# The Origins of ‘Rule Zero’



## aco175 (Jan 16, 2021)

Good read, only complaint font's a little small for old eyes.


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## Blue Orange (Jan 16, 2021)

Control-plus will zoom in, increasing font size, on Chrome and Edge at least. I had to use it myself.


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## Blue Orange (Jan 16, 2021)

It's an interesting philosophical point though. I mean, we all know it on some level--ultimately they can't stop you from running your game the way you want to. (As I recall Hackmaster made a joke about this, encouraging people to snitch on people playing illicit Hackmaster to the company.) Having it officially in the rules might make some people feel more comfortable about doing it, though.


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## toucanbuzz (Jan 16, 2021)

Cool, though I prefer Kam-Pain's *"GM's Cloak."* Sounds much more mysterious and sinister.

Interesting that over the years *Rule 0* went from being on the 1st page (Basic D&D 1980) to buried at page 263 in the DMG as "you aren't limited by the rules," so here's some more rules you can use.


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## Blue Orange (Jan 16, 2021)

They have to sell books, no? They have to pay all those writers and artists who make those nice hardbound volumes.

If they encouraged everyone to make up their own rules for everything they'd sell the basic 3 books and nothing else.


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## MGibster (Jan 17, 2021)

Rule 0 was also a good way to prevent players from pulling silly stunts that were technically within the rules but made little sense in context.


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## EzekielRaiden (Jan 17, 2021)

The only real problem I have with Rule 0 is when it is used abusively--because a lot of people talk about _players_ using all the other game rules abusively, and pretty much never talk about _DMs_ using Rule 0 abusively.

By which I mean: When the world can change underneath the players' feet, not simply without them noticing but preventing _even the possibility that they ever COULD notice_, you're treading on some real thin ice. Or if you capriciously override the rules in one situation but do not do so in a seemingly-identical later situation, such that the players now don't really have any ability to prepare for the future. Or when the DM's rulings deviate from the rules in biased or manipulable ways (e.g. always favoring their spouse/SO, being bribed with out-of-game benefits, giving IC punishments for OOC actions or events, etc.)

Again, none of this is to say that Rule 0 _shouldn't_ exist. Just that it should be _employed very carefully_, a judiciously-applied fix, avoiding both deficiency and excess in its use. In that way, it's a lot like salt. The right amount of salt elevates a dish, making it so much more flavorful and pleasant. Too much, and the dish becomes inedible. Too little, and while the dish may still be edible, it will not taste very good. Yet where "the right amount" lies is a judgment call.


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## Morrus (Jan 17, 2021)

EzekielRaiden said:


> The only real problem I have with Rule 0 is when it is used abusively--because a lot of people talk about _players_ using all the other game rules abusively, and pretty much never talk about _DMs_ using Rule 0 abusively.
> 
> By which I mean: When the world can change underneath the players' feet, not simply without them noticing but preventing _even the possibility that they ever COULD notice_, you're treading on some real thin ice. Or if you capriciously override the rules in one situation but do not do so in a seemingly-identical later situation, such that the players now don't really have any ability to prepare for the future. Or when the DM's rulings deviate from the rules in biased or manipulable ways (e.g. always favoring their spouse/SO, being bribed with out-of-game benefits, giving IC punishments for OOC actions or events, etc.)



These are social issues that game rules can't solve.


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## EzekielRaiden (Jan 17, 2021)

Morrus said:


> These are social issues that game rules can't solve.



Surely Rule 0 itself is in that same space?


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## Morrus (Jan 17, 2021)

EzekielRaiden said:


> Surely Rule 0 itself is in that same space?



I don't know what that means. Rule 0 is about game rules. Your post was about apparently abusive social dynamics. I don't turn to D&D books to deal with the latter.


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## EzekielRaiden (Jan 17, 2021)

Morrus said:


> I don't know what that means. Rule 0 is about game rules. Your post was about apparently abusive social dynamics. I don't turn to D&D books to deal with the latter.



But Rule 0 isn't part of the books either. I mean, they _describe_ it, but by definition--from even those descriptions!--Rule 0 stands outside the rules. It is part of the social structure surrounding the rules. It seems obvious to me that saying "don't do things that make no sense" and "no set of rules can ever be totally complete" _means_ "engage your group socially to resolve anything that can't be resolved inside the rules given." It would seem to be literally the POINT of "proper use of Rule 0" to talk about social dynamics.


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## Morrus (Jan 17, 2021)

EzekielRaiden said:


> But Rule 0 isn't part of the books either. I mean, they _describe_ it, but by definition--from even those descriptions!--Rule 0 stands outside the rules. It is part of the social structure surrounding the rules. It seems obvious to me that saying "don't do things that make no sense" and "no set of rules can ever be totally complete" _means_ "engage your group socially to resolve anything that can't be resolved inside the rules given." It would seem to be literally the POINT of "proper use of Rule 0" to talk about social dynamics.



Well, OK then. I don't think we're really talking about the same thing.


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## Paragon Lost (Jan 17, 2021)

aco175 said:


> Good read, only complaint font's a little small for old eyes.



That's why I use a touch screen tablet to read websites most of the time. Makes zooming in easy.  🏍


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## MGibster (Jan 17, 2021)

EzekielRaiden said:


> But Rule 0 isn't part of the books either. I mean, they _describe_ it, but by definition--from even those descriptions!--Rule 0 stands outside the rules. It is part of the social structure surrounding the rules. It seems obvious to me that saying "don't do things that make no sense" and "no set of rules can ever be totally complete" _means_ "engage your group socially to resolve anything that can't be resolved inside the rules given." It would seem to be literally the POINT of "proper use of Rule 0" to talk about social dynamics.



I think Rule 0 is about making decisions when the rules either don't exist, are otherwise inadequate for the situation at hand, or just interfere with the fun.  The classic example I can think of us from Palladium game system.  The old Palladium games used both Hit Points and Structural Damage Capacity to keep track of damage.  Most of the time when your character took damage it was applied to SDC and only when it ran out would you start taking HP damage.  Rules as written, you could just pick up a pistol and to demonstrate how tough you were shoot yourself with it taking minimal damage.  Some GMs might think, "That's ludicrous!" and cause the damage to go straight to Hit Points instead.  

When I ran Savage Worlds games I thought it was silly that both Swimming and Climbing were separate skills.  Given how few skills there are in the game, it seemed like a terrible waste for most players so I just said we'll make an Athletics skill that covers all that.  And apparently the fine folks at PEG, Inc. have seen things my way as Throwing, Swimming, and Climbing have been rolled into Athletics in the latest edition of the game.


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## Hussar (Jan 17, 2021)

There's a bit of history to remember too.

In 1978, we were all pretty much fumbling around in the dark.  What was this new "RPG" thing?  No one really knew at the time.  Coupled with AD&D's rather baroque language and (from a modern perspective) gaps in the rules (how far can my character jump?), there really was a need for a "Rule 0" because so many times the rules were completely silent on how to adjudicate an action.

Now, coming up to 2021, we have people who have been gaming for decades.  There are literally millions of play hours to reveal the bumps and issues in different rule sets.  Rule 0 still needs to be there, but, frankly, it's becoming more and more corner case as the rules become more elegant with each iteration.

@MGibster 's Savage Worlds example is a perfect illustration of this.  

But, yes, there should be some more attention paid in the various DM's advice books as to when to use a Rule 0 and how.  I've seen far too many games go pear shaped because the DM figured he or she knew better than the rules, invoked Rule 0 to change the rules, only to make the game worse because the DM didn't understand the rules in the first place.  The more complex the system, the easier it is to make mistakes like that.


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## UngeheuerLich (Jan 17, 2021)

You need to be careful with rule 0. An important advise is that you should announce rule changes ahead of time. Only optional rules that favour players might be held in secret, as they can give a surprising edge to them.


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## MrZeddaPiras (Jan 17, 2021)

I think rule 0 has been interpreted in at least two very different ways: one is the "old-school" rule 0 where, since the rulesets are open and sketchy the GM needs to prioritize fairness and logic over strict rules application. The other is the more modern approach where the GM is a benevolent dictator guiding the group through an enjoyable narrative experience, and needs on occasion to bypass the rules to do so.


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## pemerton (Jan 17, 2021)

MrZeddaPiras said:


> I think rule 0 has been interpreted in at least two very different ways: one is the "old-school" rule 0 where, since the rulesets are open and sketchy the GM needs to prioritize fairness and logic over strict rules application. The other is the more modern approach where the GM is a benevolent dictator guiding the group through an enjoyable narrative experience, and needs on occasion to bypass the rules to do so.



Agreed. These are very different things.


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## Legion of Myth (Jan 17, 2021)

MGibster said:


> I think Rule 0 is about making decisions when the rules either don't exist, are otherwise inadequate for the situation at hand, or just interfere with the fun.  The classic example I can think of us from Palladium game system.  The old Palladium games used both Hit Points and Structural Damage Capacity to keep track of damage.  Most of the time when your character took damage it was applied to SDC and only when it ran out would you start taking HP damage.  Rules as written, you could just pick up a pistol and to demonstrate how tough you were shoot yourself with it taking minimal damage.  Some GMs might think, "That's ludicrous!" and cause the damage to go straight to Hit Points instead.
> 
> When I ran Savage Worlds games I thought it was silly that both Swimming and Climbing were separate skills.  Given how few skills there are in the game, it seemed like a terrible waste for most players so I just said we'll make an Athletics skill that covers all that.  And apparently the fine folks at PEG, Inc. have seen things my way as Throwing, Swimming, and Climbing have been rolled into Athletics in the latest edition of the game.



Palladium partially resolved this in The Compendium of Contemporary Weapons, which introduced shock, penetration value, and more.  When I run modern Palladium games I tend to use these rules.


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## EzekielRaiden (Jan 17, 2021)

Hussar said:


> But, yes, there should be some more attention paid in the various DM's advice books as to when to use a Rule 0 and how. I've seen far too many games go pear shaped because the DM figured he or she knew better than the rules, invoked Rule 0 to change the rules, only to make the game worse because the DM didn't understand the rules in the first place. The more complex the system, the easier it is to make mistakes like that.





UngeheuerLich said:


> You need to be careful with rule 0. An important advise is that you should announce rule changes ahead of time. Only optional rules that favour players might be held in secret, as they can give a surprising edge to them.



This is exactly the kind of conversation I was hoping to see. Practical, "best practices" discussion about Rule 0 and when it is good for the game that you NOT use it, etc.

Such talk seems rather thin on the ground when the surging popularity of D&D is driven by a system that actually needs wise use of Rule 0 to function properly (which, as many have made clear, is an intentional feature).


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## Thomas Shey (Jan 17, 2021)

Morrus said:


> These are social issues that game rules can't solve.




That may be, but when you have something that prominently gives carte blanche to GMs to change things any time they think its appropriate, I'm really unconvinced that's done a good job of encouraging best practice here; there's a difference between "Here's something you can do if you _need_ to" to "here's something you can do any time you _want _to" and I'm far from convinced the latter doesn't do as much or more harm as good.

As others have said, I think there's always going to be a need for the ability to to respond to corner cases.  And there can be room for "I'm trying for a particular effect in this campaign, and I think this rules change will produce it."  But I think an overly casual attitude toward rules on the part of the GM makes it too prone to leaving players making decisions on quicksand, and also too prone to making changes in rules sets that will produce unintended ripple effects that aren't likely to be malign because the people making them don't entirely understand how the rules set works and interacts.


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## Thomas Shey (Jan 17, 2021)

EzekielRaiden said:


> This is exactly the kind of conversation I was hoping to see. Practical, "best practices" discussion about Rule 0 and when it is good for the game that you NOT use it, etc.
> 
> Such talk seems rather thin on the ground when the surging popularity of D&D is driven by a system that actually needs wise use of Rule 0 to function properly (which, as many have made clear, is an intentional feature).




I'm afraid its an inevitable consequence of the decision to appeal to the "rulings, not rules" ethic contingent.


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## jasper (Jan 17, 2021)

Morrus said:


> I don't know what that means. Rule 0 is about game rules. Your post was about apparently abusive social dynamics. I don't turn to D&D books to deal with the latter.



You are wrong. You put the rule books into a good sturdy pillowcase. And beat the player with them. EVIL GRIN.


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## Lanefan (Jan 17, 2021)

EzekielRaiden said:


> But Rule 0 isn't part of the books either. I mean, they _describe_ it, but by definition--from even those descriptions!--Rule 0 stands outside the rules.



Rule 0 is undeniably part of the books, as evidenced by the very fact that it's *in* the books.


EzekielRaiden said:


> It is part of the social structure surrounding the rules. It seems obvious to me that saying "don't do things that make no sense" and "no set of rules can ever be totally complete" _means_ "engage your group socially to resolve anything that can't be resolved inside the rules given."



There's a leap of logic there that's a bit too long.

It can just as easily mean "resolve it yourself as DM"; and that's how I've always read it.

What they fail to say - and IMO this is an error - is that as much of the 'resolve it yourself' part as possible should be done before the campaign starts, rather than on the fly, so that both players and DM know what they're gettiing into and are on the same - ahem - page.


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## loverdrive (Jan 18, 2021)

I think that Rule 0 is an ad-hoc patch, applied to essentially board-game rules that allows for more ad-hoc patches. PbtA and FitD don't have rule zero at all and work just fine. Fate seriously downplays rule 0 (called the Silver Rule there and talks about applying other rules in unusual circumstances, rather than bypassing rules altogether) and works fine too.

Rule 0 is needed only in rules-first games without solid generalized framework. And even there, it's something to be used carefully, when you actually know what you're doing.


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## Maxperson (Jan 18, 2021)

EzekielRaiden said:


> But Rule 0 isn't part of the books either. I mean, they _describe_ it, but by definition--from even those descriptions!--Rule 0 stands outside the rules. It is part of the social structure surrounding the rules. It seems obvious to me that saying "don't do things that make no sense" and "no set of rules can ever be totally complete" _means_ "engage your group socially to resolve anything that can't be resolved inside the rules given." It would seem to be literally the POINT of "proper use of Rule 0" to talk about social dynamics.



This is not correct.  The rules say that the rules serve the DM, not the other way around.  That's not a social issue.  The abuses you described earlier in the thread have nothing to do with Rule 0 at all.  They are bad DM issues that would be present even if Rule 0 wasn't.


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## pemerton (Jan 18, 2021)

A group of friends playing a game together is free to adopt whatever rules they prefer.

A group of strangers playing a game together will need some sort of framework (eg Hoyle) to settle on the rules that govern the game, if they want to avoid potential instability and even fallings out.

Rule zero is pointless pedantry for the first group. And is unhelpful for the second group.

As @loverdrive has posted not far upthread, the useful function of "rule zero" is to acknowledge the limitations of a certain sort of game design, that has its origins in wargames and so (i) is oriented towards a limited range of fictional concerns (eg terrain matters; the colour of shoelaces typically doesn't) and (ii) has a tendency to work by way of "subsystems" - for movement, for fire, for morale, for casualty clearing stations, etc.

I'm currently GMing a RPG that is designed somewhat along these lines: Classic Traveller. The game comes with a pretty good range of subsystems to deal with the range of fictional concerns that might come up in play, but it's not complete. For instance, in our first session I had to invent an ad hoc subsystem for recruiting a broker to assist in the sale of commercial quantities of ambergris. The rulebooks expressly contemplate this as the sort of thing the referee might have to do. There are some other subsystems that have been part of our game from the beginning but are taken not from "official" Traveller rules but Andy Slack's articles in White Dwarf, eg for criminal trials.

I think it's a strength of Classic Traveller's design that its range of subsystems is pretty solid in its coverage of the sorts of fiction the system can produce, and that some of them generalise nicely (eg we have generalised the system for small craft evasion to work for other contexts, like ATVs trying to evade orbital bombardment). Conversely, I think a reason that "rule zero" figures so prominently in the context of "classic" D&D is that the classic D&D subsystems are pretty narrowly focused - eg there is no system for races/chases other than the outdoor evasion rules - and generalise poorly (eg due to different rules for dice, for stat mods, for the importance of level, etc).

As @loverdrive says, an express "rule zero" would add nothing to a system with comprehensive and/or general resolution processes. In addition to the games s/he has mentioned, I would add D&D 4e.


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## Thomas Shey (Jan 18, 2021)

pemerton said:


> I think it's a strength of Classic Traveller's design that its range of subsystems is pretty solid in its coverage of the sorts of fiction the system can produce, and that some of them generalise nicely (eg we have generalised the system for small craft evasion to work for other contexts, like ATVs trying to evade orbital bombardment). Conversely, I think a reason that "rule zero" figures so prominently in the context of "classic" D&D is that the classic D&D subsystems are pretty narrowly focused - eg there is no system for races/chases other than the outdoor evasion rules - and generalise poorly (eg due to different rules for dice, for stat mods, for the importance of level, etc).




Yeah, while there's always some need for flexibility in most games with anything but a very narrow scope, there's a big difference between games that have easily extendable bits, and the "every resolution is a custom process" thing early D&D did, when it did anything at all.  That almost mandated GMs willing to pull ad-hoc resolution out of the air on occasion.


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## Maxperson (Jan 18, 2021)

pemerton said:


> A group of friends playing a game together is free to adopt whatever rules they prefer.
> 
> A group of strangers playing a game together will need some sort of framework (eg Hoyle) to settle on the rules that govern the game, if they want to avoid potential instability and even fallings out.
> 
> Rule zero is pointless pedantry for the first group. And is unhelpful for the second group.



This is a False Dichotomy and wrong to boot.  

For the first group, the group isn't always(often really) adopting rules together. The DM will often use Rule 0 on his own to improve upon the game.  

For the second group, the DM can use Rule 0 in the same way, to make the game better by avoiding ridiculous situations that the rules often comes up with if you apply them verbatim to every situation.  It is often helpful for the latter group type.


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## overgeeked (Jan 18, 2021)

Hussar said:


> Rule 0 still needs to be there, but, frankly, it's becoming more and more corner case as the rules become more elegant with each iteration.



I know this is a tangent, but I think this is an assumption we make that’s not always the case. It’s likely wrong in many cases. It’s true rules often become more intricate, more involved, more precise, more detailed, etc with each iteration, but they don’t often become more elegant. I think this is an assumption we make. The new isn’t always or inherently better than the old.


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## pemerton (Jan 18, 2021)

Maxperson said:


> This is a False Dichotomy and wrong to boot.
> 
> For the first group, the group isn't always(often really) adopting rules together. The DM will often use Rule 0 on his own to improve upon the game.



A GM acting unilaterally doesn't need Rule 0. She can just offer up whatever game s/he wants.



Maxperson said:


> For the second group, the DM can use Rule 0 in the same way, to make the game better by avoiding ridiculous situations that the rules often comes up with if you apply them verbatim to every situation.  It is often helpful for the latter group type.



I have doubts about this, for the reasons given by other posters in this thread. If I turn up to play a particular RPG, I'm not turning up to play a GM's version of Calvinball.


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## Hussar (Jan 18, 2021)

overgeeked said:


> I know this is a tangent, but I think this is an assumption we make that’s not always the case. It’s likely wrong in many cases. It’s true rules often become more intricate, more involved, more precise, more detailed, etc with each iteration, but they don’t often become more elegant. I think this is an assumption we make. The new isn’t always or inherently better than the old.



I disagree.

Look at the rules for pretty much anything in AD&D and then compare the same rule in 5e.  By and large, the description of that rule will be half as long, far more comprehensive and far less open to abuse or interpretation.  Whether you want to talk about initiative rules (over a page long in 1e, less than a paragraph in 5e), combat rules (several pages, spread across both the PHB and the DMG in 1e vs a page or two in the PHB in 5e) or whatever.  

It is very rare that a rule becomes more complex over time and iteration.


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## Hussar (Jan 18, 2021)

See, this was the point I was trying to make earlier.  Back in the early days of the game, we just didn't know what rules would be a good idea and what wouldn't.  And, then, we got AD&D.  A system where virtually no one (yes, yes, you in the back I KNOW you did, but, I'm painting with a broad brush here) actually played by the rules of the game.  And, as time went on, and we went into 2e, we wound up in a position where it was very difficult to trust the game designers because there was just so much dreck out there that was exploitable, badly written, outlandishly over or under powered and about as balanced as a concussed polar bear on roller skates.

So, yeah, Rule 0 made perfect sense.  The rules certainly couldn't be relied on.

Then 3e rolled along and then 4e as its successor.  Where the rules actually worked.  Where, more often than not, table balance issues were caused by the DM NOT following (or knowing) the rules and trying to Rule 0 his or her way through.  5e largely lives in the same neighborhood.  There's a reason we don't have binders full of house rules anymore.  We can and do trust the game designers more or less to provide decently balanced material.  And, within a certain variance, they do.  

The need for Rule 0 has been shrinking more and more over time.


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## TheSword (Jan 18, 2021)

There are three reasons I believe rule zero is useful and important.

Firstly it speeds up in/table arguments. Any game as complex as d&d and its clones (yes even a streamlined D&D is complex) is going to bog down at some point with disagreement over rules interactions. If there is an ‘ultimate arbiter of the rules’ then it allows the game to continue in a timely manner. For instance our group had a disagreement about whether initiative order was reset when a person was revived from combat. Remember it isn’t always that a rule doesn’t exist, just that players might not know it, or understand the full implications. Anyone who says it isn’t complex can go back and read these forums in the first 3 years of release or see the Sage advice Twitter.

Secondly, it allows the DM to find their own style and tone. Being a DM has many challenges. Sometimes you want cool stuff to happen but don’t have a rule to reference it too. Sometimes the DM needs to just decide what they want to have happen and hand wave it. I have a  DM who tends to start every fight in media res. So roll initiative and the enemy are standing 15 feet away and surrounding us. I think it probably stems from excessive buffing/sniping in 3e/Pathfinder days, but it actually keeps the combats tense, and dynamic. Rather than the tactically sound option of standing in a 5’ wide gap and killing the enemy 4 on 1. It’s a different style to mine, but I respect it and enjoy it. Neither  setup is defined in the rules, and frankly I don’t care. The DM should be able to make these calls. If they want to give a creature max hp then they can, or invent a new ability, or a spell, or give extra spells to a particular NPC etc, or decide it only take 4 days to do a journey not 6 then that’s all for the good.

Lastly, and for me the most important impact is it  discourages an adversarial approach. If the DM is not forced into slavishly obeying the rules (in the broader sense) then they become more than just a guy playing the bad guys in a board game. It is impossible for players to be in competition with the DM, because the DM can work outside the rules. Rocks fall you die in the most extreme case. Once that is off the table people can get on with the game and have fun.

To be clear, none of this is forced on players. They can vote with their feet and choose not to play if they don’t like the style. Yes some of this can be discussed up front and pre-warned in a session zero or players guide but it’s hubristic to think you can catch everything.


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## Maxperson (Jan 18, 2021)

pemerton said:


> A GM acting unilaterally doesn't need Rule 0. She can just offer up whatever game s/he wants.



Rule 0 isn't about choosing the game.  It's about altering the rules of whatever game was chosen.


pemerton said:


> I have doubts about this, for the reasons given by other posters in this thread. If I turn up to play a particular RPG, I'm not turning up to play a GM's version of Calvinball.



This is a Strawman of Rule 0. The rule doesn't even come close to resulting in "Calvinball."  It can be grossly abused to result in "Calvinball," but that's very unlikely to happen.


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## overgeeked (Jan 18, 2021)

Hussar said:


> I disagree.
> 
> Look at the rules for pretty much anything in AD&D and then compare the same rule in 5e.  By and large, the description of that rule will be half as long, far more comprehensive and far less open to abuse or interpretation.  Whether you want to talk about initiative rules (over a page long in 1e, less than a paragraph in 5e), combat rules (several pages, spread across both the PHB and the DMG in 1e vs a page or two in the PHB in 5e) or whatever.
> 
> It is very rare that a rule becomes more complex over time and iteration.



Initiative in 5E is three paragraphs long and requires understanding a second subsystem (“every participant makes a Dexterity check”) which is an additional three paragraphs to five pages depending on how you want to count.

Examples of things more complicated in 5E than AD&D: Character creation. Spells. Spellcasting. Classes. Class abilities. Saves. Combat. Dying. So...the majority of the game.

But picking AD&D as the comparison is kind of a strawman. Notoriously overwritten, disorganized, incomplete, and confusing...especially if you try to play it RAW. Look at B/X’s initiative for a better comparison. It’s actually three paragraphs which contain not only the complete rules for initiative, but a list of everything you can do in a round, a lot of redundancy, and explanations.

To me B/X is infinitely more elegant than 5E. How’s B/X initiative work? Each side rolls a d6, high roll goes first. Done. What’s 5E again? Everyone makes a DEX check, modified by ability modifier, class features, feat bonuses, spell effects, magic items, then arrange in order, then run them each in order. How about searching for secret doors? B/X it’s 1d6 modified by race or class. How’s it work in 5E again? Well, that all depends on how you run passive perception.

Elegance isn’t an inherent quality to new things. Elegance is simplicity and ease of use. Rules that are short and sweet. Fewer rules more broadly applied, not more rules that are narrowly focused. Fewer words to explain the concept. Was 3E more elegant than 2E? 4E more elegant than 3E? Nope. Less elegant each time. Except ascending AC replacing THAC0. That was elegant. Longer and longer spell descriptions? That’s not elegant. 5E is absolutely more elegant than 3E and 4E, granted. That doesn’t mean it’s the most elegant version of D&D. Nor does it mean all newer games are inherently more elegant or better than all older games.

Non-D&D example: WFRP. 4E is the newest, therefore it must be the most elegant, right?


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## Crusadius (Jan 18, 2021)

Maxperson said:


> Rule 0 isn't about choosing the game. It's about altering the rules of whatever game was chosen.



I think what was meant is that if a Game Master were to Rule Zero a game (perhaps with a lot of rule changes), then perhaps there is another game that addresses the problem the GM is trying to solve.


Maxperson said:


> This is a Strawman of Rule 0. The rule doesn't even come close to resulting in "Calvinball." It can be grossly abused to result in "Calvinball," but that's very unlikely to happen.



I took @pemerton  to mean that the rules, as contained in a rule book that both players and GM have purchased, constitute a shared set of rules that everyone has (and hopefully have familiarised themselves with), and a GM who has chosen to change a number of rules can surprise the players because they expected to be playing Game X, not Game sort-of-X-but-with-these-quote-fixes-end-quote. This is likely more pertinent to a group of people who have just met than a group that has been together for a few years, but I wager there have been a few groups surprised by their GM presenting their list of rule fixes to a game on the first day.

Plus if I were to have purchased game, I'd like to play it as is otherwise I might feel that I've wasted good money.


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## TheSword (Jan 18, 2021)

overgeeked said:


> Initiative in 5E is three paragraphs long and requires understanding a second subsystem (“every participant makes a Dexterity check”) which is an additional three paragraphs to five pages depending on how you want to count.
> 
> Examples of things more complicated in 5E than AD&D: Character creation. Spells. Spellcasting. Classes. Class abilities. Saves. Combat. Dying. So...the majority of the game.
> 
> ...



Rolling a d6 for initiative. Is not elegant, it’s simple.

Elegant is not the same as simple.

Anyone can write a simple Rpg. Roll a D6 on a 5 or 6 you do a wound. I’m not sure that simple method would be satisfying.

Elegant rules achieve a satisfying process with the minimum of fuss.

I’d argue that the Success Level system in WFRP is quite elegant actually particularly for combat. Two opposed rolls that model hitting, location and damage, defender skill, a wide variety of methods of defense, critical hits and fumbles, and that removes the whiff factor of earlier editions is very elegant.


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## Aldarc (Jan 18, 2021)

overgeeked said:


> I know this is a tangent, but I think this is an assumption we make that’s not always the case. It’s likely wrong in many cases. It’s true rules often become more intricate, more involved, more precise, more detailed, etc with each iteration, but they don’t often become more elegant. I think this is an assumption we make. The new isn’t always or inherently better than the old.



I agree that the new is not inherently better than the old; however, a lot of recent TT game design has been increasingly oriented towards sleek, cohesive, and focused design, particularly with more generalized systems in place that can handle corner cases. 



Hussar said:


> The need for Rule 0 has been shrinking more and more over time.



Ten years ago your thesis would likely have been laughed off this forum, but even if this a limited participation from the forum, it does seem far more acceptable to suggest that Rule 0 is increasingly becoming redundant or at least re-contexualized in ways that make it less prone to GM abuse as a principle. I don't particularly see the need for it myself. The idea that one can make house rules or that the GM/table can override the rules? It's not as if people playing card or board games in their homes need a Rule 0 to do the same. 



loverdrive said:


> I think that Rule 0 is an ad-hoc patch, applied to essentially board-game rules that allows for more ad-hoc patches. PbtA and FitD don't have rule zero at all and work just fine. Fate seriously downplays rule 0 (called the Silver Rule there and talks about applying other rules in unusual circumstances, rather than bypassing rules altogether) and works fine too.
> 
> Rule 0 is needed only in rules-first games without solid generalized framework. And even there, it's something to be used carefully, when you actually know what you're doing.



Remarkably Rule Zero is even absent in a number of OSR products. I cannot find any mention or discussion of anything remotely approaching a Rule Zero in _Beyond the Wall & Other Adventures_. Likewise _Stars Without Number_, for example, doesn't mention or discuss Rule Zero, though it does note the obvious point that GMs can obviously change the rules at their table, which comes across more as an admission that he can't control what you do at your table, but Crawford actually encourages first playing by the rules as written. Then he proposes a list of some possible house rules. I cannot find mention of Rule Zero in Mork Borg nor can I find it in Index Card RPG. It's also completely absent in Forbidden Lands.


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## TheSword (Jan 18, 2021)

loverdrive said:


> I think that Rule 0 is an ad-hoc patch, applied to essentially board-game rules that allows for more ad-hoc patches. PbtA and FitD don't have rule zero at all and work just fine. Fate seriously downplays rule 0 (called the Silver Rule there and talks about applying other rules in unusual circumstances, rather than bypassing rules altogether) and works fine too.
> 
> Rule 0 is needed only in rules-first games without solid generalized framework. And even there, it's something to be used carefully, when you actually know what you're doing.



Rule 0 isn’t a patch. It’s a foundation, that reminds us that this is a creative game that shouldn’t be limited if a written rule doesn’t make sense in that moment for that GM.

The niche games may have different approaches. They are still niche and as long as they remain so they aren’t a reasonable comparison. Obviously there are other things that make D&D more satisfying for people to play than Fate.


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## Hussar (Jan 18, 2021)

TheSword said:


> Rolling a d6 for initiative. Is not elegant, it’s simple.
> 
> Elegant is not the same as simple.
> 
> ...



Well said.


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## pemerton (Jan 18, 2021)

overgeeked said:


> Was 3E more elegant than 2E? 4E more elegant than 3E? Nope. Less elegant each time. Except ascending AC replacing THAC0. That was elegant. Longer and longer spell descriptions? That’s not elegant.



Huh? Spell descriptions in 4e D&D are not long. The spell description for Fireball in 4e is nearly identical to B/X.

The brevity of rules elements in 4e was in fact a frequent source of complaint.


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## pemerton (Jan 18, 2021)

Crusadius said:


> I think what was meant is that if a Game Master were to Rule Zero a game (perhaps with a lot of rule changes), then perhaps there is another game that addresses the problem the GM is trying to solve.



I was meaning that a GM who is unilaterally going to make changes doesn't need "rule zero" to facilitate that. S/he can just make changes! The same for a group who know one another already: I played a game of Blokus with my family yesterday. Blokus doesn't have a rule zero, but that didn't stop us changing a rule about the order of play by colour.



Crusadius said:


> I took @pemerton  to mean that the rules, as contained in a rule book that both players and GM have purchased, constitute a shared set of rules that everyone has (and hopefully have familiarised themselves with), and a GM who has chosen to change a number of rules can surprise the players because they expected to be playing Game X, not Game sort-of-X-but-with-these-quote-fixes-end-quote. This is likely more pertinent to a group of people who have just met than a group that has been together for a few years



I agree with the last of your sentences I've quoted, yes.



