Why do RPGs have rules?

[AbdulAlhazred]

So I've been thinking a bit more about the need/prerogative to have an assumed Rule Zero.

It feels like we've generally uncovered at least 3 core purposes to include a Rule Zero.

(A) to always have a backstop such that a scene can/must move forward. This seems to be necessary in circumstances where player action declarations can be negated purely on intent, based on hidden backstory --- i.e., a declaration is necessarily a failure based on a game state variable known only to one participant. In this case, a Ruling of Zero is needed to prevent play devolving into a mother-may-I guessing game.

I must say I cannot understand this. MMI is PRODUCED by falling onto a rule 0 type of facility! Rule 0 has little to nothing to do with moving scenes forward.

(A.a) Could also be a result of a "neutral state" failure. If a player declaration is ruled to be a purely neutral failure (action fails, no meaningful change to fiction), the same situation applies. The player can either continue to guess at an appropriate means to change the fictional state, or an appeal to a Ruling of Zero is made (GM "makes a move").

Still not sure what rule 0 has to do with this...

(B) to ensure that rules arbitrations don't favor one or another of the players. But consider the difference between pick up basketball and a fully refereed NBA game. One crucial difference is that in a pickup game, players are assumed to collectively be in charge of adhering to the "lusory means" ("travelling" and "carry" and out of bounds rules are enforced, etc.). In the same regard, Rule Zero isn't strictly necessary to ensure rule compliance. In my experience, while it does happen, it's pretty rare for pickup basketball to go completely degenerate. Player to player arbitration is usually sufficient, unless there's a desire to ensure there's always a failsafe, final arbiter who can't be gainsaid.

Pickup basketball doesn't have refs with authority, so rule 0 is not even a thing. I mean, I guess players could agree to an all-powerful ref...

(C) to ensure consistency of rulings vis-a-vis the assumed fiction. Meaning, since the GM is keeper of the fiction, including secret backstory, there's an emphasis/importance to keep future fiction states in accordance with the previously established fiction --- especially if the previously defined fiction was generated by one individual long before play starts.

This emphasis on "consistency of fiction" seems to be a relevant application for sim, if you assume that "consistency of fiction" is a necessary precondition of "immersion". If the fiction is "inconsistent", it is ostensibly harder to drift into an immersion thought state. Players are fighting too hard mentally to reconcile "I'm immersed as my character" against "This situation doesn't make sense".

In cases of (C), it feels like Rule Zero's importance can diminish greatly in the absence/lessening of GM authored fiction prior to play and/or deprioritization of "immersion" through a sim agenda.

I'm bringing this all up in service to a final question---is Rule Zero a strictly necessary precondition for immersion? Absent Rule Zero, is there too much burden assumed to be put back on the players, in terms of authoring and making rulings, that they are unable to drift into the immersive mindset? Is the "immersion thought state" so temporary and fragile as to brook any interruption? It can't be easily toggled between authoring/ruling thought state and back?

In short, the answer is 'no'. lol.

When immersion is an apex priority, the chain of requirement for Rule Zero seems to be:

Consistency of fiction >> reduce player need to adjudicate >> reduce player need to toggle/switch out of "immersive thought state"

But if this the case, what is the GM's purpose relative to immersion? If the GM is only serving the needs of the immersion thought state (ITS) for the players, the GM themselves is necessarily not participating in that immersion thought state. The GM's role at that point is to provide an experience in which they will never participate. So it must therefore be assumed that the GM must find satisfaction in some other set of play conditions, since they cannot participate in the ITS.

Can you see where I'm going with this? If you claim that yes, a GM can participate in the immersion thought state (ITS) while remaining GM, why cannot the players do the same and remove much of the need for heavy handed applications of Rule Zero?

As Pemerton has clearly argued, the GM cannot really be considered a player in this sort of scheme at all.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Fighting against that is the simple fact that it's far less work to bend a known system to a new task than it is to learn a whole new one.

I completely disagree. I mean, its POSSIBLE, if you have a system that is close to what you need, then maybe you can make that work. Often it isn't possible. VERY often this is because people are too set in their approaches to playing game X, it will always end up pretty much the same.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

This is an empirical claim. In my experience it is obviously false.

This is an empirical claim too, and taken at face value, as a generalisation of tendency, in my experience it is false.

