TheRPGSite

What makes an RPG an RPG is not the rules but the campaign. In development of the RPG it was campaign that came first namely Dave Arneson's Blackmoor. He develop a set of rules to help him adjudicate what the players were doing. From various account we know that the exact rules were always in flux that over the active life of the Blackmoor campaign, Dave was modifying, adding, and dropping various mechanics. Yet from those same account people consider it all to be the Blackmoor Campaign.

Greyhawk developed in a similar way the main difference that Gygax was keeping careful track of the rules he used with the objective publishing them at a certain point. The result was release of Dungeons & Dragon in 1974. But the changes in the rules didn't stop there and Gygax continued to tinker and modify as seen in the release of the Greyhawk supplement and the later D&D editions.

What was revolutionary wasn't the actual rules themselves but rather they were used as a tool to aid a campaign where the players interact with a setting as their characters while their actions are adjudicated by a human referee. This allowed the players to experience a pen & paper virtual reality created by the referee of the campaign.

The rules were important because they helped with consistency. Consistency in what the characters can and cannot do. Consistency in how things are in the setting. Without that consistency the players and referee the campaign will devolve into a never ending game of twenty questions or bang your dead, not I'm not!

The design of the rules is important because different players and groups want different level of detail when adjudicating the things the characters do. For some it is enough to know that one characters has a gun, and another has a knife. For others it important whether the gun fires .22 ammo, or .357 ammo. Whether the knife is a bowie or a switch blade.

In the rules are just a detail of the larger campaign. An important detail but just as important as to whether the campaign is fantasy or science fiction. Or the setting of the campaign. The point of a RPG is not to play the rules but to play the campaign. To enter a pen & paper virtual reality with a character to experience the setting, have interesting adventures and/or to interact with compelling NPCs.

What makes an RPG is the players.

Some people prefer a rules-heavy approach, going into things in minute detail, others prefer a rules-light approach. Some people love really long campaigns, some people prefer short campaigns, some people prefer snappy one-off scenarios.

Who am I to say that the way someone else enjoys their RPGs is good or bad, right or wrong?

Quote from: soltakss;888092What makes an RPG is the players.

Goes without saying. But if you're going to take the time to say it, shouldn't you really mean it by actually exploring what the individual preference is rather than take arbitrary categories at face value. For example....

QuoteSome people prefer a rules-heavy approach,

Not really. Some people prefer the perceived benefits of a rules-heavy approach, and are willing to tolerate the perceived drawbacks of a rules-heavy approach. Nobody actually sets out to be burdened by rules.

And that's exactly what seems to be a key theme of Estar's post. The rules aren't there for rules sake. They serve a purpose. And it's that purpose, whatever it may be, whoever it may appeal to, that comes first. If something unusual comes up that calls for choosing between being faithful to the rules or faithful to the purpose, it's time to either break the rules or find a way to reconcile the rules with the purpose. It is never acceptable to compromise the purpose for the convenience of the rules.

Quote from: Lunamancer;888100And that's exactly what seems to be a key theme of Estar's post. The rules aren't there for rules sake. They serve a purpose. And it's that purpose, whatever it may be, whoever it may appeal to, that comes first. If something unusual comes up that calls for choosing between being faithful to the rules or faithful to the purpose, it's time to either break the rules or find a way to reconcile the rules with the purpose. It is never acceptable to compromise the purpose for the convenience of the rules.

This is very good.  A good way of stating some of the points I am trying to make.

Quote from: soltakss;888092What makes an RPG is the players.

That true of any social activity that includes games. I didn't put that in because I feel it is an obvious point. The next step is to say what make Tabletop RPGs different then other types of games involving a group of people sitting around a table.

Quote from: soltakss;888092Who am I to say that the way someone else enjoys their RPGs is good or bad, right or wrong?

It not that they playing it wrong is that I feel by focusing on running a good campaign first rather than obsessing about the rules first, they will get more out of the time they spend playing tabletop RPGs.

Rules can't fix a referee that sucks, rules can't fix a campaign that is boring or a bad railroad. Rules can't fix players that display poor sportsmanship. The first and third points have to be handled out of game by people acting like responsible adults. And if they can't do that well maybe that group shouldn't play together.

In this thread I am addressing the middle point by talking about the campaign versus the rules of the game.

RPGs are mostly Mother May I games where one of the players badly presents a story of some kind to the other players who are just there because they are not socially capable of being in any other groups.

Quote from: Lunamancer;888100The rules aren't there for rules sake. They serve a purpose. And it's that purpose, whatever it may be, whoever it may appeal to, that comes first. If something unusual comes up that calls for choosing between being faithful to the rules or faithful to the purpose, it's time to either break the rules or find a way to reconcile the rules with the purpose. It is never acceptable to compromise the purpose for the convenience of the rules.

I really like that.

What makes pizza is crust, not cheese or sauce.

Quote from: estar;888105Rules can't fix a referee that sucks, rules can't fix a campaign that is boring or a bad railroad. Rules can't fix players that display poor sportsmanship. The first and third points have to be handled out of game by people acting like responsible adults. And if they can't do that well maybe that group shouldn't play together.

In this thread I am addressing the middle point by talking about the campaign versus the rules of the game.

I agree with your first and third point, but as regards the second point, "a bad railroad" is one more instance of "a referee that sucks" and a boring campaign is at best, a mismatch of GM and player expectations and at worst yet another example of "a referee that sucks" and/or players that suck.

It's part of why the 'Clever Rules' thread didn't have any traction for me, because I want rules that let me ignore them as much as possible... rather than calling attention to themselves like spastic toddlers.
But a fair number of people DO seem to get hung up on the rules, dice mechanics and whatnot... calling some systems 'boring'.

At the same time, I'm generally against the notion of ignoring the rules for purely narrative reasons... 'Its bad for the story' is something I've heard at the table and generally sent me looking for another group.

Rules that do their job while mostly fading into the background are clever.

Quote from: Lunamancer;888100Not really. Some people prefer the perceived benefits of a rules-heavy approach, and are willing to tolerate the perceived drawbacks of a rules-heavy approach. Nobody actually sets out to be burdened by rules.

For some people "tolerating the percieved drawbacks" is off the mark. They don't percieve drawbacks to rules heavy approach. If rules heavy was merely tolerated we would never have had the booming splatbook industry with more and ever more rules being added to games.

My point can demonstrated by comparing T5 to Classic Traveller. Or D&D5e to 0e. Remember the days when an entire RPG could be found in 32 page booklet?

People aren't setting out to be "burdened" by rules, they are demanding rules.

OD&D, if converted to 8 1/2 x 11 inch pages, would be something like 56 or 58 pages.  I see ads for "428" or however many page rulebooks and I just want to weep.

Quote from: Bren;888182Rules that do their job while mostly fading into the background are clever.

Maybe, but not in a 'Oooh! Look at meeeee!' sort of way. They're clever like a good plumber or bricklayer... vs. a mime pretending to be trapped in a box. They don't care if you notice how clever they are.

QuoteOriginally Posted by Lunamancer
And that's exactly what seems to be a key theme of Estar's post. The rules aren't there for rules sake. They serve a purpose. And it's that purpose, whatever it may be, whoever it may appeal to, that comes first. If something unusual comes up that calls for choosing between being faithful to the rules or faithful to the purpose, it's time to either break the rules or find a way to reconcile the rules with the purpose. It is never acceptable to compromise the purpose for the convenience of the rules.

Yeah, this has been a central theme of my table for almost 40 years though I don't think I ever articulated it this clearly. The game, by which I mean the shared experience, the "purpose" if you will, is the thing.  The rules are only there to facilitate, and when they fail to do that, when they get in the way, I change them or ignore them.  I do this intuitively and out of habit. That is not to say that my games are completely arbitrary GM's fiat affairs. I only change what needs changed and I try not to do it mid-game.  Rules provide structure and means, but when they don't work, I don't allow them to ruin the game.

An interesting consequence of this is that I have become a systems junkie.  I houserule everything and tinker endlessly with any rule set that I want to use, in an effort to get the rules right before I start a campaign.

For the most part, I agree with what Simlasa has been saying. For me, great rules are streamlined and largely invisible until they are wanted or needed.  I appreciate rules refinement more than rules innovation. The exceptions might be chargen or character advancement as I feel these portions of  the game are largely OoC and 3rd person view.  Other than that, I strive to create or modify mechanics so that they will not get in the way of the game's purpose, and to minimize the need for arbitrary mid-game rulings that go contrary to the rules.

Quote from: Simlasa;888199Maybe, but not in a 'Oooh! Look at meeeee!' sort of way. They're clever like a good plumber or bricklayer... vs. a mime pretending to be trapped in a box. They don't care if you notice how clever they are.

I'd say you didn't understand my thread, actually. Certainly, something about its wording seemed to get up your nose. I explicitly stated that I was interested in hearing about all kinds of rules and people gave (very interesting) examples of such. I can get it if you aren't interested in rules, but it would have been illuminating for you to have provided an example of these invisible craftsmen -- they sound like just the kind of ideas that interest me.

Quote from: Simlasa;888179It's part of why the 'Clever Rules' thread didn't have any traction for me, because I want rules that let me ignore them as much as possible... rather than calling attention to themselves like spastic toddlers.
But a fair number of people DO seem to get hung up on the rules, dice mechanics and whatnot... calling some systems 'boring'.

Game-mechanical systems have a fascination of their own. There's a pleasure in exploring and playing with those models. In their perfectly contained and managed intricacy, they are like doll houses and toy trains.

Most people want that in addition to the role-playing. I don't want as much as some, especially when I'm not GM, and can do without it. Others don't care what the GM uses, so long as it can be a "black box" to them (but typically do enjoy tossing dice).

The sentiment is true. However, if you ask me, a good campaign is a mix of good players, good rules and good campaign, not necessarily in this order. Players will be more likely to keep playing if the campaign interests them. A good, appropriate  ruleset will facilitate that the campaign plays flawlessly and that players will feel comfortable, with understanding and verisimilitude of the campaign and perceived world of it more understandable thanks to an appropriate ruleset. And finally, you need good players that'll invest in your game, so that you yourself, the GM, will want to continue running the campaign.

But I think indeed, if I am in a campaign that makes me heavily invested in it, I can swallow a heavier ruleset than I'd normally be willing to.

Quote from: Majus;888256I'd say you didn't understand my thread, actually. Certainly, something about its wording seemed to get up your nose. I explicitly stated that I was interested in hearing about all kinds of rules and people gave (very interesting) examples of such. I can get it if you aren't interested in rules, but it would have been illuminating for you to have provided an example of these invisible craftsmen -- they sound like just the kind of ideas that interest me.

But how we'd bitch about other's opinions then, rather than engage in a productive exchange?

I was having a similar discussion with my sister the other day. I've been playing OD&D since the 1970's, she RPGs since the late 1990's.Our conclusion was that "rules light" sets tend to be about options whereas "rules heavy" sets about limitations.

What this means is that the original rules (mostly light) gave some guidelines and then the player's creativity took over and he or she could attempt anything he or she might imagine, whereas modern rules sets (mostly heavy) tend to spell out rules for everything and a player tends to check lists to see what they can do and if it's not on the list they often don't try it. My favorite RPG rules sets are OD&D and Amber Diceless, neither of which requires a lot of time to understand but both of which allow for me to be as creative as I like.

Like Gronan, I think that 400+ page rules sets make me sad. I really don't want to read all of that stuff, and I certainly don't want to have to learn it. What I want is a simple set of guidelines that, combined with creativity and imagination, can be used universally to have fun. When rules sets resemble textbooks, gaming becomes homework.

Just my two coppers.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;888192OD&D, if converted to 8 1/2 x 11 inch pages, would be something like 56 or 58 pages.  I see ads for "428" or however many page rulebooks and I just want to weep.

Only because you're not the one selling them. :D

Quote from: Rincewind1;888269But I think indeed, if I am in a campaign that makes me heavily invested in it, I can swallow a heavier ruleset than I'd normally be willing to.

People - if they suck will I stay? No, not really under any circumstances.
Setting - if the setting sucks will I stay?  If the people are totally awesome, and the system doesn't bother me, maybe.
System - If I hate the system will I stay?  If the people are great, and the setting intrigues the hell out of me, then I'll probably live with a system I wouldn't touch under other circumstances.

So yeah, I think People > Setting > System is spot on.  
Snacks don't factor in at all, because I can bring my own. :D

Quote from: finarvyn;888294I was having a similar discussion with my sister the other day. I've been playing OD&D since the 1970's, she RPGs since the late 1990's.Our conclusion was that "rules light" sets tend to be about options whereas "rules heavy" sets about limitations.

Just my two coppers.

I introduced a group of D&D 3.5 players to Metamorphosis Alpha 1e (vintage 1976, 32 pages). Their reaction? "We love this system! You can do anything."  The funny thing, that is the way I GM every game. You can try anything. I then use the rules to tell what happens.  I don't care for "you don't have the skill/feat/spell/mastery to do that so you can't even try".

People>Setting>System is how I would rank them too.

I am not willing to spend my gaming time with people I don't like. They don't have to be my closest friends, but they have to at least not annoy the shit out of me.

For good people and a good campaign I can put up with a lot from the mechanical system. If I'm wavering about the people and the campaign then the system can tip the scales one way or the other.

Quote from: estar;888083The rules were important because they helped with consistency. Consistency in what the characters can and cannot do. Consistency in how things are in the setting. Without that consistency the players and referee the campaign will devolve into a never ending game of twenty questions or bang your dead, not I'm not!

The design of the rules is important because different players and groups want different level of detail when adjudicating the things the characters do. For some it is enough to know that one characters has a gun, and another has a knife. For others it important whether the gun fires .22 ammo, or .357 ammo. Whether the knife is a bowie or a switch blade.

I believe that rules go beyond just providing consistency. They're a means of communicating between the game designer and the player. In that sense the rules are the campaign and as such there are some rules that can't be broken. Please take "can't" with a grain of salt as I mean to say that you can, but doing so leads me to play something which is not that particular campaign "as designed".

I also strongly believe that rules should be categorized by subsumption and not all rules carry the same weight and some fall within a subset of another. Being on the topic of Blackmoor I'd bring up the undead. If not mistaking the whole cleric/turning mechanism came from that setting. Is the turning undead rules core to D&D then? Don't think so, at least not to the level attack and damage rolls are. It's relatively easy to change the undead rules for something else, we'd not be playing "Blackmoor" anymore, but not much depends on such rules. On the other hand, changing combat rules has a more cascading effect on the game.

This brings me around to the ammo caliber. It's nice to have a difference between .22 and .357, but we must also consider if it's important and if it matters. Some rules have lots of modifiers for the purpose of adding "detail" yet these result in insignificant changes in the outcome. Are we expressing the "rules" in their minimal expression so they're quick to apply and resolve or is there "detail overhead"?

Also consider the possibility that our heroes get sent back in time and are fighting unarmored opponents (at least "effectively unarmored" to firearms). Does it matter to apply such rules at that time? How can I removed them and add them in on a "need to use basis"?

Quote from: Saurondor;888322I believe that rules go beyond just providing consistency. They're a means of communicating between the game designer and the player. In that sense the rules are the campaign and as such there are some rules that can't be broken. Please take "can't" with a grain of salt as I mean to say that you can, but doing so leads me to play something which is not that particular campaign "as designed".

The worst case of "Cult of RAW" programming I've ever seen.

The rules are just a representation of a process.

A game book, if written well can be (but isn't always) a conversation between the Game Designer and the Game Master.  Then the Game Master says "Thanks, I'll take that under advisement." and brings the game to the table, at which point the rules serve simply to facilitate conversation between Game Master and Player.

At no point do (or indeed ever should) the rules serve as conversation between designer and player, and the designer never has anything to do with the campaign.   The campaign is what happens at the table, and designer intent means nothing.

I'm talking about roleplaying games, of course, if you're doing collaborative storytelling stuff, well then, different topic.

