but do not see to reciprocally respect the gameplay views of others. It’s clichéd, but in polite discussions, respect is a 2-way street.

Let that guide your future participation in this thread and generally on this site.

 

[pemerton]

It should be clear that I am looking at TTRPG rules. Rules generally would be far too broad a question for me, and as you say there has been much thought on that already.

So, here's a rule in Apocalypse World - it is written in a way so as to speak to the MC, and so uses the second person to refer to the GM:

The players’ job is to say what their characters say and undertake to do, first and exclusively; to say what their characters think, feel and remember, also exclusively; and to answer your questions about their characters’ lives and surroundings.​

This rules establishes a normative standard for play - a set of exclusive permissions conferred on the players (to say what their PCs say, undertake to do, think, feel, and remember), and also obligations imposed on the players (to answer questions).

It doesn't take the form of description is matched to norm/rule that yield consequence. It is about conferring permissions and obligations on participants.

Here is a rule, from 4e D&D, that superficially does have that form: if a character falls into a pit, then (everything else being equal) they land prone. But the problem with that so-called rule is that it is not a rule at all! It doesn't state any normative standard. Hence, the better view is that my statement of the 4e rule is incomplete. The true 4e rule is that: if the participants agree that a character falls into a pit, then they are obliged (if everything else is equal) to agree that the character has landed prone. When stated correctly, as a normative standard, we see that this rule, too, is about conferring obligations on participants.

Like all game rules, RPG rules establish normative standards to which participants voluntarily agree to hold themselves - or, to put it another way, standards by which they voluntarily agree to be bound. Sometimes we state the rules in an elliptical fashion - eg a queen in chess can move any number of squares but the correct statement of the rule will make clear what the standard is - eg a player who is making a move in chess may move their queen any number of squares.

To reiterate: Working out the general form of RPG rules is not hard. Like other game rules, their general form is to confer permissions in respect of, or establish prohibitions on, the conduct of the participants in their capacity as players of the game.

(There is an alternative way of stating the rules of chess, in a quasi-mathematical fashion as constituting a set of possible game-states. In this form of stating them, normative standards that confer permissions instead become statements of possibility that underpin the construction of the set of possible game-states. Perhaps something like this is possible for a very simple D&D combat, or even a very simple dungeon crawl. It's not possible for a 4e skill challenge, or for the play of AW. Hence the approach to RPG rules as stating normative standards for participants is the more fundamental. Which is Vincent Baker's point when he says "So look, you! Mechanics might model the stuff of the game world, that's another topic, but they don't exist to do so. They exist to ease and constrain real-world social negotiation between the players at the table. That's their sole and crucial function.")

 

[clearstream]

So, here's a rule in Apocalypse World - it is written in a way so as to speak to the MC, and so uses the second person to refer to the GM:

The players’ job is to say what their characters say and undertake to do, first and exclusively; to say what their characters think, feel and remember, also exclusively; and to answer your questions about their characters’ lives and surroundings.​

This rules establishes a normative standard for play - a set of exclusive permissions conferred on the players (to say what their PCs say, undertake to do, think, feel, and remember), and also obligations imposed on the players (to answer questions).

It doesn't take the form of description is matched to norm/rule that yield consequence. It is about conferring permissions and obligations on participants.

Are you a player (description)? Yes? Great, this is what you should go on to do. The rule tells you the consequences of being a player. It supersedes and possibly extends whatever you might think players normally do.

Here is a rule, from 4e D&D, that superficially does have that form: if a character falls into a pit, then (everything else being equal) they land prone. But the problem with that so-called rule is that it is not a rule at all! It doesn't state any normative standard. Hence, the better view is that my statement of the 4e rule is incomplete. The true 4e rule is that: if the participants agree that a character falls into a pit, then they are obliged (if everything else is equal) to agree that the character has landed prone. When stated correctly, as a normative standard, we see that this rule, too, is about conferring obligations on participants.

The normative standard is falling prone. This is made obvious by the possibility of further rules that supersede that. If by conferring obligations you mean that the rule is forceful, then we're in accord.

 

[pemerton]

That question, taken as the focus of your OP, was the one that by my lights I grabbed hold of by suggesting a working definition for TTRPG rules.

TTRPG rules supersede pre-existing norms and extend beyond them.

<snip>

In TTRPG we also need rules to extend beyond the normal. To say what happens in cases where we otherwise have no normative standard to deploy.

This is not a working definition for TTRPG rules.

For instance, there is no normal, and no pre-existing norm, in the context of shared fiction creation, about who gets to say what happens when Derrik falls into a pit, or when Marie opens her brain to the psychic maelstrom.

That forcefulness (that superseding of what might otherwise be normal) is what Baker's use for them is relying upon. It's not enough to say the standards are normative - if that's all we wanted to do we don't need rules. It's that a rule once followed will oblige us to do what we do not want to do, including things that we hadn't thought to do up to the moment we grasped the rule.

My contention is that rules go beyond the normative to the prescriptive or enforceable*. Not "you ought to do something like this" but "do this".

Your last sentence presupposes some interesting difference between a modal operator - you ought to do such-and-such - and an imperative - do such-and-such. There is an extensive literature on the semantics and pragmatics of both sorts of locution. It is very interesting, but tells us absolutely ZERO about RPGing.

As for the posited contrast between "standards that are normative" and "rules" - there is no such contrast. A rule is a normative standard. (See eg Hart's extensive discussion in The Concept of Law.) And of course one standard (though contentious) analysis of the imperative speech act is that it presupposes a type of authority (ie normative) relation obtaining between speaker and addressee, such that the former is entitled (another normative notion!) to command the latter!

Normative standards is too broad because they lack forcefulness.

Really? Thou shat not kill! lacks forcefulness? The rules I quoted from the Australian statute books lack forcefulness?

Baker seems to say that of all the possible things we could do with the force of rules, we should do the unwanted and unwelcome.

No, this is not what he says.

He says that, in a voluntary activity aimed at the collective creation, sustaining and development of a shared fiction, the only reason to introduce rules rather than simply to just proceed by way of social negotiation is because rules permit the introduction of the unwanted and unwelcome. Because anything else - ie anything that is neither unwanted nor unwelcome - can be introduced into the fiction by sheer cooperation.

That is not a statement about what anyone should do with rules. It is a statement about why people have a reason to erect a system of rules
in this voluntary, cooperative activity.

I can say that subjectively, I would extend the force of rules to answering what the weather is today in an imaginary Bronze Age world where magic and gods are real. Some might endorse that, others decry it. Either way, it's absolutely true that answering questions of that sort can be a why of using rules for me as a player.

It's telling, to me at least, that the rule you hint at, about rolling on a random weather table, does not take your mooted form. It doesn't say anything about "norms" or "extending norms" or "descriptions leading via rules to consequences."

Rather, it directs a game participant how to establish some shared fiction, namely, by carrying out the mechanical procedure of rolling some dice and then correlating the result of that roll with an entry on a table. It establishes a normative standard which must be satisfied if someone's statement about what the weather is is to be accepted as part of the shared fiction.