PDA

View Full Version : Freestyle Games



Carry2
2012-12-06, 03:12 PM
I've been involved in a couple of games recently where people seem to be confusing the term 'Freestyle play' with 'Absence of organisation or rule-enforcement'. Maybe this is just some bad run-ins on my part, but what this seems to amount to, in practice, is that the most loud-mouthed people at the table wind up completely dominating the proceedings in the absence of any more equitable initiative system. (Power-structures abhor a vacuum, and all that.)

Another idea I've heard floated about is the venerable, and to my mind daft, Rule Zero- you should ignore any rule that interferes with fun. Leaving aside the question of why would bring along rules that actively interfere with fun, what this tends to mean, in practice, is that the GM will selectively ignore certain rules in order to give away things that s/he wants you to get, and deny you the things s/he wants you to avoid, in order to nudge you back onto the tracks of a predecided plot. (Some will do this more subtly than others, but the end result is the same.)

What I tend to understand by the term 'freestyle play' is more that the rules carve out an equitable distribution of rights and responsibilities for each of the players, when it comes to determining the shape of imagined events, and resolving potential disagreements on the subject. (I include the GM as a player here, assuming you have one.) This is largely independent of the complexity of the rule-set, and I feel that some people have confused the mere presence of rules with the imposition of pyramidal primate dominance hierarchies, when in fact the former can be a vital guarantor of player input.

(I do believe it is okay to skip over the application of rules in situations where they cannot possibly make any significant difference to the final outcome, but since a predetermined plotline basically assumes that the players never make a significant difference to final outcomes, this distinction is only meaningful in games that lack fixed plotlines. Otherwise, you would essentially wind up skipping all the rule-consultations.)

Have other folks have run into similar problems with loosely-organised demo sessions or long-term campaigns?

Totally Guy
2012-12-07, 09:03 AM
I'm not really sure what freestyle play is meant to mean but it sounds like you are advocating a "Roll the dice when there is conflict" approach:

When a player (including the GM) thinks that their character (or possibly, for the GM, obstacle) should be able to influence another character (or obstacle) and the other player wants to resist going in that direction then rolling the dice can be used to resolve that.

On the flip side of that you have "Say yes or roll the dice": When the players are in agreement you don't need to roll dice. "You find a stuck door", "I open it with a mighty barge", "Boom, you open it wide!" That works both the players thought that the character to successfully do that.

Burning Wheel is written with this dynamic in mind.

For inappropriate stuff the GM's tool is to declare that a task (What a character does) does not match an intent (What the player wants to happen). This results in other suggestions.

And impossibly difficult rolls present in the system too.

Its that the sort of thing you expect your games to support?

neonchameleon
2012-12-07, 10:57 AM
Rules, to me, serve three purposes.

1: Conflict resolution. Remember kids games of "Let's pretend" where you had arguments about whether people were shot. Roll the dice and move on.
2: Bringing everyone onto the same page about what is happening by being able to quantify things.
3: Encouraging people to act within the spirit of the game by mechanically rewarding things. (See either gamist structures such as XP for GP or more modern structures like Spirit of the Century (http://www.crackmonkey.org/~nick/loyhargil/fate3/fate3.html) Aspects or Marvel Heroic Roleplaying Distinctions that give you a bennie for taking a negative).

Ignoring the rules turns point 2 into a negative - some of what you shared as information was in fact not. So ignoring rules is worse than not having them in the first place.

Which means rules light and rules-ignored are completely different matters. Wushu (http://danielbayn.com/wushu/freebies.html) is incredibly rules light and rewards you for dodging through a hail of bullets (which would be insane under normal circumstances but makes a better action movie) but fulfils point 1 admirably while encouraging people to say more, helping point 2.

But this seems to be a D&D problem. Normally when people use complex rules and freestyle play it means they don't really know there are better rules out there for doing what they want to. So they try to hack D&D into a shape it isn't suitable for and end up with a mess.

NichG
2012-12-07, 11:07 AM
As I see it, Freestyle Play is a term used to refer to the far end of rules-light: there are no explicit rules, and its all just collaborative storytelling. Now even in this case there are likely social rules that keep any such game from completely falling apart (e.g. don't say how another person's character reacts to something you do or try to take control of another person's character with your narration), but the idea is that there are no mechanics.

