Its interesting to note that several bloggers, especially of the old School variety (here and here) are taking a stance against the Rule of Cool as applied to Role Playing Games.
Being one of the proponents of it, having written about it and made part of my success as a blogger around it, I feel a bit compelled to step in and address this.
However, this being the Internet, any arguments I will invoke will likely be ignored by opponents and be taken as fact by proponents. This is the kind of subject that should probably be debated by a bunch of GMs across genres and styles around a few beers.
I’ll still take my own stab at it, if only because I feel like writing today and must get this out of my system!
As I always do when I see posts about things I strongly oppose, I try to understand where the proponents of the contrarian view (vs mine) come from.
Starting an inter blog flame war about it is not going to move anything forward.
Noisms and James Edwards are from the old school. They play older editions of D&D and are passionate and articulate about it. They are vibrant and ranty bloggers whose prose is always entertaining to read even if I happen to disagree with many of their points of views. It doesn’t invalidate anything they say, I just happen to to disagree with how they see the hobby.
In fact, I’ve reached a “let’s agree to disagree” point on the Rule of Cool with Noisms and I’ll stick to that.
While I am nostalgic about older editions of D&D, I know I could not stand playing it for long. There’s something in the implied playing style that I do not want in my games anymore. My perception of the Rule of Cool is part of the reasons why.
The way they present it (and any misinterpretation is a fault of mine), the Rule of Cool involves making everything cool all the time and stroking the players ego as often as necessary. The rule is seemed to be portrayed as a cheap shortcut for quality writing at best or an abdication to the grand altar of the ‘lets just press this I win button instead”.
(Hyperbole noticed and kept to overstate the tone I deciphered from their posts).
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I learned and adopted the Rule of Cool at a time where I was wasting WAY too much time on prepping for details and torturing myself on striving for watertight and internally consistent adventures that my players FAILED TO NOTICE because they were not that interested in those details to start with.
As I write this, I’ve got a Twitter buddy (mdhughes), also of the Gygaxian Naturalism camp, making a case against it. As I read his arguments, I’m starting to see that what truly bothers people (aside from a rising dislike for the TVtropes.org site) is this part of the definition of the Rule:
…all but the most pedantic of viewers will forgive liberties with reality so long as the result is wicked sweet and/or awesome.
The “forgive liberties as long as its awesome enough” part is probably what annoys people. Unless I’m mistaken, and I haven’t read the forum posts on the subject, I’m willing to bet that some proponents of the Rule make it sound like its okay to make a RPG adventure as enthusiastic and internally inconsistent as a Saturday morning cartoon or a Michael Bay movie as long as shit explodes and all PCs are titanium-boned Bad Asses.
I then assume that the backlash of it all is that others, especially those coming from the ‘you will get killed by a kobold if you are not careful enough’ school, is that this is not what they want in a RPG adventure and are being enthusiastically vocal about it to drive their point home.
Here’s the thing, I’m a proponent of the Rule of Cool because, with the limited amount of time my friends are willing to trade away from their busy lives, I will make every effort possible to make the vistas, scenes, and story elements stand out from the ordinary so the evening stands out in my players minds. I feel I owe the extra effort to them.
The Rule of Cool is not, to me, about making it easy, or to stroke my players’ egos. Its about making things fun (as we have defined it), and emotionally charged in the smallest amount of time I can.
That’s why, if I stage a fight, I’ll make sure there’s enough bad guys to give the players a run for their money (while trying not to make it into an automatic TPK), I’ll add enough interactive scene elements so they can shove braziers up monsters butt and get their skulls caved in by falling masonry pushed by hidden kobolds. I’ll then sprinkle a few moral dilemmas and conflicting objectives just to make things more complicated.
Given the choice to make my players feel like the turds under the orcs boots and like hard Asses that take a beating but stand a fair chance of winning, I’ll take the second anytime.
This is what I mean by Cool. Different, complicated, varied, achievable. Its about choices and stretching what Fantasy means to those gathered around my play table.
You don’t like that? Fine! Don’t do it.
Rule of Cool + Tyranny of Fun? That’s what I talk about here, that’s what I believe in.
Peace out guys!
I like old school AND Rule of Cool, so where does that put me? 😀
The way I read it, those bloggers were criticizing an exaggeration, and that’s just flame bait in anyone’s currency. Not worth burning pixels with a reply.
I reckon if something is cool then run with it and worry about the scientific rationale later, if at all – especially when it’s a superheroes game and it acceptable to use black holes, lasers and gravity in ways that just don’t make sense at all in the Real World. Why? ‘Cos it’s cool that’s why!
Sure, there’s diminishing returns; if you try to make everything cool, nothing is. That’s why the mania of a Toon RPG game doesn’t map well to D&D. But it would sure make for a fun one-shot 😀
I think – no, I KNOW – that Classic D&D can be awesomely cool, and bring out the best in players. We remember the sessions where the Magic-User used his last remaining Magic Missile to ignite the lake of oil.
And if that ain’t Rule of Cool, I don’t know what is 😀
greywulfs last blog post..I am blogging in the future
The first guy is just flame-baiting. English is a living language and hence, subject to change and if geeks aren’t cool why is Big Bang Theory so popular?
In addition, both of them seem to completely miss the points of gaming, and all games in general – people play to have fun. IF following a particular rule or playing 4E is fun for your group – you’re doing it right and the hell with everyone else.
I totally respect James’ (of Lamentations of the Flame Princess) outlook on gaming and I agree with a lot of what he has to say. I think that he, and everyone else that does it too, can be wrong when he applies absolutes to roleplaying styles. This true when you are stating your take on styles as well as reading about others’ takes on styles.
I think the grognards’ beef with the trend in modern roleplaying is that we remove the challenge from the game. If I knew my DM always let us win (even by the slimmest of calculated margins), the whole thing would lose its appeal to me. On the other hand, if we constantly died or was in session 5 of “Searching for the entrance to the dark dungeon” the whole thing lose its appeal too.
