Why I don't GM by the nose

[Thasmodious]

What is this page 42 you all speak of?
In a nutshell, what exactly is this rule?

In the 4e DMG, on page 42, is a table, broken down by level, for coming up with level appropriate DCs and damage amounts for adjudicating situations on the fly. For example, a PC wants to shoot the rope holding up a chandelier, so said chandelier falls on his enemies head. The table would give level appropriate DC for the shot and appropriate damage to occur to the enemy if successful. These expressions are further broken down by difficulty and degree of damage. It's just a handy chart to keep improvisation level appropriate and to help the DM handle weird situations on the fly rather than trying to find obscure rules for every situation. Page 42 also includes the "DMs Best Friend" - the +2/-2 circumstance modifier.

 

[Steelwill]

I don't think this needs to be so one way or the other as these debates often polarize into. Railroading is only bad if it is noticeable, which if it is, means that at some point the player's have been made to feel dragged along for the ride or powerless in the process and creation of the story. However, there are some players who won't have an answer when asked,"What do you want to do?" so having a default plan of action in those instances means the game doesn't shut down while they figure it out.

The story has to be adaptable enough to tolerate these situations. The player's and the DM take turns holding the reigns of the story's direction, which IMO is what is great about tabletop RPG's, it is an exercise in story and world co-creation for everyone at the table. Sometimes it will be more the product of the DM, sometimes more of the player's, ideally equal or close parts of both. My 2 cents.

 

[Hussar]

I disagree.
This kind of rule is nearly necessary in each game where the system simulates the setting, because you cannot predict and describe everything what could happen in game and you have to make some simplifications.

It is not necessary in games with abstract systems. Even more: this kind of fuzziness is actively detrimental in many cases. Dogs in the Vineyard and Polaris are perfect examples of games that are playable by RAW and have nothing similar to "page 42" or "rule 0".

I think you could argue that a lot of the less heavily structured games have a "page 42" or a "Rule 0" built right into the rules. After all, these abstract resolution systems generally require the players and the DM to mold the mechanics to the situation every time a resolution is needed.

In other words, because the rules are so abstract, they simply adapt to the situation, rather than the other way around. In a more structured system, elements like Rule 0 or Page 42 have to be specifically called out in order to give enough flexibility into the system to deal with actual play.

There's strengths and weaknesses in both approaches.

 

[Raven Crowking]

I don't think this needs to be so one way or the other as these debates often polarize into. Railroading is only bad if it is noticeable, which if it is, means that at some point the player's have been made to feel dragged along for the ride or powerless in the process and creation of the story. However, there are some players who won't have an answer when asked,"What do you want to do?" so having a default plan of action in those instances means the game doesn't shut down while they figure it out.

The story has to be adaptable enough to tolerate these situations. The player's and the DM take turns holding the reigns of the story's direction, which IMO is what is great about tabletop RPG's, it is an exercise in story and world co-creation for everyone at the table. Sometimes it will be more the product of the DM, sometimes more of the player's, ideally equal or close parts of both. My 2 cents.

I would argue (again) that a more linear model need not imply a railroad, just as a more sandbox-y model need not imply what Celebrim calls a "rowboat scenario".

Players making the choices the GM hopes they would make: Not a railroad.

Players making choices, and the GM secretly switching the outcome so that they are the same as if the players made other choices (illusion of choice): Railroad. And, if (I would suggest that my experience mandates "When" instead of "If" here) the players find out, there may be (and, again, my experience suggests "Will be") some grievances aired.

Players allowed only to make the choices the GM has foreseen: Railroad.

 

[Raven Crowking]

I think you could argue that a lot of the less heavily structured games have a "page 42" or a "Rule 0" built right into the rules. After all, these abstract resolution systems generally require the players and the DM to mold the mechanics to the situation every time a resolution is needed.

In other words, because the rules are so abstract, they simply adapt to the situation, rather than the other way around. In a more structured system, elements like Rule 0 or Page 42 have to be specifically called out in order to give enough flexibility into the system to deal with actual play.

There's strengths and weaknesses in both approaches.

I agree.