TheSword said:


> The niche games may have different approaches. They are still niche and as long as they remain so they aren’t a reasonable comparison. Obviously there are other things that make D&D more satisfying for people to play than Fate.



I just checked. This thread is in General, not D&D.

And 4e D&D was not a "niche" game. And had no need of "rule zero". As @loverdrive explained, rule zero is an element of a particular sort of game design. Not of RPGs in general.



TheSword said:


> Rule 0 isn’t a patch. It’s a foundation, that reminds us that this is a creative game that shouldn’t be limited if a written rule doesn’t make sense in that moment for that GM.



You can see the assumption about design here.

Marvel Heroic RP/Cortex+ Heroic is a pretty creative game. But it doesn't need rule zero, because it uses a general resolution system that is not reliant on situation-specific subsystems. So there isn't such a thing as "a written rule that doesn't make sense in that moment for that GM".

I'd also add - players are pretty creative too. What happens if a player is playing a subsystem-heavy game like AD&D and, in that moment for that player, a written rule doesn't make sense. Does the player get to invoker rule zero?


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## pemerton (Jan 18, 2021)

Aldarc said:


> The idea that one can make house rules or that the GM/table can override the rules? It's not as if people playing card or board games in their homes need a Rule 0 to do the same.



Right. That's a big part of the point I was making upthread.


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## Aldarc (Jan 18, 2021)

pemerton said:


> Right. That's a big part of the point I was making upthread.



It seems like if there ever was a Rule 0 it should be that the participants first decide what game they are playing as well as how it will be played and the principles they will adhere to.


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## TheSword (Jan 18, 2021)

pemerton said:


> And 4e D&D was not a "niche" game. And had no need of "rule zero". As @loverdrive explained, rule zero is an element of a particular sort of game design. Not of RPGs in general.



4e wasn’t a niche game but Marvel Heroic RP / Cortex / Forged in the Dark certainly are if they represent less than half of one percent of games played on Roll20. I’m not saying they aren’t good or fun, or that this isn’t a lot of games - there are a lot of people on Roll20.

But there’s obviously something there that makes people choose d&d, I don’t believe that is Brand name... or Critical Role.


pemerton said:


> You can see the assumption about design here.
> 
> Marvel Heroic RP/Cortex+ Heroic is a pretty creative game. But it doesn't need rule zero, because it uses a general resolution system that is not reliant on situation-specific subsystems. So there isn't such a thing as "a written rule that doesn't make sense in that moment for that GM".



That’s for them to decide. The fact that these rule sets dont have complex interlocking combinations of conflicting rules doesn’t mean that a system like D&D doesn’t need a rule zero.



pemerton said:


> I'd also add - players are pretty creative too. What happens if a player is playing a subsystem-heavy game like AD&D and, in that moment for that player, a written rule doesn't make sense. Does the player get to invoker rule zero?




They speak to the DM and make the suggestion and they decide. Just like an actor making a suggestion to the director in a play. You wouldn’t expect the actor to go changing the script without getting it approved.

After all, we don’t want to go encouraging That Guy.


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## loverdrive (Jan 18, 2021)

TheSword said:


> Rule 0 isn’t a patch. It’s a foundation, that reminds us that this is a creative game that shouldn’t be limited if a written rule doesn’t make sense in that moment for that GM.



And it's needed only because of rigidity of said rules in rules-first games. In fiction-first games you don't need rule zero, because the rules cannot not make sense.

In rules-first games, rule zero is needed, because there's "translation": fiction => mechanics => fiction and nuances inevitably get lost in this translation.

So, if Atob swings her sword at Rorke Black-Blade, who is wielding a Shatterspike, it gets translated to "Atob takes an attack action against an enemy with AC 15". And then Rorke uses Parry reaction, which gets translated to "Rorke gets +3 AC". Since there are no rules on parrying with Shatterspike, its nature is not taken into account, Atob's sword doesn't get shattered into a million of pieces, like it's supposed to -- and you need to invoke rule zero in order to close the gap between mechanics and fiction.

In fiction-first games, there's no such translation and we always operate in the realms of fiction.

If the same situation would take place in, say, Dungeon World, a lightning-fast parry and Atob's sword shattering could be a GM move on 6- roll, or, if Rorke was shown on-screen as very skilled swordsman, just Golden Opportunity exploited -- and there's never any discrepancy between mechanics and fiction, because they are inherently inseparable, so you just don't need to invoke rule 0.


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## Aldarc (Jan 18, 2021)

TheSword said:


> But there’s obviously something there that makes people choose d&d, I don’t believe that is Brand name... or Critical Role.



Monopoly is almost universally recognized (if not reviled) by board game enthusiasts as a crappy game, but it's still probably one of the best selling board games out there. Nostalgia, price point, nearly ubiquitous market availability, and mass familiarity all play strong contributing factors into that continued success of an otherwise crappy game. I'm not saying that D&D is the Monopoly of TTRPGs, but I am saying that argument ad populum isn't an inherent indicator of a game's quality.


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## TheSword (Jan 18, 2021)

After all


loverdrive said:


> And it's needed only because of rigidity of said rules in rules-first games. In fiction-first games you don't need rule zero, because the rules cannot not make sense.
> 
> In rules-first games, rule zero is needed, because there's "translation": fiction => mechanics => fiction and nuances inevitably get lost in this translation.
> 
> ...



The claim that an ephemeral rule style that doesn’t use specifics or rules interactions is a bit of a truism.

Gin Rummy, Hopscotch and I spy with my little eye don’t need a rule zero either.

That doesn’t change the fact D&D is improved with such a rule.


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## Aldarc (Jan 18, 2021)

TheSword said:


> That doesn’t change the fact D&D is improved with such a rule.



If you are honestly arguing that D&D's success is indebted to Rule Zero, then I'm afraid that such an extraordinary claim would require compelling extraordinary evidence to support it.


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## TheSword (Jan 18, 2021)

Aldarc said:


> Monopoly is almost universally recognized (if not reviled) by board game enthusiasts as a crappy game, but it's still probably one of the best selling board games out there. Nostalgia, price point, nearly ubiquitous market availability, and mass familiarity all play strong contributing factors into that continued success of an otherwise crappy game. I'm not saying that D&D is the Monopoly of TTRPGs, but I am saying that argument ad populum isn't an inherent indicator of a game's quality.



Perhaps board game enthusiasts aren’t understanding why Monopoly is successful then.

I think you are doing Monopoly a disservice if you think price, nostalgia and familiarity are the reason it was successful. Guess what... it’s fun. People enjoy holding property, counting cash and charging their parents rent!

In contrast, for a fair old time Pathfinder was the number one selling TTRPG in the world, with a brand name that no one had ever heard of before. If you googled Pathfinder you got several pages on an obscure action film. The price point was equal to D&D. Surprise surprise... it was also fun.


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## TheSword (Jan 18, 2021)

Aldarc said:


> If you are honestly arguing that D&D's success is indebted to Rule Zero, then I'm afraid that such an extraordinary claim would require compelling extraordinary evidence to support it.



What an odd logical step. How is being improved by something equating to being successful because of something.

D&D is successful because people like the rules. If people didn’t like the rules, it wouldn’t be successful. Rule zero supports and facilitates a complex game like D&D - that people like.

I’ll let you into a secret. Most people like rules, they give you a framework of expectations. in a group game, if a person can do anything they want, any time they like then generally the group gets paralyzed by options or ends up going on wild tangents.

The DM is allowed in reasonable circumstances to interpret, bend, and break these rules in certain circumstances... where there is a block in the flow of the game, where it is more appropriate for their style of DMing, and where it improves the game and keeps people coming back for more. The social contract and the voluntary nature of DM-Player relationship is the oversight of this


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## pemerton (Jan 18, 2021)

TheSword said:


> They speak to the DM and make the suggestion and they decide. Just like an actor making a suggestion to the director in a play. You wouldn’t expect the actor to go changing the script without getting it approved.
> 
> After all, we don’t want to go encouraging That Guy.



When I play a RPG I don't think of myself as an actor speaking someone else's script. To the extent that "rule zero" in its modern interpretation adopts that sort of perspective, that's another reason for me to be sceptical about it!


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## pemerton (Jan 18, 2021)

TheSword said:


> There are three reasons I believe rule zero is useful and important.





TheSword said:


> That doesn’t change the fact D&D is improved with such a rule.



So you mean "useful and important" _for D&D_?

Which is to say you're agreeing with those of us who have posted that rule zero is not important to RPGing per se.

EDIT: And not even for all of D&D. 4e doesn't need it because it has universal resolution mechanics that can be applied fiction first out-of-combat, and are supported by p 42 in combat.


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## loverdrive (Jan 18, 2021)

TheSword said:


> That doesn’t change the fact D&D is improved with such a rule.



And that doesn't change the fact that rule 0 itself is an ad-hoc patch (and each application of it is an ad-hoc patch too) either.


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## Lanefan (Jan 18, 2021)

Rule 0 would seem to be part of what makes a game system flexible such that it can handle a greater variety of playstyles, game types, and other demands GMs and-or players my put on it.

An RPG without a Rule 0, or which says its rules must be adhered to without alteration, limits its own scope.  For a niche game that's only ever intended by its designers to be a niche game - i.e. to do one thing but try to do that thing as well as it can - this could be fine.  But for something that wants to be more broad-based and-or generic, the more flexibility it can have the better; and Rule 0 helps grant this as it flat-out tells the GM to make whatever changes she likes in order to make the game her own.


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## loverdrive (Jan 18, 2021)

TheSword said:


> D&D is successful because people like the rules. If people didn’t like the rules, it wouldn’t be successful. Rule zero supports and facilitates a complex game like D&D - that people like.



Y'know if that was the case, the most popular RPG out there would be GURPS. Or Riddle of Steel. Or Phoenix Command.

Besides, "Be a fan of the PCs", "Think Dangerous" and "Give every person a name" are rules as much as "At level 5, when you take Attack action on your turn, you may make an extra attack".


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## Aldarc (Jan 18, 2021)

TheSword said:


> Perhaps board game enthusiasts aren’t understanding why Monopoly is successful then.
> 
> I think you are doing Monopoly a disservice if you think price, nostalgia and familiarity are the reason it was successful. Guess what... it’s fun. People enjoy holding property, counting cash and charging their parents rent!



Or perhaps you are vastly underestimating the role that nostalgia, price point, nearly ubiquitous market availability, and mass familiarity play in popularity and sales. IME, Monopoly is rarely, if ever, considered a "fun game." Games of Monopoly are rarely finished: they are endured until someone (or everyone) decides to quit. Again IME, it's more often than not the used, banged-up game with missing pieces that people have sitting covered in dust on their shelves for lack of better alternatives that is then forgotten once people are exposed to other games. But I doubt that there is anything I can do to stop you from making fallacious ad populum arguments: I guess there must be something you find fun about those arguments too that I don't understand. 



TheSword said:


> In contrast, for a fair old time Pathfinder was the number one selling TTRPG in the world, with a brand name that no one had ever heard of before. If you googled Pathfinder you got several pages on an obscure action film. The price point was equal to D&D. Surprise surprise... it was also fun.



You mean the game that was publicly advertising itself as a continuation of 3.5 D&D rule set and created by the publishers of Dungeon & Dragon magazines and published concurrently against the most controversial edition of D&D? Yeah, talk about a real zero to hero story there.



TheSword said:


> What an odd logical step. How is being improved by something equating to being successful because of something.



Sorry that I bothered putting your assertion in context with an earlier insinuation you made regarding why people choose D&D: 


TheSword said:


> But there’s obviously something there that makes people choose d&d, I don’t believe that is Brand name... or Critical Role.



The implication here based on what you are replying to pemerton about niche games lacking a Rule Zero seems to be that D&D's popularity is a result of Rule Zero. I'm not sure what other conclusion I am meant to draw from it. 



TheSword said:


> D&D is successful because people like the rules. If people didn’t like the rules, it wouldn’t be successful. *[LOGICAL LEAP]* Rule zero supports and facilitates a complex game like D&D - that people like.



You keep making a leap of logic (added for emphasis in bold) that you don't really support or substantiate. That's the problem. 



TheSword said:


> I’ll let you into a secret. Most people like rules, they give you a framework of expectations. in a group game, if a person can do anything they want, any time they like then generally the group gets paralyzed by options or ends up going on wild tangents.
> 
> The DM is allowed in reasonable circumstances to interpret, bend, and break these rules in certain circumstances... where there is a block in the flow of the game, where it is more appropriate for their style of DMing, and where it improves the game and keeps people coming back for more. The social contract and the voluntary nature of DM-Player relationship is the oversight of this



Thank you for letting me in on that secret, TheSword. In return, I'll let you in on one of my own: Rule Zero is not necessary in the slightest to enable what you are describing and there is likewise NO NEED to get so sensitive about people criticizing Rule Zero in D&D.


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## TheSword (Jan 18, 2021)

Rule Zero has been in almost every edition of the game since inception. It’s also present in some of the other RPGs I love to play. The fact that it may not of been in 4e only reinforces my opinions of 4e. I am perplexed by the pushback on it. I suspect part of this is for the same reasons as the pushback on the DM Authority thread. I notice it’s roughly the same people drawing the same lines in both. To many people to reply to individually.

The basic premise of “This is a complex game but don’t let the rules get in the way of a good fun” seems the most obvious thing to me. It’s such a harmless, non contentious approach, though it bucks against the traits of some players who want to classify, quantify, and be able to predict with certainty how things will pan out. I don’t think those posting here are That Guy, but That Guy is a real possibility. I’ve also seen players who aren’t That Guy turn into That Guy when the games rules are presented as the gospel.

Some of arguments I’ve seen here... along the the lines of “it should be possible to design a game that doesn’t require rule zero” remind me of the contempt vented at Games Workshop because the 24 factions in 40k when pitted against any one of the other 23 factions sometimes aren’t perfectly balanced. When each faction has 4-8 subfactions, plus relics, model types, equipment load outs. Absolute balance or rule simplicity is a pipe dream and even if we got it, im pretty sure we wouldn’t like it.

Complexity is not a vice when the complexity is fun. People like choices. When rules are homogenized into generic terms like has been described by Lowerdrive (and to a lesser extent 4e) any choice becomes no choice because there are no more meaningful differences. I believe this is one (only one) of the reasons 5e has been successful. There is a spectrum and 5e gives people a healthy balance of meaningful choice/complexity and streamlining. When I say people like 5e because of the rules... that’s what I mean. 

If you want meaningful variation in options (be it spells, class abilities, feats, equipment) then you have to accept there will be conflicts. 99% will be fine but 1% will need considering. As forums go I find we spend a hell of lot of time arguing to throw out the 99% because the 1% doesn’t fit. The 1% dominates our discussions in fact.

My preference is to solve the 1% with rule zero.


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## TheSword (Jan 18, 2021)

Aldarc said:


> Or perhaps you are vastly underestimating the role that nostalgia, price point, nearly ubiquitous market availability, and mass familiarity play in popularity and sales. IME, Monopoly is rarely, if ever, considered a "fun game." Games of Monopoly are rarely finished: they are endured until someone (or everyone) decides to quit. Again IME, it's more often than not the used, banged-up game with missing pieces that people have sitting covered in dust on their shelves for lack of better alternatives that is then forgotten once people are exposed to other games. But I doubt that there is anything I can do to stop you from making fallacious ad populum arguments: I guess there must be something you find fun about those arguments too that I don't understand.




Thank you for sharing your miserable experiences with monopoly. I remember playing monopoly for hours with siblings, parents and grandparents. They ended up with a couple of players fighting to win. We used to write winning scores on the inside of the box with the players name. The games would invariably end up with wheeler dealing and players bailing each other out for future promises, that were sometimes broken, sometimes not. It’s a fun game that the whole family can enjoy.

I’ve played monopoly a fair few times on a tablet app against the computer. Also a fun way of whiling away an hour or two.

I think your feelings about Monopoly say more about you than they do about the game to be honest.


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## loverdrive (Jan 18, 2021)

Lanefan said:


> Rule 0 would seem to be part of what makes a game system flexible such that it can handle a greater variety of playstyles, game types, and other demands GMs and-or players my put on it.



Nope, that's just an easy way for designers to say "ok, do whatever you want, I'm done here". What actually makes game flexible is a solid, understandable framework and loose tolerances.

Dungeon World that doesn't have rule 0, but has comprehensive GM Agenda and GM Principles is more flexible than, say, D&D 5E. You want to play a high-magic fantasy with floating ships and enormous cities, lit up by arcane lamps and with glorious Academy of Natural Philosophy, where illusionists give mind-blowing shows every now and then? It works. You want to play a low-magic game, where magic is a power beyond mere human comprehension and each wizard risks tearing the Veil between the world of the living and the world of the dead with each cast spell? It works too. You make the same Moves with accordance to the same Principles, but within different fictional contexts -- in a world of ubiquouts and well-understood magic, consequence for failing to cast a spell properly probably would be something along the lines of "While you were citing magical formulas, an ork archer shot his bow at you. What ya gonna do?", but not "You feel air around you go cold, the arcane vibrations of your spell attracted something that doesn't belong to this world. In a split-second, a horrendous canine creature, dreaded Hound of Tindalos, forms from the nearest corner and latches on your leg. What ya gonna do?".

Or, maybe you want to play a superhero game, where people are thrown through brick walls, get smacked by sledgehammers and then get up and fight, maybe bruised slightly? It works -- you just don't use long-term injuries as consequences. But in a gritty game, where ribs break, lungs get punctured, internal bleedings makes people pass out -- you do, and the system works too.

You don't make any alterations to the rules, but you make alterations to the fiction.


In a more rigidly-structured game, like, again D&D 5E (or 3.5, or AD&D 2E, or even White Box), you'd either need to brew some new rules at home, or to apply ad-hoc patches with rule zero, because there's no flexibility and no framework that goes beyond "just figure it out".



TheSword said:


> Complexity is not a vice when the complexity is fun. People like choices. When rules are homogenized into generic terms like has been described by Lowerdrive (and to a lesser extent 4e) any choice becomes no choice because there are no more meaningful differences.



My nickname is Loverdrive. It's Overdrive, but with a little pinch of Love. But that's beside the point.

It's a false dichotomy. Simple, fiction-first games can (and do, actually, the point of fiction-first approach is to maximize amount of meaningful choices) contain choices. Complex, rules-first games can have absolutely pointless choices.

In 5E, difference between a Battleaxe and a Longsword is nonexistent, they both are Versatile weapons that deal the same damage of the same type. In Dungeon World, there's a significant difference, because Longsword and Battleaxe are inherently different weapons -- you can't halfsword and axe and you can't pull down ork's shield with a sword.

Or, a rapier or a shortsword is just plain better than a dagger as a main weapon for rogue -- it's not a meaningful choice too, because the winner is obvious. In Dungeon World? Good luck using a rapier when you're held in a chokehold by a dwarven wrestler, while grabbing a dagger from your belt can certainly work.

The thing is, any kind of rule that strives to represent fiction is inevitably going to lose some context, no matter how complex. But when you have a solid framework and a human using said framework, you can meaningfully represent even the difference between _sok tat_ and _sok ngat _(both are elbow blows from muay tai), let alone something as obvious as difference between a spear and a sword.

The thing is, rule 0 is used for exactly that purpose -- to meaningfully represent fiction when the rules fail to do so.


Here's a quick fix for 5E attacking rules:
When you make an attack against a creature, and you're willing and able to inflict serious harm, roll +Attack bonus. If the result is equal or higher than the target's AC, they take damage equal to your weapon's Damage stat.

Puff! Now you don't need to invoke rule zero when someone completely caught in Web is trying to swing their sword, which seems absolutely ridiculous -- because now they are not _able to inflict serious harm._


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## TheSword (Jan 18, 2021)

loverdrive said:


> Nope, that's just an easy way for designers to say "ok, do whatever you want, I'm done here". What actually makes game flexible is a solid, understandable framework and loose tolerances.
> 
> Dungeon World that doesn't have rule 0, but has comprehensive GM Agenda and GM Principles is more flexible than, say, D&D 5E. You want to play a high-magic fantasy with floating ships and enormous cities, lit up by arcane lamps and with glorious Academy of Natural Philosophy, where illusionists give mind-blowing shows every now and then? It works. You want to play a low-magic game, where magic is a power beyond mere human comprehension and each wizard risks tearing the Veil between the world of the living and the world of the dead with each cast spell? It works too. You make the same Moves with accordance to the same Principles, but within different fictional contexts -- in a world of ubiquouts and well-understood magic, consequence for failing to cast a spell properly probably would be something along the lines of "While you were citing magical formulas, an ork archer shot his bow at you. What ya gonna do?", but not "You feel air around you go cold, the arcane vibrations of your spell attracted something that doesn't belong to this world. In a split-second, a horrendous canine creature, dreaded Hound of Tindalos, forms from the nearest corner and latches on your leg. What ya gonna do?".
> 
> ...



I think this is where I see a noticeable difference between those who are publishers and game designers and those who just play for enjoyment.  Your perspective is invariably influenced by the fact that you design game rules and see them as something that needs improving with your own take on how that should be done based on your ideas and the games you’ve had access to. You have an inherently wider tolerance for change than I do.

I don’t design games, I have no desire to design games. I like playing some games that I like the style of and sometimes I tinker with them to make them fit my likes and those of my group. If I wanted to play Dungeon World, I would. However we enjoy D&D 5e, just as we enjoyed Pathfinder before it. So we spend our limited time playing that. I guess we have trust in D&D because for the large part we know we will like the end product. If that trust is misplaced we might switch to another product (pathfinder). We rely on the game being inherently right for us and we tinker until it fits.

I suspect that’s a different approach to a designers desire to see as many different systems as possible to broaden knowledge. Things is, most people aren’t designers, and don’t have the desire to play dozens of different games, not knowing which will be a duffer and which will be a triumph. I’ll do that with a board game, but not with a RPG that requires a substantial amount of time and effort from all involved... particularly the DM.

I find it ironic that someone who looks at rules and wants to improve them as a publisher, takes issue with a rule that says if you want to make your own improvement to one of our rules then feel free to do so.

Sorry about the name, it looked like Lowerdrive at a glance. Consider me corrected.


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## Maxperson (Jan 18, 2021)

Crusadius said:


> I think what was meant is that if a Game Master were to Rule Zero a game (perhaps with a lot of rule changes), then perhaps there is another game that addresses the problem the GM is trying to solve.



Maybe it does, and probably it has a dozen or hundred other changes that the DM doesn't want to make.  Games tend to be very different from one another and most changes are minor, not major. 


Crusadius said:


> I took @pemerton  to mean that the rules, as contained in a rule book that both players and GM have purchased, constitute a shared set of rules that everyone has (and hopefully have familiarised themselves with), and a GM who has chosen to change a number of rules can surprise the players because they expected to be playing Game X, not Game sort-of-X-but-with-these-quote-fixes-end-quote. This is likely more pertinent to a group of people who have just met than a group that has been together for a few years, but I wager there have been a few groups surprised by their GM presenting their list of rule fixes to a game on the first day.
> 
> Plus if I were to have purchased game, I'd like to play it as is otherwise I might feel that I've wasted good money.



Calvinball is a game with no rules.  Rule 0 is primarily used to change a few rules, so 99+% of the game rules are still going to be shared.  You won't have wasted your money if you play a game and find out that Halflings have been given darkvision.


----------



## TheSword (Jan 18, 2021)

Maxperson said:


> Maybe it does, and probably it has a dozen or hundred other changes that the DM doesn't want to make.  Games tend to be very different from one another and most changes are minor, not major.
> 
> Calvinball is a game with no rules.  Rule 0 is primarily used to change a few rules, so 99+% of the game rules are still going to be shared.  You won't have wasted your money if you play a game and find out that Halflings have been given darkvision.



Totally agree. Calvinball is an expression I usually see used by people who expect an unreasonable amount of perfection in a game system. For me 1% wrong is pretty good going. I can adapt to/ignore/change 1% wrong. I could probably go up to 5% wrong. I can enjoy the game for the 95-99% I like.

Particularly when I’m not telling other people they have to change as well. Rule zero affects me and my table and let’s everyone else ignore me.


----------



## Maxperson (Jan 18, 2021)

TheSword said:


> Rule 0 isn’t a patch. It’s a foundation, that reminds us that this is a creative game that shouldn’t be limited if a written rule doesn’t make sense in that moment for that GM.
> 
> The niche games may have different approaches. They are still niche and as long as they remain so they aren’t a reasonable comparison. Obviously there are other things that make D&D more satisfying for people to play than Fate.



@loverdrive also got it wrong when she said that Rule 0 is for rules forward games. It's actually used more for her style of gameplay.  She once gave an example in a thread where the DM ignored a rule, because it would be cool for the scene if the rule didn't take effect like it was supposed, and the game was about cool story.  That's a prime example of Rule 0 in play.  Ignoring/changing/adding to the rules to make a cool scene like roleplay forward gameplay likes to do, uses Rule 0 far more often than a rules forward game does. People liking rules forward games tend to stick to the rules more often and use Rule 0 less.


----------



## TheSword (Jan 18, 2021)

In cubicle 7’s WFRP there is a very active large scale community of several thousand people registered that interacts closely with the designers and freelancers working on the projects. The community has embraced rule zero, and designers have frequently said we chose this because we like it but we can understand why you might not, so feel free to change it. Or perhaps, feel free to change it but be aware it might impact X. I haven’t seen that since the early days of Pathfinder.

I find claims that a base rule of flexibility is redundant to be bizarre.


----------



## Maxperson (Jan 18, 2021)

loverdrive said:


> And that doesn't change the fact that rule 0 itself is an ad-hoc patch (and each application of it is an ad-hoc patch too) either.



Your opinion about rule 0 is not a fact.  It's also not a patch, but rather a DM tool.  There's a difference.


----------



## Aldarc (Jan 18, 2021)

TheSword said:


> I think your feelings about Monopoly say more about you than they do about the game to be honest.



And I think your posts say more about your feelings towards D&D than anything substantive about Rule Zero.



TheSword said:


> I think this is where I see a noticeable difference between those who are publishers and game designers and those who just play for enjoyment.



I think this is where I see a noticeable difference between people who can't handle any criticism of games they like and those who can.



TheSword said:


> I suspect that’s a different approach to a designers desire to see as many different systems as possible to broaden knowledge.



I am no designer so you will have to find a different excuse to dismiss my opinion as you are doing now with Loverdrive's. I like playing different card games, board games, video games, and TTRPG games because I also like cultivating different gaming experiences and some games are better suited for certain play styles, game types, etc. than other games. Simple as that. But the idea that Rule Zero is somehow necessary to run any TTRPG seems absolutely ridiculous given the sheer number of TTRPGs of various complexity, genre, or system that do not fall back on this notion and work swimmingly well.



TheSword said:


> I find claims that a base rule of flexibility is redundant to be bizarre.



Because it's how most other games already operate. The thousands of house rule variations of Monopoly, again for example, did not require Rule Zero to empower. People simply did it, and then Milton Bradley was super surprised to learn from their own internal research that people were not necessarily playing with the rules as written.


----------



## Maxperson (Jan 18, 2021)

Aldarc said:


> Or perhaps you are vastly underestimating the role that nostalgia, price point, nearly ubiquitous market availability, and mass familiarity play in popularity and sales. IME, Monopoly is rarely, if ever, considered a "fun game." Games of Monopoly are rarely finished: they are endured until someone (or everyone) decides to quit. Again IME, it's more often than not the used, banged-up game with missing pieces that people have sitting covered in dust on their shelves for lack of better alternatives that is then forgotten once people are exposed to other games. But I doubt that there is anything I can do to stop you from making fallacious ad populum arguments: I guess there must be something you find fun about those arguments too that I don't understand.



I think Monopoly is a fantastic game.  I especially love when I win a free fries or Big Mac.  I never seem to be able to get the third property to win the car, though.  I think the game is rigged.

::wife runs into the room and whispers something to me::  What?  That's not the Monopoly he's talking about?  Crap!

Monopoly is a children's game.  They find it to be very enjoyable and the parents play it with them, because they like when their kids have fun, and it teaches them a few life lessons the process. As an adult I find it to be a very boring game, but when my son is old enough to play, we will play it.  Probably a themed version like the unopened Game of Thrones Monopoly I have sitting on the shelf.  He will have a blast, because that's what kids do when they play that game.  I will have fun watching him have fun, but won't particularly enjoy the game, because it's not really made for adults.  I also don't really like playing Chutes N Ladders or Candyland, but my son likes it, so we play those games as well.


----------



## TheSword (Jan 18, 2021)

Aldarc said:


> And I think your posts say more about your feelings towards D&D than they actually substantiate about Rule Zero.
> 
> 
> I think this is where I see a noticeable difference between people who can't handle any criticism of games they like and those who can.
> ...



You are unusually hostile today?

Firstly I didn’t dismiss Loverdrives opinions, I just said I disagreed and said why. I then gave a suggestion for why there wasn’t much common ground on the issue.

Secondly I didn’t say all TTRPGs needed it. I said TTRPGs of the complexity of D&D/Pathfinder do. Incidentally I disagree with your claim that 4e didn’t have a rule zero.

“The D&D rules cannot possibly account for the variety of campaigns and play styles of every group. If you disagree with how the rules handle something, changing them is within your rights.”
- 4e DMG pg 192

Monopoly has a rule zero. It’s implied in the culture of the game. It just hasn’t been spelled out in the rulebook.

The reason it’s particularly needed in games like D&D and Pathfinder is that That Player comes along and says to the GM. That Minotaur is dead, minotaurs have 43 hp and we’ve collectively dealt 47 points of damage. Or player A criticized player B for being allowed to use shield after knowing the outcome of the roll which is the only way the spell makes sense on a VTT that Calculates outcome. To allow the DM to play a game that suits the style of them and their table, and to speed up discussion of unusual corner case rules contradictions.


----------



## loverdrive (Jan 18, 2021)

Maxperson said:


> @loverdrive also got it wrong when she said that Rule 0 is for rules forward games. It's actually used more for her style of gameplay. She once gave an example in a thread where the DM ignored a rule, because it would be cool for the scene if the rule didn't take effect like it was supposed, and the game was about cool story. That's a prime example of Rule 0 in play. Ignoring/changing/adding to the rules to make a cool scene like roleplay forward gameplay likes to do, uses Rule 0 far more often than a rules forward game does. People liking rules forward games tend to stick to the rules more often and use Rule 0 less.



Maybe I didn't make myself clear.

Rule 0 is only _needed_ in rules-first games, because only in rules-first games there may be a situation where the results of rules at work don't make sense -- because rules exist separately from the fiction.

In rules-first, rules _represent_ fictional concepts and events. Examples:

Lance theoretically can be used when unmounted, but it's supposed to be used by mounted warriors, who wield it in one hand. So, we come up with a rule: "a lance requires two hands to wield when you aren't mounted."
Using two weapons should allow making more attacks than you can do with one weapon. So, we come up with a rule: "When you take the Attack action and Attack with a light melee weapon that you’re holding in one hand, you can use a Bonus Action to Attack with a different light melee weapon that you’re holding in the other hand".

In a fiction-first game, a lance is just a lance, a heavy weapon, used by mounted knights and holding two weapons means just holding two weapons -- the character "on screen" is using a lance (or two daggers) in a way that makes sense within the fictional context.

So a situation like "ok, so there's nothing in the rules that forbids me from dual-wielding lances if I take a Dual Wielder feat and ride a horse" just can't happen -- because riding a horse with two lances doesn't get translated into "I'm using Mounted combat rules and dual-wielding two D12 Piercing weapons with Reach" -- the character on-screen is wielding two lances, which on-screen would lead to a spectacular failure, unless the character in question is an enhanced super-soldier or something.

In a rules-first game you need to invoke rule 0 in order to forbid ridiculous knight with two lances who can fight even more effective than a reasonable knight with one lance. In a fiction-first game you don't need to invoke rule 0, because dual-lanced knight is gonna get reasonably screwed already.



