Why do RPGs have rules?

[loverdrive]

Do you mean avoiding breaking them, or breaking them?

Breaking, or at least, bending them: a ruling must be different from a rule in what it prescribes. Otherwise, well, it's not a ruling, it's just application of a rule.

 

[clearstream]

Breaking, or at least, bending them: a ruling must be different from a rule in what it prescribes. Otherwise, well, it's not a ruling, it's just application of a rule.

So if I have it right, it would be a ruling if it breaks or bends a rule. It'd also be a ruling if it fills in a gap, right?

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Are you then abandoning the formulation that says rules are about determining who gets to say what when? That's what I'm pushing back on. If you're willing to concede that only a minority of rules are about who says what (a metagame concern), and a majority are merely about what happens, then we are in agreement and can stop talking about "who".

No, I never said anything about minorities, etc. In fact what you are responding to is simply acknowledging that there may be sections of rules in an extensive game like 5e which have been written in a fairly passive mode. That doesn't mean they are effectively agnostic about who invokes them. That is either assigned by convention or determined by context. I would say that a MAJORITY of all rules, probably a vast majority, are QUITE clear about whom they enable to speak!

P.S. RE: your saving throw example, I'm sure you realize that it's not necessarily the GM asking the player to save. Friendly fire Hypnotic Patterns and Fireballs, for example, lead directly to players stating the need for a save, a DC, and effect on failure, with no detour through the GM's mouth required unless something very unusual is happening. "Who says" isn't typically important for resolving "what happens as a result?" Do you agree or disagree? If we agree we are done.

Lol. There are a lot of things in games where its pretty obvious what is going to come next. For instance, in Major League Baseball for MANY decades when there was a force play on 2nd Base, the 2nd Baseman's possession of the ball and proximity to the base was enough to cause the umpire to call the runner out. TECHNICALLY the rules require the 2nd Baseman to touch the base. This decreased injuries and made dramatic double plays more likely, so it was an unofficial rule for many years. However I believe today the official rule is being enforced.

So, yeah, OK, I cast a spell, your character is caught in it. MAYBE I say "you will have to make a WIS save" or whatever, but it is really the GM's job to call for saves, I'm just expediently carrying forward the process. All this points out is like the above baseball example, sometimes rules and practices diverge somewhat. I suspect at most tables the GM will make some indication that the other player actually needs to make that saving throw, now, like by saying "you need a 17" or whatever.

 

[Bagpuss]

One of my kids likes to play imagination games - she and her friends all pretend to be other people (often superheroes) and do exciting and interesting things.

These clearly have a lot in common with RPGing. But they don't have rules - disagreements about what happens next are just resolved by people talking it over and reaching (or sometimes not reaching) agreement.

So why do RPGs have rules?

To help with the bits I've made bold.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

No, I never said anything about minorities, etc. In fact what you are responding to is simply acknowledging that there may be sections of rules in an extensive game like 5e which have been written in a fairly passive mode. That doesn't mean they are effectively agnostic about who invokes them. That is either assigned by convention or determined by context. I would say that a MAJORITY of all rules, probably a vast majority, are QUITE clear about whom they enable to speak!

Well, then I think you're wrong to call it a "misplaced fixation", as in:

I think the fixation, which @Maxperson also has evinced, with who tosses the dice, is a bit misplaced. The GM asks the player to save. PHB P180 contains the save rule, and it certainly SEEMS written with the assumption that the player is making saves, but if the GM did roll the dice, I can't say this would 'break a rule'. OTOH it IS the rules which have told the GM to require a save, in most cases (arguably all, but my guess is there's a "you can keep stuff hidden from the players" option in the DMG somewhere). At worst we might say "sometimes the rules don't explicitly state who says X, but conventions exist, and are generally only set aside for specific reasons."

You acknowledge here that the rule doesn't care "who" rolls the dice ("I can't say this would 'break a rule'"), and though you don't acknowledge it, it doesn't matter who dictates the result ("Bob loses 3d8 HP"). The GM can override the rule, and is in fact the only one allowed to override the rule ("In this case Bob only loses 3d8/2 HP because he's underwater"), but Rule 0 is the only rule which says they can do so. The vast majority of rules in the game are unlike rule 0 and don't say anything about who can say what when. There are a minority of rules that are about the metagame and "who", such as (paraphrased) "the player can opt to spend inspiration in order for the character to gain a advantage on a save". But as for the claim that "a MAJORITY of all rules, probably a vast majority, are QUITE clear about whom they enable to speak!", nope. Count 'em. Not a majority.