I can beat the living fuck out of Apocalypse World to get it to do what I need for a campaign, and you're right, at that point I won't be really running Apocalypse World or anything remotely close to it.  But so what?

Quote from: finarvyn;888294I was having a similar discussion with my sister the other day. I've been playing OD&D since the 1970's, she RPGs since the late 1990's.Our conclusion was that "rules light" sets tend to be about options whereas "rules heavy" sets about limitations.

Nice to see I'm not the only one who sees it that way.

And as a young friend said after I converted him from 3.5 to OD&D, "I like the way that I say 'I want to sneak up behind him and knock him out,' you roll the dice, it either happens or it doesn't, and we get on with the damn game."

Quote from: CRKrueger;888325The worst case of "Cult of RAW" programming I've ever seen.

The rules are just a representation of a process.

A game book, if written well can be (but isn't always) a conversation between the Game Designer and the Game Master.  Then the Game Master says "Thanks, I'll take that under advisement." and brings the game to the table, at which point the rules serve simply to facilitate conversation between Game Master and Player.

At no point do (or indeed ever should) the rules serve as conversation between designer and player, and the designer never has anything to do with the campaign.   The campaign is what happens at the table, and designer intent means nothing.

I'm talking about roleplaying games, of course, if you're doing collaborative storytelling stuff, well then, different topic.

I can beat the living fuck out of Apocalypse World to get it to do what I need for a campaign, and you're right, at that point I won't be really running Apocalypse World or anything remotely close to it.  But so what?

I used the term communication, not conversation, please revise your comment. Conversation refers to a two way communication process which requires you to communicate back to the designer. Something that seldom happens and is a bit hard if the  designer is  Gygax or Arneson.

Quote from: Saurondor;888336I used the term communication, not conversation, please revise your comment. Conversation refers to a two way communication process which requires you to communicate back to the designer. Something that seldom happens and is a bit hard if the  designer is  Gygax or Arneson.

Which has nothing to do with the point that the Game Designer has nothing to communicate to the player about the campaign. Ever.

Quote from: CRKrueger;888338Which has nothing to do with the point that the Game Designer has nothing to communicate to the player about the campaign. Ever.

Really? How's that?

Quote from: Saurondor;888322I believe that rules go beyond just providing consistency. They're a means of communicating between the game designer and the player. In that sense the rules are the campaign and as such there are some rules that can't be broken. Please take "can't" with a grain of salt as I mean to say that you can, but doing so leads me to play something which is not that particular campaign "as designed".

Regardless of the means, it all about conveying what reality of the setting is. Writing a rules mechanic is just one way of doing that.

In the end the point is still to play the campaign not to play the rules.

Quote from: Saurondor;888322Is the turning undead rules core to D&D then?

Most people when they pick a set of rules to run their campaign with generally try to save time by using as much of the default setting of the rules as they can. It logical as it is a leisure activity. Turning undead is part of the default D&D setting so it gets woven into the setting most people create for a campaign using the D&D rule.

But the option is always there to change that. To make a setting where cleric can't turn undead by virtue of being a cleric. The consequence is that if you pile enough of these changes on top of each other then you lose the advantage of saying "I am running this campaign with the D&D rules."

With the Majestic Wilderlands I have happened to have written an entire supplement that I keep on hand to hand out. Plus I made a bunch of reference cards that clearly spell out how various things work. And I playtested the whole setup through numerous home campaigns and convention games. So it works for me to have a lot of house rules. For others without the time to do this, I would say they should find something published that close to what they want to run for their campaign and keep the tweaks down to a page worth of notes.

Quote from: Saurondor;888322This brings me around to the ammo caliber. It's nice to have a difference between .22 and .357, but we must also consider if it's important and if it matters. Some rules have lots of modifiers for the purpose of adding "detail" yet these result in insignificant changes in the outcome. Are we expressing the "rules" in their minimal expression so they're quick to apply and resolve or is there "detail overhead"?

It doesn't matter how small the difference is, what mattes whether the referee and the players consider it to be important. It all about personal preference. There is no correct amount of detail.

I will say that for a given level of detail some rule systems are easier to use than other. For example Chivalry & Sorcery vs GURPS. C&S in my opinion is as detailed as GURPS when it comes to running medieval fantasy but has a much worse design. If I was going to run a campaign with that level of detail I would use GURPS over C&S.

While I think most would agree with me, there is a caveat. Everybody thinks different. So for some C&S would be the preferred way to go because it works with how they think when it comes to medieval fantasy.

QuoteOriginally Posted by finarvyn
I was having a similar discussion with my sister the other day. I've been playing OD&D since the 1970's, she RPGs since the late 1990's.Our conclusion was that "rules light" sets tend to be about options whereas "rules heavy" sets about limitations.

What this means is that the original rules (mostly light) gave some guidelines and then the player's creativity took over and he or she could attempt anything he or she might imagine, whereas modern rules sets (mostly heavy) tend to spell out rules for everything and a player tends to check lists to see what they can do and if it's not on the list they often don't try it. My favorite RPG rules sets are OD&D and Amber Diceless, neither of which requires a lot of time to understand but both of which allow for me to be as creative as I like.

Like Gronan, I think that 400+ page rules sets make me sad. I really don't want to read all of that stuff, and I certainly don't want to have to learn it. What I want is a simple set of guidelines that, combined with creativity and imagination, can be used universally to have fun. When rules sets resemble textbooks, gaming becomes homework.

I agree with you, but a consistent problem that I have is that my players prefer 400 page rule books, especially if they are in full color and full of character options and widgets to play with in chargen and character advancement.  I have a hard time selling my players on a campaign with a rules lite system from a little black and white book with mediocre art from a small press or fringe company.

Part of the problem, I think, is that I handle 90% of the rules at the table and my players aren't really interested in learning rules beyond the cool bits that affect their character. They have a perception that more rules must be better.

The other part of the problem is that my players are more comfortable combing through books for character ideas and inspiration then they are in coming up with concepts from whole cloth.  A rules lite system can do anything a crunchy system can do, and more, but they demand greater player creativity and imagination.

My players perceive 3.5, or pathfinder, GURPS 4, or WFRP 2, to be superior games before they even play them (ooh look, shiny!) where I prefer games like Swords and Wizardry, BoL, TFT, and BRP for the reasons you mentioned above.  It is a problem we have as a group and I wonder if anyone else has the same experience.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;888331Nice to see I'm not the only one who sees it that way.

And as a young friend said after I converted him from 3.5 to OD&D, "I like the way that I say 'I want to sneak up behind him and knock him out,' you roll the dice, it either happens or it doesn't, and we get on with the damn game."

What I say is

"Play X for your fantasy campaign if it has the kind of detail you want. But it not required or necessary, it works for you because that how you think, or it has what is important to you. But it is neither better or worse than anything else out there. What you need to focus on as a refereee is your campaign and whether the rules you use work well for adjudicating what your players do.  if they don't change them or ditch them. If they do, then you are good.

Quote from: CRKrueger;888338Which has nothing to do with the point that the Game Designer has nothing to communicate to the player about the campaign. Ever.

Really? I think the game designer has a lot to communicate to the player. Little things like how to generate a character, how combat can be expected to be resolved, how skills and powers work. It's why as a GM I am constantly after my players to RTFM. The better they know the rules the less energy I have to spend on explaining mechanics and the more I can spend on actually running the campaign.

The game designer also has a fair bit to communicate about the campaign. Every game design has underlying assumptions about the way the world works. These will effect how a campaign is played. D&D's (in)famous Vancian magic system creates a hardwired set of "this is the way magic works" settings for any campaign using the D&D rules. A sword doing 1d8 damage and monster having 1d8 hit dice provides a rough approximation of how many sword blows it will take to kill a given monster. A 1HD Orc is very different to a 14HD Giant.

If the Game Designer never has anything to communicate to the Players then the players need never read nor worry about learning the rules. The players need only tell the GM what they want to do and the GM can handle the rest. This also makes it entirely the GM's responsability to do things like communicate to the players how effective a sword is as a weapon, how spell casting works, etc.  

If you want to tell me that spellcasting rule mechanics have no bearing on the campaign then let me show up to your next D&D game and play a completely form spell caster whose magic does what ever I say it does, because the game designer has nothing to communicate to the players about the campaign. How magic works is both a campaign design and a game design.

Quote from: Madprofessor;888345I agree with you, but a consistent problem that I have is that my players prefer 400 page rule books, especially if they are in full color and full of character options and widgets to play with in chargen and character advancement.  I have a hard time selling my players on a campaign with a rules lite system from a little black and white book with mediocre art from a small press or fringe company.

I use Champions/Hero System to run superhero campaign. Because I live in rural northwest Pennsylvania I can count the number of people on my hand to actually know how to design a character using the Hero System.

So what I do is have them explain their superhero as if it is a wikipedia article on the guy. Well maybe not in that much detail, but I have conversation about. Then I translate that into Hero System mechanics. Sometimes I get something that is difficult to translate but because Hero System has a good design I am able to get it exactly how the player described it.

For your situation pin your players down to exactly what they want for their characters in natural language. Resist them trying to say (I want +5 to hit) in favor of I want to be a expert duellist with a rapier.

Armed this information you can take one of those "little black & white books" and give them what they want. Unless of course what they are asking wouldn't exist in the setting you are trying to make.

Again if the difference between .22 ammo and .357 ammo is important then you will not get away trying to use a lite rules system that abstract that level of detail. At which point either you find a compromise ruleset that works for you and them. Or say "Look I don't want to run a campaign with that much detail."  Or pin down what the exact difference is and find that just adding a +1 damage modifier is sufficient.

What I am trying to get across, is start with your campaign first. It has a reality of its own. If something your player wants to do or be would logically exist in that reality then make a way for it to happen with your chosen rules. Keep in mind that a good deal what the player want can be easily handled as a note on a piece of paper.

One difference the Majestic Wilderlands with GURPS and MW with Swords & Wizardry is that all those advantages and disadvantages become notes.

The moment you deviate from RAW in any way you become a Game Designer. This is simple truth. The Game Designer is the one who designs the game. Every game design effects the campaigns that are and can be run with that game design. I cannot run a "Demons are taking over the world with the aid of their undead minions" game with RAW Classic Traveller. That game design has no rules for demons or the undead. I can add rules for them, at which point I take on the role of game designer as well as campaign designer. If my players are to interact with the new demons and undead rules I need to communicate at least something of how they interact with the player facing game rules and the player facing portion of the campaign.

Game Designer communicating with the Players about the Campaign. QED

Quote from: DavetheLost;888348Really? I think the game designer has a lot to communicate to the player. Little things like how to generate a character, how combat can be expected to be resolved, how skills and powers work. It's why as a GM I am constantly after my players to RTFM. The better they know the rules the less energy I have to spend on explaining mechanics and the more I can spend on actually running the campaign.

All those things reflect what the designer think the reality of the setting or genre ought to be. If that how you designed your setting then you are set. If not then you will have issues because as you stated what you want to do is actually run your campaign not what the designer thinks your campaign ought to be.

Quote from: estar;888344It doesn't matter how small the difference is, what mattes whether the referee and the players consider it to be important. It all about personal preference. There is no correct amount of detail.

I will say that for a given level of detail some rule systems are easier to use than other. For example Chivalry & Sorcery vs GURPS. C&S in my opinion is as detailed as GURPS when it comes to running medieval fantasy but has a much worse design. If I was going to run a campaign with that level of detail I would use GURPS over C&S.

While I think most would agree with me, there is a caveat. Everybody thinks different. So for some C&S would be the preferred way to go because it works with how they think when it comes to medieval fantasy.

Well yes it's a bit relative, but nonetheless the smaller the difference the less likely it is to matter to players. Specially if the players are always the same as is the case within a certain gaming table. In such a case personal preference becomes a constant. Is it possible to dial in detail as required or are players required to go through the motions to resolve something to a degree of detail that is not relevant at that moment.?

On the c&s. There is also the issue of habit and even if GURPS may seem better for me the required learning curve may keep me with C&S.

Quote from: estar;888352All those things reflect what the designer think the reality of the setting or genre ought to be. If that how you designed your setting then you are set. If not then you will have issues because as you stated what you want to do is actually run your campaign not what the designer thinks your campaign ought to be.

True. This is why I try to pick rulesets to run that are in harmony with the style of campaign I want to run.

I ran a brief Edge of the Empire FFG Star Wars game quite succesfully for a group who were meh at best about Star Wars because the game fit well with the sort of cinematic, rough around the edges Space Opera campaign we were looking for. I don't think Age of Rebellion or Force and Destiny would have worked as well for this group because those games focus on the wrong aspects of Star Wars.

I had to drop our The One Ring game after the second session because the assumptions of the game designers about the style of fantasy that the game did were very different to what the players wanted to play. TOR mechanically supports a very Tolkienesque style. The further players deviate from playing characters like the ones Tolkien wrote about the more they end up fighting against the mechanics. The game just didn't work for the sort of fantasy we wanted to play.

I see the interaction of mechanics with campaigns coming up repeatedly in the many threads across the gaming forums about Cubicle 7's newly announced Middle Earth D&D. One of the big points of debate is can D&D game mechanics be used to emulate Middle Earth campaign design. Of course there is accompanying debate about just what D&D core mechanics are, how might they be changed, and what exactly defines Middle Earth campaign design.

Quote from: DavetheLost;888359what exactly defines Middle Earth campaign design.

As there is a thread devoted to D&D and C7's Middle Earth I won't get into that.

I will add that when it comes to campaign design for a specific setting, like Middle Earth, that the players will do whatever it they are capable of doing even if it appears to violate the spirit of the original novels.

This is because novels (LoTR in this case) are a narrow window into the imagined life of the author's worlds. Because Middle Earth in many ways follows the way our world works (and other ways doesn't) means that character in theory have the full range of emotions, motivations, and options in Middle Earth as they do here in a comparable situation.

The characters can be totally plausible within the context of Middle Earth with consistent motivations but still make the Middle Earth campaign completely different than anything that Tolkien wrote. They could be jokesters making fun of everything making the whole thing feel like a comedy. Or they could be act like murder hobos indiscriminately slaughtering left and right.

This of course drive some batshit crazy as "not being Middle Earth" which is wrong because while Tolkien never focused on those things in his novels it is implied by how he built his world. This is compounded by the fact he lavish a ton of work on fleshing out the detail of his history trying to give ME it own sense of reality. And one thing he doesn't do it make humans in ME some type of mind controlled zombie acting contrary to normal human motivations. So somewhere there in ME there are people who are comedians and who are murder hobos.

A ME referee need to be prepared for that and think how would the culture and inhabitants respond and adjudicate accordingly.

QuoteOriginally Posted by CRKrueger
A game book, if written well can be (but isn't always) a conversation between the Game Designer and the Game Master. Then the Game Master says "Thanks, I'll take that under advisement." and brings the game to the table, at which point the rules serve simply to facilitate conversation between Game Master and Player.

At no point do (or indeed ever should) the rules serve as conversation between designer and player, and the designer never has anything to do with the campaign. The campaign is what happens at the table, and designer intent means nothing.

I have to agree with this - for my table at least.

The GM filters and tailors the rules for his campaign.  In an RPG, the rules are not a triangular dynamic between designer, GM, and players. They are tools to be used by the GM to facilitate the campaign.  The designer says "this is how we do it, what do you think?" to the GM, and the GM interprets those suggestions. The players can make recommendations to the GM as well, but it is not the designer's campaign. A good GM will listen to his players, but it is his responsibility to adjudicate, modify, and create the rules for the campaign. The designer has no authority over the GM that the players can use.  RAW are only frameworks or suggestions for the GM to consider, they are certainly not sticks to be used by the players to beat the GM into submission.

Unless you are playing burning wheel, I guess.:p

Quote from: Lunamancer;888100Not really. Some people prefer the perceived benefits of a rules-heavy approach, and are willing to tolerate the perceived drawbacks of a rules-heavy approach. Nobody actually sets out to be burdened by rules.