Maxperson said:


> Your opinion about rule 0 is not a fact. It's also not a patch, but rather a DM tool. There's a difference.



Hm, TSR had a game with rigid, boardgamesque rules, but intended the game to work in various _fictional _circumstances. So they come up with a rule that allows to bypass the other rules if they don't produce sensible results, as opposed to building the game and embraces fiction from the ground up.

If that isn't a patch, I don't know what is.


----------



## Maxperson (Jan 18, 2021)

loverdrive said:


> Maybe I didn't make myself clear.
> 
> Rule 0 is only _needed_ in rules-first games, because only in rules-first games there may be a situation where the results of rules at work don't make sense -- because rules exist separately from the fiction.



It isn't *needed* at all.  You can play rules-first games completely by the book.  I've seen it done..........rarely.  Most people want to use the tool to tweak the game and make it match their vision, not because of some need for it to exist.


loverdrive said:


> In rules-first, rules _represent_ fictional concepts and events. Examples:
> 
> Lance theoretically can be used when unmounted, but it's supposed to be used by mounted warriors, who wield it in one hand. So, we come up with a rule: "a lance requires two hands to wield when you aren't mounted."
> Using two weapons should allow making more attacks than you can do with one weapon. So, we come up with a rule: "When you take the Attack action and Attack with a light melee weapon that you’re holding in one hand, you can use a Bonus Action to Attack with a different light melee weapon that you’re holding in the other hand".
> ...



I was with you until this point. In a game like D&D there are rules that make two lances a no no, so Rule 0 doesn't have to be used.  I've also seen DMs who, if there were no rules preventing the use of two lances, would allow it, so Rule 0 wouldn't need to be used even then.

Rule 0 is a tool for the DM, not just to change the rules like in the lance example above that some people would find ridiculous, but also just to improve upon something in the game.  Maybe the DM just wants to give the lance a bit of armor piercing, given the momentum of the horse added to the mix, so he "improves" on the game by making that tweak.


loverdrive said:


> If that isn't a patch, I don't know what is.



It's not a patch.  As I said, it's a tool.


----------



## loverdrive (Jan 18, 2021)

Maxperson said:


> In a game like D&D there are rules that make two lances a no no, so Rule 0 doesn't have to be used.



There isn't. And I brought that up specifically for that reason.

Lances in 5E have a special rule that imposes disadvantage against targets within 5ft. and that they are two-handed weapons when unmounted. That's it.

Take Dual Wielder and smack people with two lances. Be a kobold for additional ridiculousness.




Maxperson said:


> Maybe the DM just wants to give the lance a bit of armor piercing, given the momentum of the horse added to the mix, so he "improves" on the game by making that tweak.



That's still closing the gap between fiction and mechanics.




Maxperson said:


> It's not a patch. As I said, it's a tool.



Maybe I'm not making myself clear again. The existence of rule 0 itself is a patch, slapped on a game with a rigid ruleset in order to make it more flexible.

This "tool" exist solely because of earlier design decisions (well, not exactly, since it was before game design was an actual thing). It's a temporary fix to a problem that can be solved for good.


----------



## Maxperson (Jan 18, 2021)

loverdrive said:


> There isn't. And I brought that up specifically for that reason.
> 
> Lances in 5E have a special rule that imposes disadvantage against targets within 5ft. and that they are two-handed weapons when unmounted. That's it.
> 
> Take Dual Wielder and smack people with two lances. Be a kobold for additional ridiculousness.



Except for the rule that prevents it of course 

Two-Weapon Fighting(PHB pg.195)
"When you take the Attack action and attack with a *light* melee weapon that you're holding in one hand, you can use a bonus action to attack with a different* light* melee weapon that you're holding in the other hand."

Lances are not light melee weapons, so you can't use two of them.


loverdrive said:


> Maybe I'm not making myself clear again. The existence of rule 0 itself is a patch, slapped on a game with a rigid ruleset in order to make it more flexible.
> 
> This "tool" exist solely because of earlier design decisions (well, not exactly, since it was before game design was an actual thing). It's a temporary fix to a problem that can be solved for good.



I understand you.  I just don't agree with you.  It just wasn't put in as a patch, but rather as a tool.  And no, it's not there just fixing problems.  It's a tool used just as often, perhaps even more often, just to tweak or add to the game to make it the DM's own.


----------



## loverdrive (Jan 18, 2021)

Maxperson said:


> Two-Weapon Fighting(PHB pg.195)
> "When you take the Attack action and attack with a *light* melee weapon that you're holding in one hand, you can use a bonus action to attack with a different* light* melee weapon that you're holding in the other hand."
> 
> Lances are not light melee weapons, so you can't use two of them.



And that's why you need Dual Wielder feat that allows using two non-light weapons.




Maxperson said:


> And no, it's not there just fixing problems. It's a tool used just as often, perhaps even more often, just to tweak or add to the game to make it the DM's own.



And the fact that you need to change rules to make game your own sounds like a problem to me.

You can restrict spellcasting with rule zero, but you don't need rule zero if "how does the magic works and what one needs to use it?" is a question that needs to be answered.


----------



## increment (Jan 18, 2021)

pemerton said:


> As @loverdrive has posted not far upthread, the useful function of "rule zero" is to acknowledge the limitations of a certain sort of game design, that has its origins in wargames and so (i) is oriented towards a limited range of fictional concerns (eg terrain matters; the colour of shoelaces typically doesn't) and (ii) has a tendency to work by way of "subsystems" - for movement, for fire, for morale, for casualty clearing stations, etc.



This. "Rule Zero" wasn't a patch slapped on to a rigid boardgamesque ruleset, it was a holdover from an era of miniature wargame design when people self-consciously published a loose framework or set of guidelines with the intention that players (and referees) around the table would flesh them out. Those "rules" were supposed to be incomplete, and that wasn't a bug, it was a cultural practice bestowing control over the system to the people sitting around the table. 1974 D&D literally identified itself on its box cover as a game in that tradition. RPGs that followed D&D inherited that attitude toward design of prior wargame designers. That was the entire point of the original article linked here, and the book it excerpts goes into how this process happened in the 1970s in far more scathing detail.


----------



## Maxperson (Jan 18, 2021)

loverdrive said:


> And that's why you need Dual Wielder feat that allows using two non-light weapons.



So you're engaging an optional rule to create a "problem"(in quotes because not everyone sees it as a problem) that needs to be fixed?  What if you're in a game where people just think it's really cool to use two lances?


loverdrive said:


> And the fact that you need to change rules to make game your own sounds like a problem to me.



Sure, but that's an opinion, not a fact.  It may be a problem to you, but it's a welcome feature to me.  I've played exactly 0 RPGs in my lifetime where I liked 100% of the rules and didn't want to change something about it.  Not because of "problems," but rather just to improve it a bit and make it my own.


----------



## TheSword (Jan 18, 2021)

loverdrive said:


> There isn't. And I brought that up specifically for that reason.
> 
> Lances in 5E have a special rule that imposes disadvantage against targets within 5ft. and that they are two-handed weapons when unmounted. That's it.
> 
> ...



I’m sorry but I disagree. You’re assuming that there is a right way or wrong way to use the 5e system. The reason it exists is because I want to play x rule different to you. Saying that it is a patch implies that rule isn’t fit for purpose when in fact it’s just a different preference. There will be plenty of people who disagree with my adjustments.

It’s an ideology of how the designers built the game from a selection of choices that would appeal to different people.

Me deciding that monks don’t exist in my campaign isn’t a patch. Neither is me allowing Con score instead of Con bonus Hp at 1st level, or saying the rope trick spell isn’t an option in my games.


----------



## loverdrive (Jan 18, 2021)

increment said:


> This. "Rule Zero" wasn't a patch slapped on to a rigid boardgamesque ruleset, it was a holdover from an era of miniature wargame design when people self-consciously published a loose framework or set of guidelines with the intention that players (and referees) around the table would flesh them out. Those "rules" were supposed to be incomplete, and that wasn't a bug, it was a cultural practice bestowing control over the system to the people sitting around the table. 1974 D&D literally identified itself on its box cover as a game in that tradition. RPGs that followed D&D inherited that attitude toward design of prior wargame designers. That was the entire point of the original article linked here, and the book it excerpts goes into how this process happened in the 1970s in far more scathing detail.



And these rules were incomplete in a weird way that requires patches to complete them.

"When you attack someone, and you're willing and able to hurt them, roll..." accomplishes pretty much the same thing as "When you swing your weapon at whatever, roll..." combined with "if rules don't make sense, change them", but much more elegantly.


----------



## MGibster (Jan 18, 2021)

Aldarc said:


> But the idea that Rule Zero is somehow necessary to run any TTRPG seems absolutely ridiculous given the sheer number of TTRPGs of various complexity, genre, or system that do not fall back on this notion and work swimmingly well.



For the most part, when I run games I run them as written.   After all, if I need to radically change the rules to enjoy the game why would I even be playing?  But I'm hard pressed to think of any rule system I've used for any length of time without invoking Rule 0 at some point.  I suppose it's not necessary for every game (it's not like I use it every session) but at some point I know I'll be using it in the future.


----------



## loverdrive (Jan 18, 2021)

Maxperson said:


> What if you're in a game where people just think it's really cool to use two lances?



Then, in a fiction-first game, people using ridiculous combat styles would be established as something normal and using two lances is going to be reasonably effective within the context of people swinging Guts' swords.




Maxperson said:


> Sure, but that's an opinion, not a fact. It may be a problem to you, but it's a welcome feature to me.



I don't get how needing to do work is a welcome feature over... Not having to do any work.


----------



## Maxperson (Jan 18, 2021)

loverdrive said:


> And these rules were incomplete in a weird way that requires patches to complete them.



If you're talking about 5e, you're incorrect in the depiction of it as being "in a weird way."  They are incomplete, because they wanted DMs to make the game their own and meet their vision.  It's a rulings OVER rules edition, not a rules edition.  

No patches are required to complete the rules, because a patch implies that there is something broken and in need of fixing.  The rules are vague and incomplete to help make the game fit each table better.  Rather than clobber every table with the same rigid and complete rules, which don't work for everyone, they made them more fluid and porous so that they match more tables.


----------



## Maxperson (Jan 18, 2021)

loverdrive said:


> Then, in a fiction-first game, people using ridiculous combat styles would be established as something normal and using two lances is going to be reasonably effective within the context of people swinging Guts' swords.
> 
> 
> 
> I don't get how needing to do work is a welcome feature over... Not having to do any work.



Why do you think that it's "work?"  I'm betting that it's about as easy for me to make a quick ruling, as it is for you to use a rule from a fiction-first game to accomplish the same end state.  I do very little when I use Rule 0 to change something, though that might be because I've been playing for decades, so I've seen a lot and learned a lot.


----------



## Minigiant (Jan 18, 2021)

Rule Zero was always just a "fill in the Blanks" and a "Tweak to the Genre" rule.

It was never meant to be used willy billy and was mostly to make the infancy of RPGs work.

As RPG design developed, the blanks were mostly filled and the games tweaked to match genre. So Rule  Zero is still needed but it shouldn't be used often without consent of all at the table.


----------



## loverdrive (Jan 18, 2021)

Maxperson said:


> Why do you think that it's "work?"  I'm betting that it's about as easy for me to make a quick ruling, as it is for you to use a rule from a fiction-first game to accomplish the same end state.  I do very little when I use Rule 0 to change something, though that might be because I've been playing for decades, so I've seen a lot and learned a lot.



"So, you wanna pull the rug from under  the bad guys? Ok, give me a Strength check, on a success they gonna fall prone" is easy, but "You pull the rug from under the bad guys, but one of them trips the table and a lamp is about to fall to the ground! The whole room will catch fire fast if it shatters! What ya gonna do?" is easier.

Or "injected with Tiberium, he mutates horibly, his skin gets thicker and he grows a pair of additional arms, so I guess he now has more HP and does two additional attacks" is easy too, but "injected with Tiberium, he mutates horibly, his skin gets thicker and he grows a pair of additional arms" is easier.



Maxperson said:


> If you're talking about 5e, you're incorrect in the depiction of it as being "in a weird way."  They are incomplete, because they wanted DMs to make the game their own and meet their vision.  It's a rulings OVER rules edition, not a rules edition.
> 
> No patches are required to complete the rules, because a patch implies that there is something broken and in need of fixing.  The rules are vague and incomplete to help make the game fit each table better.  Rather than clobber every table with the same rigid and complete rules, which don't work for everyone, they made them more fluid and porous so that they match more tables.



The rules can be vague in an effective way, or they may be vague like "I'm done here, figure it out".

Something like "wizard needs two free hands to cast spells, _but you can change that if you wan_t" allows for making the game your own, but directing the question "how does the magic work?" at the reader _calls_ for it. And doesn't require redoing something from their part, just filling the blanks.

Also, vague rules can have a framework on how to fill in blanks, with effective lenses through which that should be done, or they can leave you stranded.


----------



## overgeeked (Jan 18, 2021)

TheSword said:


> Elegant is not the same as simple.



But they are synonyms. To me, simple is elegant. Especially when it comes to RPG game rules. 


TheSword said:


> I’d argue that the Success Level system in WFRP is quite elegant actually particularly for combat. Two opposed rolls that model hitting, location and damage, defender skill, a wide variety of methods of defense, critical hits and fumbles, and that removes the whiff factor of earlier editions is very elegant.



Yes, and it’s just about the only elegant thing about 4E. The rest is monstrously bloated and inelegant.


----------



## overgeeked (Jan 18, 2021)

TheSword said:


> But there’s obviously something there that makes people choose d&d, I don’t believe that is Brand name... or Critical Role.



Considering the increasing number of people who insist on using D&D when a smaller game would more suit the style of play those same groups are after, it does appear that this edition’s popularity is a large part brand loyalty and a large part Critical Role. Not a complaint at all. More people playing games is good.


----------



## Maxperson (Jan 18, 2021)

loverdrive said:


> "So, you wanna pull the rug from under  the bad guys? Ok, give me a Strength check, on a success they gonna fall prone" is easy, but "You pull the rug from under the bad guys, but one of them trips the table and a lamp is about to fall to the ground! The whole room will catch fire fast if it shatters! What ya gonna do?" is easier.
> 
> Or "injected with Tiberium, he mutates horibly, his skin gets thicker and he grows a pair of additional arms, so I guess he now has more HP and does two additional attacks" is easy too, but "injected with Tiberium, he mutates horibly, his skin gets thicker and he grows a pair of additional arms" is easier.



Not easier by enough to matter.  And in D&D, the rules allow for pulling the rug out with no roll as well.  It's in the rules even.  In more than one place.


loverdrive said:


> The rules can be vague in an effective way, or they may be vague like "I'm done here, figure it out".
> 
> Something like "wizard needs two free hands to cast spells, _but you can change that if you wan_t" allows for making the game your own, but directing the question "how does the magic work?" at the reader _calls_ for it. And doesn't require redoing something from their part, just filling the blanks.
> 
> Also, vague rules can have a framework on how to fill in blanks, with effective lenses through which that should be done, or they can leave you stranded.



The DMG gives advice for how to fill in the blanks, some of the various styles of play, and different options for the DM to see and weigh.  5e does not leave the DM stranded.  It might not be the best advice in the world, but it's pretty solid as a base and the DM can grow and decide how to change things further using that base.


----------



## TheSword (Jan 18, 2021)

overgeeked said:


> Considering the increasing number of people who insist on using D&D when a smaller game would more suit the style of play those same groups are after, it does appear that this edition’s popularity is a large part brand loyalty and a large part Critical Role. Not a complaint at all. More people playing games is good.



How do you explain Pathfinders success as the most popular RPG in the world with an unknown brand and no critical role? (Or rather CR was no where near the current popularity in the early 2010’s) I don’t believe it can be attributed purely to 3e players carrying over when that market was split three ways between 4e, 3e and pathfinder. The grew their brand proposition massively beyond this. The world famous d&d branded counted for very little when fundamentally the game rules were better.


----------



## Aldarc (Jan 18, 2021)

TheSword said:


> How do you explain Pathfinders success as the most popular RPG in the world with an unknown brand and no critical role? (Or rather CR was no where near the current popularity in the early 2010’s) I don’t believe it can be attributed purely to 3e players carrying over when that market was split three ways between 4e, 3e and pathfinder. The grew their brand proposition massively beyond this. The world famous d&d branded counted for very little when fundamentally the game rules were better.



You would have a much better argument with V:tM than a D&D OGL Clone published by D&D magazine publishers.


----------



## overgeeked (Jan 18, 2021)

TheSword said:


> How do you explain Pathfinders success as the most popular RPG in the world with an unknown brand and no critical role?



Simple. Pathfinder isn’t the most popular RPG in the world. D&D is the most popular RPG in the world...because it’s got deep brand loyalty, mass media and general culture saturation, and Critical Role. 



TheSword said:


> (Or rather CR was no where near the current popularity in the early 2010’s) I don’t believe it can be attributed purely to 3e players carrying over when that market was split three ways between 4e, 3e and pathfinder. The grew their brand proposition massively beyond this. The world famous d&d branded counted for very little when fundamentally the game rules were better.



It’s a matter of taste that the rules are better.

Their success is great. But don’t pretend it didn’t come from piggy-backing D&D, using the OGL, and Paizo being a D&D publisher for years before doing their own thing, Pathfinder. And yeah, disgruntled 3E players “staying onboard” with Pathfinder when 4E launched is exactly why Pathfinder and Paizo are as big as they are.


----------



## MGibster (Jan 18, 2021)

TheSword said:


> How do you explain Pathfinders success as the most popular RPG in the world with an unknown brand and no critical role? (Or rather CR was no where near the current popularity in the early 2010’s) I don’t believe it can be attributed purely to 3e players carrying over when that market was split three ways between 4e, 3e and pathfinder.



I think we can attribute Pathfinder's success to two things:  They made great products starting with Rise of the Runelords and continued making quality game material.  The new Pathfinder RPG was perfectly poised to take advantage of the lackluster reception of D&D 4E with fans who decided they'd rather stick with something that resembled D&D 3.5.  But it's not like Pathfinder was a completely new product.  It's basically just D&D with some tweaks.


----------



## TheSword (Jan 18, 2021)

overgeeked said:


> Simple. Pathfinder isn’t the most popular RPG in the world. D&D is the most popular RPG in the world...because it’s got deep brand loyalty, mass media and general culture saturation, and Critical Role.
> 
> 
> It’s a matter of taste that the rules are better.
> ...



I spoke past tense. It was the most popular, for several years.

D&D brand wasn’t enough for 4e to out-compete Pathfinder. The 5e product did that, and lo it became the most played version of the game again.

The very fact that they were similar games proves that the Brand is irrelevant. If it was the brand of D&D would have out sold Pathfinder, which it didnt for several years. Believe me there was much celebration in the Pathfinder community when it overtook, almost to communities validation.

I agree with @MGibster. It was quality rules and products that supported them sold consistently that made them successful. Not that 3e was good therefore pathfinder was good.


----------



## Thomas Shey (Jan 18, 2021)

TheSword said:


> 4e wasn’t a niche game but Marvel Heroic RP / Cortex / Forged in the Dark certainly are if they represent less than half of one percent of games played on Roll20. I’m not saying they aren’t good or fun, or that this isn’t a lot of games - there are a lot of people on Roll20.




There's a couple of things to say here.

1. One can make an argument that absolutely everything but D&D is niche if one wants to.  D&D has had a gravitational advantage even from the start that is virtually impossible for any other game to overcome no matter how good it is, in that its already well distributed and the vast majority of people know about it.  This is self-reinforcing in that no matter how many people like another given game, they're going to have more heavy lifting to find players/GMs because there are already a lot of people who play D&D and can't be bothered to learn another game.  This changes a bit if someone learned something else first, but again, since few people self-teach most games, they're probably going to have learned from someone, and because of the social network already in place its probably going to, again, be D&D.

This does not say that there are not things about D&D that attract people or that its of bad quality; it does, however, say its entirely possible for it to be a mediocre experience for someone and still get played for the same reason a rather large number of people use Windows.

2. I realize one only has what data one can find, but there's a dynamic that makes Roll20 less commonly select for some systems than others one shouldn't ignore; and that issue is how relevant any sort of battle board is to play of the game.  Obviously Roll20 offers some other things, but I'd suggest people who are not concerned with being able to move pieces around a board are notably less likely to bother with Roll20 because other platforms--often free ones--provide much of what they need without the need to pay for it or be as dependent on their servers.   I can't speak for Forged in the Dark,, but none of the Cortex games I'm familiar with would be in the least difficult to play with just Discord if you're not super fussy about being able to supervise dice rolls.  As such you're not going to get the same ratio of Roll20 games vis a vis D&D and its immediate kin and Cortex games as is likely in actual use, because I higher proportion of online Cortex game just aren't going to bother with Roll20.



TheSword said:


> But there’s obviously something there that makes people choose d&d, I don’t believe that is Brand name... or Critical Role.




I think you're seriously underestimating the benefit of the social network.  For someone new especially, just being able to find a game is often the most important criterion, and guess what game that's most likely to be true about?


----------



## MGibster (Jan 18, 2021)

TheSword said:


> The very fact that they were similar games proves that the Brand is irrelevant. If it was the brand of D&D would have out sold Pathfinder, which it didnt for several years. Believe me there was much celebration in the Pathfinder community when it overtook, almost to communities validation.



I won't go so far as to say that it proves brand is irrelevant.  But it does support my belief that brand isn't enough to make a bad product successful.  Even huge brands like Coca-Cola screw the pooch and give us unpopular products like New Coke. 4th edition D&D was a radical departure from what people expected D&D to be. During the AMC years, Harley Davidson was producing some truly crummy motorcycles.



TheSword said:


> I agree with @MGibster. It was quality rules and products that supported them sold consistently that made them successful. Not that 3e was good therefore pathfinder was good.




Without the success of D&D 3/3.5 there would be no Pathfinder.  But you're right that Pathfinder wasn't good simply because 3E was good.  We all remember the dark days of d20 glut that saw crummy product after crummy product produced using the SRD.


----------



## Thomas Shey (Jan 18, 2021)

Minigiant said:


> Rule Zero was always just a "fill in the Blanks" and a "Tweak to the Genre" rule.
> 
> It was never meant to be used willy billy and was mostly to make the infancy of RPGs work.
> 
> As RPG design developed, the blanks were mostly filled and the games tweaked to match genre. So Rule  Zero is still needed but it shouldn't be used often without consent of all at the table.




Well, at the very start of D&D, at least the "fill in the blanks" really _was_ expected to be used willy-nilly because OD&D as a rule set was downright skeletal.  Any mechanics being combat a couple other limited areas beyond the completely ad-hoc were going to have to be made up as you go along, or pre-constructed houserules, because there just wasn't much to work with.


----------



## TheSword (Jan 18, 2021)

Thomas Shey said:


> There's a couple of things to say here.
> 
> 1. One can make an argument that absolutely everything but D&D is niche if one wants to.  D&D has had a gravitational advantage even from the start that is virtually impossible for any other game to overcome no matter how good it is, in that its already well distributed and the vast majority of people know about it.  This is self-reinforcing in that no matter how many people like another given game, they're going to have more heavy lifting to find players/GMs because there are already a lot of people who play D&D and can't be bothered to learn another game.  This changes a bit if someone learned something else first, but again, since few people self-teach most games, they're probably going to have learned from someone, and because of the social network already in place its probably going to, again, be D&D.
> 
> ...



I don’t disagree with a lot of this. That may be the case now, but it wasn’t 8 years ago. There is a reason D&D has risen to such prominence the brand isn’t it. Because the D&D brand has been around throughout.


----------



## Thomas Shey (Jan 18, 2021)

overgeeked said:


> But they are synonyms. To me, simple is elegant. Especially when it comes to RPG game rules.




I'd say that's an idiosyncratic usage.  Simplicity and elegance are, by common usage, orthogonal descriptions, even within the hobby


----------



## Jaeger (Jan 18, 2021)

Aldarc said:


> Remarkably *Rule Zero is even absent in a number of OSR products.* I cannot find any mention or discussion of anything remotely approaching a Rule Zero in _Beyond the Wall & Other Adventures_. Likewise _Stars Without Number_, for example, doesn't mention or discuss Rule Zero, though it does note the obvious point that GMs can obviously change the rules at their table, which comes across more as an admission that he can't control what you do at your table, but Crawford actually encourages first playing by the rules as written. Then he proposes a list of some possible house rules. I cannot find mention of Rule Zero in Mork Borg nor can I find it in Index Card RPG. It's also completely absent in Forbidden Lands.




Yes, because in general people buying OSR games don't need to have rule zero spelled out for them in print.

Because this:



TheSword said:


> Monopoly has a rule zero. *It’s implied in the culture of the game. *It just hasn’t been spelled out in the rulebook.




The only reason any kind of "Rule Zero" is spelled out in D&D is because it is the gateway drug into the hobby. And new people may have little to no cultural assumptions about the RPG hobby.





loverdrive said:


> n 5E, difference between a Battleaxe and a Longsword is nonexistent, they both are Versatile weapons that deal the same damage of the same type. *In Dungeon World, there's a significant difference*, because Longsword and Battleaxe are inherently different weapons -- you can't halfsword and axe and you can't pull down ork's shield with a sword.




I disagree.

In dungeon world a Battleaxe and a Longsword do damage according to your classes base damage. There are no meaningful mechanical differences. (If you are a fighter you can select enhancements to your signature weapon, but another fighter can easily choose the same enhancements for his as well.  My "Axe", my "Sword" - It's all just flavor.

"Half-swording" and "pulling down a shield" are just attack descriptions. Not specific rules options.

The PC describes what they are doing , the GM makes a ruling on it and says "Ok, roll _x_" - Done.

Someone with an Axe could easily say "I shorten my grip to use my axe in close so I can ram the tip of my axe-head through the chink in his armor." Someone with a Longsword can easily say "I swing with all my might to knock the ork's shield aside so that the Elf can shoot them." Same effect, different descriptions. All subject to the GM's rulings.

AW games are all about the GM making constant rulings /judgement calls because of their relatively rules light structure. They just provide good framework and guidelines for GM's to use when making those rulings.

In fact chapter 19 in Dungeon World is all about how a GM can change the game to suit their fancy. You can easily interpret pgs. 343-357, As one big "Rule Zero" exposition.




TheSword said:


> But there’s obviously something there that makes people choose d&d, I don’t believe that is Brand name... or Critical Role.




It's the #1 RPG. Ease of finding a game rules the day.



overgeeked said:


> Considering the increasing number of people who insist on using D&D when a smaller game would more suit the style of play those same groups are after, it does appear that this edition’s popularity is *a large part brand loyalty* and a large part Critical Role. Not a complaint at all. More people playing games is good.




Yes. This.

D&D got this brand loyalty by being _First._

And by its rules being _Good Enough._

Especially with the common B/X sets that made D&D early on they were easy to pick up and play for newbs because they hit certain RPG design points that worked really well together:

1: Easy PC creation.
2: Graspable Rules complexity.
3: Easily grasped Default play mode.
4: Easily understood setting.
5: Straight-forward reward mechanism.

But being _First _and _Good Enough_ are very big trumps. Once you have established market dominance it can be very hard for any competitors to mount a real challenge without "help" from the market leader in the form of mistakes.

As we can see in places Like Japan with Sword World, and Germany with The Dark Eye...

If someone hit all/most of those design points in their respective native languages _First_; they were able to shut D&D out of the top spot of fantasy RPG's in their respective countries.

Where 4e failed against Pathfinder 1e  was that a lot of D&D players felt that the 4e rulesets was no longer _Good Enough_ for the way that they wanted to play and experience D&D. 

In hindsight lots of things about 4e were WOTC Own goals of epic proportions.

.


----------



## Thomas Shey (Jan 18, 2021)

MGibster said:


> I think we can attribute Pathfinder's success to two things:  They made great products starting with Rise of the Runelords and continued making quality game material.  The new Pathfinder RPG was perfectly poised to take advantage of the lackluster reception of D&D 4E with fans who decided they'd rather stick with something that resembled D&D 3.5.  But it's not like Pathfinder was a completely new product.  It's basically just D&D with some tweaks.




Pathfinder 1e in particular was a directly derived offshoot of D&D 3.5 and easily recognized as that by anyone who had played the latter.  I'm hard pressed to think of two game systems by different publishers who are as obviously related.


----------



## Thomas Shey (Jan 18, 2021)

TheSword said:


> I don’t disagree with a lot of this. That may be the case now, but it wasn’t 8 years ago. There is a reason D&D has risen to such prominence the brand isn’t it. Because the D&D brand has been around throughout.




I think you're seriously underestimating how big D&D was even at its _weakest_ (probably in the 4e period). All that happened during that period was that a lot of people stuck to 3e or 3.5 period D&D, or played some other immediately recognizable offshoot, because the D&D network was still well established. No one was really challeging it other than perhaps PF, and as noted, PF was riding the success of 3e era D&D. But it was still about the established extent D&D network.


----------



## Thomas Shey (Jan 18, 2021)

Jaeger said:


> Yes. This.
> 
> D&D got this brand loyalty by being _First._
> 
> ...




I tend to agree with most of this.  

To be honest, on any real engagement with the rules, OD&D proper was kind of a crap game.  What it was, was dirt simple for the most part, and it was first out the door.  It expanded wildly early on for the other reasons you say, and by the time anyone else was even in motion, they were working against a serious uphill fight, both in expectation and network externalities.


----------



## Lanefan (Jan 18, 2021)

loverdrive said:


> Maybe I didn't make myself clear.
> 
> Rule 0 is only _needed_ in rules-first games, because only in rules-first games there may be a situation where the results of rules at work don't make sense -- because rules exist separately from the fiction.
> 
> ...



Thing is, how is "a way that makes sense" codified or sorted out in play such that everyone - both at the table and in the fiction - is operating on the same footing? (see answer below)

Also, how is it codified such that a situation can't be taken undue advantage of, by players who look for such? (see answer below)


loverdrive said:


> So a situation like "ok, so there's nothing in the rules that forbids me from dual-wielding lances if I take a Dual Wielder feat and ride a horse" just can't happen -- because riding a horse with two lances doesn't get translated into "I'm using Mounted combat rules and dual-wielding two D12 Piercing weapons with Reach" -- the character on-screen is wielding two lances, which on-screen would lead to a spectacular failure, unless the character in question is an enhanced super-soldier or something.



Again, how is that spectacular failure codified? (see answer below)


loverdrive said:


> In a rules-first game you need to invoke rule 0 in order to forbid ridiculous knight with two lances who can fight even more effective than a reasonable knight with one lance. In a fiction-first game you don't need to invoke rule 0, because dual-lanced knight is gonna get reasonably screwed already.



How? (see answer below)

*Answer:* if there's no rules or guidelines to sort out these questions, the default becomes either a) GM fiat or b) consensus agreement around the table; which in either case is a straight-up application of Rule 0.

You're not _specifically_ invoking Rule 0, that's true, but it's not because you don't need it; it's because Rule 0 is already foundationally baked into the system to the point where you might not even realize it's there.


----------



## Lanefan (Jan 18, 2021)

loverdrive said:


> Nope, that's just an easy way for designers to say "ok, do whatever you want, I'm done here". What actually makes game flexible is a solid, understandable framework and loose tolerances.



I agree about the framework.

From there, however, Rule 0 takes over; allowing (and in some cases outright encouraging) the GM to build on to that framework rules and systems that make the game work for her.


loverdrive said:


> Dungeon World that doesn't have rule 0, but has comprehensive GM Agenda and GM Principles is more flexible than, say, D&D 5E.



5e isn't as flexible as it could be.  Oddly enough, a nice side effect of 1e's different-system-for-different things approach is that it becomes more flexible: you can change things to suit a different style of play without doing too much damage to other parts of the system.

