Over in 20' by 20' Room, we had a fun conversation where we all tried to suss out what we think about objective and subjective rules. The main take-away was that nobody really knew what the heck they were saying when they said "objective" and "subjective" about an entire rule.

I wrote this up in response, and I'm pretty proud of it, so I'm transplanting it:

Let me separate out two different factors about a rule here, and examine the combinations. I think it is possible to much more rigorously discuss the question of objective/subjective in these specific elements.

Interpretation: The things that the rule can possibly be saying, in terms of mechanics. A rule with Objective Interpretations tells you what can be done, who can do it, when they can do it, and what choices they have, all in game-mechanic terms. A rule with Subjective Interpretation fails in one or more of those criteria.

Application: The possible outcomes when the rule is applied. A rule with Objective Application does one thing and one thing only when it is relevant. A rule with Subjective Application gives some player the right to any of two or more possible outcomes when the rule is relevant. Note that the number of possibe outcomes can be infinite (e.g. "You may create a new NPC and how they become relevant to the scene")

Examples:

"Any time a player rolls a ten they get a Squeegee Token." Objective Interpretation, Objective Application (OIOA)

"Any time a player rolls a ten the GM may choose to award them a Squeegee Token, at the GMs sole discretion." Objective Interpretation, Subjective Application (OISA)

"When a player does something heroic they get a Squeegee Token." Subjective Interpretation, Objective Application (SIOA)

"When a player helps another character face their inner demons that character's player may award them a Squeegee Token." Subjective Interpretation, Subjective Application (SISA)



I'll jump right in and say that I think that SIOA rules are absolutely toxic. They beg people to conclude that other players are deliberately cheating them, and to get angry and argumentative about it.

SISA rules are... urgggh... hate to use this word, but... inferior. You can make a game that uses them and works, but you'd be better off, in every case I can think of, using an OISA rule instead of an SISA rule.

Now, the real question: Am I talking about real stuff here? Or have I fooled myself into dressing up my personal preferences with fancy acronyms?

Hi Tony,

TonyLB wrote: I'll jump right in and say that I think that SIOA rules are absolutely toxic. They beg people to conclude that other players are deliberately cheating them, and to get angry and argumentative about it.

Silmenume wrote: And using your definitions matched to my group’s gaming inclinations we would tend to think that OIOA would, while not necessarily toxic, but be nearly impossible to implement.

OIOA rules are dead easy to implement. However, they (on their own) give no scope for player choice. If your game were composed entirely of OIOA choices then it would structurally resemble Chutes and Ladders... you roll some dice, and things happen, but anyone else would be forced to roll the dice in the same way and get the same results.

OIOA rules are very useful for creating a structure in which OISA rules can let players shine, however.

Jay: I'm interested to hear that you're running so much SIOA, as it doesn't match well with the vibe I'd gotten from your descriptions. Can you describe one such rule for us, to help give us some Actual Play structure to reference?

Well, OIOA doesn't only imply chutes and ladders. Chess is OIOA, or at least the way I understand your definitions.

But I think that subjectivity is a very important part of what makes an RPG different from other types of games.

Frank

No it's not. In Chess your turn comes up, and you have two or more (generally many more) possible outcomes of taking your turn. You can move the knight here, or move the queen there, or castle, or.... Those are all choices of Application, which makes it OISA.

EDIT: Technically, some of the rules are OISA, some of the rules are OIOA. "On your turn you can move any piece to any of its legal moves" is OISA. "When a piece lands on a square occupied by an opposing piece, that opposing piece is captured, and removed from the board" is OIOA, as is "Players alternate turns one after the other."

Ok, your description didn't imply that definition of SA. Hmm, can you really qualify a game that is entirely OIOA as a game? I've always wondered if "dice race" (which is what chutes and ladders effectively is) is really a game.

I'm also wondering if your SA/OA distinction is really usefull. There's definitely a difference between the choice between moves that a chess player can make (which is objectively limited to a small finite set at any given time) and the ability of a role player to choose to attempt any action he can describe.

Frank

Hi Tony,

I think perhaps the real issue is whether mechanics are clear on what the specific conditions events occur and who gets authority over it. You say SIOA rules don't fly- I say look at PTA's fanmail. "You think X is cool, hand over a fanmail."

The reason the SIOA example you use fails is because it fails to define several key factors- who is responsible for deciding an action is heroic and making the award, how often that reward can be handed out, etc. The reason that fanmail works is that it establishes who is responsible, a clear easy to understand condition(even if subjective), and it is a limited resource, putting a cap on people just flinging it about at random.

Chris

I agree with Chris, I think.

Clarity is an important factor in the Subjective judgment. If the game text is pretty clear about the context of heroism or the description of what "facing one's inner demons" means in the context of the game then I think these can be pretty good rules.

I mean, there may be some room for interperation (and I don't, for example, give out extra XP for good "roleplay" when I game on the theory that everyone gave 100% of what they had available that night). But on the whole a ref making a call as to what "heroic" means isn't necessiarly toxic.

