Laws of Gameality

Gygaxia is a meta-universe, and as such, the physics of the universe are more story-based than strictly logical. While it’s not always a totally consistent place, it’s a great place for storytelling. The following are some of the laws that apply here:

The Law of Unlimited Game Mutability

The Law of Unlimited Game Mutability states that nothing in this gaming manual is holy writ. There are exceptions to every rule, so when the a rule threatens to make things less interesting, it gets ignored. Relatedly, any game concept you don’t like is subject to change. If something doesn’t strike you and your fellow players as entertaining or funny, it dies. Whatever makes the most imaginative, amusing, and compelling story ultimately wins out.

The Law of PC Superiority

The Law of PC Superiority establishes that since the reason this game is being played is for the players, the player characters (PCs) are more important than the NPCs (non-player characters) who, after all, aren’t real. NPCs don’t have players who can be bored, experience bliss, or suffer, but PCs do. So the gamemaster can and does discriminate against NPCs when need be, making a pro-PC decision or fudging a roll in favor of the PCs to move the story along or to ensure that the players have fun. PCs are also likely to gain experience and advance in power much faster than NPCs.

The Rule of Enduring Ego

An optional corollary to the Law of PC Superiority is that any dying PC should (generally) expire only at the request of his player. Alternatively, he should be given ample opportunity either to save himself beforehand or to return from the dead later. This is partly because it’s annoying to have to let go of an alter ego to which one has grown attached and partly because it’s rather silly to have people popping back from the dead all the time, which makes things fun in itself. Note, however, that this does not mean that PCs don’t experience horrific tragedy. Indeed, when death or near death happens, it will often be a severe setback, and gameality can and should severely mess with the PCs on a regular basis (as per the Dramatic and Comedic Principle).

The Dramatic and Comedic Principle

The Dramatic and Comedic Principle dictates that in any given situation, the most theatrical, comedic, and otherwise interesting event is the one most likely to happen. Truly inspired, dramatically interesting, or exceptionally amusing acts will succeed where boring or more clichéd responses fail. Drama and comedy decide the outcome of a situation — that’s the way the world really works. In spite of the Law of PC Superiority, this often means great tragedy for the PCs, because so much of the time their misfortune makes things more interesting. Murphy’s Law sometimes applies here as well, since events going wrong and things falling apart often makes for great drama and comedy. This tends to happen particularly as a result of PC decisions — which, when they come back to bite a character in the ass, tend to make things a lot more interesting than they would have otherwise been.

The Principle of Game Balance

According to the Principle of Game Balance, if a character tries to do something that will unbalance the game, he will probably fail. Any attempt to get thousands of geepee or take over an entire continent as a result of a single simple action, for example, will almost certainly not succeed. Because this is so much more satisfying, success usually comes as a result of long, concentrated effort rather than blind luck (unlike in, say, real life). Furthermore, because of the Dramatic & Comedic Principle, attempts to grab a lot of power quickly usually terminate humorously and often at the expense of the grabber.

The Law of Party Cohesion

When PCs get separated from each other, the game generally gets bogged down as the Cobbler is forced to deal with the players individually. In Gygaxia, The Law of Party Cohesion ensures that this happens only minimally. Players who decide to allow their characters to leave the group without sufficient cause will often encounter situations which require the help of their fellow players to proceed. Similarly, PCs sometimes tend to hang out together regardless of how much they have in common, and to contrive excuses for this behavior, although according to the Axiom of Meta-Awareness (below), sometimes others notice how odd this is.

The Theorem of Loophole and Plot Flaw Perceptibility

The Theorem of Loophole and Plot Flaw Perceptibility dictates that in any roleplaying game, there are bound to be at least occasional implausibilities, mischaracterizations, story inconsistencies, rule loopholes, previously established facts which end up forgotten, revisions of past events, and the like (particularly extreme examples of such things are sometimes called ”cosmic shifts”). But unlike denizens of more conventional universes where such oddities are ignored or downplayed, Gygaxians tend to notice these things. Since characters can sometimes perceive them, sometimes they exploit these shifts to their advantage. Characters could predict the course of a particularly clichéd story, for example. They may observe how odd it is that every time they go out to get a drink at the local pub, they end up falling in with a bunch of complete strangers and going on an adventure, or they may observe how unrealistically rapidly their skills in a particular area have increased. Finally, players can and sometimes do use loopholes in the rules to advance their character’s interests — except, of course, where doing so violates the Principle of Game Balance.

The Axiom of Meta-Awareness

A corollary to the Theorem of Loophole and Plot Flaw Perceptibility is the Axiom of Meta-Awareness, which allows characters to occasionally acknowledge the fact that they are (in reality) nothing more than characters in a roleplaying game. This can be a frequent activity for a character (as it often is for anyone who actually knows that she’s fictional), or it might occur only occasionally when a character is granted mystical insight into the nature of gameality. In such temporary instances, characters might briefly say something which indicates knowledge of meta-gameality concerns, but then almost immediately seem to forget it. In permanent cases, characters can be devoted to exploiting their knowledge about gameality. This activity is sometimes called “Facing the Camera” and, by convention, temporarily shatters “the lens,” resulting in the slightly audible sound of breaking glass. Facing the camera is sometimes called “breaking the fourth wall.”

By the same token, characters can sometimes perceive events they shouldn’t really be able to — for example, they might detect a slight color shift in their vision as the gamemaster changes to another person, or notice a slightly vacant look in the eyes of a PC whose player leaves for a few minutes to use the bathroom. It’s important to note, however, that engaging in behaviors which make one’s knowledge that the world is really a roleplaying game can, if done too often, cause problems. See the Metagaming Corollary, below.

Metagaming Corollary

Contrary to what some gamers might maintain, vices such as cheating, rule stomping, and simply lazy storytelling are not innocent activities, nor are they victimless crimes. They take their toll on the nature of gameality itself. In some parts of Gygaxia, the structure of gameality has been broken down by centuries of munchkin-like behavior, overuse of clichés, metagaming, the exploitation of rule loopholes, and so forth. Occasionally, the very rules of the game have started to decay in these places. Events there make less sense, and can be inconsistent and illogical. Entry into the space between gameality and reality (the mechanosphere) is easier here, and it's also a simpler matter to abuse the rules. The adventurer who seeks to exploit this fact to her benefit should be warned, however, that these unstable areas can be as dangerous as they are useful.

Law of Equal Distribution of Goods

This law implies that the spoils of adventure (cash, magic items, and so on) almost always get distributed among the PCs more or less equally, or at least in proportion to the amount of effort they’ve expended. Because some PCs are excessively greedy while others are fairly indifferent to loot acquisition, this law may seem counterintuitive. If one PC (Stickyfingers Lightfoot) is the sort of person who generally tries to run off with the entire haul and another (Aetheria Colleague) would rather talk philosophy than think even for a minute about money, one might assume that this would result in fewer goods for Aetheria. In fact this is not the case, however; each PC almost always gets his fair share of the goodies. (The players should work with the Cobbler to make sure that this law operates consistently in spite of the motives of their characters.)

Beginner’s Luck Principle

The characters of players who are new to roleplaying and thus not yet entirely comfortable with it will get the even more of the benefit of the doubt in most situations than the regular players do. Relatedly, experienced PC attempts to mess with newbies (say, by replacing their character's pocket lint with dynamite) will probably backfire in an amusing manner.

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