Common Sense

Before writing How to Run, I read every published book about dungeon mastering that I could find, including Matt Finch's Primer.  It's terrible.  It is better than other more terrible things.  Frankly, I'd forgotten it's existence — as I do with many pieces of old school junk — until reading this from Dennis Laffey's blog:

"In the Primer, the section talks about how description should trump die rolls and common sense should trump dedicated game mechanics. I don't have a problem with that."

 

This is not a take-down of either Laffey or Finch.  The logic expressed here is quite common and if I wanted to rant, I could find the blog of someone I didn't like.  I'd rather talk about the trouble with simple solutions to things.  Take this example from Larry Gonick's Cartoon History of the Universe, vol. 8-13:

Plainly, old school DMing is Confucianism

An extreme example, but I'll try one of my own.  New players to chess often become enamoured with the Queen.  They prefer the queen to every other piece; and when they lose the queen, they're sure the game is lost.  But the game is not won with the queen; it is won by using all the pieces in concert.  

Description does not supercede die rolls, because in the case of DMing, ranking one part of the game over another makes no sense.  Likewise, it makes no sense to impose a rule such as common sense superceding game mechanics, when what we want are game mechanics that incorporate common sense.  If a game mechanic is non-sensical, get rid of it.

When building a structure, whether a plan to defeat an enemy or redesigning our kitchen cabinets, every part of that structure matters.  Every part deserves our attention and every part must work in tandem towards the common goal.  This is self-evident to me.

Die rolls are used when randomness improves the character of the game; description is used to build emotion, when making a die roll would be foolishly destructive; game mechanics, or rules, demarcate the players' possible responses, using voiced problem solving (which is "descriptive" but is not "description," which may incorporate dice as the rules dictate.  Common sense exists at every level, not as a gut instinct that feels right, but "sound, practical judgment concerning everyday matters ... or the ability to perceive, understand and judge in a manner that is shared by nearly all people."

Our common sense doesn't derive from a "personal" perspective!  It derives from an empathic comprehension of how others would view this matter that's come up during the game.  If a DM is gainsaying that something should be so-and-so according to their gut, then they're not demonstrating common sense, per definition.

Though often, we think that's what common sense is; something we automatically share with the human race.  We tend to believe that if we think a given way, it must be that others, probably most other people, also think that way.

A thing is sound when it is free from defect or injury; that is why we say we're "safe and sound" when avoiding an accident, or we've gotten home without trouble.  The word equates with a tone that falls pleasantly on the ear; if a tone is off, it's unsound; if you're unhealthy, you're unsound.  Therefore, when we say that an opinion is "sound," it's because the opinion resonates equally on the ear of those hearing it.  If your "common sense" isn't immediately met with the entire table nodding their heads and agreeing, without the need of an argument, then you're not invoking common sense at all.  You're producing an opinion, just like any other opinion, and your need to attach a "soundness" to that opinion is merely puffing up your ego.

Something is practical when it can be applied as an action or a use.  It comes from the same root as "practice," as in a thing being practical when it can be practiced.  Practicality is being concerned with material considerations and when we say that something is "practically true," we mean that it has proved itself through practice.  Therefore, if you produce a ruling in the middle of your game that amounts to nothing that the players can use to play your game, you're not exercising common sense.  You're just producing air.

From this, it's painfully clear that "common sense" things ARE game mechanics; and that when someone says that I'm superceding game mechanics with common sense, what they're actually saying is that they feel constrained by game mechanics and the game's structure, so that they want an "out."

Now, this is interesting.  It serves us to remember than any person faced with a game rule, or a social convention, or an imposition of the law, will feel resistance.  To "resist" politically is to organize covert opposition to an occupying or ruling power.  The key word is covert.  One of our best strategies in resisting a group dynamic is to trot out "positive sounding" phrasing in order to redefine our actual intent.  Saying that my opinion, which elicits neither support from the players, nor invokes any obvious application, is "common sense," gives weight to my arguments because I've marshalled the whole human race into my corner.  "SEE?  Of course I'm right, because everyone agrees with me — except you, you and you."

Rules are hard to follow, even in a comparatively simple game, like chess.  That is why there are rules about touching the pieces, or talking, or otherwise distracting your opponent, because when those rules dictating behaviour don't exist between consenting adults, players will attempt to fiddle with the pieces and adjust what square they're on, or talk incessantly about aggravating things, or thump the table with their palms or hum.  People won't follow the rules, even "common sense" rules, where it comes to preserving their own lives.  We have to make laws about maintaining our cars, ensuring the brake lights work, wearing lifejackets, respecting private property, even not grabbing a police officer wildly — because even when there are laws designed to protect people, people still ignore the laws and grab cops, trespass, drown in boating accidents and ignore all those little pesky things having to do with driving a safe automobile.  D&D has so many rules, of so many types, that are often very restrictive on player behaviour, and equally so on what the DM can and cannot do, we should not be surprised that a vast number of participants just don't care about those rules, or why they exist, or how they're meant to function.  The rule exists so I can't do what I want, meaning the obvious right thing to do, the "common sense" thing to do, is to ignore the rule and do whatever the fuck I want.

Now, where has that "I'm Being Facetious" sign got to?

Under public scrutiny, of course, we can't be that obvious; we have to at least pretend we're on the straight-and-narrow.  What I can't understand, and having already said this: if we don't like the rule, or game mechanic, why go through all the rhetoric of "common sense blah blah blah," when we can just change the rule to something that we do like, or which works better?  Where is the logic to assigning the caretaker work to a barely understood phrase (I've spent most of this post defining it, because we don't understand it) instead of simply fixing the game?  It isn't like the company is going to swoop into our kitchens and fine us for House Rule Violation 6.2 section-B paragraph 2.  We own our own games!  We can do whatever we want!  If the damn thing isn't sound or practical, then for pete's sake, make it sound and practical!

Surely, if we're looking for a "primer," the first rule ought to be, "If it's broke, FIX IT."