-Marco

The fanmail makes me wonder if there should be a third axis:

Objective Resources and Subjective Resources

"When someone does something cool, give fan mail, of which there is a limited #" seems different from "When someone does something cool, give a bonus squeegie point, of which there are an unlimited number."

ffilz wrote: I'm also wondering if your SA/OA distinction is really usefull. There's definitely a difference between the choice between moves that a chess player can make (which is objectively limited to a small finite set at any given time) and the ability of a role player to choose to attempt any action he can describe.

John Kim wrote:
I think this is a place where I disagree with Tony, who feels that SISA is "inferior" to OISA. Comparing the two, with OISA you always have to start your declaration from the rules -- i.e. you look at the rules and declare your action based on the enumerated choices. This can have some description layered on top of it, but it can't just be a non-rule-based description. I feel that going from the imaginary description itself and subjectively interpreting it into rules is a very valuable tool. Nothing wrong with OISA, but it can't do this.

Isn't OISA also the best way to describe the scene framing of such wonderful games as, say, My Life With Master or PTA, where you decide on the type of scene, at the very least, before wandering into the scene with your characters?

I'm having trouble with your definition of subjective application.

The examples given in the initial post both indicate that the player can decide whether or not to apply the rule.

The subsequent statement that chess moves are subjective applications doesn't, in my mind, fit that. They are strategic decisions, but they are objective applications of rules, as far as I can see--the pieces are able to do specifically defined moves which may have specifically defined consequences.

To make the distinction, let's compare

If a player's piece ends its move in the same square as an opposing player's piece, the opposing player's piece is removed from the board"

with

If a player's peice ends its move in the same square as an opposing player's piece, the player may choose whether or not to remove the opposing player's piece from the board."

I'm not completely certain whether that second example is subjective application (it could still be strategic choice), but I am pretty sure that in chess the removal of pieces from the board is an objective application of a rule--no one decides whether or not to remove them.

Similarly, the player may choose what move he will make, but he must make a move.

I think for your distinction between objective and subjective application of rules to work, you must isolate from the rules discussion anything that amounts to a strategic decision by a player. If the player may choose to do something based on whether the outcome benefits or harms his own position (whether that position is corporate or individual), that does not in my mind qualify as a subjective application rule. Rather, a subjective application rule would be any case in which someone in the game gets to decide whether or not the rule should apply in this case.

Which I think puts me in much the same situation as John: subjective application is not different from subjective interpretation, as in both cases we're asking whether or not the rule should apply. The OISA example is a case of the referee deciding whether or not a token should be awarded on this particular roll of ten (without any guidance concerning how to make that decision). The SIOA example is a case of someone deciding whether or not this particular instance rises to the level of being heroic enough to warrant application of the rule to get a token (again, without sufficient guidance for what is heroic enough). The SISA example is a case of a player deciding whether what the other player did qualifies as deserving a token under the rule (and once more, with no clear guidance on that). Thus they all come down to a subjective determination of whether the rule should apply in this case, absent any clear statement of how to make that decision.

The OIOA example really comes down to being a clear statement of conditions and consequences. The rest are vague statements of guidelines under which someone can choose to do something. The objective aspects aren't at all so objective, even when separated from the subjective portions, precisely because they are dependent on the subjective portion.

--M. J. Young

Heya M.J,

Now hold on a second:
A.

The OISA example is a case of the referee deciding whether or not a token should be awarded on this particular roll of ten (without any guidance concerning how to make that decision).

"Any time a player rolls a ten the GM may choose to award them a Squeegee Token, at the GMs sole discretion." Objective Interpretation, Subjective Application (OISA)

"When a player does something heroic they get a Squeegee Token." Subjective Interpretation, Objective Application (SIOA)

"When a player helps another character face their inner demons that character's player may award them a Squeegee Token." Subjective Interpretation, Subjective Application (SISA)

I think for your distinction between objective and subjective application of rules to work, you must isolate from the rules discussion anything that amounts to a strategic decision by a player. If the player may choose to do something based on whether the outcome benefits or harms his own position (whether that position is corporate or individual), that does not in my mind qualify as a subjective application rule. Rather, a subjective application rule would be any case in which someone in the game gets to decide whether or not the rule should apply in this case.

M. J. Young wrote: The subsequent statement that chess moves are subjective applications doesn't, in my mind, fit that. They are strategic decisions, but they are objective applications of rules, as far as I can see--the pieces are able to do specifically defined moves which may have specifically defined consequences.

Heya Tony,

Good subject! Now, can I compare this to something like the relic's in D&D 2E? The ones where the GM penciled in what extra powers they had. I would say this is actually a design point which encourages the user to become a designer himself. Would you agree?

"Any time a player rolls a ten the GM may choose to award them a Squeegee Token, at the GMs sole discretion."

"When a player does something heroic they get a Squeegee Token."

"When a player helps another character face their inner demons that character's player may award them a Squeegee Token."

A rule that presents you with "strategic" options in how it can be applied is an SA rule. You have options. There is a decision point embedded in the application of the rule. And the definitions are about whether you have a choice to make.

I get that this doesn't jibe with some people's personal definitions of "subjective". But I can't build anything on definitions that vary from person to person. That's why I'm trying to get something as clear as I can as a foundation.


Now, that minor correction out of the way: A very interesting question has been raised. How much (if any) functional difference is there between a rule that presents you with an SA choice in whether it does anything, and a rule that presents you with an SI choice about whether it applies at all?

