Rules that outsource

[M. J. Young]

Now I'll just mute my point here by taking it from a binary scale to a dial system. I'll say that the more you outsource, the more your asking Bob something, not the system something. The broader the implications of X, the more your turning up that dial.

And what is wrong with asking Bob something? Nothing, no problems there at all.

The problem is, if I'm asking Bob/the more I'm asking Bob, why am I bothering with this system at all? And if I'm referring to the 'book of Bob' more than I'm referring to the RPG in front of me, WHY is that RPG A: Undermining it's original purchase, with this type of design (designs with the dial turned up high)? B: Asserting that X is so clear that referring to Bob to determine X isn't undermining its relevance?

I think that's enough of a chunk to quote.

You're headed into a major issue about the difference between authority and credibility.

The rules, as written, are an authority; they can be said to have authority, but only in the sense that someone can appeal to them for clarification. They do not have credibility. Why not? In order to have credibility, it must be possible to speak into the shared imaginary space, and the rules can't do that. They need Bob.

Bob has credibility; his credibility, apparently, includes that he gets to say what the rules mean. (In my recent Game Ideas Unlimited: Credibility I observe that there may be other ways that credibility is apportioned. For example, I've been in D&D games with considerably less experienced referees who seemed to believe that I would have the credibility to say what the rules of the game actually were, because of my experience.) The rules only enter the game if someone references them; and then they only mean whatever they are said to mean by the person who has the credibility to make that statement.

Thus everything in the rulebook truly boils down to that same sort of advice to the referee: this is an explanation, a guideline, an attempt to convey to you how you should make the decisions. This is when you roll the dice, what dice you roll. This is when you don't roll the dice. This is how you adjust the scores, interpret the results, advance the scene--all ultimately has to be processed by the credible individual to get into the game.

The book cannot read itself into play; it cannot insert itself into what we're doing. It only gets there through the medium of whoever it is that gets to explain and apply the rules.

You can't escape Bob; you need him. You can't bypass him to provide the answers directly into the game. Only Bob can provide the answers; all you can do is give him the tools to do so, and trust that he understands the objectives clearly enough that he'll do it well.

--M. J. Young

[Mike Holmes]

What MJ said.

Why is it that only you and I buy into the whole Authority/Credibility split?

Mike

[Emily Care]

What MJ said.

Why is it that only you and I buy into the whole Authority/Credibility split?

Mike

I third you.
(But my stupid pet peeve is that only statements can have "credibility", and people make credible statements.  Go figure.)

So Noon, the answer of why not use the "Book of Bob" lies in Ralph's alternate use of the term "outsourcing":

A gaming group searches and evaluates several different games until they find and buy one that meet their needs.

Gaming folks can do whatever they want, when it comes down to it. You're the role-player, you're the boss, make it up! It's all outsourcing, with input and suggestions from the system. So why don't we always just wing it? Because a good system gives good input.

Yrs,
Emily Care

[Callan S.]

Note: I'm going to use the term back source here, to describe when rules out source back to the gaming group that out sourced to them to begin with (And thus the rules aren't adding anything themselves, the group is).

This is the problem to address: The more that rules back source, the more pointless it was to add them to begin with. Eventually it simply becomes inefficient free form.

Credibility does not address this when the back sourcing dial is turned right up. At low dial levels (perhaps where the GM simply decides small bonuses and penalties, for example), this works out. Because Bobs control over it is limited, there is very little 'Okay, so he gets to decide what happens, why do I use these rules, why don't I just free form with him?'. It's there, but clearly were working from something like 10% of the book of Bob and 90% from the book of rules.

You can even turn the dial up a bit and it's all right. Up a little more and it'll still appeal certain tastes. But IMO that dial has a geometric progression for each notch you turn it up. Eventually your free forming, but rolling little dice around and doing math rather than just asking Bob whether your succeed in your task or not. When the dial is down low, your doing the same thing, rolling little dice around and doing math, but the little dice and math answer your question. It's the big difference between free form and system use.

Extreme use of something is typically a bad idea. Advocating that eventually someone with enough credibility will make it work is the same. It's like a doctor prescribing a placebo to a patient. The credibility of the doctor makes the patient feel better when he takes the placebo. Granted, credibility is damn useful. But it's a con job. Unless the idea in RPG design is that we create placebo RPG's, that isn't the way to go.

If this doesn't click with anyone, consider this brief question: It is possible to develop rules which are virtual dead weight in play, and just give the impression that your using a system instead of free forming?