So occasionally characters need to die, TPKs need to happen, and the big frillin’ sword isn’t recovered. Especially when the PCs make a bonehead decision. Then when you pull off that absurd action and it pays off, you know you really earned it.
That is not to say you can’t apply the rule of cool, I just only “break the realism with awesomeness” when the player(s) have pulled off those fantastic stunts or thought outside of the box. The rule of cool is just a tool.
I also think there be a misunderstanding on what exactly the rule of cool is. Those that despise it think it is something that is pulled off at a moment’s whim to keep the characters out of real danger [“just as the dragon swoops down to finish the party, a thermal wind throws him off course and he crashes into the cliff”] or to provide an solution to something that has stumped them [“the secret door you were looking for magically appears out of nowhere”].
I think that everyone can agree that what you have defined as cool, “Different, complicated, varied, achievable” need to be adjectives that you apply to your adventures, it just needn’t be “always achievable by any means.” And maybe things shouldn’t be “awesomely cool” just for coolness’ sake.
If I have totally rambled here and don’t sound the foggiest bit coherent, it may be the NyQuil typing.
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If “cool,” in any form, leads to a game experience that players talk about months or years later, and leaves the DM quoting Hannibal Smith from the A-Team (“I love it when a plan comes together…”), well then screw everything else: the game accomplished what it was supposed to.
‘Nuff said.
I think it’s an issue of fundamentals. In answering the question “why do we game?”, many of us would say “for fun.” Those who answer thus will likely find themselves in the “Rule of Cool is Good” camp. Those who respond with “to be challenged, win or lose” might find the Rule of Cool detracts from the game experience because it implies (however wrongly or rightly) that the players are being catered to to some extent. When you plan and introduce elements that reduce some realism for a “THAT WAS AMAZING!” player response, the DM isn’t necessarily aiming to challenge and, therefore, “defeat” the players.
Most old-school gamers that I know (and have known) are adversarial DMs and players; they aren’t trying to achieve a shared plot and story. They’re trying to make it through the session. Many tend towards a Me vs Them mentality – it’s DM vs Players, no holds barred. Therefore, many that I know would see the Rule of Cool as implying that the DM has to restrain himself/herself and cater to the players to make them feel impressive/awesome/etc. instead of those players doing it for themselves, against the odds.
… mostly, though, I think people just misinterpret the purpose behind the Rule of Cool and read too much into it. It’s the internet, people. If you like the Rule of Cool, great. If you don’t, great.
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Argh. Long comment lost to the electronic ether!
I shall try to reconstitute it, albeit in a shorter form…
I think you’re being a touch unfair in your opening statements; there’s a (possibly unintended) suggestion there that a dislike of the Rule of Cool is a trait particular to the old school movement. You’ll note that a lot of the grognards like the old systems because they’re looser, and less reliant on having a rule or table for everything, and more on giving the GM leeway to decide how the events are going to pan out. I think it’s pretty obvious that this leaves more room for the Rule of Cool than more modern games do.
If I want my swashbuckling swordsman to do that thing they do in the movies, where he runs a short distance up the wall then backflips over his opponent to land behind, then it seems to me that a GM of (for example) Red Box D&D might have an easier time allowing that, perhaps with a DEX-based roll, or a simple d6 roll, or simple handwaving. With something like 3e (again for example) there’s likely a page of rules or tables in there somewhere which might give a less confident GM the impression that the stunt has to be run, literally, by the book, and may not allow it.
Of course, it’s all about the individual GM, and this kind of on the spot ruling can be done with any system, whether it’s hyper complex and crunchy or three stats and a d6. The point is, however, that many of the games the old-schoolers hold dear are so well regarded precisely because there aren’t systems in place for everything, and so the GM becomes more of an active player of the game, rather than a processor of rules. Not only is the Rule of Cool suited for old-school gaming, the GMs are probably already doing it.
Of course, there are undoubtedly old-schoolers out there who do hate the Rule for no good reason, but I don’t think any of the bloggers you mention in your post qualify.
Dude, what are people on about? Play the game the way you like it. Everyone claiming to know the secrets to “good GM-ing” and announcing it in the open is looking to stroke their own ego by pointing at what others are doing and saying “that’s wrong”. Petty highschool stuff… Grow up. And I’m glad to see that you’re not letting it get to you too much.
@Greywulf: Old School and RoC are not exclusive for sure, I was just drawing an observation from where the ‘contrarian’ view (always relative to mine) came from. Having started in 1E’s period, I clearly recall numerous cool things. Hell, I’ve killed more Ogres with a Portable Hole in Against the Giants than any weapon I yielded!
@Viriatha: I don’t want to attack the people who wrote this. I kinda know where they come from. But I could not let them walk over my beloved Rule without putting up a counter Rant now could I? 🙂
@Mad Brew: I hear ya and we both agree. The RoC is not a dogma… its just a tool that needs to be used sparingly.
@ Jeremy: Hell yeah bro! Nothing more than that!
@Rafe: Thing is, I’m not so sure Old Schoolers are much more adversarial than other sub-genres of RPGers. The systems themselves are more prone to character death… but then again, an O D&D character takes mere minutes to roll. What I do agree on is that the Rule of Cool is likely being exaggerated upon and being criticized from those extremes.
@Kevingreen: Sorry that you had to write the comment twice. My intentions were not to imply that grognards hated the Rule of Cool on sight. Its just that objections to the RoC came mostly from people in that movement today. I want to make it clear that I’m making a gross correlation and not a Cause to effect link.
