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This was inspired by a post in another thread http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=14118&start=45

Quote from: MarcoLet's say that a player is playing "The Teen Horror Movie Game" and it has this mechanic as a hard and fast incontravertable rule (sex=death).

A player is presented with a love/lust interest and he decides what to do (have sex and die or continue playing).

If the guy decides that his character *would* have sex--but does not want his character to die--then I think we have a decison that, under the rules, leads to dysfunction ("I wanted to 'play my character'--but I was punished for doing so")

The above example I think epitomizes for me the obfuscating nature of certain discussions in RPG theory.

Why would a player roleplay in a game with a sex=death mechanic unless he or she wanted to play in a game with a sex=death mechanic?

If the players want to roleplay in a game with a sex=death mechanic, then it is impossible for said mechanic in and of itself to lead to dysfunction and it is impossible for game master enforcement of said mechanic in and of itself to involve railroading or deprotagonization or any similar ills.  If the players change their minds arbitrarily in the middle of play but had not bothered to ensure the possibility of mid-play change from the start, this is their fault, not the fault of the mechanics nor of the game master (except in his/her niche as a fellow player).

It is the responsibility of the players (including game masters) to choose a game system which has the mechanics which they want.  If they defer said responsibility to an alpha male or alpha female, such deference was their choice, and I am uncertain whether we can or should try to counter such outsourcing of personal responsibility in our game designs.  (Actually, I'm fairly certain we couldn't control it in game design.)

It concerns me that we often seem to neglect player responsibility in such discussions.

(NB : This is an addendum off what Marco has written, not a disputation -- what he had written in the thread made a considerable amount of sense both logically and intuitively.)

Other thoughts related to this occur to me, but the above is enough for starting a thread.

Doctor Xero

I would agree with you. The only thing I would add is that the game text needs to be clear on how the system works, so that players don't go into the game expecting one thing and getting another. In the above example it's pretty obvious, but in many games it's subtle. For example, some games claim drama and story-telling, but instead end up being just another game about kewl characters with kewl powerz.

Quote from: timfireFor example, some games claim drama and story-telling, but instead end up being just another game about kewl characters with kewl powerz.

I'm not sure there's a difference between this and saying "Some games claim to be great but really they are the suxx0r."

The example I posted was pretty extreme (I think the expectation of playing a sexually active character in Teen Slasher Movie is pretty low) to make a point (as was said).

In reality, though, people rely on things like genre and "good roleplaying" to set expectations and that doesn't always work (of course the individuals involved bear responsibility for this too--just because someone's expectations clash with yours doesn't mean you and they explode in an annihilation reaction unless we're talking about teenagers).

So I think that if the GM decided "this will be a teen movie and everyone knows that sex=death" and didn't tell the players that (say the GM is using Call of Cthulhu as an engine) then I think they'd potentially have a bitch.

For what it's worth, I did play in a horror game where, for not giving the right answers to a question in the very beigining the GM tried his best to kill me (and the other PC) within the rules. I was shocked at the level of deadliness in the game--and although I survived (barely) I was, frankly, surprised (and I knew it had been a horror game going in). If the GM had just "ruled I was dead" for "violating the unspoken rules" I would've been upset.

-Marco

Well, actually this all shows how dubious the example was from the outset.  Because the player refusing to accept the sex=death judgement is in fact purposefully violateing the structured story with which they are supposed to be engaging.

And if they do not know that that is the structure with with they are engaging, they are de facto being railroaded, as the GM has decided how play "must" come out.  The whole thing is nonsense IMO, in that it is an example oif a game in which the social contract has already collapsed.

contracycle,

While your position is somwhat extreme, I think that's exactly what everyone else is saying.  The players have either: A) Chosen a bad game for themselves, one where sex=death despite the fact that some players don't want this; B) Had a miscommunication in which some of the players believe that everyone has agreed that sex=death and some believe otherwise; C) Have some player violating social contract by enforcing his will that sex=death even though it isn't in the social contract.

I think B happens an awful lot, personally.  Xero's point was that A is a big deal too, and I fully agree.  As a player you have no one to blame but yourself with any of these problems since they are social in nature.  It might be argued that C isn't really your fault, but if you aren't working to fix it you are contributing to the problem.

Thomas

Let me point out in passing that "choose a game that's right for you and your group" is the primary practical focus of the whole Big Model.  The idea is to figure out what sort of Creative Agenda is embedded in a game, and how that is effected through mechanics of various sorts.  From this, you figure out whether that is a game you actually want to play.  And the basic implication of System Does Matter, in this context, is that you cannot know the answers to these questions---and thus whether you will like the game---without considering the system as well as the setting and the advertising rhetoric.  The idea there is just that people tend to pick up games that sound cool because of the presentation and the setting; the system, however, is the dominant textual factor determining what play will be like, so you may love the setting and the presentation but hate the game.