For instance, Prince Valiant is a far "lighter" RPG than AD&D. I've had no issues playing Prince Valiant. It is significantly more robust than AD&D., in terms of enabling decisions about "what happens next" that are apt to carry the table and not break down into moment-by-moment social negotiation.

Honestly? In terms of flexibility and applicability to more situations, lighter systems which eschew the 'bolt on a subsystem for every need' kind of model generally are superior.

 

[loverdrive]

I'm bringing this all up in service to a final question---is Rule Zero a strictly necessary precondition for immersion? Absent Rule Zero, is there too much burden assumed to be put back on the players, in terms of authoring and making rulings, that they are unable to drift into the immersive mindset? Is the "immersion thought state" so temporary and fragile as to brook any interruption? It can't be easily toggled between authoring/ruling thought state and back?

When immersion is an apex priority, the chain of requirement for Rule Zero seems to be:

I honestly can't comprehend why authoring things can possibly contradict immersion. I'd say the ability to bring the things you want to see up without having to resort to purely meta-game talk is a prerequisite for immersion.

 

[loverdrive]

You also see this same issue play out with rules light systems. Simplicity is expensive, and you end up paying for it somewhere.

That heavily depends on what you view as "rules light system" here. If it's something like "lol, roll dice and the GM will decide", yeah, it's false economy.

If it does have a structure, though, even if it's not written for a damn computer to parse, then I disagree. Like, vehemently disagree.

 

[Bedrockgames]

This simply isn't true. Burning Wheel is comparable, in mechanical "heft", to RQ or even RM.

I am not arguing that "light" is better than the alternative. Rather, an assertion was made that simplicity generates costs. I'm saying that, in my experience, that just isn't true.

Prince Valiant is simpler, mechanically, than BW. My group plays Prince Valiant as a type of BW-lite. But we don't pay any cost for that - the game is different from BW, but not "expensive" in some not-immediately-obvious-but-will-spring-out-later-like-a-jack-in-the-box fashion.

I have to agree with Pemerton that light/simplicity doesn't have to generate costs. Personally I like both types of systems: light and heavy. But having run many light RPGs, I find the simplicity tends to make things easier and a well done light system can still cover a lot of ground with broad principles if people are equating something like having to fit a situation to the system on the fly as a cost.

 

[Micah Sweet]

This simply isn't true. Burning Wheel is comparable, in mechanical "heft", to RQ or even RM.

I am not arguing that "light" is better than the alternative. Rather, an assertion was made that simplicity generates costs. I'm saying that, in my experience, that just isn't true.

Prince Valiant is simpler, mechanically, than BW. My group plays Prince Valiant as a type of BW-lite. But we don't pay any cost for that - the game is different from BW, but not "expensive" in some not-immediately-obvious-but-will-spring-out-later-like-a-jack-in-the-box fashion.

As I said, I think you feel that you're not paying any cost because the game aligns with your preferences. If it didn't, the cost might very well be higher.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Honestly? In terms of flexibility and applicability to more situations, lighter systems which eschew the 'bolt on a subsystem for every need' kind of model generally are superior.

How is that not an opinion dressed up as a fact? Claiming one system is just "superior" to another without any qualifier is just bad rhetoric, and I wouldn't expect anyone who doesn't already agree with you to accept it. This is worse than your claim that there's no such thing as simulation-based play.

 

[clearstream]

There are probably other reasons too why RPGs have rules, other things that those rules can do.

To roll up several posts into one convenient summary starting with the reason from the OP...

1. The emotionally fraught, where participants would be reticent to say the unwelcome and the unwanted; especially that had the potential to upset every single person at the table.

2. The systematically complex, where there are too many mechanics interacting in too many ways for participants to maintain and operate them purely mentally; especially in diverse circumstances over multiple sessions.

3. The competitively robust, where participants want fair outcomes influenced by their dissimilar choices in contests between them (PvP, PvE), especially as disparities widen between outcomes and participants want to play their hands vigorously.

4. The subversively creative, where participants desire to work creatively within the game's limits, including subversively and with inventive interpretations of the rules.

5. The unpredictable, where participants want shared uncertainty about the contours of future game state, especially where they want capacity to influence its distribution.

Did anyone notice any other reasons?

