Why do RPGs have rules?

[AbdulAlhazred]

This doesn't seem to match the definition on Dungeon World pg. 165.

"A soft move is one without immediate, irrevocable consequences."

Not finding a door (yet) can be revoked by finding a door eventually, implying that it's a soft move.

There can be endless debates as to PRECISELY when a move is 'soft' or 'hard', and one may reasonably construe a DEGREE of hardness. I find it best not to get too hung on these definitions. Assuming the GM is making moves in accordance with their principles, in service of their agenda, it should usually be good. So surely "you lose your torch in the confusion" is a hard move where torches are vital to have. OTOH it might be a pretty soft move if the character can likely do without a torch, albeit perhaps suffering some potential disadvantage, or acquire another one post-haste.

Soft moves dial things up. Hard moves are the payment on the promise of the soft move's threat. So, typically, you could do something like "You hear footsteps in the dark ahead of you" and when the PCs shrug and continue forward, you now have a 'golden opportunity' which allows for a hard move, the bugbear leaps out and does some damage to the fighter! Of course its always a bit of a judgment call, maybe the bugbear leaps out, but the fighter gets to DD to avoid the damage. Probably if the PCs are being cautious and act on the initial threat "we carefully keep our shields raised as we move slowly forward" then the DD is appropriate.

 

[Micah Sweet]

A "soft move" is the GM introducing new stuff into the fiction that steps up the risk/theat/foreboding/"rising action" but doesn't thwart the aspiration of the player in having their PC do something. A hard move is the GM introducing stuff into the fiction that concretely thwarts, at least to some degree, here-and-now.

A slightly boring example, but one that I think can make the point, is this: in Moldvay Basic D&D play, if a player says "I search for secret doors" with the aspiration of finding one, it would be a hard move to say "You don't find any". It would also be a hard move to say "You find one, but when you open it a thoul leaps out from the hidden cavity and attacks you." Under the rules of Moldvay Basic, the GM can make those sorts of hard moves regardless of the state of the rising action, and regardless of what the player rolls on their dice, by reference to their notes (eg if the notes say "no secret doors" then none will be found even on a roll of 1 on a d6; if the notes say "a thoul is behind the secret door and attacks anyone who opens it" then the thoul attack is legitimate regardless of what the player rolled).

In DW/AW, the GM does not make hard moves based on reference to their notes. The rules that tell them when to make hard moves, and that set out what counts as permissible hard moves ("You don't find any secret doors" isn't, without more, a permissible hard move), take as their inputs not the content of GM notes but the state of the rising action and the result of player dice rolls.

How is that not narrative mechanics though? It takes as input the state of the rising action; ie, it is based on drama.

That's why I can't get behind these kinds of games. I don't want the rules to feed off the state of drama of the game.

 

[Micah Sweet]

This is a lot like the kind of arguments that "micro nation" libertarian folks make. It works great, you go off on the high seas someplace and do whatever you want. It falls apart very fast however when some random naval vessel sails up, points a gun at you (or even a pirate, as has happened) and informs you that your little haven has now been conquered. You may complain, but you will learn the meaning of the phrase "Inter armis legis non" real fast! One can be 'right' and yet still completely wrong! Rule 0 is exactly the same sort of case, a GM may gently point it out and win some points with the table, but if push comes to shove, its all 'armis' and no 'legis'.

I have to call out the  excellent use of that Latin phrase, which I first saw as the title of a very good episode of Star Trek Deep Space 9.

 

[pemerton]

There can be endless debates as to PRECISELY when a move is 'soft' or 'hard', and one may reasonably construe a DEGREE of hardness. I find it best not to get too hung on these definitions. Assuming the GM is making moves in accordance with their principles, in service of their agenda, it should usually be good. So surely "you lose your torch in the confusion" is a hard move where torches are vital to have. OTOH it might be a pretty soft move if the character can likely do without a torch, albeit perhaps suffering some potential disadvantage, or acquire another one post-haste.

Soft moves dial things up. Hard moves are the payment on the promise of the soft move's threat. So, typically, you could do something like "You hear footsteps in the dark ahead of you" and when the PCs shrug and continue forward, you now have a 'golden opportunity' which allows for a hard move, the bugbear leaps out and does some damage to the fighter! Of course its always a bit of a judgment call, maybe the bugbear leaps out, but the fighter gets to DD to avoid the damage. Probably if the PCs are being cautious and act on the initial threat "we carefully keep our shields raised as we move slowly forward" then the DD is appropriate.

The torch example is a good one. And the discussion of how to adjudicate the "footsteps in the dark" is nice.