The idea of GM Principles (and perhaps, Player Principles) seems as worded to want to shift rules codification away from the rulebooks and into the social realm; it assumes by default a GM and a group of players willing and ready to adhere to such principles.  Well, in real life that just doesn't work that well that often. 


loverdrive said:


> You want to play a high-magic fantasy with floating ships and enormous cities, lit up by arcane lamps and with glorious Academy of Natural Philosophy, where illusionists give mind-blowing shows every now and then? It works. You want to play a low-magic game, where magic is a power beyond mere human comprehension and each wizard risks tearing the Veil between the world of the living and the world of the dead with each cast spell? It works too. You make the same Moves with accordance to the same Principles, but within different fictional contexts -- in a world of ubiquouts and well-understood magic, consequence for failing to cast a spell properly probably would be something along the lines of "While you were citing magical formulas, an ork archer shot his bow at you. What ya gonna do?", but not "You feel air around you go cold, the arcane vibrations of your spell attracted something that doesn't belong to this world. In a split-second, a horrendous canine creature, dreaded Hound of Tindalos, forms from the nearest corner and latches on your leg. What ya gonna do?".
> 
> Or, maybe you want to play a superhero game, where people are thrown through brick walls, get smacked by sledgehammers and then get up and fight, maybe bruised slightly? It works -- you just don't use long-term injuries as consequences. But in a gritty game, where ribs break, lungs get punctured, internal bleedings makes people pass out -- you do, and the system works too.
> 
> You don't make any alterations to the rules, but you make alterations to the fiction.



That all sounds rather GURPS-like, as that was the vibe they were going for.


loverdrive said:


> In a more rigidly-structured game, like, again D&D 5E (or 3.5, or AD&D 2E, or even White Box), you'd either need to brew some new rules at home, or to apply ad-hoc patches with rule zero, because there's no flexibility and no framework that goes beyond "just figure it out".



"Just figure it out" is the most flexible structure you can possibly have.

What it means - and there's those who don't like this but it's fine with me - is that the end result of said figurings out is going to be different at almost every table because it's been figured out in a way that works for that specific group.  And while this ethos flies against the tenets of organized play e.g. AL (or, in the past, RPGA) so what?  I'm not figuring things out for that, I'm doing it for my own table either by kitbashing the system ahead of time or making a ruling on the fly in play.


----------



## Minigiant (Jan 18, 2021)

Thomas Shey said:


> Well, at the very start of D&D, at least the "fill in the blanks" really _was_ expected to be used willy-nilly because OD&D as a rule set was downright skeletal.  Any mechanics being combat a couple other limited areas beyond the completely ad-hoc were going to have to be made up as you go along, or pre-constructed houserules, because there just wasn't much to work with.




I don't really consider that willy nilly because the rules where created because you hit a point where there were no rules OR you hit a point where you KNEW the rule would likely not give an effect or outcome that matches the probability of the genre you were going for.

So technically it willy nilly since you got the rule "whether you liked it or not". However I was going for a personal preference and change rules because they could be changed "whether you liked it or not"

Rule Zero was designed as a hole filler. However many modern TTRPGs go out there way to fill most of the holes. What they filled the hole may not be great but they were filled before the group got the material.

So Rule Zero morphed from mostly being a hole-filler or floor-smoother rule to a more of a wall-painter rule. Rule Zero became a rule to change what exists drastically over removing a void.


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## Jaeger (Jan 18, 2021)

Thomas Shey said:


> To be honest, on any real engagement with the rules, OD&D proper was kind of a crap game. What i*t was, was dirt simple for the most part, and it was first out the door.* It expanded wildly early on for the other reasons you say, and by the time anyone else was even in motion, they were working against a serious uphill fight, both in expectation and network externalities.




Truth.

By today's design standards OD&D's _system_ was a bit pants. But as a _game_ it was lightning in a bottle.

By the time The Modvay B/X hit - no can defend...

While general play/design preferences have changed, B/X are quite playable games RAW..

And even though RQ landed in 78, it went in a direction that would not compete with D&D.


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## MGibster (Jan 18, 2021)

Thomas Shey said:


> To be honest, on any real engagement with the rules, OD&D proper was kind of a crap game. What it was, was dirt simple for the most part, and it was first out the door. It expanded wildly early on for the other reasons you say, and by the time anyone else was even in motion, they were working against a serious uphill fight, both in expectation and network externalities.



A crap game compared to what?  Was there anything like it in 1974?  I tend to put more stock in opinions from the same era of the work that was produced.  If OD&D was a terrible system, or thought of as a terrible system, it wouldn't have spread like wildfire.


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## R_Chance (Jan 19, 2021)

Thomas Shey said:


> I tend to agree with most of this.
> 
> To be honest, on any real engagement with the rules, OD&D proper was kind of a crap game.  What it was, was dirt simple for the most part, and it was first out the door.  It expanded wildly early on for the other reasons you say, and by the time anyone else was even in motion, they were working against a serious uphill fight, both in expectation and network externalities.



The original game did everything we (see below for who "we" were) needed it to do in 1974. That's not "a crap game". We had all been playing Chainmail (and other miniature rules) for years. We were familiar with the fact that each group modified / added to the rules as they saw fit. A framework was all that we needed. I played a dozen plus different miniature rule sets with as many groups over the years and they all had their own house rules. No two groups were identical in what they played. Some were closer than others of course.

I had been playing board wargames since I was about 8 (Avalon Hill for the win!), miniatures since I was 10, and started D&D when I was 15 (1974). We (me and my friends, most of whom were older than me) were thoroughly acculturated. We wouldn't have expected more and probably wouldn't have wanted (much) more. Sure, the English could have been better, the descriptions less... baroque, but it was what we expected, were used to, and wanted. Modern games with piles of multiple hardbacks and labyrinthine rules would have horrified us. 

Over the years rules expanded (SPI board games, miniature rules, AD&D, etc.) but it's just as well it didn't start out like that... I'm not sure anyone would have played it. The slow expansion of rules gave us time to get used to it


----------



## loverdrive (Jan 19, 2021)

Lanefan said:


> Thing is, how is "a way that makes sense" codified or sorted out in play such that everyone - both at the table and in the fiction - is operating on the same footing? (see answer below)



But they aren't supposed to be on the same footing in the fiction -- someone wielding a lance properly is going to have an edge over a dude struggling to operate two lances.



Lanefan said:


> Again, how is that spectacular failure codified? (see answer below)





Lanefan said:


> How? (see answer below)
> 
> *Answer:* if there's no rules or guidelines to sort out these questions, the default becomes either a) GM fiat or b) consensus agreement around the table; which in either case is a straight-up application of Rule 0.



There are rules and guidelines, and that's precisely why rule 0 is not necessary.

In the case of a dude with two lances _(mechanical stuff is in parenthesis and italicized)_:
*Ronald the Madman*: I mount my mighty steed and grab two lances, readying for battle. _(the players looks at the GM  to find out what happens)_
*GM*: That's very unwieldy and you ain't gonna use either of them with normal deadly precision. _(GM makes a soft move, in this case: Show a downside to their class, race, or equipment)._
*Ronald the Madman*: I'm going to charge into enemy lines anyway! _(the player ignores the soft move, which is a Golden Opportunity to make a move as hard as the GM wishes)_
*GM*: So, you charge and you crush a couple of orcs _(the GM may ask for a damage roll if they want to, but that's not important to the point)_, but because you were wielding two lances, you couldn't command your mount good enough to retreat in time. Orcs surround you and pull you from the saddle and deliver some nasty blows, take 14 damage. So, what ya gonna do? _(GM makes a soft move: Separate them, and a hard move: Deal damage to boot)._



Lanefan said:


> The idea of GM Principles (and perhaps, Player Principles) seems as worded to want to shift rules codification away from the rulebooks and into the social realm; it assumes by default a GM and a group of players willing and ready to adhere to such principles. Well, in real life that just doesn't work that well that often.



Well, no rule can enforce itself, obviously.


Jaeger said:


> In dungeon world a Battleaxe and a Longsword do damage according to your classes base damage. There are no meaningful mechanical differences. (If you are a fighter you can select enhancements to your signature weapon, but another fighter can easily choose the same enhancements for his as well. My "Axe", my "Sword" - It's all just flavor.



They deal the same damage, yes, but weapon doesn't boil down to damage. What the character needs to do in order to deal said damage? How the damage actually manifests within fiction?

Yes, the group can ignore the differences, if they don't care about medieval weaponry or don't know anything about it.


Jaeger said:


> AW games are all about the GM making constant rulings /judgement calls because of their relatively rules light structure. They just provide good framework and guidelines for GM's to use when making those rulings.



Good framework and guidelines is... exactly what I'm talking about.

"You gonna make a great deal of judgement calls, and here's how to make them good" is very different from "here are rigid rules that don't require judgement calls, but you can change everything you want, but we won't tell you how to make changes good", just as "here are rules on character creation" is different from "here are your pregens, but you can come up with another character if you want to, figure it out".

I'm not arguing that we should strip the rule 0 from existing rigidly-structured games or people shouldn't be allowed to change things (lol) or something, I'm arguing that good design removes the need for an implied asterixis "*you can change this if you want" after every rule.


----------



## Minigiant (Jan 19, 2021)

MGibster said:


> A crap game compared to what?  Was there anything like it in 1974?  I tend to put more stock in opinions from the same era of the work that was produced.  If OD&D was a terrible system, or thought of as a terrible system, it wouldn't have spread like wildfire.




OD&D is a bad game by the standard of modern game design. It's not a fair comparison as TTRPG design was in its infancy. It's not fair to rate OD&D based on games that game decades after it when game design developed.

But it is nearly impossible to defend it as being "purposely designed to create a specific style or genre of game" or "purpusely having mechanics to fill most of the slots of and archetypes of the style/genre it wants to make". It was full of holes and required a constant stream of tweaks to get the right feel.

And that's why it heavily used Rule Zero.


----------



## Thomas Shey (Jan 19, 2021)

Jaeger said:


> Truth.
> 
> By today's design standards OD&D's _system_ was a bit pants. But as a _game_ it was lightning in a bottle.




Yeah.  No wide-spread group had seen anything like it before, and it spread like lightning.  Best I can tell when I was introduced to it (in West Coast SF and wargaming fandom) about six months in, it was all over those groups.  It had expanded the way a lifeform does when it moves into an ecological niche with no competition.



Jaeger said:


> By the time The Modvay B/X hit - no can defend...
> 
> While general play/design preferences have changed, B/X are quite playable games RAW..
> 
> And even though RQ landed in 78, it went in a direction that would not compete with D&D.




Whether it theoretically could or not (in hindsight, I suspect not) the niche was already filled; T&T didn't really make a dent, nor did C&S.  There's some speculation Dragon Quest could have (I'm not convinced, but the argument isn't stupid) but, well, TSR took care that never became an issue.  And of course the SF and superhero games that sprouted early on were fishing in slightly different ponds in the first place and didn't have quite as simple and low-overhead play-cycle.


----------



## Thomas Shey (Jan 19, 2021)

MGibster said:


> A crap game compared to what?  Was there anything like it in 1974?  I tend to put more stock in opinions from the same era of the work that was produced.  If OD&D was a terrible system, or thought of as a terrible system, it wouldn't have spread like wildfire.




Yeah it would, because as the prior poster put it _it had no competition_.  It was conceptual wildfire, and its substandard mechanical structure couldn't hurt that.

A lot of really objectively poor products can get by and even flourish when they have no competition.  By the time there was any real competition, at least modestly better mechanically versions of the system were in play, and the general structure had set expectations so any problems there were only going to be pursued by a subset of users.

It'd be far from the only product to ever do well even though there were better versions of them when they moved into a market first and fast.  Its really hard to dislodge a product that fills a market unless its not just mediocre but really is missing components for the majority of its market, and that's not even accounting for the intrinsic benefit an RPG has in usage and networking over products that are used individually.  And for all its problems, later, but still early versions of the game like the B/X line and AD&D did at least supply a structure with less massive holes than OD&D had.  Though I doubt there's any way to prove it, I'd be willing to put money that by 1978 the people playing OD&D were a minuscule part of the RPG playing populace; the vast majority had moved to AD&D, B/X or one of its kin, or out of D&D entirely.

All OD&D had to be was good enough to expand like crazy for the first year or two to fill the niche, and then its successor games could take advantage of that while still only leaving a limited amount of room for the various other games emerging at that time.


----------



## Thomas Shey (Jan 19, 2021)

R_Chance said:


> The original game did everything we (see below for who "we" were) needed it to do in 1974. That's not "a crap game".




You, however, weren't the whole market.  It absolutely wasn't doing everything its whole market needed, as even the ones staying with D&D were bolting things onto it regularly.  If OD&D had stayed the schematic thing it was, that would have caused serious problems for its market over time...but it didn't.  Within two years there was the Basic line starting, and within three AD&D had landed.


----------



## Thomas Shey (Jan 19, 2021)

Minigiant said:


> OD&D is a bad game by the standard of modern game design. It's not a fair comparison as TTRPG design was in its infancy. It's not fair to rate OD&D based on games that game decades after it when game design developed.




I'm not.  I'm comparing it to other games that were contemporaries of related but similar types (referee administered wargames) or RPGs of very near vintage where, while you could argue they had D&D to learn from, but they certainly weren't decades along.  TSR itself produced games with better and more coherent design at the time; heck, _Chainmail_ was a better game.

What D&D had going for it was originality and hitting the zeitgeist.


----------



## MGibster (Jan 19, 2021)

Thomas Shey said:


> Yeah it would, because as the prior poster put it _it had no competition_. It was conceptual wildfire, and its substandard mechanical structure couldn't hurt that.



As you point out, D&D had no competition back in 1974 because it was the first of its kind.  And as it was the first, there was no standard by which it could be judged.  So if you want to say the rules were crap it begs the question, compared to what? I do not believe the general consensus of contemporaries believed the game to be crap, and, if it was the general consensus, I do not believe D&D would have become popular.


----------



## Thomas Shey (Jan 19, 2021)

MGibster said:


> As you point out, D&D had no competition back in 1974 because it was the first of its kind.  And as it was the first, there was no standard by which it could be judged.  So if you want to say the rules were crap it begs the question, compared to what? I do not believe the general consensus of contemporaries believed the game to be crap, and, if it was the general consensus, I do not believe D&D would have become popular.




Compared to even referee overseen wargames by the same company?


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## Minigiant (Jan 19, 2021)

Thomas Shey said:


> I'm not.  I'm comparing it to other games that were contemporaries of related but similar types (referee administered wargames) or RPGs of very near vintage where, while you could argue they had D&D to learn from, but they certainly weren't decades along.  TSR itself produced games with better and more coherent design at the time; heck, _Chainmail_ was a better game.
> 
> What D&D had going for it was originality and hitting the zeitgeist.



I didn't say you compared it to modern games. I'm just saying by modern standards, OD&D would unfairly be rated as bad as it _leaned_ *hard* on Rule Zero to get its cobbled together sets of rules to work.

Luckily it was first and modern game design didn't exist yet.


----------



## MGibster (Jan 19, 2021)

Thomas Shey said:


> Compared to even referee overseen wargames by the same company?



Do you have evidence that there was a general consensus among contemporaries that the rules for D&D were crap compared to the more traditional war games?  If you think they're crap, okay.  Personally, I'd rather pop boils on my body with a crab fork than run AD&D games again so it's not like I'm a big fan of those old systems.  But for the era they were produced, they weren't crap.


----------



## Thomas Shey (Jan 19, 2021)

MGibster said:


> Do you have evidence that there was a general consensus among contemporaries that the rules for D&D were crap compared to the more traditional war games?  If you think they're crap, okay.  Personally, I'd rather pop boils on my body with a crab fork than run AD&D games again so it's not like I'm a big fan of those old systems.  But for the era they were produced, they weren't crap.




The problem you'll run into with that is the people most capable of generating opinions of the rules were wargamers; and the wargamers split pretty heavily on how accepting they were of the RPG idea.  So its going to be hard to tease apart the people who disliked OD&D because the rules were crap and the ones who disliked it because they were hostile to the idea of RPGs that were also cutting into what they viewed as their turf.

On the other hand, I can't recall back in the day anyone _complimenting_ OD&D on its rules.  It was either a case of "good enough", doing their own reworks to various degrees, or, in extreme cases, writing whole new games.  It wasn't until the OSR days I saw anyone seem to think much of the rules, and that was amid the pile of various editions.

Now, as always, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, but if there was a big set of respecters of the OD&D rules, they hid it pretty well.  The best you'd say was that there were people who thought AD&D was bloated, but it seemed like most of those were in the B/X camp or its close kin.  So if there were many people who really thought OD&D was a good rules set, they hid it pretty well, and there were plenty who clearly thought to the contrary.


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## R_Chance (Jan 19, 2021)

Thomas Shey said:


> You, however, weren't the whole market.  It absolutely wasn't doing everything its whole market needed, as even the ones staying with D&D were bolting things onto it regularly.  If OD&D had stayed the schematic thing it was, that would have caused serious problems for its market over time...but it didn't.  Within two years there was the Basic line starting, and within three AD&D had landed.



Actually wargamer / miniature gamers were the whole market for the game in 1974. It eventually spread to others. TSR sold miniature rules to miniature gamers. As for bolting things on, we expected that. I think I mentioned that pretty much every group I played the same miniature rule sets with had different house rules, even in the same town. It was typical. So, no D&Ds sparse three booklets wasn't a big deal, it was larger than most miniature rules out at the time. The individual booklets were a bit shorter, but three of them, in a box! That was BIG. Looking at the shelves full of RPG books I have right now (and the boxes of stuff I have in the closet) that is funny 

OD&D had a three plus year run before Basic and AD&D came along. The original Basic D&D was a level 1-3 intro set based on D&D and Greyhawk (OD&D Supplement 1). That came out in 1977. AD&D rolled out over a three year period from 1977 to 1979. One hard back a year. That would drive people crazy now wouldn't it?  The Monster Manual came first (1977), the Players Handbook second (1978) and, finally, the DMG (1979). As a complete rule set, 1979. Until then we treated the Monster Manual like we did the D&D supplements that came out in 1975-6. The PHB made some changes, but really not too much. After the full AD&D rule set was published they revamped Basic D&D... in 1981 iirc. At that point you could see the differences clearly. 

Different world back then in terms of RPGs. It is absolutely huge now in comparison, and obviously much more diverse.


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## R_Chance (Jan 19, 2021)

Thomas Shey said:


> Compared to even referee overseen wargames by the same company?



Using referees in miniature wargames was pretty much an option. We did it when we could because it allowed for things like hidden movement on a battlefield and using campaign maps like wargame boards dragging out the miniatures when they met and having battles then. That added a real strategic element to the games.


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## Hussar (Jan 19, 2021)

TheSword said:


> /snip
> You wouldn’t expect the actor to go changing the script without getting it approved.
> 
> After all, we don’t want to go encouraging That Guy.



Umm, actually there are all sorts of the best quality actors out there who go about changing scripts, ad libbing, and outright ignoring scripts all the time.

Indiana Jones shooting sword guy in the market was 100% not in the script.


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## TheSword (Jan 19, 2021)

Hussar said:


> Umm, actually there are all sorts of the best quality actors out there who go about changing scripts, ad libbing, and outright ignoring scripts all the time.
> 
> Indiana Jones shooting sword guy in the market was 100% not in the script.



In this metaphor the script is the rules of the game, not what characters do.


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## Lanefan (Jan 19, 2021)

loverdrive said:


> But they aren't supposed to be on the same footing in the fiction -- someone wielding a lance properly is going to have an edge over a dude struggling to operate two lances.



I meant on the same footing at the table: that everyone there is operating on the same basis as to how this two-lance business is likely to go.


loverdrive said:


> There are rules and guidelines, and that's precisely why rule 0 is not necessary.
> 
> In the case of a dude with two lances _(mechanical stuff is in parenthesis and italicized)_:
> *Ronald the Madman*: I mount my mighty steed and grab two lances, readying for battle. _(the players looks at the GM  to find out what happens)_
> ...



And this is more or less the same result you could easily get using D&D rules, though it'd be much more granularly played out with initiatives, attack rolls for each lance against each Orc*, probably some sort of roll to see what effect the horse's charge had; all along with return attack rolls by the Orcs against both horse and rider.

As a side note: I much prefer this greater level of granularity over the level in the example you provided.

* - and I for one would give that two-lance guy a stupendous chance of fumbling at every opportunity - that's just comedy waiting to happen! 


loverdrive said:


> Good framework and *guidelines* is... exactly what I'm talking about.
> 
> "You gonna make a great deal of judgement calls, and here's how to make them good" is very different from "here are rigid rules that don't require judgement calls, but you can change everything you want, but we won't tell you how to make changes good", just as "here are rules on character creation" is different from "here are your pregens, but you can come up with another character if you want to, figure it out".
> 
> I'm not arguing that we should strip the rule 0 from existing rigidly-structured games or people shouldn't be allowed to change things (lol) or something, I'm arguing that good design removes the need for an implied asterixis "*you can change this if you want" after every rule.



You quite correctly used the word 'guidelines' two or three times in your post; and it's that they're guidelines rather than rules which in part makes Rule 0 necessary: it's Rule 0 that turns guidelines in the books to rulings (and thus rules) at each individual table.


----------



## aramis erak (Jan 19, 2021)

MGibster said:


> I think Rule 0 is about making decisions when the rules either don't exist, are otherwise inadequate for the situation at hand, or just interfere with the fun.



Seeing Gygax's own advice in dragon magazine, Gygax advocated for a somewhat toxic "punish your players for knowing the rules" approach. I often wonder how much of that was wanting the company to fail?


----------



## Maxperson (Jan 19, 2021)

Thomas Shey said:


> The problem you'll run into with that is the people most capable of generating opinions of the rules were wargamers; and the wargamers split pretty heavily on how accepting they were of the RPG idea.  So its going to be hard to tease apart the people who disliked OD&D because the rules were crap and the ones who disliked it because they were hostile to the idea of RPGs that were also cutting into what they viewed as their turf.
> 
> On the other hand, I can't recall back in the day anyone _complimenting_ OD&D on its rules.  It was either a case of "good enough", doing their own reworks to various degrees, or, in extreme cases, writing whole new games.  It wasn't until the OSR days I saw anyone seem to think much of the rules, and that was amid the pile of various editions.
> 
> Now, as always, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, but if there was a big set of respecters of the OD&D rules, they hid it pretty well.  The best you'd say was that there were people who thought AD&D was bloated, but it seemed like most of those were in the B/X camp or its close kin.  So if there were many people who really thought OD&D was a good rules set, they hid it pretty well, and there were plenty who clearly thought to the contrary.



That was a lot of words just to say, "no."


----------



## Maxperson (Jan 19, 2021)

Lanefan said:


> * - and I for one would give that two-lance guy a stupendous chance of fumbling at every opportunity - that's just comedy waiting to happen!



Sir Ganador, inventor of the pole vault.  As a side note, not only did he invent the pole vault, but he simultaneously came up with a new way to get inside castle walls during a siege.


----------



## Thomas Shey (Jan 19, 2021)

R_Chance said:


> Actually wargamer / miniature gamers were the whole market for the game in 1974.




Not by the fall.  I could point to massive chunks of active SF fandom who were playing it who'd never touched a wargame, let alone a miniatures game in their life playing it by then.  It was a very well developed subset of fandom.  There was some overlap of course, but I'll go as far as to say in some areas wargame players were the _minority_ of D&D players even by then.

At the time the three original books dropped, and I'd guess for the first six months you were probably right, but the heavy spread of the game was not through wargamers, even if they were the first ones to see it.



R_Chance said:


> It eventually spread to others. TSR sold miniature rules to miniature gamers. As for bolting things on, we expected that. I think I mentioned that pretty much every group I played the same miniature rule sets with had different house rules, even in the same town. It was typical. So, no D&Ds sparse three booklets wasn't a big deal, it was larger than most miniature rules out at the time. The individual booklets were a bit shorter, but three of them, in a box! That was BIG. Looking at the shelves full of RPG books I have right now (and the boxes of stuff I have in the closet) that is funny




I think there's issues of scale, however; when you have people doing whole extra subsystems and character classes, I'd be willing to bet that's beyond the degree of houseruling most wargamers were doing (though I can only speak of the hex-and-chit end of it, not the miniatures end of it).



R_Chance said:


> OD&D had a three plus year run before Basic and AD&D came along. The original Basic D&D was a level 1-3 intro set based on D&D and Greyhawk (OD&D Supplement 1). That came out in 1977. AD&D rolled out over a three year period from 1977 to 1979. One hard back a year. That would drive people crazy now wouldn't it?  The Monster Manual came first (1977), the Players Handbook second (1978) and, finally, the DMG (1979). As a complete rule set, 1979. Until then we treated the Monster Manual like we did the D&D supplements that came out in 1975-6. The PHB made some changes, but really not too much. After the full AD&D rule set was published they revamped Basic D&D... in 1981 iirc. At that point you could see the differences clearly.
> 
> Different world back then in terms of RPGs. It is absolutely huge now in comparison, and obviously much more diverse.




But the real buildup of the system, the place where most people were encountering it was not at the beginning of that.  I also should note that there was already a great degree of third party support for the game by then, so that the upward pressure was reduced; people who found OD&D insufficient could be buying Arduin or a million more obscure add-ons, because the hobby was still small enough for that to propagate around a bit during that period.


----------



## Thomas Shey (Jan 19, 2021)

R_Chance said:


> Using referees in miniature wargames was pretty much an option. We did it when we could because it allowed for things like hidden movement on a battlefield and using campaign maps like wargame boards dragging out the miniatures when they met and having battles then. That added a real strategic element to the games.




I was being very specific, and comparing is to games that _did_ expect a referee, because blind orders (i.e. simultaneity) were the gig.


----------



## Thomas Shey (Jan 19, 2021)

aramis erak said:


> Seeing Gygax's own advice in dragon magazine, Gygax advocated for a somewhat toxic "punish your players for knowing the rules" approach. I often wonder how much of that was wanting the company to fail?




I suspect it was simply tunnel-vision and one-true-wayism.


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## MGibster (Jan 19, 2021)

aramis erak said:


> Seeing Gygax's own advice in dragon magazine, Gygax advocated for a somewhat toxic "punish your players for knowing the rules" approach. I often wonder how much of that was wanting the company to fail?



The past is another country and they do things differently there.


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## Hussar (Jan 19, 2021)

TheSword said:


> In this metaphor the script is the rules of the game, not what characters do.



But, that's still an issue.  You are saying that the director (DM) can change the rules of the game, but, the players must not.  I'm saying that the best movies allow EVERYONE to contribute to the script (ie rules of the game) and don't especially privilege anyone.  A great GM, just like a great director, will permit players, like actors, to contribute all sorts of things to the game outside of simply what their characters do.

Granted, this is a very different approach to gaming than what would have been seen back in the early 80's.  We have learned that insisting that only the DM must have control of the rules is not the only way to play and not even the best way to play.


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## Lanefan (Jan 20, 2021)

Hussar said:


> Granted, this is a very different approach to gaming than what would have been seen back in the early 80's.  We have learned that insisting that only the DM must have control of the rules is not the only way to play and *not even the best way to play*.



For you.

Personally, as a player, the more rules and under-the-hood mechanics the DM takes care of the better I like it.


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## aramis erak (Jan 20, 2021)

MGibster said:


> The past is another country and they do things differently there.



Except that similar but less explicit versions are peppered throughout the DMG.


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## aramis erak (Jan 20, 2021)

Hussar said:


> But, that's still an issue.  You are saying that the director (DM) can change the rules of the game, but, the players must not.  I'm saying that the best movies allow EVERYONE to contribute to the script (ie rules of the game) and don't especially privilege anyone.  A great GM, just like a great director, will permit players, like actors, to contribute all sorts of things to the game outside of simply what their characters do.



Agreed.


Hussar said:


> Granted, this is a very different approach to gaming than what would have been seen back in the early 80's.  We have learned that insisting that only the DM must have control of the rules is not the only way to play and not even the best way to play.



Wrong. Some of us were doing group-think on rules in 1981. I know that Aaron and I were doing so.


----------



## Hussar (Jan 20, 2021)

aramis erak said:


> Agreed.
> 
> Wrong. Some of us were doing group-think on rules in 1981. I know that Aaron and I were doing so.



Really?  What games were you publishing in 1981 that I can peruse?


----------



## Aldarc (Jan 20, 2021)

Jaeger said:


> Yes, because in general people buying OSR games don't need to have rule zero spelled out for them in print.
> 
> The only reason any kind of "Rule Zero" is spelled out in D&D is because it is the gateway drug into the hobby. And new people may have little to no cultural assumptions about the RPG hobby.



Not sure if I entirely agree with that. That's probably closer to the truth for the straight-up OSR retro clones, and a number of OSR games also include Rule Zero, but I'm not sure about some of the others. There is certainly a "DIY approach" that is part of the culture, but I don't think that we should conflate Rule Zero with an openness to kitbash the game. Fate, for example, does not have Rule Zero, but it also encourages people to tinker with the game and make the game their own. 



Thomas Shey said:


> I think you're seriously underestimating how big D&D was even at its _weakest_ (probably in the 4e period). All that happened during that period was that a lot of people stuck to 3e or 3.5 period D&D, or played some other immediately recognizable offshoot, because the D&D network was still well established. No one was really challeging it other than perhaps PF, and as noted, PF was riding the success of 3e era D&D. But it was still about the established extent D&D network.



I also recall reading that the only time that Pathfinder surpassed D&D 4E was when WotC basically dropped support of 4E and stopped publishing for it as it began in-house development of D&D Next. 4E may be regarded as D&D's "New Coke," but New Coke still outsold more than Pepsi, which did its best to capitalize on the backlash against New Coke. And brand loyalty to Coke resulted in grassroots organizing to bring back "Old Coke."


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## pemerton (Jan 20, 2021)

TheSword said:


> Rule Zero has been in almost every edition of the game since inception. It’s also present in some of the other RPGs I love to play.



That strongly suggests that you play games like D&D (other than 4e), GURPS, HERO, Rolemaster, perhaps RuneQuest. And that you don't play games like Burning Wheel, any PbtA system, any Cortex+ system, HeroWars/Quest, Over the Edge, etc. etc.

Some of the systems in the former category are pretty simple (eg Moldvay Basic). Some of the systems in the latter category are pretty complex (eg Burning Wheel, 4e D&D. What differentiates them, besides - I am conjecturing - your preferences, is that the first category are "rules first", with the fiction being read off the rules at every point, and that the latter category are "fiction first", in the sense that the mechanical processes of the game take the fiction itself, and not just a mechanical expression of the fiction, as input.

Systems of that latter sort don't have any need for "rule zero" as a method of adjudication. They may be houseruled or "kit bashed" from time to time (some actively encourage such an approach, eg HeroQuest revised, Over the Edge, recent Cortex+ publications) but no one needs a game to state a rule in order to be permitted to alter its rules.


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## TheSword (Jan 20, 2021)

pemerton said:


> That strongly suggests that you play games like D&D (other than 4e), GURPS, HERO, Rolemaster, perhaps RuneQuest. And that you don't play games like Burning Wheel, any PbtA system, any Cortex+ system, HeroWars/Quest, Over the Edge, etc. etc.
> 
> Some of the systems in the former category are pretty simple (eg Moldvay Basic). Some of the systems in the latter category are pretty complex (eg Burning Wheel, 4e D&D. What differentiates them, besides - I am conjecturing - your preferences, is that the first category are "rules first", with the fiction being read off the rules at every point, and that the latter category are "fiction first", in the sense that the mechanical processes of the game take the fiction itself, and not just a mechanical expression of the fiction, as input.
> 
> Systems of that latter sort don't have any need for "rule zero" as a method of adjudication. They may be houseruled or "kit bashed" from time to time (some actively encourage such an approach, eg HeroQuest revised, Over the Edge, recent Cortex+ publications) but no one needs a game to state a rule in order to be permitted to alter its rules.



Firstly 4e D&D did have a rule zero. It can be found on pg 192 of the 4e DMG. I quoted it earlier but here it is again.

