Scribbles and Horrors

It is time for another combative theory shitpost upstream from play.

Dungeons and Dragons is not improv theater. I call it a wargame because that’s sort of what it calls itself and others call it a roleplaying game which is fine, but D&D is not improv theater and it’s not group storytelling in the way that writing a novel is personal storytelling. D&D is a game: a game is a structure of rules and conventions in which participants take playful action.

It would be quite reasonable for you to @ me with complaints that my playstyle isn’t everyone’s, or that the way some people play D&D actually does resemble improv. I won’t dispute that there are many different ways to understand games, and I have absolutely no interest in telling people that they are playing a game wrong. When I say Dungeons and Dragons I just mean what Dungeons and Dragons is to me as I’ve experienced it.

The term “Yes, and” seems to come from improv theater, and my vague understanding of it is that it’s a method for getting actors all on the same page during a scene. “Yes, and” is a solution to two problems during spontaneous performance.

1) Yes there’s no time to discuss what the reality of the scene is, so the actors agree to take what’s been given as accurate. Whatever performance a scene partner gives, whatever facts or implications are presented, that’s Yes. It’s already existent in the scene, and we just gotta go with it.

2) , and the thing about scenes in theater is that stuff happens in them. There has to be action of some kind, otherwise the characters are likely to hang around listlessly. To prevent a situation of passive “yes”s, the “, and” insists that a performer pushes the situation beyond what it was before. It’s not enough to confirm your partner’s reality; you must also move that reality along.

This framework is great for performances on stage or in living rooms. It’s fun to do in practice, and it makes for entertaining shows. I don’t, however, think it is a very good way to think about what a referee does in the game Dungeons and Dragons.

Yes

Firstly, D&D is asymmetric. Unlike improv, the players and ref have different roles with vastly different relationships to the imaginary world. “Yes, and” makes sense between equals co-creating a scene, but in D&D, where the ref has binders full of secret places and pages of hidden rules the “yes” principle doesn’t hold.

At best a referee “Yes” in the mode of “Yes, and” is somewhat condescending and one-sided. Can a player “Yes, and” a ruling the referee makes? Certainly not in the same way! Really what’s being presented is something like permission: the referee deigns to give permission for players to take some novel action or do some cool thing. Framing such rulings as “Yes, and…” puts the referee in the uncomfortable position of constantly having to dispense narrative control when players ask for it, or, worse, sometimes deciding not to.

I think a better way to approach this is for players to have narrative power from the start. Not delegated by the referee, not affirmed by them, but simply there, in the rules. Players can take game actions without the referee’s permission. On what authority can they take these actions? Why, the rules! Sure, the referee is here in the precarious role of making decisions about the rules and how to apply them reasonably–this takes sensitivity, kindness, and common sense–but in my opinion it’s a lot more honest to the situation and fair to the participants. The rules mediate between the referee and the players.

Narrative power is inherently vested in the players through the actions they can take; there is no need for the referee to mete out control to players in an attempt to acquiesce to the “Yes, and…” principle. I hope I’m making the distinction I see here clear.

, and…

Secondly, D&D is a game, not a performance. Obviously there are performative aspects to D&D–its very worth it to do funny voices in front of your friends–but even this kind of affect is distinct from anything onstage with an observing-only audience.

It is okay, for instance, for games to be boring or tedious. It’s okay for not much to happen, or for much of what happens to be banal discussion. The process of playing a game is far more important than whatever stories come out of it. A game is more akin to rehearsal than performance: there is no audience.

Framing the referee as an entertainer is a mistake, I think, because that robs players of their agency in a game situation. The dungeon is not a show the referee is putting on; it’s a game space full of interesting things which the player characters can inhabit. The pressure to “, and…” anything in service of some kind of entertainment ideal can push the referee to avoid otherwise fruitful scenarios. Sometimes an empty room is just an empty room, and it’s important to allow players to feel the full weight of that reality, with all its implications and incongruity.

“Yes, and…” frames the whole affair as an improv experience aimed solely at being exciting to viewers, and I just don’t think that’s what pen-and-paper games are good at.

This post was directly inspired by Permissiveness in RPGs, a post which I entirely agree with I think.