Why do RPGs have rules?

[AbdulAlhazred]

As a follow up thought, what you describe is certainly what's preferred for trad play as defined in the Six Cultures thought-piece. GM is going to offer an engaging plot that will engender compelling play. It's really the selling point of that mode and a great deal turns on GM's ability to do so.

For what I would call fully immersionist play it's not like that. For me game texts such as RQ, Bushido, L5R, and Traveller all provide great opportunities for that mode. There may be stuff going on, but it's just not the case that anything must happen in one place in order for another thing to happen elsewhere. It's more - oh, so this happened here, what will be the ripples of that? It's not no-myth because a ton of stuff may exist that hasn't yet been said to the group, but it is no-plot.

Part of the trick is to not care if all the locations get visited. Characters don't visit Dykene? Doesn't matter. I feel like folk who enjoy world creation (as distinct from story-telling) will often enjoy GMing in immersionist mode. I'll read folk relating how they spent a pleasant few hours in solitary world development. The point being that one isn't attached to it appearing in play because one has enjoyed the work for its own sake.

See, for me 'immersionist play' almost entirely revolves around dealing with concerns from the perspective of the character when making character decisions. That is 'how am I motivated here?' is a question that pertains to the character, and the nature of the character in relation to the situation answers it. Its OK if that is partly brought about by non-diagetic elements (spending a player resource to alter the character's perception or situation) but immersion in character comes from having those purely character concerns.

However, I run into something akin to the problem @pemerton has noted, in trad play the GM is telling me what I know! Its weird and kind of unnatural! This doesn't really happen in Zero Myth, Story Now, narrative play, not in the same way. And practically speaking, trad play ALSO insists that the GM gets to tell us what we care about as characters! At the very least it insists that we choose to make the characters care about some of the stuff that the GM is going to bring into the fiction.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I dispute it, for the reasons just given, which in my experience affect nearly every moment of RPGing if the setting lacks the artificial austerity of the Gygaxian dungeon.

Even a fairly austere environment, when we are discussing a wide enough scope and time, such as would be relevant in any sort of plot which extends much beyond exploring a few rooms. This is why I say that the notion that we run our worlds by 'simulating them' isn't viable! There are 1000's of potential outcomes. This is essentially the Buddhist 'Dependent Origination' idea, though kind of in reverse. Every situation has practically infinite possible ramifications, and we would need to simulate the whole universe at a fine grain of detail to see which ones are even plausible, let alone likely.

 

[Enrahim2]

What rule zero, as I see it used, means is that the GM has the power (i) to control the fiction, including by re-establishing as-yet unrevealed backstory; and (ii) to settle the resolution framework, both by making decisions about the fiction and also by stipulating mechanical means; and sometimes even (iii) to override any deployed mechanical means, eg by ignoring or altering dice rolls, by changing hit point tallies, etc.

Thank you for your lengthy insightful replies! I don't think I will pursue the state analogy anymore, as I think it has served it's commutative purpose, and talking about the obviously present analogy flaws I don't find were interesting.

However I think this statement is an opportunity for furthering common understanding. The thing is that I do not commonly associate neither your (i) nor most of your (ii) here as expressions of rule 0. What you seem to describe is what I would rather have described as a style of play that require rule 0.

I would agree that with this understanding of rule 0, rule 0 is effectively removing all less effective means for the GM to introduce things into the fiction. If I understand you correctly you further have as assumption that the aim of play is to establish a certain state in the common fiction, and that in this case there are fully efficient means to do so on the side of the GM - and they hence are not really experiencing play?

Different use of terms make different kinds of conversations interesting. For instance I fully agree that with your outlined understanding of rule 0 here, talking about where the line between what procedures can be changed by the GM or not is not immediately relevant. However there are other topics that emerges as possibly important - like even if the GM is not having less efficient means to establish fiction, might it be that they can still be considered a player if they have a different agenda? For instance, if the GMs game is rather seen as a challenge to have the players experience certain emotions, do the social constraints accosiated with the game provide less efficient means to acheive that goal?

