Why do RPGs have rules?

[clearstream]

Well, I don't see how it is going to happen otherwise. Principles and procedural cues regulate who can speak, about what. By definition, they don't compel anyone to generate any particular content.

Indeed. Implying that freeform can't compel the unwelcome and unwanted.

A possibility I've entertained is that were GM counted among lusory-means and not counted among players, then they could compel the unwelcome and unwanted for all those to whom that would matter (i.e. the players.)

 

[pemerton]

Indeed. Implying that freeform can't compel the unwelcome and unwanted.

From the OP:

So why do RPGs have rules?

Some of the best answers to this question that I know come from Vincent Baker (here, here and here):

if all your formal rules do is structure your group's ongoing agreement about what happens in the game, they are a) interchangeable with any other rpg rules out there, and b) probably a waste of your attention. Live negotiation and honest collaboration are almost certainly better. . . .

As far as I'm concerned, the purpose of an rpg's rules is to create the unwelcome and the unwanted in the game's fiction. The reason to play by rules is because you want the unwelcome and the unwanted - you want things that no vigorous creative agreement would ever create. And it's not that you want one person's wanted, welcome vision to win out over another's - that's weak sauce. No, what you want are outcomes that upset every single person at the table. You want things that if you hadn't agreed to abide by the rules' results, you would reject.

If you don't want that - and I believe you when you say you don't! - then live negotiation and honest collaboration are a) just as good as, and b) a lot more flexible and robust than, whatever formal rules you'd use otherwise.

The challenge facing rpg designers is to create outcomes that every single person at the table would reject, yet are compelling enough that nobody actually does so. If your game isn't doing that, like I say it's interchangeable with the most rudimentary functional game design, and probably not as fun as good freeform.​

So I don't think any new results are being reached here.

A possibility I've entertained is that were GM counted among lusory-means and not counted among players, then they could compel the unwelcome and unwanted for all those to whom that would matter (i.e. the players.)

A GM with relatively unlimited narrative power can always introduce content that will shock the players: this would be an instance of what Baker calls "weak sauce" and what Tuovinen calls GM Story Hour.

 

[clearstream]

From the OP:
So I don't think any new results are being reached here.

If principles can compel behaviour, which ad arguendo I take to be feasible, one cannot so readily exclude the possibility of principles that compel players to say the unwelcome and unwanted. Or to put it another way, what strategy can be suggested for decisively ruling out of possibility principles that compel behaviour, the said behaviour being the saying of the unwelcome and unwanted?

A GM with relatively unlimited narrative power can always introduce content that will shock the players: this would be an instance of what Baker calls "weak sauce" and what Tuovinen calls GM Story Hour.

I'm not thinking of narrative power. I'm thinking of a GM doing the job otherwise (or also) done by mediating cues.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

If principles can compel behaviour, which ad arguendo I take to be feasible, one cannot so readily exclude the possibility of principles that compel players to say the unwelcome and unwanted. Or to put it another way, what strategy can be suggested for decisively ruling out of possibility principles that compel behaviour, the said behaviour being the saying of the unwelcome and unwanted?

You can have all the principles you want, but I think that's not by itself a strong design. Players will always be fighting some version of the Czege Principle here. I mean, sure I can say unwelcome things about YOUR character, but then presumably you can respond in kind! We can have principles that say this is the way to go, but there's clearly a natural tendency for people to form coalitions which will subvert that when there's an obvious mutual behavior pattern that makes everyone's life more agreeable. So, in effect, even if our character's goals and etc. are unrelated, we're really talking about obstacles that we ourselves are erecting in our own paths.

Carefully study the design of Apocalypse World and you can see where this is dealt with. Even if the players in that game rotated GM duty, if they follow the rules at all, they will still generate conflict. In fact it would probably work fine in most cases.

I'm not thinking of narrative power. I'm thinking of a GM doing the job otherwise (or also) done by mediating cues.

It is called 'weak sauce' because conflict generated purely by a GM is not fundamental conflict. It is just "here have a bad day." REAL conflict comes when the nature and beliefs, the fundamental character, of a PC is put at odds with the premise, and that can only come from engaging with the player as a source of meaningful conflict at that level. If the GM is the source of all the conflict, that's just not going to cut it, at least for Vince and Co.

