Why do RPGs have rules?

[EzekielRaiden]

Number 3 is the most hotly contested for sure, but 5e actually spells it out as something the DM is allowed to do. The first time I've seen that in print.

5e DMG page 235

"Rolling behind a screen lets you fudge the results if you want to. If two critical hits in a row would kill a character, you could change the second critical hit into a normal hit, or even a miss. Don't distort die rolls too often, though, and don't let on that you're doing it. Otherwise, your players might think they don't face any real risks-or worse, that you're playing favorites."

Ah, yes, only one of the most controversial things in the entire DMG.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Chocolate is as clearly defined as , "This is your game and you can do what you want with it." and "You the players need to check with the DM to see if HE changed any rules."

You guys can misinterpret the DM being granted the power to unilaterally alter the game all you like, but it doesn't change the fact that the game gives that power to the DM.

I would say you’re misinterpreting it just as much as I am. Or rather, each of our interpretations is influenced by our preferences.

Rule zero is jargon for some options relating to GM authority. It’s not officially defined in 5e, or most editions. The one where it is, it doesn’t say what you claim. It doesn’t come from the designers of the rules.

Yes it is. It's specifically the DM having the ability to unilaterally alter the game. Google it.

The one instance I know of where Rule Zero is actually defined doesn’t define it that way.

I can google plenty of things that are biased or incorrect. This is part of the point. If we have to google stuff beyond the text to understand what they’re saying, then the text has failed.

This may be an answer to the question “why do games have rules?”

So the process of play is clear!

That's entirely irrelevant. Rule 0 is defined, so if they are getting it wrong, then they got it wrong. It doesn't mean that Rule 0 isn't defined.

In what game is it defined? From what book would a player read rule zero and then understand it?

There is no viable interpretations of those passages that don't involve the DM having the authority to unilaterally alter the game. There are misinterpretations that do so, though. I mean, just look at it.

"Your DM might set the campaign on one of these worlds or on one that he or she created. Because there is so much diversity among the worlds of D&D, you should check with your DM about any house rules that will affect your play of the game. Ultimately, the Dungeon
Master is the authority on the campaign and its setting, even if the setting is a published world."

That's unilateral authority in all viable interpretations. Your DM might... You should check with(not discuss with) your DM... The DM is the ultimate authority...

I don’t think those passages grant unilateral authority in all ways.

I realize you do. But I disagree. And I think that’s precisely why they wrote the rules that way.

 

[Krachek]

Dont freak out, DM authority is regarding the game, his ability to provide a setting he like and want to share, and adjust rules to fit it and to make fun session.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

This is both factually incorrect and immaterial:

1. You can still have an infinite cardinality of game states even in a board game. Consider a chess board that's infinity x infinity instead of 8 x 8. (Played with coordinate notation instead of or in addition to a physical board.)

Listen, I hold a degree in mathematics. I'd hoped you wouldn't go there, but... Yes, technically if you have an INFINITE game it can have an infinite number of well-defined game states. There are no such things as infinite games, they do not exist. Therefor this is, at best, a highly theoretical result which might have some utility in, say, game theory, but doesn't apply at all to any actual games in the real world. I'll avoid getting into the deeper muck of mathematical realists and whatnot where some have taken the position that infinity itself does not exist and isn't a valid tool for reasoning about our sort of questions. Naturally I have some fondness for this sort of position, but it does have its own difficulties.

Beyond this, the more relevant point is, a game which spelled out every transition specifically, with a discrete rule, would be an INFINITE RULEBOOK, and since infinite rulebooks don't exist, and cannot exist, no game can follow this strategy to being complete! Thus such a game is NECESSARILY CLOSED because that's the only way it can be an actualizable game in the real world, finite numbers of states, thus finite discrete rules.

From there its merely an exercise in efficiency to recode those rules in a less voluminous form.

2. Even if you couldn't, so what? How would that invalidate the clearstream's definition? You may prefer the word "closed" over "complete" but that's just arbitrary semantics, fighting over which name is better.

No, these are 2 different properties of games! Complete/Incomplete is telling us whether there are instructions (IE procedural rules) covering all situations which may arise within the game state. I contend that Dungeon World has this form of completeness. No matter what the fictional state is, we have a rule which tells us how to proceed.

Open/Closed is a separate question. Open games have an infinite possible set of game states, such as RPGs. Closed games have finite states, like Chess. All closed games can potentially be made complete by the application of enough rules. I mean, maybe there's a 'halting problem' here where you can construct a game who's states cannot all provably be reached or something...

