Logic in RPGs

Logic in RPGs

Disclaimer:  This is going to ruffle feathers, but you can't please everyone. If this seems like a salvo in the so-called Edition Wars, let me assure you that it's not. It's a game design issue and it extends far beyond editions of any one particular game. I lament that there are now so many game design issues that one can't even discuss without them turning into Edition War name calling and finger pointing. In that regard, that detracts from, rather than adds to, the discussion. (I also know that there will be a lot of gamers who will read the following essay and find it utterly baffling because they can't imagine playing any other way. Bless them.) Ah well, here goes.

There were a number of excellent role playing games released in recent years that take as one of their design principles the idea that the rules should be tight and seamless. By that, I mean that the rules should provide clear procedures for everything that happens. Every contingency is covered in the text (or rather, the text is written so that if it's not covered there, it doesn't work.) If a character uses a frost ray, only a fire wall will stop it. Other situations do not matter. It's written like a board game. Just like how no one tries to reason that the race car in a Monopoly set should go faster around the board than the iron, there's no room for reasoning within the confines of the rpg, either. It leads to clarity, fewer rules arguments, and provides a valiant attempt at wiping out what had been a scourge of the game table for decades, the rules lawyer.

I, however, will not be designing any such games.

When I first tried World of Warcraft, I was initially intrigued, but my personal interest in the game waned quickly as I wandered the world of the game. I vividly remember finding some old tower and going in to explore in my first couple of hours of play. It was furnished and beautiful, but to my dismay I found that I was unable to affect anything inside the tower. I couldn't so much as knock over a chair. It was then that I realized that of course I couldn't knock over a chair. Because I wasn't the only one going into this tower. I was just the most recent of many hundreds of thousands of people, and there would be just as many after me. And it had to look the same for each of them. It made sense from the game's point of view, but for me, the world I explored suddenly seemed very plastic. It was like going into a spooky cave to fight pirates only to discover I'd actually gone into the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disney World. I could only do what the people who designed it thought I should do.

The GM is the Key

The number one strength of a tabletop rpg is the fact that there's a living, breathing person sitting at the table next to you that can arbitrate the rules. The GM's presence means that the player can do whatever he wants--whatever he can think of. In a computer game (MMO or otherwise) the player is limited to actions that the designers anticipated. Tabletop rules systems that cover every contingency end up putting similar restrictions on players. This can lead to clarity, but at the expense of ingenuity. I will argue that a great game can be designed embracing the idea that the GM and his or her ability to use logic and reasoning. (Of course it can. That's the way virtually all tabletop games were designed for decades.) That's not sloppy game design (making the GM do all the work), it's a design paradigm that can shape a game designer's choices. Well, let me restate. It could be sloppy game design if done poorly. If done right, it's no simpler and no less work than to do it the other way. In fact, it might be harder. Because it means--from the designer's perspective--to let go the tight clench around "how the game must be played."

One reason to design a game tightly and seamlessly is to insure that gameplay from table to table does not vary much. This makes perfect sense if you have a large and active organized play program, or a game that somehow relies on players moving from GM to GM. But if that's not a part of your design goal, then who cares? If by giving GMs more ability to arbitrate, it means that things work differently from GM to GM, the only problem that is caused is if a player switches from GM to GM (if they move to another town, let's   say). A player might have to get used to the new game a bit. But is that any different than switching to a GM running a completely different game? The transition is still likely much easier.

The ability for a GM to say, "in my game..." and then describe how things are different, special, or unique, is a powerful one. GMs feel ownership of their own campaign. They become invested. This emotion is one of the prime motivations for being a GM. (There are many, of course, and vary from GM to GM.) There's a reason why the role is called "Game Master" and not "Guy Who Just Keeps Track of Initiative and Rolls for the Bad Guys."

The Players Are Also the Key

By what about the players in all this? If we put more authority into the hands of the GM, aren't we taking it away from the players? I don't believe so. In fact, I think the opposite is true. (And I am all for giving more authority to players over their own actions.) By giving GMs the ability to interpret the actions in the game world using logic and reason, it gives players the authority to come up with creative responses to game situations rather than simply relying on what the game's designer thought they should do. In a rules-tight game, a player's options are spelled out for him. In a GM-logic game, the player can come up with any action she wishes, knowing that the GM can arbitrate it. In other words, if your character is on fire, the player doesn't have to look up "fire" in the rulebook's index to learn what can put it out. He can figure out how to put that fire out using real world sensibilities. (Stop, drop, and roll!) Logic becomes the underpinning of the rules. The core mechanic, if you will.

In this sense, however, "logic" can mean different things. Some GMs might go for realism. Others, for what best suits the story. A few might go with what's most entertaining for the people in the room. In the end, as long as the players and GM understand which kind of logic is being used, and its used with consistency, I don't think it really matters which choice is made. In all of these cases, "logic" is a powerful and intuitive ruleset all its own.

The Burden of Power

There's a false dichotomy, I think, underlying the assumption that putting more reliance on the GM means more work for the GM. That's where the game's designer comes into play. A game system utilizing GM authority and logic can still be created to be simple to prepare and run. In fact, it is the idea that the game (rather than the GM or logic) has to represent every aspect of the world that can make for cumbersome GMing, both in preparation and in running the game at the table.