Whether or not Freestyle Play is viable for certain people or tables is another question entirely, but it is certainly a thing that is done.

I think its also somewhat orthogonal to style questions like 'roll the dice when there's conflict' versus 'dice mechanics simulate the world' versus 'no rolls, its all deterministic but based on some other mechanic like bidding' versus whatever. Those are all examples of different mechanics which encourage different feels of play, but not games without actual mechanics.

1337 b4k4
2012-12-07, 01:23 PM
Now even in this case there are likely social rules that keep any such game from completely falling apart (e.g. don't say how another person's character reacts to something you do or try to take control of another person's character with your narration), but the idea is that there are no mechanics.

Fun little bit of trivia that your point dragged out of the dark recesses of my brain. Way back in the hey day of AOL and their chat rooms, there were a number of ongoing RPG chat rooms, with varying degrees of "rules". Some were quite complex, others were pretty much collaborative story telling. The one rule that all of those free form rooms had was exactly what you said "Don't take control over other people's characters" (I believe the term was "moding", either short for acting like a moderator or "god mode"). As far as I recall, how well this worked depended on the people, but with a regular core group, it worked just as well as any set of dice rolling mechanics. Which led me to my conclusion that it's the players more than the rules that make for a successful and conflict free RPG session. The rules can not be used to bludgeon players or DMs into submission. We now return you to your regularly scheduled thread.

Carry2
2012-12-07, 02:59 PM
Which led me to my conclusion that it's the players more than the rules that make for a successful and conflict free RPG session. The rules can not be used to bludgeon players or DMs into submission. We now return you to your regularly scheduled thread.
I've sat through a number of RPG sessions that were 'successful' and 'fun' and 'conflict-free' in the sense that very little actual game was taking place, because the players were generally busy taking the piss out of the eachother and what the characters were ostensibly busy doing. It's not a bad thing per se, but I don't see the especial virtue of RPGs as the focal point for this kind of harmless rambunctiousness in contrast to traditional alternatives, such as alcohol, or strippers, or water polo.

I come to an RPG with an expectation that the game, in itself, as a product of rules, will be kind of the point. And actually, yes, the rules can be used to ensure that players/GMs don't run rough-shod over eachother, or at least make it pretty clear that when they are doing so, they are breaking the rules.

Anyways. More on that later.

RPGuru1331
2012-12-07, 03:02 PM
Another idea I've heard floated about is the venerable, and to my mind daft, Rule Zero- you should ignore any rule that interferes with fun. Leaving aside the question of why would bring along rules that actively interfere with fun,
Sigh. It means there's no fun police. The easiest example that springs to mind is technically a board game, but it's Arkham Horror. Me and my friends ignore one rule very, very prominently, namely that things happen sequentially. I understand the use of this rule, especially in setting up Arkham Horror for play with strangers who have reason not to automatically trust each other. But it also quadruples the time needed to play the game. We play it as sequence only matters under when people use the same deck of encounter cards. It helps us, personally, a lot, but the rule for general use is still solid.

But the use isn't just for convenience. Some groups just personally don't jive with a given rule. I'm modifying rules for use in a pair of games I'm running for my own purposes, for the sake of simplicity or theme. Rule 0 is listed so that a particular subset of players doesn't get too uppity when that's done. And unless you have a back door into Plato's Cave to transcribe the RPG Rules written there, there's nothing to be done about that, because there's no one ideal that works for every single person who likes the game.



what this tends to mean, in practice, is that the GM will selectively ignore certain rules in order to give away things that s/he wants you to get, and deny you the things s/he wants you to avoid, in order to nudge you back onto the tracks of a predecided plot. (Some will do this more subtly than others, but the end result is the same.)
Okay, not that this is really true for general practice, but if it were... so?


Have other folks have run into similar problems with loosely-organised demo sessions or long-term campaigns?
Personally, yes, and I'm not a fan of that level of rules lightness, but that doesn't mean they work for nobody. I have a number of friends who enjoy them.

Ravens_cry
2012-12-07, 03:17 PM
I play chat role play quite a bit. They don't work terribly well for one on one combat, but for dramatic happenings and interactions, they can be a lot of fun.