One of the things that this also assumes is the needs of the players during the game stay static.  The player, initially, might have been honestly behind the sex is death slasher movie mechanic, but as play progressed and things developed the player might have changed his view about the nature of the game.

IME, games are not very static.  As they are played, the needs of the players often change in ways that a very static and close ended set of rules is not capable of dealing with.

Quote from: timfireThe only thing I would add is that the game text needs to be clear on how the system works, so that players don't go into the game expecting one thing and getting another.

Quote from: LordSmerfThe players have either: A) Chosen a bad game for themselves, one where sex=death despite the fact that some players don't want this; B) Had a miscommunication in which some of the players believe that everyone has agreed that sex=death and some believe otherwise; C) Have some player violating social contract by enforcing his will that sex=death even though it isn't in the social contract.

I think B happens an awful lot, personally.  Xero's point was that A is a big deal too, and I fully agree.

Quote from: clehrichThe idea there is just that people tend to pick up games that sound cool because of the presentation and the setting; the system, however, is the dominant textual factor determining what play will be like, so you may love the setting and the presentation but hate the game.

I also think this means that, in our game designs, we underestimate the severe importance of the introductory passages.  The introduction to a game is not simply color or persuasive commentary -- the introductory section is the portion in which the game designer(s) lays out the goals, emphases, and paradigmatic parameters of the game system.   Complaining about any accidental mismatches in a White Wolf game is nothing more than listless bitching unless we use these complaints to focus our own attention as designers on the skills we need for being explicit about the games we design.  Personally, I would like to see more posts in the game design section which include an introductory section which clarifies for the potential players (including game masters) the reasoning behind the particular mechanics chosen.

Some people, such as Sorenson and Arntson, are positively poetic in some of their introductions, making it clear why they chose the mechanics they included in their works.  I would like to see a greater emphasis on developing that aspect of game design in the Forge in addition to what we already focus on.

I am also concerned that we may be using terms such as "railroading" and "deprotagonization" a little too freely, almost as default tar for any game which could upset a player.  (I have a vague memory of someone stating that all game masters railroad and therefore game masters should be done away with altogether, but I do not recall whether that was posted on the Forge or on another gaming forum or website.)

Quote from: CPXBOne of the things that this also assumes is the needs of the players during the game stay static.  The player, initially, might have been honestly behind the sex is death slasher movie mechanic, but as play progressed and things developed the player might have changed his view about the nature of the game.

IME, games are not very static.  As they are played, the needs of the players often change in ways that a very static and close ended set of rules is not capable of dealing with.

I have seen a number of posts in various gaming groups in which players angrily assert that they feel the equivalent of deprotagonized whenever a rule they had known about all along (or never bothered to learn about) suddenly inconveniences them.  My thought is that it is a waste of time for us to care about such players -- let them feel deprotagonized or railroaded or such all they want, because in such cases it's their own damn fault.

That said, I agree with you that player needs often change.   It can be a difficult balancing act between keeping a game open to player growth or change and yet avoiding a coddling indulgence of capricious players or players who eschew an attention span.

Personally, I prefer those games which are clear in their restrictions because then I know what I'm in for and I can more easily gauge when it is time to switch to a different system.  (I played in one three year campaign which went through four different game systems as player needs and interests changed -- fortunately, our game master was wonderfully adept at translating the essence of a character from one system to another.)

Doctor Xero

Quote from: Doctor XeroI also think this means that, in our game designs, we underestimate the severe importance of the introductory passages.  The introduction to a game is not simply color or persuasive commentary -- the introductory section is the portion in which the game designer(s) lays out the goals, emphases, and paradigmatic parameters of the game system.   Complaining about any accidental mismatches in a White Wolf game is nothing more than listless bitching unless we use these complaints to focus our own attention as designers on the skills we need for being explicit about the games we design.  Personally, I would like to see more posts in the game design section which include an introductory section which clarifies for the potential players (including game masters) the reasoning behind the particular mechanics chosen.

I'd generally agree, though I think it's extremely difficult to do this well for the range of the potential or desired audience.  White Wolf seems to me one of the great proponents (pioneers?  not sure) of using fictional in-character text to formulate this.  I find that stuff painful to read and infuriating, but god knows I am not be their target audience.  On the other hand, if you wrote a game that laid out in very formal and clear terms your design constraints, right at the start, it may be that much of WW's audience would say, "Yaddy yadda, get on with it," and skip to chapter 1, just as I do with WW games.