 

[pemerton]

I do not commonly associate neither your (i) nor most of your (ii) here as expressions of rule 0. What you seem to describe is what I would rather have described as a style of play that require rule 0.

Well, this may go to some of @hawkeyefan's questions (in this thread? or at least another recent one) about what "rule zero" is.

I would agree that with this understanding of rule 0, rule 0 is effectively removing all less effective means for the GM to introduce things into the fiction. If I understand you correctly you further have as assumption that the aim of play is to establish a certain state in the common fiction, and that in this case there are fully efficient means to do so on the side of the GM - and they hence are not really experiencing play?

Correct. As I put it, with rule zero in place (as I've characterised it) the GM can, if they wish, just tell the players what the shared fiction is. Which is not a less efficient means for establishing a shared fiction!

I fully agree that with your outlined understanding of rule 0 here, talking about where the line between what procedures can be changed by the GM or not is not immediately relevant. However there are other topics that emerges as possibly important - like even if the GM is not having less efficient means to establish fiction, might it be that they can still be considered a player if they have a different agenda? For instance, if the GMs game is rather seen as a challenge to have the players experience certain emotions, do the social constraints accosiated with the game provide less efficient means to acheive that goal?

I don't have an answer that immediately comes to mind. Do you have an example in mind?

Like, telling a horror story is probably a less efficient means to make some frightened than charging them full throttle with a chainsaw running while wearing a hockey mask! But that doesn't make telling a horror story into a game.

 

[Enrahim2]

I don't have an answer that immediately comes to mind. Do you have an example in mind?

Didn't have any spesific example in mind, as it is a new abstract thought to me as well. But after pondering a bit there is at least one classic situation that come to mind: Starting a dungeon adventure.

First consider the GMs goal had been simply to establish that the common fiction of the characters standing outside a dungeon entrance, ready to enter. Under your described rule 0 play, achieving this would be trivial, as it would just be narrating this as a fact, and this can be done without any "less effective means". However this is in general considered a classic example of "bad" GM play.

However, consider the goal state of having the common fiction of the characters standing outside the dungeon entrance, with the players eager to explore. Now, that is in general not achieved using the above technique, and as such it is clearly a bad play with regard to acheiving the goal of the GM. Now one way of achieving this state would be to use a published adventure, hyping the good reviews, and advertising how many hours you have spendt preparing for it. This technique could indeed be a quite effective means to acheive the goal state - but I assume that would be considered activities outside the bounds of play.

As such, if this goal state was to be achieved trough play, the GM need to rely on their game defined means, like introducing fictional elements. Classic examples include introducing rumors, offers of rewards tailored to character motivations, tying the location to unresolved issues in character backstories, having villains from the location attack the PCs etc. Another means available in rule 0 games (according to my base understanding of rule 0) is to introduce new procedures the players might find fun. A classic here is XP systems that award certain explorations, along with rumors indicating that the location in question is filled with that kind of opportunities. All of these represent moves that is made explicitly available to the GM as a part of the game, that I would argue appear at least potentially "less effective means" than the direct social enticing outlined in the previous paragraph.

 

[clearstream]

I would phrase it in relation to the R0! power holder rule more generally. It's not simply negating a game state proposition, it's constituting the ability to declare any game state at a given moment as a valid one, and other participants must accept the R0! game state.

But obviously this remains wholly conditional upon the "consent of the governed".

I wanted to briefly return to this, to follow up an intuition. It was in response to a proposed rule that for convenience I will continue to label "R0!". I am going to make one change to R0! which is that as written it helps itself to an assumption that the wielder is a player, which I want to withhold judgement on. The struck-out text represents that change.

What would rule zero look like, formulated similarly. At first blush, it looks like Under any conditions, this player may declare any other players move invalid; if pressed, they must either introduce a bit of fiction that explains the invalidity, or state a house rule or ruling that explains the invalidity. I contend that such a rule is not a lusory means in Suits's sense. Because in no sense does it establish a "less efficient" means.

