Thinking about the "social contract"

Just a quick one today. Here's a phrase you see a lot on D&D Reddit:

"No D&D is better than bad D&D."

Now this is another one of those phrases where I'm pretty sure the effect of the phrase - its pragmatic or utility value, if you will - outweighs the value of its strict truth. That is to say, I'm not sure whether it's exactly strictly true (I think that would depend on your tolerance for bad D&D, or your RPG of choice), but it doesn't matter overly much whether it is or not - what matters is that if you treat it as true, good things happen. And, conversely, bad things happen if you don't treat it as true.

We're already being slightly pretentious, so lets talk about the "social contract". The social contract in a game is the unwritten rules that hold it together. You could more or less sum it up as "don't be a dick at the table" - although I think that's more because breaking the contract is perceived as dickishness, rather than any definitional link between dickishness and the contract. Basically, it says not to lie, cheat, or, because I love genre and tone, do anything to upset the game's genre and tone. I could have a big discussion about that, but I'm not going to. I'll just stick to what's uncontroversial: The game has expectations, e.g.: If you're playing D&D, you'll form an adventuring party and go adventuring, and if you flout those expectations, you're probably breaking the social contract, and getting in the way of everyone's fun.

Why am I trying to ramblingly pin down the ephemeral social contract? Because the "No bad D&D" rule is important to it. The idea of a social contract comes from the philosopher Thomas Hobbes, who basically said there's an unwritten rule that I don't beat you over the head with a rock and take your stuff, and I follow that rule because if you follow that rule too, everyone benefits, and gets to keep their brains (and their stuff). But the social contract encompasses all the rules of society. So it's difficult to imagine how one would become unbound from the social contract, or how one would enter into it in the first place. These days, we pretty much assume you're entered into it at birth, and can't escape; even if you run away to Mexico to live as a hermit, you're still treated in a certain way by other people, and if you default on your social obligations, they'll respond with force to bring you back under the social contract.

The problem here is that a contract signed under duress, or without the signee's consent, doesn't look like a contract at all. If I make you sign a contract with a gun to your head, I can hardly be indignant when you default on your obligations. And that means you haven't really undertaken any obligations; you didn't do so of your free will, so there's nothing binding you to them.

To drag a lesson about RPGs from this steaming pile of metaphor, if you don't opt into the social contract at the table, then there's no contract to speak of. If you don't undertake to follow the "Don't be a dick" code, then there's no line for what being a dick would be. And if others can't renege on their end of the contract, i.e.: by leaving, in response to your breaking it, then the rules for not being a dick have no force - there are no consequences. In other words, if you're trapped in a game, the rules that keep the game fair, honest, and non-dickish start to erode away, and unless everyone holds themselves to high standards as a matter of course, the game degenerates.

This is where the "No bad D&D" rule comes in. If everyone takes it to heart that it's better to leave a game that's going bad than to stick it out, no-one's stuck in a game. If the punishment for being a dick is that no-one will play with you, you'll watch your behaviour. And this is why it doesn't really matter if the principle is strictly true; if everyone holds to it, it keeps the social contract together. Essentially, it's not a fact so much as an imperative: "Leave any game where you aren't having fun." The point is that the looming threat of abandoning ship keeps people in line.

That came out more gloomy and dystopian than I intended. Yet somehow still not as dystopian as Hobbes' own vision of a perfect society under the social contract. Hobbes envisioned an all-powerful ruler, which he called the "Leviathan", pictured below.

You will note that his shirt is made of people.

And that brings us to the GM. See, the GM isn't the Leviathan. Sorry to all those folks (especially OSR folks) who argue for the absolute unquestioned power of the GM, in whom everyone trusts. That is absolutely the ideal state of affairs, and an achievable one, with a talented and experienced GM. It requires different strokes for, as they say, different folks. See, the GM has more leeway than anyone else at the table to be dickish - they are the keeper of the social contract, but also its chief target. "No D&D is better than bad D&D" empowers your players to leave a game where they feel trapped.

Now, you might think this also has an adverse effect. People might leave due to the quality of the game, not just you yourself being a dick. And then the poor novice GMs, at whom this is targeted, will never be able to hold a table together if they don't start at a level of peak effectiveness, so will never be able to practice and improve, so will never be able to run games, period. There is a certain amount of this, sure. And it's disheartening as a novice when people make their excuses and leave your table. But it's not that big a problem.

First up, it's not that hard to run a passable game of D&D. So you should be able to scrounge together a table for enough sessions to get your eye in. It's not so much sheer inexperience that makes games bad as falling into bad habits as a GM. And second, the first port of call should always be open communication - if something's not fun for you, say to your GM and help them learn, don't just quit on the spot. This is even more of a D&D Reddit cliché than "No bad D&D". But the real kicker, the real benefit the GM will experience, is the removal of stress in the form of imposter syndrome. That feeling that you can't possibly run a game good enough to satisfy the players at your table, the creative block that arises from perfectionism, that prevents you from just prepping something and throwing it out there, all of that goes away if everyone knows to quit if they're not having fun.

Why? Because you know that everyone who shows up at your table wants to be there. They're chosen to show up - they've opted into the social contract. If they weren't having fun, if you really were an impostor GM, they wouldn't turn up to play. They're not trapped, they're there of their own free will. And that's the best thing for setting new GMs on the right path; prep something satisfactory, play to your payers' interests to keep them showing up, and don't worry about aping Critical Role. Any player who comes expecting that is going to leave a lot of games, and not get to play much (besides having a skewed perception of D&D and RPGs generally), and isn't worth your time. If your players are actually in it for the fun, they'll stick around. And, if everyone knows to quit if they're not having fun, and they still stick around, then you know you're doing something right, something you can build on. If people stick around playing bad D&D, you the GM don't know if you're improving and running a good game, or if your players are just suffering in silence. That's what stands in the way of learning.

So yes, the aphorisms D&D Reddit comes up with aren't necessarily universal truths. What they are are norms; if everyone hold to them, regardless of their strict truth, the game runs better for everyone.