My goal was trying to understand why both James and Noisms hated it so much and reiterate my own position on the subject. Still, I can’t shake the feeling that both preety much ‘hate’ the RoC as they perceive it. No contest there. 🙂
@Flying Dutchmen: I hope you know me enough now to get that I don’t care how people play their favorite RPGs. I’m NOT of the ‘you’re playing it wrong school”. I just felt like counter ranting today and it felt good doing it! I like the RoC, I like the Tyranny of fun…. Hell, I like Michael Bay movies (as long as I don’t get to see them twice) and Avatar!
Peace out all, I see that nice discussions are ahead of us this year.
I think the root of what should be a non-argument is that the two “camps” and side camps, and so on… all have fun in different ways. They derive enjoyment from diverse aspects of the hobby.
Many/Some old schoolers tend towards enjoying player skill, to “beat” the dungeon/DM. The tactical challenge is what matters. Fluff is superfluous or at best camouflage distracting players from the real problem. So, they get pissed when they perceive the Rule of Cool as saying it’s to cover up a lame, unchallenging game with fluff as long as that fluff is wicked awesome.
Other players hate player challenge.
This is also why some of them don’t think “Conan the Barbarian” is an awesome movie when it so obviously is. 😉 oops the language snob, geek hater also probably loathes emoticons 😮
norman harmans last blog post..Seven Days, Seven Blades of Luck – Loki’s Luck
Darn… I away for a few days and I miss all of this?
I hope I’m rested enough to make sense for people living outside of my head…
Too much of anything is a bad thing. Too much “cool” is just as bad as no “cool” at all.
Underrationalizing is just as bad ass over-rationalizing (which, btw, killed the Force, in the new Star Wars).
Cool requires the mundane to exist (a.k.a. good doesn’t exist without evil and other cross-defining concepts).
I don’t think one can/should interpret the “rule of cool” as just jumping on anything potentially cool all the time without any regard to logic or anything…
(well… except if you’re a 10 year old – in which case exagerating the rule of cool might be super fun!)
I don’t know… I feel like the people opposing the “rule of cool” must be criticizing an exagerated interpretation of it… or are just plain uncool people 😛
@greywulf: You said what I wanted to say. But don’t rationalize later if you’re gonna put in “medichloreans” in the fourth installment of your generation-spanning campaing.
@Viriatha: Yes – I mean what you said as well! (Man, do I even post comments? Maybe I should write a plugin that would allow me to check comments that I agree with)
@Mad Bew: Yes! Absolutes = bad. Careful with absolutes. Also, about the death thing: ever had a game with a cool character death? “Rule of cool” does not mean “no risk” 🙂
@Rafe: Yes! I must add that being against “Rule of cool” feels like a ridiculous battle when considering that “cool” is different for every party. “cool” might mean more realism to a particular group.
@Flying Dutchman: Yes!! (You get two exclamations points!)
@norman harman: Yes. All sorta cools for everyones.
Eric Maziades last blog post..The Rules of Sharing Narrative Control (and Improv)
Wow. There’s a lot of bitterness out there (or so it seems from Chatty’s links.) I, like Chatty, got tired of endless hours of prep ignored by players (even “good” players.) I decided not to work so hard on rules-mastering and extreme-simulation plotting. Turns out that works just fine for me and my playgroup. And it significantly lowered my stress level as a DM. That’s cool. And it rules.
If a player does something stupid, the group usually recognizes it pretty quickly. They know that despite the fact that I don’t enforce a simulation-level accurate ruleset, they’re going to get punished for the stupidity. After all, bad choices usually have bad consequences.
Telling me I’m a –insert favorite trollish term here– because I’m not playing the game the way you play it, or I have enthusiasms you regard as beneath you, is inane.
The “rule of cool” is just cosmetic, and so does not conflict in any way with “old school” or anything like that. It just says that things should look cool. It’s quite possible for things to be cool and gritty and certainly lethal.
Old school means that the GM hates you, the rules hate you, the dice hate you, and only your wits can save you. Your wits can save you fighting a balrog with a flaming sword on an ice bridge above a giant chasm just as well as they can save you in a cramped and dark tunnel desperately stabbing at a smelly orc.
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@Chatty: “I’m willing to bet that some proponents of the Rule make it sound like its okay to make a RPG adventure as enthusiastic and internally inconsistent as a Saturday morning cartoon or a Michael Bay movie as long as shit explodes and all PCs are titanium-boned bad Asses.”
You know what? It is okay.
It’s not how I run my games, and it doesn’t sound like it’s how you run yours, either. I think it’s safe to say that it’s not like those “old school” people run theirs. (And when did the term “old school” get hijacked? Most of the old-school gamers I knew were very tolerant of different styles of gaming — they almost had to be, with the proliferation of house rules in early AD&D. But that’s another rant.)
But if someone wants to run a game that way, and other people want to play in it, and everyone involved is having fun…
Then who am I, who are you, who are they to tell those people “You’re playing it wrong!”
This is a game where a group of grown men and women sit around a table in a pub or a game store or someone’s basement and pretend to be elf wizards, dwarf barbarians, and hobbit rogues. And there are people out there, apparently, who will look down from their high horses and judge ways of playing the game as bad. Not “not to my taste,” but bad.
The game is ridiculous. It is. There’s no arguing that. It’s ridiculous whether you play it like a Saturday-morning cartoon or whether you emulate Lord of the Rings or Conan or Thieves’ World or the Song of Roland or whatever literature it is you’re taking inspiration from. It’s ridiculous whether you’re pretending to be epic heroes on a godlike power scale or tattered commoners who might die from a scratch. It’s ridiculous whether you’re playing 4e, 3e, OD&D, Runequest, Vampire, Amber, or FATAL. (Some of those systems might be more ridiculous than others, but not the game itself — that’s equally ridiculous no matter what system you’re using.) It’s ridiculous whether you run the most fanciful campaign or the most realistic one ever known. It’s ridiculous. Seriously. Think about it.
That’s the whole reason it’s fun.
I think some people mistake the Rule of Cool as saying “Let everything work so your players are happy.” Nope, that’s not it. I’d put it more along the lines of “Make everything memorable.”
