Why do RPGs have rules?

[Imaro]

No Myth rejects the need for this distinction in the first place, because pre-planned things cannot have influence on the game.

But thats not true... they just have to be introduced under certain conditions.

Edit: And honestly I think its still possible to appear to be following a No-Myth agenda but direct play (at least in a general sense) using pre-constructed notes...

Can I make the sister just choose not to help her brother...no

Can I make the difficulty so high it effectively has a much higher chance to go that way... yes (at least in some games).

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I felt my #709 was on the money, certainly! And among its implications are those you lay out here. Rules supersede norms including those that might have been established e.g. by writing them down, which itself might have occured during the process of play.

Stuff thought of in advance (of any given session) can't be used to decide how things go independent of game mechanics. My #709 has said that is true of all RPG. Pursuant to @pemerton's reading of what you say here, it is responsive to say that there are rules that are always in effect covering every case that arises in play. I'm not yet sure if I find that plausible*. Supposing for the sake of argument it were, then that would be a claim about the expansiveness of rules in certain games, rather than that in some RPGs rules don't supersede norms. (*The claim seems an overly strong one: that in seeking a description|rule match as discussed in #709, one will always be found.)

(Interestingly, of course, above we have examples of groups resisting rules that supersede norms they feel strongly about! Reminding that while it's a property of rules that they supersede norms, the following of a rule never resides in the rule.)

Anyway - to be clear - I am agreeing with what @pemerton wrote as it matches something I wrote earlier, which applies to all RPG. I'm not sure that what is distinct about no-myth is that the rules must be all-encompassing. Do you think so?

I really wonder if it is not something else... some other prelusory goal, lusory means, or facet of the lusory attitude that we should be calling out. @loverdrive seems to be thinking along those lines.

I don't know. Frankly all this 'lusory' this and 'prelusory' that and whatever whatever whatever is not all that relevant to me. I KNOW this for a fact. You sit down at the table and play Dungeon World, there is only one game process that happens. It is a discussion about what the next part of the fiction will be, and the rules define how that discussion is held, and constrain the various participants to saying things which comport with various statements labeled 'agenda', 'principles', and 'techniques'. This discussion never wavers, it never ceases, it never breaks down, it is definitionally the play of Dungeon World. That's what I know. Anything can be discussed, there is no point at which the participants will ever just throw up their hands and say "well, we cannot discuss that, its simply impossible to apply the rules" because the ONLY core rule is "discussion is play." And this is NOT my idea, it is clearly and unequivocally spelled out in exactly these terms by Vince Baker!

All the other machinery of DW layers on top of that. So we get moves, which are a mechanic and associated refinement on what is then supposed to be said by whichever party. We have things like damage, gear, tags, hold, forward, etc. which also layer on top and allow us to trigger certain moves based on mechanical considerations (IE you lost all your hit points, the Death's Door move now happens). But none of those layers that go on top displaces the core, they are literally added layers that provide genre/milieu/agenda specific color to the core conversational loop, which always exists beneath them. If one of these mechanics fails, if it cannot be determined how to use it in a given situation, then you fall back to the conversation and decide. If no moves/mechanics/etc. apply, then the raw conversation itself serves to move things forward without any issues (the core GM moves framework is so general that it is already robust against any such failure).

THE only breakdown in play that can really happen in Dungeon World is a failure of the participants to speak to each other and come to an agreement as to what the fiction will be next. There could be any range of possible reasons for that, though I will admit at this point that you can formulate that in terms of lusory and prelusory goals or whatever you want. For me, talking about actual rubber meets road game play at tables those formulations have limited value. I might say to a GM who insists on violating the agenda and principles of DW on his side of the conversation something like "I don't think X is a principled thing for the GM to say, and my argument is Y." I expect a response along the lines of either "oh, OK" or "wait, here's my counterargument." or POSSIBLY "OK, I agree, but I think it behooves us to cheat a little in our DW game for reason Q. Do you agree?" Obviously anything happening from there is really no different from a disagreement about how to play 5e, someone's view prevails or the game ends.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

@loverdrive distinguished no-myth from yes-myth on grounds of scrutability.



It struck me that to player A, player B's inner state may be inscrutable. Yet players make decisions in application of mechanics. They can choose to trigger a move and they go on to decide details of its application. It seems plausible to suppose that those decisions must be down to some extent to their inner state.

So I wondered where the limits were? What is it about the inscrutable inner state of GMs that is distinct from the inscrutable inner state of players?

The question isn't designed to cast doubt on the distinction, but on the work done by scrutability. Suppose a group had a tremendous amount of preestablished myth but made that all scrutable (ST might in fact fit this description), does that scrutability just of itself make their play no-myth? (What might remain inscrutable being of course the inner states of participants.)