Clearly the ideal would be a very precise adequation of the desired audience to the style and genre of the introductory text, but that means you have to know your audience cold, you have to constrain that audience considerably, and you have to have masterful control of your prose.  The first two are plausible; I have never seen the third in any RPG, including my own, and I don't ever expect to.

QuoteI would like to see a greater emphasis on developing that aspect of game design in the Forge in addition to what we already focus on.

I seem to recall a lengthy couple of threads about this in the Publishing forum, but can't find them at the moment.  Could someone who remembers them better than I dig 'em up?

QuoteI am also concerned that we may be using terms such as "railroading" and "deprotagonization" a little too freely, almost as default tar for any game which could upset a player. ...
I have seen a number of posts in various gaming groups in which players angrily assert that they feel the equivalent of deprotagonized whenever a rule they had known about all along (or never bothered to learn about) suddenly inconveniences them.  My thought is that it is a waste of time for us to care about such players -- let them feel deprotagonized or railroaded or such all they want, because in such cases it's their own damn fault.

I wouldn't put it quite so harshly, but I agree with your general point... with one big caveat.

That is, an awful lot of games out there whose systems are so constructed that various forms of GM dominance and/or player-freedom constraint are critical to the system, do not make this clear or explicit.  It's in there, but you have to dig for it.  This is once again a writing problem, but it is extremely common; I venture to say that it's especially common in mainstream "big publisher" games that foreground "storytelling without limits" or the like.  Such games announce in big letters that the players are free to do whatever they like and the rules are just there to help out on the tricky bits; the rules actually do something else, however, requiring more traditional GM dominance and so on.  This is one form of what the Big Model calls "incoherence," and to my mind the only one that follows directly from the Model's practical formulation.

It is also worth bearing in mind that gamers are not always especially close readers---not unlike most people these days.  Furthermore, games are commonly a mishmash of many genres and formats, such that it can be difficult for even an effective reader to interpret precisely the implications of every piece of the text; I myself am pretty rotten at reading straight-up mechanics (numbers and rolls and stuff) and figuring out what this is going to mean in play, and I like to think I'm a pretty careful and precise reader.  So these factors make it even more difficult for a potential player to read the texts and understand what they entail for actual play.

This gets us to yet another writing issue, related to your point about introductions.  I personally think that in-character game-world fiction is a big mistake, because it doesn't tell you how the game plays.  It cannot do so, because it says nothing about system; to use Ron's terms again, it provides a "transcript" (a term I dislike, but that's the Glossary version) which as Ron notes says nothing about how it got that way.  To put that differently, those little bits of fiction are hypothetical products of play, and say little or nothing about the processes.

So my conclusion is that the introductory piece needs to:[list=1]

• Describe the process of play
  
• Be scrupulously accurate
  
• Be composed in elegant, clear prose
  
• Precisely fit the genre and style expectations and desires of the intended audience
  
• Exactly and rapidly formulate the feel and style of play, both process and product[/list:o]1 and 2 we can all do, and should, though we don't always.  3 we can all do with a hell of a lot of work.  4 and 5 are a nightmare.  Getting all five together in a clean, concise way is as difficult as writing a truly great short story, academic article, or any other form of masterful short prose.  As I say, I don't ever expect to see it happen in RPGs, but it should certainly be the ideal toward which we strive.

Quote from: clehrichSo my conclusion is that the introductory piece needs to:[list=1]

• Describe the process of play
  
• Be scrupulously accurate
  
• Be composed in elegant, clear prose
  
• Precisely fit the genre and style expectations and desires of the intended audience
  
• Exactly and rapidly formulate the feel and style of play, both process and product[/list:o]1 and 2 we can all do, and should, though we don't always.  3 we can all do with a hell of a lot of work.  4 and 5 are a nightmare.  Getting all five together in a clean, concise way is as difficult as writing a truly great short story, academic article, or any other form of masterful short prose.  As I say, I don't ever expect to see it happen in RPGs, but it should certainly be the ideal toward which we strive.

Seriously, take a look at some of the free RPGs of Sorenson and Arnst.  I can't find my copy right now, but I recall one of Sorenson's free RPGs had an introduction which seemed to perfectly capture the interrelationship between the setting/genre and the mechanics he'd devised.

Quote from: clehrichSuch games announce in big letters that the players are free to do whatever they like and the rules are just there to help out on the tricky bits; the rules actually do something else, however, requiring more traditional GM dominance and so on.  

Hmmm, I wonder if it could be said that a number of Big Company games utilize the game master as their free-floating patch-in so that they don't have to worry about making the product virtually bug-free?  The skillful game master is there to fix it for them while the unskilled game master takes the blame for them?

Or would that be another thread?