I suspect your real point is that, like EzekielRaiden, you dislike dictators and want the whole table to be involved in rule discussions, not solely the GM. I'm sympathetic to that viewpoint but it has nothing to do with fighting over "complete" vs. "closed".

No, you need to pay attention to the terminology, maybe it wasn't clearly articulated. I thought these usages were introduced in sufficiently clear ways, but probably not. In any case, it is my contention that a Complete but Open game can be structured by using a simple general rule which has the property of closure, that is you can chain (or nest, I won't go into how these are equivalent) the output of one application of such a rule into the input of the next. RPGs of this sort, like DW, then typically employ exception based design to allow the addition of a richer set of tools without breaking the system's complete nature.

 

[pemerton]

I found this custom move on a Dungeon World wiki:



As I predicted; sounds like rule creation/fiat exercise to me.

Have you ever read the rules for DW? Have you ever played it? Do you think that there is no rule for opening sewer hatches in DW played without that custom move?

To put it another way: do you consider it a rule creation/fiat exercise for a GM in typical D&D play to draw up a dungeon and stock it? Because the "When you open a sewer hatch" custom move is exactly the same sort of thing.

I think about cases such as - without multiclassing, can I play a dwarf wizard? If so, what's my starting move? I haven't yet spotted rules to cover this... but then I'm not nearly as familiar with the DW game text as I am with others.

Assuming it's a lacuna, one way of addressing that is to say that DW is closed. Not only the system, but the fiction, just doesn't contain any first level dwarf wizards. I read a DW player proudly describing their dwarf bard, which makes me feel that some groups imagine a world where there are first level dwarfs of classes other than cleric and fighter.

So . . .

Have you heard of seven-a-side rugby? Does that mean that rugby is an incomplete rules system?

@Manbearcat sometimes plays street/pick-up basketball. My understanding is that often there is only one ring for both teams. Does that make basketball an incomplete rules system?

I'm pretty certain that some people, once upon a time, decided to start their Monopoly game with a different amount of starting money. Does that make Monopoly an incomplete rules system?

To me, it seems obvious that people can vary the rules of a game in all sorts of ways, including changing the starting conditions (in DW, that would mean authoring new playbooks; in 4e D&D, that would mean authoring new races, classes, themes, paragon paths, etc). That doesn't make the game incomplete. It just means that the game admits of variants. (This raises a question about the identity conditions of games. To me it seems a relatively unimportant question, given that nothing seems to turn on the answer to it. Of course, if we were setting up a tournament or an exhibition or a catalogue maybe it would matter, but I at least am not doing any of those things.)

There are many places where a move requires DM to dial-in a parameter e.g. for rituals how much exactly is "a lot of money" and should that scale with effect power?

How is that incomplete?

The rules tell the GM to make a call. The GM is at some liberty in reaching their decision.

Cricket has rules which require the umpire to make a call: LBW and unsafe bowling. It also has rules that give the captain of the team a lot of liberty in reaching their decision, like the rules around field placement, or around who can bowl the next over.

The fact that a game requires decision-making according to a relatively abstract standard, or a standard that will only be able to be cashed out in context; or requires decision-making within certain parameters but within those parameters with a high degree of liberty; doesn't make it incomplete.

Monopoly is not incomplete because a player has to choose whether or not to buy a property they land on (but can't choose, outside the context of an auction, to buy a different one). Football (soccer) is not incomplete because each team has to make choices about field placement. Etc.

Another category of doubt is that much as I appreciate that doing something in the fiction that doesn't invoke a move is resolved in view of positioning (a canonical example is prising a ruby from a statues eye: GM rules that it just happens) these resolutions seem quite difficult to crisply differentiate from GM decides.

The rule that a player gets to decide what their PC says, is a rule that confers permissions on players. The rule that a GM gets to say what happens when a ruby is prised from a statue is a rule that confers permissions on the GM.

These rules are not incomplete. Structurally, they seem identical to some of the rules I've mentioned above, or to the rule in D&D that says a player gets to choose the target of their PC's attack (if within reach/range) and that the GM gets to choose the target of their creature/NPC's attack (if within reach/range). For that matter, they seem structurally identical to the rule in Australian Rules football that requires disposing of or bouncing the ball rather than holding it, but gives the player a permission as to where to bounce it (eg which side of the body) or to whom to pass it.

Thoughts like these make me wonder what each poster means by complete versus incomplete? In the context of this thread I take it to mean that the rules do not state precisely what comes next so that from a given game state two GMs G and G' might say different things. It's incomplete because some additional principle, unwritten rule, or thought is guiding them to their (differing) answers.