P.S. If you play storygames like Hillfolk the distinction may become clearer to you because these games do care quite a lot about "who" may say what when. E.g. player A declares the next scene and who's in it and what the agenda is, player B may spend a drama token to avoid being in the scene, after the scene everybody votes on whether A's emotional agenda was achieved and that determines who gets a drama token, etc. D&D isn't like that.

 

[Maxperson]

If this counts as a ruling, then when I was ordering my latte this morning, I made a ruling. I guess every decision can be called "ruling"? But I don't really see a point in doing so.

Wouldn't that be home brew?

 

[Micah Sweet]

It's more to get at what is in character different about decisions one is calling "rulings", and decisions that one does not call "rulings" in order to see if that's largely a preference or is compelled in some way? Either way, to understand what the justification is. I think there should be - in principle at least - a concept of player-rulings.


Whether or not rulings should imply binding precedents, it seems obviously possible to make a ruling without doing so.


Good example. In Swashbuckling! I would be doing the former, right? Do you picture that MC must be consistent with their likes? [EDIT In a mirror-game where roles are flipped.] For example

Jo - I leap from the balcony where we are standing to the chandelier, swing across and exit through the tall windows.
MC - Love it!
Flo - I leap from the balcony where we are standing to the chandelier, swing across and exit through the tall windows.
MC - Nope, I dislike that.


Having run a lot of rules-light games, it is true that we tend to remember how we ruled last time. Often however, the only rulings that are persisted are those recorded as truths about characters (by their players, as notes in their character folios.)

Anyway, it's fair to say that if your definition for "rulings" is that they shall form binding precedents (perhaps by virtue of being recorded) then so long as no one writes down what they liked in Swashbuckling! you avoid counting anything said as a ruling. For now I feel like I can make rulings that are still rulings even though I don't write down or otherwise persist them. Further conversation might change that of course!

Of course, this is all preference, and no one is required to make consistent rulings. But it's certainly the way I'd rather do it, and I feel making sure the players know where they stand when outside-the-box situations (for whatever that means in your game) is worth a little time writing stuff down. It's not like it's set in stone, and if a better ruling comes around, well you write that down too.

 

[clearstream]

Of course, this is all preference, and no one is required to make consistent rulings. But it's certainly the way I'd rather do it, and I feel making sure the players know where they stand when outside-the-box situations (for whatever that means in your game) is worth a little time writing stuff down. It's not like it's set in stone, and if a better ruling comes around, well you write that down too.

One way that folk talk about rulings is filling in gaps in the rules. Another way seems to be deciding case-by-case what the written rule means.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

One way that folk talk about rulings is filling in gaps in the rules. Another way seems to be deciding case-by-case what the written rule means.

FWIW I use it the latter way: rulings are inherently case-by-case. Rules produce rulings, hopefully consistent ones.

"Bob has disadvantage on this attack" is a ruling.

"Attacking uphill on a slope of more than 45 degrees gives you disadvantage" is a rule.

 

[clearstream]

Breaking, or at least, bending them: a ruling must be different from a rule in what it prescribes. Otherwise, well, it's not a ruling, it's just application of a rule.

So to explain my thought a bit further, in 1978 a philosopher name Bernard Suits introduced the concept of the "lusory attitude" to game studies. As he put it -

"To play a game is to attempt to achieve a specific state of affairs [prelusory goal], using only means permitted by rules [lusory means], where the rules prohibit use of more efficient in favour of less efficient means [constitutive rules], and where the rules are accepted just because they make possible such activity [lusory attitude]."

There are virtues and flaws with that view (the latter hopefully won't matter here). Anyway, one thing one might say about players as players is that it suits them to adopt a lusory attitude (heh) and if they could change the rules on the fly that might put them in breach of Suits' observation. Traditionally, GM has been appointed to change rules, presumably not putting them in breach as they're not a player.

Some ideas about rules, in particular how and by whom they might be changed during play, seem to skirt either making GM a player, or voiding the lusory attitude. At the very least, some sort of balancing acts or constraints probably need to exist. So let's suppose that GM becomes a player and thus loses their making-rulings power... what then?