Doctor Xero

Quote from: Doctor XeroSeriously, take a look at some of the free RPGs of Sorenson and Arnst.  I can't find my copy right now, but I recall one of Sorenson's free RPGs had an introduction which seemed to perfectly capture the interrelationship between the setting/genre and the mechanics he'd devised.

I'm not being clear.  I think those are very, very stong examples, no question.  But (1) clearly they don't always work, even for players of good faith; and (2) I really sort of meant an extreme ideal, a sort of "where is the Shakespeare of RPGs?"  I don't really expect to see one, ever.  Jared's great, and so is Zak, but let's not go overboard.

QuoteHmmm, I wonder if it could be said that a number of Big Company games utilize the game master as their free-floating patch-in so that they don't have to worry about making the product virtually bug-free?  The skillful game master is there to fix it for them while the unskilled game master takes the blame for them?

Or would that be another thread?

Um, it's your thread, man.  If you think it fits the topic, it's your call.

I've seen people play Jared's games "incorrectly". No matter that his instuctions are short and very clear.

Two points, one short, and one real long.

1.  If they aren't going to read and try to do what you wrote, there's nothing you can do about that as a designer. So we won't worry it.

2. In the case given, however, the player who rejects the particular rule in question may in fact be doing something akin to 'conscientiously objecting" or "civil disobedience." Remember that people playing an RPG are under no particular pressure to play by the rules as written - in point of fact, I'd say they usually don't do so. Or at the very least they have some very creative interpretations of the rules.

The point being that the rule that's in the text, and the rule that's used are two different things. In fact the set of rules used in play really only becomes cemented once they're actually used. Between those two points there's often a lot of negotiation, alteration, and all sorts of things going on that result in the end agreement on rules.

When you have a rule like the example, particularly, a rule that comes up only rarely in play, often the decision to adopt the rule from the text is really a tacit one. We haven't said we wouldn't use it, so we must be using it, given that we've generally agreed to use the rules as we understand them from the text.

So in this case, it's like a supreme court challenge to the rule. It's not automatically dysfunctional. In many cases, at this point, the other players will simply see the reasoning behind the players tactit attempt to change the rules, and agree to it tacitly, too. It may never even get discussed. Or maybe it does, "Hey, that's not fair, the ruels say he's supposed to die!"

It's only dysfunctional when there's no final agreement on this, tacit or explicit. This is one of the many ways that drift occurs.

Take an example, the old "Death in Chargen" rule from Traveler first edition (pre-book 5 release). I've actually seen players ignore this rule. They actually roll the survival roll, until they fail, and then say, "That's a stupid rule," the Referee agrees, and play proceeds with the rules altered.

Players have a responsibility, but that's not just to accept the rules as written out of the book. The responsibility is to play by the rules as agreed to by all of the participants. For some groups that might be iron-clad adherence to the strictures of the text. For others it might change minute to minute with the wind. Even the allowable rate of change is actually part of the social contract with regards to this. I'm an inveterate tinkerer with rules, but I limit myself to only suggesting changes between sessions, and only making major changes to my suggested ruleset between entire games. But, again, that's my personal conditions, and others probably work as well.

So I don't think there's any particular imperative, except to work with the other players to make sure that all of this is making everyone happy. Fortnately it's pretty easy stuff.

Mike

Quote from: Doctor XeroI have seen a number of posts in various gaming groups in which players angrily assert that they feel the equivalent of deprotagonized whenever a rule they had known about all along (or never bothered to learn about) suddenly inconveniences them. My thought is that it is a waste of time for us to care about such players -- let them feel deprotagonized or railroaded or such all they want, because in such cases it's their own damn fault.

That said, I agree with you that player needs often change. It can be a difficult balancing act between keeping a game open to player growth or change and yet avoiding a coddling indulgence of capricious players or players who eschew an attention span.

Personally, I prefer those games which are clear in their restrictions because then I know what I'm in for and I can more easily gauge when it is time to switch to a different system. (I played in one three year campaign which went through four different game systems as player needs and interests changed -- fortunately, our game master was wonderfully adept at translating the essence of a character from one system to another.)

I agree with the good doctor that it is the player's own damn fault. And in my experience the type of player who complains about the rules and being railroaded, is your basic munchkin. It is not a matter of being "railroaded", it is a matter of "losing". They don't want to lose, whatever that means. They also want their characters to be the biggest and baddest people in the game world, which in some cases is impossible.

Having run a five year long Narrative campaign, the primary rule we followed was that limitations were good. A character who can do whatever they want is boring. A character with limitations is not only interesting, but can lead to interesting stories.

The trick here is to convince a player who is looking for escapism that limitations are a good thing. And I'm all for the limitations being imposed by the player, rather than by the system... and that's difficult to get across to some people. (I mean if they ignore the rules as this thread implies, role playing suggestions will pass through their heads unimpeded.)

