Saying "No"

[benlehman]

So Dogs in the Vineyard has some great GMing advice, but my favorite piece is from the system, which is that, as the GM, you have to "say yes, or roll dice." The only way you can stop your players is to play fair, with the system. Nobilis does this, too, and calls it the "Monarda Law," I believe. Phrased like that, it goes like this: "Say yes, or say 'yes, but...'" In the more-fiat-than-Dogs-but-still-not-a-lot-of-it Nobilis system, it amounts to the same thing.

This is great advice.



Great advice most of the time, that is.

See, it all depends on what sort of "no."

If, in Dogs, I say "The stakes of this challenge are 'do I build a nuclear bomb,'" the GM has a responsibility to say "no, shut up" to me. Further, in Nobilis, I'm going to constantly be firing off questions about what sorts of ways I can stretch my abilities "Can I use a creation of punctuation to drop heavy iron balls on someone's head? 'cause it's like a period?" Finding the edges -- the "no"s of the system and setting -- can be an integral part of the play experience.

What is the difference between that "no" and the "no" that makes the player frustrated, angry, and feeling ineffectual?

Thoughts?

Comments

[chrislehrich.livejournal.com]

Weird coming from me, perhaps, but you may be over-thinking this. The difference practically is whether you clearly explain why you're saying "no" and whether the reasons are acceptable to the play-group.

"No, because I said so," is bad.
"No, because that totally violates the entire game premise, don't you think, guys?" "Yup, shut up Fred" is good.

[apollinax.livejournal.com]

This was what I was trying to articulate to you pre-game at Zisa; systems that are not sim-oriented require interpretation which is not based on an external truth. Just because they are not defined by sim boundaries does not mean that they do not have boundaries. G boundaries come from a desire for balanced game play for G motives ("that Feat is too powerful"), S boundaries come from a desire for believability ("you can't carry 200 pounds"), and N boundaries from a desire for consistent (not capital C consistent) thematic elements ("that violates the entire game premise").

[benlehman.livejournal.com]

Was it? I got "If you want to resort to system to show that Silvio is a social bad-ass, you are a loser." Which I was a little miffed at.

I agree with what you just said there, yeah.

yrs--
--Ben

[yeloson.livejournal.com]

Hi Ben,

Pretty much what Chris L said. It's not the GM alone who is responsible to say no in the nuclear bomb case- its the responsibility of the -group- to say no. Do I believe that the GM alone -can- defend the game premise? Sure. Do I think that the GM alone should be the only one allowed to input on that? Big no.

[dariuswolfe.livejournal.com]

As I understand it, the *GM* specifically has to obey the rule of "Say yes or roll the dice". However, it is the right, and the responsibility, of every player to question something that sounds out of place, or violates genre conventions.

The GM is a player, and as such has that right, and that responsibility.

btw, building a nuclear bomb wouldn't violate genre conventions in our game of Dogs.. ::grin::

[foreign-devilry.livejournal.com]

You're misunderstanding the Monarda Law.

It's not up to the GM to define the limits of the game world. You're writing Polaris, dammit, you know this! The players aren't supposed to wander around like maze rats until they bump into the barriers. That's abusive and antagonistic. They're supposed to buy into the idea of the game in the first place. And, if they do, you don't need to say No. If you want to interpret Punctuation that way, fine, but I get to respond similarly. Negotiated space. This is roleplaying in action. If the GM can dictate to the players how things work, it's not negotiated, it's arbitrated.

Remember my infamous Star Wars game where one character stuffed the Dark Jedi full of tranquilizers before the final fight scene, robbing everyone of a climactic finish? Afterwards, the players were complaining because the GM hadn't said No. None of them complained to the player that his actions fucked up the game for everyone else. How about some personal responsibility, huh? Personal responsibility means you don't have to say No. Individuals say No to their own stupidity.

Get rid of the maze. Set the mice free.

[benlehman.livejournal.com]

I think that all of you are really missing something here. (I'm replying to you, Jon, 'cause hey, why not.)

What I am talking about is a good "no." I'm not saying "player cannot build a nuclear bomb in Dogs is a bad decision."

What I am saying is that this kind of "no" has a place in functional play. Everyone seems to think that the player who does this is a giant turd. They aren't.

When I play any game, but especially a new system, I'm going to poke around and see what the constraints are. "Can I flip up over the ledge and shoot him twice in the eyes?" "No, this is a gritty detective drama." Another example would be "Can I use Cooking to smash him over the head with a frying pan?" "Uh... no..."

These are not bad "no"s, but also the player isn't being a dick for poking around at the system and setting.