I'm positing that we're designing a hypothetical game "Killfest". We need to figure out how people hand out Spatter tokens. We have two possible rules:

• "When a character does something supremely gorey and disgusting the GM gives them a Spatter token."
• "At any time, the GM may give a player a Spatter token to signify that they have done something supremely gorey and disgusting."

As I hope the highlighting makes clear, these rules as stated are SIOA and OISA respectively, by the strict definitions. Now, are they meaningfully different?

I think the answer is yes. Specifically, I think they communicate different things when the GM doesn't give a player a Spatter token.

Under rule #1, if the GM doesn't give a Spatter token you can conclude either:

• The GM doesn't agree that your action was "supremely gorey and disguisting," or• The GM is misinterpreting the rules

Under rule #2, if the GM doesn't give a Spatter token you can conclude nothing.

Hi Tony,

Perhaps the key word to highlight in # 2 is "may"- because that's the one word that changes the rule into a "Mother-may-I"* choice of the GM's whim. But yeah, that's completely on point.

On a larger scale, this is why the "Golden Rule" and "Rule 0" are wack in general, because they basically throw "may" into a whole ruleset... "If you don't like it, you -may- ignore it"... This is a rule as much as any other, and its an escape clause for either bad design or designers who were too chickenshit to admit their wundergame doesn't cook, clean, slice, dice AND wash the car.

What may also be worth noting, when we're talking about objective vs. subjective(as you're using it here) is the use of physical tokens to nail things down to being objective.

If we roll a die, the die is a physical thing that can be referred to by the whole group. Though what all that means and how that affects SIS is interpretive to the group, a "4" on the die is a "4" on the die. Likewise, while points may not exist in a physical form, they often are tracked through physical records and serve a similar purpose.

While rules might point to how to manipulate or manage tokens, or how to interpret them, the rules can't invalidate their actual existance... which is very important. It serves as a flag to the group when subjective decisions are being made... If you rolled a "20" and you know you should have hit the DM's Very Important NPC, and he declares that you missed... the group can clearly see a subjective decision overriding "how play normally works"...

I'd say every one of these violations is a key sign of where mechanics and CA don't meet up, and are a good thing to look for when trying to identify CA tells.

Chris

*"Mother-may-I" is a term borrowed from Mike Mearls in regards to such rules and mechanics. I think it fits perfectly.

Hi Tony,

TonyLB wrote: Jay: I'm interested to hear that you're running so much SIOA, as it doesn't match well with the vibe I'd gotten from your descriptions. Can you describe one such rule for us, to help give us some Actual Play structure to reference?

What may also be worth noting, when we're talking about objective vs. subjective(as you're using it here) is the use of physical tokens to nail things down to being objective.

TonyLB wrote: I think the answer is yes. Specifically, I think they communicate different things when the GM doesn't give a player a Spatter token.

Under rule #1, if the GM doesn't give a Spatter token you can conclude either:

• The GM doesn't agree that your action was "supremely gorey and disguisting," or• The GM is misinterpreting the rules

Under rule #2, if the GM doesn't give a Spatter token you can conclude nothing.

Callan called me on the carpet on my last distinction. No, I am not talking about whether or not we're going to continue to play the game. Let me, though, take a familiar rule from a familiar board game, and morph it into three different versions. The game is Monopoly.

• If you draw the Take a Ride on the Reading Chance card, you must move your token around the board in a clockwise direction to that space.• If you draw the Take a Ride on the Reading Chance card, you may decide whether to move your token around the board in a clockwise direction to that space.• • If you draw the Take a Ride on the Reading Chance card, the first player to your left who does not own that space will decide whether your token will advance clockwise around the board to that space.

Rule one is clearly an objective rule objectively applied. Setting aside the matter of whether we're going to follow the rules, it's clear that if we're following the rules I will move my token to the Reading Railroad space.

Rule three, meanwhile, may have an objective value, but it is subjectively applied. The player on my left has the power to decide whether or not the rule should apply in this case. I've attempted to nullify the possibility that he would benefit from the decision (I would have to include several more provisions to eliminate all potential benefit), so the decision is based entirely on whether he wants you to go there or not.

Rule two, however, is a strategic decision. I make the choice based on whether I think that move is going to benefit or harm me. There may be subjective elements, but in the end the answer will reflect that which I think gives me the best board position.

The point about rules two and three are that whether or not I move, the rule has still been applied. In rule one, applying the rule means the piece is moved. In rules two and three, applying the rule means someone gets to choose whether or not the piece is moved.

I realize that strategic is a bad word. By it I mean "a decision that advances player objectives". That would mean that maneuvering the game into a position in which you can make a statement concerning premise is a strategic decision, as is altering the shared imagined space in a manner that opens new opportunities for exploration.

I will admit that in role playing games it is not always clear which are strategic decisions and which are subjective--if the referee gets to decide whether or not you get a token for your bravery, does that decision impact play in a manner that would influence his decision, or is it merely the referee acting in the manner of a teacher grading a work of art for creative expression? "I thought it was brave and merited a token" is an entirely subjective rule. "I gave him a token because I want to encourage that kind of play in the events ahead" may be a strategic one.