Quote
Hmmm, I wonder if it could be said that a number of Big Company games utilize the game master as their free-floating patch-in so that they don't have to worry about making the product virtually bug-free? The skillful game master is there to fix it for them while the unskilled game master takes the blame for them?

I think this does belong here. Choice of game--or choice of situation within game (i.e. we're playing D&D but this will be a no-dungeons, all town game) is very much part of player responsiblity.

The games you're mentioning just simplify the discussion. If we decide to play Dogs in the Vinyard we don't need to have a discussion about who we are and what we do in the general sense (We're Dogs, we fight evil).

I think the criteria against which D&D 3.5 was created was far different than that.  For one thing I think they decided it *had* to work with a computer (I don't know this for a fact, but I'm pretty sure) and therefore, the idea that the GM is just a 'free patch' is, IMO, pretty mistaken.

Secondly, large companies plan to sell their game to a wide audience who will do anything from play it once with 2 players to play it for 10 years with 10 PC's. That's a tall order and, you know, I think they did a pretty good job of meeting it.

It's quite acceptable for an indie game maker to say "I am making a game that mimics Lovecraft's stories--and since most of Lovecraft's stories only had a single protagonist, well: there you go. This game is only for 1 on 1 roleplaying."*

WotC can't do that. Most people who plan to sell a lot of books can't do that. I can sell a general game (Adventure!) to practically everyone on RPG.net. I can't do that with a game of more limited scope.

Thirdly, I doubt anyone thinks that inexperienced GM's will be the fallguy for their rules-set. I suspect that they, IMO often correctly, ascertain that for many groups the creative and presentational abilities of the GM will many times during play be more important than the rules to the enjoyment of the game.

-Marco
*[ Note: I would love to buy a game based on Iain Bank's Culture series. A discussion on RPG.net convinced me that it's probably not something that would be commercially viable without greatly modifiying the background because of things like player-direction, difficulty in running the minds, and multiple protagonists. ]

Oh, I dunno, Marco. I think that the "Golden Rule" is precisely the designers saying, "We can't make it work for everyone, so just fix it when it doesn't work right for you."

I'm not being judgemental about that, either. I mean it works as a marketing tactic. And we have no data about how often the rule is actually used - maybe the games that have it, have included it unneccessarily because they play very well as written.

To some extent, the quality of play is on the GM no matter what. That's undeniable. So to what extent is it a GM "Filling in" and to what extent is it neccessary GM fiat required to make a game go? I think we could debate that until we're blue in the face.

In any case, I'd agree that D&D 3.5 is pretty damn good for these purposes. So quit putting words in the mouths of the indie designers other than yourself, Marco.

Mike

Quote from: Mike Holmes
In any case, I'd agree that D&D 3.5 is pretty damn good for these purposes. So quit putting words in the mouths of the indie designers other than yourself, Marco.

Mike

Which words? I agree with everything you said (I think).

-Marco

Just so's I can follow this discussion, does D&D 3.5 include the directive, "Ignore rules that don't work for your group"?  I don't recall anything resembling that in AD&D, way back in the day, though admittedly it's been a while since I really read those things through.

My sense is, following up Dr. Xero's hypothesis, that AD&D did not intend the GM to be a floating patch.  My impression is that they really wanted a complete, working system; all the GM had to do was obey in order to get a running game.  What he had to add creatively was solely in adventure design (if he didn't use modules) and descriptive handling.  Which, let's remember, is not small potatoes.  Note that this is my impression of intent: it says nothing about whether it does or did work.

As to other games, I have a much less clear impression.  It's all a matter of feel, I admit; I haven't gone hunting through the texts for the "golden rule" and its contexts.  Has anyone done this?  Has there been a thread on it I could read?

P.S. Marco, where was the RPG.net discussion of Banks?

Quote from: clehrich...does D&D 3.5 include the directive, "Ignore rules that don't work for your group"?

Yes, it does.  In fact, 3.0 did too.  They call it "Rule Zero"... it's actually in the Player's Handbook, an admonition to people creating characters that they should consult with the DM, because he may have house rules that should be considered.

Quote from: Doctor XeroWhy would a player roleplay in a game with a sex=death mechanic unless he or she wanted to play in a game with a sex=death mechanic?

Several reasons behind this have been posed, but I felt there were clearer ways to express this. I've two notions here.

The first is, the player reads that sex equals death (not in exactly those words, but generally that kind of thing), and he thinks to himself, yeah, right, how likely is that to happen? Never having been in a game in which the opportunity for a character to have sex arose, or never having acted on such an opportunity, the player perceives this rule as irrelevant to the game. He thinks the likelihood of it arising is so remote that the rule doesn't matter. It isn't until gameplay proceeds and the situation arises that he realizes the situation was nearly inevitable in the game is written. He would not have agreed to the game had he any idea it was going to go that way.

