"How to run this game" is a filter

You are selecting an audience, not teaching them

Role-playing games are complicated. They aren’t like Settlers of Catan, or Monopoly — but even these games are traditional patterns. People learn Monopoly and never read the rules. It’s the same thing with D&D.

Gamemasters learn patterns of play, and then transfer them across games, and find games that work better or worse with their preferred or pre-established neural architecture. Or they don’t, and they complain about it.

It is almost impossible to “teach” a new gamemaster. It happens more or less by chance. It’s often a master-apprentice thing where someone learns the dark arts from their own GM.

If you write a section in your system trying to explain how to run the game, it might be something like this:

[Perception:] There’s no such thing as a perception check, here – if information is obvious, just give it to them, especially if they ask; but that doesn’t make the PCs omniscient. Many many things are simply beyond their perception. Cultiatve [sic] a sense of mystery about what they don’t know, to invite them to solve that mystery. Many classes have the ability to force you answer specific questions about the world. Do so to the letter of the rules, but nothing more or less.

[…]

[World:] Don’t try to be a fan of the players. If you need to be a fan of anything, be a fan of the world. Don’t worry about if the players can ‘solve’ a situation (it’s only a “problem” from their perspective, and they are not the only important thing) that they’re in – worry about if the situation is described thoroughly and beautifully enough, whatever beauty means to you.¹

This is not instruction. This is a filter. Some people will click with this; others will not. It’s a minority who picks up a block of rules like this & tries to learn from it & then successfully applies it. Most GMs have strong preferences for “storygames” or “simulationism” that develop naturally — possibly by deeper personality differences — and then they keep with those habits, because they are habits that are learned. You can’t actually plug-and-play habits on a human. It doesn’t work.

What do you think happens when a simulationist world-building mastermind tries a good-faith effort to run FATE?

My bet’s on entropy pulling him towards his habits. And even if he tries, he will find himself fighting himself at every corner.

I regret to inform you that neurology is also subject to thermodynamics.

What does this mean for me?

If you’re writing a system, it means that any “how to run the game” section that is not literal rules (which should be self-explanatory) is actually a filter to advertise what kind of game the system is meant to be. Hopefully, that aligns with the actual mechanics in play.²

Aside: In practice, I’d laugh & think 95% of us are re-writing the dungeon crawler game loop. You can’t escape the gravity of the dungeon crawler. Fun + ease + shared mythos. Put the money on Free Parking. Same thing.

If you’re not writing a system, you’ve probably already found one that matches your preferences closely enough, or kit-bashed it into that shape. But I’m curious if you can see the shape of that preference.

Peanut gallery remarks welcome.³

1. Sourced from a recent effort from Taylor Lane Games to write a GM’s Guide (Reddit)

2. Creator-made games seem to align tightly with their authors’ personalities. Worth exploring later.

3. I mucked with the blog branding again haha. I’ll figure out what I’m doing eventually. Cyclopean blog, DnDungeon, Sakiroku, something something.