However, certainly, "I moved my knight to QB4 and so took his queen and put his king in check" is a strategic, not a subjective, decision; and the actions of the movement of the knight, the removal of the queen, and threat to the king are all based on entirely objective applications of objective rules. If I could say, "I promise not to take your king on the next turn, so you don't have to move him, because my promise means he's not in check," or you could say, "Taking my queen left your knight injured and debilitated such that he can't possibly take my king on the next move, so my king is safe where he is," that might be a subjective rule--we get to decide whether the apparent threat of one piece being in a position to take another is an actual threat. The subjective element arises in whether the rule applies automatically in a clearly defined and unarguable situation (objective) or whether someone decides whether this time the rule will apply.

The OISA example was not a case of deciding whether we're going to continue to play the game. It was a case of a clearly defined condition being necessary but not sufficient for the application of a rule, the remaining aspect being the subjective (or possibly strategic) judgment of the referee as to whether or not the bonus should be given. The rule initially read something like, "If a natural 10 is rolled, the player may be given a token, at the sole discretion of the referee." That is exactly the same as saying, "If a natural 10 is rolled, the referee is empowered to determine whether or not to give the player a token." Nothing in that is about whether we're going to continue to play the game. It's about whether the referee wants to give the player a token, and whether he's allowed to do so.

My primary objection is that I'm not persuaded we can clearly distinguish which part of a rule is subjective. If part of it is subjective, it's subjective.

Tony attempted to make the distinction clearer when he wrote: I'm positing that we're designing a hypothetical game "Killfest". We need to figure out how people hand out Spatter tokens. We have two possible rules:

• "When a character does something supremely gorey and disgusting the GM gives them a Spatter token."
• "At any time, the GM may give a player a Spatter token to signify that they have done something supremely gorey and disgusting."

As I hope the highlighting makes clear, these rules as stated are SIOA and OISA respectively, by the strict definitions. Now, are they meaningfully different?

I think the answer is yes. Specifically, I think they communicate different things when the GM doesn't give a player a Spatter token.

Under rule #1, if the GM doesn't give a Spatter token you can conclude either:

• The GM doesn't agree that your action was "supremely gorey and disguisting," or• The GM is misinterpreting the rules

Under rule #2, if the GM doesn't give a Spatter token you can conclude nothing.

MJ: First, let me just ask for a quick clarification: When you use "subjective" in the first section of your text, you're no longer talking about it in any way that relates to my definitions, are you?

Because if you're expressing your own personal opinions about what the broader word "subjective" means, that's fine. But if you're saying those things in reference to one of my definitions then I'm going to correct your usage.


Now, on the two rules: I don't see how your modified ("will" version) rule #2 would work. Or, rather, as I read the rule, it would imply that the GM has to give out a Spatter token to a player at every single moment of the game, and that they signify that the players have done something gorey and disgusting (whether they have or haven't).

Hi M.J,

Actually, I think I missunderstood you and made a case on my misspercieved point. But looking at it closely now, why I made this mistake raises an interested line of enquiry from me (and hopefully more on target).

Rather, a subjective application rule would be any case in which someone in the game gets to decide whether or not the rule should apply in this case.

Which I think puts me in much the same situation as John: subjective application is not different from subjective interpretation, as in both cases we're asking whether or not the rule should apply. The OISA example is a case of the referee deciding whether or not a token should be awarded on this particular roll of ten (without any guidance concerning how to make that decision).

"Any time a player rolls a ten the GM may choose to award them a Squeegee Token, at the GMs sole discretion." Objective Interpretation, Subjective Application (OISA)

"At any time, the GM may give a player a Spatter token to signify that they have done something supremely gorey and disgusting."

"When a character does something supremely gorey and disgusting the GM gives them a Spatter token."

To do last things first,

Callan a.k.a. Noon wrote: PS: Did you forget example 3 in your post?

I think the discussion of Subjective vs. Strategic...while essentially tangental...does highlight a weakness in the original definitions.

While Tony's definition reads

A rule with Subjective Application gives some player the right to any of two or more possible outcomes when the rule is relevant.

Hi M.J,

My concern is that I don't think the players care. In all three cases, the referee has the credibility to decide whether or not they get the maximum damage entirely on how he feels about it at the moment.

However, I will agree that a good referee who treats the rules as authoritative will distinguish in his own mind whether he's not giving the bonus because the roll wasn't high enough from whether he's not giving the bonus because despite the high roll he doesn't want to give it this time.

Tony wrote: In Chess your turn comes up, and you have two or more (generally many more) possible outcomes of taking your turn. You can move the knight here, or move the queen there, or castle, or.... Those are all choices of Application, which makes it OISA.

M.J wrote: What would a non-strategic subjective decision look like? I'm not sure. Maybe, "Yeah, 8 is high enough in this situation, I don't feel like digging out the dice for damage, so just do the maximum."

Hi Ralph,

Valamir wrote: The key difference would seem to me to be "when I have a choice in how / when / whether to apply a rule to me, its strategic". "when someone else has a choice in how / when / whether to apply a rule to me, its subjective". "when noone has a choice in how / when / whether to apply a rule to me, its objective".

I'm afraid I don't follow you Callan. I can't parse what you're trying to say.