Wrong, some people do prefer rules-heavy just because engaging the rules is fun to them.

Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;888168RPGs are mostly Mother May I games where one of the players badly presents a story of some kind to the other players who are just there because they are not socially capable of being in any other groups.

I'd weep for the GMs and groups you have played with, but it's just too funny not to laugh instead:D!

Quote from: CRKrueger;888300Snacks don't factor in at all, because I can bring my own. :D

If you've never gone to a session because the GM makes great pancakes, you don't know what you're missing;)!

Quote from: Caesar Slaad;888174What makes pizza is crust, not cheese or sauce.

Movies are all about the script, not the acting or the direction.

Saurondor and Dave, you guys have been answering those questions yourselves by talking to Estar.

The campaign, by definition, is what happens at the table with the GM and players.  The game designer simply creates rules that describe processes.  These processes can create default assumptions, but the game rules are nothing more than a theoretical model.

You might find a game in which the proposed assumptions the designer provides lines up 100% with the campaign you want, but I've seen that happen...never.

There's always a difference, there's always an alteration, some things get used, some things get changed, some things get axed, sometimes minor, sometimes major.

You always play the campaign the GM and players create.  Even if the table agrees to play 100% by RAW, that's still their choice (remember the Rush song).  The designer has nothing to do with it, nothing to communicate to the player, because even if the GM says "Make up your character according to pages 15-30 in the PHB", without any alterations at all, it's still the GM who is saying that.

It might seem like picking a nit, but it's key to the point being discussed here.  The campaign is the actual specific and unique implementation of a theoretical model, divorced from the designer completely.

Rules as written are a template to build the rule framework at your table on.

You don´t need them strictly seen, but as they are freely available to everyone to reference, they are a very nice tool and support, which would be much more messy without them.

And many (but clearly not all) gamers seem to like to have them at hand.

Quote from: Simlasa;888199Maybe, but not in a 'Oooh! Look at meeeee!' sort of way. They're clever like a good plumber or bricklayer... vs. a mime pretending to be trapped in a box. They don't care if you notice how clever they are.

A mime is never clever.

Quote from: Bren;888474A mime is never clever.

They're a type of clever... like The One Roll Engine, which got a lot of attention when it was first around... 'Ooooh! That's a clever dice mechanic!'

It may not be eveident but I do have as my guiding philosophy to "Never let the rules get in the way of a fun game!"

I don't care if I wrote the rule or Gary Gygax did, if it seriously making the game "not fun" I will change it.

Mind you I also take to heart the advice of the great philosophers Jager and Richards who famously said "you can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you might find you get what you need."

I don't find a game where you can do any and everything right out out of the box with no limits to be particulary fun. A large part of the fun in gaming comes from facing and overcoming challenges. The rules are the tools we use to measure our success at this. If the written rules are not allowing us to face and overcome the challenges we want and play the campaign that we set out to play, then the rules need to be changed.

There are rules such as D&D3.0 and beyond, GURPS, that I really do not enjoy the experience of playing. It doesn't much matter what the campaign is, the rules get in the way of my enjoyment.

Mostly though I pay much less attention to the rules than I do to the experience of playing, what I think CRKrueger is calling "the campaign".

Quote from: DavetheLost;888478It may not be eveident but I do have as my guiding philosophy to "Never let the rules get in the way of a fun game!"

I don't care if I wrote the rule or Gary Gygax did, if it seriously making the game "not fun" I will change it.

Mind you I also take to heart the advice of the great philosophers Jager and Richards who famously said "you can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you might find you get what you need."

I don't find a game where you can do any and everything right out out of the box with no limits to be particulary fun. A large part of the fun in gaming comes from facing and overcoming challenges. The rules are the tools we use to measure our success at this. If the written rules are not allowing us to face and overcome the challenges we want and play the campaign that we set out to play, then the rules need to be changed.

There are rules such as D&D3.0 and beyond, GURPS, that I really do not enjoy the experience of playing. It doesn't much matter what the campaign is, the rules get in the way of my enjoyment.

Mostly though I pay much less attention to the rules than I do to the experience of playing, what I think CRKrueger is calling "the campaign".

Who gets to define what "fun" is?

I have never seen a table where everyone thought something was "not fun" and they still went with the rules.

Quote from: CRKrueger;888455It might seem like picking a nit, but it's key to the point being discussed here.  The campaign is the actual specific and unique implementation of a theoretical model, divorced from the designer completely.

Sorry, I don't get this.

The actual game being played is the implementation of a theoretical model, yes. But it's not necessarily divorced from the designer: if you're using the rules as intended by him, you're effectively hearing (and being communicated by) him.

Example: in Monsterhearts the author says "Don't prep plots", with the intent that the game be driven by the players. If you as the GM understand and applies this in your game, you're hearing the author, thus he is not divorced from the actual game. Right ?

Perhaps I'm missing something here.

Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;888168RPGs are mostly Mother May I games where one of the players badly presents a story of some kind to the other players who are just there because they are not socially capable of being in any other groups.

Alright you know the drill.

Show us on the doll where the bad DM touched you.

Quote from: CRKrueger;888298Only because you're not the one selling them. :D

Oh yes, there's especially money in convincing players -- not just referees! -- that they need to keep up with an endless series of manuals.

The attitude, however, is a barrier to entry for many people. They are not up to buying and studying textbooks to play the game, but are ready to take on the role of a Wild West pioneer, swordsman or sorcerer, or what have you.

Quote from: Itachi;888482The actual game being played is the implementation of a theoretical model, yes. But it's not necessarily divorced from the designer: if you're using the rules as intended by him, you're effectively hearing (and being communicated by) him.

I don't care what the designer intended. I use RPG rules as guidelines to implement my campaign: my setting, my playstyle, the needs and desires of my players. The intent of the game designer just isn't very important to me. I guess the "problem" is I don't see RPGs as having "rules" -- just suggestions and guidelines for the GM to use as needed to create his or her campaign. Any set of RPG rules I buy and use is likely to be very different in my hands than in the designer's hands. I see this as a good thing, although fans of playing RPGs RAW are generally appalled.

Quote from: CRKrueger;888455Saurondor and Dave, you guys have been answering those questions yourselves by talking to Estar.

The campaign, by definition, is what happens at the table with the GM and players.  The game designer simply creates rules that describe processes.  These processes can create default assumptions, but the game rules are nothing more than a theoretical model.

You might find a game in which the proposed assumptions the designer provides lines up 100% with the campaign you want, but I've seen that happen...never.

There's always a difference, there's always an alteration, some things get used, some things get changed, some things get axed, sometimes minor, sometimes major.

You always play the campaign the GM and players create.  Even if the table agrees to play 100% by RAW, that's still their choice (remember the Rush song).  The designer has nothing to do with it, nothing to communicate to the player, because even if the GM says "Make up your character according to pages 15-30 in the PHB", without any alterations at all, it's still the GM who is saying that.

It might seem like picking a nit, but it's key to the point being discussed here.  The campaign is the actual specific and unique implementation of a theoretical model, divorced from the designer completely.

You're stating the obvious. Any campaign is unique even when sharing the same rules played RAW. When I play my own games I'm changing things too. That doesn't mean I'm divorced from myself. It doesn't mean I start from square one defining attributes, skill, task resolution, combat, etc every single time a start a new campaign. I what I do do is pick off from my previous work. When I run a game based on some other designer's system I start from the printed work I acquired. The printed text is the communication medium through which this arrives to me.  I don't call up the designer to clarify something, and I don't call to ask permission to play as I see fit.

Do you know how to play my game? I mean, right here, right now, as you read this. I'm quite confident you don't unless you pick up the rules and read them first.

Quote from: RandallS;888488I don't care what the designer intended. I use RPG rules as guidelines to implement my campaign: my setting, my playstyle, the needs and desires of my players. The intent of the game designer just isn't very important to me. I guess the "problem" is I don't see RPGs as having "rules" -- just suggestions and guidelines for the GM to use as needed to create his or her campaign. Any set of RPG rules I buy and use is likely to be very different in my hands than in the designer's hands. I see this as a good thing, although fans of playing RPGs RAW are generally appalled.

So your style may be divorced from the designers intents, but that doesn't mean all playstyles will be. Right ? ;)

Quote from: Phillip;888485Oh yes, there's especially money in convincing players -- not just referees! -- that they need to keep up with an endless series of manuals.

The attitude, however, is a barrier to entry for many people. They are not up to buying and studying textbooks to play the game, but are ready to take on the role of a Wild West pioneer, swordsman or sorcerer, or what have you.

There are game systems I have dropped because I got sick of being disadvantaged if I didn't keep up with the latest splatbook. I prefer my supplements to be "supplemental" not the new requisites for play.

In classic Traveller for example I tend to ignore Books 4+ because they don't add a lot to the game I want to play. I will pull out occasional bits, but overall they are definitely supplemental.

Quote from: Maarzan;888481Who gets to define what "fun" is?

I have never seen a table where everyone thought something was "not fun" and they still went with the rules.

Generally "fun" is broadly defined by the concensus of the table. But sometimes it is defined by a single player who has a strong issue with something in the game.

If the rules are "not fun" for everyone at the table, we change them up by playing something else.

As the usual GM though, if I am not having fun running the campaign, it is time to change it up fast. I no longer am willing to spend the effort on running I game I don't enjoy.

Quote from: Itachi;888482Sorry, I don't get this.

The actual game being played is the implementation of a theoretical model, yes. But it's not necessarily divorced from the designer: if you're using the rules as intended by him, you're effectively hearing (and being communicated by) him.

Example: in Monsterhearts the author says "Don't prep plots", with the intent that the game be driven by the players. If you as the GM understand and applies this in your game, you're hearing the author, thus he is not divorced from the actual game. Right ?

Perhaps I'm missing something here.

"If you as the GM"

GM=/=Player, right?

Designer(rules)--->GM(campaign)--->Player

The Designer is only there through the GM, the Designer should not be communicating to the player except at the level of that theoretical model.

When players and GMs see themselves as both being informed from the designer, then they usually abdicate their responsibility to the campaign itself, which in games like AW, is fine, because they're supposed to be creating the campaign on the fly anyway.

If you're not involved in some form of narrativism, and you're talking about a traditional RPG and campaign like Estar is, the rules is the second to the last important thing, with the designer being the absolute last.

Quote from: Saurondor;888500Do you know how to play my game? I mean, right here, right now, as you read this. I'm quite confident you don't unless you pick up the rules and read them first.

If you're a game designer, as a GM I won't know the rules of that game until I pick it up.  I'll pick it up, read it, decide what to present to the players and then teach them the system, possibly throwing out or adding more as we go.  The last thing I want is for my players to read some Core Rulebook out of context of the campaign I intend to run.  That's just idiotic.

If you're a Game Master, and you're telling me as a player I have to pick up the rules and read them before we play, that's pretty much the absolute textbook definition of Epic GM Fail.

Quote from: CRKrueger;888512If you're a Game Master, and you're telling me as a player I have to pick up the rules and read them before we play, that's pretty much the absolute textbook definition of Epic GM Fail.

Why?

Chicken, meet egg. I mean...ah, fuck it...:-)

Quote from: Saurondor;888514Why?

Because most of the people I game with, and I, would say "No thanks" and walk away.

I played D&D for two years with Gary Gygax BEFORE the rules were published.  Still the best way to play as far as I'm concerned.

"You don't need to know the rules, just tell me what you want to do."  And if you don't trust the referee, don't play.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;888558"You don't need to know the rules, just tell me what you want to do."  And if you don't trust the referee, don't play.

True. So what happens when the players want to do something the rules don't allow? What do you do?

For example I want to be a barbarian magic user.

Personally, I don't see how the rules stop me from telling you what I want to do, but maybe there's something I'm missing so I'm really interested to know your reasons.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;888558Because most of the people I game with, and I, would say "No thanks" and walk away.

Same here. Most of the people I've gamed with over the years have no interest in reading a thick book of rules (let alone studying it to learn how to best manipulate them). They just want to play their character by saying in plain English (that is, not rulespeak) what they want to do. They expect me to tell them whether or not they succeed or fail, what to roll to find out, or expect me to just tell them that that is something their character would know (based on living in the game world) is very obviously a bad idea. I've been running games like that since 1975. It has always worked well -- it just doesn't produce a lot of sales for the "RPG industry."

Quote from: Saurondor;888563True. So what happens when the players want to do something the rules don't allow? What do you do?

Since I run what most people here would consider rules light games, this happens all the time. I just make a ruling.

QuoteFor example I want to be a barbarian magic user.

My answer would depend on the setting and exactly what you mean. There aren't any barbarians in the Hidden Valley, for example. However, in my version of the Wilderlands or my Empire of Arn setting, there wouldn't be an issue.

QuotePersonally, I don't see how the rules stop me from telling you what I want to do, but maybe there's something I'm missing so I'm really interested to know your reasons.

They don't stop you from telling me what you want to do, but they do stop many people from thinking of things the rules don't seem to cover. I've found this to be especially true with players used to rules heavy games as they often seem to see the rules as limiting what they can do to what is official mentioned as allowed. I also have zero interest in games that stress "system mastery" as I don't want a player who reads and studies rules to have any major advantage over a player who never reads them.

Quote from: Saurondor;888563True. So what happens when the players want to do something the rules don't allow? What do you do?

For example I want to be a barbarian magic user.

Depends on what's really meant by "the rules don't allow."

If it means, "Wrong game: we are absolutely not having any magic users, barbarian or otherwise, in 1920s Chicago," then that's an actual prohibition.

That's quite different from, "Well, there's no reason all magic-users must be civilized, but we don't have any special rules pertaining to the concept. Just what special considerations do you think require such rules?"

QuoteOriginally Posted by Saurondor
So what happens when the players want to do something the rules don't allow? What do you do?

For example I want to be a barbarian magic user.

For me as a GM, it depends on your motivation for being something outside the rules. If it significantly adds to the campaign, rules be damned.  If you want a barbarian magic user and you have a strong concept that is going to make the game fun for all - the rules will bend to my will and there will be a barbarian magic user.  That said, I'm not going to give you whatever you want just cause you're a player who wants stuff.

Just look at the characters in the back of the original Rogues Gallery, they don't follow the rules.

QuoteOriginally Posted by RandallS
They don't stop you from telling me what you want to do, but they do stop many people from thinking of things the rules don't seem to cover. I've found this to be especially true with players used to rules heavy games as they often seem to see the rules as limiting what they can do to what is official mentioned as allowed.

One of my groups really has a hard time with this very issue.  They want rules heavy games with lots of color pictures and rules widgets to play with.  It is hard for them to start with the blank canvas of a rules lite game.  They would rather select from a menu of options or color by number.  When I say "what do you want play? Let's start kicking out some ideas" they respond with "what are my choices?"  Sometimes as I describe the world they latch on to a concept, but often they are like deer in a headlight paralyzed by too many options.

Quote from: RandallS;888573They don't stop you from telling me what you want to do, but they do stop many people from thinking of things the rules don't seem to cover. I've found this to be especially true with players used to rules heavy games as they often seem to see the rules as limiting what they can do to what is official mentioned as allowed. I also have zero interest in games that stress "system mastery" as I don't want a player who reads and studies rules to have any major advantage over a player who never reads them.

There seems to be a paradox in your statement. It appears to be the consensus of this thread that the GM has complete control over the campaign and screw the game designer (I'm exaggerating a bit, but it drives the point). So how can the player feel limited by what is read in the rules if the GM is there? You even mentioned:

Quotethis happens all the time. I just make a ruling.

Now I agree with you that some players do indeed manifest such behavior, but why is it if they know you can make a ruling? More so, on the matter of system mastery, what does it matter? Are we not in agreement that?:

Quote"You don't need to know the rules, just tell me what you want to do." And if you don't trust the referee, don't play.

I don't need system mastery, I just need to know what I want. I can gain system mastery by inferring the rules from you as we play along, but that should really not matter if we are true an honest to that principle that all I need to do is tell you want I want.