I mean, honestly, 'weak sauce' is not no sauce at all, and sometimes it hits, sometimes the resulting narrative has that 'something special' as RE once said. But if you want to have a lot of really good play, then cook up the STRONG SAUCE. That comes from inside the character's hearts and minds, noplace else.

 

[pemerton]

If principles can compel behaviour, which ad arguendo I take to be feasible, one cannot so readily exclude the possibility of principles that compel players to say the unwelcome and unwanted. Or to put it another way, what strategy can be suggested for decisively ruling out of possibility principles that compel behaviour, the said behaviour being the saying of the unwelcome and unwanted?

I am simply working with the definitions set out by Baker, as quoted in the blog.

Principles establish who has control over what. But by definition don't say what they are to do with that control. So I don't see how they can compel someone to say what they would choose not to say if they had a choice. Because principles don't exclude that choice.

I'm not thinking of narrative power. I'm thinking of a GM doing the job otherwise (or also) done by mediating cues.

There is no contrast here. Mediating cues tell some or other participant(s) what to say. They are content-specifying. So to do the job done by mediating cues is to wield narrative power.

 

[Krachek]

To create long thread in RPG forum.

 

[clearstream]

I am simply working with the definitions set out by Baker, as quoted in the blog.

Principles establish who has control over what. But by definition don't say what they are to do with that control. So I don't see how they can compel someone to say what they would choose not to say if they had a choice. Because principles don't exclude that choice.

Baker frames principles in the context of a view on game design

Here’s to start: designing a game means changing people’s normal social system.

Leading to

You can change people’s normal social system with principles. “Your right to say what your character does ends at my character’s skin. You can say your character punches mine, but I get to say how it affects my character.”

He seems to be thinking of principles in terms of human rights. How your rights intersect with mine. Principles can and often are thought of in broader deontic terms. Something one ought to do. The way one ought to conduct oneself. Things one ought to promote or withhold from doing. We already have an implied case. Per this thread - "If I want to experience the unwelcome and unwanted, I ought to follow the rules." That looks very much like a principle.

The available text in that blogpost is for me too limited to draw strong conclusions. One has to construct a complete definition of principles from an extremely limited set of examples. Here, I take you to be accepting the limits and working within them. By contrast, I do not accept those same limits because I experience principles being defined and applied to roleplaying in a greater diversity of ways. I'm not even convinced one can conclude from that text the limits of what Baker expects principles to encompass.

There is no contrast here. Mediating cues tell some or other participant(s) what to say. They are content-specifying. So to do the job done by mediating cues is to wield narrative power.

So you would say that a mediating cue is doing the same job in that case as a GM?

 

[clearstream]

The following is from Vincent Baker, as quoted in the blog:

You can change people’s normal social system with content. “Your character is the captain of a space ship; mine is her first mate.”​

​

You can change people’s normal social system with principles. “Your right to say what your character does ends at my character’s skin. You can say your character punches mine, but I get to say how it affects my character.”​

​

You can change people’s normal social system with procedural cues. “We roll dice. If you have the highest sum, you get to say what happens.” Procedural cues tell you how to interact, without reference to the content of the fiction you’re creating.​

​

You can change people’s normal social system with mediating cues (popularly, mechanics). “When your character does something that would expose her to danger, stop! Roll dice for her ‘I’m craven.’ If the high die is 1-3, she’s too craven to do it.”​

The blog notes that

Let’s look at that definition of Principled Freeform, or freeform that uses content (the fictional world and premise) and the laws of engagement the players agree. You may notice that it doesn’t mention a GM figure as requirement, nor for it or freeform at large. . . .​

​

The rebellion against rulesets as primary source of play and the employment of a technology heavily associated with FKR (description and logic to figure things out) suggests association, as well as resolution procedures on the fly, but in FKR that’s the purview of the referee.​

Baker doesn't mention the GM, because he is setting out general concepts. A special case of principles is that each participants controls the fiction concerning one character except for the "GM" participant, who controls everyone and everything else. Procedural and mediating cues can also be deployed ad hoc as stipulated by the GM, in such a way as to reinforce this: eg the GM gets to say whatever they want unless another participant whose character is in the scene succeeds at a certain roll, in which case they can say only how their PC escapes/avoids whatever it is the GM is describing.