My point was to identify the source of confusion that caused MJ to start to discuss "strategic" choices, brought on by the unfortuneate use of board games as an example.

The reason why having multiple choices where the rules don't tell you which to do seems subjective in an RPG is because its someone else doing the choosing for you.

The reason why having multiple choices where the rules don't tell you which to do seems strategic in a board game is because its you choosing for yourself.

The reason why bringing someone else in to decide how the rule works is an attempt to make it objective is presumeably because the other person is a neutral third party with no vested interest to decide one way or the other.

In an RPG there is no such person...regardless of whether the GM is called a referee, they always have their own vested interest and are thus never objective. That's why traditional rule books add layer on layer of rules...because only the application of predetermined rules can be truly objective.

Far from being unproductive, I think this distinction is essential to put an end to the whole subjective vs. strategic tangent of the thread.

Heya Ralph,

The reason why having multiple choices where the rules don't tell you which to do seems subjective in an RPG is because its someone else doing the choosing for you.

Valamir wrote: The key difference would seem to me to be "when I have a choice in how / when / whether to apply a rule to me, its strategic". "when someone else has a choice in how / when / whether to apply a rule to me, its subjective". "when noone has a choice in how / when / whether to apply a rule to me, its objective".

M. J. Young wrote: Rather, a subjective application rule would be any case in which someone in the game gets to decide whether or not the rule should apply in this case.

TonyLB wrote: I'm willing to be convinced that this is an important distinction. It has some intuitive appeal. But I don't yet see what makes it vital. So... what's the important difference between "strategic" and "subjective"?

Apart from making MJ (and perhaps you) feel more comfortable with how labels are being applied, what's its wider significance? Does it correspond to something that impacts our sense of how to design a game?

Tony, I really think you're confusing yourself by bringing board games into this. The whole reason I was pointing out the distinction between subjective and strategic is to draw attention to the difference and why board game examples don't (generally) apply.

Chess rules are very simple. You losing your Queen is in no way subjective.

There is a rule that tells you you can move 1 piece of your choice on your turn. Its wholly objective. When: your turn. What: 1 piece. You have a choice as to which piece to move but the rules don't tell you which. Now by your definition that makes it an Objective Rule and a Subjective application.

Now lets play a variant of Chess where *I* tell you which piece to move on your turn. Again, you'd categorize this as an Objective Rule and a Subjective application.

But I think its pretty clear that these are completely different things: My making the choice about your piece is a very different game from you making the choice about your piece.

Consider your quote from the first post

I'll jump right in and say that I think that SIOA rules are absolutely toxic. They beg people to conclude that other players are deliberately cheating them, and to get angry and argumentative about it.

Ralph, in all seriousness, do not tell me what I think. I am trying very hard not to respond in an inflammatory manner. But I am really immensely pissed off. What you've done is the very opposite of respectful treatment of my ideas.

Plus, I didn't ask what I was thinking. I asked what you were thinking. But now, in order for us to have a meaningful conversation about our opinions, I need to correct you. Which is a waste of your time and mine.

So, once again: I meant what I said, and I said what I meant.

I am not envisioning that players can only be upset about rules where other people effect them. I'll give an example:

• When your character does something supremely heroic, take a Bonus Token from the jar.

If I take a token from the jar every time my character pays for a round of ale, other players can (and in my experience will) consider that cheating.

By your definitions, would this be a rule with a Strategic application?

Whoops... sorry, my mistake: Obviously that rule wouldn't be Strategic, as there are no choices involved. Would this rule:

• When your character does something supremely heroic, you may take a Bonus Token from the jar.

... be strategic or subjective application?

TonyLB wrote: Whoops... sorry, my mistake: Obviously that rule wouldn't be Strategic, as there are no choices involved. Would this rule:

• When your character does something supremely heroic, you may take a Bonus Token from the jar.

... be strategic or subjective application?

Tony...I have no desire to make you angry. But if I'm not permitted to come to a conclusion about what you mean based on what you say, then I'm not sure how its possible to have a productive dialog about anything.

If somewhere I came to a false conclusion, I concede that possibility. But all of my conclusions came directly from your own words, so getting angry with me is not really that fair. ALL of your subjective application examples in your initial posts involved 1 person passing judgment on someone else, until the issue got clouded with chess.

I believe I answered the question of what I think above. Perhaps if you read it again and overlook the parts you found upsetting you'll find it there in my example of the Queen's move and how who decides among the choices makes for a very different play experience.

When your character does something supremely heroic, you may take a Bonus Token from the jar.

Ralph, fair enough. I literally cannot conceive how you got what you thought I was saying from what I said, but if you thought that you were just recapping for clarity then I can hardly fault you for it. And now, of course, you realize that you were mistaken about what I was saying.

On your discussions of "making a choice for yourself or making a choice for another", absolutely, the difference in those instances is clear.

I get that, because I immediately jumped to questions, rather than affirming that I see the difference you're saying, you felt obliged to trot out clearer and clearer instances. They've made your point.

I think, however, that there are important boundary conditions that are only fuzzily defined in your usage of the terminology. And I'd like to understand those boundary conditions. Which is why I'm asking questions about situations where the usage isn't clear. So could you possibly address one of the unclear variations that I've proposed?