“The D&D rules cannot possibly account for the variety of campaigns and play styles of every group. If you disagree with how the rules handle something, changing them is within your rights.”
- 4e DMG pg 192

Secondly, it’s a truism to say simplified, generic rules that can be applied in any circumstance don’t require a rule zero. If nothing is specific then nothing will come into conflict. That kind of approach doesn’t work with D&D.


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## Snarf Zagyg (Jan 20, 2021)

TheSword said:


> Secondly, it’s a truism to say simplified, generic rules that can be applied in any circumstance don’t require a rule zero. If nothing is specific then nothing will come into conflict. That kind of approach doesn’t work with D&D.




I agree with this statement, but I'd expand it to include what @Lanefan was saying.

Systems that are more generic (abstract) or rely on frameworks and guidelines (as opposed to "rules") don't rely on a "Rule 0" because the concept of a Rule 0 is baked into the system. "Rule 0" is the social adjudication (by the GM, by the players, or by both) of issues that arise from applying the framework and guidelines to particular situations. 

I think of this as the _common sense conundrum_. To use the two lance example provided above-

Some systems (like D&D or even more rules-heavy systems) would adjudicate this by examining specific rules with regard to initiative, and dual-wielding, and possibly even more specific rules regarding use of two lances while mounted.

Other systems would just have the DM and player make determinations (as illustrated by loverdrive) as to what effects this would have with generic game terms (soft move, hard move, golden opportunity) and explain this in terms of the fiction.

Here's the thing, though; have you read many threads on enworld? Maybe one involving the divide between crunch and lore? Or players asking about the way a rule is phrased? Possibly the effect of a silence spell on bats? Or, heck, players who want their druids  to wear metal armor and are worried they might explode? Maybe someone wondering about swimming in plate? 

What you run into is the _common sense conundrum_. People don't always agree on what constitutes "common sense." That's why more codified rule systems tend to have an advantage for some types of tables - disputes can be handled through an objective rule. 

On the other hand, abstract rules or ones that rely on guidelines require that there is significant table buy-in and avoidance of the _common sense conundrum_. 

To use the example above, as absurd as it might seem, the GM and the players are in general agreement about the effect of dual-wielding lances on horseback (it would be bad). In a rules-heavy game, this would be explicit and known within the rules. In a guidelines game, however, this would be up to the instant social adjudication; arguably, it is resolved easily (the GM is not preventing the player), but it still requires that the table is in general agreement that, for example, the GM should burden the player in any way for that choice. It might seem like common sense, but people often disagree on that.

In short, the _common sense conundrum _(as I refer to it) tends to lurk at the edge of these debates; there needs to be significant table buy-in about the shared fiction and the effects that does not need to refer to an agreed-upon referent for guidelines and frameworks to work.


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## Shiroiken (Jan 20, 2021)

EzekielRaiden said:


> The only real problem I have with Rule 0 is when it is used abusively--because a lot of people talk about _players_ using all the other game rules abusively, and pretty much never talk about _DMs_ using Rule 0 abusively.



I this is partially because everyone has horror stories about abusive DMs. Rule 0 is just one of many things these DMs have used improperly, so I think it all gets wrapped in the same package. With players, the only thing the DM has to stop abuse by players is Rule 0 (at least without being abusive themselves), so that's how it's remembered.


----------



## Thomas Shey (Jan 20, 2021)

Aldarc said:


> Not sure if I entirely agree with that. That's probably closer to the truth for the straight-up OSR retro clones, and a number of OSR games also include Rule Zero, but I'm not sure about some of the others. There is certainly a "DIY approach" that is part of the culture, but I don't think that we should conflate Rule Zero with an openness to kitbash the game. Fate, for example, does not have Rule Zero, but it also encourages people to tinker with the game and make the game their own.




There's some overlap, but as noted "Willing to do house rules to patch holes and/or serve a particular purpose" and "Thinks its a virtue to ignore whats already there any time he doesn't like it" are not actually identical sets.



Aldarc said:


> I also recall reading that the only time that Pathfinder surpassed D&D 4E was when WotC basically dropped support of 4E and stopped publishing for it as it began in-house development of D&D Next. 4E may be regarded as D&D's "New Coke," but New Coke still outsold more than Pepsi, which did its best to capitalize on the backlash against New Coke. And brand loyalty to Coke resulted in grassroots organizing to bring back "Old Coke."




Yup.  Personally, even though it didn't work for me I respect the 4e design more than the 5e design, but its hard not to see the latter as responsive to demand.


----------



## Thomas Shey (Jan 20, 2021)

Shiroiken said:


> I this is partially because everyone has horror stories about abusive DMs. Rule 0 is just one of many things these DMs have used improperly, so I think it all gets wrapped in the same package. With players, the only thing the DM has to stop abuse by players is Rule 0 (at least without being abusive themselves), so that's how it's remembered.




At the very least, Rule 0 is perfectly capable of empowering problems in terms of who has control over the rule-system part of the game heavily into GM hands; he could try and do it anyway, and possibly get away with it just because of the intrinsic power imbalance, but there's distinctly a different dynamic to being able to point to the rules saying its okay for him to do this, and just demanding it.


----------



## loverdrive (Jan 20, 2021)

Lanefan said:


> I meant on the same footing at the table: that everyone there is operating on the same basis as to how this two-lance business is likely to go.



Well, the GM needs to make a soft move first and only then they can hit the bastard where it hurts. As of how it works, see below.



Lanefan said:


> You quite correctly used the word 'guidelines' two or three times in your post; and it's that they're guidelines rather than rules which in part makes Rule 0 necessary: it's Rule 0 that turns guidelines in the books to rulings (and thus rules) at each individual table.



I'm talking about guidelines on, well, invoking rule zero, if we count making judgement calls as such (though I disagree with it, but that's beside the point).

D&Desque rule zero boils down to "figure it out", and in newer editions (well, since AD&D 2E at least, lol) presumes undoing existing rules and replacing them, instead of filling the blanks.

Compare it with PbtA games, where the GM has Agenda, Principles and Moves, which provide solid framework for making good judgement calls. I'm gonna use Dungeon World as an example, since it's in the same genre as D&D, and also kinda cosplays it.

In Dungeon World, the GM has agenda:

Portray a fantastic world
Fill the characters’ lives with adventure
Play to find out what happens
And they have principles:

Draw maps, leave blanks
Address the characters, not the players
Embrace the fantastic
Make a move that follows
Never speak the name of your move
Give every monster life
Name every person
Ask questions and use the answers
Be a fan of the characters
Think dangerous
Begin and end with the fiction
Think offscreen, too
So whenever the game master needs to open their mouth, they have a solid framework to evaluate what they're gonna say. _Does it push forward my agenda? Does it follow principles?_

Agenda and principles vary from game to game, as the specific genre demands. So, in Monsterhearts, principles look like this:

Embrace melodrama.
Address yourself to the characters, not the players.
Make monsters seem human, and vice versa.
Make labels matter.
Give everyone a messy life.
Find the catch.
Ask provocative questions and build on the answers.
Be a fan of the main characters.
Treat side characters like stolen cars.
Give side characters simple, divisive motivations.
Sometimes, disclaim decision making.


Also, there're GM moves, which are ready to use prompts. I'm not gonna list all of them, as this post is already full of lists, but I'll give a couple of examples (again, from Dungeon World):

*Show signs of an approaching threat*: This is one of your most versatile moves. “Threat” means anything bad that’s on the way. With this move, you just show them that something’s going to happen unless they do something about it.
*Separate Them*: There are few things worse than being in the middle of a raging battle with blood-thirsty owlbears on all sides—one of those things is being in the middle of that battle with no one at your back. Separating the characters can mean anything from being pushed apart in the heat of battle to being teleported to the far end of the dungeon. Whatever way it occurs, it’s bound to cause problems.
*Put someone in a spot:* A spot is someplace where a character needs to make tough choices. Put them, or something they care about, in the path of destruction. The harder the choice, the tougher the spot.
*Tell them the requirements or consequences and ask: *This move is particularly good when they want something that’s not covered by a move, or they’ve failed a move. They can do it, sure, but they’ll have to pay the price. Or, they can do it, but there will be consequences. Maybe they can swim through the shark-infested moat before being devoured, but they’ll need a distraction. Of course, this is made clear to the characters, not just the players: the sharks are in a starved frenzy, for example.
These already are pretty actionable guidelines, but then, as a cherry on top, there're rules for _when_ to make a move.

*Soft moves* (those that aren't bad, or don't have longterm consequences, or give a moment to react) can be made whenever you feel like it. But hard moves can only be made when a player rolls a miss or when they ignore a soft move for whatever reason (probably because they've decided to address another threat).

So, they can't just say to a two-lanced knight that he got himself killed without a proper warning. No, they need to establish the fact that it's gonna be very risky, and only then they get to make a hard move -- they have to give the character (and the player) time to react.

And it applies to all situations, not only to theoretical Ronald the Madman. When a dragon unleashes its stone-melting fire breath, in D&D the DM asks for save vs. breath (or Reflex save, or Dex save, doesn't matter), but in Dungeon World the GM says "The beast inhales air into its massive lungs and its about to turn you into a well done steak. What ya gonna do?".

Yeah, both in D&D and in DW a wizard can say "I'm gonna teleport away with my magic!", but in D&D you need to break the rules to allow it. In DW it's a normal, natural action, just like dodging out of the harms way.


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## loverdrive (Jan 20, 2021)

Snarf Zagyg said:


> I agree with this statement, but I'd expand it to include what @Lanefan was saying.
> 
> Systems that are more generic (abstract) or rely on frameworks and guidelines (as opposed to "rules") don't rely on a "Rule 0" because the concept of a Rule 0 is baked into the system. "Rule 0" is the social adjudication (by the GM, by the players, or by both) of issues that arise from applying the framework and guidelines to particular situations.
> 
> ...



I'd say if there's no agreement on shared fiction, then it's either can be fixed with a brief clarification, or these people shouldn't play this particular game together — some people don't "get" some genres, and that's okay.

Also, it may be obvious, but what makes sense and what doesn't largely depends on the genre, the tone and the previous events.

A gallant knight on a mighty steed, wielding a shiny shield and master-crafted sword would make sense in a LotResque game, but but very little sense (at least, if played straight) in Monty Python and the Holy Grail — so someone who really wants to play a gallant knight shouldn't be at the table where a game about the Order of Silly Martial Arts is played, and a rule, no matter how objective and well-worded that requires everyone to practice ridiculous martial art isn't going to make them accept the shared fiction. At best it's going to be like "ugh, okay, I guess" sigh.


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## Snarf Zagyg (Jan 20, 2021)

loverdrive said:


> I'd say if there's no agreement on shared fiction, then it's either can be fixed with a brief clarification, or these people shouldn't play this particular game together — some people don't "get" some genres, and that's okay.
> 
> Also, it may be obvious, but what makes sense and what doesn't largely depends on the genre, the tone and the previous events.
> 
> A gallant knight on a mighty steed, wielding a shiny shield and master-crafted sword would make sense in a LotResque game, but but very little sense (at least, if played straight) in Monty Python and the Holy Grail — so someone who really wants to play a gallant knight shouldn't be at the table where a game about the Order of Silly Martial Arts is played, and a rule, no matter how objective and well-worded that requires everyone to practice ridiculous martial art isn't going to make them accept the shared fiction. At best it's going to be like "ugh, okay, I guess" sigh.




All you are doing is re-stating the obvious- if everyone agrees, it's going to work out. Which is the whole issue behind the _common sense conundrum_. 

To you, the idea that something does, or doesn't, happen in a shared fiction due to it being a particular genre ... well, if someone doesn't agree with you, then they don't "get" it. Because it's common sense! Of course, it is equally plausible that the other person thinks that you are the one that doesn't "get" it. 

And that's the point. A more rules-heavy game (like a D&D) tends to have more of these disputes handled by RAW. That is the external referent. A game that relies more on guidelines and frameworks is going to depend on the buy-in of the GM and the players and on the agreement on shared fiction. 

Which is to say that the "Rule 0" (the discretionary part) is actually happening on an ongoing and negotiated basis, with the negotiation either implicit (the GM and players modeling their actions on what they think is acceptable for the group shared fiction) or explicit (conversations and clarifications to determine how to resolve a dispute between different people as to what the shared fiction would entail).


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## loverdrive (Jan 20, 2021)

Snarf Zagyg said:


> To you, the idea that something does, or doesn't, happen in a shared fiction due to it being a particular genre ... well, if someone doesn't agree with you, then they don't "get" it. Because it's common sense! Of course, it is equally plausible that the other person thinks that you are the one that doesn't "get" it.



And then... We shouldn't play together.

I don't think rules being objective does any good in preventing such issues, because such issues kinda transcend dice and hit points.

If someone wants to see hopelessness of Dark Souls, and someone else wants heroic feats of Dragonlance, then it doesn't matter that characters objectively cast through spell slots or objectively survive a 60ft. fall — they ain't gonna mesh well together.


But that's besides the point. Even D&D could benefit from a solid framework for invoking rule 0, like:

Try to reskin existing stuff first
Don't hand Advantages on attacks easily
Prefer Advantages and Disadvantages over bonusi and penalties
Keep Bounded Accuracy in mind
Don't allow things that are core abilities of other classes/subclasses
Even the rigidiest of rigidiest rules have meta-rules, that determine how, when and why they should be used.

For me, almost every instance of adding rule 0 feels like they've built a system like a boardgame, where rules are supposed to always work, then remembered that it's not a plain boardgame and added a footnote "ok, figure it yourselves" instead of accounting for the fact that TTRPGs have a fiction component and rigid rules aren't gonna work all the time, instead of providing a generalized solution that you can fall back on.

Well, they kinda did, but their generalized solution is "figure it out", which isn't super helpful.


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## Maxperson (Jan 20, 2021)

Snarf Zagyg said:


> And that's the point. A more rules-heavy game (like a D&D) tends to have more of these disputes handled by RAW. That is the external referent. A game that relies more on guidelines and frameworks is going to depend on the buy-in of the GM and the players and on the agreement on shared fiction.
> 
> Which is to say that the "Rule 0" (the discretionary part) is actually happening on an ongoing and negotiated basis, with the negotiation either implicit (the GM and players modeling their actions on what they think is acceptable for the group shared fiction) or explicit (conversations and clarifications to determine how to resolve a dispute between different people as to what the shared fiction would entail).



This.  Every time I see the fiction first rules describe, they have described a game that lives entirely within Rule 0. 

In a rules first game, Rule 0 exists solely to make the game better when the DM sees the need to change something, whether that's a bad rule, a hole, or just something that the game hasn't made a rule for and he feels needs a rule. 

Whereas in a fiction first game, the fiction informs the DM about what to do, within a much lighter framework of actual rules.  This means that the DM is enacting Rule 0 everytime he comes up with a response based on the fiction and has the players roll or suffer some success/mishap.

Rule 0 has grown so large in fiction first games, that the players aren't seeing the forest for the trees.


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## Maxperson (Jan 20, 2021)

loverdrive said:


> that's besides the point. Even D&D could benefit from a solid framework for invoking rule 0, like:
> 
> Try to reskin existing stuff first



That seems like good advice.  Personally, I reskin on some occasions and create from scratch on others, but I've been doing this for a very long time, so I've made most of my large mistaked decades ago.


loverdrive said:


> Don't hand Advantages on attacks easily



Good advice.


loverdrive said:


> Prefer Advantages and Disadvantages over bonusi and penalties



This I don't agree with.  Advantage/Disadvantage gives a greater bonus/penalty on most occasions than a bonus or penalty does usually does.  Sometimes it's better to give Advantage/Disadvantage and other times it's better to give a bonus/penalty.  The rules should talk about the _cough_ advantages and disadvantages of both methods.


loverdrive said:


> Keep Bounded Accuracy in mind



Wise advice.


loverdrive said:


> Don't allow things that are core abilities of other classes/subclasses



And again something I don't agree with.  You should be careful if/when you hand out core abilities, but they can and do sometimes make sense to give out.  Especially when there isn't a player at the table with the particular class/subclass core ability in question.


loverdrive said:


> Even the rigidiest of rigidiest rules have meta-rules, that determine how, when and why they should be used.



This doesn't exist.  Even in 3e, the rigidiest of D&D editions, rules often failed to cover a situation due to a hole in the rule, were vague, or just didn't make sense to apply to a particular situation.  Then there were also times where an addition of a rule, subtraction of a rule or blanket alteration of a rule would improve the game for the group.

Rule 0 exists to make the game better. It may not have started out that way, but that's the way it has been since 1e.


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## EzekielRaiden (Jan 20, 2021)

Shiroiken said:


> I this is partially because everyone has horror stories about abusive DMs. Rule 0 is just one of many things these DMs have used improperly, so I think it all gets wrapped in the same package. With players, the only thing the DM has to stop abuse by players is Rule 0 (at least without being abusive themselves), so that's how it's remembered.



I find the inherent power imbalance of the DM role* is much more responsible than Rule 0, and that DMs have MANY more tools than just Rule 0 to deal with abusive or coercive players. Otherwise, we'd never even have started talking about RAW, and no DM ever would have gone online and asked, "is my player full of crap, or are they actually right about this rule?" Sure, Rule 0 is the end of the line, but being the final option does not make it the ONLY option.

*This imbalance is not inherently bad. But it does appear that *far* less teaching, outreach, and best-practices talk occurs about the DM role than about DMs (and players) dealing with other players.


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## Lanefan (Jan 20, 2021)

Aldarc said:


> There is certainly a "DIY approach" that is part of the culture, but I don't think that we should conflate Rule Zero with an openness to kitbash the game.



Interesting.  I see freedom-to-kitbash as a part of the Rule 0 mentality, that being "do whatever you need to do to make the game the best fit for you and your table".


Aldarc said:


> Fate, for example, does not have Rule Zero, but it also encourages people to tinker with the game and make the game their own.



To me this says it does have Rule 0, but only as a part of GM-side pre-campaign prep rather than on the fly during play.


Aldarc said:


> I also recall reading that the only time that Pathfinder surpassed D&D 4E was when WotC basically dropped support of 4E and stopped publishing for it as it began in-house development of D&D Next.



I seem to remember there was also a big Pathfinder spike right when it first came out, and it might have (?) passed D&D then for a short time.


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## Snarf Zagyg (Jan 20, 2021)

loverdrive said:


> And then... We shouldn't play together.




And that's fine! But off-loading more into a ruleset that is objective (an external referent) prevents things from always becoming, "Either we can agree, or we can't play together."

Because sometime people can't agree on subjective things (or even "common sense") but they can agree on an external rule.

Again, it's a difference in approaches, with none being the "best" or even "better." You view other systems as like board games with a Rule 0 needlessly affixed; whereas other people might view your system as a nebulous patchwork of guidelines, mediated by the constant negotiation of competing Rule 0s between participants. 

Six of one, etc.


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## Lanefan (Jan 20, 2021)

loverdrive said:


> Well, the GM needs to make a soft move first and only then they can hit the bastard where it hurts. As of how it works, see below.
> 
> I'm talking about guidelines on, well, invoking rule zero, if we count making judgement calls as such (though I disagree with it, but that's beside the point).
> 
> ...



Much of that advice could apply to a D&D (any edition) DM as well.  There's only really about two clauses there that stand out as different: "play to find out what happens"* and "be a fan of the characters"**.

* - as opposed to having things prepped in advance.
** - as opposed to presenting the setting and obstacles as a neutral arbiter, which is more what D&D expects.

Though it's great advice, I know I fail hard on "name every person" as I'm terrible at coming up with names on the fly and then, when I do I promptly forget what I just said! 


loverdrive said:


> Also, there're GM moves, which are ready to use prompts. I'm not gonna list all of them, as this post is already full of lists, but I'll give a couple of examples (again, from Dungeon World):
> 
> *Show signs of an approaching threat*: This is one of your most versatile moves. “Threat” means anything bad that’s on the way. With this move, you just show them that something’s going to happen unless they do something about it.
> *Separate Them*: There are few things worse than being in the middle of a raging battle with blood-thirsty owlbears on all sides—one of those things is being in the middle of that battle with no one at your back. Separating the characters can mean anything from being pushed apart in the heat of battle to being teleported to the far end of the dungeon. Whatever way it occurs, it’s bound to cause problems.
> ...



I like the second and third of these.  I'm not married to the first one; sometimes threats pre-announce themselves and sometimes they sneak up on you when you don't expect.  I'm dubious about the fourth one, in that sometimes (some of) the consequences aren't immediately obvious, and I don't like giving information the player/PC shouldn't have.


loverdrive said:


> And it applies to all situations, not only to theoretical Ronald the Madman. When a dragon unleashes its stone-melting fire breath, in D&D the DM asks for save vs. breath (or Reflex save, or Dex save, doesn't matter), but in Dungeon World the GM says "The beast inhales air into its massive lungs and its about to turn you into a well done steak. What ya gonna do?".
> 
> Yeah, both in D&D and in DW a wizard can say "I'm gonna teleport away with my magic!", but in D&D you need to break the rules to allow it. In DW it's a normal, natural action, just like dodging out of the harms way.



The DW version fails for me in one way: as written, the wizard always gets away with it.  I'd prefer a more granular resolution, where the wizard tries to teleport and then have something mechanical (even a simple timing roll) determine whether she's fast enough in getting the spell away. (I also prefer systems where spells take measurable time to cast, but that's a side issue here that it seems neither system answers)

In turn-based D&D something like this would be impossible - teleport can't be cast as a reaction (that I know of) - and if it's the dragon's 'turn' the wizard's options are limited.  Now if the DM said that bit about the dragon inhaling as a lead-up to the _wizard's_ turn, then ol' Wizzy can do whatever she likes to get out of there. (did I mention I'm also not a big fan of strictly-turn-based combat as presented in 3e-4e-5e?  )


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## Maxperson (Jan 20, 2021)

EzekielRaiden said:


> I find the inherent power imbalance of the DM role* is much more responsible than Rule 0, and that DMs have MANY more tools than just Rule 0 to deal with abusive or coercive players. Otherwise, we'd never even have started talking about RAW, and no DM ever would have gone online and asked, "is my player full of crap, or are they actually right about this rule?" Sure, Rule 0 is the end of the line, but being the final option does not make it the ONLY option.
> 
> *This imbalance is not inherently bad. But it does appear that *far* less teaching, outreach, and best-practices talk occurs about the DM role than about DMs (and players) dealing with other players.



I agree with this.  Rule 0 is the wrong tool to use when a player is abusive or coercive.  There really is no game tool that is appropriate.  Behaviors like that are social and exist outside the game and that's where they should be handled.  Sometimes by the DM alone and sometimes by the group, depending on the circumstances surrounding the issue.


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## Thomas Shey (Jan 20, 2021)

Snarf Zagyg said:


> Because sometime people can't agree on subjective things (or even "common sense") but they can agree on an external rule.




If someone actually goes to the trouble to read the ruleset in any detail, it also functions to set expectations; if someone has problems with what sort of play experience the ruleset is going to give, they can see it right up front rather than finding out in play, which is a much worse way to do so.


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## Maxperson (Jan 21, 2021)

Thomas Shey said:


> If someone actually goes to the trouble to read the ruleset in any detail, it also functions to set expectations; if someone has problems with what sort of play experience the ruleset is going to give, they can see it right up front rather than finding out in play, which is a much worse way to do so.



Yes, and one of those expectations that the 5e PHB sets forth is that the DM changes rules and to ask him what is changed.


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## pemerton (Jan 21, 2021)

"Rule zero" in the sense of _adding house rules or changing things_ is part-and-parcel of game play. It is in no way unique to RPGs - for instance, when my daughter and I play backgammon we don't use the doubling die in its standard fashion, but we do use it to mark games as double (or quadruple, etc) games if the roll to see who goes first is a tie.

No one needs permission from the game's designer or publisher to do that sort of thing.

But "rule zero" as an approach to action resolution is a completely different thing. 4e D&D doesn't have it - it uses p 42, which is a set of guidelines for the adjudication of "actions the rules don't cover". Burning Wheel doesn't have it. And it's not because either of these is a "simplified" or non-complex game. Each is at least as complex as D&D 5e.

It's because neither game is built on the design principle of _discrete, non-generalisable sub-systems used to resolve narrow categories of fictional action_. In BW the resolution process for meeting a friend, finding a secret door, sneaking through a forest, and ramming one galley with another, is the same in each case. So there are not corner cases or instances of rule incompatibility. This is completely different from AD&D, where even really basic questions like _does being a high level fighter help one command a galley that is trying to ram another _have no canonical answer; and if someone decides the answer is "yes" there's no straightforward way to determine how a character's level should interact with the ramming rules, because the only device for turning character level into combat expertise is the to-hit/THACO chart, and the ramming rules are completely independent of those charts.

It's that sort of RPG design that makes "rule zero" necessary. And as I posted upthread, that sort of design is a legacy of wargame design.


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## loverdrive (Jan 21, 2021)

Lanefan said:


> The DW version fails for me in one way: as written, the wizard always gets away with it. I'd prefer a more granular resolution, where the wizard tries to teleport and then have something mechanical (even a simple timing roll) determine whether she's fast enough in getting the spell away. (I also prefer systems where spells take measurable time to cast, but that's a side issue here that it seems neither system answers)



And there's such thing.

There are *Player Moves* (which are different from GM Moves and I think the Bakers kinda dropped the ball with naming here) -- basically, rules for resolving common situations, though they are triggered by fictional events, as opposed to mechanics.

In this case, the wizard is weaving the magic, thus triggering Cast a Spell move:


> When you release a spell you’ve prepared, roll+Int.
> 
> ✴ On a 10+, the spell is successfully cast and you do not forget the spell—you may cast it again later.
> 
> ...




The players don't choose an action from a list of available options on their turn, they describe what their character is doing and based on that description, rules are applied.

To illustrate it better, here's Hack&Slash move


> When you attack an enemy in melee, roll+Str.
> ✴ On a 10+, you deal your damage to the enemy and avoid their attack. At your option, you may choose to do +1d6 damage but expose yourself to the enemy’s attack. ✴ On a 7–9, you deal your damage to the enemy and the enemy makes an attack against you.
> 
> Hack and slash is for attacking a prepared enemy plain and simple. If the enemy isn’t prepared for your attack—if they don’t know you’re there or they’re restrained and helpless—then that’s not hack and slash. You just deal your damage or murder them outright, depending on the situation. Nasty stuff.
> ...



Now compare it to attacking in D&D, where you're rolling to hit and then deal damage, regardless of what exactly you're attacking, and then these rules need to be overridden (by other rules or by an invocation of rule 0, doesn't matter), if its normal application doesn't make sense in the fictional context.


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## Aldarc (Jan 21, 2021)

Lanefan said:


> Interesting.  I see freedom-to-kitbash as a part of the Rule 0 mentality, that being "do whatever you need to do to make the game the best fit for you and your table".



Rule Zero is more of a patchwork fix for rules (or even rulings). DYI Kitbashing is more about treating the game as a toolkit. But I would still say that we should not conflate the two. The boundaries of Rule Zero are already murky as it is (and I suspect intentionally so in regards to ever-expanding the bounds of GM authority). 



Lanefan said:


> To me this says it does have Rule 0, but only as a part of GM-side pre-campaign prep rather than on the fly during play.



I suppose you hear what you want to hear, but that's not really the case. Fate is more akin to a system toolkit with some key tech (e.g., aspects, four actions, fate point economy, etc.) and some optional ones (e.g., skills). Not all skills will be relevant for all games, so you can rename them, remove them, or regroup them. We see this all the time in their Fate spotlight mini-settings. FWIW there is not a magic system in Fate. It's free to the table or designer to establish with the various mechanics what magic may look like in their game. But this is hardly a Rule Zero nor is a charitable reading for D&D GMs to constantly read Rule Zero into games where there isn't one.


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## Lanefan (Jan 21, 2021)

Aldarc said:


> Rule Zero is more of a patchwork fix for rules (or even rulings). DYI Kitbashing is more about treating the game as a toolkit. But I would still say that we should not conflate the two.



Why not, though?  They're the same thing, in that they involve changing rules; also kitbashing can most certainly involve both patchwork-fixing existing rules and-or inventing new ones.  The only difference is that kitbashing is rarely if ever done during the run of play.


Aldarc said:


> The boundaries of Rule Zero are already murky as it is (and I suspect intentionally so in regards to ever-expanding the bounds of GM authority).



How can you expand that which is already infinite? 


Aldarc said:


> I suppose you hear what you want to hear, but that's not really the case. Fate is more akin to a system toolkit with some key tech (e.g., aspects, four actions, fate point economy, etc.) and some optional ones (e.g., skills). Not all skills will be relevant for all games, so you can rename them, remove them, or regroup them. We see this all the time in their Fate spotlight mini-settings. FWIW there is not a magic system in Fate. It's free to the table or designer to establish with the various mechanics what magic may look like in their game. But this is hardly a Rule Zero nor is a charitable reading for D&D GMs to constantly read Rule Zero into games where there isn't one.



Charitable or not, the way you put this tells me Fate (about which I otherwise know nothing) is a kitbasher's system - and is thus almost built around that aspect of Rule 0.  The difference then - by the sound of it - becomes one of whatever kits get bashed for a given campaign then become locked in along with the rest of the rules once that campaign starts.

So, I'd better ask: if something comes up in a Fate game that the rules don't cover, and there's no Rule 0 to allow the GM to sort it out, how do things proceed?


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## R_Chance (Jan 21, 2021)

Thomas Shey said:


> Not by the fall.  I could point to massive chunks of active SF fandom who were playing it who'd never touched a wargame, let alone a miniatures game in their life playing it by then.  It was a very well developed subset of fandom.  There was some overlap of course, but I'll go as far as to say in some areas wargame players were the _minority_ of D&D players even by then.
> 
> At the time the three original books dropped, and I'd guess for the first six months you were probably right, but the heavy spread of the game was not through wargamers, even if they were the first ones to see it.
> 
> ...



Given that there were only a thousand copies of D&D in that first print batch (1974) and as I understand it they took a year to sell out, I doubt there was a massive infusion of anyone playing the game. I knew about 12-15 players and there were three boxed sets among us. I don't think they had any distribution outside of hobby channels at the time. Some of the guys I played historical miniatures with (even medieval) just didn't go for fantasy too. I was busy absorbing every fantasy and science fiction book I could get my hands on myself  If you were talking later in 1975 when the next couple of print runs were done or 1976 when the white box was produced in fairly large numbers I might agree. At least I'm pretty sure there was only one printing of D&D in '74, but I might be wrong. Those years kind of melt into a haze of high school / gaming / college  I am occasionally amazed that I managed to graduate from high school and wonder on into college. Still, the evidence I have is only anecdotal, my memory is subject to error, ad this is for two groups I played with in one town. So, can't say anything for sure.

And I wish I still had one of the originals. We literally wore them out and some booklets were misplaced / borrowed and boxes destroyed by time and casual abuse while playing. One guy moved out of town with a bunch of our stuff. That was annoying. The oldest we (me and my brother) have left is, I think, a third printing woodgrain box set, ? 1975. I have a white box set too, 1975-6 probably. There were things added to the 1977 white boxed cover iirc. 

As for house ruling board wargames, for some games we altered rules and used spare counter to produce units, etc. We were producing other nations navies for use with the Jutland game / rules for example and doing our own strategic maps etc. That game was half way to a miniature set though. Played it later with 1/2400 scale miniature warships. Most of the house rules were miniature rules though. It was easier to find a RAW board game group, although interpretations of the rules might vary. A lot in some cases 

Judges Guild was the first "third party" D&D support I remember and that was 1976 (iirc). There were APA 'zines too, and probably a lot of stuff made that didn't see wide distribution. The Strategic Review / The Dragon, and the D&D supplements were out but that's not third party. I'm not sure what year White Dwarf dropped just off hand, but post 1976 I think. I have a couple of the Arduin Grimoires volumes boxed around here somewhere. Not sure when they came out.

Most of the "add on" content we used was what we home brewed. It was as good as anything else we were likely to find (I think). And creating it was fun. OK, I am having a massive nostalgia attack here  A sure sign of advancing old age...