I am mindful here that another theory of no-myth has been proposed... but that theory seems true of all RPG. I don't aim to cast doubt on no-myth, but on the explanations to hand of what it is.

Obviously there is room for misunderstanding/error WRT communications at the table. As a conceptual framework, the conversation at the core of a DW/PbtA type of game reveals all of the things which now become catalogued (no formal process exists for this, but people take notes, etc.) as part of the game state and fiction. Note that there are specific facilities built into these games which are intended to assist with surfacing assumptions and details which might otherwise sail under the radar so to speak. GM asks questions. She also triggers moves (and that might be a big clue to a player that they lack understanding of something). Since the GM cannot act on anything unsaid, GMs are pretty voluble in most games of this sort! There's no reward for playing it close to your chest in most cases!

Note also how DW in particular admonishes the participants to speak in character, address the characters, start and end with the fiction, etc. This is all intended to keep the focus ON the relevant fiction. I don't think narrative games are even particularly special here, all games have the same issues. Its just that, in say 5e, the GM can fall back to "well, it's like X, that's just how it is. Even if I didn't tell you, its still a fact that I established in my notes, so deal with it."

 

[Maxperson]

What about 15 extra goblins? Or an extra trap The difference between those and 50 extra liches is non-existent.

None of that invalidates player skill. You can use skill to find and/or avoid that extra trap, and skill in battle to kill the extra goblins. If you are not going past what the can possibly be handled, player skill is determinable. The more skill players will succeed using fewer resources or just plain succeed where the less skilled players won't succeed or will need more resources.

The difference between an extra trap or some extra goblins and 50 liches is not only not non-existent, it's extremely obvious and major.

You got hanged up on specifics and failed to grasp the point: it's impossible to distinguish pre-planned things and things invented on the spot.

I grasp your mistake just fine. Planned vs. improv =/= invalidate player skill. That's where you are going wrong.

No Myth rejects the need for this distinction in the first place, because pre-planned things cannot have influence on the game.

It's a distinction that is only relevant in personal preference, not in player skill. If you like no myth, play it. If you don't, don't. If you like traditional play, play it. If you don't, don't. It's all preference, some some sort of superior playstyle.

Nor does planned vs. preplanned somehow invalidate player skill.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

As an aside, it is in large part the fact that the constraints are mostly or entirely on the GM and not on the players that leads me to believe that narrative/storygame play as the GM makes them exist primarily as a servant of player desires.

GM has a very strong facilitator kind of role in narrative play, yes. They are (generally, some games are different of course) bringing a lot of, maybe even all, of the direct 'tell the fiction' to the table. However, they're not as much of a director of all the action as they are in a trad/classic game. I agree with @loverdrive though, the GM in a Dungeon World game is no more constrained than a player, probably less so, in your game.

There's also the practice and feel of play as opposed to the bare nuts and bolts of things. I'd say I've experienced being the lead fiction developer in DW games. These were particularly games with people straight out of long experience in 2e/3e/5e D&D games where they seem to have been heavily trained not to assert anything. Such a game is not generally at the highest level of DW play, at least until the players realize what the situation really is and step up. But even that aside, yeah, GMs have a lot of power even in DW, even if the players take the game by the horns and run it hard. I can still say "oh, hey, soft move, guess what, my threat that I wrote into a front the other day just showed up!" And DW is pretty much assured of giving me the soft (or hard) move opportunity for that real soon! Even the cleverest of players are going to get framed into a dicey situation before too long.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Or based on/refers to something that is prior established. This goes for fantasy realism. Something based on real world realism, like how lightning bolts can split trees but not houses doesn't need establishment in the setting, because that sort of realism is assumed unless the setting changes it, such as with dragons and casting spells.

The exact physical capabilities of lightning bolts aside (I mean, I agree natural lightning in the real world cannot split open a mountain, so obviously we CAN construct scenarios where its not realistic); there's a piece I feel is missing from your conception here that is critical to me. That is, you posit 'lightning can be assumed to exist as in the real world', but you don't then demonstrate any mechanism by which its other attributes are established; that is how frequently and where it strikes. I don't see the overall realism at all. Its like you are all saying that because you describe the existence of trees that the forest is realistic, but the forest has emergent and supervenient properties that aren't attributable to common-sense reasoning about trees. I've not argued, and don't argue, that you cannot describe a tree, a lightning strike, a pit, etc. in fairly plausible terms. Its the contention that this connects in any way to overall realism, except in a superficial sense, that I balk at.

The difficulty with the dragon and the magic lightning is actually a separate issue, though also problematic in that I cannot see how there are more or less simulationist dragons or magic lightnings. Obviously you can simply relegate those to some other non-simulationist game aspect though, so I'm not sure that's absolutely critical as long as they have very limited overall world effect. That is to say, if there are 100's of dragons in your world, doing completely fantastical and impossible-to-constrain-by-reference-to-simulation things, then it's likely the whole world would be turned upside down by them. I recall there was this whole vitriolic argument against 4e eledrin along these lines once in which the 'misty step' was invoked as being some horrible thing because nobody could possibly measure its impact on society.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

But thats not true... they just have to be introduced under certain conditions.