Giving NPCs the same stats as PCs, for example, is a way that a game's rules attempt to govern reality. The underlying assumption being that a GM can't represent the NPCs on his or her own, so the rules need to do it for him. But that makes creating every NPC in the game (and remember, the GM needs to create hundreds over the course of the campaign) as time consuming as making a single PC (which a player usually does once over the course of the campaign). If the game were designed entirely, from the ground up, with the GM-logic paradigm, reliance on the GM would allow the designer to create a very simple NPC system. It would trust in the GM to create and run NPCs logically as if they were living, breathing beings in the world, and if a simple NPC suddenly needed a stat that it was not provided with, the GM could adjudicate the situation fairly and easily.

In gameplay itself, tight rules require that the GM or the players (or both) constantly refer to those rules again and again. The ability of a GM to simply make a judgement without opening a rulebook keeps the game flowing quickly and smoothly. For a well-trained GM given the ability to adjudicate rulings, doing so is easier and faster than having to look things up each time.

An Example

Say you've got a special weapon (magic or tech, doesn't matter) that makes foes all itchy so they are distracted. In a tightly written ruleset, the designer defines not only the effect, but what (if anything) can counter the effect. Maybe it would state that if the victim suffers a -3 penalty on all actions for the next ten turns unless he spends two consecutive turns and makes a new successful resistance roll, in which case the effect ends. In a GM-logic ruleset, you would write it entirely differently. You would explain what's going on in the situation, and let the GM handle the rest. So it would say that the victim is covered in an itchy and irritating powder and suffers a -3 penalty for the next ten turns while the powder was on his flesh and clothes. Then it would be up to the player to say, "I want to clean the itching powder off." And the GM says, "okay, if you take two turns, and make a new resistance roll, you can get it off." The advantage in the latter case is, the player could also say, "I'm going to jump in this nearby pool of water," and the GM is free to say, "Okay, that washes it off immediately." Or the player might say, "I use the water in my canteen to wash it off," and the GM might say, "Okay, that still takes two turns, but the roll is automatic now." Or the victim's mage friend might conjure a wind to blow the powder off. Or whatever.

Pitfalls

There are pitfalls, of course, and maybe that's the real thought experiment going on here. Because as I've said, this idea isn't new. In fact, that's the point. It's old. It's the way games all used to be. It's why the guys who label themselves "Old School Renaissance" say things like "Rulings Not Rules." With age comes experience, though, so having seen now how games can be written differently, perhaps there are modern sensibilities we can take to heart if we return to the "old ways" and have a game based on logic.

1. Consistency. With tightly written rules, you always have consistency. If the designer's doing his job, things are always explained the same way. For a game where the GM makes rulings, the onus is on the GM to maintain continuity. And I'll argue that continuity is a good thing. In fact, in some ways it's essential. If a player can't base his actions on a consistent application of the rules, he can't make informed, intelligent decisions. If climbing up a slippery slope is easy one session, but then next session a player decides to have her character climb a similar slope and it's really difficult, this lack of continuity hurts gameplay. It's also illogical. That's why I'm not concentrating on a GM-whim paradigm, but a GM-logic paradigm.

2. GM Education. The GM-logic paradigm requires an informed GM. Learning to use logic rather than detailed rules can be difficult sometimes. It requires a ruleset that focuses on good, solid GM advice. Like the saying goes, "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime." The same could be said for GMing. Good solid GM advice, even if it takes a lot of space in the rulebook, can end up saving space by not having to have long, elaborate rules to cover every situation.

3. "GM May I?" Some players start to feel hamstrung if they feel that every action they take is subject to the GM's whim. A carefully written game can anticipate this and make it clear that the things that the players can do, the players can do. In other words, if a character's main thing is hitting stuff with an axe, that kind of thing needs to be spelled out in the rules with enough clarity that the player knows how it will work and can play that part of the game without GM "permission." Speaking of which, it's also important that the rules present themselves in such a way that the GM isn't providing "permission," he's adjudicating. It's a fine difference, but an important one. When a player says, "Can my character jump across the pit?" she's not asking, "May my character jump across the pit?" She's asking, "Does it seem possible that my character could jump across the pit?" Players are in control of their characters. They don't need GM permission.

Benefits

The tightly written ruleset offers a lot of benefits, to be sure. This isn't an indictment of that paradigm. But the GM-logic paradigm has its own benefits.

1. Lighter Reliance on Things Easily Defined. Tightly written rulesets often end up focusing gameplay on things like combat, because that's the kind of thing that is easy for rules to define. Things less structured, like exploration, interaction, investigation, travel, just to name a few things, fall by the wayside--not because they are written out of the game, but because there's no focus on them, and the tightly written ruleset is all about definition and focus. In tabletop rpg design, you often (inadvertently or not) convey as much with what you don't say as what you do say.

2. Fast, Smooth Play. As mentioned above, with less need to refer to ruleboks, games can move along quickly.

3. Creative Freedom. In this paradigm, GMs can run the kinds of games they want, the way they want. Players can try anything that they can think of. Both GM and player are free to think beyond the rules, beyond the character sheet, and beyond the dice. They are giving more authority toward the creation of story, problem solving, and roleplaying.