Why do RPGs have rules?

[Bedrockgames]

This is starting to feel like that conversation about order and chaos in SLC Punk

 

[Darth Solo]

Ye Gods why did Pemerton pose this question? To see cats fight?

Huzzah! Victory Achieved!

 

[Bedrockgames]

Ye Gods why did Pemerton pose this question? To see cats fight?

Huzzah! Victory Achieved!

It helps to picture Pemerton sipping earl gray

 

[Micah Sweet]

I disagree with the notion that it's ultimately the GM's game for reasons that I have discussed already. Now what do you have to say?

First of all, you are acting in a very challenging manner for reasons that are unclear to me.

Secondly, you could absolutely run a game where the GM and the players share more authority (although I still don't see how you could possibly continue the same game with a new GM without everyone involved knowing everything about the game and setting), but that game would not be D&D or anything like it to me and I can't see how I would enjoy it, as a player or GM, as D&D. Other games, sure. Other fantasy games even. But DW, for example, is in no way barring genre like D&D to me. To be fair though, all of the PbtA games drive me crazy, and I don't understand the appeal.

To continue the tone you've established, now what do you have to say?

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Let's work with @AbdulAlhazred's notion of process complete. DW defines a written procedure for deciding anything not covered by existing structures. D&D also provides a written procedure (e.g. DMG 5.) Dissatisfaction with that procedure doesn't make it not a procedure.

I see a fairly significant difference between what is on DMG 5 and the 'action loop' of DW. This is fairly well described in the first 20 or so pages of the rules. Specifically you are referring, I assume, to P5, 'Part 3: Master of Rules' and especially para 3 "The rules don't account for every possible situation..." This section then goes on to give an example of a character making an improvised attack, recommending an ability check with a GM set DC. We can immediately see how this is pretty different from the conversation -> action description -> move trigger of DW. Nowhere in the DW description is something like 'GM decides' ever required! At one point it is stated that if there's disagreement as to whether or not a move was triggered then the people at the table will have to decide that issue. So, yes, clearly there's a question of interpretation of dialog and fiction in order to decide player move triggers. There is also the overall appropriateness of whatever a player has said, does it comport with the fiction at all, and is it genre appropriate, etc.

In the case of 5e the determinations go FAR DEEPER, the GM must essentially create a 'rule' here! First, is this action feasible at all, coherent with the fiction, genre appropriate, etc.? Second, does it meet the criteria of an 'action which requires a check'. There isn't really a term for this, and exactly what those criteria are is the subject of what I would term guidelines, which we have had discussions on in the past (IE is it dangerous, is there doubt as to success, etc.). Finally the GM has to decide what ability is checked, and invent a DC. This is a lot of stuff being determined, effectively the entire 'rule' or 'ruling' or whatever you want to call it, is being invented here. Now dice can be thrown, and THEN the GM determines what happens on a success. This is VERY different and much more a process of adjudication than the DW process.

So, no, I don't think they are fully comparable.

@AbdulAlhazred offered the distinction open versus closed systems. Chess is closed because from a game state for any player there is a finite set of next states that the rules if accepted force them to choose among. DW is open because in a myriad of cases (Ritual gold demands being just one) there is no limit to the possible choices players could make. I call this "incomplete" on the grounds that completeness requires everything necessary to be in place, and here (e.g. in deciding what "a lot" entails) each reader must add something to choose their next game state.

Chess is closed because there are a finite number of states that can exist AT ALL in chess, formally that they are 'countable', and that each state is objectively distinct in ways that the rules fully describe. A game of chess is always entirely occupying one of these states, unambiguously, and we can even generate random game states and in at least some cases evaluate whether they could potentially arise by following the other rules of chess from the well-defined starting state. That's a closed game.

Open games lack some of the features of closed games, they don't have countably many well-defined game states. RPGs pretty much all fall into this category because the fiction is part of the game state and fiction is not well-defined. Even if it was well-defined in terms of saying "this fiction differs from this other fiction" there are practically speaking no limits to the number of fictions we could imagine and that would be feasible to reach in play by following the rules.