Anyone who’s really old school should know that failures can be as fun and memorable as successes. But if your rigorously-designed and intricately-interconnected campaign yields few stories to be told around the game table in a couple of years, and my inconsistent Saturday-morning cartoon campaign yields dozens, then I’d consider your game a failure and mine a success.
My goal, as a GM, is to create a world and a campaign that’s both memorable and fun and detailed and verisimilitudinous. But if for some reason I have to choose one or the other, it’s not going to be the detail and verisimilitude.
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Well, now you’re articulating it in a way I can understand it. 😉 Funnily enough, you know, I was thinking about the city of Sigil (from Planescape) eariler on, and how it could never exist or make sense. But I thought to myself, that’s okay, because it’s unutterably cool. Then I thought, that Chatty guy’s more than just a pretty face.
Anyway, keep it up. I don’t agree with a lot of what you say in your blog either, but it never fails to be worth reading.
@Viriatha: I’m “the first guy” and no, I wasn’t flame baiting. I was just ranting on my personal blog, as is my wont, after spending a day fighting my way through rabid shoppers in the January sales. Nor was my tone entirely serious.
noismss last blog post..Top 10 Things That Have Pissed Me Off About Role Playing This Year
Damn, I’ve missed this!
@Norman: My post was more of a counterpoint to the other two posts than an attack on their message. I make no judgment calls on the play style of others.
Yeah, I grok how older editions of D&D are played and I also understand what the old school movement wants (I read Grognardia religiously), but I’l be damned if I won’t kick their buckets once in a while to try to dispel that inherent grognard grumpiness! 🙂
@Eric: I’m firing on all cylinders man and the community is answering the call. I will quote you on this: “Cool requires the mundane to exist “, I agree completely. Otherwise you a Michael Baysian arms race on your hands that can’t end well.
@Anarkeith: Do note that both Noisms and James trademark are rants like that so you need to take this into account. I’ve challenged the message, I didn’t attack the messengers.
As for player stupidity, I agree. Let the chips fall where they may. The RoC is not a liferaft. Heck, my buddy Yan invoked it once by jumping on the back of a raging dragon. He died a few rounds later but Man was it a great show for the time it lasted! This remains among our best gaming memories.
@Ninetail: Hey, long time no see! I see that we’re cut from similar cloth, both in our GMing preferences and our stance about how inane it is to judge other people’s style!
@Noisms: Thanks for dropping by man, as always, I raise my hat to you even when we trade quips.
This is going to be an interesting year, I feel it.
Hi Chatty,
I’ve been following this thread with interest.
I was wondering if you could describe how you use The Rule of Cool in praxis. It seems to me, that most of the opponents haven’t used the rule or tried playing with it, or even met anyone using the rule. Instead they assume that The Rule of Cool assures 1) that the PC’s cannot fail, 2) that the PC’s are granted anything they demand, and 3) that it protects them from “player stupidity”.*
with regards,
Morten
*) BTW, what’s the thing with “player stupidity”? Why are players “stupid”? Couldn’t GM’s be stupid? And might “player stupidity” not be caused by different expectations from players and GM’s, which the GM’s interpret as “stupidity”? (Well the reason behind this mini-rant is, that the I cannot help finding the concept somewhat derogatory, and it seems to me to be based on a non-existent stereotype. I’m having a hard time recognizing the concept from my own playing groups)
Glad to see noisms and Chatty, you know, actually talking viewpoints over. Those of us going to Gen Con should just keep a list so we can address them all over beers one night. 🙂
I think an interesting “modified” rule of cool is to be found in this post from Jeff’s Gameblog:
http://jrients.blogspot.com/2006/09/how-to-awesome-up-your-players.html
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@Morten Greis: In practice, using the Rule of Cool is evaluating a given encounter/scene you designed or you are taking from a published product and try to add elements to it to make it more memorable.
In a highly mechanical game like D&D 4e, I’ve found that taking monsters with varied powers, adding interactive terrain elements to the combat encounter and increasing the stakes of the conflict makes for a ‘cooler’ scene.
For instance, a few months ago, I had the players face off a Fighter in a temple’s throne room. As is, the combat would have been average. I added poisoned cushions (and I wrote rules to kick them around), I added braziers of fire that could be kicked on creatures and I added several guards to even out the combat encounter.
Then as scripted, a Dragon later swooped in and tried to save the wounded “queen”
My players loved it, they kept saying it was ‘epic” and they were barely level 3 characters! I think this was practical Rule of Cool.
As for calling players stupid, in hindsight I agree that its a badly chosen term.
I think the core point, once you remove the derogatory connotation is that regardless of Coolness, bad tactical choices when they occur should have the appropriate consequences and not be prevented because ‘that would be uncool” otherwise, players have no more incentives to play for keeps.
@Zach: Hey man, you know me. I’m all for civil discussions and beer! We should have an unofficial GM’s panel at the Ram, they’ve great beer there! We’ll call it: “y’all meet in a Tavern”
As for Jeff’s Awesome up your Game posts… that’s one of the posts that got me blogging about the Rule of Cool in the first place! 🙂
Thanks for your answer.
So the basicly “Rule of Cool” is a preparation-technique, where you flavor the game according to you and your players taste, and this may outweigh realism (e.g. the poisoned pillows, that don’t sound very “realistic”, but mighty fun).
Also this application of the rule does not protect the PC’s from failing and from bad tactical choices, nor does it make things less challenging. It adds more drama (swooping dragons) and gives the players some obvious choices (the pillows, the braziers) for creating dramatic effects. In this manner I can’t see that the rule is in opposition to Old School-gaming.
Does anyone else have some good examples?
@Morten: That’s pretty much how I see it. I also totally agree that Old School gaming is RoC compatible. As others have said it in the comments. Older systems are easier to adjudicate for GMs (4e too, but that’s another debate)
In fact, having read a lot of stuff from Gary Gygax, I feel that he had a flair for the Rule of Cool in designing his mega dungeons. It was just based on different aspects of the game than what I call “player-centered coolness”.
