Gary Con’s Strange New Rule for Game Masters

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Gary Con is one of my favorite conventions, and when I was submitting games to run for this coming year, I came across an incredibly odd Event Submission Rule:

“As a GM you also agree to make all your in-game decisions based on valid in-game reasons.”

When I read that after a list of other very basic and reasonable rules, I stopped dead in my tracks because, at first reading, it wasn’t exactly clear what they meant. I had to double take and reread it a few times.

What an odd rule. I had to make all in-game decisions based on valid in-game reasons. I mean, of course I would do that. That’s roleplaying 101. Why would I do anything but that?

And then it dawned on me. I finally realized what must have happened, at least once, if not repeatedly, at the convention for them to put such a rule into place.

Don’t Punish the Character for What the Player Did

The best I can figure is that someone pulled one of the classic game master cardinal sins one too many times, or at least did it in a dramatic enough way to cause players to report the behavior to the convention organizers.

And what was this sin? You’ve heard of it before, I guarantee.

It’s the classic mistake of punishing the player’s CHARACTER for something the PLAYER did out of character.

Let’s say you have a player who is being super annoying at the table. He’s bothering everyone. He’s obnoxious. So instead of asking the PLAYER to stop behaving that way, the game master has every orc in the encounter focus fire on his CHARACTER, heavily wounding him or simply killing him. Then, when the player asks what the heck just happened, the GM makes some snide remark about being less annoying at the table.

I think we can all agree that stuff like this is toxic and is far more likely to make the situation worse than actually solve the problem. And yet we hear stories about game masters doing things like this all the time. You may have had a GM do it to you before.

Or maybe you were the GM who did it.

But Where Exactly Is the Line?

The problem is that sometimes it’s hard to tell where to draw the line.

I recently had a player completely engrossed in his phone and not paying attention at all to what was going on in the game. Then, when it was his turn in combat, he looked up and literally asked, “Wait, what’s going on?” He was completely unaware that we were even in combat.

So, rather than slowing the game down for everyone else while we caught him up, I ruled that his character had been distracted and would spend the first round getting up to speed on the situation.

That didn’t seem unreasonable to me.

But I can also see how someone could argue that I made an in-game decision based on an out-of-game reason, which sounds suspiciously close to what Gary Con’s rule is prohibiting.

And yet, at the same time, I don’t think it’s unreasonable for game masters to expect players to pay attention. If one player isn’t paying attention, why should everyone else at the table have to pay the price while that player gets off scot-free?

To me, skipping one turn was a very minor correction for a fairly significant lapse in attention. But maybe I’m wrong. Maybe that was an abuse of game master authority.

At the very least, if I had done it during a convention game, I suspect I might have technically run afoul of the rule.

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The Problem with Vague Rules

This is where I think the wording becomes a problem.

Maybe “vague” isn’t quite the right word. The rule is certainly broad, generic, and somewhat abstract. It also leaves a lot of room for individual interpretation.

What exactly counts as a “valid in-game reason”? How directly can out-of-game behavior influence an in-game ruling before you cross the line? Does skipping the turn of a player who wasn’t paying attention count? What about imposing a minor consequence because a player deliberately delayed the game?

Different people could read the same rule and arrive at different answers.

And generic rules like this can easily become catch-alls.

Now, to be fair, I don’t think the folks at Gary Con intended anything nefarious here. My guess is that some wangrod game master did something egregious, players complained, and the convention organizers understandably decided they needed a rule on the books that would allow them to deal with that kind of behavior.

That makes sense.

Will the Rule Actually Prevent Bad Behavior?

I don’t think this rule is going to stop a crappy GM from doing crappy stuff.

Someone who is willing to use the game to retaliate against players is probably not going to suddenly reconsider because he saw one sentence buried in the event submission rules.

What the rule does accomplish is giving the convention something to enforce when problems occur, and that is probably its real purpose.

My concern is simply that if I have to stop and think this hard about what a rule means and what behavior it is actually intended to prohibit, then the rule may not be very good at discouraging the behavior in the first place. Not everyone who reads it will interpret it the same way.

A more explicit rule could probably communicate the intent much more clearly. Something along the lines of: do not punish a player’s character for out-of-game behavior. Address out-of-game problems with the player directly.

That gets right to the point.

Should Out-of-Game Problems Ever Have In-Game Consequences?

Assuming I’m interpreting the rule correctly, I agree with the principle behind it.

Generally speaking, punishing players in character for something they are doing out of character should be avoided. If somebody is being disruptive, rude, inattentive, or otherwise causing problems at the table, the best solution is usually to talk to that person directly.

But I’m not convinced that means there can never be any overlap between the two.

Sometimes a very soft in-game correction might make sense. If someone isn’t paying attention and therefore isn’t ready when his turn comes around, I don’t think it’s outrageous to move on rather than make everyone else wait. In another situation, though, using monsters to deliberately kill his character because you’re annoyed at him would obviously be over the line.

Those are very different things.

The difficulty is that any rule broad enough to cover every possible situation is inevitably going to leave some gray area around the edges.

So Was My Ruling Wrong?

That’s where I land on this one.

I agree with the spirit of Gary Con’s rule. Game masters should not weaponize the game against players because of out-of-character disagreements or behavior. If there is a problem with a player, talk to the player.

At the same time, I’m not sure every small in-game consequence that arises from out-of-game behavior is automatically inappropriate. Sometimes the most practical and fair thing for the entire table is to make a quick ruling and keep the game moving.

So I’m riding the fence a little bit.

Was skipping my distracted player’s turn a reasonable ruling, or was I using in-game consequences to punish out-of-game behavior?

You tell me.

And for what it’s worth, Gary Con is still one of my favorite conventions. I’ll be there this coming year, and if you want to meet me in person or play in one of my games, maybe I’ll see you there.