Re: A "Yes" Driven Game
Good opening topic.
I was somewhat surprised to see that this was about saying "Yes," and yet there was no mention of saying "Yes, and...."
"Yes, and..." is about not just accepting an idea as presented, but adding on to it. Not moderating it, or turning it back on a player, but actually improving the idea. That concept is embodied in some of the examples people have given here, but I think it's important to realize that that's the real key. When it's presented as just saying "Yes," people tend (as we see in the later posts here) to edge away from that, as they think of ideas that they don't dare say "Yes" to, for the sake of something they want to keep intact about their games. Is that what some of you here feel?
There's a topic that this thread has prompted that I think needs its own thread, but which has a lot to do with why GMs have trouble taking a "Yes, and..." approach. That topic is "failure."
The issue arises because GMs are given the impression that saying "Yes" means that the characters always succeed, because they feel (and maybe have experienced) that players will only ask for things that make their own characters better and more successful. GMs are concerned that players will not feel challenged, and will feel they can go anywhere or do anything in a game. Is that how some of you feel about it?
One aspect of that is that saying "Yes, and..." to a course of action doesn't have to mean that the action succeeds or is beneficial. It's common and fair for an action by a character to require a roll:
"Can I swing my sword at him?"/"I swing my sword at him!"
"Yes, and he reacts as quickly as he can? Roll to see if you're too fast for him!"
The roll can generally succeed or fail, or somewhere in a range of outcomes. That's not saying "Yes, but..." that's saying "Yes, and..." while working within the framework of the game. That doesn't mean every action has to engage the rules - the rules aren't the laws of physics - but that just because one is in a "Yes, and..." mindset doesn't mean actions never engage the rules.
Another aspect of this is what "failure" looks like. Very, very often in discussions of what goes on in games, "failure" means "character death," or something that might as well be equivalent, like capture and imprisonment. It's common for games to have mechanics to know when a character is dead, and ways for the game to edge a character toward that, so it's a handy default. Lots of games have ways to make death fairly easy to cope with either by some kind of ressurection or by easy replacement of characters.
But there are other ways for characters to fail than just death. These can be tricky to implement in the moment, but some forethought (and collaboration with players) can see one through it. For instance, we see here examples of players poking dragons or taking on huge gangs. It's not very plausible that the characters would by successful at those actions, and very plausible for those actions to lead directly to messy death. But what if the players were not successful but also didn't die? Even in games that strive for realism, such an outcome can be plausible, at least in one's own game.
Every situation is different of course, but dragons, for instance, love to play with their food and also have long term plans involving minions. A dragon might knock a character around for a minute, and then offer the character an opportunity. The dragon needs an emissary or an infiltrator and has a job for the character. The dragon imagines it can always eat the character later when they're no longer useful, but in the meantime, the adventure goes in a new direction. The character has failed, but failed more interestingly than just being slaughtered.
A criminal gang might just be capriciously lethal, or, like a dragon, might have plans that a defeated enemy could help with in exchange for not being killed. Or there might be factions within the gang that see a better purpose for the character than just a messy death scene. Or another gang or the authorities might show up - which doesn't necessarily let the character off the hook, depending on their relationship with those groups. Again, the character has failed, but is still alive.
How to handle that is not always easy to see, and in that case, it's okay to pause the game and say "You can absolutely do what you intend to do, but failure is a distinct possibility, and I'm not sure what it should look like. What do you think?" Maybe they think that death or capture would be appropriate, in which case have at it. Or they might have in mind something more like a narrow escape with horrific injuries, or some other set-back.
If they don't see a way to lose, and in fact don't think that they should lose, it's still not necessary to say "No." Pause the game and talk about it. Just come to that conversation with the hope of being able to say "Yes, and..." rather than something else.
This is an ongoing discussion. None of the above is the last word. If you disagree with what you understand me to say, I hope you'll ask me what I mean.