1337 b4k4
2012-12-07, 03:18 PM
It's not a bad thing per se, but I don't see the especial virtue of RPGs as the focal point for this kind of harmless rambunctiousness in contrast to traditional alternatives, such as alcohol, or strippers, or water polo.

Well, to be fair, you can't enjoy a rousing session of alcohol or strippers with the whole family or at a convention (well, you can, but I'm not too keen on giving my friend's 6 year old a bottle of Buffalo Trace, nor with sitting around with my friends watching "sailor moon man" (there's always one at every convention) "going all the way". As for water polo, none of us have a pool, and the town pool is, well, the town pool...


I come to an RPG with an expectation that the game, in itself, as a product of rules, will be kind of the point.

That actually seems kind of sad. Maybe you don't mean it that way, but I look at the point of RPGs to have fun and play a game.


And actually, yes, the rules can be used to ensure that players/GMs don't run rough-shod over eachother, or at least make it pretty clear that when they are doing so, they are breaking the rules.


Arguably, any player willing to run rough-shod over the others isn't going to care how clear it is that they're "breaking the rules".

Carry2
2012-12-07, 04:09 PM
That actually seems kind of sad. Maybe you don't mean it that way, but I look at the point of RPGs to have fun and play a game.
Yes, but ideally the fun should be substantially coming from the game, rather than, for example, emerging despite, and actively distracting from, it. I don't think this expectation would be considered unreasonable in any other hobby or group activity.

Arguably, any player willing to run rough-shod over the others isn't going to care how clear it is that they're "breaking the rules".
Yes. But in the same sense that, during football, the fact that certain things are clearly defined as fouls makes it easier for the referee to eject that kind of player, clearly-defined procedures in an RPG can make it easier to eject trouble-makers. Because there's a clear line for when they are no longer playing fair.

Carry2
2012-12-07, 04:25 PM
But the use isn't just for convenience. Some groups just personally don't jive with a given rule. I'm modifying rules for use in a pair of games I'm running for my own purposes...
I don't have a problem with people coming up with their own rules. But the point is that you still have rules. As opposed to selectively enforcing or ignoring any rule you want at any time for largely opaque and ad-hoc situational reasons.

But you don't need explicit permission for making your own rules. The ability to look at other designs and modify them for personal use is something you could always do, because you have eyes, hands, and a brain.

Personally, yes, and I'm not a fan of that level of rules lightness, but that doesn't mean they work for nobody. I have a number of friends who enjoy them.
I'm not saying they don't. (I used to participated in collaborative fanfic myself, which also had few or no rules besides 'no god-moding'.) But I suspect these groups, in fact, are following unarticulated social rules about how to solicit and respect others' input.

Whereas, in a number of games I've seen, especially at cons, the basic approach was that, outside of combat, players chipped in when and if they wanted to on a completely ad hoc basis, which meant that 1 or 2 players completely dominated the proceedings, even when other players were visibly bored or neglected.

I eventually took to deliberately going around the table clockwise and explicitly asking everyone what they were up to and wanted to do- because the quiet players often had valuable suggestions, *if* they were tapped for input- and I wasn't even the GM!

I don't think it's a huge innovation to suggest that, when one person is talking, everyone else should shut the **** up, listen respectfully, chip in with comments or suggestions, and then move on to the next guy around the table. Which is basically an initiative system, right there. Lords know it would have been enormously helpful in a number of games I've sat through.

NichG
2012-12-07, 05:29 PM
Perhaps thats the difference between strangers playing a game together and acquaintances playing a game together (or more generally, the cost of a one-off). If you have a community (and a given table that always has the same players is kind of a community) then those hidden social rules will be more likely to be shared.

Rules in particular help for competitive things, but you can even do that without much in the way of rules. However in that case it becomes a social and personal manipulation contest basically (can you come up with stuff that other people will go for because it strikes them as cool or because they have something to gain or whatever). The rules are the brains of everyone else at the table. Its harder to e.g. have a competition about tactics or strategy, but isn't necessarily impossible. A 'ghost miracles' duel in Nobilis is not entirely rules-free but its pretty close (basically 'create llusions of anything you can think of and the other person must respond with an illusion that conceptually solves the problem introduced by yours and creates a problem for the other person'). Aside from things like having a panel of judges, at some point one or the other person in such a duel may get stuck and be unable to think of a clever response.