Note that in the above I have only referred to rules in terms of their "generative power", that is as a PROCEDURE with which we generate new game states. I will note there is a fundamental property of open game rules, they MUST be described generatively! With chess, hypothetically, you could construct a very large rule book which described every possible state transition explicitly, without any generalizations at all, and in a logical sense this would be equivalent to the actual, much more compact, algorithmic generative rules we actually use. This is impossible for open games, the existence of infinite game state precludes any such possibility, the rules FUNDAMENTALLY are generative in nature.

So, any complete RPG, MUST be a set of algorithms for determining state transitions. The real problem arises in that the states in RPGs really are not very well-defined. So you object to the possibility of a COMPLETE RPG on that basis. This is the essence of your "ritual doesn't say a fixed amount of gold" objection, that you don't see the outcome of the ritual move as describing a well-defined game state. I look at game state in RPGs a bit more loosely, in terms of its 'effectivity'. That is, a 'family of states' is effectively identical if play would proceed on exactly the same trajectory from all of them. I am of the opinion that the ritual rule produces such effectively identical states. That is, the GM charges the PC 'a lot' of gold, which leaves them with 'a little' gold, right? DW is not a game about counting your gold pieces! While it might be possible to concoct an example where a PC finishes casting a ritual and then does or does not have enough gold to buy his crew a round of drinks (and this snowballs into some significance) I find that a bit strained. The ambiguity in 'ritual' IMHO is more a matter of compactness of rule presentation in DW, where in a game more like 5e (lets say 4e since it has rituals) there is an elaborate rule and many detailed notations about different rituals with different levels and costs.

So, I don't agree with your analysis of complete and incomplete. I think DW is pretty complete, whereas 5e tends to require the GM to do a lot of fairly fundamental work in terms of deciding outcomes, what to check against, DCs, etc. This is a LOT more buttoned down in DW, to the extent that one could follow along a DW session transcript and note exactly what rule was applied and how it was mapped into the fiction at every point where rules are in use. Maybe my definition suits me, but I think there's some justification for it, and that it expresses an actual trait of different games that can be objectively discussed.

Physical sports are typically incomplete in this sense, which is seen in their 'that which is not forbidden is permitted' approach to rules (something you touched on earlier). Seeing as the human body and real world physics are part of play it's not possible to write complete rules for physical sports.

I think, in accordance with the principles above, it actually IS possible. I think the rules of Major League Baseball, for example, are probably pretty complete! Actually, we can see how this fails, such as this famous example: There was a MLB pitcher who used a 6-fingered either hand glove, and pitched left or right. No rule had ever been made about this, as he was the only such pitcher who ever appeared in a game. Subsequently a switch-hitter appeared at the plate. The pitcher, observing the batter's choice of stance then moved his glove and took position on the mound, at which point the batter left the box and returned at the opposite side of the plate! The pitcher then switched hands! This went on for several minutes before the Umpire called a rules conference. The referees determined that NO RULE EXISTED for this situation, as it was novel. Subsequently MLB made a slight amendment to their rules covering this situation. Now, in a formal sense, this might make MLB an 'incomplete' system of rules, but really I find that fairly strained. Such minor lacunae aside, the job of an Umpire in MLB is simply to recognize what rule applies in a given situation. This generally consists of applying definitions to the game state; was that a bunt or not? Did the runner deliberately leave the baseline to collide with the fielder? Was the ball over the foul line? Is it a strike or a ball? Some of these might be arguable at times, but the rules are still definite and general enough in nature to be applied objectively.

I'm saying that this quality - of incorporating human imagination into the game system e.g. as linkages from system to fiction - has the same consequence. How much is "a lot"? It's whatever I imagine it to be. What soft or hard move is chosen when Jo prizes a ruby from a statue's eye? It's whatever I imagine. DW supplies constraints on what I ought to imagine, but it does not in such cases supply any list of what I must imagine. The distinction from chess is crystal clear!