Right? Or am I missing something? Where is my logic flawed?

Quote from: Madprofessor;888576That said, I'm not going to give you whatever you want just cause you're a player who wants stuff.

Right on! And what happens if the barbarian magic user is in the rules and you just don't want to include it in your campaign? Technically speaking it's not in the rules because although it is in the printed copy it is not in your campaign and thus not available "in the rules" as set in the game by the GM.

QuoteOriginally Posted by Saurondor
Right on! And what happens if the barbarian magic user is in the rules and you just don't want to include it in your campaign? Technically speaking it's not in the rules because although it is in the printed copy it is not in your campaign and thus not available "in the rules" as set in the game by the GM.

Well, it looks to me like you answered your question.  If I removed barbarian magic users from printed RAW for my campaign, I probably did it for a reason.  That said, for me, it's not black and white.  I may have decided that barbarian magic users don't fit, but a player might be able to convince me otherwise - or he might not.  Nothing is set in stone and the imaginary space is shared and cooperative even though I (the GM) maintain final authority to fit rules to that space.

Quote from: Saurondor;888563True. So what happens when the players want to do something the rules don't allow? What do you do?

For example I want to be a barbarian magic user.

One thing that occurs to me is that many instances like these only come up because we have rules.

Imagine you know zero rules, including how character builds work in the game or what archetypes the game uses. Simply using the term "barbarian" communicates no information about game information. Maybe you describe the character as a tribal shaman. Maybe the GM feels a druid is the closest match for your character type. And because we're putting the campaign ahead of the rules, he may even tweak a couple of things--adding battle axe to the list of weapons allowed, nixing some of the spell choices from the list.

In other words, it sort of takes solidifying character ideas into labels like "dwarf", which in AD&D were inherently non-magical. To the extent that you want to play a short, non-magical race, you would never ask to play a dwarf magic-user. It's only when your idea of playing a short, non-magical race gets a name like dwarf, and you observe another race named elf can also be magic-users do you get the idea "Hey, why not swap out one arbitrary race for another."

It's almost akin to arbitrarily defining "blue" to mean "wet", observing an object that is "red and dry" and wondering, "Well, shucks, why not allow it to be blue and dry?" Without the arbitrary definition, you're forced to describe it as wet and dry, and it becomes obvious why that combination is disallowed. Not because of rules but because of common sense.

Quote from: Lunamancer;888593One thing that occurs to me is that many instances like these only come up because we have rules.

Imagine you know zero rules, including how character builds work in the game or what archetypes the game uses. Simply using the term "barbarian" communicates no information about game information. Maybe you describe the character as a tribal shaman. Maybe the GM feels a druid is the closest match for your character type. And because we're putting the campaign ahead of the rules, he may even tweak a couple of things--adding battle axe to the list of weapons allowed, nixing some of the spell choices from the list.

In other words, it sort of takes solidifying character ideas into labels like "dwarf", which in AD&D were inherently non-magical. To the extent that you want to play a short, non-magical race, you would never ask to play a dwarf magic-user. It's only when your idea of playing a short, non-magical race gets a name like dwarf, and you observe another race named elf can also be magic-users do you get the idea "Hey, why not swap out one arbitrary race for another."

It's almost akin to arbitrarily defining "blue" to mean "wet", observing an object that is "red and dry" and wondering, "Well, shucks, why not allow it to be blue and dry?" Without the arbitrary definition, you're forced to describe it as wet and dry, and it becomes obvious why that combination is disallowed. Not because of rules but because of common sense.

Why not play the highly improbable and see what that leads to? A magic using dwarf or a non-magic elf. Very uncommon, but could happen. Even if only one in a million. What happens? What is a magic using dwarf like?

You really can't say you're putting the campaign ahead of the rules if you can't explore the unorthodox as rare as it may be.

Quote from: Saurondor;888596Why not play the highly improbable and see what that leads to? A magic using dwarf or a non-magic elf. Very uncommon, but could happen. Even if only one in a million. What happens? What is a magic using dwarf like?

You really can't say you're putting the campaign ahead of the rules if you can't explore the unorthodox as rare as it may be.

I haven't said you have to disallow it. Only that people aren't going to say, " I want to play a non-magical magic-user" as it is clearly self contradictory. And you certainly can't play an exception to a rule if there is no rule to begin with.

Unorthodox characters? In a vacuum, I have no problem with it. When half or all of the group wants to play special snowflakes? That does tend to buck the flavor of the campaign. Even if the rules specifically allow unorthodox combos, it's gotta be bitch slapped down if you're putting the campaign first.

Take a look at the old-school D&D rules regarding race class restrictions. Aside from the literal restrictions themselves, is there anything at all preventing a dwarven magic-user? Don't the mechanics still work? Can't you still roll a d4 for hit points AND get a hit point bonus due to a high dwarven constitution? Nothing in the rules forbid any of these things. The system is made to handle it. The prohibition is strictly for the sake of the flavor of the campaign.

I think it's more practical to start with "no" and negotiate a "yes" in special circumstances than it is for the default to be "yes" and for the DM to go around bursting bubbles reminding players of the campaign they all decided they wanted to play.

Quote from: Saurondor;888563True. So what happens when the players want to do something the rules don't allow? What do you do?

For example I want to be a barbarian magic user.

Personally, I don't see how the rules stop me from telling you what I want to do, but maybe there's something I'm missing so I'm really interested to know your reasons.

Anything not expressly forbidden is permitted.  What makes your barbarian magic user different from ordinary magic users?  I don't need rules, just reminders of what worked before.

The seeming contradiction of the Barbarian-Magic User, and also the Dwarf-Magic User stems from the influence of one vision of fantasy on all RPGing. I'm looking at you D&D.

See, when I hear "Barbarian Magic User" I think "tribal shaman". I don't see any a priori reason that  members of barbarian cultures should not be able to use magic. It happens all the time in RuneQuest.

When I hear "Dwarf Magic User" I think of that line in The Hobbitt "the Dwarrves of yore made mighty spells" In folklore dwarfs are often magical creatures, so the idea of a Dwarf Magic User makes sense to me.  Beyond the Wall and Other Adventures has a starting character playbook for the Dwarven Rune Caster, a character which is, you guessed it, a Dwarf Magic User.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;888601Anything not expressly forbidden is permitted.  What makes your barbarian magic user different from ordinary magic users?  I don't need rules, just reminders of what worked before.

So...basically, rules.

Quote from: Saurondor;888582Right on! And what happens if the barbarian magic user is in the rules and you just don't want to include it in your campaign? Technically speaking it's not in the rules because although it is in the printed copy it is not in your campaign and thus not available "in the rules" as set in the game by the GM.

The setting of a campaign defines what possible regardless of what the ruleset the referee chosen to use. The referee responsibility is too clearly communicate what options are or are not avaliable.

With that being said, you are ignoring how people deal with this in actual play. Most referees don't want or have the time to be authors so they pick something close to what they want and like. Then go from there. Most referees I know can persuaded by a logical argument that X should exist or be a possibility. Nobody can think of everything when they create a campaign. There are many times where I went "I never thought of it like that. Go ahead it is OK."

Quote from: Saurondor;888580There seems to be a paradox in your statement. It appears to be the consensus of this thread that the GM has complete control over the campaign and screw the game designer (I'm exaggerating a bit, but it drives the point). So how can the player feel limited by what is read in the rules if the GM is there?

I noticed (especially in rules heavy games) that players who "have a conversation with the designer" by more than skimming just the rules they need to make their character and understand die rolls and such, often never try things not specifically listed in the rules as things they can do. They see "not listed as something my character can do in the rules" as forbidding the action. Players who don't have that "conversation with the designer" are far less likely to so limit what they try to do in the game.

QuoteRight? Or am I missing something? Where is my logic flawed?

Your logic isn't flawed, but logic doesn't match up with reality where people are concerned. In other words, in a "white room" you are absolutely correct. However, my campaigns are NOT played in that "white room" where people behave logically and "perfectly". They are held in the real world where people behave illogically and do not always make the logical or optimal decision.

To me, RPGs are about playing in the setting, the campaign is actually a secondary thought;).

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;888558Because most of the people I game with, and I, would say "No thanks" and walk away.

I played D&D for two years with Gary Gygax BEFORE the rules were published.  Still the best way to play as far as I'm concerned.

"You don't need to know the rules, just tell me what you want to do."  And if you don't trust the referee, don't play.

Yes, it is fun:).
No, it's not possible with all games. In some detailed systems, you need to be able to make decisions about elements not commonly described.
Never played Fantasy HERO, but I believe it's one of those.

Quote from: Lunamancer;888597I haven't said you have to disallow it. Only that people aren't going to say, " I want to play a non-magical magic-user" as it is clearly self contradictory.

I have played a non-magical wizard. The setting had no magic, as far as I can tell, and this didn't change because of me.
Still, everybody that knew me believed otherwise at the end of the campaign, until I told them it's all "sleight of hand, and no cheating":D!
I actually had to explain some of the tricks I had used, though.

Quote from: AsenRG;888665To me, RPGs are about playing in the setting, the campaign is actually a secondary thought;).

Rules are 2d20, d20, RQ6 whatever.

Setting is The Hyborian Age, Glorantha, Middle-Earth, whatever.

Campaign is what's happening at my table with RQ6 Hyborian Age, or MERP 4th Age, or AD&D1 Greyhawk.  It's the unique and specific application of Rules and Setting, as talked about here.

Players usually don't think "Campaign", it's indistinguishable from "Setting" from their perspective.

Quote from: AsenRG;888665To me, RPGs are about playing in the setting, the campaign is actually a secondary thought;).

A campaign is playing in the setting. It not something different. If you think there is a different then you have the wrong definition of what a campaign means when it comes to gaming.

To be clear a setting is an imagined world created by the referee. A campaign is one or more sessions of players acting their characters playing in that setting.

So how one plays the rules with an RPG game?

Quote from: AsenRG;888665Yes, it is fun:).
No, it's not possible with all games. In some detailed systems, you need to be able to make decisions about elements not commonly described.
Never played Fantasy HERO, but I believe it's one of those.

Anything described by rules can be described in natural language. Fantasy Hero is not in anyway different in that regard. What Fantasy Hero brings to the table is the ability for its mechanics to describe magic and abilities in precise game terms in a flexible manner without going the whole "be a game designer" route.

But the first step for any Hero System RPG is to describe what you are trying to make in natural language then put together the package of powers, advantages, and limitations to implement that description in game terms.

Quote from: jux;888683So how one plays the rules with an RPG game?

You describe what you are doing as your character based on your current circumstances. The referee uses the rules to to tell what happens as a result often this has a random element that require you or the referee to make a dice roll.

Rules interpret what characters can do. Setting is the world characters exist in. The Campaign is the expression of these elements in total around the table.

Quote from: AsenRG;888665I have played a non-magical wizard.

Notice, I said "magic-user," not "wizard." Notice there is no prohibition from dwarves using a little legerdemain. To the contrary, in AD&D 1st Ed, the Thief class, which includes as a primary class function some of the skills Harry Houdini possessed, is the only class where Dwarves are permitted unlimited advancement. You might say Dwarves are encouraged to play these sorts of characters.

Quote from: Rincewind1;888660So...basically, rules.

Nine out of ten human males in the Shield Marches have mohawk haircuts.

Section VIII Shield Marches
Subsection 5. Cultural Hairstyles
Roll 1d100 if you roll a 90 or lower and the character is a human male he will have a mohawk.


The former is written in natural language as a setting detail.
The latter is a formatted as a rule. Same concept different format.

What work better for you is a personal preferences. Some are perfectly happy with the various details kept in natural langauge notes. Other prefer that they are addressed through the mechanics of the rules.

But in the end it all toward to the same goal, that reality of the setting is adjudicated consistently.

Quote from: RandallS;888663I noticed (especially in rules heavy games) that players who "have a conversation with the designer" by more than skimming just the rules they need to make their character and understand die rolls and such, often never try things not specifically listed in the rules as things they can do. They see "not listed as something my character can do in the rules" as forbidding the action. Players who don't have that "conversation with the designer" are far less likely to so limit what they try to do in the game.

Yes, they learn "the puzzle" and immediately try to solve it. Question here is, will they arrive at the same thing over time as they play with you? I mean, do they infer the rules and their options become acquired habits through "inferred game mastery"?

More so, is it because they had a "communication with the designer" (not conversation) that taught them the inner workings of the game or because they already expect a "design pattern" and are just waiting for the specific details?

One thing I learned last year (ups, more like the year before last, how time flies!), what I learned was that many players have a "design pattern" in mind when they sit down to play a certain game. When they sat down to play a modern warfare game their minds went like "ah crunchy, rules heavy, detail", "lets wait to figure out mechanics", when there was no specific round unit or initiative mechanism they started dropping like flies. Under the advice of a playtester I added an extra page explaining how not to play the game. Please, before you nuke me from orbit, let me explain that this was not the "game designer telling me how to play", it was me stating that player reliance on rules and mechanics to survive was a sure road to failure.

So the issue is that keeping the rules away from the player does not eliminate this "subconscious" belief that there is an underlying "puzzle" to be solved. Their play style had adapted to some "design patterns" over time and they expected this. What they did not know was the details. That is, and as you mention, the rulebook.

Lets do an exercise. Break your rules into two groups: one is composed of those rules that explain the effect of an action (sword hit, magic, bullet, etc.) and the other group is composed of those rules that explain how to resolve an action (initiative, attacks per round, rounds themselves, to hit rolls, skill checks). Erase the later and give the former to the players. What happens?

I have found that the amount of crunch in the rules definitely has an impact on play style.

When my group play high crunch games, like D&D3.5, they tend to view the rules as prescriptive.  The rules prescribe what they can and cannot do. If there is not a specific rule for doing something the assumption is it cannot be done. Don't have the right feat or skill on your character sheet? Don't even try.

When I run low crunch games the paradigm shifts and they view the rules as descriptive. The rules describe whether or not they succeed at things. They view actions as being completely open and feel free to "try anything".

This may be part of why I don't generally care for heavy crunch games. I grew up with the more open and free form games. RuneQuest was about as crunchy as I got during my formative years of RPGing.

Rules define the universe to the players, that interaction is the game.

Quote from: estar;888662With that being said, you are ignoring how people deal with this in actual play. Most referees don't want or have the time to be authors so they pick something close to what they want and like. Then go from there. Most referees I know can persuaded by a logical argument that X should exist or be a possibility. Nobody can think of everything when they create a campaign. There are many times where I went "I never thought of it like that. Go ahead it is OK."

Totally agree with you. My line of comments derives from the initial position of a member here against any game designer influence in the game. Position which I find quite idealistic and detached from actual play because, as you mention, most referees don't have the interest or the time to build everything from scratch. I also raised the question because I perceive an implicit position in some here regarding a fear of having the rules used against them as referees. So it's not only that which is not in the rules "which might limit the player's  imagination" (how thoughtful of the GM), but also that in the rules which would be a pain to deal with if the players get wind of them.

My assumptions regarding this theme:

1) For having a game at all, there must be rules, even if it is big man decides all or highest roller decides. Somehow ideas have to be made accepted content of the game.

2) For a role playing game the shared imaginary space is the core of the game and thus a lot of information has to be transferred/exchanged to make it working. If you don´t know what is going on, you can´t really act meaningful or you ill have to do a lot of asking - every damn time and woe when you didn´t ask because you assumed wrongly you knew already what is going on.

3) Having these rules codified really helps to get those information to everyone at the table, preferably with much of it done before the start of the precious game time and probably even before joining this game (and finding out your ideas regarding "fun" are inkompatible.)

4) Certain versions of rules can be unfitting or even outright incompatible with a certain intended style of game (or otherwise be broken). But even here there is the benefit, that you can get a lot of hints in advance by written rules and thus have an informed discussion regarding changes or better suggestions.