Carry2
2012-12-07, 05:36 PM
I'll try to respond to the earlier posts in this thread tomorrow. I haven't forgotten you, but I'm under a little time pressure ATM.

I certainly agree that having a sympathetic and 'in sync' group of players is important. But it's possible that a laissez-faire approach to play, rather than liberating self-expression, can have the side-effect of silencing prospective players who could otherwise provide valuable input. And that may make it harder to find players who share similar values and are worth hanging out with.

.

Carry2
2012-12-08, 03:23 PM
I'm not really sure what freestyle play is meant to mean but it sounds like you are advocating a "Roll the dice when there is conflict" approach:

...Its that the sort of thing you expect your games to support?
Yeah, I've probably been a bit fuzzy about what I really mean here. Perhaps it would be best if I illustrated with a couple of specific examples from a recent convention I attended. (I would normally be wary of doing so, lest I give away embarrassing details that could identify the specific persons involved, but I've been repeatedly reassured by players and co-workers that no-one in my social circle has been compromised in such a fashion, and I trust them not to lead me astray.)


Anyway. My first example would be a FATE game that involved all the PCs being cooped up in an apartment complex with mutually-contradictory murderous agendas. This was actually, on balance, a pretty decent session. Oh, it had some rough points- I thought a more binding mechanism for settling social disputes could have been useful, and the veil-of-ignorance over OOC knowledge was perhaps more hassle than it was worth- but the GM was on his toes, the players were all invested and fairly consulted, some actual role-play happened, the rules-consultations served a clear function in determining scene-outcomes, and the character sheets had the right amount of detail (enough to be useful, not so much as to be indigestible.)

I eventually wound up getting my PC, his only daughter, and another PC killed, largely over his combination of ruthlessness and gullibility when it came to superiors' orders. Sure, it stung a bit, but this was a session that (A) had a story, (B) not one that was planned, and (C) that emerged from player inputs. The PCs made certain choices that underlined their goals and motives, and repercussions followed in a way that was reasonably transparent and well-mediated (at least retroactively, when it came to certain motive reveals.)

So that was reasonably close to a style of play that I'd feel comfortable with.


My second example would be a Dark Heresy game (I think?) that focused primarily on a gang of Ork Boyz in their... well, not exactly a scheme, that's giving them too much credit... but let's say their endeavours to conquer the galaxy by way of starting a WAAAGH. At least, that's what we were supposed to do.

This one I didn't quite know what to make of. Beyond the early stages, actual meaningful rolling of dice became pretty rare, and some extremely generous outcome-interpretations by the GM saw us doing things like glueing planets together with sufficiently large rocket engines that we could bulldoze through an imperial fleet. (No, don't bother raising objections. Your logic has no power here.)

In certain respects, what went on was actually very imaginative, as we were coming up with the most off-the-wall, bizarre, outlandish stunts that could be imagined, so the players were engaged, and by and large it was pretty fun... in a daft, rambunctious, taking-the-piss kind of way. The original plotline had been left far behind about halfway through the session. But so had most of the rules of the game... which kind of raised the question of why we brought them in the first place. There was also a certain tendency for the will-of-the-most-agitated to prevail, and I didn't feel our characters could take quite as much credit for their accomplishments than they could under a tighter rules-regime.


My third example would be a Call of Cthulhu game from the beginning of the con. That was excruciating. Two A4 pages apiece of character skills and background description, 90% of it utterly irrelevant to the proceedings. The painful and inexplicably mandatory first 20 minutes when the GM is trying to nudge you toward the scenes where relevant stuff can happen by dropping hints from NPCs, rather than just saying it outright, leaving it as background, or dropping you into the action in medias res. And you have to make spontaneous chitchat with strange people, via imaginary characters, whom you do not know.

Three hours of playing, more-or-less, guess-what-skill-the-GM-is-thinking-of while half the players at the table were dead to the world for half the session. Knowing that if you fail any roll, some other closely-equivalent skill or willing PC will be used instead to exactly the same effect, making success a foregone conclusion, which raises the question of why you are rolling at all. (A Pathfinder scenario I played the same day was much more mechanically lively, despite a likewise linear plot, since it afforded reasonable freedom-of-input in terms of fine-scale tactics, battlefield positioning, and geographical brain-teasers.)