 

[Hussar]

I agree.

REPENT! REPENT! THE END DAYS ARE HERE!

 

[Raven Crowking]

REPENT! REPENT! THE END DAYS ARE HERE!

Possibly.....

But, when I think you're right, I certainly don't hesitate to say so.

Nor, to be honest, do I think you hesitate to do so on those weird occasions when our opinions intersect.

I mean, how can you not point out such an oddity?


RC

 

[pemerton]

This kind of rule is nearly necessary in each game where the system simulates the setting, because you cannot predict and describe everything what could happen in game and you have to make some simplifications.

It is not necessary in games with abstract systems. Even more: this kind of fuzziness is actively detrimental in many cases. Dogs in the Vineyard and Polaris are perfect examples of games that are playable by RAW and have nothing similar to "page 42" or "rule 0".

I don't think page 42 has anything in common with rule 0.

I agree that good games don't have a rule 0 - if the rules work, there is no need to suspend them. (The issue of the GM having permission to include/exclude certain particular game elements, like certain PC races, is mostly orthogonal to this - it becomes more prominent in D&D than other games because of D&D's huge laundry list of possible game elements.)

Page 42, on the other hand, is not a permission to the GM to suspend the rules of the game. Rather, it is precisely a version of the sort of abstract action resolution system that one has in modern games. Also, particular features of it - like DCs for different difficulties, and a range of damage expressions that may be chosen from - are 4e's version of the pass/fail cycle from HeroQuest.

So far from distinguishing 4e from modern games, page 42 makes 4e an example, or close to, of such a game. (The most obvious thing that's missing is a version of Burning Wheel's "Let it Ride" rule - which means that in 4e it's always a bit ambiguous how much "check mongering" by players or GMs is permitted. I treat skill challenges as the canonical alternative to check mongering, but the rules could be better on this.)

 

[Hussar]

Pemerton - I go the other way on this. The whole point of Rule 0 (although it has been used for other things) is to allow flexibility into the system. At it's most basic, it says that what you and your group decides is probably best for you and there's no way a game designer can cover every possible eventuality.

4e's page 42 is a more codified Rule 0 based on experience with the system. After all, most of the time in earlier editions, "Cast the Action as a Check" (4e DMG p42) is pretty much exactly what happened. No rules for jumping? Ok, roll a save vs paralyzation. The DC is low enough that it's about right for this kind of jump.

Page 42 simply codifies those checks into a reasonable range that most groups would probably stumble across on their own through trial and error. It's revolutionary in that it's an actual codification, but, it's not really that new because experienced groups have been doing this for some time.

For a new group though, particularly new players to RPG's, this saves all that messy trial and error (and a LOT of ridiculous arguments if you sat at my table ).

 

[pemerton]

Hussar, I think the difference between page 42 and earlier versions of "rule 0" or "just make stuff up" is that page 42 sets a DC and a damage number such that, if the player makes the roll, then the damage is dealt - and the damage is a meaningful amount for an attack action at the level in question. So it no longer leaves the effectiveness of the player's improvised action to the hostage of the GM's mechanical whims (in the sort of fashion that you've talked about in other posts).

Now generalising page 42 beyond combat actions to other sorts of actions, where resolution is not damage but some other less quantified change in the game state, is non-trivial. This is what skill challenges are for, and I'm one of those who thinks that the rules for these continue to be undeveloped compared to other games like HeroQuest or The Dying Earth. But even with skill challenges as written, there's the idea that all the player has to do to achieve a certain result in the gameworld is achieve a certain number of successful skill checks.

The GM can of course still stuff it up by GMing the challenge badly, or (even worse) by ignoring the result of the challenge once the encounter is over (eg the NPC betrays the PCs even though the players won the negotiation skill challenge). Still, by D&D standards I think this is pretty revolutionary stuff, given the extent to which it codifies the capacity of the players to affect the gameworld via improvised actions. It leaves the GM still with the responsibility to actually narrate the gameworld in response to what the players have their PCs do, but takes the actual mechanical resolution out of the realm of GM whim (and, hence, GM thwarting/railroading).

Rule zero has never done anything like this.