Perhaps "under any conditions" works to exclude ordinary refereeing, which has the job of declaring any player's move invalid that does not fall within the lusory-means. They facilitate the sustaining of the proper lusory-attitude by players, whether or not they are a player themselves. Suppose that among the lusory means is a condition that a move is valid iff it either 1) satisfies a game rule, 2) is validated by referee. This isn't speculative - many RPGs contain text to that effect. In this case, the referee is an unnecessary obstacle and counts among the inefficient means that players must adopt lusory-attitudes toward.

That felt like one interesting facet of the proposition. Another emerges on working through what is going on when R0! is followed. The goal of this analysis isn't to quibble over details, but to get into those details just in order to prompt intuitions about what is going on when anything like this rule is followed.

Foremost, the wielder of R0! is going to engage with players, their move declarations, have in mind bits of fiction and prepare house rules. They are going to accept a range of goals and rules of conduct that are unnecessary in the first place. Within that, they will wait upon player move declarations. Why? If the aim is to be efficient, why not rule out such declarations in the first place? This shows that some principles are guiding or constraining them that are not-necessitated... inefficiency-sustaining. As you note, for R0! to function, players must adopt a lusory-attitude toward it.

With "may" the wielder makes a choice - to let stand or invalidate. Their job is not - "invalidate all player moves" - it's - "invalidate some but not others". In satisfaction of "may" they could follow a great number of possible strategies. School themselves to act as a generator of random outcomes. Apply a rubric. Apply some other rubric. Attempt to read the table. Apply one strategy this time and another next time. Apply meta-strategies for deciding which strategy to apply. Follow guidelines written by others. Extrapolate from the rules of the game. Extrapolate from the prelusory-goals. Make the choice least disruptive to the lusory-means / lusory-attitudes. Always validate. Always invalidate. Validate unless the move declaration is put in an unsatisfactory way. Validate unless the move declaration does not legitimate against fictional positioning. And so on.

For the sake of argument, I'll assume that whatever the bar is for "pressed", it is one that sometimes leads to the prescribed next steps. The wielder of R0! must either introduce some explanatory fiction or state a house rule or ruling. Why? That seems highly inefficient to me, but what I find more interesting about this element of R0! is that the wielder's strategy could be to validate in every case except where they have 1) at that moment already in mind a bit of fiction that is explanatory, 2) a preexisting house rule that players are aware of that is explanatory, 3) they make a ruling in a circumstance and manner that supplies explanation.

How that plays out then rests on how each wielder understands "explanatory." It could demand connection with established truths, it could be a proper conformance with no-myth principles, it could entail that they "neutrally and correctly deploy the games action resolution machinery", and so on. Explanatory speaks to the "consent of the governed" - to whom the invalidation is explained. The wielder has accepted a principle that requires decisions be explicable. Of course that could be reduced to "Because I felt like it", yet it can just as well include the sort of principles I outline above and that folk often discuss: maybe the move declaration isn't validated because it doesn't legitimate against fictional position, or it relies on the player helping themselves to something outside their character's mechanical limits, or any number of what I will characterise as virtuous explanations (where virtue is in the eye of the group.)

R0! requires doing unnecessary things in an inefficient way for the sake of players (as part of their lusory-means). Its virtue (or lack thereof) is down to each group, each wielder, their prelusory goals, chosen game text, social contract, and all the other myriad details of their lusory context.

 

[pemerton]

Didn't have any spesific example in mind, as it is a new abstract thought to me as well. But after pondering a bit there is at least one classic situation that come to mind: Starting a dungeon adventure.

First consider the GMs goal had been simply to establish that the common fiction of the characters standing outside a dungeon entrance, ready to enter. Under your described rule 0 play, achieving this would be trivial, as it would just be narrating this as a fact, and this can be done without any "less effective means". However this is in general considered a classic example of "bad" GM play.