It lightened up gradually, again on the basis of the players' ability to not take any of this very seriously, but this probably wasn't the intention of the original, dead-serious scenario or it's writer.

Carry2
2012-12-08, 03:44 PM
Rules, to me, serve three purposes.

1: Conflict resolution. Remember kids games of "Let's pretend" where you had arguments about whether people were shot. Roll the dice and move on.
2: Bringing everyone onto the same page about what is happening by being able to quantify things.
3: Encouraging people to act within the spirit of the game by mechanically rewarding things. (See either gamist structures such as XP for GP or more modern structures like Spirit of the Century (http://www.crackmonkey.org/~nick/loyhargil/fate3/fate3.html) Aspects or Marvel Heroic Roleplaying Distinctions that give you a bennie for taking a negative).

Ignoring the rules turns point 2 into a negative - some of what you shared as information was in fact not. So ignoring rules is worse than not having them in the first place.

Which means rules light and rules-ignored are completely different matters.
Yeah, total agreement there. Excellent summary. I'd just comment that a number of games seem to have serious trouble with (1) when it comes to inter-PC dialogue conflicts, and that I have a personal fondness for (2) when it includes something resembling a plausible physics-simulation. (It's just a plus, though, not a deal-breaker.)

Totally Guy
2012-12-08, 04:00 PM
I've been in similar situations in home games and a couple of times at conventions. They bug me too.

I can only recommend trying other games that don't trick the players into doing things that I don't like. I've found the guys doing this lecture (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtUgtX3ncTk) to have pretty similar tastes to mine even if I've not tried all the games they talk about.

RPGuru1331
2012-12-08, 08:23 PM
I don't have a problem with people coming up with their own rules. But the point is that you still have rules. As opposed to selectively enforcing or ignoring any rule you want at any time for largely opaque and ad-hoc situational reasons.
'When it impedes fun' does not mean 'whenever'.


But you don't need explicit permission for making your own rules. The ability to look at other designs and modify them for personal use is something you could always do, because you have eyes, hands, and a brain.
Then you don't really have a problem with rule 0.


But I suspect these groups, in fact, are following unarticulated social rules about how to solicit and respect others' input.
...Are you new to humans, that this is somehow unexpected? Freeform doesn't mean all social rules and taboos go away.


Whereas, in a number of games I've seen, especially at cons, the basic approach was that, outside of combat, players chipped in when and if they wanted to on a completely ad hoc basis, which meant that 1 or 2 players completely dominated the proceedings, even when other players were visibly bored or neglected.
It happens. Only forcing involvement, a la 4e skill challenges, is a perfect ward within the rules against it.


I eventually took to deliberately going around the table clockwise and explicitly asking everyone what they were up to and wanted to do- because the quiet players often had valuable suggestions, *if* they were tapped for input- and I wasn't even the GM!
You mean you flouted the authority granted you as a player in the name of fun? However will you survive overturning the unprinted social rules in the name of fun.


I don't think it's a huge innovation to suggest that, when one person is talking, everyone else should shut the **** up, listen respectfully, chip in with comments or suggestions, and then move on to the next guy around the table. Which is basically an initiative system, right there. Lords know it would have been enormously helpful in a number of games I've sat through.
Do you think Freeform is intended to be a magical invention that strips all forms of rules and taboos from humanity or something? Because this is vaguely ridiculous.

Carry2
2012-12-09, 11:35 AM
'When it impedes fun' does not mean 'whenever'...
Yes, but given the unequal distribution of rights and responsibilities present in a lot of GM-centric games, who, in practice, do you think will most often get to decide what constitutes 'fun'?

...Are you new to humans, that this is somehow unexpected? Freeform doesn't mean all social rules and taboos go away.
Based on observation, I'm afraid I have seen a fair number of groups where it effectively does. (Or, perhaps, where the rules and taboos that apply in everyday social situations- which often permit the most eloquent, charismatic, or insistent tend to get their way- wind up prevailing, whatever the merit of a given player's views. Particularly given that certain players may have deficits in social functioning to begin with.)

