What will you not allow?

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

That is why I believe that it is essential that GMs and players discuss which optional rules will be in play in a given campaign. Even if the optional rule is just playing with Borderline Realism with just the standard rules from the Basic Set, it is necessary to establish that before the campaign. The last thing that most players want is to have a change in rules during the middle of a campaign (or even after character creation).

Agreed. Rule zero should be used at the moments when it will be least disruptive. Ideally, that's the beginning of a campaign.

Of course, we don't live in an ideal world. Sometimes you don't anticipate things. Sometimes you run into a funny situation that requires the GM to just say "Lets call it a -5 penalty for now", "You're right, that shouldn't be doable, lets say that it can't be done", and then move on to playing with the result as quickly as possible. After the session is over, then the GM can come back and say "I've thought about things and if it happens again we'll use this rule". This isn't ideal, but we don't live in a perfect world and we aren't perfect GM's. But we still try to get all of these at the start.

[JMason]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

I really always find these 'rule zero' talks disconcerting and unpleasant, but I wonder if part of it is a communication issue.

Character creation is absolutely on an 'at the discretion of the GM' basis. That's clear in the book.

Then there's everything else. There's loads and loads of rules. I like that there are loads and loads of rules! But they're not any use to me if they are regarded as at the GM's whim during play. Either from a player perspective (because I no longer have any way to know what I can do) or a GM perspective (because I'm being told I cannot trust the rules I'm using). So I pretty much refuse to believe that that's actually how GURPS is written...and I'm honestly going to continue to do so however many Kromm posts say otherwise.

Well, for me, there are a few things that could be grouped into a discussion of "rule zero". First is character options which you mentioned, and what I was mostly speak about in my post above. Then there are the plethora of rules that may or may not be fitting to a particular game. For example I don't use the rules in Martial Arts (with a few small exceptions), if a player wants to use those rules, they need to come to me before a game and discuss that... otherwise I'm not going to use them.

And last, are rules that are not worth wasting game time on. This might be a point of contrition with some. For example, there are a ton of task modifiers that I don't have memorized, so instead I'll "go with my gut"... if it "feels" like a -2 then it's a -2. What is the distance a character can jump with a running start... dunno, make a DX roll to see if you make it. Call me crazy but I've never had a session end with players saying, "Man, that was really fun when we were all searching through the books".

My players are fine with this sort of ruling on the fly. If they weren't then we'd have a discussion on what can be done to deal with their concerns and keep the game moving (which is my big concern). I also have no issue with being corrected after the game. In fact I often spend my post-game looking up rules that came up that I didn't know of the top of my head. I keep a cheatsheet of stuff that comes up often enough to want the RAW, but not so much that I have it memorized. But to me this is what "rule zero" is all about. Keeping the game going, exciting, and fun... and not just a group research session.

[sir_pudding]

Yeah, as a GM I am really trying to remember that the perfect is the enemy of the good, and not spend too much time confirming that the rule is what I think it is.

I do have an issue with players who want to go off and make a character in a vacuum. Apparently I am too micromanagy with suggestions on how to optimize and it makes people feel uncomfortable and mansplained at? Templates seem to be a huge help here, because I can use them to make sure characters fit my campaign without having too much direct input on character creation.

[AlexanderHowl]

I generally have my players send me a character concept before character creation so I can offer them suggestions. I find that it helps to give new players firm limits before character creation so they do not waste limit. With the fact that my games tend towards 400 points, a 60% of point total limit on purchasing Attributes (and a minimum-maximum range of 8-16) tends to be sufficient for most types of characters.

[evileeyore]

I go both ways. Sometimes we do a chargen session, sometimes characters are made between gaming sessions. I'm really laissez faire until they turned in.

But once in my hands, it's a draconian fine-toothed combing. At which point if I'm not sure what they were after i will confab with the Player and give meaningful advice.

I've one player who likes to do ye olde "I have an idea, can you make it" to which I always respond "Nope!" But other players usually pitch in do all the work for them.

[Dalin]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

There's loads and loads of rules. I like that there are loads and loads of rules! But they're not any use to me if they are regarded as at the GM's whim during play. Either from a player perspective (because I no longer have any way to know what I can do) or a GM perspective (because I'm being told I cannot trust the rules I'm using).

Hmm. I hear where you are coming from on this one, but I can't fully get into the mindset. Phrases like "GM's whim" make gaming sound more oppositional than it has been in my experience. If you give those GMs an inch they'll just stump all over player rights...