Just to note that I agree with your take that a participant can be empowered in the way GM often is via principles and rules. Written or unwritten. Making empowered-GM a special case of principled and procedural freeform as you say. I've heard folk offer the view that what TTRPG amounts to are special cases of freeform.

It is open to assert a set of principles such that all participants must follow a given procedural or mediating rule, some participants control the fiction concerning one character, another participant controls everything else. I think that nearer to what ultralight-rules FKR puts in place. I think there is a division in what folk understand to be implied by a text like the Messerspiel rules. There are multiple valid takes on the deontic effect of the rule that players can roll dice to resist outcomes described by referee.

 

[clearstream]

It is called 'weak sauce' because conflict generated purely by a GM is not fundamental conflict. It is just "here have a bad day." REAL conflict comes when the nature and beliefs, the fundamental character, of a PC is put at odds with the premise, and that can only come from engaging with the player as a source of meaningful conflict at that level. If the GM is the source of all the conflict, that's just not going to cut it, at least for Vince and Co.

I am not picturing that GM creates narrative for players. I am picturing that GM does the same job mediating cues do, which is to compel and constrain the nature of the narrative that players create.

 

[pemerton]

He seems to be thinking of principles in terms of human rights. How your rights intersect with mine.

I think property rights, rather than human rights, is a better model (if you wish to take a model from the legal domain).

Principles can and often are thought of in broader deontic terms. Something one ought to do.

I don't know what this means.

I mean, "You ought not to drive faster than 60kph on this street" is a deontic statement. But in standard jurisprudential analysis it is a rule, not a principle.

And I don't see what this has to do with Baker, who characterises the principles in which he is interested in terms of what elements of the fiction is a given participant entitled to exercise control over?

"If I want to experience the unwelcome and unwanted, I ought to follow the rules." That looks very much like a principle.

Not really. It doesn't look deontic at all. It looks like a hypothetical imperative.

Whether it is a sound hypothetical imperative is a further matter. For instance, if the rules of the game include principles, and the use of procedural cues, but not mediating cues, then following the rules will not produce the unwelcome and unexpected.

Mediating cues tell some or other participant(s) what to say. They are content-specifying. So to do the job done by mediating cues is to wield narrative power.

So you would say that a mediating cue is doing the same job in that case as a GM?

In which case?

"Mediating cues", as used by Baker, refers to the use of real world referents, like dice - which Baker, following Emily Care Boss, calls "cues" - to constrain or generate the fiction.

You, upthread at 2613, talked about a GM doing the same job as mediating cues. That would be, then doing the job of constraining the fiction - eg the GM says to the player, "You fall through the ceiling onto the floor, and take 3 harm. Tell us how, exactly, you're hurt" - or of generating the fiction - eg the GM says to the player, "You fall through the ceiling onto the floor, and you feel something in your left leg go crunch, and then there's pain all the way up that side of your body - take 3 harm".

This could be the GM acting in accordance with a principle; or could be the GM exercising authority granted by the use of procedural cues. From the examples I've offered, we can't tell which.

One reason to use mediating cues, instead of just conferring narrative authority on the GM by way of principle or the use of procedural cues, would be to try and introduce the unwelcome and unexpected.

The available text in that blogpost is for me too limited to draw strong conclusions. One has to construct a complete definition of principles from an extremely limited set of examples. Here, I take you to be accepting the limits and working within them. By contrast, I do not accept those same limits because I experience principles being defined and applied to roleplaying in a greater diversity of ways. I'm not even convinced one can conclude from that text the limits of what Baker expects principles to encompass.

I don't see what the point is of disputing my suggestion that FKR is a special case of principled and/or procedural freeform, and then saying that your dispute rests on departing from the terms in which I have framed my suggestion.

I mean, "In this game we find out whether or not you - as your PC - are too craven to act by rolling your craven dice and seeing if your high die is 1 to 3" could be said to be a principle. But clearly Baker, in calling that a mediating cue (on account of it being a bit of content established by reading off a dice roll), is intending to contrast it with what he means by "principle" in this context.