Now, some groups fall without prompting into an equitable and respectful dialogue at the table. Great for them. If you, personally, have had the good luck only to play in such groups, then I congratulate you on exactly that- your good luck.

But there is a very simple way to minimise the risk of the problems I described, and that is to formally articulate- and enforce- some basic rules on the subject. I have seen it work, because I have wound up implementing them, and I do believe that it helped.

Carry2
2012-12-09, 12:13 PM
I've been in similar situations in home games and a couple of times at conventions. They bug me too.

I can only recommend trying other games that don't trick the players into doing things that I don't like. I've found the guys doing this lecture (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtUgtX3ncTk) to have pretty similar tastes to mine even if I've not tried all the games they talk about.
Cool video! Thanks for the link.

Because it gets really awkward when you and your friend are role-playing out the wench seduction in your games...
...Yeah. I've kinda been there. (Where by 'seducing the wench', I mean 'homeoerotic liaison with a danish noble'. That was just beyond my abilities.)

1337 b4k4
2012-12-09, 01:30 PM
It seems to me that your two problems are most often bad DMs and socially inept players. Now, while games can provide rules to force (or at least mitigate) the bad from the DMs and players, ultimately that isn't the solution.

The solution to bad DMs is not continuing to play with them and thus rewarding their bad DMing. We should instead actively encourage other players to take on the roll of the DM. There will always be bad DMs and the nature of having a DM means that rules can not contain the bad ones. At best, they'll just manipulate the rules to get their way anyway, and at worst they'll implement their own house rules and force you to use those. The answer to bad DMs is not more rules lawyering, it's more DMs.

Unfortunately, over time (and in part thanks to bad DMing tool sets like 3.5) the job of the DM has been mystified into this thankless and daunting task of building an entire world and being ultimately responsible for everyone else's fun (as exemplified in your comment that some players don't speak up so they don't have fun). Nothing could be further from the truth and with a decent set of tools, and a reduction in the expectation that a DM should have a massive Forgotten Relms style world planned out, DMing could once again be shown to be fun and engaging for more than just the most hardcore of world builders.

Your second problem, of socially inept players also can not be solved by rules. This problem needs to be solved away from the game table first. Players who run roughshod over others, who have no respect for boundaries and have not the social graces to stop talking so that others may speak can not and will not be contained by a rules book. These social problems must be addressed on a person to person level before they can ever be addressed at the table. If your problem is that your players see the table as a place where basic social conduct can be thrown out, then you need to enforce decorum at your table. Inform your players before the game begins that just because you're playing a game doesn't mean that basic manners are thrown to the wind. Warn a player when they are rude or inconsiderate, and if they fail to correct themselves, then remove them from your game. Your and your other players time is not the property of the rude players to do with as they please, and rude players waste others time. Remove those rude players and inform them that they are not welcome back until they are ready to behave.

Yes, to a degree manners and social skills are "rules" but these are not the rules that are the responsibility of game designers to present or enforce, and it is no more the responsibility of the RPG rules designers to have "Thou shalt not talk over others" in the rule books, any more than it is the responsibility of the poker rules designers to put "Thou shalt not throw thy drink at other players" in their rules.

Ultimately, your issues appear to be people issues, not rules issues, and while some rules can help mitigate these factors, that doesn't address the underlying and fundamental problem.

Carry2
2012-12-09, 06:37 PM
It seems to me that your two problems are most often bad DMs and socially inept players. Now, while games can provide rules to force (or at least mitigate) the bad from the DMs and players, ultimately that isn't the solution.
While this might be partly true, I didn't get the impression of any conscious malice in the examples I noted- it's just that certain people are naturally loud and enthusiastic, some are less outgoing or more reticent, and some are just making an honest effort to GM the scenario as written within the rules available. Many of them were convivial, engaging, clued-in people who would likely get along well in other social contexts, and certainly not 'bad' in the sense of any deliberate moral failing. Given that my own tact and eloquence leave room for improvement, I can't really complain on that front.

This is why I find it very difficult to actually tell these people what I think about these games face-to-face, because it is so difficult to concisely disentangle my very real (and often scathing) criticisms of the rules and procedures and traditions of play from the very different question of their worth as human beings. (For the same reason that it's so difficult to explain that just because you are having fun while, coincidentally, sitting around a table and occasionally rolling dice does not mean that the dice were helping much with the fun, beyond being an excuse to huddle together.)