5) Rules are surely pointing the easy way to solve a task, so that it is seductive to solve everything strictly by the book, but it original function was building a framework for reference and base line for discussion regarding any other element that could happen in the game world.

Quote from: Saurondor;888696Yes, they learn "the puzzle" and immediately try to solve it. Question here is, will they arrive at the same thing over time as they play with you? I mean, do they infer the rules and their options become acquired habits through "inferred game mastery"?

Some do, some don't. Some simply are interested enough in the rules to try to "solve the puzzle" as you put it. I give players a copy of the rules we use and I tell them the rules apply to average situations -- probably 80% of what you might try to do. The 10% at each end are resolved as I determine as needed as adding rules for even a majority of all the possible edge cases to the booklet would increase the length of the rules by hundreds of pages. (And that would be a complete waste of time -- both on my part trying to design them and on the player's part trying to use them at the table).  A few players run all the rules in the booklet. Most use them to help create a character or to find out what a new spell they find does, but otherwise don't bother with them. A few never open the book (some don't even take it with them as they just aren't interested at all.

QuoteMore so, is it because they had a "communication with the designer" (not conversation) that taught them the inner workings of the game or because they already expect a "design pattern" and are just waiting for the specific details?

I honestly don't know (and I design the rules we use, so they are talking to the designer). Everyone certainly learns over time what works good for their character and what seldom/never works. However, whether this is because they are learning the rules as rules or because they are learning what they as their character can do in the same way they learn what they can do in real life.

Quote...it was me stating that player reliance on rules and mechanics to survive was a sure road to failure.

I tell people in my games that in a section explaining the differences between the old school games my rules are designed for and the "standard modern" way of playing WOTC D&D editions.  These are mainly aimed at players of WOTC editions who have never played much Early TSR D&D. About the same number of players in my games read this boring stuff as read the boring rules.

QuoteSo the issue is that keeping the rules away from the player does not eliminate this "subconscious" belief that there is an underlying "puzzle" to be solved.

I'm sure this is true of some players, but in my experience, at least, it's not true of all players. It's also less true of the type of causal players I play with than it is the "hardcore" players who tend to be active on RPG foruims, haunt FLGS, etc.

QuoteLets do an exercise. Break your rules into two groups: one is composed of those rules that explain the effect of an action (sword hit, magic, bullet, etc.) and the other group is composed of those rules that explain how to resolve an action (initiative, attacks per round, rounds themselves, to hit rolls, skill checks). Erase the later and give the former to the players. What happens?

I suspect the same thing that happens now when they get all the rules handed to them. Those interested in rules read them, those less interested in rules occasionally look something up, and those not interested in rules thank me for the copy and file them away (possibly in File 13).

Only in the RPG world do you get players who think the rules which tell you how to play are some ideological offensive by the designer :)

Rules are a set of techniques which when implemented lead to a specific set of results, and as a GM you're applying techniques whether you realize it or not. The only thing a book does is quite literally get everyone on the same page, and if you can do that without a book, more power to you.

Rules are also a communication medium in the same way written language is and affect both how and what can be expressed. And just making something easier or more interesting to express in a game will affect the kind of campaign you get.

And if players don't have access to the rules, then they must rely on playing to the assumptions and priorities of the GM, which means the game will favor players who understand what those are. This usually supersedes the written set of rules anyway, and I've always been more successful playing to the GM's expectations than the RaW, but figuring out how to work those rules was still fundamental to the campaign.

A campaign may be what the story is about, but the rules are how it's told. And if you've ever seen the same premise through different mediums and storytellers you should have some idea of how much that affects the end result. It's the difference between Nolan Batman and LEGO Batman (also Italian Batman).

Quote from: Lunamancer;888100The rules aren't there for rules sake. They serve a purpose. And it's that purpose, whatever it may be, whoever it may appeal to, that comes first. If something unusual comes up that calls for choosing between being faithful to the rules or faithful to the purpose, it's time to either break the rules or find a way to reconcile the rules with the purpose. It is never acceptable to compromise the purpose for the convenience of the rules.

And again, you don't seem to believe something can be its own end if it doesn't fit the model of what you believe its purpose to be.

The rules can very well be there for their own sake, and the reason players play, often without realizing it. And huge chunks of gamer culture are built directly on the foundation of rules as artifacts, such as the d20, which has become a defining symbol.

Quote from: Madprofessor;888345my players prefer 400 page rule books, especially if they are in full color and full of character options and widgets to play with in chargen and character advancement.

And this nicely takes out both estar's and lunamancer's premise in one go.

Now if the premise was "RPGs should be about playing the campaign not the rules" things might have been different :)

Quote from: CRKrueger;888512The last thing I want is for my players to read some Core Rulebook out of context of the campaign I intend to run.  That's just idiotic.

If you're a Game Master, and you're telling me as a player I have to pick up the rules and read them before we play, that's pretty much the absolute textbook definition of Epic GM Fail.

Must be nice to not lose books to players who borrow them to make characters :D

But seriously, if an RPG is so complicated that it's unfeasible for players to learn the rules, or that exposing them to it will damage the campaign, then it's not a game I'm going to run.

Quote from: CRKrueger;888676Rules are 2d20, d20, RQ6 whatever.

Setting is The Hyborian Age, Glorantha, Middle-Earth, whatever.

Campaign is what's happening at my table with RQ6 Hyborian Age, or MERP 4th Age, or AD&D1 Greyhawk.  It's the unique and specific application of Rules and Setting, as talked about here.

Players usually don't think "Campaign", it's indistinguishable from "Setting" from their perspective.

Yeah, that's how I use it, too. But "campaign" is a tool for the GM, and the same world/setting might be different between campaigns, say by using different rulesets that change the physics of the world.

Quote from: estar;888681A campaign is playing in the setting. It not something different. If you think there is a different then you have the wrong definition of what a campaign means when it comes to gaming.

No, it only means you have a definition that differs from my definition (a.k.a. an erroneous one:p).

Quote from: Lunamancer;888687Notice, I said "magic-user," not "wizard."

That's why I said "wizard":D! Although, given that this is the only sort of magic we could have seen, ever, I might as well have said "magic-user". I just decided to avoid possible misunderstandings;).

This is some high-octane nerdery up in this biatch. I'm high as fuck, reading it.

/Passes d20 to the left-hand side.

QuoteOriginally Posted by Madprofessor
my players prefer 400 page rule books, especially if they are in full color and full of character options and widgets to play with in chargen and character advancement.

QuoteOriginally posted by Anon Aderlan

And this nicely takes out both estar's and lunamancer's premise in one go.

I don't think it does, but perhaps that you think it does is my fault for not going into greater detail.

The players that I am referring to (in a particular group) prefer 400 page rule books and lots of splat books because they are more comfortable picking a character idea from given concepts than they are creating  a character concept from whole cloth.  it is not an issue of rules vs campaign so much as a perception and comfort with provided options.

They don't learn the 400 pages of rules beyond "what is cool about my character."  They also know that RaW are only guidelines in my game and they are quite content with that.  Occasionally, a player will read through a rule book and say "hey, this says it's supposed to work like X but we're doing Y" and then we'll have a little discussion about why I made the change.  Sometimes they make further suggestions - but it is all in furtherance of the campaign.

I get a little frustrated with their preference for rules heavy games because it makes my life harder, and they haven't quite come round to understanding that a rules-lite game can provide just as many options and more, with less difficulty.  I am working on them, but this whole group grew up on some pretty munchkiny 3.5 so it is a learning experience.

I don't see how any of that invalidates estar or lunamancers point at all.  Everyone of the group unquestionably agrees that campaign trumps rules as written, and they trust me to govern the rules in fairness and in service of the shared experience we call the campaign.  They all agree that my way of running things is far better than the slavish adherence to RaW and game balance that they came from.  They don't want to control the game, they don't even really want to learn the rules, they don't want to narrate the story, they just want to participate in some shared escapism.  However, at this point they are having a hard time learning the notion that a 50 page lulu title can do that as well as, and sometimes better than, Pathfinder.

I brought up this observation to see if other GMs have had the same experience and struggled to convince a group of players that a self-published, rules-lite, black and white art RPG can be everything that a shelf full of full-color splatbooks can be.

QuoteOriginally Posted by tenbones
This is some high-octane nerdery up in this biatch.

True that

Quote from: Saurondor;888582Right on! And what happens if the barbarian magic user is in the rules and you just don't want to include it in your campaign? Technically speaking it's not in the rules because although it is in the printed copy it is not in your campaign and thus not available "in the rules" as set in the game by the GM.

The campaign and the rules are one and the same for a particular game. That being said, an uncivilized magic user could be a fun character concept.

Isn't a Druid sort of like a barbarian magic user?

Quote from: Anon Adderlan;888753And again, you don't seem to believe something can be its own end if it doesn't fit the model of what you believe its purpose to be.

The rules can very well be there for their own sake, and the reason players play, often without realizing it. And huge chunks of gamer culture are built directly on the foundation of rules as artifacts, such as the d20, which has become a defining symbol.

Well, before you get too uppity thinking you have made any point at all, let me ask you a very straight-forward question. Assume all the players are 100% in agreement that the rules are for rules sake. So "teh rulez" IS the purpose in their case. Can you give me an example of a situation where this group would have to make the tough choice between being faithful to the rules and being faithful to the purpose?

Because if you can't, your counter example fails and my statement stands remains 100% correct.

Quote from: Madprofessor;888780I don't see how any of that invalidates estar or lunamancers point at all.

You have actually invalidated those who disagree with me when you said, "The players that I am referring to (in a particular group) prefer 400 page rule books and lots of splat books because they are more comfortable picking a character idea from given concepts than they are creating a character concept from whole cloth."

Notice, it's not the 400 page rule books and splat books they like. The benefit to them is "picking a character idea from given concepts." This is the part the haters keep ignoring. Rules are a feature. Not a benefit.

Incidentally, I own a number of splat books. The rules content tends to be sparse. They're filled mainly with ideas more than anything. It's no wonder they like splat books. Because what they really love is being given concepts.

Quote from: CRKrueger;888512If you're a Game Master, and you're telling me as a player I have to pick up the rules and read them before we play, that's pretty much the absolute textbook definition of Epic GM Fail.

Whatever the fuck it is you are smoking, you need to share.

I can't even comprehend this shit. It's insane.

You honestly expect the DM - who is already juggling handling NPCs, every aspect of the world that isn't an NPC, all the story shit going on, reigning in side-talk at the table - to also have all the fucking rules memorized and understand exactly how your special snowflake interacts with them, and be able to handle this information at your fucking whim?

That is quite possibly one of the most fucking self-centered things I have ever read. The only time this would be vaguely acceptable behavior would be in the context of a new player, and even then I'd expect them to do at least some fucking reading.

Please don't come to my neck of the woods then. It is a rare joy when I get a player who is willing to crack the covers of a rulebook at all.

I just assume that I will be the one learning, teaching and administrating the rules (all of the rules) as well as moving the story forward, playing NPCs, etc.

This is one reason I don't play 400 page rule book games anymore. I need games with short settings and especially short rules since I am going to be keeping it all in my head for the duration of the campaign.  The less there is written on the page the easier it is for me to wing it and create a spontaneous living breathing world.

Quote from: GnomeWorks;888810I can't even comprehend this shit. It's insane.

Generation gap, maybe?

In the 1970s and early 1980s, it was SOP in my experience for one person to get a new game, then be GM simply because he/she was the only one who had the book. The rest of us learned what we needed to know about our roles in the Arizona Territory, Starship Warden, or whatever.

Of course, the manuals -- including "stuff" (monsters, gadgets, etc.) as well as rules per se -- typically ranged from 32 to 128 pages.

Quote from: Anon Adderlan;888753And if players don't have access to the rules, then they must rely on playing to the assumptions and priorities of the GM, which means the game will favor players who understand what those are. This usually supersedes the written set of rules anyway, and I've always been more successful playing to the GM's expectations than the RaW, but figuring out how to work those rules was still fundamental to the campaign.

No the players don't not have to rely on the assumption and priorities of the referee in absence of knowing the rules that are used for adjudication. That only occurs if the referee is so brain dead he doesn't make handouts and does briefings for his players so they know what the setting of the campaign is and what their characters are capable of.

You are not arguing about what a RPG is about. You are arguing over how the referee handles adjudicating the actions of the players as their characters. A different topic then the one I brought up in the OP.

The beauty of the tabletop RPGs is that a campaign can managed in a variety of ways. The actions of the characters can be adjudicated with a dozen splatbooks arrayed across the table. Or it can be adjudicated with a 32 page pamphlet whose content is only known to the referee.

What doesn't change in either circumstance is the need for the players to know what their characters are capable of, and what their characters would know about the setting of the campaign.

If either is not communicated effectively then the referee have done a poor job of managed the campaign. Whether it because the referee allowed so many splatbooks that most of the group is lost in a sea of rules and options, or the referee is hiding everything and not telling them shit.

Rules are tool for playing RPGs, they are not the point of playing RPGs which is to play a campaign where the players interact with a setting as their character with their actions adjudicated by a human referee.

How you interact with a setting, how you adjudicate actions those are personal preferences. Nothing more and nothing less.

Quote from: CRKrueger;888512If you're a Game Master, and you're telling me as a player I have to pick up the rules and read them before we play, that's pretty much the absolute textbook definition of Epic GM Fail.

No but you have to tell the players what they would know their characters can do, and what their characters know about the setting. That is an absolute or you are not being fair as a referee and forcing your player into a elaborate game of twenty question.

Now a point in your favor, is that you can satisfy the above requirement by other means than handing them a rulebook to read. But the player has to have an initial context at the start of the campaign or they just might as let the dice decide everything their characters can do for all the meaning their decisions will have.

Game mechanics happen to a concise and precise of way of communicating the above. But... doesn't work for all things in the setting in which case we fall back to natural langauge.


And for it worth I know from your other posts in other thread that you tell your players what their character can do, and what their character knows about the setting.

Quote from: Anon Adderlan;888753And if players don't have access to the rules, then they must rely on playing to the assumptions and priorities of the GM, which means the game will favor players who understand what those are.

Just like in real life. Knowledge of the Book of Nature is won through experiment.

Quote from: Madprofessor;888780I don't think it does, but perhaps that you think it does is my fault for not going into greater detail.

The players that I am referring to (in a particular group) prefer 400 page rule books and lots of splat books because they are more comfortable picking a character idea from given concepts than they are creating  a character concept from whole cloth.  it is not an issue of rules vs campaign so much as a perception and comfort with provided options.

But the players I was referring to like 400+ pages rulebooks because they want to learn the rules, how rules interact, how the system works, and then build the best possible character for the concept they have in mind.
You can easily prove those people exist, no need to take me on my word. Just open a CharOp forum for 3e:D!

Quote from: Phillip;888819Generation gap, maybe?

In the 1970s and early 1980s, it was SOP in my experience for one person to get a new game, then be GM simply because he/she was the only one who had the book. The rest of us learned what we needed to know about our roles in the Arizona Territory, Starship Warden, or whatever.

Of course, the manuals -- including "stuff" (monsters, gadgets, etc.) as well as rules per se -- typically ranged from 32 to 128 pages.

It's never been the SOP around here, and I'm in RPGs almost since they appeared in Bulgaria.
It was SOP in some groups, but would have been unacceptable in others;).

Quote from: CRKrueger;888512If you're a Game Master, and you're telling me as a player I have to pick up the rules and read them before we play, that's pretty much the absolute textbook definition of Epic GM Fail.

:rant: :rant: :rant: :rant: :rant: :rant: :rant: :rant: :rant:  

Jesus Christ, if there's a prize for most whacked out comment of the week, you've won it.  

Not that you're alone, because the RPG field takes second place to none for its witches brew of massive rules bloat and hostility towards knowing what those rules say, but still.

We're a community not merely preoccupied with rules, we're obsessed with them. What system? My system is better than yours! I like crunchy/I like rules-light! Why won't anyone play the system I like? What system goes best with this setting? Why is everyone playing the edition I hate? How can I make the system do better what I want it to do? Ten times as many threads as discuss philosophy discuss mechanics.