The second reason is like this, but requires a different kind of example.

The player reads in the text that when the Charm Person spell is successfully cast and the target fails its save, the player of the character who cast the spell has control over the character on whom the spell was cast. He thinks, wow, that's a cool spell. I can see using that on enemies to great effect. Then when play has moved along suddenly one of those enemies casts the spell on his character, and suddenly und, to him, unexpectedly he has lost all control over his character. The rule was right there in front of him all the time, and he'd even thought about it, but seeing it presented in neutral terms he had in his own mind framed it favorably to himself, and had failed to recognize the flip side of the same rule as used against him.

I frequently see this second sort of problem in Multiverser play. I get players trying to create skills that are so powerful that if I as referee introduced them in the hands of the villains they would be furious. I remind them of this: you would not want a skill that gave you no chance against it, so why do you think you should be able to create a skill that gives your adversary no chance? (Note: this is not merely that the character becomes extremely powerful. It is that the skill itself is infallible, even for a rank amateur.)

So I think people will get into these games because they don't really expect the problematic rule to play out the way it does.

--M. J. Young

M.J, it sounds like a 'I didn't expect to leave my comfort zone' dodge. During SC, they agree but don't really expect any challenge that will take them outside of their comfort zone.

On the same level, since they don't think anything will take them out of it ("It's just a game!"), so they don't think to do anything during SC negotiation to ensure they aren't taken out of their CZ in play.

To paraphrase blade runner, perhaps sex=death type rules need some sort of "Wake up, time to SC!" mark next to them. Because although I don't agree with Marco's notion that the rule leads to disfunction, I think it can sneak stuff into play without adequate consent. Dangerous.

Quote from: Noon
To paraphrase blade runner, perhaps sex=death type rules need some sort of "Wake up, time to SC!" mark next to them. Because although I don't agree with Marco's notion that the rule leads to disfunction, I think it can sneak stuff into play without adequate consent. Dangerous.

I don't think the rule leads to dysfunction.

I think that the combination of an absolute rule and a player who doesn't want it in the game is a dysfunctional one (i.e. something has gone wrong there on a fundamental level).

-Marco

Quote
I think it can sneak stuff into play without adequate consent.

But doesn't that lead right into dysfunction? If per the glossary, dysfunction is "not fun play", then any failure in negotiation of the SC that leads to "not fun play" is something leading to dysfunction. A rule that has non-obvious consequences is a prime candidate for creating unfun play.

Mike:

Another possible scenario is that when the game started, the player was onboard with sex=death, and it's implications, but by the time the situation comes up in play for him, his romantic life has changed such that sex=death becomes something he doesn't want to deal with.

I've personally seen another aspect of this issue. One of my college Cold Iron campaigns started out with a very high death rate. One of my best friends decided to join the campaign because he felt I finally had decided to let PCs die. However, by the time he joined, the death rate had dropped dramatically. There were several contributing factors. I probably had changed my attitude some, but far more importantly, the PCs had gained levels (Cold Iron, being similar to D&D has the same low level fragility). Also, the players had learned the system (the tactical combat system can be brutal if you don't understand the dynamics of multiple people attacking the same target, and how to prevent that). In any event, the friend became disappointed and soon left the campaign.

On the other hand,

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M.J, it sounds like a 'I didn't expect to leave my comfort zone' dodge. During SC, they agree but don't really expect any challenge that will take them outside of their comfort zone.

I agree that sometimes players just put blinders on. My most vivid memory of this sort of problem was with a starship combat board game. In trying to learn the game, I had played through several of the scenarios solo. The first scenario seemed imbalanced, and I played it a bunch of times trying to get the "losing" side to win. I gave up after a bunch of tries. One day, I got someone to play the game with me. I suggested we skip the first scenario because of the imbalance. He didn't want to skip it. I explained how bad it was. He didn't want to skip it. I suggested he play the winning side. He refused. We played. He lost. He declared that the game was stupid and walked off in a huff.

Frank

Quote from: NoonTo paraphrase blade runner, perhaps sex=death type rules need some sort of "Wake up, time to SC!" mark next to them.

I know that Champions has done that since its fourth or fifth edition with colorful 'stop sign' icons and 'magnifying glass' icons et al.

I think this is not a bad idea and one we should take into consideration in our own game design efforts.

Quote from: clehrichJust so's I can follow this discussion, does D&D 3.5 include the directive, "Ignore rules that don't work for your group"?  I don't recall anything resembling that in AD&D, way back in the day, though admittedly it's been a while since I really read those things through.