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## Aldarc (Jan 21, 2021)

Lanefan said:


> Why not, though?  They're the same thing, in that they involve changing rules; also kitbashing can most certainly involve both patchwork-fixing existing rules and-or inventing new ones.  The only difference is that kitbashing is rarely if ever done during the run of play.



I don't think that equivocating on terms through shallow, superficial comparisons is particularly helpful for discussion for understanding the key ideas, principles, and meanings of terms. 



Lanefan said:


> How can you expand that which is already infinite?



I don't think that it ever was infinite, though it says quite a bit that you think it is. 



Lanefan said:


> Charitable or not, the way you put this tells me Fate (about which I otherwise know nothing) is a kitbasher's system - and is thus almost built around that aspect of Rule 0.  The difference then - by the sound of it - becomes one of whatever kits get bashed for a given campaign then become locked in along with the rest of the rules once that campaign starts.



If you know nothing about Fate by this point after at least 2 years of regular discussion with me and others who bring it up, I would say that's as good of proof as anything that you never listen, which would certainly explain why you are one of those posters that we constantly have to re-explain basic concepts and gameplay of other systems to. 

Also, this has the same problem as above where you are conflating kit-bashing with Rule Zero. 



Lanefan said:


> So, I'd better ask: if something comes up in a Fate game that the rules don't cover, and there's no Rule 0 to allow the GM to sort it out, how do things proceed?



If only someone has already discussed this before in this thread...


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## EzekielRaiden (Jan 21, 2021)

Lanefan said:


> Why not, though?  They're the same thing, in that they involve changing rules; also kitbashing can most certainly involve both patchwork-fixing existing rules and-or inventing new ones.  The only difference is that kitbashing is rarely if ever done during the run of play.



Though I don't quite follow Aldarc's way of saying it, I have to agree with him that you seem to be looking at only the most superficial similarity and calling that equivalence.

Rule 0 isn't, as far as I'm concerned, about _inventing new rules_. I would even go so far as to say that no application of Rule 0 that anyone has ever actually described to me would qualify as _inventing new rules_. It is, instead, "Okay well this rule did a dumb thing on this one special occasion, so we'll bend/ignore it _just for this one moment_, but it still holds in general." Hence why I said earlier that "Rule 0" really isn't--and, IMO, _cannot be_--a "rule" proper of the system. Because it's not a rule. It's a reminder that this thing we call "gaming" is a social activity, and thus not beholden purely to arbitrary rules on a page. Being a social activity, "gaming" admits dynamic understanding of its own structures. That doesn't mean there can never be (contextually) objective answers; what it means is that that context includes self-reflection and the ability to see the higher purpose which the rules _try_ to pursue but will (by definition!) fail to pursue at least some of the time. 

It is exactly analogous to the idea that there can be _unjust laws_, but that the existence of unjust laws does not make the concept of law self-contradictory. Laws exist to serve some purpose, by definition. But, being the product of mortal hands, they cannot be perfect. It is possible for mortal hands to write mortal laws that conflict with the purpose for which they were designed. An otherwise good law which has suddenly run into a particularly rare special case is (one reason) why we have courts--the courts _are_ the Rule 0 of law, so that living, thinking minds can review and provide relief if a law has erred. A law that has an egregiously open flaw may thus be _discovered_ by the application of the courts (the Rule 0 of law), but--and this, again, is perfectly analogous to the RPG rules structure--it is not the place of the courts (Rule 0) to _create new_ law. That's the job of the legislature.

It just so happens that, for a D&D-style RPG, the equivalents of judiciary and executive are vested in the DM, and significant but not absolute legislative power is also vested in the DM. (Even for those who advocate "absolute" DM authority etc. whatever you want to call it, recognize that a _real and functional_ group requires keeping the players on board with the DM's house rules and choices, and that genuine sustained pushback from the players is commonly recognized by DMs worthy of the title as a clear sign to back off and re-evaluate.) But this does not mean that the judicial powers and the legislative powers are _equivalent_ just because they are both exercised by the same person and both relate to laws/rules.



Lanefan said:


> How can you expand that which is already infinite?



Given your wink, I assume this means you recognize that there _are_ limits on the appropriate and judicious use of Rule 0?



Lanefan said:


> Charitable or not, the way you put this tells me Fate (about which I otherwise know nothing) is a kitbasher's system - and is thus almost built around that aspect of Rule 0.  The difference then - by the sound of it - becomes one of whatever kits get bashed for a given campaign then become locked in along with the rest of the rules once that campaign starts.
> 
> So, I'd better ask: if something comes up in a Fate game that the rules don't cover, and there's no Rule 0 to allow the GM to sort it out, how do things proceed?



Fate...isn't a kitbasher's system. Kitbasher implies inventing new rules; you don't do that with Fate. You use the one(ish) rule in a consistent and symmetric manner. I don't know it well enough to give an in-depth explanation, but I do know it well enough to say that the two are DEFINITELY different.

Since I'm fairly sure you have more knowledge of 4e, consider Page 42. Page 42 was meant to have rules for _all possible attack-like and skill-like actions_. It offers DCs which are appropriate to actions that should be easy, medium, or hard for a character of a given level, so if you've decided that climbing a glass mountain should be hard for a 14th-level Rogue, you can get an accurate number for what that _"means"_ in-world. There is no need to "kitbash" anything within the realm of attacks or skill-use actions, because Page 42's extensible framework is applicable to all possible uses of either mechanic. Now, you would be right to say that if _all you had_ was Page 42, you might need to kitbash rules for something that wasn't the use of a skill or an attack, but given how broad 4e skills are, it's hard to think of example actions that couldn't, in some way, cash out as _some kind_ of skillful endeavor.

Now, take that same concept, but generalize it even further. Fate's aspects are literally "why X person/place/thing is important," its skills are a very nearly comprehensive list of "stuff people can do" (such as "deceive" or "fight"), its stunts are ways to make skills do things they normally don't (backstab is a given example: you can Attack using Stealth, but only if your target can't see you), Compels and Invokes cover effectively all possible forms of having-your-weakness-exploited and finding-an-advantage-from-the-world. The extremely broad four actions (Overcome, Create an Advantage, Attack, and Defend) cover pretty much all possible things you could want to do (since you can Overcome your depression or Create an Advantage through your art or whatever), and the four Outcomes (Fail, Tie, Succeed, and Succeed with Style) cover with reasonable granularity all possible results of an attempted action.

I'm just not seeing where the _room_ is to kitbash anything. Fate is literally designed to be the RPG equivalent of "algebraically closed." I don't see where there's _room_ to kitbash any totally new rules. You'd end up just re-building the rules you were already using, or ceasing to play Fate entirely (because you wouldn't have these universal mechanics still being _universal_ anymore.)


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## Aldarc (Jan 21, 2021)

EzekielRaiden said:


> I'm just not seeing where the _room_ is to kitbash anything. Fate is literally designed to be the RPG equivalent of "algebraically closed." I don't see where there's _room_ to kitbash any totally new rules. You'd end up just re-building the rules you were already using, or ceasing to play Fate entirely (because you wouldn't have these universal mechanics still being _universal_ anymore.)



The core mechanics are generalized and integral, but outside of that? A fair amount is fairly mutable: e.g., Skills vs. Approaches vs. Roles vs. Rated Aspects. And additional mechanics can be built on top (e.g, Mantles, magic sub-systems, stress types, etc.). But the generalized core system form the foundation or skeleton for the rest of the game.


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## pemerton (Jan 21, 2021)

Thomas Shey said:


> I can't speak for Forged in the Dark,, but none of the Cortex games I'm familiar with would be in the least difficult to play with just Discord if you're not super fussy about being able to supervise dice rolls.



We found a free online dice roller that works well for Cortex+ online play. We used it together with Zoom (and screen sharing so everyone can cheer or boo the rolls) to play sessions of Cortex+ Heroic LotR. Zoom chat is a good way to share Scene Distinctions and the current size of the doom pool.

There's no need for a virtual table top in any literal sense.


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## TheSword (Jan 21, 2021)

EzekielRaiden said:


> Though I don't quite follow Aldarc's way of saying it, I have to agree with him that you seem to be looking at only the most superficial similarity and calling that equivalence.
> 
> Rule 0 isn't, as far as I'm concerned, about _inventing new rules_. I would even go so far as to say that no application of Rule 0 that anyone has ever actually described to me would qualify as _inventing new rules_. It is, instead, "Okay well this rule did a dumb thing on this one special occasion, so we'll bend/ignore it _just for this one moment_, but it still holds in general." Hence why I said earlier that "Rule 0" really isn't--and, IMO, _cannot be_--a "rule" proper of the system. Because it's not a rule. It's a reminder that this thing we call "gaming" is a social activity, and thus not beholden purely to arbitrary rules on a page. Being a social activity, "gaming" admits dynamic understanding of its own structures. That doesn't mean there can never be (contextually) objective answers; what it means is that that context includes self-reflection and the ability to see the higher purpose which the rules _try_ to pursue but will (by definition!) fail to pursue at least some of the time.



Rule zero absolutely can be about inventing new rules if that makes the game more fun.

Some applications of rule zero I can think of off the top of my head.


giving characters an extra feat at first level (not uncommon as far as I can tell)
Increasing starting hit points.
Creating extra skills proficiencies for a specific campaign that required them.
Creating a new special ability for a monster that isn’t featured in the DMG. Perhaps porting it over  from Pathfinder or another edition.
Adjudicating outcomes that don’t fall within the the rules of the game. For instance making a deal with a warlocks patron to un petrify a colleague in exchange for a dark deal.
Allowing Gestalt PCs where they can carry abilities over from two classes. Particularly where there are only one or two players in a campaign.
Adding kingdom building elements to the campaign such a Pathfinders Campaign Guides, or Birthrights domain management.

All these are examples of Rule Zero creating rules that aren’t in the game. I’ve used all these at some point in 5e, with the exception of the petrification which came from the Nerdarchy blog on Rule Zero. Rule Zero is RPG Storytellers’ Best Friend

As has been said, Players vest authority to use rule zero when they nominate/accept a DM. Players can register dissent on a variety of levels with applications of rule zero: simple protest; after game conversation; group discussion; player quits the campaign; group says they don’t want to play that campaign anymore.

In reality the players can exercise greater control as a collective to check the ‘unlimited’ power of a rogue DM. A DM can do anything in the game, but they can’t force players to sit there and take it. This balance is there because the ultimate driving need for the DM is to keep the game fun, because their existence depends upon it.

@loverdrive quoted a list of principals and agendas for a DM in the game being described. I would say that that list can equally be used for D&D if you replace rule related principals with their equivalents. They are just advice for a way of playing any rpg.


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## pemerton (Jan 21, 2021)

TheSword said:


> @loverdrive quoted a list of principals and agendas for a DM in the game being described. I would say that that list can equally be used for D&D if you replace rule related principals with their equivalents. They are just advice for a way of playing any rpg.



I don't see very many posts about D&D games that play like Dungeon World or Apocalypse World games play. And mostly when I see responses to posts about DW or AW play from posters who are primarily or exclusively D&D players they seem non-plussed or express objctions to the way DW or AW works.

So I don't really believe that 5e can be played in the way that DW is, or by application of the DW principles.


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## Aldarc (Jan 21, 2021)

TheSword said:


> Rule zero absolutely can be about inventing new rules if that makes the game more fun.
> 
> Some applications of rule zero I can think of off the top of my head.
> 
> ...



From what I gather from the way you talk about Rule Zero, the Rule Zero of Rule Zero is that Rule Zero involves shifting the goal posts of the definition so liberally that Rule Zero that can be anything the GM wants Rule Zero to be.


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## loverdrive (Jan 21, 2021)

Aldarc said:


> From what I gather from the way you talk about Rule Zero, the Rule Zero of Rule Zero is that Rule Zero involves shifting the goal posts of the definition so liberally that Rule Zero that can be anything the GM wants Rule Zero to be.



I invoke rule zero so tonight we play Smash instead of D&D


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## Maxperson (Jan 21, 2021)

Aldarc said:


> From what I gather from the way you talk about Rule Zero, the Rule Zero of Rule Zero is that Rule Zero involves shifting the goal posts of the definition so liberally that Rule Zero that can be anything the GM wants Rule Zero to be.



There was nothing in his examples that shifted the definition that we've been using for Rule 0 since this discussion started.  Rule 0 may have come from wargames back in Chainmail, but by the time 1e hit, it was being used to improve the game, however that improvement came.  Things evolve.  Rule 0 is one of those things.


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## PsyzhranV2 (Jan 21, 2021)

TheSword said:


> Rule zero absolutely can be about inventing new rules if that makes the game more fun.
> 
> Some applications of rule zero I can think of off the top of my head.
> 
> ...



Since when did house rules fall under Rule 0?


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## Campbell (Jan 21, 2021)

PsyzhranV2 said:


> Since when did house rules fall under Rule 0?




The term pretty much stems from Step 0 of character creation in D&D 3e which is to check with the DM to see if there are any house rules for the game that impact character creation. I think this often gets conflated with White Wolf's Golden Rule which is specifically about ignoring or changing rules based on what the GM thinks is "best for the story" and Rulings Over Rules from the OSR community which about a GM making judgements about how to handle a situation based on fictional positioning, and a GM's role as arbiter/interpreter of rules of the game. These are very different conceptually. 

In my view framing Rule Zero in such an expansive way is mostly about enshrining The Golden Rule using language that feels like it's an essential part of the D&D tradition and roleplaying games in general. In particular when it is farmed out as something applying to all RPGs without reference to how that particular game defines the GM role. Being able to unilaterally declare house rules, The Golden Rule, and Rulings Over Rules, GM as rules arbiter are features of some games and they are not really tied together in any way. The can exist in any combination. Absolutely none of them are required for functional RPG play. GMs are not even required.


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## TheSword (Jan 21, 2021)

pemerton said:


> I don't see very many posts about D&D games that play like Dungeon World or Apocalypse World games play. And mostly when I see responses to posts about DW or AW play from posters who are primarily or exclusively D&D players they seem non-plussed or express objctions to the way DW or AW works.
> 
> So I don't really believe that 5e can be played in the way that DW is, or by application of the DW principles.



You don’t believe these principles can apply to D&D?

Portray a fantastic world
Fill the characters’ lives with adventure
Play to find out what happens
Draw maps, leave blanks
Address the characters, not the players
Embrace the fantastic
Describe actions not rules
Give every monster life
Name every person
Ask questions and use the answers
Be a fan of the characters
Think dangerous
Begin and end with the fiction
Think offscreen, too
You don’t think D&D can play this way? I’m surprised because most of my campaigns run this way.

Could you explain how this is not possible?


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## Aldarc (Jan 21, 2021)

TheSword said:


> You don’t believe these principles can apply to D&D?



Regardless of whether one can, I don't think that the rules of D&D (or the typical approach around them) necessarily support or reinforce all the listed principles. Plus, you also leave out a number of the ones that she listed. Nor do I think that you could run D&D like DW particularly well despite what you may claim. Have you actually played DW (or a PbtA game) before? 



Campbell said:


> In my view framing Rule Zero in such an expansive way is mostly about enshrining The Golden Rule using language that feels like it's an essential part of the D&D tradition and roleplaying games in general. In particular when it is farmed out as something applying to all RPGs without reference to how that particular game defines the GM role. Being able to unilaterally declare house rules, The Golden Rule, and Rulings Over Rules, GM as rules arbiter are features of some games and they are not really tied together in any way. The can exist in any combination. Absolutely none of them are required for functional RPG play. GMs are not even required.



Yeah, there is a lot of trying to conflate a variety of different terms and principles as a way to reinforce GM carte blanche.


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## Thomas Shey (Jan 21, 2021)

pemerton said:


> We found a free online dice roller that works well for Cortex+ online play. We used it together with Zoom (and screen sharing so everyone can cheer or boo the rolls) to play sessions of Cortex+ Heroic LotR. Zoom chat is a good way to share Scene Distinctions and the current size of the doom pool.
> 
> There's no need for a virtual table top in any literal sense.




That was my point.  VTTs can sometimes have some mechanical support that's useful, but a big part of their benefit is usually to games that actually make it useful to have a battle map of at least some sort (though you can also get some convenient sharing of other sorts of maps and images, but again, you can do that with Discord too, its just not quite as efficient).  Mind you, most of the games I prefer _do  _work better that way, not the least because I have terrible spatial imagination and memory, but I'm entirely aware there are some that don't really benefit much there, because of some combination of not being too interested in distance and position, or having potential scales so large it's largely moot, like some superhero games.


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## Thomas Shey (Jan 21, 2021)

R_Chance said:


> Given that there were only a thousand copies of D&D in that first print batch (1974) and as I understand it they took a year to sell out, I doubt there was a massive infusion of anyone playing the game. I knew about 12-15 players and there were three boxed sets among us. I don't think they had any distribution outside of hobby channels at the time. Some of the guys I played historical miniatures with (even medieval) just didn't go for fantasy too. I was busy absorbing every fantasy and science fiction book I could get my hands on myself  If you were talking later in 1975 when the next couple of print runs were done or 1976 when the white box was produced in fairly large numbers I might agree. At least I'm pretty sure there was only one printing of D&D in '74, but I might be wrong. Those years kind of melt into a haze of high school / gaming / college  I am occasionally amazed that I managed to graduate from high school and wonder on into college. Still, the evidence I have is only anecdotal, my memory is subject to error, ad this is for two groups I played with in one town. So, can't say anything for sure.




I'm not going to speak of the early part, but all I can tell you is they were absolutely were all over the place by early '75 (specifically by the time of the publication of Greyhawk).  It was sufficiently spread out by the middle of that year that SF cons were starting to have issues with the amount of space D&D players were taking up, and that it had spawned two (and probably more, these were just the two I was aware of that were out that early) expanding APAs in the form of _The Wild Hunt_ and _Alarums and Excursions_. So I suppose you could argue that it didn't really take off until a year after its publication, but its still the case that once it penetrated SF fandom it grew pretty explosively. By the time I got into it myself in late '75 it had even spawned its own dedicated convention (though that quickly expanded into supporting other RPGs).



R_Chance said:


> And I wish I still had one of the originals. We literally wore them out and some booklets were misplaced / borrowed and boxes destroyed by time and casual abuse while playing. One guy moved out of town with a bunch of our stuff. That was annoying. The oldest we (me and my brother) have left is, I think, a third printing woodgrain box set, ? 1975. I have a white box set too, 1975-6 probably. There were things added to the 1977 white boxed cover iirc.




Same here; I have an incredibly battered beige box with disintergrating books, and a later white box I inherited from a late friend.    A quick check shows the former is indeed, the same third printing you reference above (which isn't surprising since I entered the hobby in late '75).



R_Chance said:


> As for house ruling board wargames, for some games we altered rules and used spare counter to produce units, etc. We were producing other nations navies for use with the Jutland game / rules for example and doing our own strategic maps etc. That game was half way to a miniature set though. Played it later with 1/2400 scale miniature warships. Most of the house rules were miniature rules though. It was easier to find a RAW board game group, although interpretations of the rules might vary. A lot in some cases




Well, the extent and quality of the rules involved was absolutely going to impact the latter.  How consistent people were going to be from use of, say, Avalon Hill's Kriegspiel was going to vary considerably in contrast with some of the more, uhm, detailed SPI games.



R_Chance said:


> Judges Guild was the first "third party" D&D support I remember and that was 1976 (iirc). There were APA 'zines too, and probably a lot of stuff made that didn't see wide distribution. The Strategic Review / The Dragon, and the D&D supplements were out but that's not third party. I'm not sure what year White Dwarf dropped just off hand, but post 1976 I think. I have a couple of the Arduin Grimoires volumes boxed around here somewhere. Not sure when they came out.




There was already various third party products by the time I got in in late '75.  How widely distributed they were I can't say, but I was finding them at game stores and conventions in that period.  Judges Guild may well have been the biggest, but they were neither first nor only.  Most of the other material was clearly stuff that was done on, charitably, a budget.  And as you say, there were the APAs, though how widely spread they were was a really good question.  I suspect it was one of those things that if you were involved through SF fandom you were more likely to see than if you came in through other routes, since APAs were a big thing in organized fandom at the time.



R_Chance said:


> Most of the "add on" content we used was what we home brewed. It was as good as anything else we were likely to find (I think). And creating it was fun. OK, I am having a massive nostalgia attack here  A sure sign of advancing old age...




Well, since much of the third party product was "Somebody got this set of ideas and then decided to sell it..." that's probably no big surprise.  And awful lot of it was more colorful than really thought through (which was more of an issue with new spells and classes than it was with monsters or magic items...)


----------



## Thomas Shey (Jan 21, 2021)

EzekielRaiden said:


> I'm just not seeing where the _room_ is to kitbash anything. Fate is literally designed to be the RPG equivalent of "algebraically closed." I don't see where there's _room_ to kitbash any totally new rules. You'd end up just re-building the rules you were already using, or ceasing to play Fate entirely (because you wouldn't have these universal mechanics still being _universal_ anymore.)




I think it turns on how you view different versions of Fate; for example, all evidence I have are that FAE and Strange Fate are very different beasts, but they're both derived from the same basic structure, where FAE has smoothed out some elements and SF has expanded on and added some.  The latter seems at least vaguely analogous to "kitbashing" at its root.

So are both those games also Fate, or not?  (And its legitimate to answer you're not familiar enough with either to say).


----------



## Lanefan (Jan 21, 2021)

Aldarc said:


> I don't think that equivocating on terms through shallow, superficial comparisons is particularly helpful for discussion for understanding the key ideas, principles, and meanings of terms.



It is when you're trying to limit the definition of Rule 0 to one specific subset of what it covers; and if you want to call that "shallow" and "superficial" then sorry, that's on you.


Aldarc said:


> I don't think that it ever was infinite, though it says quite a bit that you think it is.



Sigh...so much for that joke.


Aldarc said:


> If you know nothing about Fate by this point after at least 2 years of regular discussion with me and others who bring it up, I would say that's as good of proof as anything that you never listen, which would certainly explain why you are one of those posters that we constantly have to re-explain basic concepts and gameplay of other systems to.
> 
> Also, this has the same problem as above where you are conflating kit-bashing with Rule Zero.



"Conflating" kit-bashing with Rule 0 is only a problem in your eyes due to your limited definition of what Rule 0 covers.

System-level kitbashing, house rules, on-the-fly rulings to covers things not hit by the rules - all of these are part of Rule 0, which in itself boils down to "make the game your own".


Aldarc said:


> If only someone has already discussed this before in this thread...



OK, so Fate just hides its version of Rule 0 under a different name.  Got it.


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## Lanefan (Jan 21, 2021)

EzekielRaiden said:


> Though I don't quite follow Aldarc's way of saying it, I have to agree with him that you seem to be looking at only the most superficial similarity and calling that equivalence.
> 
> Rule 0 isn't, as far as I'm concerned, about _inventing new rules_. I would even go so far as to say that no application of Rule 0 that anyone has ever actually described to me would qualify as _inventing new rules_. It is, instead, "Okay well this rule did a dumb thing on this one special occasion, so we'll bend/ignore it _just for this one moment_, but it still holds in general."



That's one part of Rule 0.  To me, Rule 0 also includes "This rule* does a dumb thing _every time it comes up_, so let's fix it once and for all."  It also includes "No matter how I tilt my head I can't see a rule anywhere that covers this particular mess we're in, so I'm going to make one up and, because it's setting a precedent, it'll become part of our game rules henceforth".  Now, expand that to include the GM noticing these things before play even begins, and you've covered houseruling.

* - replacing 'rule' with 'system' takes you straight into kitbashing: this system for doing xxx causes headaches every time we touch it, so let's fix it.


EzekielRaiden said:


> Hence why I said earlier that "Rule 0" really isn't--and, IMO, _cannot be_--a "rule" proper of the system. Because it's not a rule. It's a reminder that this thing we call "gaming" is a social activity, and thus not beholden purely to arbitrary rules on a page. Being a social activity, "gaming" admits dynamic understanding of its own structures. That doesn't mean there can never be (contextually) objective answers; what it means is that that context includes self-reflection and the ability to see the higher purpose which the rules _try_ to pursue but will (by definition!) fail to pursue at least some of the time.
> 
> It is exactly analogous to the idea that there can be _unjust laws_, but that the existence of unjust laws does not make the concept of law self-contradictory. Laws exist to serve some purpose, by definition. But, being the product of mortal hands, they cannot be perfect. It is possible for mortal hands to write mortal laws that conflict with the purpose for which they were designed. An otherwise good law which has suddenly run into a particularly rare special case is (one reason) why we have courts--the courts _are_ the Rule 0 of law, so that living, thinking minds can review and provide relief if a law has erred. A law that has an egregiously open flaw may thus be _discovered_ by the application of the courts (the Rule 0 of law), but--and this, again, is perfectly analogous to the RPG rules structure--it is not the place of the courts (Rule 0) to _create new_ law. That's the job of the legislature.



If I follow up on this it'll get politicial in a flash, so I'm going to abstain... 


EzekielRaiden said:


> Given your wink, I assume this means you recognize that there _are_ limits on the appropriate and judicious use of Rule 0?



Obviously.  And we can all quickly think of enough bad ways to use it, I'm sure. 


EzekielRaiden said:


> Fate...isn't a kitbasher's system. Kitbasher implies inventing new rules; you don't do that with Fate.



Kitbashing also implies dropping rules or systems that don't work (e.g. anyone who dropped weapon speed from 1e D&D was kitbashing), along with changing other rules or systems.

When TSR/WotC does their kitbashing they call the results a new edition.


EzekielRaiden said:


> Since I'm fairly sure you have more knowledge of 4e, consider Page 42. Page 42 was meant to have rules for _all possible attack-like and skill-like actions_. It offers DCs which are appropriate to actions that should be easy, medium, or hard for a character of a given level, so if you've decided that climbing a glass mountain should be hard for a 14th-level Rogue, you can get an accurate number for what that _"means"_ in-world. There is no need to "kitbash" anything within the realm of attacks or skill-use actions, because Page 42's extensible framework is applicable to all possible uses of either mechanic. Now, you would be right to say that if _all you had_ was Page 42, you might need to kitbash rules for something that wasn't the use of a skill or an attack, but given how broad 4e skills are, it's hard to think of example actions that couldn't, in some way, cash out as _some kind_ of skillful endeavor.



Gotcha.  This falls more under on-the-fly rulings; another aspect of Rule 0.

I suppose the only minor kitbash aspect of it might arise if your rulings in a given situation hold precedent within that game and become houserules.


EzekielRaiden said:


> Now, take that same concept, but generalize it even further. Fate's aspects are literally "why X person/place/thing is important," its skills are a very nearly comprehensive list of "stuff people can do" (such as "deceive" or "fight"), its stunts are ways to make skills do things they normally don't (backstab is a given example: you can Attack using Stealth, but only if your target can't see you), Compels and Invokes cover effectively all possible forms of having-your-weakness-exploited and finding-an-advantage-from-the-world. The extremely broad four actions (Overcome, Create an Advantage, Attack, and Defend) cover pretty much all possible things you could want to do (since you can Overcome your depression or Create an Advantage through your art or whatever), and the four Outcomes (Fail, Tie, Succeed, and Succeed with Style) cover with reasonable granularity all possible results of an attempted action.
> 
> I'm just not seeing where the _room_ is to kitbash anything. Fate is literally designed to be the RPG equivalent of "algebraically closed." I don't see where there's _room_ to kitbash any totally new rules. You'd end up just re-building the rules you were already using, or ceasing to play Fate entirely (because you wouldn't have these universal mechanics still being _universal_ anymore.)



Kitbashing almost always moves away from RAW; and at some hard-to-define point yes, one could say it's no longer the original game.  Much there depends on how closely you adhere to the original chassis in your changes.


----------



## Lanefan (Jan 21, 2021)

PsyzhranV2 said:


> Since when did house rules fall under Rule 0?



Since forever, I'd say.


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## Aldarc (Jan 21, 2021)

Lanefan said:


> It is when you're trying to limit the definition of Rule 0 to one specific subset of what it covers; and if you want to call that "shallow" and "superficial" then sorry, that's on you.
> 
> "Conflating" kit-bashing with Rule 0 is only a problem in your eyes due to your limited definition of what Rule 0 covers.
> 
> System-level kitbashing, house rules, on-the-fly rulings to covers things not hit by the rules - all of these are part of Rule 0, which in itself boils down to "make the game your own".



When everything is Rule Zero, then nothing is. 



Lanefan said:


> OK, so Fate just hides its version of Rule 0 under a different name.  Got it.



The Silver Rule is a different principle.


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## Maxperson (Jan 21, 2021)

PsyzhranV2 said:


> Since when did house rules fall under Rule 0?



Since its inception.  Rule 0 is just the ability to add, subtract or change rules as the DM sees fit.


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## Maxperson (Jan 21, 2021)

Aldarc said:


> When everything is Rule Zero, then nothing is.



Good thing RAW is part of everything, then.


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## pemerton (Jan 21, 2021)

TheSword said:


> You don’t believe these principles can apply to D&D?
> 
> Portray a fantastic world
> Fill the characters’ lives with adventure
> ...



My impression is that much or even most D&D play, of 5e at least, is AP-based and hence is not _playing to find out what happens_.

When posters on this board talk about _drawing maps, leaving blanks _the typical response from those who play D&D primarily or exclusively is "Schroedinger's <whatever>" - as best I can tell the canonical approach in D&D is for the GM to draw maps in advance, to adjudicate action declaration by referring to those maps and keys, and if forced to improvise to as much as possible assimilate that to working from a prepared map and key. The same thing is true of _asking questions and using the answers_.

D&D does not very well support _describing actions not rules _because of the nature of the rule-set - for instance, it seems to me very hard to resolve a D&D combat without primarily describing rules (attack attempts, attack rolls, damage rolls, changes in hit point totals, bonus actions, saving throw numbers, etc). For similar reasons D&D does not typically _begin and end with the fiction_.


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## Maxperson (Jan 21, 2021)

pemerton said:


> My impression is that much or even most D&D play, of 5e at least, is AP-based and hence is not _playing to find out what happens_.



There's no way that you can know what happens.  You MUST play to find out what happens.  Even if the goal is save the princess, you don't know if it will be a success or the path that will take them there, or even if they will go another direction and leave her to rot.


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## Lanefan (Jan 21, 2021)

Aldarc said:


> When everything is Rule Zero, then nothing is.



If everything was Rule 0 both my bookshelves and my hard drive would be a whole lot emptier.


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## EzekielRaiden (Jan 22, 2021)

Lanefan said:


> Since forever, I'd say.



Okay so...since it's a lot easier to respond to this than pick apart the full posts etc. from earlier...

What's your justification for this, beyond your bald assertion of it? Because it's pretty clear that at least _some_ of the cited examples...and in particular, the image we see heading this thread...don't include any of those other things in Rule 0. "Gamer's First Law: If a rule is silly, change or ignore it--just so long as everyone knows that's what your preference is ahead of time." That's got nothing to do with _house-ruling_ the game, and everything to do with addressing the situations where the rule falls down. It certainly doesn't have anything to do with kitbashing, playtesting, or a variety of other things DMs can and should do when they desire.

A problem here is that there have (apparently always?) been two different definitions, stretching _way_ back. In one, Rule 0 is _specific_: it admits the rules can't be perfect, and that DMs should do what makes sense when that happens. In this definition, other specific terms exist for the other tools in the DM's toolbox, including house-ruling, kitbashing, adjudication, etc. This specificity is desirable to those who use this definition because _without_ that specificity, there really isn't a singular term for "the goal/spirit of the game is paramount, and DMs not only can but should ensure the rules don't conflict with that," at least not that I'm aware of. "Infrequent rules-override," maybe?

In the other definition, Rule 0 is _as broad as possible_: it is identical to what is in other places called the Golden Rule, "Whatever the DM says, goes." Under this definition, literally every action the DM takes is an application of Rule 0, because following a rule from the book is itself a DM preference. This, if I understand correctly (since I don't hold this position), is valued because it presents the DM's role in a unified way, noting that judgment, foresight, social contract, and the ever-nebulous "fun" are always what should drive DM action, with the game rules as mere tools to achieve that end.