Gygaxian coolness (I’m so going to get killed here) was exploration-based, exceedingly lethal and, arguably, included entertainment for the DM (a lost art for many I feel) but it was there. Just look at Maure Castle (printed in Dungeon Magazine a few years ago)!
Your ideas on the Gygaxian Coolness is interesting. It does remind me of some of the good, old dungeons.
So we now have two different approaches to Coolness.
Rule of Cool:
* Dramatic flavor
* Adding dramatic moments
* Giving the players obvious choices for dramatic actions
Gygaxian Coolness:
* Exploration
* Lethal
* and something more: Entertainment for the DM (I’m not certain what you mean about this one).
Also it seems to me, that Gygaxian Coolness implies some sort of “competition between the GM and the Players”, where the GM use a pre-written dungeon to pose a challenge to the players, and the GM is assumed to employ only a certain amount of resources, namely those that are in the written scenario, to challenge the players.
By “Entertaining the DM” I mean that if you read some of the reports of Gary’s games you see that he didn’t like to get bored by overly cautious players. When everyone started listening to doors, he created the Ear Seeker, an insect that burrowed in the brain of door listeners.
Other monsters he created like the Rust Monster have a very high entertainment value. While I don’t subscribe to the ‘its okay to destroy the gear of PCs’ ideals anymore, I distinctly recall a MANY entertaining (and cool for me) encounters where Players with metal-clad PCs had to become very creative to keep their gear intact.
Rob Kuntz also made dungeons that challeneged the players more than the actual Player Characters. This means that a dungeon’s internal logic could was likely discarded momentarily in order to make an encounter “cool/intersting/challenging”
Another Example: White Plume Mountain’s Frictionless room… with both ends having pits filled with disease-ridden blades IIRC. Lethal as hell, but cool to play out.
Another (from David Sutherland’s Demonweb Pits): A Large room with a Wall-size magnet. All plate clad PCs get pulled in room and stuck on magnet. Then room fills with pole-armed gnolls.
Once again, lethal & Cool.
This is the first I’ve heard of it, but I’m definitely a fan of the Rule of Cool. Very much describes how I enjoy my games.
The most common attack is that it doesn’t reward ‘clever play’. I hate ‘clever play’, or ‘smart play’. All this makes me think of is the player who has played with the same GM in the same system for 30 years and knows both his GM and the rules backwards and forwards. He knows every curse, the abilities of every monster, and thinks this makes him clever. That, or the character is played paranoid and overly cautious, double-checking everything and afraid to do anything for fear the GM will “screw him over”. I don’t find either one of those fun.
Sometimes, players need to do something stupid. They need to do it because its dramatically appropriate, or right for their character, or it will just plain make the game more fun. They need to sneak a peek in the Necronomicon, or unlock the door so their lover can sneak in, or get drunk when they’re supposed to be on guard duty.
The biggest disconnect for me is the old schoolers saying the Rule of Cool means the players have an automatic ‘I Win’ button. I thought RPGs were games without winners and losers. Just a cooperative game where the goal is to have fun? Characters have goals, and they may achieve or fail at those goals, but it isn’t about winning or losing. Playing through a character failing at a goal can be just as fun and interesting as succeeding at it. Deriding something as an I-win button makes me think that we aren’t even playing the same kind of game.
@Maddman: Welcome to the blog. I’m always happy to meet new commenters. I’m really not a fan of adversarial role playing, its among the styles I dislike the most.
I’m however not convinced that this adversarial style is obligatory for old school gaming. It really depends on the level of trust that builds between players and DMs and what a group is after. If ‘beating’ the DM’s dungeon is the group’s goal (as I’ve read in some accounts that early RPGs were akin to Wargame scenarios) then an adversarial style is probably one of the default stances to take.
Hmmm… I need to think about this some more.
How do you think the RoC would apply to a dark, bleak setting like FFG’s Midnight?
I’m another old schooler that has no problem with the Rule of Cool. It’s all about having a fun engaging story for players. I
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1. Old school and winning and competition: From what I have gathered, the old school play is very much a game; the players compete against the dungeon/wilderness/substitute thereof with the GM acting as an arbiter (and taking or not taking suitable glee at the fates of PCs, as fits his or her personality).
Player vs. GM is hence misleading. It is players versus environment. There is also scoring (experience; hence, partially, gold gives xp).
2. The rule of cool makes me uncomfortable, because it evokes the sense of what I consider bad anime (Ninja scroll, IIRC, and DBZ, again IIRC; I don’t watch bad anime).
That is, I associate the word “cool” with teens enthusiastic about something utterly moronic (by my standards). Bringing more of such to almost any game I enjoy would be destructive to my enjoyment.
All that said, the rule of cool does not say this. I just associate it with inane fictional content. My problem, really. May or may not apply to other people.
See also: “awesome”. In lesser extent, “fun”.
@Tommi: Cool doesn’t always have to be bad anime overdone. What about Star Wars? Han Solo charges a whole squad of stormtroopers and they run (until he’s out of shots), Luke Skywalker bounces off the plank, catches a lightsaber out of the air, and proceeds to save the day. A bunch of teenagers is junky ships manage, with some luck, a clever plan, and the Force, to blow up the biggest technological terror the galaxy has ever seen. That all sounds pretty cool to me.
Cool has to be within context. If you’re playing Exalted, then that type of super-campy way over the top action is what we’re talking about. (I’ve long said that Exalted is about freeing your inner 14 year old) But I follow the Rule of Cool even in Call of Cthulhu. Its just in a different context. Cool there might be the characters figuring out where to look for that ancient evil, or happening to come across the rising monster just in time. Its about making the story and narrative more important that either the rules or “realism”. IMO.