Quote from: VaxalonIn fact, 3.0 did too.  They call it "Rule Zero"... it's actually in the Player's Handbook, an admonition to people creating characters that they should consult with the DM, because he may have house rules that should be considered.

If memory serves, the earlier editions (i.e. the ones in the 1970s and perhaps early 1980s) did not include much more than a vague reference to dungeon master input or authority apropos house rules.  I recall reading interviews with some of the game designers in which they stated the hope of a complete system.

Over the past decade or two, however, even TSR (and then WOTC) recognized that dungeon masters not only needed to tailor the game to their particular groups but that, for many groups, the house rules and tailoring were part of the appeal of the game.

Since that time, the game books have specifically stated the importance of the dungeon master (and the group consensus as well) in tailoring the rules to the needs of the specific group.

I would not consider such recognition a patch-in, however, but instead a more sophisticated understanding of the group dynamics of the modern game-playing audience.

Doctor Xero

Quote from: MarcoI don't think the rule leads to dysfunction.

I think that the combination of an absolute rule and a player who doesn't want it in the game is a dysfunctional one (i.e. something has gone wrong there on a fundamental level).

-Marco

I agree.

When a player willingly joins a game with rules he or she mislikes (or willingly declines to ensure that he or she understands just what he or she is getting into), any dysfunction is not necessarily the fault of the game system, and it is not necessarily the fault of the game master nor the fault of the fact that the game system has the niche of game master.  It may not be a fumble by game system or game master regarding CA or such.  It may be nothing more than the thoughtlessness or foolishness of the player.

That said, I recognize that roleplaying games tend to be social activities, so it's quite possible the player joined the game merely because his or her friends were playing said game.  That brings in a plethora of social factors which might lead to dysfunction.  However, those factors are not the concern of the game designer.

The concern or duty of the game designer in such situations is limited to ensuring that the game's introductory section makes it clear what the game involves and how the game involves it so that no player has the right to cry "dysfunction" because he or she didn't bother to notice that sex=death in the game (to use our current example).

Doctor Xero

I mostly agree with Xero, but I think the best rule books take pains to point out game rules that might be problematical. I really like how Ron wrote Sex and Sorcery. It really makes an effort to tell the reader that this may be a touchy subject for some, and to make damn sure the social contract is solid on what is and is not appropriate play.

I would say that a sex=death rule is of a similar nature, and deserves more than just an "adult content" label on the cover of the book or a quick paragraph or two in the introduction (especially if the introduction seems to be of the "this is what a role playing game is" into, I myself tend to skim those because they so rarely introduce anything new - don't hide your critical rules there...).

Also, if not all the players are expected to read the rules, then it IS the job of the person organizing the game to make sure everyone understands what the game is all about (in fact, to be honest, this is the responsibility of the organizer even if he does expect everyone to own and read the ruleset).

Frank

Quote from: ffilzI mostly agree with Xero, but I think the best rule books take pains to point out game rules that might be problematical. I really like how Ron wrote Sex and Sorcery. It really makes an effort to tell the reader that this may be a touchy subject for some, and to make damn sure the social contract is solid on what is and is not appropriate play.

Xero's example of the stop-signs and magnifying glasses in Champions is an excellent one, and easy to incorporate as a result of playtesting.  When you discover that a particular rule seems to prompt the, "Hey!  Was that really right there in the rules?  No way!" response, you put a magnifying glass next to it.  When you find a rule that the GM has to be super-wary about, because if he doesn't master it the players who do might rip the game apart, you put a stop-sign.  Easy, simple, visually effective.

QuoteAlso, if not all the players are expected to read the rules, then it IS the job of the person organizing the game to make sure everyone understands what the game is all about (in fact, to be honest, this is the responsibility of the organizer even if he does expect everyone to own and read the ruleset).

I've always been opposed to this sort of thing, the "secret rules in the back for GMs only" stuff.  But if you do it, then you'd better be damn sure that there aren't any of those "this rule kills players" bits in there and not elsewhere, yes.

Quote from: clehrichI've always been opposed to this sort of thing, the "secret rules in the back for GMs only" stuff.  But if you do it, then you'd better be damn sure that there aren't any of those "this rule kills players" bits in there and not elsewhere, yes.

Although I agree (heartily) in practice--in theory I have a problem: if I as a player know there is a secret back of the book section and that a GM, as writ, has authority to invoke stuff there and I agree to play I am, IMO, signing up for the wild-ride of whatever that section says sight unseen.

While this is a somewhat degenerate case (as presented here) I think a more general case is where the GM has a scenario and doesn't disclose all the features of it to the players. The players still show up, ready to go down in the dungeon--and they don't know all the specifics of situation--but they are trusting the GM to facilitate their good time.