If you wanted to deliberately and perversely design this, how would you do it? Say it's free forming and Bob is in charge.

Well, the way I'd design these 'rules' is to give Bob so much influence over them/their math that he can control the results easily. Back sourcing him for big judgement calls and for resource creation is the best bet.

Really, that's the question. If you wanted to make a game which pretends to have a system but is really just free form GM'ed by Bob, how would you design these rules?

And then the question is, how close is this in design to quite a few current RPG systems, or ones in development?

As for not being able to escape Bob, and that only he can provide answers because only humans can speak into imaginary spaces and not the creations of humans…well, your going to have to explain that too me, references in two sentences didn't get it across.

[Callan S.]

*snip edit to make my reply a bit smaller*
So Noon, the answer of why not use the "Book of Bob" lies in Ralph's alternate use of the term "outsourcing":

A gaming group searches and evaluates several different games until they find and buy one that meet their needs.

Gaming folks can do whatever they want, when it comes down to it. You're the role-player, you're the boss, make it up! It's all outsourcing, with input and suggestions from the system. So why don't we always just wing it? Because a good system gives good input.

Yrs,
Emily Care

I know what I am and what I want to do. I'm talking about systems that don't know this about themselves, or don't say.

[Valamir]

I think that happens ALL the time Noon.  I think you'd find few who who'd disagree with you.  It speaks directly to the heart of System Matters.  

There are alot of people who think that Nobilis and Amber are exactly the sort of games you describe.  They backsource to the GM so much in requireing the GM to interpret through Drama with some Karmic guideance that many groups are essentially just freeforming anyway.

But that doesn't invalidate (or even disagree with) the posts about credibility.  

Even if a rule says exactly what is SUPPOSED to happen, it still doesn't happen until a human being says it happened.  A judge may rely on a written law to make his ruling.  But the law didn't make the ruling.  The judge did.  And an awful lot of interpretation goes into those rulings.

[Callan S.]

I have no problem with it then. There is no problem with (to use your analogy) the judge making his own judgement based on the law rather than just giving the direct result of the law. In a game group that would then fall back to social contract (I think) to deal with, or some other management level.

The problem is with are laws/rules which the judge can so control their inputs, that he can control the output easily.

If it were a math equation like 2+2, he wouldn't have to scratch his chin and say 'Well, it was a four but I'll say it was a five'. All he has to do is make it 2+3, when he has control over the variables involved.

What the hell was the point of doing that math, when he could just save time and pluck a result number out of nowhere?

The worst thing is that he can say 'Ah, and the result is 5 and I'm not going to change it one bit! This system works great! Were playing completely by the rules!'. Yes, playing by completely useless rules, if the idea of rules is to draw you away from free form gaming.

I think there is no problem with the GM calling a four a five or whatever number. The system provided him a result, and that helped him make his choice. Thus the system helped, it wasn't a waste of time.

But as you turn the back-sourcing dial up, the more control he gets over the whole equation. Why have the equation at all, it's a bloody awful waste of time.

[Mike Holmes]

Like Ralph said, you're preaching to the choir here. Take this message to the freeformers, and try to convince them, however. Let me know how that goes. :-)

Mike

[Callan S.]

*satisfied grunt* Cool, and now on track too. :)

Although I wouldn't go and tell off the freeformers...not the true ones,  the ones who don't pretend to use rules. Their cool in doing their own thing honestly and openly. It's the ones who use rules who's inputs are totally at their whim, that need pruning. I'd compare it to 'my guy' syndrome, if I understand the term correctly, except when it's the GM it's 'the world says this happens', to justify anything inside or outside the social contract that happens. But when they totally control the rule, they are in control, and they are just hiding behind some crappy rules. Okay, probably preaching to the choir again, but this might spark some nugget of knowledge from someone on the specifics of this.

Also, can I ask about credibility briefly. I'm assuming credibility is mentioned in the way that if someone was playing a fighting fantasy book by themselves, they apply credibility for themself (A GM can apply it, but people can do it for themselves as well, of course) rather than laughing at the book and throwing it over their shoulder. Obviously credibility is important, but what can be done/controlled about it to make it worth mentioning? I'm can't think of anything right now, myself.

Finally, I'd like to approach something which was brought up earlier in the thread and may not be preaching to the choir. Specifically it's about 'when it matters to roll'. I have to say, that if your working with an equation like X+Y, these individual values are important, but what is more important is whether you use the equation or don't. Having control over each number is less important than having control over the use of the equation to begin with.