Your second problem, of socially inept players also can not be solved by rules. This problem needs to be solved away from the game table first. Players who run roughshod over others, who have no respect for boundaries and have not the social graces to stop talking so that others may speak can not and will not be contained by a rules book...
As I've mentioned before, no, they cannot. A rules-book, by itself, doesn't do anything associated with role-playing. But it can provide clear instructions on how to, e.g, roll up characters, calculate BAB, resolve a Duel of Wits or allocate scene-time between the PCs. And it can tell you, by example or procedure, when a player is no longer playing the game as agreed upon, because they have gone on talking too long, or are demanding too much, rather than consigning yourself to thinking 'gee, maybe that's just what his character would do, I certainly don't want to have dice-rolls or pre-negotiated stakes intruding on the dialogue, that would just be artificial and metagamey...'

Yes, to a degree manners and social skills are "rules" but these are not the rules that are the responsibility of game designers to present or enforce...
I would disagree. And there are, in fact, advice-passages in the texts of, e.g, Mouse Guard and Polaris which go over these topics in more than a cursory fashion. (Of course, the former is a book aimed at children, but it would appear certain adults could profit from it's example.) I suggest that clear introductory text on the social expectations for an RPG should be of primary importance for designers, since nothing else in play will function properly unless you get those running smoothly.

1337 b4k4
2012-12-09, 08:04 PM
I didn't get the impression of any conscious malice in the examples I noted
...
and certainly not 'bad' in the sense of any deliberate moral failing.


As you noted, being a bad DM doesn't equal being a bad person. Equally, being a bad DM doesn't require conscious or deliberate moral failings or malice. Sometimes people are just bad DMs because they don't know when to let the rules go, or when to enforce them, or because they're too wed to the story they want to tell, or because they can't control their table, but if you can't or won't give feedback and they can't or won't accept and adjust to that feedback, then the only other alternative is to not let them DM your games.


because they have gone on talking too long, or are demanding too much, rather than consigning yourself to thinking 'gee, maybe that's just what his character would do, I certainly don't want to have dice-rolls or pre-negotiated stakes intruding on the dialogue, that would just be artificial and metagamey...'

These are social issues though, not a problem caused by a lack of rules. But on the assumption that we're just not communicating properly, do you have an example of an entry from a rule book that you fee provides valuable insight into the social behavior expected from players that would not otherwise be provided by players simply adhering to standard social norms? In particular, do you have some rules that you can cite that you feel had they been in the book in either of the examples you provided, everything would have gone better?


I suggest that clear introductory text on the social expectations for an RPG should be of primary importance for designers, since nothing else in play will function properly unless you get those running smoothly.

I suggest that the social expectations for an RPG are the same as those of any gathering of friends to play a game, and that no book or rules can adequately outline those things as they vary greatly from place to place and group to group. At best, they can advise players and DMs that it is not necessary to act out the seduction scene if you aren't comfortable with it or it would otherwise not be appropriate. Further, while yes, the fun of all involved does flow from those basic essentials, those essentials have to be in place for your players or DM to even respect the rule book (and its advice on social behavior) in the first place.

Ozfer
2012-12-09, 08:05 PM
Totally Guy-

Burning Wheel ftw. :smallbiggrin:

Carry2
2012-12-11, 06:19 PM
Sometimes people are just bad DMs because they don't know when to let the rules go, or when to enforce them, or because they're too wed to the story they want to tell, or because they can't control their table...

...These are social issues though, not a problem caused by a lack of rules. But on the assumption that we're just not communicating properly, do you have an example of an entry from a rule book that you fee provides valuable insight into the social behavior expected from players that would not otherwise be provided by players simply adhering to standard social norms? In particular, do you have some rules that you can cite that you feel had they been in the book in either of the examples you provided, everything would have gone better?

This is one of those topics that I find difficult to explain because there's an awful lot of material that's closely interrelated.

