Why do RPGs have rules?

[innerdude]

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.

(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").

(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.

(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?

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?

 

[clearstream]

Its certainly possible to have cases where the implications of genre, setting or system don't sink in until the players have been engaged with it for a time, and rather than address that they just forge on attempting to play it as the experience they thought they were getting. My experience has been that that rarely goes well.

So they're playing it wrong?

But part of that is that I'm kind of a firm proponent of finding the tool for the job, not just making use of whatever tool you have at hand. I'm aware that with some people ease-of-general use (which can include familiarity) or willingness of people to use a system is a factor, but my own opinion is that's rarely a good enough reason to use the wrong tool. Its extremely likely to create problems, and the fact you hear about the successes is likely selection bias and the fact most people are not good at analyzing when they have problems to see what the reasons for them are.

Could be the right tool for the game they want to play. Just, that game may differ from the game you want to play (using that same game object.)

 

[Thomas Shey]

So they're playing it wrong?

At least in a sense. They're not doing themselves any favors in the system/setting/genre of choice if that's the playtype they really want to be doing.

Could be the right tool for the game they want to play. Just, that game may differ from the game you want to play (using that same game object.)

Experience makes me cynical of this interpretation. If that was true more often it wouldn't go badly so often.

Edit: Again, to make it clear, this does not mean that there are not game systems/settings/genres with a range of possible play styles. I know there are people who don't believe in generic systems but I'm not one of them. But frequently the case is attempting to repurpose games that have features that are actively counter to what you'd expect to see for what the players involved are attempting simply for reasons of convenience, and I think that's a false economy.

 

[loverdrive]

Because, in general, such only works well with an established group that has a fairly high level of trust... and in such groups, shared authority tends to naturally flow anyway. That's not as safe an assumption as it used to be.

Eh, I don't think so. I'm actively playtesting my game that involves exactly that: two people tell a story using a prompt until the moment they disagree, then they play a fighting mini-game and the winner narrates how the scene ends, no restrictions. I bring it to parties and it works alright. Well, ok, I mostly hang out with artsy people, unafraid of the cringe of creative expression, but still.

And disrupting the "natural" flow is kinda the point — so the participants can punch, and punch hard, unafraid of being blocked by consensus. Vae victis, all that.

 

[Lanefan]

Obviously that didn't quote, but my question would always be whether its not better to get the kind of game play you want at the system choice and campaign type stage rather than trying to bend whatever you've got to it, but that requires people to both be self-aware enough to know what that is and honest and determined enough to push for it, and in some cases there's significant failures on one or both.

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.

 

[Thomas Shey]

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.

Or, in my experience, just moves the upfront work to later work when doing that causes problems. Sometimes to the degree of causing the game to fail out completely. Like I said above, a false economy.

 

[Pedantic]

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?

I prefer to define immersion mechanically, precisely to resolve the tension you're trying to create. Immersion is resolved at the level of player decision making, and decisions are more or less immersive the less space there is between the analysis of the character being portrayed and the analysis of the player making decisions for them. You can decrease the level of possible immersion a decision offers most quickly by giving the player agency over things (or especially people) outside the character, or by unmooring a decision temporally, thus that it affects past or far future events, instead of immediate action.

A GM cannot achieve immersion in the role of world builder, that is at direct odds with the goal. It is possible to do so while providing agency to a NPC, but probably harder that it is for a player. GM as referee doesn't have a character to relate to, unless we're directly personifying the rules, so immersion cannot be a concern.

 

[Pedantic]

Or, in my experience, just moves the upfront work to later work when doing that causes problems. Sometimes to the degree of causing the game to fail out completely. Like I said above, a false economy.

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

 

[clearstream]

At least in a sense. They're not doing themselves any favors in the system/setting/genre of choice if that's the playtype they really want to be doing.

Given it's play there are no mandatory standards for it. If a group are satisfied, any putative mismatch amounts to distance from some normal expectation. I'm unwilling to start from - that's not the best way to play the game. I'm more interested in starting from a basic assumption of validity.

Edit: Again, to make it clear, this does not mean that there are not game systems/settings/genres with a range of possible play styles. I know there are people who don't believe in generic systems but I'm not one of them. But frequently the case is attempting to repurpose games that have features that are actively counter to what you'd expect to see for what the players involved are attempting simply for reasons of convenience, and I think that's a false economy.

I'm not so much thinking of generic systems, but rather interpreting and using rules to form a game identity distinct to the group. The distributions of recognisably similar game identities are uneven: a normal distribution (all different, but with a lot of similarity), then some relatively empty areas, and then another less strong norm (how it's played in some local scene), and so on.

This is partly self-informing, where there is in place an idea that the proper modes of addressing a game are submission and constrained freedom, as opposed to subversion and creation.

 

[clearstream]

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

One kind of frustrating obstacle to claims of this sort is that the TTRPG community to date lacks anything like a data set extensive and detailed enough to prove them. We rely on small data sets supplemented by expertise for our justifications... and it's not always clear how to proceed when experts disagree.

My view is that in general groups will achieve satisfying play by choosing game texts that have been identified by their designers and in the discourse as suitable for that play, and interpreting and using that text close to norms. And at the same time - this will not rule out that some groups achieve equally satisfying play through using those same texts creatively or subversively, or through productive differences in interpretation. I see these latter as a tonic.