The problem that seems to occur over and over is missdirection/noise. It's often seen that if there is a wall in the way (in game), you'll have to do a climb check. Ie, the game world determined that you needed to do a climb check. At the time it matters because theirs something on the other side you want.

But, who determined the game world to begin with? The GM. It seems to be a traditional simulationist assertion that climbing a wall must mean a climb check or jumping a chasm must mean a jump check (or the very close 'it has to happen then, if it matters to the session). This wall or chasm is just noise though. It's your GM asking for a climb or jump check, because he determined the world that 'triggered' it.

With this noise in between the GM and those trying to game, all sorts of problems are imminent. Eg, GM's who put their players through boring dice chores because they think the world demands it. Players who argue realism on and on because they don't know the true source to communicate with (and if they did, often they still can't because the GM doesn't know it through all the noise either). Plus many, many more disfunctions. Because the pitch of the book was 'This happens when the game world determines it', rather than 'Your GM will ask for this when it seems like the group determined idea of fun'.

[Valamir]

I can't speak for everyone, but I think you'll find most of us are members of that choir too.

[Callan S.]

I hope the quoting done here isn't too 'spikey'. Apologies to MJ Young for over quoting him. It's just to be sure where this choir is, exactly.

This is M J Young on the first page of this thread:
And because those "circumstances" that might matter are two vast in variety to list or describe, it is up to the referee to decide when the circumstances demand a roll.

That quote and the rest of the post it came from reads like it's refering to circumstances of the game world  (ie, the one the GM defines).

There were several posters supporting a latter post M J Young wrote. That post I'd guess continues from the same principle of the previous one. This principle (about game world circumstance) doesn't mesh with my last point, so I'm curious. Where are we on this?

[M. J. Young]

I don't mind being quoted, Callan; it lets me know that what I've posted mattered.

I am a bit embarrassed that you managed to quote a piece of text with such a blatant typo in it, but that's my fault.

Ah, yes, the referee provides the circumstances, and that creates the situations in which the mechanics are necessary, really it all comes back to the referee deciding that you need to do this here, doesn't it?

That depends.

I've got maybe a score or so of old modules for a few games--mostly incarnations of D&D, but also Star Frontiers and Gamma World that I'm sure of. Most of these lay out the available routes and the incorporated obstacles, along with some of the alternatives. If someone is playing from one of these, then there's a sense in which it is the module that dictates the circumstances, and the referee only steps in to adjudicate how the players may attempt to overcome them.

In the 80's I, like most of those I have encountered, designed "dungeons" and other adventure settings in much the same fashion as those modules. We put together the paths, obstacles, and rewards, often in complete ignorance of who would be playing in those settings. So yes, we decided, we created those circumstances--but we did it in a completely impartial fashion, trying to design something that would have a level of challenge and interest that typical players would enjoy.

In Multiverser, a lot of worlds are created and/or detailed on the fly. The game actually provides a mechanic to assist with this. For example, one of my players, working with a group of rebels trying to undermine a ruthless dictatorship, went with them to attack a caravan. The world in which these things are happening is too big to be fully detailed or described; I can't have the contingent guarding every caravan along with its route and schedule written down in advance. Rather, when he was approaching, I rolled a general effects roll. This tells me whether things are going to favor or oppose the player character, and to what degree. Now I've got verbal descriptors such as worse than anticipated, bad enough, generally favorable, or best hopes, and I can thumbnail those into circumstances. Yes, I'm in control of what the circumstances are; but the game has told me how these are going to play out. Bad enough in this case meant that the attackers were going to need good rolls at the very beginning of their combat in order to keep things from getting out of hand, because if the watch alerted the rest of the guard they would be badly outnumbered and overmatched, and would have to find another way to handle the situation.

Your concern seems to be that on a moment-by-moment basis the referee gets to decide what to throw at the players. I've played in games like that. That's strongly illusionist; the players feel like they're in control because they choose what their characters do, but actually the referee is running the show to achieve his objectives. Illusionist games can be tremendously exhilarating--until you see the man behind the curtain, and realize that that feeling that you came this close to death and somehow pulled it off was nothing more than someone manipulating the situation. I've seen orcs die when I had taken enough damage, overwhelming enemies retreat when I had spent my trump card. I've been there. It's only fun when you don't know what's happening, generally, and a lot of people in that game left when they realized it. (The rest shifted to a dysfunctional participationist mode, in which their characters did blatantly insane things attempting to derail the referee's intent, just to see how far they could push the envelope without it collapsing.)