In all the groups I've gamed with over the decades, a baseline agreement is that the rules are in service to whatever events we are imagining together. The GM makes the final call, but we're in it together. When the rules interfere with our collective suspension of disbelief, we revise them or toss them out. In general, we work out the basic rules ahead of time. We'll be using these books and these options and not allowing these other things. Most of the time I expect players to simply tell me what they want to do without worrying about the rules. We often have new players (new to RPGs or new to GURPS), so they don't have to get hung up on the mechanics. One of the things I love about GURPS is that it generally works well with this. The rules, despite having zillions of them, can fade into the background because they simply help things happen the way you'd expect them to within a particular set of genre assumptions. In any given session, we change lots of minor things or get certain things wrong. (As others have pointed out, spending too much time in the books is the enemy of fun.) Afterwards, if needed, we'll look things up and figure out how we'll do it next time.

Sometimes we change major elements, though we don't do this on the fly. Our campaigns have traditionally been very long, so sometimes initial conditions turn out to be less fun than anticipated. In one fairly traditional fantasy campaign, years ago, we decided after four years of play that standard GURPS magic wasn't working for us. Unlimited Mana (now Threshold-Limited magic) looked interesting, so we playtested it in a side campaign for a few months. After tweaking things, we implemented it into the main campaign, which was apocalyptic enough already that a massive upset in campaign metaphysics fit right in with a the unexpected eclipses, ominous comets, and demonic incursions that already plagued the game world. Six years later, the game was still going strong and everyone was much happier with the new system.

With a campaign running for that many years, it seems unreasonable to expect a mortal GM to somehow figure every implication out ahead of time. I love building an intricate world, but sometimes I forget to think about the impact of Create Earth on the economy. We can always cross that bridge when we come to it. One advantage of figuring some of this stuff out later is that you then have the campaign story there to help you work it out. "Ok, so, there's been no sense so far that mages work together in factories as the basis of the economy, so there must be a reason why not. I bet there's a discussion on the GURPS forums where we could get some ideas for how to explain this..."

So, in general, I don't allow players who want to put the rules above the story or who want to find ways to use the rules to create situations that break genre assumptions.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Dalin

Hmm. I hear where you are coming from on this one, but I can't fully get into the mindset. Phrases like "GM's whim" make gaming sound more oppositional than it has been in my experience. If you give those GMs an inch they'll just stump all over player rights...

[ . . . ]

So, in general, I don't allow players who want to put the rules above the story or who want to find ways to use the rules to create situations that break genre assumptions.

You know, this reminds me of how some people give advice not to let physics get in the way of a good story . . . and then are puzzled when the audience complains about aerodynamics being done wrong at the end of the Martian film when they did exactly that (swept the rules of physics away in order to add a flashy scene to the story).

Which is to say, there are audiences in search of a plot that overrides the rules of physics/game/etc., and there are audiences who want the plot to emerge naturally out of them.

[adm]

Roleplaying is a group storytelling event, not unlike improve theater. I think the main role of a good GM that has not been directly described here is that the GM is the editor. Without a good editor to keep the story on track you often have a poor experience at the table.

How many stories have you read, or TV shows, movies, etc. have you seen, that have a good premise fall apart because focus has been lost?

[trooper6]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Which is to say, there are audiences in search of a plot that overrides the rules of physics/game/etc., and there are audiences who want the plot to emerge naturally out of them.

This is why it is important to know what style of play you are going to GM in and make sure it is compatible with the style of play the players want. If the players want something very Narrativist and the GM is very Gamist or Simulationist...there will be problems.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Dalin

Hmm. I hear where you are coming from on this one, but I can't fully get into the mindset. Phrases like "GM's whim" make gaming sound more oppositional than it has been in my experience. If you give those GMs an inch they'll just stump all over player rights...

You're reading it wrong. I mean, from my experience the GM bending the rules is more likely to do the PCs favors than get them in trouble. But whose favor the rule-bending is in doesn't change that it's no longer possible to form accurate expectations about how things work unless you can fit the GM's psychology into your model.

I really don't have a problem with discovering rules problems that need patching in play. I mean, obviously it's not ideal, but playing nonsense because the rules demand it isn't preferable!

Originally Posted by Dalin

So, in general, I don't allow players who want to put the rules above the story or who want to find ways to use the rules to create situations that break genre assumptions.

On the other hand, we probably shouldn't play together because I really don't like placing 'story' or 'genre assumptions' as important features of play. Not really out of conflict with a preference for rules (let alone rules exploits) so much as out of preference for PCs being able to act like real people rather than pawns of narrative expectations. I want the game to be in a world, not a story.