On this measure every game that involves human decision-making is incomplete. So off the top of my head the only game I can think of that is complete is snakes and ladders.

To me that seems a pretty worthless use of the concept of completeness.

 

[hawkeyefan]

What seems to happen in these rule zero discussions is that three things get conflated:

1. The GM has authority to make house rules (e.g. no Elven PCs and we're using my home brew critical hit tables).
2. The GM has authority to make on the spot rulings where the rules aren't a perfect fit for the fictional situation (e.g. 'Uh, let's say that's a Dex save or you take 3d6 falling damage 'cause of the ledge').
3. The GM has authority to fudge the dice in secret or ignore the rules entirely.

It's 3 that is controversial and poisonous to many game styles, and also by far the least supported in published D&D game texts.

Yeah, I think when a game text grants significant authority to the GM, there’s a tendency to assume it’s absolute authority. And on the one hand, I get why. Saying something like “you can fudge dice rolls to get results you want” certainly lends itself to that interpretation.

But these statements are almost always made along with some stipulation, some example of what they have in mind. “You can change the dice rolls… to spare a character” or “…to make sure a vital clue is found”.

And though I’m not crazy about either example, I think that it’s important to keep in mind that whatever the GM is authorized to do is clearly meant to be in service of play. I don’t think such passages should be interpreted as “change whatever you want whenever you want and who cares what the players think!!”

And then it’s even more mistaken to think that this applies to games beyond D&D.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

The unilateral ability to change rules. This is said in some manner in every edition 1e, 2e, 3e and 5e. Maybe 4e I don't know for sure. If I have the ability to add, subtract and alter rules as I see fit, fudging is by definition legitimate. If I'm doing it, I've altered the game to allow it.

I would just say that 4e states that the GM is the 'authority on the rules' or something like that (I think it was quoted up thread a bit). It seems to have been meant in a sense like "chairman of the board" kind of, like if there's an argument about what a rule means, you can settle it, though perhaps through some process less totalitarian than a decree. I don't know that 4e really says the GM can simply alter the rules at will. However it does talk about reflavoring things, changing keywords, etc. as possible ways to manipulate the material (IE if you want to let the wizard call his fireball 'acid explosion', then just changing the keyword, and thus damage type, should be easily accomplished). I think its reasonable to consider this 'customization', or 'homebrew', etc. Finally it even says the GM might make rulings like fireballs don't work as well underwater, which is a more substantive 'rule 0' (ish) sort of thing. IMHO 4e isn't wildly different from 5e here, except that the entire attitude towards the GM is much softer in 4e text, generally.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Yes, but rule zero isn't giving the GM authority to put people into gulags is my point. I get you don't like GM authority. Fair. I won't try to dissuade. I just think this takes the argument a notch over the top

Meh, I'm not as hostile to it in terms of practice as some might think. Generally even games without any explicit 'power of the GM' are heavily reliant on GMs to apply the rules consistently in a way that the players are not generally required to do. I'm not hostile to that at all. As for people writing something like rule 0 into their games... I just suspect better games don't need to do this!

 

[Manbearcat]

Nobody makes up custom moves in order to 'patch a hole' in action resolution, no such holes can arise by the nature of the construction of the Dungeon World rules. Custom moves are a POSSIBILITY which could be exercised by the table, as a way of portraying some different sort of character archetype, or some kind of ability that simply isn't already covered that the participants want to emphasize. Again, its not patching a hole in the action resolution system. It would be more like adding a new class ability in D&D, and done for largely the same kind of reason.

The other thing that GMs sometimes do (well, often I guess overall) is construct custom moves for THEMSELVES, or as 'SPECIAL MOVES', which are a category that are 'passively activated' by PCs. I think the "Outstanding Warrants" move was discussed in the Bloodbath thread. This is a move which a player triggers when they enter a town where they might be wanted. GMs could make up new moves of this sort. I think @Manbearcat in some thread mentioned creating a custom move for a PC in an AW game where the move was triggered at some interval and the associated roll of dice helped determine what was up with the character's holdings. The GM could instead have just made a GM move to say "You made some money this month" or "Raiders are active in the South Fields" or whatever. I guess you could characterize these as 'subsystems' and 'new rules', but they don't rise to any higher level of such than, say, using the 2e DMG "make a custom encounter table" rule to customize encounters in a specific area in a game. Hardly anyone would call that a house rule, the DMG says to do it, and how to do it, its just backstory.