Maddman;
Yeah, I know. Does not mean that my gut reaction is not what it is.
Two things:
1) I, too, hate it when it is claimed that Rule of Cool doesn’t award “clever play”.
In fact, RoC (if done right) rewards clever play to a huge extent.
By this I don’t mean “Oh, you’re clever, you figured out my solution to this puzzle.”
I mean “Wow, that’s a solution I never thought of. It’s a bit of a stretch, but it would be undeniably awesome if it worked. Go ahead and try, and here’s a bonus to your role because it’s awesome and clever!”
2) Rule of Cool isn’t just a preparation tool. It’s also an in-game tool, as described in my point 1. It additionally covers things like what happened in my last game I played in.
We killed a couple of Rage Drakes (large sized). I asked the DM if I could take one of their heads back to town and have the local leatherworker fashion it into a backpack for me.
There was some thought as to whether it would be big enough, or even possible, but the ultimate decision was that it would have no effect on the game aside from giving me a freaking sweet backpack, so why the hell not?
Is it realistic? Probably not. But it doesn’t matter. The player has a little bit of fun, and it has no effect on the rest of the game.
There is a lot of interesting things going on here.
@ Tommi: You state that the Rule of Cool makes you uncomfortable, since it evokes a cettain sense, but have you found this sense represented in any of these writings? Are anyone suggesting that RPG’s should be played as bad animes? Or a bit more provocatively: Why assume that what people are striving for is merely bad anime? 🙂
@ Graham: You have a good point about clever play. There is absolutely a point about differenting between “guessing the right answer” and “providing creative solutions within the context of the game”. Also a good example of how to evoke the rule during play.
I find this discussion very interesting, and I’m very happy that our dear Chatty DM stepped up to the challenge of defending his position and doing so in a civil manner, thus allowing us to have a good discussion on the subject. I hope that I am not highjacking this thread in any inapproprioate way (apologies for my English, but it is my second language), but I am quite intrigued by the subject.
@Morten Greis
Thanks. I like these discussions as well.
And, by the way, if you hadn’t mentioned that english was your second language, I would never have guessed it. 🙂
You’re not all just talking past each other are you?
If all cool amounts to is an allowance for descriptive flourishes within the standard resolution of the rules, who cares? Mechanical resolution can support florid descriptions after the fact, and clever ideas can be dealt with through standard mechanics (DC 15 if in doubt, make a Dex check, 1-4 on d6, or whatever your edition offers).
You’re on the dragon? Fine, you’re not slowing it down at all; make a climb check to see if you can stay on, and roll to hit. Yes, you can use balance instead.
@tussock –
That’s not all it is. That’s merely one part of it that I mentioned in my comment. The full post above gives a lot more.
If you want it summed up in a single statement, Rule of Cool playing is about encouraging and actively promoting creativity and cool ways of thinking/playing in order to maximise the enjoyment received from the game.
Wow… Awesome discussion as always! I spent all day away from the computer and I’m happy to see how the discussion progressed.
@Glacialis: Welcome to the blog. For a truly dark and gritty setting, I’d focus the RoC on the respect the characters get from NPCs (i.e. make them heroes in the eyes of all the downtrodden NPCs). Make sure events and encounters unfold in nightmarish vistas with plenty of elements for the PCs to interact with.
From the little I know from Midnight, the PCs are among those who hope to one day turn the tide and restore the world right? I’d play on that hope and on that potential.
@Chuck: Welcome to you too. I’m convinced that there are no mutual exclusion between the RoC and Old School Gaming. It comes down to personal preferences.
@Tommi: I know how allergic you are to anything labeled “Awesome” and to a certain extent “cool”. But they are just labels.
You are right that Old school Gaming is mostly Player vs environment. However, I stipulate that with the simpler, less developed rulesets of the older editions of D&D (and retro clones), GM fiat controls mosty everything so the distinction between GM and environment are probably become purely academic.
@Graham: Yes, in my dissertation, I forgot that the RoC can also be a guiding principle when you need to make a DM call on the fly. Going toward the choice that enriches global fun and coolness is often a good call.
@Morten: Feel as comfortable to steer the discussion in whatever direction you like. Its this blog’s whole schtick! 🙂
@Tussock: In such events, I may invoke the RoC openly with my players to void a skill roll. Yan jumped on the dragon (it was a Gurps game) and managed to distract it long enough for others to get out of the way. I didn’t bother with skills and rolls much because we were all sitting around, seeing a fighter distracting a dragon while flying 50′ over the town inn…
…when the fighter came crashing through the Inn’s roof a few seconds later, very much dead, Yan still thought it was the coolest, craziest stunt he had ever attempted. He didn’t challenge my damage dice rolls, nor did he try to weasel out of getting killed after being chucked 50′ through a roof by an angry dragon. His character’s death was part of the cool equation and he was fine with it.
Thanks one and all!
Last hope and all that, aye. I think I did a good job in presenting bleakness vs coolness, but the game fell apart. I also play Exalted and Scion, so there’s two extremes for ya. 😉
Another counter point was posted. This time by Chris Tregenza of 6d6 fireball.
I strongly disagree with it, especially some of his further comments to defend his points but I link to it as a valid part of the debate :
http://6d6fireball.com/rpg/the-rule-of-cool-only-for-idiots
In fact in his last comment, I get from it that he warns against using the RoC as a fundamental philosophy that guide most of your GMing decision. In that I tend to agree. There is such a thing as too much cool, pretty much like everything else.
I find that the biggest weakness about both counterposts is that none are based on actual experiences at roleplaying. Most of the examples are taken from other media, but how things are done in books or movies are different from how we do them in roleplaying, hence the examples are not worth much.
