Roleplay games are built around ideas and concepts. These ideas and concepts are solidified by rules and mechanics. Over time, people forget that they’re telling stories, and get bogged down in the rules. Time and again, groups take a trip to the story graveyard to drop off the campaign they’re in, because the rules defeated their attempts to keep it alive.
Rules kill games, and destroy our ability to tell meaningful and believable stories.
Okay, that’s being a bit dramatic. But, who among us hasn’t had a session fall apart because of a disagreement over rules? And who hasn’t seen a player make a mechanics choice that diminishes the verisimilitude of the setting, stepping outside of character in order to game the system? The Tales from the Hydian Way podcast said it best on their most recent episode, so allow me to paraphrase: you don’t play a sheet, you play a character.
This week, we’re discussing how to handle rules.
What’s the big problem?
Playing your sheet means making story decisions based on how the mechanics can be manipulated into giving you the best chance of success. This means asking your GM if you can roll Knowledge: Nobility to calm down a tiger, because nobles sometimes have pet tigers so you’ve probably seen one. A less overt manipulation might be to only pick a solution to a problem based on your character’s limited skill set. “My character is really good at explosives, so he would obviously comfort this woman by detonating one of the buildings around us.” “All I have is ranks in explosives, so I’m going to go after every single mission with the expectation that I’m going to use explosives to solve the majority of the problems.” “Only one guy in our group has the applicable social skill, so only he can talk during this conversation.”
That last one is huge, by the way.
Over time, this sets up the expectation that the rules guide the story, and that anyone who fails to min-max and optimize their character is a liability to the team because they can’t do the two types of checks they’re allowed to make while playing. “I’ve only got social skills, so I am only going to roll in social encounters. Anything else, I’m going to be in the back.” “I’ve only got combat skills, so during social interactions I’m going to be silent.”
GMs, the special problem
GMing for GMs is the worst. They act like they know how the game should be run. When you pull a plot twist, they wink at you. When you invoke an odd ability or power, they call it out to the group. If you alter a rule your group has never used before and establish a house rule, they bring it up, even if it’s to agree with you, and let the rest of the group know that you’re not following the rules anymore.
The problem with running for a GM, any GM, is that no two GMs are ever going to run the same system. What I mean is, a GM running Edge of the Empire is running their version of the game. No other GM is ever going to run it the same way. Even their apprentice GMs, whom they’ve groomed to be exact copies, are going to run their own version of the game.
And GMs have to comment on someone else’s style. Like fellow painters meeting in an art gallery and finding that their paintings are hanging side by side, GMs feel the need to comment on someone else’s work. Even if it’s nice and the comments are constructive, you are pointing out that the other person is using tips and tricks to dodge and weave. This reduces your story from an experience down to a set of plans designed by the guys from IKEA, plans to put Twist B into Encounter F.
Should we talk about one GM inflicting their own bias on another GMs style? Maybe we should.
We GMs are terribly logical, habitual, and opinionated creatures by nature. We know what the right way to run a system is. We understand what the writers meant when they designed it, and rule changes that go outside of the correct pattern just don’t make sense. “Well, this is your story, if you want to run it that way, you’re free to do it.” Gee, thanks Mr. Spectator GM.
Where we’re going, we don’t need rules.
What is more interesting, telling a compelling story with deep characters who succeed and fail, characters who rise, fall, and rise again… or playing a board game where there’s a story to string the turns together?
And yet, so very often, we find ourselves playing some iteration of the second option. This is because many of us can’t forget that we’re playing a game that happens to include a small subset of rules. We can’t get over the fact that we have some control over the level of success or failure, and we can’t let go of the idea that task failure = not having fun.
On the other hand, we GMs can’t forget that we know the rules. We are burdened with an overabundance of information, which pulls at our minds. “Should I jump into the raging white water current to save that orphan? Well, I’ve got a 12 Constitution, and the rules for swimming and suffocation are…”
We find ourselves, as players and as GMs, instantly adding up numbers and probabilities in our head. With Edge of the Empire, we look at our dice pool in our hand, then look up and start angling for bonus dice. We change the story that we’re telling to suit our need to increase our probability of success. We do all of this without even thinking about it, because it’s an ingrained part of human nature to want to succeed.
And that kills our stories.
Yeah, but what can you do about it?
Forget everything you know.
If you’re a GM, forget that you’ve ever run the system before. Every time you think of the system, imagine that every single rule was your own house rule that is no longer being used. “The rules for swimming and suffocation are…” entirely irrelevant, because we aren’t playing your version of the Dungeons and Dragons system, we’re playing Bob’s Dungeons and Dragons, a whole new edition to argue over. In the Bob edition, there’s no such thing as suffocation. Or, suffocation works differently.
This goes for players as well. If you’re the sort of player who memorizes every rule but never GMs, STOP DOING THAT. You are ruining the game system for yourself. Forget everything you know, and stop relying on your understanding of the rules. Some of the happiest gamers are the ones who have to glance into the book to see how to adjudicate a character decision. “I just set myself on fire and hurled myself on top of the wooden golem. How do we handle this?” “Dude, you’re a Bard … But that was totally badass.”
If all else fails, make decisions that you know have a high probability of failure. Don’t be a jerk about it or risk killing the party every session, but make a character with some flaws. Make a character who isn’t perfect and who doesn’t ONLY DO TASKS AT WHICH HE EXCELS. When you’re in a social situation, speak up and screw up some rolls, but take an active participant role. Let the graceful guy pull your fat out of the fire later, but don’t be afraid to screw up. If you’re a chivalrous Wizard with 8 Constitution, jump into the burning pit and save the orphan even if it means certain death for you. Maybe your Barbarian pal will come pull you out when he arrives three rounds later. Or, maybe the Barbarian won’t be in time, and you will have failed to escape but still told an excellent story that becomes more engaging because your character knowingly threw himself against impossible odds (and an impossible dice roll that no optimizing player would have ever considered) and died living up to his code.
Screw up. Fail. Lose. Do this on purpose, to break yourself of the habit. Eventually, you’ll break the habit of only making sterilized, optimized choices, and you’ll be back to having fun.
The other option is to make extremely balanced characters who never excel at anything in particular. This way, you literally CAN’T game the system with a min-max technique. Tell your GM you want to stop weaseling bonuses out of them, and tell them not to be afraid to put their foot down for the sake of character and story.
Now get out there and forget those rules, and get back to just telling stories.