Nope, I suggest playing Dungeon World, there's no such need in that game. When a player declares that his PC is taking an action, that action HAPPENS. Either the table rules that the action cannot succeed (and generally this determination often is made before the declaration is formally made since it is advantageous to insure that all players have the same fictional position in mind) and it fails automatically, or it is possible and either a move is triggered and a roll made, or the action succeeds automatically. This covers ALL POSSIBLE ACTIONS in Dungeon World (and other similar PbtAs generally speaking).

So, if your character is 'plunging a toilet', I'd first of all consider this too trivial to need to adjudicate or even frame into a scene, but lets assume somehow it is a critical action. So, can the character succeed? I'd say its quite possible! Does this trigger any existing move? I'm not aware of one in Dungeon World, though 'Defy Danger' is fuzzy enough that basically you could trigger it for most things, so the table will have to decide here, is this so hazardous that DD is needed? If not, then it just succeeds! I mean, frankly unless there's a bomb in the crappy that might be set off or somesuch, I favor the poop goes down the hole, lets move on! But lets assume there IS a bomb in their, then DD is your go-to move, with maybe INT to disarm, DEX to shove it down the pipe before it can explode, etc.

Same with the mile-long tunnel. I mean, this sounds like a more involved kind of a situation, but it might be handled as a single action depending on where the GM and players want to focus their attention (IE its part of a large siege where lots of different actions are happening). Again, its probably just a matter of context as to what happens. If the lead PC on that job is a dwarf with a mining backstory, he probably just succeeds! If not, or if there's obvious dangers involved, then DD is again your friend, maybe with +WIS in this case.

Thus we can see, this is a very 'complete' game, there is an established mechanical approach to resolving ALL 'plot issues'. And that's really the key to this sort of game, that its not about simulating the results of taking certain actions. Its about determining what the development of that part of the narrative will bring. Does the dwarf undermine the castle wall? Play to find out! Would 'real' dwarves in a 'real situation' succeed? I dunno, it is a fantasy world, the question isn't meaningful. I know that there are at least a couple of story possibilities and the interesting ones are going to be picked between, some dice thrown and one chosen. It works every time for all plots, because plots are all the same at heart, they all involve fictional elements and things that need to be decided, which is what the rules do.

As for some sort of 'fiat', you clearly need to play one of these games, badly, under a reasonably skilled GM with experience in running it. There's no 'fiat' involved. You are reasoning from an idea of an all-powerful game master who is charged with inventing all of the fiction and authority to make it whatever they feel like. This situation doesn't exist in a Dungeon World game. Even when the game calls on the GM to make something up (and it does this OFTEN) the things that are made up have to meet fairly specific criteria. That does still leave infinite possibilities, but because many of those criteria involve feedback from players, directly or indirectly, and sometimes players even get to say fiction beyond their PC, it takes on a very different character than what happens in a D&D game. You can repeat endlessly that it is just the same old GM fiat, but you will endlessly be wrong!

I think maybe you're talking about this AW thread where I made several posts about Working Gigs? If so, the posts in question are 55, 216, 225, 231, 237. and 239.

@FormerlyHemlock , so the reason why Custom Moves in Apocalypse World (and derivative games) don't rise to the level of "new rule creation" is because Custom Moves all use the same template for action resolution that every other move in the game makes; Fictional trigger equals go to the dice when you trigger the move by doing the outlined thing (eg when you try to impose your will on your gang) within the fiction and go to the dice equals everyone follows the governing structure of results and evinced principles that undergird and govern every other move in the game.

* Custom Moves do not move outside of the unifying structure of the game engine. The expressly work within it.

* Custom Moves do not move outside of the unifying agenda and principles that undergird, govern, integrate the game engine, its conversation, and their outputs (which yield play experience). They expressly work within them.

* Custom Moves work to give expression to some aspect of the premise of the game rather than deviate from it or subvert it.

Outside of AW, Vincent discusses the matter on his fantastic blog post on concentric game design (where Custom Moves are the 4th layer). At the bottom, he calls out what will happen if you don't use Custom Moves or Countdowns for your Threats (which indicates that their deployment is orthodox Apocalypse World and not "making new rules" or working outside of the system):

"Don't want to make custom moves and countdowns for your threats all the time? That's cool. You're missing out, but the threat types, impulses, and threat moves have got you covered."

 

[pemerton]

This just tells me you're using a definition of "completeness" that isn't particularly productive. If, in defining a term, you find out that it either doesn't apply to anything, or anything it does apply to would be severely damaged as a result of meeting that standard...maybe it's better to look for something else?

I see that you anticipated the conclusion that I reached!