Of course we understand what you are saying. I pointed out some of the logical characteristics of different games and types of games. I agree that RPGs have a trait by which their states are not super well-defined and thus no amount of precision of rules will ever remove all judgment from them and reduce them to the precision of a chess board. I get why you want a label for that, but I also want a label for the distinction between a general design with a universal rule and exceptions vs 5e's far less structured 'a rule for everything, or no rule at all' approach. If you want to try to numerically rate the completeness of each game, be my guest, I am not convinced that sort of exercise will gain us a lot.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

And yet, the manner of opening should logically affect what happens when the hatch is open. If the hatch is being opened via a rope-and-pulley system from a distance, it doesn't make sense for a gelatinous cube to land on the pullers (who aren't nearby) or for sewer water to deluge them. A good GM ought to look at those results, look at the action the character actually took, and refuse to use the Custom Move table as written--it doesn't make sense! GM fiat is appropriate here.

Now, it's possible that in Dungeon World that doesn't happen, that you're simply forced to use the Custom Move table as written or that you're not allowed to do things like set up a pulley system to open the hatch from a distance. I'm interested in Manbearcat's take for this reason. I confess that I don't trust your or pemerton's takes as much because dialogue with you two has just gone in circles with no substantive progress, so please don't feel obligated to spend your leisure time explaining to me your perspective, although if you do it anyway there's always a chance we'll reach some kind of mutual understanding against my expectations.

I think I touched on this last night, but I just wanted to reiterate, it is perfectly true that the context in which a move takes place is going to have an impact on the outcomes. This is discussed in the first chapter of the DW rules, though in a kind of informal way. DW emphasizes heavily that the CORE of play is the dialog between the participants, the conversation, and it particularly emphasizes the primary nature of the conversation as the 'discovery of fiction' process. The rules are actually a layer ON TOP OF this conversation which regulate it in order to do things like introduce unwelcome elements, etc. The point is, if you opened the sewer hatch using a pulley system, indeed the gelatinous cube wouldn't fall on your head. It would probably still have to be dealt with, but here we see an example of 'skilled play' as applied to DW! Presumably in this case the player choosing the consequences of hatch opening is much more likely to choose "princess is behind the door" than in other situations, and this seems like a suitable reward for playing cleverly, as well as illustrating how moves and outcomes are situational.

 

[Aldarc]

Secondly, you could absolutely run a game where the GM and the players share more authority (although I still don't see how you could possibly continue the same game with a new GM without everyone involved knowing everything about the game and setting), but that game would not be D&D or anything like it to me and I can't see how I would enjoy it, as a player or GM, as D&D. Other games, sure. Other fantasy games even.

(1) D&D is not every TTRPG.

(2) When people speak of D&D as a big tent game, this also means that there are people who are playing D&D functionally and philosophically in ways that you wouldn't. It doesn't mean that it's not D&D. It means that the concession of having a big tent game is that there will be groups with playstyles and agendas that are at odds with your own. This even includes the role and authority of the GM.

(3) As I said before, in nearly all my games of D&D that I have ever played, the various players of the group never thought of the game as the GM's game; instead, they thought of it as "functionally" the group's game because we decided as a group to play the game together. One player had the GM's role but it was "functionally" our game as a collective unit of friends gaming together.

But DW, for example, is in no way barring genre like D&D to me. To be fair though, all of the PbtA games drive me crazy, and I don't understand the appeal.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

So we've now moved from "complete rules" to "complete systems"? Which would be something like "from a full statement of the rules, every possible state of the system is in principle derivable"?

I didn't know those two phrases were intended to be synonyms. (Nor did @AbdulAlhazred, who distinguished them upthread in more or less the same terms I'm distinguishing them in this post.)