If the referee is making it up as he goes along, you must either trust the referee or provide structure within which he is allowed to work. Multiverser's general effects rolls are such a structure. Some games give the referee point limits on what he can spend, or require him to balance the challenge numerically against some rating derived from the player characters.

Even with such structures, you still have to trust the referee. The question is whether the guidance you're going to give him is something like:

Add up the total levels of the characters in the player character party. Routine encounters should have a challenge rating of 1/5 this number, significant encounters should be at 1/3, and the ultimate encounter should be at 2/3 this value.

or more like:

It is the referee's job to tailor the situations such that everyone has fun, by ensuring that the encounters are challenging but not impossible.

Maybe that's a personal preference issue; in the end, though, whatever you say is going to be guidance for the referee on how to run the game, and really not much more than that.

--M. J. Young

[Callan S.]

Ah, now you've covered interesting ground, you've not quite covered what I ment. :) It's not the making it up/illusionism that I'm trying to get at here. Instead it's about making it up then passing it off with 'the world made me do it', citing the results of rules to prove that the world did indeed make the GM do that. The same rules he has absolute/high control over their input values.

It's basically about passing the buck, passing responsiblity off to rules, like a 'my guy' player passes off his social responsiblity as a player, citing that he was roleplaying.

The basic principle is: If you have absolute/high control over the rules inputs, the result is a product of you, not the system.

I'm not sure how much GM accountability is important to everyone. I mean accountability in terms of living up to social contract and creative agenda (I think those are the right terms to use here) that has been agreed to.

It's clear that you can only be held accountable for what you take responsibility for.

Now, suppose that even unwittingly, you assume the circumstances of the game world determine rule use. You have just shrugged of responsiblity to the 'game world' with this perception. Most likely the system your playing in re-inforces this, saying: it is up to the referee to decide when the circumstances demand a roll.

However, the vast majority of rules are designed in a way that they are completely under the control of the GM, in terms of the result they produce (because he controls the inputs).

So, you have a system guideline and GM that shift responsiblity off the GM, yet a system design that deffinately makes it his responsiblity. Accountability is screwed. We've all heard stories about endless arguements on realism or rules lawyering. When a game system gives one message that 'do a roll when game world circumstances say so' and yet the rule design says 'The GM has massive control over the input of most rules and decides when to roll', that's the opposite message.

I hope I'm clear and not rambling. I'd add more right now, but it would be at risk of perhaps just confusing things more.

[M. J. Young]

I don't know, Callan.

Instead it's about making it up then passing it off with 'the world made me do it', citing the results of rules to prove that the world did indeed make the GM do that. The same rules he has absolute/high control over their input values.

Just this week I had a game take a turn which I, as referee, didn't really want or expect, and which the player didn't really want or expect. I would say that the rules brought us to it, although it would also be said that his choice brought us to it, and that my scenario brought us to it. They're all connected.

The character, a verser, has been training with the ninjas to battle against the nobility, who are oppressing the peasants. He has reached a point where he is capable, and has gone on one successful raid in which he fought against a couple of bushi, standard soldiers. He was going on another raid, and the dice suggested it was going to be tough.

Tough, I determined, meant that there was one bushi standing watch for each of the four ninjas on the raid, and that there were additional bushi sleeping who would respond if an alarm were raised, plus one samurai in command, also sleeping. The samurai is a powerful character; there have been comments about how potent samurai are. The player knows that a powerful character highly trained in a weapon can kill with a single blow--his own character has done it before, elsewhere, with different weapons.

Things did not go well immediately; he suggested that the ninjas each take out one of the guards, but he missed his first attack, and one of the others also missed an attack, and the alarm was raised. He finished his bushi, and rushed to confront the samurai. The roll suggested that the samurai was ready, but not completely ready--he had weapons, but not armor. The player attempted to disable the samurai, and failed, and the samurai struck and succeeded in landing a fatal blow.

It might not have gone that way. He had bad dice luck several times in a row--the alarm was raised, the samurai was ready, the tactical attack failed, and the samurai got an excellent roll that managed to bypass the player character's defenses and do fatal amounts of damage. Had the alarm not been sounded, he'd have killed the samurai in his sleep; had the samurai not been armed, he would have had the opportunity to attack him before a counter-attack was possible; had his disabling technique worked, he would have had several attacks before the opponent could respond. I wanted to continue testing that world; the player had ideas of bringing down whoever was at the top of this oppressive power pyramid. Yet as I looked at the numbers, I thought it would be unjust to pretend that the player character had survived such a blow. We moved on to the next world.