Consider this: in Monopoly there is no unforseen input (you read the rules, you look at all the cards, and you know the space the game can encompass). When you are going down into the GM's personal dungeon there could be made up monsters, made up treasure, NPC's, etc.

All of this is, IMO, sort of like those rules in the back of the book the players aren't supposed to see. But I'm willing to play in those games anyway and the division of responsibility isn't always crystal clear (but sometimes it could be: can a Hackmaster GM make up a monster? I'm not sure--but given the rest of the game's focus, I'd expect not).

-Marco

Chris, with regards to D&D and the Golden Rule, I think that it's primarily in response to the rhetoric of Gygax in first edition that the golden rule started appearing. That is, in first edition AD&D, Gygax said in no uncertain terms that if you altered the rules that were presented, that you were no longer playing AD&D. This was important at the time because of the whole convention tournament. For those who may not have ever played in one, these were very gamist events where the players who did best in purely gamist terms won prizes. It was very important at that time that there be "official" rules of how to play, or you couldn't compare sessions fairly.

Well, as everyone knows, AD&D is not without its flaws as a system, and everyone ignored the prohibition against changing the rules. "So I'm not playing AD&D according to Gygax, so what?" In fact there were some rather flamey folks who took outright outrage at the idea that they couldn't alter the rules, and who vehemently rejected the idea. Most importantly, anyone who wanted to make their own RPG - read version of D&D - was almost certainly revolting against the idea that Gygax had things right.

Soon the notion became that not only was it wrong for a designer to say that you had to play by his rules, but it became a "feature" of most games that they would say somewhere in the text that they expected you to alter the game. And most took it to a further extreme saying that "no system is perfect, if something doesn't work, play the story not the rules."

Note the slight difference there. One says that it's OK to alter the rules (which I find merely unneccessary). The second tells the players that it makes sense merely to drop the rules whenever the GM thinks that they should drop the rules (all of these games also say that the GM is final arbiter, so obviously only he has the authority to OK any such change - though a player might propose one.

By the '90s, it became obligatory to have some text like this. Wordings vary, depending on how "Story" driven the game is. The more story-oriented the system was, the more they tended to suggest ignoring the rules.

This is precisely the "System Doesn't Matter" approach talking. Only a good GM can know how to keep a game on an even keel, and the rules shall not hamper him. Because the idea of rules that actually support story was absent. Indeed they mostly did just interfere with what all of the narrativism folks out there wanted. So it was thought that less rules, or ignoring rules, or freeform was the only way out of this trap.

So, it's largely this ideology to which The Forge is a reaction. A little history for those who may have been unaware.

Mike

Quote from: Mike HolmesThis is precisely the "System Doesn't Matter" approach talking. Only a good GM can know how to keep a game on an even keel, and the rules shall not hamper him.

Although I agree with you overall, Mike, consider this :

The "System Doesn't Matter" approach is one which places tremendous responsibility on the player who has the role/duties of game master.

Every time we attempt to design a game system which handles some of this for the players (including game master), we reduce somewhat the player responsibility for keeping the game on an even keel and for producing narrativist or simulationist story if such is desired.

I imagine the ultimate game design in which players have maximum responsibility would be a blank page?

I imagine the ultimate game design in which system matters and players have no responsibility duties/roles would require no players at all?

To focus my comments more directly on thread topic, then, I suspect this points out to us that the best game designs will be clear to players (including game master) about both game mechanics and about the limitations to the system -- in other words, the best game designs also make clear for the players involved those points in which system does not or can not matter, e.g. social contracts.

Doctor Xero

Quote from: Doctor XeroThe "System Doesn't Matter" approach is one which places tremendous responsibility on the player who has the role/duties of game master.

Yes, yes it does, and is it's big problem. I've referred to a Changeling game I tried to run a while back that went real dysfunctional real fast, and this was a big part of it: A lot of the veteran White Wolf players adamantly believed it was my job, as GM, to entertain them, not everyone's job to entertain everyone.

I really need to do an Actual Play report on that game...

Quote from: xiombargI've referred to a Changeling game I tried to run a while back that went real dysfunctional real fast, and this was a big part of it: A lot of the veteran White Wolf players adamantly believed it was my job, as GM, to entertain them, not everyone's job to entertain everyone.

Although if you'd agreed with them and done as they'd expected, I don't imagine it would have become dysfunctional *grin*.

Again, an example of the importance of every player (including game master) recognizing his/her responsibilities and agreeing to them -- in this case, either game master wants to be source of entertainment or players recognizing that game master is not source of entertainment.

amusedly
(I can identify, xiombarg!),
Doctor Xero