“Say Yes” is a principle for running RPG games, which says that whenever the players come with some crazy and/or unexpected idea, the best course of action to the DM is to “Say Yes”, and run with it, integrating that idea into the game the best way possible. The opposite of “Saying Yes” would be to have ideas from players that are too hard, unlikely or stupid to succeed to fail with a whimper at their feet.

I must say that it is a fine idea that has helped me a lot in my recent games. The players want to disrobe the evil priestess, tie her to the end of a 10 foot pole and use her as a trap detector? Yes! They want to honestly join the creepy cult of strange gods being built by the shady NPC? Yes! They want to completely ignore two tribes fighting for “destiny” in a forgotten temple and head first to another ruin they had heard about hoping things will be easier there? Yes! They want to try and placate the raging alligator with a whip and a chair, circus style, instead of fighting to the death? Yes! They want to charge and attack into that NPC-GHOST? Yes! Yes! Yes! In my experience, all these “yes” brought their reward to the game.

But saying yes is not only good for the DMs. I believe that players, too, should take “Say Yes” into their minds when sitting at a table to play an RPG.

One recent example happened recently. Two friends of mine were visiting town, and I got together part of my regular group to play a one shot S&W dungeon to them. I have this one particular dungeon that I like to run every time I need a quick one-shot, adding a few new rooms/changing some rooms. One of the players, realizing it was the same dungeon I always run for one-shots, asked if he could use the same character he used “the last time” – that character was one of the few surviving members of a previous expedition. I thought that would be a great idea: The surviving character, after years dealing with the deaths of his friends, eventually decides to face his fears and finish his business with the dungeon, mounting a proper hired expedition this time. It tied beautifully all the other members of the group into the game.

Then, just as the game began, before anything happened, that player who was supposed to have called/hired everyone else, and to lead them to the dungeon decides that after all he is just too afraid of dying and don’t want to go into the dungeon any more. Cue meta-roleplaying of everyone trying to encourage him to change his mind. Ooops…

A few other similar cases. In a recent investigation game I was playing, one of the players was paralysed with fear that the group we were investigating already knew about our presence. The player would shot down every lead by other players and the GM with “they already know we’re here, they would be prepared for that”, effectively stalemating the game. In an old 3e game I ran, the group was a bunch of kids lost in a forest. One of the kids was a bookworm who had dropped her favorite book in the woods when the group had to run from a bunch of monsters, and the player decided that the girl would sit down and waste away because “that book was her life”.

That is the thing that gets me. A Role Playing game is a story about someone who enters in an adventure. But not only interesting things (the adventure) has to happen to the character, but the character must be also active in regards to the adventure itself. Of course, this does not mean that the players are supposed to follow every hint and lead that the DM throws before them just as they stand, but this does mean that refusing to act at all should not be an option. After all, we don’t have a movie about the teenager who thought the old geezer in the white lab coat was too geeky and refused his plea to help testing a time machine.

Of course a GM can try to adapt the story around players that insist in saying no. But just as in the case of saying yes or no as a GM, a gaming table moves much smoothier when both sides are saying yes and improvising around each other. The RPG is much more fun as a group dance than as a one man’s tap-dance performance in front of an audience.