I personally like to think of rules as "Simplified means of emulation of the laws of physics, magic, chemistry etc. etc. of the world", rather then some method of interaction

QuoteWrong. You interact with the game world by talking to the GM and/or the other players who share the imagined space with you (you can even interact with the game world without that, actually, by visualizing the shared world in your head, but that's close enough an approximation for our purpose). The rules are a mean of adjudication to find out what happens in the game world for actions which would require them. That's all they are. Just one mean amongst others to adjudicate and share the imagined world together.

Let's have another thread splitting hairs about when the story takes place in RPGs.  :rolleyes:

Quote from: B.T.;500086Let's have another thread splitting hairs about when the story takes place in RPGs.  :rolleyes:

If you don't see how important the nuance is, I'm sorry, but I can't help you.

Quote from: Benoist;500083Wrong. You interact with the game world by talking to the GM and/or the other players who share the imagined space with you (you can even interact with the game world without that, actually, by visualizing the shared world in your head, but that's close enough an approximation for our purpose). The rules are a mean of adjudication to find out what happens in the game world for actions which would require them. That's all they are. Just one mean amongst others to adjudicate and share the imagined world together.

And with that post I totally understand your gaming preferences a lot more clearly now.  If I've been insensitive to them before or overlooked you making similar statements, I apologize.  My mind's been in a haze over the last year and I have a tendency to forgot and/or overlook things, especially when I'm in a bad mood.

Quote from: B.T.;500025Yes.  However, when I say my character is a sailer, I want the game mechanics to reflect that.  The game mechanics are how my character interacts with the game world, which means that when I say I'm a sailer, I want to be able to steer a ship, tie rigging, and so on.  The game needs to let me do this.

Quote from: B.T.;500081The mechanics are how my character interacts with the game world.  If my character is sneaky, then I expect the rules to support this.  If my character is strong, then I expect the rules to support this.  If my character is a sailer, he should be able to do sailer-oriented things.  

This does not mean that the rules have to be complex.  If the rule is as simple as "your character knows how to manage a ship and navigate at sea," then I'm fine with that.

Quote from: Benoist;500083Wrong. You interact with the game world by talking to the GM and/or the other players who share the imagined space with you (you can even interact with the game world without that, actually, by visualizing the shared world in your head, but that's close enough an approximation for our purpose). The rules are a mean of adjudication to find out what happens in the game world for actions which would require them. That's all they are. Just one mean amongst others to adjudicate and share the imagined world together.

I notice that, in the above quotes, one person is talking about the rules governing how the character interacts with the game world and the other is talking about how the player interacts with the game world.

That being said, don't both positions describe why some games have taken the approach of providing this detail?  BT's argument directly addresses this question.  Benoist says the rules adjudicate what happens for actions that require them.  Does this not suggest that for players to feel their characters are not all the same the rules must differentiate them from each other?  Note that different players may prefer this 'uniqueness' for characters to a greater or lesser degree, thereby allowing games to handle this differently and cater to different players.  For example, some games can simply limit the number of characters from a particular "class" to one, ensuring that character is unique at the table.  Others allow them to spend / allocate points of some kind, ensuring that as long as the player spends them in a different way the character's interactions with the world will have different results.

Quote from: Ram;500230Benoist says the rules adjudicate what happens for actions that require them. Does this not suggest that for players to feel their characters are not all the same the rules must differentiate them from each other?

Characters are differentiated from each other through a number of means at the game table: first off, they're played by different people, with different inclinations, tactics, intelligence, sociability and the like. Second, these characters are then roleplayed by these different individuals in different ways, which also makes a difference: character A being an introverted wizard and character B being a extraverted fighter will not be played the game by a player who knows what he's doing; likewise, introverted fighter and extraverted fighter are not going to be played the same by the same player. Characters have personalities, professions and occupations, likes and dislikes, memories and personalities - all these elements are role played to give the character a sense of identity and uniqueness. Then, we have the situations that come into play, which highlight the various specificities of this or that character: a professor of university will shine in a library talking with scholars, an army veteran will shine when taking control of a small group of people to safely exit a building in flames, etc - it's the situational component. Then, we have the GM making rulings, role playing his own NPCs and how they react to the players role playing theirs, which also makes a difference. Then, we have actual stats on the character sheet which emphasize this or that character ability in the game and turns it into a rule for consistency's sake.

The rules are just a mean. One mean amongst many. That's my point.

The rules are not the game. The game is not the rules.

It's really not that complicated. Just step back from the game book, stop considering it as "the game", but instead look at the activity itself, and all it encompasses, and you'll understand the place the rules book has at the game table - it's a tool, a mean. One mean amongst many.