 

[innerdude]

I must say I cannot understand this. MMI is PRODUCED by falling onto a rule 0 type of facility! Rule 0 has little to nothing to do with moving scenes forward.

I posited this idea because when Rule Zero + hidden backstory are both in effect, ultimately it is the GM's job to eliminate standstill. The players can only guess for so long at the hidden backstory elements that are preventing them from achieving their goals.

A Rule Zero GM must at some point break the barrier by either providing new vectors of information, or reframing scenes in a way that make new player action declarations possible.

This is interestingly no different than the stated GM agenda for PbtA play --- "adhere to your GM principles and make your moves".

The difference is that PbtA provides additional player side authority to largely eliminate stalemate play from appearing in the first place.

But in Rule Zero play, it's all on the GM. (S)he is fully responsible for developing valid game states that grant the ability for players to make action declarations.

If the goal is to avoid stalemate / "rowboat world" play, a Rule Zero game must rely on the GM.

I think one of the reasons sandbox play has largely never taken over as the primary mode of play (vs. trad) is that GMs regularly fail to recognize this responsibility. If you take away player inputs to change the fiction, then some other inputs must fill in. Yet IME "rowboat world" GM-ing is largely the result of sandbox play, because it appears to offer "You can go anywhere!" freedom while slyly subverting control of the available actions to nearly exclusively the GM.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I posited this idea because when Rule Zero + hidden backstory are both in effect, ultimately it is the GM's job to eliminate standstill. The players can only guess for so long at the hidden backstory elements that are preventing them from achieving their goals.

A Rule Zero GM must at some point break the barrier by either providing new vectors of information, or reframing scenes in a way that make new player action declarations possible.

This is interestingly no different than the stated GM agenda for PbtA play --- "adhere to your GM principles and make your moves".

The difference is that PbtA provides additional player side authority to largely eliminate stalemate play from appearing in the first place.

But in Rule Zero play, it's all on the GM. (S)he is fully responsible for developing valid game states that grant the ability for players to make action declarations.

If the goal is to avoid stalemate / "rowboat world" play, a Rule Zero game must rely on the GM.

I think one of the reasons sandbox play has largely never taken over as the primary mode of play (vs. trad) is that GMs regularly fail to recognize this responsibility. If you take away player inputs to change the fiction, then some other inputs must fill in. Yet IME "rowboat world" GM-ing is largely the result of sandbox play, because it appears to offer "You can go anywhere!" freedom while slyly subverting control of the available actions to nearly exclusively the GM.

I really think you're overstating your case. Player input being limited to the perspective of their characters doesn't prevent them from changing the fiction, it channels it into an avenue designed for a verisimilitudinous world. As long as a mechanism exists, either in prepared GM notes or game rules (tables and the like) to portray the setting independently of the PCs, the various degrees of authority granted to the GM and the players can proceed smoothly. It does take some work, and mostly on the part of the GM, but this can be lessened by the use of published setting details to supplement homebrew design. That's what I, and I presume other sandbox GMs, do to ease the effort required to run the kind of game we want.

 

[Lanefan]

Honestly? In terms of flexibility and applicability to more situations, lighter systems which eschew the 'bolt on a subsystem for every need' kind of model generally are superior.

And they come with a cost.

And that cost?

Detail and granularity.

If a system is to support detailed granular resolution (e.g. combat) and play (e.g. exploration) it pretty much by default has to include more rules and-or guidelines both to handle those details and to deal with unusual or specific-but-predictable situations not otherwise covered. Further, discrete subsystems are often better for this than is one overarching mechanic.

Now if your preferred style of play tends to eschew details and granularity, you might not notice or even count this as a cost. Doesn't mean the cost isn't there.

And sure, it's obviously possible to go too far the other way, to the point where the cost in play efficiency outweighs the benefit of detail. One could say early Hackmaster at the height of its cumbersome-ness approaches if not exceeds this threshold.

 

[Micah Sweet]

And they come with a cost.

And that cost?

Detail and granularity.

If a system is to support detailed granular resolution (e.g. combat) and play (e.g. exploration) it pretty much by default has to include more rules and-or guidelines both to handle those details and to deal with unusual or specific-but-predictable situations not otherwise covered. Further, discrete subsystems are often better for this than is one overarching mechanic.