Well I'm not wedded to any terms. I only called it Strategic because that's how MJ referred to it. If it makes more sense to call it:

So: Subjective Choice made by Others vs.
Ss: Subjective Choice made by Self.

Thats AoK by me...its your proposed taxonomy. I was only concerned with identifying a distinction within your Subjective category that wasn't captured in the Taxonomy as you had it.


Objective Interpretation: There is no choice in what the rule means, its unambiguous.

Objective Application: There is no choice in when, how, or whether to apply the rule is it is unambiguous.

Subjective Interpretation Others: There is a choice to be made on what a rule means. That choice is made by someone other than the person being effected by the rule

Subjective Interpretation Self (aka Strategic): There is a choice to be made on what a rule means. That choice is made by the person being effected by the rule.

Subjective Application Others: There is a choice to be made on when, how, or whether to apply the rule. That choice is made by someone other than the person being effected by the rule.

Subjective Application Self: There is a choice to be made on when, how, or whether to apply the rule. That choice is made by the person being effected by the rule.


The ambiguities I can see are
a) how meaningful does the choice have to be to qualify as subjective. If the Choice is so loaded as to be effectively notta-choice does that make it objective?

b) what about rules that effect multiple players simultaneously. I guess that would depend on the context of the rule. Traditionally the "someone other than the person being effected" has been the GM. Overlap in applying a rule that would effect both the GM and the players has been limited to things like area of effect spells that will nail both a PC and an NPC. Traditionally, I would call such a rule "subjective other" because the distinction from the perspective of a player is the more meaningful one. But as games where players share power become more common, that gets a little more difficult.

I think its probably always unambiguous if you add "from the perspective of any given person". But what does that mean for different players having different perspectives for any given application...? I think that's a hella interesting avenue for exploration. Great Ork Gods comes to mind as a game where this situation is encoded into the rules. Certain players make the choice in certain arenas, so in those arenas they experience Subjective Self. Other players experience Subjective Other. In other arenas that's reversed. It creates a pretty interesting dynamic specifically because of the difference between self and other.

I think I see what you're saying. Can I offer a different way of looking at it, and see whether it twigs with what you're thinking? Because these issues of "What does it mean when rules affect both the executing player and other players?" are nagging at me.

Any individual rule can either Affect the character of the player executing the rule, or not. Short-hand-of-the-moment: APC or -APC.

Any individual rule can either Affect the characters of players other than the one executing the rule, or not. Short-hand-of-the-moment: OPC or -OPC.

I don't think that OPC = -APC, or APC = -OPC. For instance:

• APC/OPC: A player may take a token from some other player and keep it for themselves.• APC/-OPC: A player may take a token from a bowl on the table and keep it themselves.• -APC/OPC: A player may take a token from some other player and put it in a bowl on the table.• -APC/-OPC: A player may take a token from one bowl on the table and put it in another bowl.

Does that seem accurate to you?

At first blush that seems reasonable. My two initial reaction concerns with it would be:

1) is it really effecting the characters that's important? or the players? I'm thinking the players. Effecting a player's character *IS* effecting the player, so that's covered. Plus it allows for effects that aren't character specific.

2) These designations may be putting too fine a point on it...i.e. the more specific they are the less wiggle room you have for things that don't fit neatly.

By that I mean

APC/-OPC: A player may take a token from a bowl on the table and keep it themselves.

Well, I think we're hitting a snag in methodology then.

You want to do big picture talk, and you're willing to use terms that have to be interpreted, well... subjectively.

I want to do big picture talk too, but if I can't find a term that's going to precisely and objectively map to what I'm talking about then I'm going to shy away from talking about it.

As for why? Witness the many ways that "subjective" and "objective" as undefined terms have been used in this very thread. You say that Chess is an objective game. I (and many other people, I suspect) would classify it as a subjective game, closer in fact to an art form. I don't think we're really going to learn a lot about chess by arguing that point, though we might learn a lot about ourselves.

By comparison, I can say with mathematical certainty that Chess is a game composed purely of a combination of OIOA and OISA elements (by my first definitions). To the extent that those terms mean anything, I can use them as tools for discussing Chess itself, rather than discussing the people doing the discussion.


So when you say that you can't pin down the distinction between affecting yourself and affecting others to language that we can agree on... far from making me excited about all the potential, it makes me very leery of the whole topic. Does that make sense?

Well, I got lost. If someone uses an objective rule to kill the monster I was about to kill on my turn (objective interpretation to subjectively remove a monster token of choice...the one I wanted to kill), there's no difference in him doing that than if I did it myself.
Note: If someone else can effect my resource like this, then it isn't exclusively my resource, it's a shared resource...thus no one else is making a descision for my resource. It's not mine to begin with! That monster isn't mine...and if they can choose what moves my PC makes, that PC isn't exclusively mine. That's why I don't see any value in this "it's different if someone else chooses" line of enquiry.

What interested me is how there is subjective choice in there, but only when combined with an objective element, can strategy exist. Only once a subjective choice is objectively limited, does it become strategy. What interested me further is when the rules fail to make it a strategic choice, and SC has to take up the slack and turn it into an OISA rule, which almost always means the rules are a bad design.

I'm just going to read for awhile longer, then split off my own thread specifically on maintaining strategic choice. Cause I'm not sure of this threads direction now.

