Yesterday (23 Dec 2022) I asked my daughter, “What role would you like to play in an RPG?”
She answered, “Support, I think. Buffing other players in a fight, healing magic, and abjuration magic: banishing and wards.”
“But what about situations other than combat? What would you like to do?”
Her response was most insightful: “I thought the main activity would be combat. If not, what are the main things players would do?”
Her question revealed something I had overlooked. By adding Skill Checks, D&D had opened the possibility of doing many other things, such as sneaking or negotiating, climbing walls and picking locks. Using the Skill-Check mechanic, we can model practically any action the Game Host and Player agree to be possible choices and challenges. But indefinite openness presents a different problem for the player: What is possible in this setting? What choices should I even consider? An irresponsible answer from the Game Host would be: “You can do anything! This world is wide open!”
This claim of ‘infinite possibilities’ is irresponsible because the game-world is inevitably constrained by the unexamined assumptions of both the players and the Game Host. The moment when those assumptions get revealed for examination is usually very uncomfortable, and can break the trust between the Game Host and the Players.
Suppose, for example, that the Player then proposes something horrifically violent and cruel, or some other choice that strongly clashes with the personal ethics of the Game Host or other Players. The Game Host might reply, in a passive-aggressive way: “okay, you can do that, but there will be consequences because the Town Guard will try to arrest you…”
Ah. In this case the Game Host has just introduced law enforcement. In a classic dungeon crawl, Characters slaughtered foes (‘monsters’) and looted their treasure without any moral qualms or legal consequences. ‘Classic’ 1970s roleplay assumed a lot of colonial-plunderer ethics that we reject in the 2020s. But if the Game Host is going to introduce law enforcement, which laws? The Liberal (modern) laws of property enable death-by-homelessness in American cities where fabulous wealth is being accumulated by the elite. Here I will resist digressing into 21st-century debates about political economy. I am just pointing out that Americans across the political spectrum are now questioning the assumptions that govern our Liberal political economy. There is no ‘given’ or ‘consensus’ system of laws that we accept.
So yes, the town Guard might respond to Player choices; but the GM needs to clearly express how the local laws reflect the setting. The setting has boundaries and limits; it has character. This is not a bad thing. One of the core traits of a roleplay setting—no matter how surreal or fantastical—is that it should clearly signal to the players what types of consequences they face for their choices.
Lines and veils as part of the setting
The adoption of ‘lines and veils’ at the beginning of roleplay demonstrates these limitations most clearly. We no longer presume that the indiscriminate colonial/crusader violence of 1970s D&D is acceptable at the table. Many groups draw a sharp line at excluding sexual violence from the game. Many groups draw the line at racist stereotyping, even in the guise of fixed traits for orcs, dwarves, and other in-game races. Many draw a veil over torture and the excruciating deaths even of horrible foes. I agree with paying close attention to the well-being of all members of a group. But I must point out that engaging in these forms of violence was common in literature of only a few decades ago, and in practice only one century ago. Our assumptions have changed. This matters both in real life (IRL) and in the most fantastical settings we can imagine. So, the possibilities are not infinite at all. In fact, since roleplay always involves dramatic encounters and often involves enactment of threats and violence, these lines and veils reveal strong boundaries that have become central to roleplaying games.
And Yet Situations Can Still Get Crazy…
The Lines and Veils practice of 21st century roleplay might beg the question, “Well, what can we do?” Part of the answer is: Roleplay is about dramatic encounters, especially situations with risk of partial or total failure. The Skills Check mechanic enables us to model almost any type of dramatic encounter in-game, so the game-mechanics are no longer the limiting factor. The constraints shift to other locations: the Lines & Veils mentioned above; the campaign-setting in general; and the current arc of the campaign in particular.
The core task of Game-Mastering therefore shifts to: Choose the types of dramatic encounters the Players and their Characters may face. This has always been one of the tasks of the GM, but here I want to emphasize it especially. A flexible game-mechanic means that the game-rules no longer serve as a crutch. In fact GMs are less and less likely to presume that session-preparation involves packing a dungeon-maze with monsters and loot.
For me, the problem is that once I reject the classic dungeon crawl as the implied encounter, I am tempted to shift to other world-building activities like mapping of cities and regions, or drafting battle-maps. There are so many possible diversions in roleplaying settings! Therefore my restatement of the core task simplifies the potential open-endedness for the GM. To keep the game centered around the emerging story of the adventures of the Characters, the GM need to keep focus on what kinds of dramatic encounters they may face.