What I'm trying to figure out is the dividing line.

yrs--
--Ben

[foreign-devilry.livejournal.com]

> These are not bad "no"s, but also the player isn't being a dick
> for poking around at the system and setting.

See, I flat out disagree. I think the player is being a dick or the GM is encouraging actions outside the scope of the game. To me, this looks like the GM and player aren't on the same page. Why would you want to flip over the ledge and shoot him in a gritty detective drama? Why would you suspect that that's even worth asking about?

Let me paraphrase some Dan Quinn: Old Minds think, "What can we do to stop bad things from happening?" New Minds think, "What can we do to make cool stuff happen?" Why go for negative reinforcement when you can simply encourage people to come up with neat stuff that IS within the scope of the game? The world will not be saved by Old Minds with new programs, but by New Minds with NO PROGRAMS. "No," is a program. Never say "never" again.

[benlehman.livejournal.com]

Old mind here. :-) Of course, I gave up trying to save the world a long time ago. c.f. Polaris

Of course the GM and player aren't on the same page. Duh! Think about the lumpley principle for a second. If all the players of the game were on the same page, why would you bother playing? You wouldn't need to negotiate the SIS at all.

I'm sorry, dude, but you're just wrong about this. The language does not contain wrong words wrong enough to describe your wrongness. What I am describing *must* be a part of functional play (or maybe very stealthy dysfunctional play) because what I am describing goes on all the time in any RPG I've ever played in. And I have had a lot of fun -- not despite it, but because of it.

Yet another example: Every single Riddle of Steel game I've ever played has players constantly saying "Can I use this SA? How about this one?" If the GM said "yes" to all of those, the game would be pointless. All SAs would be firing all the time, so it would just become "what do you want to do." The GM (where, by GM, I mean "person who says no") needs to limit people so that the SAs are all that more special when they *do* happen.

I think you're on this trip right now that every word spoken by a player is a gospel contribution to the game. That's great... for improv comedy. Role-playing games have blocking rules, and have them for a reason. I think it is an important statement you are going for, but it is also a wrong one.

yrs--
--Ben

P.S. You should put your Polaris comments on my Polaris post, so I can reference them later.

[foreign-devilry.livejournal.com]

Read Smerf below. He's nailed my opinion on this one. I'm not trying to say that saying No is necessarily disfuctional (I suspect it usually is, but I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt that the play you're talking about isn't). I'm saying that it fucking sucks. Sure, it might work, but it's an ugly-ass way to play. Especially when you're trying to encourage player agency and participation, having to shoot people down disrupts everything that I find valuable and unique about roleplaying as a medium. Say "Yes." Say "Yes, but..." Say "Maybe, if..." if you have to. But "No" and even "No, but..." just kill the game dead. Despite what you say, "No" isn't about negotiation. "Yes, but..." and "Maybe, if..." are about negotiation. "No" is a fucking brick wall. Play that way if you like, but keep your wrong wrongness to yourself.

[benlehman.livejournal.com]

I'm not talking about saying no to assholes. See post to Jon (http://www.livejournal.com/users/benlehman/61412.html?thread=232420#t232420).

[unrequitedthai.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure that the "no" that does not create feelings of being blocked out from contributing is just a "no" on the surface, and underneath it's a status check - "Are we all on the same page?"

[benlehman.livejournal.com]

I think you nailed it in one.

yrs--
--Ben

[lordsmerf.livejournal.com]

Okay,

I think I'm in the middle on this one. "No" doesn't have to be a bad thing, but it is a sign of incomplete Constraint (hurray!). If you have to say "No, this is a gritty detective drama" then you're basically saying, "No, that's outside the boundaries of Constraint for this game." If you have to tell someone that a given contribution is outside of the game's Constraint then you clearly haven't fully negotiated Constraint prior to the game.

Now, it should be noted that this isn't necessarily a sign of dysfunction. In fact, in Universalis I see this kind of thing happen all the time because part of the game itself is to build Constraint. What do you think those challenge rules are for?

Now, my personal preferred style of play has all your Constraint front-loaded, so there's no need to muck with it in play. In fact, if I'm playing, and we get to a point where this sort of thing happens, then it is a negative.

This is one of the things I'm struggling with in my Push article: there's a pretty significant amount of player and group preference for this sort of thing...

Thomas

[judd-sonofbert.livejournal.com]

Saying, "No," while keeping morale and interest up is the sign of a good leader and that is precisely what a GM must be, a good leader.

Hopefully, if the game is set up well and everyone is contributing wonderful ideas to the same kind of story, the -N- word won't have to come up too often. I have found that noting a game's inspirations or even loaning out books or DVD's can help with this.

I am sure at some point I am going to run a game wherein we do screenings of films and read from novels that inspired the game's concepts.