However, consider the goal state of having the common fiction of the characters standing outside the dungeon entrance, with the players eager to explore. Now, that is in general not achieved using the above technique, and as such it is clearly a bad play with regard to acheiving the goal of the GM. Now one way of achieving this state would be to use a published adventure, hyping the good reviews, and advertising how many hours you have spendt preparing for it. This technique could indeed be a quite effective means to acheive the goal state - but I assume that would be considered activities outside the bounds of play.

In my experience, this would normally be done via group consensus.

Eg the last time I GMed a dungeon was a year or so ago. We played a bit of White Plume Mountain. The players generated some PCs (5th level or thereabouts) and then I read - with a bit of spontaneous editing/commentary - the opening text, which does indeed place the PCs at the entrance to the dungeon.

As such, if this goal state was to be achieved trough play, the GM need to rely on their game defined means, like introducing fictional elements. Classic examples include introducing rumors, offers of rewards tailored to character motivations, tying the location to unresolved issues in character backstories, having villains from the location attack the PCs etc. Another means available in rule 0 games (according to my base understanding of rule 0) is to introduce new procedures the players might find fun. A classic here is XP systems that award certain explorations, along with rumors indicating that the location in question is filled with that kind of opportunities. All of these represent moves that is made explicitly available to the GM as a part of the game, that I would argue appear at least potentially "less effective means" than the direct social enticing outlined in the previous paragraph.

In my Torchbearer game, I use the game's rules to tell the players where the next adventure is: rumours from and encouragement by NPCs. In a sense it's all a bit of a charade, in that the players are aware that I will have a thing planned that is relevant to their PCs to some extent, and they also know that one thing that can flow from the adventure is rewards (in that system not XP but fate and persona points).

I've never had the experience of a GM wanting to pretend that the players have a choice of adventure, but using rule zero to create incentive mechanics to make the players choose the actual adventure the GM is ready to run. To be frank, to me that seems a bit dysfunctional.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Well, this may go to some of @hawkeyefan's questions (in this thread? or at least another recent one) about what "rule zero" is.

I have decided that rule zero is nonsensical jargon of the worst order. Waffle is already taken, so I think it’s best dubbed as “trad pancake”.

 

[clearstream]

Correct. As I put it, with rule zero in place (as I've characterised it) the GM can, if they wish, just tell the players what the shared fiction is. Which is not a less efficient means for establishing a shared fiction!

This touches on a point of contention. So long as I don't count GM as a player, it's of no concern to me whether they employ more or less efficient means in performing their functions. That includes establishing a shared fiction. It seems to me circular to insist that GM be counted a player, and then go on to decry their failure to employ less efficient means... just because that is what is required if they are a player. Why not just say that they are not a player? Taking any failures to employ less efficient means as evidence of that.

On the other hand, if I did feel that GM must be a player - or as importantly, if I wanted GM to be a player - then I can see that in its bare form anything like my proposed regulatory rule R* leaves undecided whether it will or will not form an appropriate lusory-means. Further principles and rules must be in force to procure that; and although I observe that such are in place in any version of R seen in use, it seems right to be willing to criticise their efficacy. I would also not want to downplay that different sets of such principles and rules will prove more or less virtuous for different purposes and modes of play.

*Exempting GM from the normal suspension by players of their preexisting capacity to form and modify rules.

 

[Enrahim2]

I've never had the experience of a GM wanting to pretend that the players have a choice of adventure, but using rule zero to create incentive mechanics to make the players choose the actual adventure the GM is ready to run. To be frank, to me that seems a bit dysfunctional.

But that is not the point. In my examples the in fiction eventuality of the characters ending up in front of that particular dungeon entrance was never in question for either of the cases. The case in question was the level of eagerness of the players once that situation was a fact, and what means the GM employed to achieve that eagerness.

For one shots like what your whiteplume mountain example seem to be, the out of game mean is the most common. The in game motivational aproach is more commonly relevant for campaign games where this is part of the downtime gameplay betwen adventures. And as you seem to point out, you in torchbearer are doing exactly that - using rules? You call it a charade, but the point isn't to present a choice, but to motivate and prepare, isn't it?