Second his counter arguments are not based on actual examples from RPGs either, but only on the assumption that gaming experiences based on the Rule of Cool must lead to unsatisfactory games and hence must be bad, and that if you use the Rule of Cool you also ends up abusing the very same rule. But as long as no one, who is opposing the rule, can come up with any non-hypothetical examples, I simply aren’t buying their counter arguments. So far I’ve only seen people demonstrating that the use of rule leads to satisfactory gaming experiences, and that us also my very own experience.
No one who is arguing for the Rule of Cool is suggesting, that the use of the rule should result in encounters being silly, filled with meaningless action or otherwise unsatisfying.
Morten;
I do use something very similar to RoC in actual play. It is encoded in two principles; first, use player ideas; second, if something is not flat impossible and suits the genre and setting of play, accept it or roll dice to see if it happens (the latter one also called “Say yes or roll the dice”). I just have a gut reaction against the name of the thing.
Philippe;
The difference between player against environment and against GM is in the hands of the GM. If the GM plays the role of arbiter, then there is a clear difference. If the GM has, say, a particular story in mind and forces it on the players, then there is no difference, but there is high probability of broken play happening. (GM telling a story can work well when the players are receptive, as should be evident to you; with adversial players, it can be ugly).
@Tommi –
That isn’t similar to the Rule of Cool.
That is EXACTLY what the Rule of Cool prescribes.
Add in “putting the players in new and interesting situations” and you’re 100% playing by Rule of Cool.
.
Oh, and for anyone who can’t see what Rule of Cool is besides Michael Bay style cgi explosions and such, see this:
Pure RoC, on a 1986 budget.
I typed up an essay to post here but then I realized I essentially said what Chatty said, just differently. Instead, I’ll rephrase and add an idea.
The TV Tropes definition and the RPG (Chatty?) definition of “Rule of Cool” are different things. The former focuses on covering up holes in writing, the latter focuses on making play enjoyable for the player and preparation survivable for the GM. The use of a single term for both is unfortunate, but languages make use of different meanings for terms all the time. Just look at the definitions of “sanction”.
With all this confusion and grief, I’d propose a new name for the RPG-version of the Rule of Cool. But given how much air time the name has received, and the obstinacy of people in general, I doubt such a name change would work.
So I please ask for all to take some time to familiarize themselves with the differences between the definitions. I don’t like the phrase, either, but we’ll have to get used to it!
Edit after reading the 6d6 post:
I think all the detractors are entirely missing the point. I hear from Chatty, “this is how I see it, and it means this, not this” and the qualifications are entirely ignored and the core argument pushed ad absurdum. Of course nobody wants epic failures like the Matrix sequels or Michael Bay movies — that’s not what Chatty said, why are you even bringing it up? There’s much to be said about depth along with “cool”, but I think that’s confusing the issue.
Actually, benpop, the TVTropes and RPG versions are not that different.
To alter your statement:
The former focuses on covering up holes in writing, the latter focuses on making play enjoyable for the player and preparation survivable for the GM, regardless of holes in writing/plot/logic.
One of the main tenets of the Rule of Cool in RPGs is that, if it’s cool, people will forgive inconsistencies and holes.
Magic, for example, follows this rule. Is it logical that people could channel hellfire? No, but it’s cool, so players don’t worry about it.
I think the major difference is that the TVTropes version is often used to cover up writing holes, while the RPG version is more often used to cover up logic holes. But it’s used in RPGs to cover up writing as well (load-bearing bosses, for instance) and it’s used in TV/movies to cover up logic (the Force, warp drive), so there’s not much point in splitting hairs.
@Morten, Tommi, Graham and benpop. You’re giving the Rule of Cool so many clauses and get-outs that it has been rendered utterly banal: essentially you seem to be boiling the whole thing down to “Play enjoyable games!” Well, yeah, that’s the undisputed goal of 99.99% of role players, and is hardly new. It doesn’t even need a name. DMs need to run games that are fun – period.
All of the so-called Rule of Cool’s tenets that you are citing – not wasting time prepping loads of bumph that nobody will read, not concentrating on world-building over Game, not insisting on a 100% coherent setting – stem from that. Make the game fun. Why is this new?
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@Graham:
Logical? Sure it is, depending on where you start. For example, if you’ve defined an internally consistent universe where channeling hellfire is possible then it’s not illogical that someone could learn to do so and show you that they can. Now if by the laws of this universe you *must* to wear a spiffy ring to do so and someone does it without a spiffy ring, that’s illogical.
It’s a personal pet peeve so please don’t take offense as none is intended: believability and realism are two different scales in my games. If something is realistic, that’s based purely on our own reality and what we know of it. Chainmail is made by doing X, gravity says it takes Y seconds to fall distance Z. If something is believable, it may or may not be real but it doesn’t set off mental logic alarms.
In Exalted, there exist beings who can channel the energy of the sun — the most powerful god. Of the ~30 bits of energy they start off with, 10 of those is roughly equal to a nuclear bomb. How do they jump 50 miles? Use enough brute force magical energy to tell physics to go cry in a corner. How do they block or dodge a Death Star laser? Spend a tiny bit of magic and then block or dodge. They can do these things because the setting says they can.
In the D&D I’m aware of, those things aren’t possible. That’s not to say that people in D&D settings can’t do things that would be impossible in our own world, but they can still do them.
I try to make things believable. Realistic? Only when I can’t otherwise figure out how to drive a point home. I try to stay away from physics. 😀
@ noisms:
Well, for one thing, I don’t think that anyone stated, that the Rule of Cool is in any manner new. As I see it, Chatty DM changed his preparation-techniques (as you’ll notice, that is why I asked Chatty DM to sum up the basic elements of his approach to the rule) in order to have a more satisfying gaming experience. To this Graham added an example of how to use the Rule during play, which is kinda, what I consider an approach to Say Yes or Roll – which both Tommi (If I read him correctly) and I use – but perhaps a bit toned down, for in Grahams example, you don’t roll, you ask wether or not the it is acceptable to the game’s internal logic.
