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").

[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.

[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?"

[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.