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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,

Quote from: TonyLBI'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.

I find it rather fascinating that you feel this way.  The game I play in is almost entirely SIOA!  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.

I'm not posting this just to gainsay, but to add some data to your efforts.

Quote from: SilmenumeAnd 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.

Why would it be hard to implement?

I can perfectly understand it being not to your taste, but the rule says "If unambiguous event X happens then do Y". That seems pretty damn hard to mess up in implementation.

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."

Quote from: ffilzI'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.

Well, I think role-playing action includes the question of Interpretation, not just Application.  For example, in many RPGs, the player may describe an action without reference to the rules -- then there is a subjective assessment of what skill he should roll for that action, and then a roll whose results are also subjectively interpreted.  I think this is clearly SISA in general.  

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.  

On the other hand, as I think about more examples, I'm having trouble clearly distinguishing between Interpretation and Application.  If I'm starting from a non-rules-description, which part is interpretation and which part is application??  I'll have to think about this some more.

Quote from: John Kim
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.  

I'll note that in a recent design effort of mine, GEAR (see Indie Design), there is an actual decision made at the start of a game as to whether declarations will be made in mechanics-terms or in in-game actions (I call the mechanics "intents" but it's the same thing).

There isn't a lot done with that except to note how it can be quite different depending on the circumstance.

-Marco

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"[/list:u]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."[/list:u]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.

QuoteThe 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).

You saying that if we decide to play a game/each rule of that game, it is subjective. Because were all deciding every single second whether we keep playing the game and that's a subjective descision.

That applies to chess, monopoly, etc. All those games are exactly the same, your deciding if each rule should be used by deciding whether you continue to play at all (edit to be clear: You subjectively decide whether your going to keep playing/use this rule, then you make a strategic descision in relation to this rule). The thing about RPG's is that even once your past that 'do we play the game at all' subjective choice, you have often have even futher subjective choices, like:

Quote"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)

So were talking about rules that say "Do you want to play me...and if you do, how are you going to play me?"



B.

QuoteI 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.

Note: At the moment when I refer to meta-game, it means to be outside the rule sets influence, not outside the SIS, exploration and freeform gaming.

Firstly the descision is being removed from the player, and secondly the person who it's being handed to is deciding it on a meta game level, not a strategic one. If it wasn't that way and if the person who decides it was doing it for, say, gamist reasons so as to further his position, it would be strategic. I don't think Tony is talking about that, he's talking about rules that throw the descision to someone other than the player and ask them to make a descision that's 'best for the game'. And entirely meta game descision and a very subjective one at that.

Really, it's at the extreme meta game level. "Give 'em a point if they are heroic!". Heroism isn't a stone cold, clear cut condition, it's actually something you explore when you ask yourself 'was this heroic?'. It's actually a very interesting question when you think about it and is something you can explore...and the rule set asks you to, then provides zero assistance with that exploration. It's something you do entirely outside of the game itself.