Your examples are all "procedural" or "external", in the sense of taking as the object of evaluation ("irrevocable consequence", "threat/badness", "cost", "opportunity" etc) as something about the character's instrumental means - defences vs bugbears, utility of torches etc.

But the evaluation can also be directed towards the "dramatic" or "internal" - eg the bugbear looms out of the darkness and snatches away the locket that hangs about your neck. Or consider "They drop their torch in the confusion - and the timber panelling in your home catches alight!"

Another example I thought of in a recent conversation about AW/DW was a GM move in the context of a character baking: "As you try to get the desiccated sugar out of the jar, you spoon snaps." Hard or soft? In "procedural" terms, is there an established shortage of culinary equipment (eg maybe we're playing AW, and it's a really impoverished hardhold). In "dramatic" terms, what's the significance to the character of the spoon (eg is it their only memento of their late parent)?

Because these are all about evaluation of one sort or another, there can be no acontextual list of what counts as a hard move.

 

[pemerton]

How is that not narrative mechanics though? It takes as input the state of the rising action; ie, it is based on drama.

That's why I can't get behind these kinds of games. I don't want the rules to feed off the state of drama of the game.

First and just to be clear, you're counting a rule about who should say what as a mechanic.

So in 5e it's a mechanic that, when the players declare that their PCs open the door, the GM looks at their notes and then tells them what they see.

Second, here's a passage from the 3E DMG (p 16), under the heading "Setting the Pace":

[W]hen in doubt, keep things moving. Don't feel that it is necessary to play out rest periods, replenishing supplies, or carrying out daily tasks. Sometimes that level of detail is an opportunity to develop characters, but most of the time it's unimportant.​

Is that a narrative mechanic? If not, why not?

 

[Micah Sweet]

First and just to be clear, you're counting a rule about who should say what as a mechanic.

So in 5e it's a mechanic that, when the players declare that their PCs open the door, the GM looks at their notes and then tells them what they see.

Second, here's a passage from the 3E DMG (p 16), under the heading "Setting the Pace":

[W]hen in doubt, keep things moving. Don't feel that it is necessary to play out rest periods, replenishing supplies, or carrying out daily tasks. Sometimes that level of detail is an opportunity to develop characters, but most of the time it's unimportant.​

Is that a narrative mechanic? If not, why not?

I would say its a rule about the granularity of your simulation (and not really one I agree with). It does have narrative elements to it, what with setting the pace, but as I said I don't care for it or the principle of keeping things moving for the sake of the story that it implies.

 

[clearstream]

@pemerton I'd like to lay out what I believe are our areas of agreement and contention, without preferencing any verdict

1) It's possible for a GM to function as a referee

2) You contend that in some common modes of play (including trad and neo-trad) GM cannot function as referee

3) Among things that prevent GM functioning as referee by your lights are - a) when they establish truths about setting, b) when they act as a font of unnecessary obstacles, c) when they choose a resolution

4) You contend that 3a, 3b, 3c make GM functionally a player

5) We agree that wielding rule-changing power may conflict with or disrupt the prelusory-goals/lusory-means/lusory-attitude (what I will call the lusory-fabric), that players must accept (perhaps on account of their being part of what it means to be a player)

6) You contend that wielding rule-changing power inevitably conflicts with or disrupts the lusory-fabric: there is no means of governing the wielding to keep it in compliance

7) I contend that 4) is not inevitable, so that even with 3a, 3b, 3c in place, GM need not become a player

8) I contend that even where 4) is true (whether that be due to inevitability or otherwise) GM may wear two hats, i.e. be player and referee both

9) I contend that 6) is false: that rule-changing authority can be made subject to the lusory-attitude through the proper principles and rules (and that on reflection, it will be seen that this is the only way games can function consistently at all)

10) For avoidance of doubt, we agree that 5) is not at issue in the case of referees: a referee can wield rule-changing power without conflict or disruption because they are outside the lusory-fabric

I wasn't sure about 6) but added it because it seemed right based on what you have written... notwithstanding that it feels like rather a strong and speculative claim (how do we really know from here all that may be possible for future game designers?) You might prefer we read it as the milder claim that there is no available means in the game texts we've been discussing, whether or not such means could exist. If so, then I have a further contention to make about that. Either way, my intent isn't to put words in your mouth.

What would you say your level of agreement is with the above? Do they rightly lay out the key points of agreement and contention? Would you correct any of them to better put the case? Is anything (other than buttressing examples and arguments) missing?

