Note: None of which follows is an attack on Chatty DM, he has merely written something I disagree with.

Defining the Context

Here is the definition used by Chatty DM in his original post.

The limit of the Willing Suspension Of Disbelief for a given element is directly proportional to its degree of coolness. Stated another way, all but the most pedantic of viewers will forgive liberties with reality so long as the result is wicked sweet and/or awesome. This applies to the audience in general, as there will naturally be a different threshold for each individual in the group.

Chatty DM goes on to say

Which basically makes me think that my efforts as a DM should not so much be on far-reaching World Building and tight nitpicking-proof plot lines and such.



I should go all out for encounters and role playing that will swamp my players in coolness. Think combat on ice Bridges, negotiating the release of prisoners in a flooding underground prison, hopping from floating island to pieces of flying ruins in order to catch the thieves of the Star jewel of Radnia…

From the wikipedia entry on Cool

Cool is an aesthetic of attitude, behavior, comportment, appearance, style and Zeitgeist”

What is Cool?

A commenter on my post pointed out that I “automatically equate the Rule of Cool with explosions and CGI”. One of the two reasons I did is because Chatty DM did – Ice Bridges, flooding prisions, floating islands falling to pieces – all of these would be CGI-fests in a film.

The second reason for linking CGI & explosion with cool is because coolness is an expression of sensory pleasure and predominately linked to visual stimulus. Exactly the sort of stimulus you see in action movies with explosions and slow motion gun fights.

What is not Cool?

No one would describe an Agatha Christie book or film as cool. They are slow moving with a lot dialogue between irritating Belgian’s and crusty upper-class murderers. Yet this style of whodunit is an important aspect of fiction whether it is books, films or role-playing games.

In a similar vein, no one could describe Frodo & Sam’s grueling slog across Mordor at the end of The Return of the King as cool. It is the slow, emotional progress of two souls coming to terms with their fate. It is a vital part of the story, without which the character’s rescue by the giant eagles would mean nothing.

How Much Cool?

My starting point was Chatty’s own comment that he “should go all out for encounters and role playing that will swamp my players in coolness” (highlights are mine). What Chatty is proposing is that games (or at least his games) should be full of CGI-fest type scenes and this is what I consider idiocy.

Notice that I’m not saying that these scenes should never occur or even that they should be rare. My point is that unrestrained use of coolness is patently self-defeating. Players will get desensitised and they lose their impact. As I stated in my original post, ‘The Matrix’ was cool is because the cool bits were preceded by long periods of character and plot development. Compare this to ‘The Day After Tomorrow’ where no cared about the characters, especially the Littlest Cancer Patient, because no time was invested in letting the audience get to know them.

Cool and Fun and Good GMing are Different Things

Some of the commenter seem to equate doing cool things with fun and good GMing. More than one commenter expressed the idea that “As long as everyone is having fun, it’s OK”. Role-playing (at least how I see it) is not about having fun, it is about entertainment.

How a GM entertains his players depends on how long the game is likely to run. If it is a single session then there is no reason not to go mad with big scenes and other ‘fun’ things. But if you are running a campaign lasting months or years, every week cannot be ‘fun’. Some weeks the party have to miss a clue or a secret door and spend the session going round in circles. Other weeks a character may die. Neither of these are fun but they have pay-offs that increases everyone’s enjoyment. When the party finally spots the clue and catches the bad guy, they will saviour it all the more than if the GM had handed it to them on a plate. The death of a character makes all players more worried and nervous about combat which increases the excitement and makes victory even sweeter.

When to use or not use coolness and fun is the secret to good GMing. Players need to be rewarded with cool for being inventive, even if it sometimes breaks the consistency of the game. Players having a bad session, for whatever reason, need to be pulled into the game with fun events. Balancing these and all the different aspects of a game is nothing to do with the rule of cool, it is simply good GMing.

So Who Are The Idiots?

Well not Chatty DM I’m sure. Judging from his writing he clearly understands about plotting, character development and all the other aspects of good GMing. Even when writing about swamping his players with coolness I’m sure his adventures are closer to ‘The Matrix’ than ‘Matrix Revolutions’. However the Rule of Cool is still bad advice.

Movie producers and GMs who think that it doesn’t matter what they do as long it is cool are destined to fail. Where as those who understand how coolness works and use cool appropriately will create blockbusters.

WTF!

The ‘Rule of Cool’ is best explained by Chatty DM here (and the follow-up here) but in short it is the same motivations that produce films like ‘The Day After Tomorrow’ and other CGi driven tripe – Make it Big, Make it Flashy.

The reason for bringing this to the gaming table is because players don’t notice the time the GM spends slaving over “watertight and internally consistent adventures”. Therefore it is more important that adventures be ‘cool’ and by that they mean showy with big explosions and stupendous stunts.

Missing the Point

Because we all play different games and adventures, it is hard to give examples from the gaming table but as the ‘Rule of Cool’ originated from TV Tropes I will use examples from the movies.

‘The Matrix’ is a film most people would describe as cool. It has great CGI that produces truly amazing scenes with big explosions. Everyone watching that film wanted to be Neo (or Orpheus or Trinity or even Agent Smith). Everyone remembers the big gun fight scene in the lobby or Nero dodging Agent Smith’s bullets during the rooftop showdown. Every GM would love to run a game that was as cool as ‘The Matrix’.

However, the sequels to ‘The Matrix’ sucked. They had the same characters with a bigger CGI budget and even longer fight sequences so why did they fail? According to the ‘Rule of Cool’ the Matrix 2 & 3 should of been better films than the original but they weren’t. Critically and financially they were flops compared to the original. GMs who pursue the rule of cool on their tabletops are going to make ‘Matrix Revolutions’ and not ‘The Matrix’

What People Remember and What is Important are Different

The reason why people remember those great scenes in ‘The Matrix’ is because they happened after two hours of carefully plotted, internally consistent build-up. Those big fight scenes would be meaningless if we didn’t know and care about those characters but it is the fight scene and not the build-up that people remember.

Hollywood and consumerism play on basic human nature, the desire to get as much pleasure as possible as quickly as possible. Whether it is high-fat sugary foods, instant credit for that plasma screen TV or big budget CGI fests the principle is the same, the principle the Rule of Cool promotes, and yet it fails time and time again. Obesity, credit crunch or polished turds like ‘The Day After Tomorrow’ are always the result.

Great Things take Great Effort

Players may not notice the GM’s efforts to build a consistent, thought-out world but it makes a difference. Good films and good games don’t do something because it is cool, instead they do it because it is right for the situation. ‘The Matrix’ was cool because the creators had a deep understanding of the characters, their world and above all how to develop those ideas through the movie.

If you live by the ‘Rule of Cool’ you are doomed to create shallow copies of other people work. But if you want to be remembered, whether it is for gritty realism or high fantasy, the GM and the players need an understanding of the world they are in and that takes time and effort.