You are not -- however vividly I describe it or act it out to you -- just going to let me run the Big Bad through, pilot the spaceship through the asteroid belt, decipher that odd spell in Aramaic or disarm the counterweight trap just because I tell you I do it. You're going to apply the rules written to adjudicate such things. And if I tell you I don't have to bother learning them, and further go on to impose the burden on you and the other players to lead me by the nose, I'm not only saying that my time is more valuable than yours, but that it's okay to dump my share of the load on you, unasked.  

If you're alright with that, you are. Fair enough. I'm not. Plainly, neither are many other people.  

My version of the "light" rules of the system I play runs to 38 pages, including the intro and the TOC.  If a player is either too lazy, too snotty or too illiterate to read them before joining my campaign, he's a poor fit for it. I will be dipped in shit before I waste my time and that of my other players in holding up play, time and time again, while things are explained and re-explained and re-explained to rejectionists pushing the bounds of Epic Player Fail.  

I'd rather spend that time playing the damn game.  The time I waste talking you through options for the umpteenth effing time, I could be spinning out the next encounter.  The time I waste in your argument over why can't you do this or that, we could be RPing with a key NPC.  There's too much I want to do of a run Saturday than cater to the militantly lazy.

Quote from: GnomeWorks;888810Whatever the fuck it is you are smoking, you need to share.

I can't even comprehend this shit. It's insane.

You honestly expect the DM - who is already juggling handling NPCs, every aspect of the world that isn't an NPC, all the story shit going on, reigning in side-talk at the table - to also have all the fucking rules memorized and understand exactly how your special snowflake interacts with them, and be able to handle this information at your fucking whim?

That is quite possibly one of the most fucking self-centered things I have ever read. The only time this would be vaguely acceptable behavior would be in the context of a new player, and even then I'd expect them to do at least some fucking reading.

The most pathetic thing about you is, you can't even read.  I AM the GM you useless shitbag, I do all that effortlessly.

Quote from: Ravenswing;888829:rant:Ranty McRantish:rant:

Dude.
Context.  
The posts were discussing RAW, intent of the designer and the Cult of RAW thereof, specifically with regards to learning a new game.

For over 30 years now, I've never told a new player they need to buy the book and read it before they show up.  To me that is batshit insane.  The last thing a new player needs is access to the rules.

• If they are new to roleplaying, you may as well crack them one over the head with the rulebook, it will be about as much incentive for them to come back.
• If they are not new to roleplaying, then they already know, generally speaking, how a game kind of works, so the most important thing is how things are going to work in actual play, at your table, and reading a book isn't going to do that whether it's 40 pages or 400 pages.  Playing is.
  

There's a whole lot of communcation that is going to occur before the game, but that communication is going to be between GM and Player - through actual discussion and character generation, not Designer and Player - by having players read the rules out of context of the setting and campaign.

What I'm talking about has nothing to with a dumbass lazy player, who 8 sessions later can't be arsed to know what his spells or abilities actually do as some are saying.

What I'm talking about has nothing to do with a jackass GM who never tells the players the rules and expects them to learn his fickle whims like he's Henry VIII as others are saying.

Let me break it down so we can limit the future bloodcries...

• When learning a new game, the rules as expressed in the book, are useless for a player.  Reading the rules is like learning how to shoot before you go into the Marine Corps.  They have to spend more time with you to unlearn the incorrect way to shoot.
• Designers these days are way too full of themselves, and fill the rulebooks with too many assumptions as if they didn't know that not a single person on earth, ever, is going to run those rules 100%, not even them.
• When you come to a table having already read the rules, you come with expectations and assumptions - many of which are going to be incorrect.
• Starting off at the table, by talking to the GM, making your character, finding out how things work at that table, you learn how things work in practical application, not in theory.
• Again, the rules are nothing more than a theoretical model of how things can be done.  The campaign at the table is the practical application of how they will be done.  

Should players have rulebooks? Of course.  But they're of much more use after a couple sessions of play, not memorized beforehand.  
The person who never reads the rules and holds up game sessions week after week after week - never met this person.
The person who shows up to the table having read all the rules and holds up the game week after week getting expectations reset as they have to realign to the table - isn't that the standard WotC and Pathfinder experience these days? :D

Quote from: GnomeWorks;888810You honestly expect the DM - who is already juggling handling NPCs, every aspect of the world that isn't an NPC, all the story shit going on, reigning in side-talk at the table - to also have all the fucking rules memorized and understand exactly how your special snowflake interacts with them, and be able to handle this information at your fucking whim?

I've been doing that for 40 years or so -- since I started GMing in late 1975/early 1976. Of course, I don't use game systems with 400+ pages of rules and I avoid rules systems with exception-based design where there are hundreds of exceptions to the standard rules for just about anything any PC, NPC, or monster ever does. Nor do I use rules with huge tables of standard modifiers for every situation the game designer could think of. Or if I do use such rules, I ignore that unwanted (by me) level of detail.

QuoteThat is quite possibly one of the most fucking self-centered things I have ever read. The only time this would be vaguely acceptable behavior would be in the context of a new player, and even then I'd expect them to do at least some fucking reading.

I don't expect players to do any rules reading unless they wish to -- ever. I hope they will at least read the 2-3 handout on the setting, but if they don't it's not a huge failing. As for the ones that wish to read them, that's great -- provided they understand that at my table the rules are merely guidelines for the GM not a law book.

Quote from: Anon Adderlan;888753Must be nice to not lose books to players who borrow them to make characters :D

I'm a total and complete Lifepath whore, the book won't help in making up characters.  

That's probably why I see no need for onboarding a detailed backstory.  By the time chargen is done, there will be dozens of setting hooks, all organically created and setting appropriate, with player input.

Quote from: CRKrueger;888512If you're a Game Master, and you're telling me as a player I have to pick up the rules and read them before we play, that's pretty much the absolute textbook definition of Epic GM Fail.

I completely agree with this!
Never ever have I demanded of my players to read the rules before they can play. Everybody in my gaming group is already busy enough with other things in their life. If they really want to know the rules beforehand, hey, be my guest. Go through them and I'll explain (if applicable) the house rules. If they're lucky I've got something on paper.
But (again) in my group people just take a seat, they wonna know the world and setting and we take off from there.
Sure, that doesn't mean they're not interested in the rules or will have comments on them, but I must say I've never encountered a problem with this approach. So, yeah, sometimes in the first couple of sessions rule questions are asked when they might arise (perhaps I forgot to explain something, didn't explain something too well, etc.), but that's no biggy.
Focus lies on roleplaying, not the rules as such...
I mean, after twenty+ years of DND, questions still pop up, even though I've had several other DND GMs at my table who were very familiar with the rules (ok, all the different versions have made things a bit murky sometimes, but hopefully you get my point).

YMMV may vary of course...

My group is 25+ years together, everyone knows what an RPG is, we're familiar with dozens of systems, so anything new isn't go to be a real challenge (except for the likes of Phoenix Command ;)) and the composition of the group hasn't changed that much over the years (so if I lend out a book I know where I can get it back! :D).

Quote from: Vonn;888847I completely agree with this!

...

I mean, after twenty+ years of DND, questions still pop up, even though I've had several other DND GMs at my table who were very familiar with the rules (ok, all the different versions have made things a bit murky sometimes, but hopefully you get my point).

YMMV may vary of course...

My group is 25+ years together, everyone knows what an RPG is, we're familiar with dozens of systems, so anything new isn't go to be a real challenge (except for the likes of Phoenix Command ;)) and the composition of the group hasn't changed that much over the years (so if I lend out a book I know where I can get it back! :D).

On the contrary, is seems you completely disagree, but it so happens that your group knows the rules so it is not really an issue. You make comments like "after twenty+ years of DND" and  "we're familiar with dozens of systems", so in a way your players have picked up the rules and read them before coming to play.

What happens with an entirely new system? CRKrueger's comment is very broad and rather insulting. Is he referring the players to a 400 page manual that must be read before game starts or a 4 page executive summary of the rules? What if the game is only 4 pages long to begin with?

Personally, I have handed out 4 to 8 page long summaries of the rules filled in with some brief examples and have found got acceptance from the players. It clarifies some concepts before game and lets us move to the interesting part quickly, and by that I mean playing. Now you and CRKrueger may disagree, but that's quite a long shot from calling me a textbook GM Fail when it's clearly beneficial to the group.

Quote from: Saurondor;888858On the contrary, is seems you completely disagree, but it so happens that your group knows the rules so it is not really an issue. You make comments like "after twenty+ years of DND" and  "we're familiar with dozens of systems", so in a way your players have picked up the rules and read them before coming to play.

What happens with an entirely new system? CRKrueger's comment is very broad and rather insulting. Is he referring the players to a 400 page manual that must be read before game starts or a 4 page executive summary of the rules? What if the game is only 4 pages long to begin with?

Personally, I have handed out 4 to 8 page long summaries of the rules filled in with some brief examples and have found got acceptance from the players. It clarifies some concepts before game and lets us move to the interesting part quickly, and by that I mean playing. Now you and CRKrueger may disagree, but that's quite a long shot from calling me a textbook GM Fail when it's clearly beneficial to the group.

Because I referred to YMMV, I pointed out my context, which is clearly different from a lot of other GMs.

We use new systems continuously (well, every 2 years or so, the average campaign span) and like I said it has never proven to be a problem to just play, instead of telling my players to read the rules before we can play.

Hey, 4-8 pages sounds like a great idea if that works for your group and yourself. Personally, I don't see why I put that effort into it.
And if you as the GM stated to me as a player that I MUST read the rules before I can take part in your group...well, than IMO something's off. Personally, I don't think 4-8 pages is a problem. But 100 pages, yeah...400+ pages, certainly.
I probably have other expectations from my players...

Quote from: AsenRG;888826But the players I was referring to like 400+ pages rulebooks because they want to learn the rules, how rules interact, how the system works, and then build the best possible character for the concept they have in mind.
You can easily prove those people exist, no need to take me on my word. Just open a CharOp forum for 3e:D!

Such people certainly exist. Fortunately, they avoid my games like the plague. Just hearing about my very low tolerance for min-maxing and rules lawyering convinces all but the most stubborn that they do not want to even try playing in my campaign. And that's before they hear that I run "rules are just guidelines for the GM" and don't use rules-heavy gamesystems to start with.

I prefer to play systems where the necessary mechanics for play can be included on the character sheet. Where more mechanics are needed I will write up a brief summary of each character's special rules and hand it to the players.

If you are playing a non-spellcaster I don't see any reason why you should be expected to knw the spellcasting rules before play begins. For spellcasters the general spellcasting rules and the special rules for the spells the character can cast are sufficient.

As for background, I tend to give a brief oral summary and fill in the rest during play.

Quote from: DavetheLost;888814Please don't come to my neck of the woods then. It is a rare joy when I get a player who is willing to crack the covers of a rulebook at all.

I just assume that I will be the one learning, teaching and administrating the rules (all of the rules) as well as moving the story forward, playing NPCs, etc.

This is one reason I don't play 400 page rule book games anymore. I need games with short settings and especially short rules since I am going to be keeping it all in my head for the duration of the campaign.  The less there is written on the page the easier it is for me to wing it and create a spontaneous living breathing world.

Pretty much, for the GM it is called rules mastery, and for the players, they'll want to see the game in action before getting invested in it or the rules.

Rules light is good because it isn't like I don't have a thousand other rules memorized, so if some other rule is needed, I can make it up on the spot and run it by the players for consensus.

Quote from: CRKrueger;888832

• Designers these days are way too full of themselves, and fill the rulebooks with too many assumptions as if they didn't know that not a single person on earth, ever, is going to run those rules 100%, not even them.

I must point out that I have run rules 100% by the RAW. Fates Worse than Death, Grunt RPG, GURPS4e, Pendragon, Flashing Blades, Blue Planet 2, Mongoose Traveller 1, Runequest 6, Unknown Armies, Witchcraft, Talislanta, Honor+Intrigue, Sorcerer, Legends of the Wulin, Monsterhearts and ORE (Reign and A Dirty World) all work by the book, IME.
Savage Worlds used to before they removed the Shaken mechanic, haven't tried it since. Exalted 3 works with heroic mortals at least, and Exalted 2 used to work by the book, but did so in way that sucked:D. Amber definitely works by the book, too.
I don't give a fuck whether the designer runs the game according to a magic 8-ball, throws I Ching sticks and interprets the results, applies a modified variant of his or her own system, or applies the RAW. All I care is whether it works for me (and those that didn't, simply didn't end up here).

Then again, I agree with you that what matters is how the rules work at this table. Luckily, on most tables where I play, I'm the authority on how the rules work:). People just ask me how to interpret stuff, and we continue.
It saves on so much work:p!

But where I see the rules being used per RAW most often is in Pathfinder and d20/3.5 games. Seriously, there was a thread on Myth-Weavers about whether the GM should be able to restrict the available classes and races:p.
Don't start googling it, I already told them the same thing;)!

Quote from: CRKrueger;888842I'm a total and complete Lifepath whore, the book won't help in making up characters.  

It sucks mightily when a book comes without lifepaths, doesn't it;)? I definitely know the feeling! If I could, I'd be running everything with lifepaths as well.

Quote from: AsenRG;888887I must point out that I have run rules 100% by the RAW. Fates Worse than Death, Grunt RPG, GURPS4e, Pendragon, Flashing Blades, Blue Planet 2, Mongoose Traveller 1, Runequest 6, Unknown Armies, Witchcraft, Talislanta, Honor+Intrigue, Sorcerer, Legends of the Wulin, Monsterhearts and ORE (Reign and A Dirty World) all work by the book, IME.
Savage Worlds used to before they removed the Shaken mechanic, haven't tried it since. Exalted 3 works with heroic mortals at least, and Exalted 2 used to work by the book, but did so in way that sucked:D. Amber definitely works by the book, too.

I try not to think about game rules while playing. Nothing makes a game session suck more than when a GM has a rulebook in his face.

Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;888989I try not to think about game rules while playing. Nothing makes a game session suck more than when a GM has a rulebook in his face.

And that has what relation with the question whether some people are running games RAW?

Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;888989I try not to think about game rules while playing. Nothing makes a game session suck more than when a GM has a rulebook in his face.

He doesn´t need the rulebook in his face during the game when he knows his tools.

Nothing makes a game more sucking than someone arbitrarilly deciding that he can change existing rules at a whim.

Quote from: AsenRG;888887But where I see the rules being used per RAW most often is in Pathfinder and d20/3.5 games. Seriously, there was a thread on Myth-Weavers about whether the GM should be able to restrict the available classes and races.

Eeesh.  To quote the famous Viking Hat post, I'm running the game, not several hundred pages of recycled paper and second-rate art.  I understand RAW as a preference, and I recognize its attraction to drop-in games such as convention runs and FLGS open sessions, but.  It helped that the first RPG I played was EPT and not D&D, but like many another 70s player, I don't think I'd GMed for as much as a month before deciding RAW just did not work for me.

I think the focus in this conflict is not so much on written rules per se, but "desk rules".
You are joining a game with certain expectations according how the game was announced (and the sum of written and house rules is a big chunk of it) and I think you can expect the GM to follow these base lines (most probably he was the one to edge them out in the first place) and in questions of doubt follow honestly the general idea of the proposed style.

Besides: Sentences like "the GM can change any rule anytime without further notice" I consider an immoral clause and thus immaterial (and if it is voiced before the start I am out of the game)

Quote from: AsenRG;888887I must point out that I have run rules 100% by the RAW. Fates Worse than Death, Grunt RPG, GURPS4e, Pendragon, Flashing Blades, Blue Planet 2, Mongoose Traveller 1, Runequest 6, Unknown Armies, Witchcraft, Talislanta, Honor+Intrigue, Sorcerer, Legends of the Wulin, Monsterhearts and ORE (Reign and A Dirty World) all work by the book, IME.