Personally, I don't find the latter definition of Rule 0 very useful. I think it actively muddies discussion by making what are pretty clearly distinct actions ("infrequent rules-override" vs. "inventing new rules to be adhered to" is about as opposite as you can get), and because, as stated, we don't really have a good, established term for what the narrow definition of Rule 0 covers, but we _do_ have established terms for all the other stuff: kitbashing, house-ruling, adjudication, even controversial stuff like fudging and illusionism. They're all part of the DM's toolbox, even the controversial tools, and _equating_ the entire toolbox with the name commonly (though, I admit, not exclusively) used for just one specific tool makes it a lot harder to discuss that one tool, or indeed any other specific tool in the toolbox.

So: Why should I accept the ultra-broad definition, particularly in light of many of the things cited in the blogpost that triggered this thread?



Lanefan said:


> If everything was Rule 0 both my bookshelves and my hard drive would be a whole lot emptier.



I mean, I don't really see how that _isn't_ what you're saying....


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## pemerton (Jan 22, 2021)

Maxperson said:


> There's no way that you can know what happens.  You MUST play to find out what happens.  Even if the goal is save the princess, you don't know if it will be a success or the path that will take them there, or even if they will go another direction and leave her to rot.



That is not what _play to find out what happens_ means when stated as a principle for Dungeon World. As the rulebook makes clear. (Have you read it?)


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## EzekielRaiden (Jan 22, 2021)

Maxperson said:


> There's no way that you can know what happens.  You MUST play to find out what happens.  Even if the goal is save the princess, you don't know if it will be a success or the path that will take them there, or even if they will go another direction and leave her to rot.



Okay, but how does that square with running an adventure path that has a defined sequence of events? Paizo and our own ENWorld have made bank on them. If you truly never know whether things can go in _any_ new direction, adventure paths and first-to-max campaigns don't work.

To some extent, you _do_ know what can happen. But I would argue you are taking "play to find out what happens" to an out-of-context degree, particularly given Dungeon World's enthusiastic embrace of "fail forward" resolution. Failure has costs, preferably real and lasting ones, but that doesn't mean the path or destination is _gone_.


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## TheSword (Jan 22, 2021)

pemerton said:


> That is not what _play to find out what happens_ means when stated as a principle for Dungeon World. As the rulebook makes clear. (Have you read it?)



The claim is that Moves make following an adventure path very challenging because apparently moves can radically throw it of course. And therefore you should play it by ear. Having had a good look through the suggested moves I am utterly unconvinced by that claim.

Incidentally it is clear that the system does have rule zero as exemplified by Hacking the system. Suggesting moves as a good place to start.

The rules read like a bad team-building event at work. “I’ve had enough of this ogre!”


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## TheSword (Jan 22, 2021)

EzekielRaiden said:


> Okay, but how does that square with running an adventure path that has a defined sequence of events? Paizo and our own ENWorld have made bank on them. If you truly never know whether things can go in _any_ new direction, adventure paths and first-to-max campaigns don't work.
> 
> To some extent, you _do_ know what can happen. But I would argue you are taking "play to find out what happens" to an out-of-context degree, particularly given Dungeon World's enthusiastic embrace of "fail forward" resolution. Failure has costs, preferably real and lasting ones, but that doesn't mean the path or destination is _gone_.



They don’t necessarily have defined sequence of events. They usually have characters and locations with aims and goals. That can be radically changed by what the PCs do.


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## Maxperson (Jan 22, 2021)

TheSword said:


> They don’t necessarily have defined sequence of events. They usually have characters and locations with aims and goals. That can be radically changed by what the PCs do.



Further, the players can decide halfway through that they don't want to continue and take a jaunt over to the nearest desert and start looking for tombs.


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## loverdrive (Jan 22, 2021)

TheSword said:


> You don’t believe these principles can apply to D&D?
> 
> Portray a fantastic world
> Fill the characters’ lives with adventure
> ...



You can, at least to a degree. You can even try to follow the principles of Monsterhearts and, with some effort, get a game about teenage monsters exploring and making peace with their nature, gender and sexuality, but this doesn't sound like the best idea in the world.

But that's not why I cited them. I cited them to show what other games have that D&D doesn't. D&D stops at truism "you can change naughty word if you want to", and doesn't have a framework for making rulings.

Like, yeah, with experience, you would get a grasp of the system and general good practices, but when somebody asks me "hey, I wanna try my hand at GMing 5E, got any advice?" I can't reply with "just read the book, follow the rules and everything is gonna be great".


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## pemerton (Jan 22, 2021)

TheSword said:


> The claim is that Moves make following an adventure path very challenging because apparently moves can radically throw it of course. And therefore you should play it by ear. Having had a good look through the suggested moves I am utterly unconvinced by that claim.



Have you played DW, or AW, or Burning Wheel, or any other RPG that utilises some form of a "no myth' or "little myth" approach to play?

If you have, and found that you were able to run an AP-type adventure, I'd be interested to hear about it.

But in any event, successfully running Dungeon World while _not_ playing to find out, _not _drawing maps while leaving blanks, and _not_ asking questions and building on the answers, doesn't show that D&D _can _be played while following those principles.


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## pemerton (Jan 22, 2021)

Maxperson said:


> Further, the players can decide halfway through that they don't want to continue and take a jaunt over to the nearest desert and start looking for tombs.



Who gets to decide that there's a "nearest desert"? Or that it does or doesn't have tombs?

Typical D&D play answers those two questions _very _differently from the way that Dungeon World does when played in accordance with its principles.


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## Maxperson (Jan 22, 2021)

pemerton said:


> Who gets to decide that there's a "nearest desert"?



I don't think I've seen a world without a desert, so there's bound to be a nearest one. I mean, if you're playing on a water world it would be silly for the players to try and find a desert, but they would know that and pick something else to go do.


pemerton said:


> Or that it does or doesn't have tombs?



The players.  Hence "looking for tombs." There may or may not be tombs there, but that doesn't mean that the players cannot decide to go to the nearest desert and look.


pemerton said:


> Typical D&D play answers those two questions _very _differently from the way that Dungeon World does when played in accordance with its principles.



It may answer them differently, but it's still the players deciding to go that prompts the answer.  The answer which is discovered through game play, not pre-determined.


----------



## pemerton (Jan 22, 2021)

EzekielRaiden said:


> "Gamer's First Law: If a rule is silly, change or ignore it--just so long as everyone knows that's what your preference is ahead of time." That's got nothing to do with _house-ruling_ the game, and everything to do with addressing the situations where the rule falls down. It certainly doesn't have anything to do with kitbashing, playtesting, or a variety of other things DMs can and should do when they desire.
> 
> A problem here is that there have (apparently always?) been two different definitions, stretching _way_ back. In one, Rule 0 is _specific_: it admits the rules can't be perfect, and that DMs should do what makes sense when that happens. In this definition, other specific terms exist for the other tools in the DM's toolbox, including house-ruling, kitbashing, adjudication, etc.
> 
> ...





Campbell said:


> The term pretty much stems from Step 0 of character creation in D&D 3e which is to check with the DM to see if there are any house rules for the game that impact character creation. I think this often gets conflated with White Wolf's Golden Rule which is specifically about ignoring or changing rules based on what the GM thinks is "best for the story" and Rulings Over Rules from the OSR community which about a GM making judgements about how to handle a situation based on fictional positioning, and a GM's role as arbiter/interpreter of rules of the game. These are very different conceptually.
> 
> In my view framing Rule Zero in such an expansive way is mostly about enshrining The Golden Rule using language that feels like it's an essential part of the D&D tradition and roleplaying games in general. In particular when it is farmed out as something applying to all RPGs without reference to how that particular game defines the GM role. Being able to unilaterally declare house rules, The Golden Rule, and Rulings Over Rules, GM as rules arbiter are features of some games and they are not really tied together in any way. The can exist in any combination. Absolutely none of them are required for functional RPG play. GMs are not even required.



I think these two posts are right. It's unhelpful to run together these different things - house ruling (and who is in charge of that); how fictional positioning is managed, and (related, but not the same) the role of GM judgement in adjudication; the ability of one or more participants to override the rules (when confined to the GM, this is WW's "golden rule"); who gets to pitch the "big picture" of a campaign and the extent to which other participants are expected to work with, or perhaps push against, this; etc.

I remember reading "rule zero" in the 3E PHB which, as Campbell has posted, is an aspect of the PC build process (ie check with your GM first about house rules and "big picture" of the campaign). I was puzzled when, over the course of the past 20 years reading ENworld, I started to see "rule zero" used to describe a general principle that the GM can suspend or override action resolution rules in the interests of "fun", "the campaign", etc. These are _not _the same thing.


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## Maxperson (Jan 22, 2021)

pemerton said:


> I remember reading "rule zero" in the 3E PHB which, as Campbell has posted, is an aspect of the PC build process (ie check with your GM first about house rules and "big picture" of the campaign). I was puzzled when, over the course of the past 20 years reading ENworld, I started to see "rule zero" used to describe a general principle that the GM can suspend or override action resolution rules in the interests of "fun", "the campaign", etc. These are _not _the same thing.



Rule 0 is in the 3.5 DMG on page 6.


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## pemerton (Jan 22, 2021)

pemerton said:


> Who gets to decide that there's a "nearest desert"? Or that it does or doesn't have tombs?
> 
> Typical D&D play answers those two questions _very _differently from the way that Dungeon World does when played in accordance with its principles.





Maxperson said:


> I don't think I've seen a world without a desert, so there's bound to be a nearest one. I mean, if you're playing on a water world it would be silly for the players to try and find a desert, but they would know that and pick something else to go do.
> 
> The players.  Hence "looking for tombs." There may or may not be tombs there, but that doesn't mean that the players cannot decide to go to the nearest desert and look.
> 
> It may answer them differently, but it's still the players deciding to go that prompts the answer.  The answer which is discovered through game play, not pre-determined.



You don't have the _players _deciding if there are tombs. When you say _there may or may not be tombs there_ you're implying that the GM will decide that.

And _the players _raising the question "Are there tombs" and then learning what the GM's answer is is by declaring actions for their PCs will prompt the GM to reveal that answer are basically the opposite of the DW approach.

Is there anyone in this thread who has played both DW and D&D and thinks that they play the same in respect of _drawing maps and leaving blanks_, _asking questions and building on the answers_, _playing to find out_, _beginning and ending with the fiction_, and _describing actions and not rules_? Or are those who are saying this just making it up?


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## TheSword (Jan 22, 2021)

pemerton said:


> I think these two posts are right. It's unhelpful to run together these different things - house ruling (and who is in charge of that); how fictional positioning is managed, and (related, but not the same) the role of GM judgement in adjudication; the ability of one or more participants to override the rules (when confined to the GM, this is WW's "golden rule"); who gets to pitch the "big picture" of a campaign and the extent to which other participants are expected to work with, or perhaps push against, this; etc.
> 
> I remember reading "rule zero" in the 3E PHB which, as Campbell has posted, is an aspect of the PC build process (ie check with your GM first about house rules and "big picture" of the campaign). I was puzzled when, over the course of the past 20 years reading ENworld, I started to see "rule zero" used to describe a general principle that the GM can suspend or override action resolution rules in the interests of "fun", "the campaign", etc. These are _not _the same thing.



You’re trying to twist rule zero into a specific definition to suit what you want it to be.

Rule Zero is as simple as the rules are guidelines and the DM can change them to improve everyone’s fine.

The fact that you like rule zero in one circumstances and dislike it in another, is even more of an argument for having rule zero. So you can play the way you like and I can play the way I like.

Regarding your questions about DW. I will never play Dungeon World, it’s far too loose, far too ephemeral, and essentially involves making it up as you go along. My players enjoy my worlds because they feel real and have verisimilitude. Exploring loses all wonder when you’re telling everyone else what they discover. They don’t won’t to play Pass the Story. They tell their stories through determining their characters action.

It doesn’t mean that these (the bulk of the principles listed) are unique to Dungeon World. I’ve removed references to DW rules

Fill the characters’ lives with adventure
Tell the players outcomes not their action.
Draw maps, leave blanks
Address the characters, not the players
Embrace the fantastic
Describe actions not rules
Give every monster life
Name every person
Ask questions and use the answers
Be a fan of the characters
Think dangerous
Think offscreen, too


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## pemerton (Jan 22, 2021)

Maxperson said:


> Rule 0 is in the 3.5 DMG on page 6.



What's your point? Are you querying my memory?


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## pemerton (Jan 22, 2021)

TheSword said:


> Regarding your questions about DW. I will never play Dungeon World, it’s far too loose, far too ephemeral, and essentially involves making it up as you go along.



In that case why are you asserting that you play your D&D game by applying the DW principles? You've just told us that you reject a number of them!



TheSword said:


> My players enjoy my worlds because they feel real and have verisimilitude. Exploring loses all wonder when you’re telling everyone else what they discover. They don’t won’t to play Pass the Story.



DW is not "pass the story". And for what it's worth, I'll put the reality and verisimilitude of the "no myth" games I run up against any poster on ENworld. (I have dozens of actual play threads that can be found easily enough.)

But in any event what you're saying here is that you do not _draw maps and leave blanks_, nor _ask questions and build on the answers_. So why, upthread, did you say the opposite?



TheSword said:


> You’re trying to twist rule zero into a specific definition to suit what you want it to be.
> 
> Rule Zero is as simple as the rules are guidelines and the DM can change them to improve everyone’s fine.



Where do I find this stated? What rulebook? Does that rulebook use the label "rule zero"?



TheSword said:


> The fact that you like rule zero in one circumstances and dislike it in another, is even more of an argument for having rule zero. So you can play the way you like and I can play the way I like.



Why do I need a rule published by a game publisher to play an RPG that I want to play? They're not the police!

I just do it.


EDIT: Can you explain how you run D&D combat by applying the principles _begin and end with the fiction_ and _describe actions, not rules_?


----------



## Aldarc (Jan 22, 2021)

pemerton said:


> Is there anyone in this thread who has played both DW and D&D and thinks that they play the same in respect of _drawing maps and leaving blanks_, _asking questions and building on the answers_, _playing to find out_, _beginning and ending with the fiction_, and _describing actions and not rules_? Or are those who are saying this just making it up?



There are fair number of people, whether here and elsewhere, who try to make D&D as the game that can do anything and everything well but then get upset at either the idea that other non-D&D games may do those things better or when those other non-D&D games actually do the things that they claim that D&D can likewise do. Plus, this is all far too regularly said and done by people without any actual play experience of these other games so it's transparently mostly just about defending the bubble people encase D&D in from any criticism.


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## TheSword (Jan 22, 2021)

pemerton said:


> In that case why are you asserting that you play your D&D game by applying the DW principles? You've just told us that you reject a number of them!



I reject some of them. DW does not have a monopoly on bringing Monsters and NPCs to life or embracing the fantastic. Or indeed any of the ‘principles’ you mention. Most of these are good for any roleplaying game if that’s the style you like.


pemerton said:


> DW is not "pass the story". And for what it's worth, I'll put the reality and verisimilitude of the "no myth" games I run up against any poster on ENworld. (I have dozens of actual play threads that can be found easily enough.)



It reads like it. When a player says I’m going to the desert to find the tombs that are there (without indication that there is a desert nearby or indeed any tombs) thats Pass the Story.


pemerton said:


> But in any event what you're saying here is that you do not _draw maps and leave blanks_, nor _ask questions and build on the answers_. So why, upthread, did you say the opposite?



I can ask the players, how did you get to this place? Have you been to this city before? What do you feel about this organization? Why are you willing to work with these other people? Why are the [X organisation] looking for you? The answers  are use. I’m not talking about character generation here.

I play a lot of adventures in Cities and the wilderness... they are almost all blanks. If the PCs need a healer, or an expert metal worker, or a sewer access, or a manor house to buy (that will have a ghost) then there will be one when there needs to be one. I have a lot of locations that can be dropped into a campaign as required. It’s one of the reasons I particularly like a book like Tomb of Annihilation because of the multiple locations it provides.



pemerton said:


> Where do I find this stated? What rulebook? Does that rulebook use the label "rule zero"?



It’s been in every edition of D&D and White Wolf, and Warhammer and plenty of other rule books. If you wiki rule zero you’ll get all the relevant quotes and references.



pemerton said:


> Why do I need a rule published by a game publisher to play an RPG that I want to play? They're not the police!
> 
> I just do it.



Good for you. Other people may feel they need express permission. Particularly if they’ve come from board games and/or are new to the game. It’s very odd that you object to a rule that you claim to follow anyway.


pemerton said:


> EDIT: Can you explain how you run D&D combat by applying the principles _begin and end with the fiction_ and _describe actions, not rules_?



My player says I want to charge at the ogre, flip the table and hide behind it, throw a fireball at the giants, run over to Alaric and check his wounds. That then gets translated into attack rolls, cover saves, saving throws, heal checks. I then respond with “your sword draws a red line across the ogres chest”, “the arrow thunks into the wood of the table”, “the fireball explodes, crisping scorching the giant’s hair and clothing and leaving their skin a mass of blisters”, “Alaric is still breathing shallow, you bind his wounds and stop the bleeding, he seems to be stable”.

The mix of rules and fiction is one of the things that makes D&D satisfying and feel real.


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## TheSword (Jan 22, 2021)

Aldarc said:


> There are fair number of people, whether here and elsewhere, who try to make D&D as the game that can do anything and everything well but then get upset at either the idea that other non-D&D games may do those things better or when those other non-D&D games actually do the things that they claim that D&D can likewise do. Plus, this is all far too regularly said and done by people without any actual play experience of these other games so it's transparently mostly just about defending the bubble people encase D&D in from any criticism.



Or perhaps people claiming a gaming system has a monopoly on a particular style of DMing is clearly incorrect. DW embraces a particular style. It didn’t invent blanks on a map, naming NPCs, or embracing the fantastic.


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## Aldarc (Jan 22, 2021)

TheSword said:


> It’s been in every edition of D&D and White Wolf, and Warhammer and plenty of other rule books. If you wiki rule zero you’ll get all the relevant quotes and references.



Rule Zero cannot be found on Wikipedia. The top answer in RPG.Stackexchange summarizes it as "the GM has ultimate say in all rules matters." TV Tropes cites it as "The Game Master is always right." 1d4 Chan summarizes it as "these rules are only a guideline" and says that this is often confused with the Golden Rule: i.e., "whatever the DM says, goes." It does cite examples, but its conception of Rule Zero follows the more restricted sense, and its citations show that different TTRPGs have differing "Rule 0s". So there are definitely plenty of mixed messages out there and not as cut and dried as you make it out to be. But as the article in the OP points out: Rule Zero is never described as Rule Zero really anywhere until a much later time in the game's culture, by which point, much as @Campbell says, it gets conflated with a bunch of related principles and powers pertaining to a GM's authority/god-complex (e.g., White Wolf's Golden Rule, etc.), much as it is in this thread.



TheSword said:


> Or perhaps people claiming a gaming system has a monopoly on a particular style of DMing is clearly incorrect. DW embraces a particular style. It didn’t invent blanks on a map, naming NPCs, or embracing the fantastic.



Or perhaps the idea that a gaming system has a monopoly on a particular style of DMing is a strawman argument you have clearly constructed. Let's be clear here: arguing that D&D may not support those principles as solidly with its rules, rulings, or guidelines as other games does not mean that people are arguing that DW has a monopoly on those principles. What people have argued is (1) that these principles are explicitly listed and detailed in DW and supported by its rules* and (2) that D&D does not provide a similar framework of principles for making rulings beyond "you can change naughty word if you want to," to quote loverdrive.

* As @loverdrive clarified (and you have not engaged) is that whether one can play by these principles in D&D as well is not even her point. It's just easier for you to bellow smoke at the idea that DW has a monopoly on this style of GMing than actually engage her arguments.


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## Manbearcat (Jan 22, 2021)

Aldarc said:


> From what I gather from the way you talk about Rule Zero, the Rule Zero of Rule Zero is that Rule Zero involves shifting the goal posts of the definition so liberally that Rule Zero that can be anything the GM wants Rule Zero to be.




I see you know "the first rule" of "Rule Zero Club!"

...man...should I get involved in this thread...

Not sure yet.  Presently I'm not feeling the word count I'd inevitably put in to Return on Investment maths working out.


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## TheSword (Jan 22, 2021)

1d4 Chan spells it out pretty clearly. I don’t think there is any inconsistency with these quotes. They all say essentially what I and others have claimed they say.

The fact that the phrase rule zero was coined to describe the rule, doesn’t change the fact that the rule existed as it is understood to be, through out the games history.



> In Basic D&D in 1980, the book says on the first page:
> _"Anything in this booklet (and other D&D booklets) should be thought of as changeable -- anything, that is, that the DM thinks should be changed... The purpose of these 'rules' is to provide guidelines that enable you to play and have fun, so don't feel absolutely bound to them."_
> 
> In AD&D, the player's handbook has on page 8:
> ...


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## TheSword (Jan 22, 2021)

Aldarc said:


> Or perhaps the idea that a gaming system has a monopoly on a particular style of DMing is a strawman argument you have clearly constructed. Let's be clear here: arguing that D&D may not support those principles as solidly with its rules, rulings, or guidelines as other games does not mean that people are arguing that DW has a monopoly on those principles. What people have argued is (1) that these principles are explicitly listed and detailed in DW and supported by its rules* and (2) that D&D does not provide a similar framework of principles for making rulings beyond "you can change naughty word if you want to," to quote loverdrive.



can you please explain to me in what way D&D rules prevent or discourages a person from any of the following. Or please explain how DW encourages this with its rules in a way that D&D can’t. To put it another way are these anything other than a stylistic choice of a DM rather than unique to a game system. Or to put another way, is Dungeon World just not spelling out as ‘rules’ a list of things that can happen any way (exactly the criticism I’ve seen of rule zero). Ive edited out three references to Dungeon World mechanics specifically to use generic terms but that leaves plenty of other principles I modified.

Make the world fantastic
Fill the characters' lives with adventure
Draw maps, leave blanks
Address the characters, not the players
Embrace the fantastic
Give every monster life
Name every person
Ask questions and use the answers
Be a fan of the characters
Think Dangerous
Begin and end with the fiction
Think offscreen, too
How do DW rules mean you can think off screen better in DW than in D&D? How do DW rules mean you can name characters more regularly?


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## Manbearcat (Jan 22, 2021)

I've read through this thread.  

If we can never get past the Matrix invocation of "the truth is...there is no spoon" when the differences between holistic, intentful, focused game design and discrete, DIY/modular game design are cited and described...

...well, we should just never have these conversations.

The fact that it seems this entire community adamantly asserts "*SYSTEM MATTERS* BECAUSE I HATE X, Y, AND Z ABOUT THIS CRAPPY GAME AND APPROACH TO GAME DESIGN THAT NEEDS TO DIE IN A FIRE" while simultaneously asserting "*SYSTEM DOESN'T MATTER* BECAUSE MY IDEA OF THE INFINITE EXPANSE OF RULE ZERO AND THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS HOLISTIC, INTENTFUL, FOCUSED GAME DESIGN" might just be ENWorld's biggest hurdle to functional conversation on the post-mortem of our play and coherent game design around varying desired experiences.


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## Aldarc (Jan 22, 2021)

TheSword said:


> can you please explain to me in what way D&D rules prevent or discourages a person from any of the following.



Stop right there. Not a good start, as we already have a possible strawman. Please stop, slow down, and take time to read/understand what people are arguing rather than getting upset about what you think they are saying. Until you do that, there is little point trying to hold a conversation. I am more than happy to clarify my position and you are welcome to ask me questions to that end, but I personally prefer responding to an actual, sincere engagement of my posts. You have posed four different heavily-loaded queries. To put it another way, what is the one question you really want answered? 

* Or maybe you are not following one of the principles that you claim you could follow in D&D just as easily in DW: "ask questions and use the answers."   

So before moving onto these principles in connection to D&D, let's start with how these principles exist in relation to DW. You seem to have at least a vague familiarity with DW, particularly if you claim that you would never play the game as it is "too ephemeral," so you likely do implicitly recognize that there are some key differences between the two games, their rules, and what sort of games those rules actively support. But it's important to note that in DW, these principles are not "rules." The game asks, per its GMing framework, that the GM adhere to the given agendas: i.e., portray a fantastic world, fill the character's lives with adventure, and play to find out what happens. The principles are explicitly meant to support that agenda, but they are not rules in and of themselves. 

How do you think that these agendas and principles are understood and realized in the play of Dungeon World and what other unlisted game principles may also be intersecting with the principles you have listed?


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## pemerton (Jan 22, 2021)

Aldarc said:


> There are fair number of people, whether here and elsewhere, who try to make D&D as the game that can do anything and everything well but then get upset at either the idea that other non-D&D games may do those things better or when those other non-D&D games actually do the things that they claim that D&D can likewise do. Plus, this is all far too regularly said and done by people without any actual play experience of these other games so it's transparently mostly just about defending the bubble people encase D&D in from any criticism.



I find the whole outlook weird: as if _everything anyone might ever say is good about a RPG has to be true of D&D_, even if those things aren't things the poster actually cares about or wants in a game!


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## pemerton (Jan 22, 2021)

TheSword said:


> My player says I want to charge at the ogre, flip the table and hide behind it, throw a fireball at the giants, run over to Alaric and check his wounds. That then gets translated into attack rolls, cover saves, saving throws, heal checks. I then respond with “your sword draws a red line across the ogres chest”, “the arrow thunks into the wood of the table”, “the fireball explodes, crisping scorching the giant’s hair and clothing and leaving their skin a mass of blisters”, “Alaric is still breathing shallow, you bind his wounds and stop the bleeding, he seems to be stable”.
> 
> The mix of rules and fiction is one of the things that makes D&D satisfying and feel real.



How does anyone of the stuff you respond with - “your sword draws a red line across the ogres chest”, “the arrow thunks into the wood of the table”, “the fireball explodes, crisping scorching the giant’s hair and clothing and leaving their skin a mass of blisters”, “Alaric is still breathing shallow, you bind his wounds and stop the bleeding, he seems to be stable” - affect the resolution that follows?

It would be no different if you said _your sword slashes the ogre's arm_ or _the arrow passes over the table but glances off your helmet _or _the fireball explodes, causing the ogre to almost swoon from the heat_ or _Alaric is dazed but fundamentally unhurt - you give him a sip of water and his eyes open - he'll be fine!_

What actually affects the resolution process, and the subsequent play of the game, is _how many hp did the ogre lose?_ and _that the attack roll for the arrow, modified in accordance with the cover rules, didn't make the character's AC_ and _the hit point loss suffered by the ogre after resolving its saving throw vs the fireball _and _what the situation is with Alaric's hit points remaining and death saves and the outcome of a check made in accordance with the "death and dying" rules_.



TheSword said:


> can you please explain to me in what way D&D rules prevent or discourages a person from any of the following. Or please explain how DW encourages this with its rules in a way that D&D can’t. To put it another way are these anything other than a stylistic choice of a DM rather than unique to a game system. Or to put another way, is Dungeon World just not spelling out as ‘rules’ a list of things that can happen any way (exactly the criticism I’ve seen of rule zero). Ive edited out three references to Dungeon World mechanics specifically to use generic terms but that leaves plenty of other principles I modified.
> 
> Make the world fantastic
> Fill the characters' lives with adventure
> ...



Here are some problems I think an AD&D GM is likely to encounter trying to follow the DW principles. I am not as familiar with 3E or 5e D&D as I am with AD&D, but I think the same sorts of problems are likely to be encountered:

* _Making the world fantastic_ will be burdened by the idea that many if not most magical effects are - in the fiction - the result of discrete, learnable packets called "spells". This is less of an issue in the "classic" approach to D&D, which one still sees reflected in Gygax's DMG with its lists of weird tricks and its random dungeon generation tables that contain circular rooms with magical pools; but the general tendency of AD&D since c 1980 has been away from that sort of ad hoc "whimsy" towards world-building systematisation which spells form a part of. _Embrace the fantastic _can face similar problems, and is also not helped by the general approach to "mundane" character abilities (eg the rules for resolving hide in shadows in AD&D, or for resolving Stealth in 5e D&D, do not encourage _embracing of the fantastic _but tend to push towards _emphasis on the prosaic_).

* I've already discussed _drawing maps and leaving blanks_. The resolution mechanics for D&D don't support this. For instance, resolving travel is done by measuring distance on a map, reading terrain from a map, reading a movement rate of a "miles per day for a given terrain" chart (or maybe multiplying a base movement rate by a terrain modifier taken from a similar sort of chart) and then dividing the measured distance by the ascertained rate to calculate a travel time. This method is inherited from wargaming. It breaks down if _drawing maps and leaving blanks_. The point generalises to the various other D&D resolution procedures for actions that relate to architecture and travel.

* I have never seen a D&D module that embraces _giving every monster life_. Random encounters, encounters with N kobolds or orcs or gnolls or . . ., and the like all push against this. This is intimately connected to the combat and XP rules, which strongly encourage encounters with multiple relatively "faceless" creatures.

* _Asking questions and using the answers_ is at odds with the sort of preparation of maps, keys and the like, which are advocated by key D&D texts (eg AD&D, B/X, the 3E DMG). It is not a technique that is easily integrated with the AD&D or similar approaches to things like _searching for traps, secret doors and the like_, to _listening at doors_, to the use of detection magic, etc. These rules elements are all presented as working in a way that presupposes the GM has a map, key and notes to turn to to provide answers to player questions. That's the opposite of the DW technique.

* _Beginning and ending with the fiction _is something I've already discussed. D&D combat does not do this - the turn structure, the action economy, the damage and hit point subsystem, the saving throw subsystem, etc are all at odds with this.


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## loverdrive (Jan 22, 2021)

TheSword said:


> Or please explain how DW encourages this with its rules in a way that D&D can’t.



It doesn't. Just like D&D doesn't _encourage_ you to compare result of attack roll with the target's AC. It _expects_ you to follow the principles and spells them out in a clear way, so you don't need to figure them out on your own through experience or by reading forums, watching youtube videos.




TheSword said:


> can you please explain to me in what way D&D rules prevent or discourages a person from any of the following. Or please explain how DW encourages this with its rules in a way that D&D can’t. To put it another way are these anything other than a stylistic choice of a DM rather than unique to a game system. Or to put another way, is Dungeon World just not spelling out as ‘rules’ a list of things that can happen any way (exactly the criticism I’ve seen of rule zero). Ive edited out three references to Dungeon World mechanics specifically to use generic terms but that leaves plenty of other principles I modified.
> 
> Make the world fantastic
> Fill the characters' lives with adventure
> ...



Now, please, point to where does D&D state these things.



So, ok, the thread is kinda derailed anyway, so I'm gonna jump into analogy land.

Google's Material Design didn't invent shadows, or grid layout, or using animations to empathize the flow of the UX, and these things aren't endemic to Material Design in any way.

But Material Design merges all of these things into a coherent design system, that greatly simplifies, well, design process -- the UI designer still needs to make moment-to-moment judgement calls, but they have an understanding _how_ to solve problems in the spirit of Material Design. It's more than a list of components -- it's not a UI library, it's a _design system_.

So, Dungeon World, with its Agenda, Principles and Moves is like a design system -- it not only provides individual "components", but also clearly explains how to use these components and what to do when none of the existing components apply.

D&D, on the other hand, is closer to a UI library. It has tons and tons of components, most of which are usable only in a narrow list of cases, but when none of them apply -- you're on your own. Figure it out.

Of course, an experienced UI/UX designer already knows how to build good interfaces, just like an experienced DM knows how to handle situations that aren't covered by the rules well, but it doesn't mean that having only a UI library is _enough_.


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## Maxperson (Jan 22, 2021)

pemerton said:


> What's your point? Are you querying my memory?



Just being helpful. 

If you look at the rule in the DMG, though, it's not part of the PC build process.  It allows the DM to change rules when it makes sense to do so, which is what we are saying.