Now if your preferred style of play tends to eschew details and granularity, you might not notice or even count this as a cost. Doesn't mean the cost isn't there.

And sure, it's obviously possible to go too far the other way, to the point where the cost in play efficiency outweighs the benefit of detail. One could say early Hackmaster at the height of its cumbersome-ness approaches if not exceeds this threshold.

Even so, I still kinda love Hackmaster. A very fun take on 1e. I still have most of the old books, including the whole monster series and that insane Gamemaster's Shield.

 

[pemerton]

As I said, I think you feel that you're not paying any cost because the game aligns with your preferences. If it didn't, the cost might very well be higher.

What does that have to do with light vs heavy? I mean, T&T doesn't really align with my preferences. But it's a pretty light system (certainly compared to, say, AD&D or 3E D&D).

 

[Micah Sweet]

What does that have to do with light vs heavy? I mean, T&T doesn't really align with my preferences. But it's a pretty light system (certainly compared to, say, AD&D or 3E D&D).

Are you referring to Tunnels & Trolls, or something else? That acronym hasn't been used in this thread yet, do I'm not sure what you mean.

And my point is that few see problems with things they like, including game rules, at least to the degree of severity that other, less sanguine individuals see.

 

[pemerton]

I posited this idea because when Rule Zero + hidden backstory are both in effect, ultimately it is the GM's job to eliminate standstill. The players can only guess for so long at the hidden backstory elements that are preventing them from achieving their goals.

A Rule Zero GM must at some point break the barrier by either providing new vectors of information, or reframing scenes in a way that make new player action declarations possible.

This is interestingly no different than the stated GM agenda for PbtA play --- "adhere to your GM principles and make your moves".

The difference is that PbtA provides additional player side authority to largely eliminate stalemate play from appearing in the first place.

I would say a principal difference from AW is that, in AW, (i) "nothing happens" is not a GM move, and (ii) the GM moves are all framed by reference to player aspirations for their PCs ("put someone in a spot", "announce badness", "offer an opportunity, perhaps with a cost", "separate them" (when they want to be together), etc).

So it's not just that the GM eliminates standstill; at every point, the GM is inciting the players to declare actions for their PCs by putting the players' aspirations for their PCs under pressure.

In the sort of "rule zero" play you're describing, either the GM does the same thing, and play drifts to (what The Forge calls) "vanilla narrativism" - that's what happened with me in the second half of the 1980s - or else the GM puts out "hooks" which the players are expected to pick up on, and then play drifts towards something fairly trad.

A table that doesn't want either of the two options described above therefore needs to abandon "it's the GM's job to eliminate standstill". This is the approach taken by classic dungeon-crawling.

But in Rule Zero play, it's all on the GM. (S)he is fully responsible for developing valid game states that grant the ability for players to make action declarations.

If the goal is to avoid stalemate / "rowboat world" play, a Rule Zero game must rely on the GM.

I don't think this last-quoted sentence covers the field: see my previous sentence just above. I think classic dungeon-crawling puts it on the players to eliminate standstill. But this requires some fairly tight conventions on how scenes are framed, and how certain canonical actions (involving doors, ropes, 10' poles, etc) are resolved: we can see those conventions presupposed and occasionally stated in Gygax's AD&D rulebooks and in Moldvay Basic. I do think that one problem that can affect "sandbox"-type play is a lack of conventions, analogous to those which apply in the dungeon-crawling context, that govern scene-framing and some fairly canonical action declarations.

I think one of the reasons sandbox play has largely never taken over as the primary mode of play (vs. trad) is that GMs regularly fail to recognize this responsibility. If you take away player inputs to change the fiction, then some other inputs must fill in.

My diagnosis is a bit different. I think that there is significant degree of reluctance to acknowledge that classic dungeon-crawling depends upon conventions to make it viable: and hence there is a failure to develop comparable conventions to govern play that wants to use the same sort of GM prep + player resolution of stalemate as dungeon-crawling does, but in a more expansive fictional setting than an austere and artificial Gygaxian dungeon.

An interesting feature of Torchbearer is that it does set out conventions that govern the full gamut of play. It doesn't just say "make it verisimilitudinous" and then punt everything to the GM.