Now Chatty is playing according to his interpretation of the rule, and he is having succes with this. He is getting the gaming experience he and his fellow players want.
Thus one cannot help wondering about people complaining about this choice of gaming style, especially when they declare that it will result in unsatisfying gaming, as this is proved to be inherently wrong. It does not automatically result in this – both the RoC-style and the Prep-style (old school or whatever) can result in unsatisfying gaming.
Futhermore several counter points seems to be complaining about CGI-explosions, bad anime, removing the risk of failing etc., which are not implied in Chatty’s description of his use of the Rule.
Let’s quote Chatty on this:
“Which basically makes me think that my efforts as a DM should not so much be on far-reaching World Building and tight nitpicking-proof plot lines and such.
I should go all out for encounters and role playing that will swamp my players in coolness. Think combat on ice Bridges, negotiating the release of prisoners in a flooding underground prison, hopping from floating island to pieces of flying ruins in order to catch the thieves of the Star jewel of Radnia…”
Do notice that want he wants to dispense from is “far-reaching World Building and tight nitpicking-proof plot lines” and instead focus on “combat on ice Bridges”.
I find that I’m agreeing with this style, and I find that most criticism fail to address these points – they read other elements into the style, and then start critizing those points. Nobody claimed anything new here, just a description of a gaming style.
Gah! This impulsive, spur of the moment enthusiastic post (my original RoC one) is getting sooooo over analyzed!
As Morten Greis says. With the caveat that I still retain a strong compulsion to maintain an internally consistent story in the adventures I write. That’s deeply ingrained in my natural style and my post on the RoC was my realization that I should strive for something a little less stiff and a little more action oriented and focused on factors closer to the players’ actions (i.e. cool stuff).
I’m done here! I’m moving on to other subjects, feel free to continue, but as usual lets stay civil
@Chatty – “You are right that Old school Gaming is mostly Player vs environment. However, I stipulate that with the simpler, less developed rulesets of the older editions of D&D (and retro clones), GM fiat controls mosty everything so the distinction between GM and environment are probably become purely academic.”
From the way I am preparing my old school games, I make the “fiat” rules (aka houserules where OD&D is loose) known up front. I’m impartial to what the environment does to the PCs or what the PCs do to the environment. If the PCs do something that I have to rule on, it’s more of an interpretation (aka sometimes “Best Guess Outta My Butt on How Much to roll…”) of what is the fairest way to rule. I’m also upfront as to when I’m ruling and why.
I wonder perhaps the thought is that the “fiat” is something that is geared towards screwing the player. I don’t see OD&D as “screwing the player” as much as I see it allowing each GM to set up the kind of game that he/she wants to set up. People can choose to play or adjust the rules as they see fit. Maybe I’m mis-interpreting what you mean.
I think that the old school gets an unfair beating that the DM was always a sadistic bastard who chewed up players for the fun of it – just like the newer editions have their munchkins, min/maxers and the like. You’re going to have bad apples, and you’re going to have a whole lot of games where everyone goes home satisfied.
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1. Morten is correct.
2. Typically some statements are self-evident to many people but revelations to others. Especially when it comes to roleplaying, which is typically first learned in isolated groups with particular styles and preferences.
(I could not complete a statistics exercise. It turned out that there was nothing to do in the exercise; write a definition and it is pretty much done. I was looking for something to actually do. Same phenomenon.)
Hey chatty, long time no see : )
with all due brevity, I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. Anyone who tells you “you’re doing it wrong” without referencing a book is a dick.
If they have the book, they’re just anal : )
It follows closely behind “anyone who says they have all the answers, probably forgot the questions.”
Why does this keep coming back to editions? I mean REALLY!
In any event, was good to come back over. We need to have a beer sometime!
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Haha, Morten and others have said better what I meant in my previous comment.
Perhaps the flak against the RoC is reductio ad absurdum? I hear “this will encourage inexperienced GMs to sacrifice logical consistency for what they think their players will like”. Any “rule” or tip can be misinterpreted (and taken ad absurdum as well), and potential for abuse is not grounds enough to claim its unsuitability.
Am I wrong? Or is this a thread that’s gone on too long already? ;-P
@Chgowiz: I need to play with some old schoolers and get a better perspective in order to better expose my views on this for sure. Observations duly noted.
@Donny: Hey, Long time no see man! For the record, none of them said ‘you are doing it wrong’ so much as they ranted about hating what it stood for (at least how they interpret it).
@Benpop: Thanks man. Yeah, this is one dead twitchy horse we got here. Time to move on!
🙂
Chatty – well, we’re playing old school here at the Grue Lodge ‘O Chgowiz – my wife so far has survived a near TPK and a good old fashioned dungeon crawl. We’re starting a game at a local FLGS in OSRIC/1E/West Marches fashion and I’ll be wandering down to Winter War. 🙂 If you get a chance, you should come join in Jeff Rient’s Big Stupid Dungeon Party at Winter War… 20 players. 1 GM. I don’t know if it fail harder than Bette Midler on crack, or fly higher than the Shuttle… but it will be glorious!
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I would love to attend Jeff’s game! That would be so freaking awesome. I wouldn’t mind dying in 10 minutes! I’d watch the show afterward.
The Point I felt could have been made in the article is one that TVTropes.org makes in its own blog, Tropes are not good and Tropes are not bad.
The Rule of Cool can be used and that does not make the game good, nor does not using it make the game bad.
the same could be said for the natrualism argument: which is a trope itself “Willing Suspension of Disbelief” they try to do this with interally consistant detail with a beileve that the rule of cool, the rule of scary and the rule of scary do not overule this,
So they are simply averting a trope and playing another as a deconstruction perahps.
Again its not good or bad its just a tool.
TV tropes states that a trope is not a substitute for good writing.
IMHO a trope is not a sbustitute for a good GM, becasue the coolest adventure can be ruined by a bad GM.
Steve “Qwilion’ Russell
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