I will offer these final two comments,

If you're looking for language that can pin down with mathematical certainty distinctions about things having to do with social interaction around a game table...well...good luck with that. I don't see that as being within the realm of possible. I've come to accept grey areas and the need to take certain things on a case by case basis as a fact of life when dealing with people.

And to Callan...here on the Forge which has promoted the idea of player empowerment to make decisions for themselves vs. traditional games where a god-like GM makes all of the important decisions for you...you can't see the value in distinguishing between who has the power to choose between multiple options offered in a game?

I guess I really am in the wrong thread.

I hope that didn't come off as being snarky. I was pretty interested in the topic you raised Tony...but I'm realizing that there isn't ere's anything I can really contribute to the direction you want to go with it, so rather than continue to disrupt that, I'll just bow out.

I want to put this forward tentatively. I have benefited greatly from Ralph's distinctions, but I think the matter of whether a decision is strategic is less based on who makes the decision.

What I'd like to suggest is that what is here called Subjective Application will always be Strategic. If someone, anyone, involved in the game is given the credibility to decide when and how to apply the rule, that person will make those decisions according to whatever best facilitates that person's objectives in play--even if those objectives are as benign as making the greatest number of other players happy.

I would further suggest that what is here called Subjective Interpretation may or may not be Strategic. The example Tony gave of taking a token if you do something heroic, and the player taking the token whenever he paid for the round of ale, demonstrates the case in which the player is making a strategic interpretation of the rule--"I have met the condition to gain this bonus."

However, I can see Subjective Interpretation as being non-strategic, thanks to the suggestion that subjective interpretation arises from ambiguity. If the condition is "supremely courageous" then someone has to determine what is "supremely courageous". The game could dictate who makes that decision (choices seem to be player doing the act, referee, consensus of the players, any one person at the table, or any one person at the table other than the player doing the act) or it could leave that ambiguous as well--in which case we need a subjective interpretation of who gets to make the subjective interpretation. The assumption here, I think, is that a subjective interpretation involves someone trying to be fair about how the rule is understood, that is, trying to be consistent in what it means for the conditions to have been met. The value in it of course is that it avoids mechanical definitions (e.g., "it is supremely courageous if you continue to fight when you have lost three quarters of your hit points" is much less useful with a one hundred hit point fighter than with a four hit point magic user) while letting the ambiguity be clarified by people who are actually able to assess the action in the context of play. One disadvantage is that it is open to abuse in all directions.

Callan wrote: What interested me is how there is subjective choice in there, but only when combined with an objective element, can strategy exist. Only once a subjective choice is objectively limited, does it become strategy. What interested me further is when the rules fail to make it a strategic choice, and SC has to take up the slack and turn it into an OISA rule, which almost always means the rules are a bad design.

Valamir wrote: And to Callan...here on the Forge which has promoted the idea of player empowerment to make decisions for themselves vs. traditional games where a god-like GM makes all of the important decisions for you...you can't see the value in distinguishing between who has the power to choose between multiple options offered in a game?

Ralph: Thank you for the many ways in which you've helped push this thread forward to fertile, productive ground. I'm sorry to hear that you're bowing out, but I know we all appreciate your input.

MJ: I absolutely agree that Subjective Application could always be strategic (for my own, personal, intuitive definition of "strategic"). SA rules are tools for the players who execute them, and they're naturally (and, IME, very consistently) going to use those tools to drive toward their own goals.

And I think, having reflected on it, that you're also right that SI rules will be used as tools to drive toward player goals. Sometimes the top priority will be something like "interpret the rules fairly", which can make it look as if play is being driven by something other than player goals. But I have real difficulty seeing a situation where somebody would deliberately and knowingly act against their own agenda. Once you define their agenda broadly enough, that becomes almost a tautology, doesn't it?

EDIT: Which does not mean I think it's a useless insight. To the contrary, I hadn't realized it, tautology or no, and it's an important point. Rules don't act. Players act.

Which brings us to my comment on Noon's contribution: Noon, I think you're absolutely right that the players need an objective... well, actually, I would label it "predictable", to differentiate it from the many other "objective" things we already have floating in the conversation. I agree that the players benefit from a predictable structure, so that they can leverage their individual subjective decisions into broader consequences.

I don't think this is a separate thread. I think it relates directly to what MJ is saying about the goal-seeking nature of Subjective Interpretation. Because, I would offer, A player will predict (and rely upon) the interpretation of future rules B and C when making his subjective application of current rule-instance A.

For instance:

• Player A is having fire breathed on him by a dragon. The princess is behind him. He may, or may not, elect to dodge, which gives him a roll to avoid all damage. He elects not to dodge, and gets well and thoroughly toasted.
• The GM now applies the rule "When a character has adequate cover they take no damage from area weapons". He decides that a knight in armor is not adequate cover. The princess takes full damage and dies. This runs counter to Player A's prediction of how the rule would be interpreted.
• The GM moreover applies the rule "When a character makes a heroic sacrifice they earn 10,000 XP". Since the princess died, he deems that the knights actions were neither heroic nor a sacrifice. No bonus. Once again, this runs counter to Player A's prediction.