 

[pemerton]

Are you referring to Tunnels & Trolls, or something else? That acronym hasn't been used in this thread yet, do I'm not sure what you mean.

And my point is that few see problems with things they like, including game rules, at least to the degree of severity that other, less sanguine individuals see.

Yes, I'm referring to Tunnels & Trolls.

I don't understand what your point is. A claim was made that "light" RPGs are in fact "costly" in play. I disagreed, and pointed to some examples. All you seem to be saying is that different people like different things. No doubt that's true, but how does it bear upon the claim made about light RPGs?

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

How is that not an opinion dressed up as a fact? Claiming one system is just "superior" to another without any qualifier is just bad rhetoric, and I wouldn't expect anyone who doesn't already agree with you to accept it. This is worse than your claim that there's no such thing as simulation-based play.

'dressed up'??? Its a comment in a forum on RPGs, not a PhD thesis or even a blog post. With long experience, I've found it to be true. You are free to disagree, as always.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I posited this idea because when Rule Zero + hidden backstory are both in effect, ultimately it is the GM's job to eliminate standstill. The players can only guess for so long at the hidden backstory elements that are preventing them from achieving their goals.

A Rule Zero GM must at some point break the barrier by either providing new vectors of information, or reframing scenes in a way that make new player action declarations possible.

This is interestingly no different than the stated GM agenda for PbtA play --- "adhere to your GM principles and make your moves".

The difference is that PbtA provides additional player side authority to largely eliminate stalemate play from appearing in the first place.

But in Rule Zero play, it's all on the GM. (S)he is fully responsible for developing valid game states that grant the ability for players to make action declarations.

If the goal is to avoid stalemate / "rowboat world" play, a Rule Zero game must rely on the GM.

I don't think I disagree with any of the basic ideas presented, but I guess I'm not sure I like the whole label "Rule 0 GM/Game" as I don't think its really related directly to rule 0. A game could be trad/classic and flat out state that the ultimate rules authority is a vote of the table, and it wouldn't change that the source of the fiction is the GM, with the mapping of fiction to agenda being entirely in the GM's hands.

I think one of the reasons sandbox play has largely never taken over as the primary mode of play (vs. trad) is that GMs regularly fail to recognize this responsibility. If you take away player inputs to change the fiction, then some other inputs must fill in. Yet IME "rowboat world" GM-ing is largely the result of sandbox play, because it appears to offer "You can go anywhere!" freedom while slyly subverting control of the available actions to nearly exclusively the GM.

Yeah, the problem with such play IMHO is that dumping responsibility for driving play onto the players, but then not giving them anything to build that on, and keeping all the fiction as a secret GM resource, is simply "The Impossible Thing Before Breakfast." You cannot be a protagonist in a story where you have no control over the fiction! Even if you can set out in any map direction (or equivalents) that doesn't help as whatever you find is simply random to the player, it isn't associated with any agenda or character-originating need/want. You want revenge on the orcs for the murder of your family, but all you run into are goblins...

Now, one partial solution is for the GM to rewrite everyone's backstories and take charge of the elements which form these motives in the first place, and essentially make the characters her own. That would align the PCs to what they will discover, and make it relevant to them, but needless to say it probably won't leave a lot of the PLAYERS very satisfied! I mean, only if the GM is really good at creating stories which they want to play. It might work for a few superstar GMs.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

And they come with a cost.

And that cost?

Detail and granularity.

If a system is to support detailed granular resolution (e.g. combat) and play (e.g. exploration) it pretty much by default has to include more rules and-or guidelines both to handle those details and to deal with unusual or specific-but-predictable situations not otherwise covered. Further, discrete subsystems are often better for this than is one overarching mechanic.

Now if your preferred style of play tends to eschew details and granularity, you might not notice or even count this as a cost. Doesn't mean the cost isn't there.

And sure, it's obviously possible to go too far the other way, to the point where the cost in play efficiency outweighs the benefit of detail. One could say early Hackmaster at the height of its cumbersome-ness approaches if not exceeds this threshold.

Does it? Where is the lack of detail in combat in something like Dungeon World? I don't find the combats to be any less detailed or granular than the ones which happen in 5e, for example. Neither game employs a formal 'battle map' and rely on 'ToTM' style combat. Yet DW lacks any formal combat rules whatsoever!