Edit: And honestly I think its still possible to appear to be following a No-Myth agenda but direct play (at least in a general sense) using pre-constructed notes...

Can I make the sister just choose not to help her brother...no

Can I make the difficulty so high it effectively has a much higher chance to go that way... yes (at least in some games).

I cannot speak to all narrative RPGs of course, but in PbtA games this option doesn't exist at all. I guess the GM could try to interpret player actions in terms of unfavorable moves, but this is not going to go far and will soon collapse into silliness. In FitD-based games the position is an attribute of the current state of the situation. The GM sets this variable but this reflects the risk factor involved, so a GM who is sandbagging here will soon become obvious. In scores the position USUALLY follows from previous moves, unless something in the fiction is really different or a player chooses to do something really crazy, etc. Likewise effect is FAIRLY objective! I mean, I'm a master swordsman, I'm hacking at someone full on with my favorite fine katana. If the GM seriously wants to call that limited effect, he better have some explanation! Either the guy I'm taking on is a super bad-ass who can mitigate most of my attack, or he's made of solid electro-shielded adamantium! I should know these things going in.

Now, yes, some situations in BitD might be both murky enough and subjective enough that the GM's opinion makes the course of action non-viable. OTOH BitD will resist that a lot, because character A can do a setup move (flashback to burgling her flat to find some extra leverage), B can assist (pose as another coworker who's going to be irate if bro can't get his stuff in order), and C can pull 2 stress to get an extra die, and maybe even dump in a resource use to up the effect. I've just dropped an extra 3d6 into my pool and jacked the effect by a level. Yeah, the GM made us burn some stress/resource/loadout for that win, but its very hard to hold back a determined crew!

In 4e the GM could theoretically toss a really nasty encounter or obnoxious SC at you, but the rules still dictate there are limits to how lopsided the odds can be before the thing is clearly no longer fair play.

I think in a practical sense a GM can do some steering of play, but these sorts of games are generally quite up front, there's just not a real way for the GM to railroad in a consistent fashion and still play by the rules. This is a LOT less of a concern than it would be in a trad D&D game, where by the letter of the rules the GM can fudge rolls, alter situations, etc. all without any mechanism for the players to even know it happened unless it is really blatant.

 

[Maxperson]

The exact physical capabilities of lightning bolts aside (I mean, I agree natural lightning in the real world cannot split open a mountain, so obviously we CAN construct scenarios where its not realistic); there's a piece I feel is missing from your conception here that is critical to me. That is, you posit 'lightning can be assumed to exist as in the real world', but you don't then demonstrate any mechanism by which its other attributes are established; that is how frequently and where it strikes. I don't see the overall realism at all. Its like you are all saying that because you describe the existence of trees that the forest is realistic, but the forest has emergent and supervenient properties that aren't attributable to common-sense reasoning about trees. I've not argued, and don't argue, that you cannot describe a tree, a lightning strike, a pit, etc. in fairly plausible terms. Its the contention that this connects in any way to overall realism, except in a superficial sense, that I balk at.

You're still trying to argue that you need to model all possible variables or it isn't a model or realism. Neither models nor realism need to be 100% to be a model or realism.

Take a sword in the game. It's sharp, made of steel, does slashing and/or piercing damage, etc. That's both realism and a model of a sword. I don't need to also model it getting dull and needing maintenance, strength of metal for breakage, rust, etc. to accomplish either. Adding those in gives it greater realism and makes it a more accurate model, but those additions simply are not necessary for me to simulate a sword.

Models and realism both work on sliding scales. The farther towards one end you are, the less realism it has and the less accurate the simulation model. The farther towards the other end of the scale you are, the greater the realism and more accurate the model.

In no case are you failing to simulate the thing or failing to have a model.

If you want to argue that I am not providing enough to be a simulation, then you need to show me the objective amount of accuracy is needed to be a simulation model. 10% of the possible variables? 5% 28.73% 67% What is the number?

The difficulty with the dragon and the magic lightning is actually a separate issue, though also problematic in that I cannot see how there are more or less simulationist dragons or magic lightnings.

As I said, fantasy realism is a thing. If the setting has established something fantastic as part of the setting reality, then you can use that to simulate how the thing interacts with the rest of the setting in a realistic manner. We know how dragons act, more or less how rare they are, behaviors, habitats, etc. That's enough for a simulation model and realism.