That's how the game goes, sometimes; to pretend it doesn't is unfair, even to the player.

Sometimes it is the game that does it. It's not always the referee and it's not always the player. That's why we have the games--to take the decisions out of the hands of those involved, to create the unexpected, provide outcomes that make the game work without placing blame on the participants.

That said, I agree that it is possible for referees to use the "game made me do it" excuse in very much the way that players use the "my guy" excuse. And in both cases it is a great dodge of responsibility precisely because sometimes it is what the game requires or what fidelity to the character demands. If it were not so, the excuse wouldn't work.

--M. J. Young

[Callan S.]

Hi again,

Nice example, it was fun to read. :)

Now, that examples underlying issues depend on how you handle accountability. There are two methods, the one I talked about and a second.

1. The GM descides if game world circumstances ask for a roll.

2. It is agreed within the game group that the GM should try to reflect, in his freeform and in group granted ability to ask freely for dice rolls, the game worlds circumstances (it's understood too that his influence over those circumstances is vast, so he could end up just reflecting what he wants. But the descision to trust has been made).

Now, I think your example is somewhat like the latter method (perhaps arguable, but close IMO), which isn't quite what I'm talking about. It is an example of lessened accountability just like I was talking about. But it has been agreed to. Accountability is good, but the game group has decided to choose this. All is well, although the GM has to be self disciplined when he has no boundaries.

Now, the BS thing about the first method is that it requires the same thing as the second to work without disfunction, without actually having the balls to say what it requires. It tries to suggest that really the rules are in charge, when really most rule designs backsource so hard it hurts.

This particular point doesn't just underline that social contract is a good thing. It's about changing the attitude most RPG's are written in...that recuring over and over, designers presumably don't recognise just how much their rules back source, and go on to recurringly suggest in their book the rules are in charge and the GM's just puttying in small gaps. I'd get into saying things about pride and ignorance, if it weren't so ranty. But perhaps for either of those reasons, they (a bunch, not all designers) aren't designing so the rules do carry more responsiblity, nor are they being honest in stipulating the GM trust requirements needed.

Still, this requires the belief that the GM has vast influence over the most rules (because of their design). I'll just quote you briefly:

That's how the game goes, sometimes; to pretend it doesn't is unfair, even to the player.

Sometimes it is the game that does it. It's not always the referee and it's not always the player. That's why we have the games--to take the decisions out of the hands of those involved, to create the unexpected, provide outcomes that make the game work without placing blame on the participants.

I have to say, that before the game can go that way, the game needs to applied. A samurai can kill your character (statistically) only once he's been applied. The game can only go that way/the dice can only go that way, once someones decided to pick them up and roll them. The person who makes the descision as to when they get rolled has more influence than the dice do.

I would say what you mean is: thats how the game goes when run in a reasonable way (eg things like 'general effects' rolls are read resonably).
I can't argue with this. But if this is the way it is, the word 'reasonable' is a clear reference to social agreement (on what reasonable actually is). However, it seems a tradition RPG design that even though your design needs a social agreement, you don't directly address this in your book. You design one way, then instruct another. I mean, to draw a parallel, is Rune designed for true Vs play? Or does it just say it is (and then even contradicts itself further on, from the sample in Ron's essay).

I guess the old chest nut 'All games have to be run reasonably, it's implicit. You can't play chess if you punch each other in the nose to try and win. Thus being reasonably doesn't need to be covered' comes up.

I can only say, punching in the nose isn't part of chess rules (let's keep  meta game and game elements distinct). You don't cover something in a games instructions which isn't actually in the game. However, if punching were built into the rules (and not a meta game issue), you would need quite a section dealing with it (so as to not let it spoil the rest of the game).

High GM control (and thus a need to be reasonable) is part of most RPG system design. And most books instruction on how to not let it spoil the game? Well, they don't address it. Pages of heavy implication and direct assertions that really the game is in control/the game decides when it happens and where it goes.

To put it in a blunt, not very accurate, but quite distinct way: Many RPG rule designs do include punches to the nose, then pretend they don't.

Keep in mind, that same design can lead to possitive things rather than a punch in the nose. But without guidance, without recognition from the book itself, what will end up happening?

I wrote too much again. Sigh.