If the idea that players will rely on predictions is accepted, then the later Interpretation of rules B and C has the capacity to retroactively change the import of the application of rule A. The knight in the example has now, retroactively, made a stupid, pointless, unstrategic decision. He has acted against his own interests, by his own choice.

How does the import of that to the player vary when (a) He thinks his prediction is 100% reliable (e.g. that the rules clearly support his position) and (b) He knows that his prediction is only a guess (e.g. that he's trying to predict what another player will choose to do)?

Hi Tony,

Tony wrote: How does the import of that to the player vary when (a) He thinks his prediction is 100% reliable (e.g. that the rules clearly support his position) and (b) He knows that his prediction is only a guess (e.g. that he's trying to predict what another player will choose to do)?

The knight in the example has now, retroactively, made a stupid, pointless, unstrategic decision. He has acted against his own interests, by his own choice.

I think that what you're saying in the first section is this: That the Knight-Player and the GM may both believe that the rules are unambiguous and give them no choice... that, for instance, what is "enough cover" is clear and obvious to everyone.

If that's the case, though, isn't "attack" an awfully intent-laden word to refer to what the GM's doing? A GM could do exactly this, then tell you with complete honesty that he didn't make any choices at all... he just applied the straightforward rules.

That doesn't mean he didn't make a choice: He did. But he wasn't cognizant of it as a choice. And surely that consciousness, or the lack thereof, makes a difference in how the matter is communicated.

There is no play at all possible with SISA rules, but they do encourage the end users to make their own OISA designs (often in a disorganised way). This is why I mentioned over and over the relics in D&D and how you can pencil in their powers. SISA rules demand you pencil in stuff until they become OISA or even multiple OISA rules.

"When a player helps another character face their inner demons that character's player may award them a Squeegee Token."

TonyLB wrote: That doesn't mean he didn't make a choice: He did. But he wasn't cognizant of it as a choice. And surely that consciousness, or the lack thereof, makes a difference in how the matter is communicated.

Jasper Polane wrote:

"When a player helps another character face their inner demons that character's player may award them a Squeegee Token."

If the player awarding the token is also the one deciding if the condition is met, there really is no reason to define "face their inner demons" here.

Nor is there any reason to be consistent in interpreting the rule. Say my character is an alcoholic. I could decide to give the token when a player takes away my drink, or not. If I decide to give him a token, it doesn't mean I have to give a token to every player that does the same.

--Jasper

Yes, but how has the set of rules enabled you to get involved in a group activity with others? No one else has any concrete idea on what criteria you decided to give that point.

"Dude, why didn't you give me a token? When Michael took away your drink, you gave him one."
"Then I was drinking away my guilt over my wife's death. Now I'm, y'know, just enjoying my drink."

Also, I don't really see how changing to OISA rules would change this. If the rule was: "When a player takes away another character's drink, that character's player may award them a Squeegee Token", the other players still wouldn't know my criteria for awarding the token or not. I still make the decision on a subjective basis.

A quick example of something familiar.

"If you were going to go live on a desert island, what three books would you take?"

Compare it to

"If you were going to live on a desert island, what books would you take?"


Is there much point to asking the second question? Would you get something out of asking that?

Note: be careful on answering that, unfortunately this example also uses the very objective criteria that your isolated on a desert island. It might help to instead compare:
"What three books would you keep if you had to loose all the rest?"
Vs
"What books would you keep, if you had to loose all the ones you don't keep?"

Well, Callan, what does "group play" mean to you?

If we go with a definition like "play done in a group", then yeah... if my action (e.g. awarding a token) is part of the execution of the rules, and I'm sitting at a table with other players, then I'm engaged in group play.

I assume that you're working off some more stringent definition, but I can't read your mind to tell what it is. Care to elaborate?

If you want to play with someone, you both need to be playing the same game. How do you play the same game? You do so when you have a common understanding of what choices are available, in every participants mind. Commonly the list is short, because that's alot easier to make clear in the minds of multiple participants. The longer that list get's, the less likely it will be clear in everyones minds. The less likely its clear in everyones minds, the less likely your actually playing the same game between you all.

Noon wrote: Basically group play is merely avoidance of everyone playing a bunch of seperate games, at the same table. I say avoidance, because I think it's not a binary state but a sliding scale of how in sync everyone is kept at the table, in terms of playing just one game. The percentage of OISA rules to any other type, increases the syncronicity (sp?). The percentage of SISA rules to any other type decreases it.

John Kim wrote: As I said in the original 20x20 Room thread, I disagree that objective rules are inherently clearer.
*snip*
My point is just that I don't think there is a simple optimization here. Objective interpretation is often clearer -- but depending on the people, I do think there are many times when a subjective explanation is clearer to them.

Without that, no one else has an objective measure of what you've contributed. When given the opportunity to give a point, by assessing that opportunity and what you did with it, I can triangulate an understanding of that decision. With SISA I've only got one point to work with "Something happened and it could have happened at any time". Triangulation isn't possible.

Do you agree that you need to give others tools so they can understand you, if you want to do work as a group with them? Or do you think understanding just comes?

"Dude, why didn't you give me a token? When Michael took away your drink, you gave him one."
"Then I was drinking away my guilt over my wife's death. Now I'm, y'know, just enjoying my drink."