 

[clearstream]

Meh, I feel like this reads as a kind of weak rejection of Pemerton's rather insightful observation about the historical trajectory of refereeing in RPGs, but it falls short of being a substantive one. I mean, you may object to the use of the word 'kludge', but I thought it was actually kind of appropriate, if a little weighted. Rule 0 is a way of 'patching' the differences between the original 'KS-like' model of play with what we now call 'trad' priorities.

I briefly put you on ignore to prevent myself posting while frustrated.

See my post #597 which may more clearly identify my substantive points of agreement and contention.

Without conceding its accuracy as a characterisation, "kludge" is not at issue. I'm not sure why you think that. I'm sure I've said nothing about it.

 

[clearstream]

I'm really talking about a broader design attitude. Like, the phrase "the DM will set the DC" is something I'd prefer not to see in a book I'm consuming. Much like the rule zero discussion, if a DC cannot be determined despite a fairly exhaustive list, then it should be clear that the GM ought to reason an analogous task from the existing set and use it but that should be an exceptional state of affairs the design seeks to avoid, instead of a normative process of play.

The approach I use for preformulations is something like that in Torchbearer2. Starting from a base DC that can be thought of as the minimum degree of uncertainty to justify a check, guideline factors are considered to reach a DC. (5e contains a few types of DC, so this process is for the most general case.)

I agree, although I want more than that: not only do I want the game to be consistent, I want it to feel plausible, especially w/rt probability curves and modifiers. It's easy to give a game complete-but-implausible Stealth rules: "when you try to do something stealthily, roll a DC 15 Stealth check, and on a success nobody notices you."

That's a complete rule (the outcome is always clear, at least in the context of 5E where 'DC 15 Stealth check' has a meaning). But it's also garbage. Waiting until the dead of night doesn't make stealth any easier than doing it in broad daylight. Camouflage and ninja slippers don't help. Arranging a diversion doesn't help. Smelling like raw sewage doesn't hurt. Trying to sneak at top speed while on fire doesn't hurt. The rule is very clear about whether I achieve my goal, but it's ignoring my means and approach, which means it's ignoring all the things that matter to me in the name of a mechanically simple resolution procedure.

TTRPGs that I consider well-designed do a lot of the homework up front for you, specifying probability curves for common situations, while also making it easy to model other situations plausibly. E.g. fighting on bad footing should be more difficult than fighting on level ground, but good equipment should help (or even make it a net advantage, if you have good equipment and your foe does not), and fighting while sitting down should be even worse, even if "fighting while sitting" is not in the rulebook.

So this gets at what I have in mind for preformulations in the context of a simulationist or immersionist mode of play. There is a desire to have the objective setting (i.e. the setting that is not established by the players of characters living within that setting) be an impactful and scaled input into uncertainty and consequences.

There are significant questions about what might be the best means of achieving that? In broad brushstrokes, choices player has made in creating and advancing their character should count, as should what they describe doing. Unnecessary obstacles encountered in play should matter, such as NPC efforts against them or aspects of the established setting. As you say, it is ideal if there are guidelines that do some of the work for you. Expediting the procedure and producing DCs that are consistent with the fictional position, and go on to be consistent with similar fictional positions on future occasions.

 

[Enrahim2]

I wasn't sure about 6) but added it because it seemed right based on what you have written... notwithstanding that it feels like rather a strong and speculative claim (how do we really know from here all that may be possible for future game designers?) You might prefer we read it as the milder claim that there is no available means in the game texts we've been discussing, whether or not such means could exist. If so, then I have a further contention to make about that. Either way, my intent isn't to put words in your mouth.

I just wanted to point out that you might not even wait for future game designs to find a counter example. The mode in which I have played the card game Mao involve explicit rule making power as a clear part of the lusory fabric.

Without going into the details, the idea is that there is a "base game" where if you reach the "win" condition, your price is to reenter the game, having established a new rule (unknown to the other players). You then have to referee this rule, as noone else know it. There are no formal limits on the rules that can be established this way, but there are obvious practical and social limitations that informs what rules make sense. A large part of what make the game fun is to figure out these rules made by the other players as part of the gameplay, and I hence consider it quite obvious that this rule changing is a clear part of the lusory fabric.

I think this could be a perspective that could be good to have in mind when trying to determine if rule changing powers are part of the original D&D lusory fabric. I would claim that it indeed is, and would put it as a point 3d. It is not part of the DMs role as referee, but it is something they are allowed to wield in function of being a player in the game. Just as in Mao it is constrained by social acceptability, and just as i Mao the player has to referee it themselves (at least until some other player fully catches on).