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## Fenris-77 (Jan 22, 2021)

The first rule of Dungeon World is that people who haven't played it and don't know how it works shouldn't pretend that they do. I'm not saying the everyone should play it, as it's not everyone's cup of tea, but I have significant doubts about the opinions of people who make fundamental mistakes in their characterization of the game and it's rules.

In short, _I will never play Dungeon World but let me tell you all about it anyway_ strikes me a silly place to start.


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## Maxperson (Jan 22, 2021)

pemerton said:


> Where do I find this stated? What rulebook? Does that rulebook use the label "rule zero"?



Well I literally just told you the rulebook and page number for the 3.5 rule zero in the post you responded to immediately above this one.  And no, none of the books use the label rule 0. They simply spell out the rule by which all other rules can be changed, removed and new rules added.  The players have dubbed this rule, rule 0 since it overrides all other rules.


pemerton said:


> Why do I need a rule published by a game publisher to play an RPG that I want to play? They're not the police!
> 
> I just do it.



Cool.  A lot of people aren't comfortable adding, removing and changing rules like that unless the game tells them that they can do it.  That you do it regardless of such a rule doesn't negate the need for it to be codified in the rule books.


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## Maxperson (Jan 22, 2021)

Manbearcat said:


> The fact that it seems this entire community adamantly asserts "*SYSTEM MATTERS* BECAUSE I HATE X, Y, AND Z ABOUT THIS CRAPPY GAME AND APPROACH TO GAME DESIGN THAT NEEDS TO DIE IN A FIRE" while simultaneously asserting "*SYSTEM DOESN'T MATTER* BECAUSE MY IDEA OF THE INFINITE EXPANSE OF RULE ZERO AND THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS HOLISTIC, INTENTFUL, FOCUSED GAME DESIGN" might just be ENWorld's biggest hurdle to functional conversation on the post-mortem of our play and coherent game design around varying desired experiences.



That's a simplistic approach to the situation. 

System matters, because I don't have the time(or desire) to sit down and design a system from the ground up.  That means that I need a system that generally supplies what I am looking for.  System matters.

System doesn't matter, because with rule 0 I can change anything about the system I am using to more closely match what I am looking for.  No system is perfect, so I need to make changes to improve the game and maximize fun.  Rule 0 is perfect for that.  System doesn't matter.

So you can see, there is such a thing as holistic, intentful and focused game design, but those things fall second to rule 0 and the ability to change and improve upon that design.


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## pemerton (Jan 22, 2021)

Maxperson said:


> none of the books use the label rule 0.



I have a pretty strong recollection that the 3E PHB does have a rule labelled "rule zero", in the character build rules.


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## prabe (Jan 22, 2021)

pemerton said:


> I have a pretty strong recollection that the 3E PHB does have a rule labelled "rule zero", in the character build rules.



I no longer have my 3.0 books, but the 3.5 PHB has "Check with your Dungeon Master" as the first step, the text of which also talks about making sure your character fits in with the rest of the party. The steps for character creation aren't numbered.

It's plausible shading to probable that the 3.0 PHB is different.


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## Maxperson (Jan 22, 2021)

pemerton said:


> I have a pretty strong recollection that the 3E PHB does have a rule labelled "rule zero", in the character build rules.



It doesn't.  It just says to check with the DM for changes, which is not rule 0.  Rule 0 is the mechanism by which the DM would make those changes and is found in the DMG.


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## loverdrive (Jan 22, 2021)

Also, I can't give myself a head, so I'll do the next best thing: quote myself.

Here're the first words of a very brief GMing section of my Miraculous RPG.





Also my explanation for *Be a fan of the PCs* principle, as I feel like it's misenderstood.


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## Maxperson (Jan 22, 2021)

prabe said:


> I no longer have my 3.0 books, but the 3.5 PHB has "Check with your Dungeon Master" as the first step, the text of which also talks about making sure your character fits in with the rest of the party. The steps for character creation aren't numbered.
> 
> It's plausible shading to probable that the 3.0 PHB is different.



I just checked and I see @pemerton's confusion.  The 3e book lays out the steps of character creation from 0 to X, and the step 0(as in before you start creating the character) is the same as 3.5, but 3.5 omits the list of steps.  Rule 0 is not part of a "step process" and so the PHB confused him.  The 3.0 PHB does not have rule 0.


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## Lanefan (Jan 22, 2021)

Manbearcat said:


> The fact that it seems this entire community adamantly asserts "*SYSTEM MATTERS* BECAUSE I HATE X, Y, AND Z ABOUT THIS CRAPPY GAME AND APPROACH TO GAME DESIGN THAT NEEDS TO DIE IN A FIRE" while simultaneously asserting "*SYSTEM DOESN'T MATTER* BECAUSE MY IDEA OF THE INFINITE EXPANSE OF RULE ZERO AND THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS HOLISTIC, INTENTFUL, FOCUSED GAME DESIGN" might just be ENWorld's biggest hurdle to functional conversation on the post-mortem of our play and coherent game design around varying desired experiences.



Thing is, both are true.

SYSTEM MATTERS as far as the system goes; but not even the rulesiest rule-for-all-occasions system* can hope to account for everything that might come up in a game.  And once you move outside* those system parameters you're into the infinite expanse of Rule 0.

* - a system built on just a few intentionally-loose rules might cover more ground and be more difficult to move outside of, but in return it's in effect asking Rule 0 to do a lot of work within itself to fill in the gaps.


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## Lanefan (Jan 22, 2021)

pemerton said:


> Here are some problems I think an AD&D GM is likely to encounter trying to follow the DW principles. I am not as familiar with 3E or 5e D&D as I am with AD&D, but I think the same sorts of problems are likely to be encountered:
> 
> * _Making the world fantastic_ will be burdened by the idea that many if not most magical effects are - in the fiction - the result of discrete, learnable packets called "spells". This is less of an issue in the "classic" approach to D&D, which one still sees reflected in Gygax's DMG with its lists of weird tricks and its random dungeon generation tables that contain circular rooms with magical pools; but the general tendency of AD&D since c 1980 has been away from that sort of ad hoc "whimsy" towards world-building systematisation which spells form a part of.



Thing is, one can quite easily have both; and even have it work consistently within the fiction.

I do rather mourn the loss of whimsy in the more recent editions.


pemerton said:


> _Embrace the fantastic _can face similar problems, and is also not helped by the general approach to "mundane" character abilities (eg the rules for resolving hide in shadows in AD&D, or for resolving Stealth in 5e D&D, do not encourage _embracing of the fantastic _but tend to push towards _emphasis on the prosaic_).



This runs into the old saw, here modified: if everything is fantastic, nothing is.

For "fantastic" to matter and really _be_ fantastic, there has to be a base of prosaic for it to rest upon. This prosaic base is what some people (including me) label - however inaccurately - as realism. But yes, once that realistic base is established the fantastic can be embraced fully!


pemerton said:


> * I've already discussed _drawing maps and leaving blanks_. The resolution mechanics for D&D don't support this. For instance, resolving travel is done by measuring distance on a map, reading terrain from a map, reading a movement rate of a "miles per day for a given terrain" chart (or maybe multiplying a base movement rate by a terrain modifier taken from a similar sort of chart) and then dividing the measured distance by the ascertained rate to calculate a travel time. This method is inherited from wargaming. It breaks down if _drawing maps and leaving blanks_. The point generalises to the various other D&D resolution procedures for actions that relate to architecture and travel.



When I read "draw maps and leave blanks" I probably get a different impression than you do.

When I draw a map and leave blank space that blank space is there to be filled in later.  Sometimes I've already got a vague idea of what might be there, other times not; but the blank space gives me places to put adventure sites, hidden cultures, odd forgotten features, and so forth that the PCs can discover as they travel, should they ever decide to try going through said blank space*.

The resolution mechanics don't impinge on this at all.  The blank spaces remain between the paths the PCs have travelled.

* - in a game I played in, another player had a PC whose express motto was "Where the map is blank, I'll go"; and he did, at every opportunity.  That PC forced the DM of that game to do a hell of a lot of mapping! 


pemerton said:


> * I have never seen a D&D module that embraces _giving every monster life_. Random encounters, encounters with N kobolds or orcs or gnolls or . . ., and the like all push against this. This is intimately connected to the combat and XP rules, which strongly encourage encounters with multiple relatively "faceless" creatures.



That's more a question of DM style.  Modules generally present monsters and foes as no more than a collection of stats and numbers, other than maybe one or two key elements and the "boss" if there is one; and it's on the DM to add "life" to them.  Some DMs are better at this than others, and trying to add life to some monsters (e.g. oozes, zombies, lurkers above) is kind of a hopeless task in any case. 


pemerton said:


> * _Asking questions and using the answers_ is at odds with the sort of preparation of maps, keys and the like, which are advocated by key D&D texts (eg AD&D, B/X, the 3E DMG). It is not a technique that is easily integrated with the AD&D or similar approaches to things like _searching for traps, secret doors and the like_, to _listening at doors_, to the use of detection magic, etc. These rules elements are all presented as working in a way that presupposes the GM has a map, key and notes to turn to to provide answers to player questions. That's the opposite of the DW technique.



It depends which questions you're asking, and in what framework.

Something as basic as asking the players during PC downtime what their PCs are doing next will (or should!) always get an answer the DM will then use in determining what happens.  "We're going to hire a ship and sail south" is quite different from "We're going to check out that ruined castle we passed on our way into town" is different again from "We're going to take the winter off from adventuring and set about building ourselves a party base and stronghold".  This all uses the established map and setting yet is still _asking questions and using the answers_.

The divergence comes in whether or not setting-defining player answers are expected to be used by the DM or not, and-or whether the DM is even going to ask questions that allow for such.


pemerton said:


> * _Beginning and ending with the fiction _is something I've already discussed. D&D combat does not do this - the turn structure, the action economy, the damage and hit point subsystem, the saving throw subsystem, etc are all at odds with this.



The basic play loop pretty much begins and ends with the fiction, even in combat.

Player: <declares _in-fiction_ action for PC> _(I swing my mace at the Kobold)_
DM: <adjudicates by whatever means, which might include insertion of mechanics if required> *AND-OR*
Game: <adjudicates by forced insertion of player-facing mechanics if required> _(roll to hit, DM/game adjudicates success, roll damage)_
DM: <narrates _in-fiction_ result of declaration-plus-adjudication>_ (the Kobold staggers from your blow and looks about ready to collapse)_

The only variant on this is when it's an NPC's turn, in which case the DM takes on her role as player of the NPC or monster and ends up narrating both the action declaration _(the dazed Kobold tries to back away defensively)_ and, probably after some mechanics that might involve both DM and player, the result _(it stumbles over a fallen branch and is now lying prone in front of you)_.


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## Jaeger (Jan 22, 2021)

loverdrive said:


> D&Desque rule zero boils down to "figure it out", ...
> 
> Compare it with PbtA games, where the GM has Agenda, Principles and Moves, which provide solid framework for making good judgement calls. I'm gonna use Dungeon World as an example, since it's in the same genre as D&D, and also kinda cosplays it.




You do have a point in that I think it would be very beneficial for many if D&D did something similar to the DW chap 19 guidelines on how to change the game. But they would be a bit different than the ones for DW.

D&D basically does just say "change what you want!".

The reason why D&D has such a _short_ blurb, is due to the _cultural assumptions_ of D&D.

I know I am going to express this idea a bit imperfectly here, so try to read in to the spirit of what I am trying to convey...

Culturally D&D has a long history of a vibrant rules hacking DiY/Homebrew culture. It is _culturally assumed_ people who mess around with the rules have figured out how things work.

I recently played a 5e D&D campaign for the first time in decades. My last experience with D&D was with B/X in the 5th grade.

In prep I bought the 5e rules. And IMHO 5e succeeds because there are a ton of people to teach newbies how to play the game. I could make a list of issues, but suffice it to say that looking at D&D after decades of playing different non-d20 systems,_ (And writing my own homebrew system for my current star wars campaign I run.)_ to me there was a lot of unwritten rules assumptions about how things are supposed to work. Some things are just not that clear on first read through if you are new to the concepts 5e presents.

And for me a good part of it was my Stat+Skill die-pool conditioned brain, having trouble wrapping around the class/level structure the game mechanics bounce off of. Not hard to figure things out, but on my first read through a lot of _"Why would you do it like that!?" _ran through my head...

I am an outlier!

For most of the RPG hobby _all they play _is some edition/form of D&D! So they are conceptually familiar with how things are supposed work. So what to me seemed a rather odd way of doing things; for long time players it is all quite straight forward.

D&D is successful because of, and IMHO subconsciously relies on, a lot of cultural assumptions of how things should work.

Which is why IMHO why Rule 0 get just a paragraph or so in 5e: It is _culturally assumed_ that people who want to change things around are going to dive into the mechanics and figure things out.




Manbearcat said:


> he fact that it seems this entire community adamantly asserts "*SYSTEM MATTERS* BECAUSE I HATE X, Y, AND Z ABOUT THIS CRAPPY GAME AND APPROACH TO GAME DESIGN THAT NEEDS TO DIE IN A FIRE" while simultaneously asserting "*SYSTEM DOESN'T MATTER* BECAUSE MY IDEA OF THE INFINITE EXPANSE OF RULE ZERO AND THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS HOLISTIC, INTENTFUL, FOCUSED GAME DESIGN" might just be ENWorld's biggest hurdle to functional conversation on the post-mortem of our play and coherent game design around varying desired experiences.




My Opinion:

SYSTEM MATTERS: Different systems bring a different feel to gameplay at the table. They feel different systems can actually add to immersion with a given settings genre conceits through the way the players interact with the game mechanics. And to many they like seeing how different game mechanics influence the way player play their characters at the table.

SYSTEM DOESN'T MATTER: The roleplay, group dynamic, and social interaction of gaming come BIG first with this camp. They _do not care_ to learn new game mechanics (for varying reasons) because whatever their system of choice is they can modify it to be "Good Enough" so they can just "get on with it" to start the game and have fun. They are simply not interested in learning other systems, as they tend to view time spent figuring out a new system as time wasted that could be spent playing the game.

I fall more into the _system matters_ camp. To a degree I understand why the _system doesn't matter_ types have the views they do. I can and have enjoyed gaming of this type with people.  I know I would have gotten _more_ enjoyment if a different system was used, because I have played lots of different systems to be able to make that value judgement. But that doesn't mean that it wasn't a good gaming experience overall anyway.

_Personally_, I don't think learning new systems of similar complexity is all that difficult. But it is a point not worth debating as I have learned the other camp _will not be moved._ They simply value their non-gaming time differently, and for them the _potential _of "additional enjoyment" from using a different system just isn't there for the time it would take to learn a new system.

That is their privilege.


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## EzekielRaiden (Jan 22, 2021)

Lanefan said:


> Thing is, both are true.
> 
> SYSTEM MATTERS as far as the system goes; but not even the rulesiest rule-for-all-occasions system* can hope to account for everything that might come up in a game.  And once you move outside* those system parameters you're into the infinite expanse of Rule 0.
> 
> * - a system built on just a few intentionally-loose rules might cover more ground and be more difficult to move outside of, but in return it's in effect asking Rule 0 to do a lot of work within itself to fill in the gaps.



Wait, so is rule 0 inside the system or not?

If it's not inside the system, it's not a rule. That's literally what I said earlier that you quibbled about.


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## EzekielRaiden (Jan 22, 2021)

TheSword said:


> You’re trying to twist rule zero into a specific definition to suit what you want it to be.



Nope. I, and he, have laid out a logical argument for why the term "Rule 0" should be used in the more restricted sense, to promote clear discussion and avoid conflation of legitimately different actions ("infrequent rules override" vs "house-ruling" vs "kitbashing" etc.) There is no "twisting" involved. I am not at ALL saying that the other tools in the DM's toolbox are wrong, bad, inappropriate, or anything else. I'm just saying that important utility is lost when we gloss that whole toolbox with a term that, as explicitly cited in multiple places, has both narrow and broad meanings.



TheSword said:


> Rule Zero is as simple as the rules are guidelines and the DM can change them to improve everyone’s fine.



I (and others) call this the Golden Rule. I find it both frustrating and unnecessary to require that every possible application of "alter or deviate from the rules" be called "Rule 0." It promotes confusion rather than clarity; in the pursuit of a unified understanding, it instead creates an impenetrable wall because the term can mean so many really distinct things. It is like trying to sum up moral behavior with the single phrase "do good things." Yeah, in principle, that's what moral behavior is. But it is impenetrable and useless as a principle, because it doesn't communicate anything. It's borderline tautological. We are much, much better equipped to think and talk about moral behavior when we can be more specific than "do good."



TheSword said:


> The fact that you like rule zero in one circumstances and dislike it in another, is even more of an argument for having rule zero. So you can play the way you like and I can play the way I like.



Now you're arguing with straw. I haven't seen a single person say they DISLIKE any of these specific actions you're trying to force under a single universal umbrella. What gave you the idea that either of us _opposes _the use of kitbashing or house-ruling?

I just want "Rule 0," the term, to be useful for discussion. I have laid out my argument for why it is more useful to use the term, "Rule 0," in a narrow sense. I have recognized that there are two competing uses of the term, one narrow and one broad. And I have argued that a key reason we should use the narrow meaning is that there aren't any other good, well-known phrases for the thing to which the narrow use of the term refers.

If you see opposition or hostility in that argument, that emotion is something _you_ inserted, not something I or Pemerton have said.


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## Jaeger (Jan 22, 2021)

Lanefan said:


> This runs into the old saw, here modified: *if everything is fantastic, nothing is.*




Sayings become old saws because they contain Truth!

I am a big proponent of this paradigm.

If every nation has griffon riding cavalry; griffons are not special or fantastic. They are just a common flying mount.

Too often I find most fantasy settings to be just different versions of the Flintstones setting, but with magical a ren-faire veneer.




Lanefan said:


> For *"fantastic" to matter and really be fantastic,* *there has to be a base of prosaic for it to rest upon.* This prosaic base is what some people (including me) label - however inaccurately - as realism. But yes, once that realistic base is established the fantastic can be embraced fully!




I like to use the term _genre, _when establishing the _baseline realism_ of my virtual game world/setting.

What makes something Fantastic - is how much it contrasts with the mundane world.

I define the degree of 'realism' in my mundane worlds through the _genre conventions_ I establish for a given setting.

Am I going for Grimdark? Cinematic action? Pulp fantasy? high fantasy? Some blend?

Only once that reality is set, and I have established the genre rules that govern the setting, then I have a solid guide to how much "Fantastic" I can incorporate into the setting without breaking genre or "Jumping the Shark" if you will.

If I am going for a more grounded gritty setting where other humans are the most common opponent; then when the party encounters a Werewolf after several game sessions - it is a Big Deal! And several more game sessions may go by before they encounter another fantastical creature.

If in the next session I then introduce a group of plane-hopping dragon riders that have come to find the chosen one, and can the PC's please help them on their Realm-spanning quest to free Asgard form the Daemon Horde? - I just broke the established genre of the setting in a big way. We are now playing a very different game. And my players would be well with in their rights to go: "Dude, WTF!?"


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## Lanefan (Jan 23, 2021)

EzekielRaiden said:


> Wait, so is rule 0 inside the system or not?
> 
> If it's not inside the system, it's not a rule. That's literally what I said earlier that you quibbled about.



Yes and no at the same time.  Yes it's inside the system as that is where it's either stated or (more commonly) implied, but at the same time it mostly functions outside the system as the system's means of dealing with whatever might be found there.


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## TheSword (Jan 23, 2021)

EzekielRaiden said:


> Nope. I, and he, have laid out a logical argument for why the term "Rule 0" should be used in the more restricted sense, to promote clear discussion and avoid conflation of legitimately different actions ("infrequent rules override" vs "house-ruling" vs "kitbashing" etc.) There is no "twisting" involved. I am not at ALL saying that the other tools in the DM's toolbox are wrong, bad, inappropriate, or anything else. I'm just saying that important utility is lost when we gloss that whole toolbox with a term that, as explicitly cited in multiple places, has both narrow and broad meanings.
> 
> 
> I (and others) call this the Golden Rule. I find it both frustrating and unnecessary to require that every possible application of "alter or deviate from the rules" be called "Rule 0." It promotes confusion rather than clarity; in the pursuit of a unified understanding, it instead creates an impenetrable wall because the term can mean so many really distinct things. It is like trying to sum up moral behavior with the single phrase "do good things." Yeah, in principle, that's what moral behavior is. But it is impenetrable and useless as a principle, because it doesn't communicate anything. It's borderline tautological. We are much, much better equipped to think and talk about moral behavior when we can be more specific than "do good."
> ...



You don’t get to decide what is and isn’t rule zero. It’s in print, pretty clear in each edition of d&d.


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## EzekielRaiden (Jan 23, 2021)

TheSword said:


> You don’t get to decide what is and isn’t rule zero. It’s in print, pretty clear in each edition of d&d.



Except that, as noted, it's often NOT in print. And where it _is_ in print, different editions differ on what it actually is. That's literally half of my argument that you keep summarily ignoring.


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## TheSword (Jan 23, 2021)

EzekielRaiden said:


> Except that, as noted, it's often NOT in print. And where it _is_ in print, different editions differ on what it actually is. That's literally half of my argument that you keep summarily ignoring.



Okay we’re going round in circles. If you’re going to ignore what has been written in successive DMGs for the last 25 years to replace it with what you think it should be, then probably best to do it without me.


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## pemerton (Jan 23, 2021)

Lanefan said:


> When I read "draw maps and leave blanks" I probably get a different impression than you do.



The impression I get is based on a reading of the rules for Dungeon World, together with a reading of the rules for the system that inspired it, namely, Apocalypse World.



Lanefan said:


> The basic play loop pretty much begins and ends with the fiction, even in combat.
> 
> Player: <declares _in-fiction_ action for PC> _(I swing my mace at the Kobold)_
> DM: <adjudicates by whatever means, which might include insertion of mechanics if required> *AND-OR*
> ...



The "staggering from the blow" is irrelevant to the actual process of resolution. The GM could just as easily narrate "the kobold takes your mighty blow on its shield - it's alive, but wrongfooted!"

Also, I think every edition of D&D at least since Moldvay Basic has as the basic action declaration for D&D combat not _I swing my mace_ but _I make an attack_, which is a technical term in the game system.

And _Game _in your sequence is quite bizarre. The game isn't an actor or a participant. I think what you might be pointing to is something like _GM calls for a to hit roll because that's what the rules state is meant to happen_.


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## Lanefan (Jan 23, 2021)

pemerton said:


> The "staggering from the blow" is irrelevant to the actual process of resolution. The GM could just as easily narrate "the kobold takes your mighty blow on its shield - it's alive, but wrongfooted!"



Obviously.  The point remains, however, that at that point the DM is expected to narrate something relevant to the fiction.


pemerton said:


> Also, I think every edition of D&D at least since Moldvay Basic has as the basic action declaration for D&D combat not _I swing my mace_ but _I make an attack_, which is a technical term in the game system.



The idea and intent is the same, however it's phrased.


pemerton said:


> And _Game _in your sequence is quite bizarre. The game isn't an actor or a participant. I think what you might be pointing to is something like _GM calls for a to hit roll because that's what the rules state is meant to happen_.



For 'game' substitute 'rules' if you like.  Just an attempt to recognize that sometimes resolution bypasses (or never reaches) the DM and is entirely driven by the rules, or game, before going either back to the player for another action declare or over to the DM* for a fiction narration.

* - or, in the case of pure PvP, possibly another player.


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## Aldarc (Jan 23, 2021)

TheSword said:


> Okay we’re going round in circles. If you’re going to ignore what has been written in successive DMGs for the last 25 years to replace it with what you think it should be, then probably best to do it without me.



Ummm...You wanted us to "wiki it." On 1d4 Chan, which you likewise appeal to, it even says that several related principles of GM fiat get inappropriately conflated together as part of Rule Zero. The definitions in the past editions of the game attest to the more restricted sense. So what are you babbling on about when you accuse @EzekielRaiden of ignoring what's been written?


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## pemerton (Jan 24, 2021)

Lanefan said:


> Obviously.  The point remains, however, that at that point the DM is expected to narrate something relevant to the fiction.



_That the GM might be expected to narrate something relevant to the fiction_ - which, by the way, is not anything spelled out in B/X, or AD&D, or 3E as best I recall, or 4e (I can't comment on 5e) - is not the same as what DW means by _begin and end with the fiction_. DW is setting out required steps in a resolution process, not some advice on how to increase the immersive or "colourful" aspect of the game.

Vincent Baker had a long series of blog posts on exactly this issue - here's one of the main ones. He summarises the point, with reference to do of his own games that predate AW (and therefore DW), in this way: "Dogs in the Vineyard's rules ground play solidly in the immediate details of the game's fiction. In a Wicked Age's rules allow play to float above the game's fiction, more abstract."

AD&D's combat resolution (and in this respect 3E and 5e D&D are not much different) allows the resolution of combat to "float above the game's fiction". Dungeon World doesn't. That's a fundamental difference which is relevant to @TheSword's claim that D&D can be played in accordance with the DW principles.


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## EzekielRaiden (Jan 24, 2021)

Lanefan said:


> Obviously.  The point remains, however, that at that point the DM is expected to narrate something relevant to the fiction.



A big gap remains. Your very phrasing shows it. With D&D, the mechanics are "in control." Sometimes via R0 or w/e, the DM overrides them if they push the fiction too far. But when "working normally," the fiction _follows after_ the mechanics, esp. in combat and the like.

Proper DW play should never work that way. Fiction triggers rules, _never_ the other way around. Rules are only for when it is _truly necessary_ to keep the fiction going. That mostly means success isn't guaranteed, or there's been a setback (e.g. player ignored "the ground trembles under you," so char is injured when it collapses--injury invokes HP loss.) You return purely to the fiction the _moment_ the mechanics resolve the ambiguity/setback/etc.

With D&D, you often _start from_ mechanics and then _determine_ the fiction. If no determination makes sense, you go back and _fix_ the mechanics until one does. With DW and (afaik) _all_ PbtA games, you _only and always_ start from the fiction. Ultra-simple ex: in D&D etc., many DMs outright say, "Give me a Perception check" on first entering a room. In DW you (at least _should_) never do that. DW's Perception is called _Discern Realities_, and is never just "asked" for. If and only if a player has described their character as actively searching, closely interacting with it, and doing more than just disengaged looking. When a group has gotten pretty casual about it (as mine has), you will sometimes have players name the move as they act, but the point is to get them thinking as much as possible about _the action of the character_, and only trigger mechanics when that action _demonstrably_ means a move is happening.



Lanefan said:


> The idea and intent is the same, however it's phrased.



No, it's really not, and that's the whole point here. How you phrase it and whether you start from the mechanics and tailor the fiction to fit, or whether you start from the fiction and *only* apply the rules when you need them, is a big, big difference.



Lanefan said:


> For 'game' substitute 'rules' if you like.  Just an attempt to recognize that sometimes resolution bypasses (or never reaches) the DM and is entirely driven by the rules, or game, before going either back to the player for another action declare or over to the DM* for a fiction narration.
> 
> * - or, in the case of pure PvP, possibly another player.



This never happens (or, as stated, never _should_ happen) in DW play. There _are_ no things driven purely by the rules--by design. The rules _only_ come in when the fiction specifically requests them, and go away literally as soon as they've resolved whatever needs resolving. If it is possible (meaning logical, consistent, appropriate, etc.) to resolve things without invoking the mechanics at all, _you should always do so_ in DW. Such an attitude is quite rare in D&D, even in OSR, where a love of numerous disparate (some would say fiddly) subsystems is commonplace.


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## aramis erak (Jan 24, 2021)

EzekielRaiden said:


> Sure, Rule 0 is the end of the line, but being the final option does not make it the ONLY option.



The end of the line isn't rule 0; the end of the line is players walking because the GM apparently thinks rule 0 allows being an ass. Player veto by ankle express is the true end of the power curve. Something that Gygax mentions in the DMG for AD&D but far undersells.


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## Jack Daniel (Jan 24, 2021)

Maxperson said:


> I just checked and I see @pemerton's confusion.  The 3e book lays out the steps of character creation from 0 to X, and the step 0(as in before you start creating the character) is the same as 3.5, but 3.5 omits the list of steps.  Rule 0 is not part of a "step process" and so the PHB confused him.  The 3.0 PHB does not have rule 0.




Except, this is indeed where the _phrase_ "rule zero" came from. The principle, has, of course, existed since the beginning of the hobby; but it wasn't actually _called_ "rule zero" until arguments on the Wizards.com forums started using "step zero" to justify the Oberoni Fallacy.


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## pemerton (Jan 24, 2021)

Jack Daniel said:


> Except, this is indeed where the _phrase_ "rule zero" came from.



Thanks. It's reassuring that I haven't completely lost it yet.


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## Maxperson (Jan 24, 2021)

Jack Daniel said:


> Except, this is indeed where the _phrase_ "rule zero" came from. The principle, has, of course, existed since the beginning of the hobby; but it wasn't actually _called_ "rule zero" until arguments on the Wizards.com forums started using "step zero" to justify the Oberoni Fallacy.



Dude, it's not even a rule.  It's just "check with the DM."   Rule 0 is in the 3e DMG, not the PHB.  That's just the order of steps for character creation.  I mean, see there under "character creation basics" where it says, "Follow these steps..."  It doesn't get more clear than that.  Step 0(not rule 0) is check with the DM.

And no, they didn't change the name from "Rule 0" to "Step 0," because it never officially had the name Rule 0 to begin with.  Rule 0 is on page 9 of the 3e DMG under Adjudication and also on page 11 under "Changing the Rules. Look them up.


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## turnip_farmer (Jan 24, 2021)

EzekielRaiden said:


> Ultra-simple ex: in D&D etc., many DMs outright say, "Give me a Perception check" on first entering a room. In DW you (at least _should_) never do that. DW's Perception is called _Discern Realities_, and is never just "asked" for.




While you're correct about how many GMs actually play DnD, the actual rules of 5e are the same as what you're implying about DW (never read those rules). You ask for a Perception check only when a player describes an action that would require one to resolve. If you need to determine whether or not a character notices something hidden just by walking into a room, you use passive perception.


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## Jack Daniel (Jan 24, 2021)

Maxperson said:


> Dude, it's not even a rule. It's just "check with the DM." Rule 0 is in the 3e DMG, not the PHB



You are missing the point. The 3.0 PHB is still the _etymological origin of the term as it's now used._ Nobody here thinks that "rule zero" is some sort of "official" term for anything—I'm talking about the common usage in the descriptivist sense.


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## Ovinomancer (Jan 24, 2021)

turnip_farmer said:


> While you're correct about how many GMs actually play DnD, the actual rules of 5e are the same as what you're implying about DW (never read those rules). You ask for a Perception check only when a player describes an action that would require one to resolve. If you need to determine whether or not a character notices something hidden just by walking into a room, you use passive perception.



Right, so, you ask for a perception check using the mechanical way to do so without asking for a die roll.  That's what a passive check is -- it's still the use of the skill, but represents either a continued use of it (so you don't roll all the time) or the GM wishing to check a result without alerting the player.  The point is, if there's something in the room that has a DC attached to notice it, perception checks are used.

This is not how Discern Realities works in Dungeon World.  There's a fundamental difference in how scene framing works and how play works.  For starters, there's nothing the the GM knows about in a scene that the players can discover with a check -- this is a pretty huge difference!  So, when a player looks for something in the scene, the GM either can say they find it, or they can challenge that by invoking the move and asking for a check.  If the player succeeds, the GM is obliged to narrate something that is useful according to the options the player has chosen with their success -- these things are now true, and where always there in the fiction, but everyone playing just found out about them together at the same time.  This is, fundamentally, what "playing to find out" means.  If the player fails the check, then the GM complicates their lives with a GM move that is as hard as they want it to be.  Which is, itself, a full discussion on what that might mean in a given circumstance.

5e and DW play differently while achieving the same thematic goals.


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