PS: note that rules also play a goal as a starting point and an inspiration for people to play the game, come up with some interesting personalities and other elements to give life to their characters, come up with situations and the like. They do it by providing both structure and individual examples. An example of individual examples would be the laundry list of magic items in the DMG, or the room features and door types in the same book: these are rules elements that play a role in showing variation that then inspires the DM to come up with varied environments. An example of structure would be the character sheet itself, the fields of description of a creature in the Monster Manual, even (most brilliantly) the concept of mapping your dungeon which implicitly structures the adventure environment. In other games, that could be the relationship charts in Vampire the Masquerade, the way the disciplines are structured in 5 standard dots and then special powers beyond which then can be used to come up with your own, and so on.

Likewise, some rules elements like say feats or alignments or equipment give ideas to players to role play their characters this or that way, to come up with this or that concept, etc. Rules are not the only possible source of inspiration for these sorts of things (there are literally zillions of sources available to us to get inspired), but they are a mean. A mean amongst many.

Also note that what inspires one person may impede another person's imagination. A classic example of this would be feats in 3rd ed, which are an endless source of inspiration for a great many players, and a bane that kills the game by putting every ability and quirk into tight little boxes for a great many other players.

Quote from: Benoist;500268It's really not that complicated. Just step back from the game book, stop considering it as "the game", but instead look at the activity itself, and all it encompasses, and you'll understand the place the rules book has at the game table - it's a tool, a mean. One mean amongst many.

Yet like any tool, you want to choose the best one for the job. If you want an RPG that supports role-playing, you don't choose one that has a focus on combat. If you want one that supports hard science fiction, you do not choose one that is gonzo post-apocalyptic.

The means do help to shape the end result.

EDIT: Your PS pretty much says the same thing.

Yes I agree. The rules do matter somewhat, in the way they help (and only "help") or impede the creation of the shared world, the characters that live within it, and so on. Hence playing this or that game system to get the game play you want at the table.

I'd say that rules do make a certain mood for playing - if you add Sanity counter to your OD&D game, or a mechanic of treason based on how much everyone trusts each other in Warhammer (I did that once, for great justice - everyone had like each "rest" a chance to update his Trust - o - meter to everyone else), it does affect play - in the latter case, it was only after I first mentioned that "there will be bonuses for betraying people, if you desire so", that people started to stab each other in the back, which fit a game in mood of Lock Stock & Two Smoking Barrels combined with Kelly's Heroes .

Quote from: Rincewind1;500298I'd say that rules do make a certain mood for playing - if you add Sanity counter to your OD&D game, or a mechanic of treason based on how much everyone trusts each other in Warhammer (I did that once, for great justice - everyone had like each "rest" a chance to update his Trust - o - meter to everyone else), it does affect play - in the latter case, it was only after I first mentioned that "there will be bonuses for betraying people, if you desire so", that people started to stab each other in the back, which fit a game in mood of Lock Stock & Two Smoking Barrels combined with Kelly's Heroes .

I agree with the first part: what the rules are and what form they take in the corpus being used does affect the mood of the game. It's the latter part I'm not really agreeing with: one might think that, if you were to put this or that rule you'd encourage players to do this or that, but in effect, it's actually very complicated. It doesn't automatically work: sometimes it works partially, or not at all, or instead encourages a completely different behavior than the one originally intended. I'm not sure 3rd ed originally intended for the CharOp mentality to take over the game, for instance.

Quote from: Benoist;500303I agree with the first part: what the rules are and what form they take in the corpus being used does affect the mood of the game. It's the latter part I'm not really agreeing with: one might think that, if you were to put this or that rule you'd encourage players to do this or that, but in effect, it's actually very complicated. It doesn't automatically work: sometimes it works partially, or not at all, or instead encourages a completely different behavior than the one originally intended. I'm not sure 3rd ed originally intended for the CharOp mentality to take over the game, for instance.

True, true, it doesn't always work. That's why you'll need some GM magic to point it out to peeps .

But I think that it is safe to say that a mechanic can evoke, or at least help evoke a certain playstyle/mood of the game (sometimes for the Greater Evil, unfortunately).

Yes. And down to the last detail, too, which makes it very hard to master in practice as a designer. I mean, I was reading on this forum I don't remember where, that rolling a d20 felt different for some people than using a d100 as a randomizer (let's say, comparing 3rd ed D&D to Rolemaster, in this instance). I completely agree with this. It does feel different to me as well.

A mechanic of the game can affect the perception - hells, entire gambling industry is pretty much based on that.

A 1st level warrior in DnD (with exception maybe of 4e) will not have much higher chance to hit an armoured target then 40 - 45%, same amount as you could get as 1st level warrior in Warhammer 1e.

But ask anyone which system is more "heroic" because you can hit things better from the start?

Quote from: Rincewind1;500332A mechanic of the game can affect the perception - hells, entire gambling industry is pretty much based on that.

A 1st level warrior in DnD (with exception maybe of 4e) will not have much higher chance to hit an armoured target then 40 - 45%, same amount as you could get as 1st level warrior in Warhammer 1e.

But ask anyone which system is more "heroic" because you can hit things better from the start?

1st level D&D is actually grittier than Warhammer: no Fate points.