Yep, we also have run rules 100% as written. In fact, this happens most of times for us. Only when we perceive some rules as unnecessarily complex or not producing coherent results we change them (or ignore them). Shadowrun Matrix was such a case, as we concluded it didn't add anything interesting to the game, and just slowed our games down.

QuoteBut where I see the rules being used per RAW most often is in Pathfinder and d20/3.5 games.

Indie/Narrativist games also tend to be used RAW with a big frequency in my opinion, because they tend to be finely-tuned to address certain themes and goals in a way that, even if a small part is changed, can mess with the whole system. (this is specially true to PbtA games, for example, or Pendragon imo).

My current campaign is being run RAW. It helps that it is an old school game with very few mechanics and rules. The whole book, including setting, is only 64 pages. So far the rules have been 2d6+Attribute+Skill bonus vs Target Number, weapon damage, and life points.

No need for anyone at the table to constantly have their face in the rulebook looking up an obscure rule that give a modifier to some particular situation. It just isn't in there.

Here is a statement and a question for the RAW people.

Playing an RPG RAW is more restrictive than adapting the rules to fit the campaign.

How is that not a statement of fact?

Mathematically speaking, any number of given options is still less than infinite options.  RAW restricts characters, setting, resolution, and story options more than a flexible approach to the rules does.  I don't see any way around that.  If someone else does, I'm all ears.

Clearly some people enjoy a style of play where everything is tightly governed by the rules.  There must be some kind of puzzle-solving gamist thing, a strong concern about fairness, or an enjoyment of system for system's sake going on.  I don't know.  I don't understand it.  It might help it the anti-flexability crowed would explain why their way works rather than just painting the inverse negatively by saying that traditional approaches to rules are "insane," "fucked up," or "selfish."  

To be fair, I'd also like to here from the flexible-approach people if they have any trouble with rules consistency, and if so, how they deal with it.

Quote from: Saurondor;888563True. So what happens when the players want to do something the rules don't allow? What do you do?

For example I want to be a barbarian magic user.

Several choices:Change to a ruleset that doesn't have arbitrary restrictions.
Simply allow barbarians to be Magic Users in the current ruleset.
Accept the arbitrary restriction and carry on with a different character.

QuoteOriginally Posted by GnomeWorks
Whatever the fuck it is you are smoking, you need to share.

I can't even comprehend this shit. It's insane.

You honestly expect the DM - who is already juggling handling NPCs, every aspect of the world that isn't an NPC, all the story shit going on, reigning in side-talk at the table - to also have all the fucking rules memorized and understand exactly how your special snowflake interacts with them, and be able to handle this information at your fucking whim?

That is quite possibly one of the most fucking self-centered things I have ever read. The only time this would be vaguely acceptable behavior would be in the context of a new player, and even then I'd expect them to do at least some fucking reading.

Dude, you're the one who's smoking something.  What you are describing is how RPGs were initially conceived, historically played, and still played by large numbers of people.  Essentially your entire post amounts to "RPGs are stupid and people who play them are 'self-centered' and 'insane.'"  Thanks for the insult and for avoiding any significant contribution to the conversation other than pissing on the hobby and the people in it.

QuoteOriginally Posted by DavetheLost
My current campaign is being run RAW. It helps that it is an old school game with very few mechanics and rules. The whole book, including setting, is only 64 pages. So far the rules have been 2d6+Attribute+Skill bonus vs Target Number, weapon damage, and life points.

No need for anyone at the table to constantly have their face in the rulebook looking up an obscure rule that give a modifier to some particular situation. It just isn't in there.

So far, this is the most reasonable argument for playing RAW that I have seen on this thread.  But I have a question, how do you handle stuff that your ultra-simple rules don't cover?

By the way have seen Dark Sagas?  It's basically the game you just described.

QuoteOriginally Posted by CRKrueger
If you're a Game Master, and you're telling me as a player I have to pick up the rules and read them before we play, that's pretty much the absolute textbook definition of Epic GM Fail.

This statement seems to have angered a lot of people, and it might be slightly overstated, but I've seen it over and over at my local store. Struggling GMs routinely come to me for advice, and in my experience, a slavish adherence to the rules, forcing the players to learn all the rules, or an inability to see the game beyond the rules is a very common cause, if not the most common cause of GM and campaign failure.

Quote from: Madprofessor;889013Here is a statement and a question for the RAW people.

Playing an RPG RAW is more restrictive than adapting the rules to fit the campaign.

How is that not a statement of fact?

I'm not sure if I'm a RAW person or not, but I'll take a stab at it.

Rules don't just restrict. They also enable. Or sometimes they just convey ideas that you might not have otherwise thought of.

Rules are also not necessary great at restraints. Is a particular thing possible according to rules as written? You need only cite the rule or rules that allow it. Is something impossible in the rules as written? Unless you can site a rule that expressly forbids it, to answer the question you must first have perfect knowledge of all of the rules as well as every possible logical corollary, including those you haven't thought of--in itself a contradiction.

Quote from: Lunamancer;889026I'm not sure if I'm a RAW person or not

Kind of a simple test.  Do you find yourself, generally, playing the game without altering any of the rules as presented in the X-page rulebook...or not.

QuoteOriginally Posted by Lunamancer
I'm not sure if I'm a RAW person or not, but I'll take a stab at it.

ooh, I didn't really mean to categorize people.  I am interested in any answers.

QuoteRules don't just restrict. They also enable. Or sometimes they just convey ideas that you might not have otherwise thought of.

This is a good answer but I think it is the approach to the rules that we have been discussing that makes the difference.  Strictly interpreted, rules tell you what you can do, or what you can't do as well as how you can do what can be done.  Those precepts, again strictly interpreted, are fundamentally restrictive.

For example, you can be a dwarf, but nowhere does it say you can be a space alien, therefore you  can't be a space alien.  If a rule says the max strength for an elf is 17, you cannot play an elf with an 18 strength.  If a rule says "save vs poison or die," and does not say, "modified by circumstances," then modifying the die roll due to circumstances is not playing RaW - strictly speaking.  With such rules, if you play Raw, you cannot play a campaign with space alien pcs, supernaturally strong elves or characters that have developed a resistance to poison.  The rules restrict it.

You can, as you say, take the rules as suggestions and  adapt them so that you could play such a campaign but that would require a flexible interpretation of the rules. Or am I missing something?

Quote from: Madprofessor;889013Here is a statement and a question for the RAW people.

Playing an RPG RAW is more restrictive than adapting the rules to fit the campaign.

How is that not a statement of fact?

RAW is easier, so that you don't have as many meta-discussions, or interruptions about the rules, rather than to the how's and why's of a more freeform approach's results.

Quote from: CRKrueger;889030Kind of a simple test.  Do you find yourself, generally, playing the game without altering any of the rules as presented in the X-page rulebook...or not.

Here's why it's not so simple.

In AD&D 1st Ed terms (this does have application to many other RPGs as well), there is a rule that says the GM can change the rules. There is also an instruction to play to the spirit of the game, not the letter of the rules.

I know if I suggested to a RAW person that we drop one or two rules I find inconvenient or don't like, they'd scream fowl. Yet a lot of self-described RAW people do decide to drop "rule zero" as well as the instruction to use it.


You could also check out my answer to the question I was responding to. To say with certainty that RAW does not allow for xyz requires a potentially impossible level of rules knowledge. I concern myself more with how real people actually play rather than impossible concepts.

Quote from: Madprofessor;889031For example, you can be a dwarf, but nowhere does it say you can be a space alien, therefore you  can't be a space alien.  If a rule says the max strength for an elf is 17, you cannot play an elf with an 18 strength.

The rules also don't say anywhere that I can play a drunk. They don't say I can't play a character who only speaks in rhymes. Yet if I tried to play either of these characters in D&D, no one would accuse me of breaking the rules or of using some weird splatbook kit that the GM isn't allowing.

The unpublished AsteRogues game basically took the non-human race stats whole cloth from the fantasy version of the game and called them mutants. In terms of rules, it was the same stuff already allowed in the fantasy game, even though the fantasy game made no mention of mutants.

QuoteIf a rule says "save vs poison or die," and does not say, "modified by circumstances," then modifying the die roll due to circumstances is not playing RaW - strictly speaking.

I think this needs to be placed under a microscope for two key reasons.

First, I believe it is an exceedingly narrow view of RAW to assume the position that you need to be told every step of the way you're allowed to modify by circumstance. Especially when the RPG in general already uses situational modifiers.

Second....

QuoteWith such rules, if you play Raw, you cannot play a campaign with space alien pcs, supernaturally strong elves or characters that have developed a resistance to poison.  The rules restrict it.

These are coins with two sides.

Take the last one, just because I think it is clearest. You may look at the rules and say, "Well, this doesn't allow players to play characters with an unusually high level of poison tolerance." But, if you do allow it, I could imagine complaints from the player playing an assassin saying, "These rules don't allow me to create a poison so deadly that it can even kill those with higher resistances to poisons."

I would say the great majority of rules are of this kind. Not all, obviously, otherwise a game with extremely limited options, like tic-tac-toe couldn't exist. But, yeah. A lot of times a restriction is simultaneously making something possible that wouldn't otherwise be. And vice versa.

MadProfessor, why would someone want to play a space alien in a game of D&D ? :confused:

If the group wants to play in sci-fi or space opera genre, why not just pick a proper game for that, like, say, Gurps or Traveller or Eclipse Phase or Bulldogs ?

Quote from: Itachi;889039MadProfessor, why would someone want to play a space alien in a game of D&D ? :confused:

If the group wants to play in sci-fi or space opera genre, why not just pick a proper game for that, like, say, Gurps or Traveller or Eclipse Phase or Bulldogs ?

This is a good point that I forgot to hit but was building to...

Strictly speaking, the rules do not prevent you from choosing, say, an elf with all of the elf stats, and just saying you're playing a space alien. What says you can't do that is the game world itself, and whether or not that's something that's kosher to the game world.

When it comes to the game world, it's sharply negative to have an everything-goes or more-options-is-better attitudes. I forgot who it was that said the generic is the enemy of art. But I can quote Orson Welles, "The enemy of art is the absence of limitations."

What Lunamancer said.

About the issue of the GM being the sole "guardian" of the rules, there may be a problem with that: in my group there is no fixed GM. We are 5 players that rotate wildly on the GM sit, even within the same campaign/story-arc. So the rules, for us, work as a mutual contract that we try to abide as much as possible, so to reduce disparities in rulings and playstyles as much as possible.

So, for example, when we play Shadowrun, everybody knows the GM (whoever it is at the moment) will bring a couple pre-made missions or plots for us to pick and follow through. On the other hand, when we play Sagas of the Icelanders, everybody expects the GM to come "empty-handed" so we can construct the plots and situations together as we go. If some GM wishes to deviate from the each game default playstyle, it's totally possible, but then he must explicitly communicate that beforehand so all players calibrate their expectations.

QuoteOriginally Posted by Dragoner
RAW is easier, so that you don't have as many meta-discussions, or interruptions about the rules, rather than to the how's and why's of a more freeform approach's results.

This argument could be valid for certain groups, I think.  If the group is more focused on the rules than the campaign, for example if they are concerned about game balance and fairness, then Yes, playing RaW could reduce arguments and interruptions.  But a group that finds itself in this position is off to a bad start in the first place and is using Raw play as a method to address the problem.  If the group trusts the GM, and the GM knows what he is doing, then there should be no rule-based arguments, meta-discussions, or interuptions whether he is running the game RaW or not.

QuoteOriginally Posted by Itachi
MadProfessor, why would someone want to play a space alien in a game of D&D ?

Well, who said it was D&D, and even so, why not?  It's your game.

Quote from: Madprofessor;889016So far, this is the most reasonable argument for playing RAW that I have seen on this thread.  But I have a question, how do you handle stuff that your ultra-simple rules don't cover?

By the way have seen Dark Sagas?  It's basically the game you just described.

The rules do cover more than just the simple task resolution system I quoted. But when I run into something not covered by the rules I will do what I have always done, make something up to cover it. If all else fails dice for it!

I haven't seen Dark Sagas, I'll have to check it out.

Quote from: Madprofessor;889046If the group trusts the GM, and the GM knows what he is doing, then there should be no rule-based arguments, meta-discussions, or interuptions whether he is running the game RaW or not.

If things were perfect? Doesn't happen very often. It is also like respect, it's not automatic, it's earned; hard to come by and easy to get rid of. It's like the rule zero fantasy some people have, try to enforce it and they are then sitting at an empty table. Rules in their own way act as a social contract between the GM, and the players, as well as player to player.

Quote from: estar;888105That true of any social activity that includes games. I didn't put that in because I feel it is an obvious point. The next step is to say what make Tabletop RPGs different then other types of games involving a group of people sitting around a table.

In other games which are only about rules and tactical challenge, like say chess, you can actually play pretty well with people you don't like much. This is much less true of rpgs since so much is not rules, but rulings, and a lot of back-and-forth - conscious or not - where people adjust their GM/play style to accommodate others. As well, you're playing a character, so more of your personality comes through than in something like Risk.

So one of the things that makes rpgs different to other games where people sit around a table is that the social aspect is more important to the success of the game session, where "success" is everyone saying afterwards, "that was fun!"

And of course, part of social fun is sharing food. Most religious festivals involve sharing food, really the fasting is just there to make you appreciate the feast more (hunger is the best condiment). And there's a reason we have the weekly family dinner, not the weekly, "just sit around an empty table and talk."

So this supports your point that setting is more important than system. Because setting is more social than system. The buildings of the game world, the NPCs, the religions and rituals and background events - all that setting stuff - this engages people more than do charts and tables and rule 4.11.2(a), generally speaking.

As well, setting is usually better able to engage the less-than-dedicated players that systems. People don't want to read 100 pages of rules before they play, and most settings are made deliberately familiar with things people already recognise from commonly-read books and movies. Nobody needs to read the rulebook to know what an elf or a cyborg commando are. This, incidentally, is the reason games like Tekumel are not as widely-played as games like D&D. They're the setting equivalent of Advanced Squad Leader. Interesting for some of us geeks, but not very accessible and will put off casual players.

Thus, in order of importance to the success of the game session it is,

1. people
2. snacks
3. setting
4. system

Has anybody here played or read DragonQuest?  I think its story is relevant and perhaps a little illuminating for this thread.

DragonQuest was an RPG published by SPI, the wargame company, in 1980 to compete with D&D.  (SPI along with Avalon Hill were TSR's primary competitors for gaming dollars in the late 70s and early 80s).  The guys at SPI hated the do-it-yourself rules-flexible upstart style of D&D and argued that what players really wanted were solid, clear, immutable rules that were set in stone.  The game does not suck, in fact it won best RPG at Origins in 1980.  However, there are no provisions for "the first rule." It was to be played as written, period. Reading the game is obnoxious, written as it is in hex and counter wargame style cross referenced in decimal format. It had other problems.  For example, it had to played on a hex map, and combat could take hours. In any case, the arguments of the game's authors proved false for the times.  The game failed to compete against D&D.  SPI went bankrupt and was purchased by TSR.

I'm not saying that this proves that rules-flexibility is better than RaW for everyone, but this is not a new argument, and in the past the "this is your game" argument won out over the "even RPGs must follow the rules" argument.

MadProfessor, I don't think that case proves much, as D&D 3e was a huge success and was pretty much on the RAW playing side.

I think playing RAW is more common when there is a perception of delicate fine-tune regarding systems behavior, and modifying things could mess with the intended experience. D&D 3e and 4e with their obsession for balance are an example of this, I think. PbtA games are too, on a lesser degree.

Quote from: Madprofessor;889065I'm not saying that this proves that rules-flexibility is better than RaW for everyone, but this is not a new argument, and in the past the "this is your game" argument won out over the "even RPGs must follow the rules" argument.