As I think I've made clear, I regard the rules of a game as a complete if, at any game state that is arrived at, they tell the participants how to move to the next game state. DW does this. I've pointed out, just upthread, that Classic Traveller doesn't. And I've pointed out a bit further above that Moldvay Basic is marginal in this respect.

Whether 5e is complete in its rules or not is ultimately for someone else to state, who knows it better than me. The version I'm familiar with is the Basic pdf, and it seems to me to contain instructions that fall short of completeness: for instance, there are rules that say that a die roll is to be called for if the outcome of an action is uncertain, but the notion of "uncertain" is left unexplained, with an unstated implication that the GM is to decide based on their notes, their intuition or both. If I was redrafting it so as to make it more complete, I would say that the rule is "a dice roll is called for if the GM does not want to just stipulate an outcome", and then add some commentary about the bases (notes, intuition, maybe others) that the GM might rely on in stipulating an outcome. (This commentary would parallel the discussion in AW of how the GM can "disclaim decision-making".)

Interesting... I didn't really parse 'complete rules' and 'complete system' in a conscious way. I guess you could. So maybe this is a useful kind of distinction to make, I'm not sure... Like, the difference between some hypothetical infinite but judgment free game (lets call it 'infinite chess' as I can't come up with a real-world example, played on a lambda-x-lambda sized board, lol) and Dungeon World is that: L-Chess is complete as a system, it has definite game states that are unambiguous and thus the rules require no judgment whatsoever to apply, a simple computer algorithm can check the legality of any possible move. Dungeon World is then clearly different, as the state-change algorithm requires us to use some kind of non-formalized criteria to distinguish states, although the process for handling state transitions is still completely specified. Both have complete rules, but L-Chess is 'system complete' in that the boundaries of the game, the distinction of game states, etc. forms a well-defined class called an 'L-Chess game'. DW would then be complete in its rules, but not necessarily complete in terms of it being possible to finitely describe its state unambiguously. It might not even be possible to define the participants unequivocally. Is an adventure designer a participant? Is the boyfriend who's watching and commenting, but not playing a PC, one?

So, I'm not sure the 'system vs rules' terminology is the best, and we're starting to get into some pretty hair-splitting distinctions between RPGs here, but there would seem to be SOME consensus that there are at least hypothetically these distinctions (though the fact that I had to resort to a non-representable game 'L-Chess' disturbs me as a mathematical realist...).

 

[Micah Sweet]

(1) D&D is not every TTRPG.

(2) When people speak of D&D as a big tent game, this also means that there are people who are playing D&D functionally and philosophically in ways that you wouldn't. It doesn't mean that it's not D&D. It means that the concession of having a big tent game is that there will be groups with playstyles and agendas that are at odds with your own. This even includes the role and authority of the GM.

(3) As I said before, in nearly all my games of D&D that I have ever played, the various players of the group never thought of the game as the GM's game; instead, they thought of it as "functionally" the group's game because we decided as a group to play the game together. One player had the GM's role but it was "functionally" our game as a collective unit of friends gaming together.

For that last point, are you saying that I shouldn't express a negative opinion about a type of game because other people like it? Hmm...

As for your other points, it has been IMO exhaustively proven by multiple examples that D&D is designed to be the GM's game primarily, as in "the buck stops here". You can play it differently of course, but you are changing fundamental assumptions by doing so, so I feel justified in claiming that the kind of game you espouse would not feel like D&D to me, and I won't apologize for saying so.

Also, at what point did I ever say or imply that D&D is every RPG? Every game I've ever ran, and nearly every game I've ever played, has either been D&D or ran like it insofar as the points re: GM authority we're discussing are concerned. My experience with other games has been limited and largely off-putting to me.

 

[pemerton]

The way I read it, in these kinds of games the world doesn't really exist outside of player and GM moves.

No shared fiction exists outside the imagination of those who share it.

GM notes don't create a shared fiction. They create a resource that the GM can draw on when adjudicating action declarations and thereby stating what comes next in the shared fiction.