I will, first of all, state that in my limited, personal, anecdotal experience, a simple working rule to the tune of 'Thou Shalt Proceed Clockwise Around Thy Table, And Query Each Player For His Or Her Opinion, Permitting Due Time For Commentary By Peers', can be of significant benefit to otherwise anarchic, murky group proceedings. Like I said, I've seen it done, and the rules of Mouse Guard actually make this procedure explicit- at all times and in all situations, not just during combat. I would present two brief examples of improvised use:


The first was a continuation/reboot of a zombie apocalypse campaign with the same GM, but a different system (GURPS) and a (mostly) new roster of players, at the local RPG/Wargaming society meet. Basically, things got very confused very quickly. There were 7 of us around a table in a crowded, noisy room, to the extent that players were splitting off into separate huddles, the loudest guy at the table was sort of drowning out those adjacent, and the story per-se was moving quite slowly. I basically blurted out that I could not follow three conversations at once, and as it so happens the loud, enthusiastic guy suggested going around the table and asking everyone what they were doing. And then the game went somewhere. We were able to coordinate and cooperate, exchange ideas, and actually hear what the other guys were saying. And thereafter, that wasn't a bad session.

The second example I'd bring to mind was another convention FATE game, set in steampunk victorian england, with a really really nervous GM. Bit of a weedy bespectacled fella, took ages to go through the notes, coughing constantly. The other players, I could just see, were going to sit there like vegetables indefinitely sooner than actually fix the situation, so... I sort of appointed myself co-GM, where he'd present a cliff notes version of the story material, and I'd pester everyone else, going clockwise, about what their character was doing next. And, that, too, was thereafter not a bad session. Not perfect, but not bad. The GM wasn't a lost cause in need of rehabilitation, he just needed some clear initial instructions.

These did not seem to require extensive soul-searching therapy for players away from the table, it just required saying 'this shall be done', and lo and behold, everybody got on-board. It is entirely possible that some groups would not require a formal rule to this effect, but to say that attempts to introduce such rules are doomed to failure if not already present by default does not chime with my observations.


There's a constellation of other related points that I'll try to cover briefly.

* The inability of rules to capture all nuances of a situation is not an excuse for failing to enforce rules. There can be extenuating circumstances justifying theft, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't enforce laws against it. The inflexibility of procedure has to be weighed against the corruptibility of human judgement.

* The division between rules-mechanics and social protocol is by no means clear. You might define 'rules' as something that a machine could carry out as or more efficiently than a human being, but what about the rules regarding negotiated stakes-setting in, e.g, Hero Wars, and passed on to many other games (DitV, InSpectres, BW)? That's clearly not something a machine can do, short of passing the Turing Test. (And it rather helps with the wench-seduction problem when potential scene content has to be hashed out in advance.) To say that 'you shouldn't do anything you're not comfortable with' seems obvious enough, but what if the right set of rules actually made role-playing the wench-seduction more palatable, by breaking down the interaction into piecemeal chunks, establishing a clearer distinction between player and character agency, and a definitive marker for success?

* I am skeptical of the idea that GMs should be exercising sole discretion over when or when not to enforce rules, and I strongly suspect that those who manage to do so well are, in turn, actually obeying another set of unarticulated rules. There are arguably RPGs who simply make those rules explicit and openly understood, which increases the probability of good GMing. (For an in-depth example of why Rule Zero sucks, I'd like to point out Luke Crane's playthrough of Moldvay D&D (https://plus.google.com/u/0/111266966448135449970/posts/Q8qRhCw7az5), and a reply in the comments:)

...I've learned that it's a hard game to run. Not because of prep or rules mastery, but because of the role of the GM as impartial conveyer of really bad news. Since the exploration side of the game is cross between Telephone and Pictionary, I must sit impassive as the players make bad decisions. I want them to win. I want them to solve the puzzles, but if I interfere, I render the whole exercise pointless.

I've a deeper understanding why fudging dice is the worst rule ever proposed. The rules indicate fudging with a wink and a nudge, "Don't let a bad die roll ruin a good game." Seems like good advice, but to them I say, "Don't put bad die rolls in your game."

To expand on the point: The players' sense of accomplishment is enormous. They went through hell and death to survive long enough to level. They have their own stories about how certain scenarios played out. They developed their own clever strategems to solve the puzzles and defeat the opposition. If I fudge a die, I take that all away. Every bit of it. Suddenly, the game becomes my story about what I want to happen. The players, rather than being smart and determined and lucky, are pandering to my sense of drama— to what I think the story should be.