Obviously you can simply relegate those to some other non-simulationist game aspect though, so I'm not sure that's absolutely critical as long as they have very limited overall world effect. That is to say, if there are 100's of dragons in your world, doing completely fantastical and impossible-to-constrain-by-reference-to-simulation things, then it's likely the whole world would be turned upside down by them. I recall there was this whole vitriolic argument against 4e eledrin along these lines once in which the 'misty step' was invoked as being some horrible thing because nobody could possibly measure its impact on society.

Yeah, some people take things too far in order to try and poo poo an edition(or aspect of an edition) that they don't like. If they want to try and model the effect of eladrin misty step on society for their game, they are welcome to do so. That's more fantasy realism than I generally want for my games, though.

 

[Micah Sweet]

There are plenty of constraints on players. They are expected to play dynamic, compelling protagonists who actively pursue their dramatic needs. They have to contend with constant complications / adversity along the way, often are subject to social mechanics that influence their decision space, etc. There is casual exploration of their environment, no conflict neutral play.

Plenty of posters have given testimony that they run Story Now games because they enjoy/prefer to. Do you not believe them when they say they are definitely servants and have plenty of say on how things go?

For my part when I run games like Apocalypse World I do so because I want to run something that is more reminiscent of dramatic fiction than adventure fiction. I do so because I want the other players to provide some of the juice. I assure you I expect plenty from the people I choose to play with.

For you it would probably feel like you were being a servant because the parts you enjoy about GMing are not central to the role in games like Monsterhearts. The ones I enjoy (at least sometimes are). You are universalizing your preferences to all GMs.

I'm not universalizing anything. It is my personal opinion. I know and would expect the opinions of others to differ, because they have different priorities than I do. You're right that the parts of GMing I enjoy are not central to the role in games like Monsterhearts. That is what leads to my personal opinion about such games, and is a large part of why I don't enjoy them. Others do and that's great.

 

[Manbearcat]

As an aside, it is in large part the fact that the constraints are mostly or entirely on the GM and not on the players that leads me to believe that narrative/storygame play as the GM makes them exist primarily as a servant of player desires.

I'll be honest Micah. I think you're expressing a zoomed out, not-particularly-informed idea of how these games work during play and what they ultimately yield downstream of play. There are some people that might use Dungeon World non-normatively to express an agenda outside of the game's primary ethos (in the 7 cultures of play it would be OC/Neotrad...on the Forge it would be a version of High Concept Simulation) where play looks like "power fantasy." Testimonials for that might appear to convey "servant of player desires." But, consider what happened during the first few sessions (Expedition #1 of the 2nd Stonetop game I'm running):

* The Ranger lost 2 of their 3 dogs (as in dirtnap).

* The Marshall nearly lost their entire Crew (6 essential Followers both thematically and tactically) during a ferocious effort to save Stonetop's group of children who collect deadfall for firewood. They would have all perished if not for a timely move by the Seeker and attendant good dice result and a series of subsequent good plays afterward by all of the other players involved (Marshal, Lightbearer, Ranger).

* The Cave Bear they befriended during the Expedition was forced to make a last stand against their enemy to cover the PC & children retreat after the group saved Stonetop's children. That could have gone much worse than it did, but it still ended in The Cave Bear falling prey to an entity of terrible corruption (of which she will now be a part of and that Threat and will manifest in the future on its behalf either in play as a Monster or as a Grim Portent).

* The NPC Requisitioned Expedition to handle an Opportunity (to lend Stonetop's Midwife to deliver a child for a goatherding Hillfolk tribe...compensation for success would have been a family of goatherders as assets for Stonetop) went disastrously. It failed in every way possible leading to (a) the group losing the +1 Fortunes they gained from Returning Triumphantly (saving the kids from the Threat in The Great Wood), (b) the Expedition leader being bent at his failure (which turned into a Homefront Threat last session and was resolved) and (c) the town Cobbler going missing. If (c) isn't resolved, we're going to have shoe/boots complications (the social issue with the cobbler's parents was resolved during this Homefront phase...that also could have gone terrible wrong).

---

That ain't power fantasy. That ain't wish fulfillment gaming. That ain't "servant to the players."

"Being a fan of the player characters" and "asking questions and using the answers" isn't about "being subsurvient to the players." Honestly, I inflict hardship, duress, and harm on the players at a frequency and magnitude in these games than in any Trad game I've ever run (and its not close). People coming from a trad perspective and playing in these games (without being acquainted with and having their cognitive space appropriately mapped to how the games work) could (and has) absolutely feel like "HOLY CRAP THIS IS THE MOST ADVERSARIAL GMING POSSIBLE...WTH?" That is the thing. Its structured and principled adversarial GMing. I have resources I can draw upon. I have moves I can make. These are structurally and principally constrained by the ruleset in question.

As a result, all of the stuff that happened above was neither expression of "subservience to players" nor "adversarial GMing."

It was an expression of running the game with a combination of the integrity required of me + the assets at my disposal + the creative means afforded to me personally (such as they are).