I think part of the problem is that people create artificially narrow definitions of terms. Like "rules" for example. Rules in a computer game really can't be broken. The programming can neither handle nor allow it.

On the other hand, sports have rules. But they are broken all the time. The rules actually have proscribed penalties for breaking the rules--the rulesets literally accounted for the fact that the very rules will be broken. In fact, breaking the rules often form part of the strategy to playing the game.

And then there are rules in the sense of "rules of thumb" which are really just effective heuristics. They're true about 90% of the time. Pareto's law is an example of a rule of thumb. There's no reason why the world has to work in such a way that just 20% of your efforts will produce 80% of your results. But things happen to work out that way pretty well. I wouldn't be surprised if RPG rules work this way as well, with the core mechanic covering 80% of what might happen in the game. The other 80% of the rules handle that final 20% of minutia.


As I mentioned earlier on in the thread, when it comes to people who like rules, it's not really about the rules. Rules are a feature, not a benefit. No matter what the haters may say, nobody actually likes rules. They like what they perceive rules to produce. You know what I like about rules? They provide a certain level of consistency. So if I'm playing a thinking and strategy-intensive campaign, I can think ahead because I can form reasonable expectations no how things work.

But with "reasonable expectations" being the benefit I'm after, it's time to take a step back. If we're playing exactly by a narrowly defined set of rules, if I don't know every last rule, I might not be able to form expectations that are reasonably close to how it works. Especially when we're dealing with that 20% of play that 80% of a voluminous body of rules is needed to handle.

For players who do not also GM the system in question, or who like to play a lot of different games, I really don't think the "rules" approach is practical. Rather, what works better is that the GM is being faithful to the world. You can understand the world heuristically without encyclopedic knowledge of the game system. So you can form reasonable expectations based on that, but only if the GM isn't going to blindly follow rules that produce goofy shit.

So for the sake of my purpose--for the sake of consistency, to enable reasonable expectations, to support a thinking and strategy-intensive campaign--it is actually important that the GM make rulings towards the purpose of being faithful to the campaign world. It's actually not strict adherence to the letter of the rules.

Quote from: Madprofessor;889065Has anybody here played or read DragonQuest?  I think its story is relevant and perhaps a little illuminating for this thread.

We all ready had too much invested in D&D to switch over to what was more crunchy battle mat type game. We did take a look at the RM arms law type stuff because of how nice the ICE MERP stuff was, but we just converted it over to AD&D, ultimately.

What was relevant then, same as today, is if that to play in someone's game, and that there was a bunch of pages of house rules to learn, it represented a barrier to entry. Someone's campaign would have to have, still does, a certain amount of gravity to draw people in past that.

Quote from: Itachi;889039MadProfessor, why would someone want to play a space alien in a game of D&D ? :confused:

If the group wants to play in sci-fi or space opera genre, why not just pick a proper game for that, like, say, Gurps or Traveller or Eclipse Phase or Bulldogs ?

The problem is, that it usually is not "the group" but one person that wants something special and is lamenting about his reduced "freedom".

If the complete group is wanting a change (or at least not bothering), nothing is stopping them to do a fitting house rule or switch systems.

Quote from: Madprofessor;889046This argument could be valid for certain groups, I think.  If the group is more focused on the rules than the campaign, for example if they are concerned about game balance and fairness, then Yes, playing RaW could reduce arguments and interruptions.  But a group that finds itself in this position is off to a bad start in the first place and is using Raw play as a method to address the problem.  If the group trusts the GM, and the GM knows what he is doing, then there should be no rule-based arguments, meta-discussions, or interuptions whether he is running the game RaW or not.

This is a situation that doesn´t fall out of the sky. It is a question of similar styles and expectations and real trust is also something that has to be earned (beyond the goodwill you give for starters).
And much of these expectations are formed by having played this and that official game (bee it raw or decently house ruled )

I had one group where I could do it this way, but this was earned with a long history of common gaming.

I had players I would deem much bnetter roleplayers than any of this mentioned group but there were quite a few misunderstandings and preference differences that led to problems unless handled and better adressed before the game.

And then there were cons and open gaming places where you had always new players coming in and others leaving and could expect to have some freaks in the group.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;889055As well, setting is usually better able to engage the less-than-dedicated players that systems. People don't want to read 100 pages of rules before they play, and most settings are made deliberately familiar with things people already recognise from commonly-read books and movies. Nobody needs to read the rulebook to know what an elf or a cyborg commando are. This, incidentally, is the reason games like Tekumel are not as widely-played as games like D&D. They're the setting equivalent of Advanced Squad Leader. Interesting for some of us geeks, but not very accessible and will put off casual players.

Thus, in order of importance to the success of the game session it is,

1. people
2. snacks
3. setting
4. system

And to just work from medial associations is one common trap with new players thinking being the main star of the game and forgetting that the other players are not his sidekicks like in the movie.
Besides there are enough differences how to interpret the elements of other media once you have to use them in different situations. Discussions regarding Star Wars canon are not less flame bait than rpg discussions.

So I think setting is first with a close follow up by system (ideally they would be interwoven) and people is the result after finding out who has similar enough tastes to find compromises afterwards.
You will not see by the nose that some of the new players have a very different style than the rest.

Quote from: Madprofessor;889065I'm not saying that this proves that rules-flexibility is better than RaW for everyone, but this is not a new argument, and in the past the "this is your game" argument won out over the "even RPGs must follow the rules" argument.

I think the usual situation is not RAW or be damned but some GM saying: This this is my offer: I want to play x in y with system z and house rules a,b,c - anyone in with me?
And then there are some questions and suggestions and anyone liking the result of the (most times rather short, after all someone has done already most of the work writing the rules book) discussion joins the group.

And discussions like here pop up if someone wants to play, but the proposed game is not like he wants it (or as a GM he wants to do things differently from what he told before) .

Quote from: Lunamancer;889080I think part of the problem is that people create artificially narrow definitions of terms. Like "rules" for example. Rules in a computer game really can't be broken. The programming can neither handle nor allow it.
...
For players who do not also GM the system in question, or who like to play a lot of different games, I really don't think the "rules" approach is practical. Rather, what works better is that the GM is being faithful to the world. You can understand the world heuristically without encyclopedic knowledge of the game system. So you can form reasonable expectations based on that, but only if the GM isn't going to blindly follow rules that produce goofy shit.

So for the sake of my purpose--for the sake of consistency, to enable reasonable expectations, to support a thinking and strategy-intensive campaign--it is actually important that the GM make rulings towards the purpose of being faithful to the campaign world. It's actually not strict adherence to the letter of the rules.

I think you are asking for something like "hive mind" or at least "mind reading". It might be easier to play this way if you think you are the one calling the shots, but your imaginary freedom is coming from all the others getting second seats.
You will have different views on setting and scenes and you will have different preferences of style (either general or regarding a certain scene) and rules is what makes it possible to reduce these access and coordination problems without discussing out every little scene and even then getting problems with assumptions that will lead to problems somewhat later and reopen this discussion again. Rules ill not completely handle this problems, but ... 80/20.

Quote from: Itachi;889007Yep, we also have run rules 100% as written. In fact, this happens most of times for us. Only when we perceive some rules as unnecessarily complex or not producing coherent results we change them (or ignore them). Shadowrun Matrix was such a case, as we concluded it didn't add anything interesting to the game, and just slowed our games down.

Yeah, I've never thought I'm alone in this approach:).
Mind, there are games which I refuse to play by RAW, and there are games where I just say "I'm the GM, my rules".
But that's usually because the native system sucks;).

QuoteIndie/Narrativist games also tend to be used RAW with a big frequency in my opinion, because they tend to be finely-tuned to address certain themes and goals in a way that, even if a small part is changed, can mess with the whole system. (this is specially true to PbtA games, for example, or Pendragon imo).

Pendragon is much easier to mod, and I've run PbtA games by houseruling them on the fly. Example, I mixed AW with Icons in an unholy homebrew, and ran a 1001 nights one-shot. (Reason: I went to run the same with Savage worlds and forgot to take polyhedron dice. I improvised with what dice we were able to scrounge).
The reason I'm running games RAW isn't that I'm afraid I'd upset the oh-so-delicate balance. In fact, I trust myself to improve them when I decide to. The reason is, simply, ease of use.

Quote from: Ravenswing;889002Eeesh.  To quote the famous Viking Hat post, I'm running the game, not several hundred pages of recycled paper and second-rate art.

That's good for you, but it's still true even when you run a game RAW.

QuoteI understand RAW as a preference, and I recognize its attraction to drop-in games such as convention runs and FLGS open sessions, but.

Curiously, I tend to run closed games RAW, and open games with a homebrew. Don't ask me why, it just ends up like this:D!

QuoteIt helped that the first RPG I played was EPT and not D&D, but like many another 70s player, I don't think I'd GMed for as much as a month before deciding RAW just did not work for me.

That's fine, but to me, that depends on the game. Some games can be used RAW just fine. Others, I wouldn't even start to run RAW.

Quote from: Maarzan;888992He doesn´t need the rulebook in his face during the game when he knows his tools.

Nothing makes a game more sucking than someone arbitrarilly deciding that he can change existing rules at a whim.

Yes, there's this, too:).

Quote from: Madprofessor;889013Here is a statement and a question for the RAW people.

Playing an RPG RAW is more restrictive than adapting the rules to fit the campaign.

How is that not a statement of fact?

Because it's a statement of opinion. Opinion=/=fact.
Consider for a moment that some games, say GURPS, already assume that you'd need to adapt the rules...because using all the rules at once is outright impossible (some variant rules contradict each other). Consider that some games are custom-made for a specific campaign, say Pendragon, and running it with them yields better results than running it with other games.

Listen, I don't run always RAW. I run RAW when I decide the RAW fits well enough, and homebrew it when I decide I need to. Deciding to run RAW is still a decision for customising the campaign.

QuoteMathematically speaking, any number of given options is still less than infinite options.

Go run a mathematical campaign, then. Or run a good one, instead;).

QuoteMathematically speaking, half-dead is the same as half-alive.
Now expressing that in symbols, 1/2 dead=1/2 alive.
Now multiply both sides by two, and you get either a profound mystic concept, or absurdity.

Or in other words: Mathematics don't give the best option. Less is sometimes more in life and in games. Restriction is the point when you're trying to be faithful to a setting.
Anyone who tells me he wants to play a ninja in a Pendragon game...isn't going to get in the game. Because I'm restrictive like that.

QuoteClearly some people enjoy a style of play where everything is tightly governed by the rules.

Clearly some do.

QuoteThere must be some kind of puzzle-solving gamist thing, a strong concern about fairness, or an enjoyment of system for system's sake going on.

I've seen all three reasons, though seldom in the same person.

QuoteIt might help it the anti-flexability crowed would explain why their way works rather than just painting the inverse negatively by saying that traditional approaches to rules are "insane," "fucked up," or "selfish."

"Anti-flexibility crowd". Classy.
"Why their way works". Do you have any doubts it does?
...you do understand that after this sentence alone I wouldn't bother explaining anything (assuming I was in said crowd). Don't you?

QuoteTo be fair, I'd also like to here from the flexible-approach people if they have any trouble with rules consistency, and if so, how they deal with it.

OK, but which group are you in? I get it you're in the flexible-approach people. Why don't you explain the answer to that question, then;)?

Quote from: Maarzan;889120I think you are asking for something like "hive mind" or at least "mind reading". It might be easier to play this way if you think you are the one calling the shots, but your imaginary freedom is coming from all the others getting second seats.

Except I was specifically writing from the perspective of the player. The GM's always going to know what's what because the GM has the final say on what's what. What I wrote is entirely about the players. There's no hive mind required. You present zero evidence of that. I at least made an argument of why rules-based understanding is problematic. This seems to be a brain-bug of nerdom, that only well-defined mathematical expressions allow for clear communication. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Quote from: Lunamancer;889136Except I was specifically writing from the perspective of the player. The GM's always going to know what's what because the GM has the final say on what's what. What I wrote is entirely about the players. There's no hive mind required. You present zero evidence of that. I at least made an argument of why rules-based understanding is problematic. This seems to be a brain-bug of nerdom, that only well-defined mathematical expressions allow for clear communication. Nothing could be further from the truth.

With this constellation it would also be the duty of the GM to make sure that every participant is getting a complete view of the situation as long as it is necessary to make decisions.
If you don´t give this information we are back to players guessing or having to try to read the GM mind.

Unfortunately I can´t detect any arguments why rules-based understanding is problematic. Could you please point me to it?

And while well defined mathematical expressions are not the only way to describe things, they rare surely the surest and often fastest. Just think how many different ideas people can have if you talk about a huge dog or big reward.

And while a GM will need a certain enpowerment above players for more traditional games, personally I think the attitude to not spell out and fix the chosen basic (yes, it is not possible to cover everything, but ...) rules and setting details is a lazy cop out to leave the players in the blind and thus be able to adjust everything to his own taste at a whim. (Kind of constitutional monarchy vs. absolutism).

Quote from: dragoner;889084We all ready had too much invested in D&D to switch over to what was more crunchy battle mat type game. We did take a look at the RM arms law type stuff because of how nice the ICE MERP stuff was, but we just converted it over to AD&D, ultimately.

What was relevant then, same as today, is if that to play in someone's game, and that there was a bunch of pages of house rules to learn, it represented a barrier to entry. Someone's campaign would have to have, still does, a certain amount of gravity to draw people in past that.

Amount of rules or types of rules are only a barrier to entry if it is assumed you have to know them before you sit down and play, which, to be honest, no one I've ever played with in 35 years, does.  Hell, even the local Pathfinder crew that is 8 months into a campaign they run at the FLGS has pre-gens to hand out to newbies if they want to sit down and play.

If you don't know how to play...don't worry about it, you'll learn as you go.
If you know how to play, ok, there's changes to the standard rules, you'll learn as you go.

The problem only really materializes when you have complex systems where the byzantine clockwork inter-relation of cards...err powers I mean, leads to emergent complexity like..."My god man!  You can't let a Yithian Dragonchild take the prestige class of Dimensional Conqueror if they have the base class of Crystal Reaver!  What if they take the powers Root of the World Tree and Asp of Heaven?! DON'T YOU SEE WHAT YOU'VE DONE!...and even then, that problem only materializes online...and only really at The Gaming Den. :D

Hell, a friend of mine had a bunch of players sit down at a FLGS to play his game, which was a highly customized variant you could only loosely call D&D.  People said "Ok, how do we make up characters..." and off they went.

This whole "Sorry dude, changing Poleaxe so you can use it as a slashing, piercing or blunt weapon...we just don't know you that well.  We have to trust when it comes to polearms, man." attitude...Jesus Wept.

I'll try to get to all of these responses as best I can

QuoteOriginally Posted by Itachi
MadProfessor, I don't think that case proves much, as D&D 3e was a huge success and was pretty much on the RAW playing side.

Yes, I agree. My digression about Dragonquest was more of a historical footnote, but at that time, the rulings over rules philosophy really did dominate.  

The introduction of 3e is when some players starting bringing up balance to me and started quoting rules mid-game.  It was a bit of a shock to me then because the culture was starting to change.  I think it marks the turning point when gamers began to split over rulings vs rules.

QuoteOriginally Posted by dragoner
If things were perfect? Doesn't happen very often. It is also like respect, it's not automatic, it's earned; hard to come by and easy to get rid of. It's like the rule zero fantasy some people have, try to enforce it and they are then sitting at an empty table. Rules in their own way act as a social contract between the GM, and the players, as well as player to player.

QuoteOriginally Posted by Maarzan
This is a situation that doesn´t fall out of the sky. It is a question of similar styles and expectations and real trust is also something that has to be earned (beyond the goodwill you give for starters).
And much of these expectations are formed by having played this and that official game (bee it raw or decently house ruled )

QuoteOriginally Posted by Itachi
About the issue of the GM being the sole "guardian" of the rules, there may be a problem with that: in my group there is no fixed GM. We are 5 players that rotate wildly on the GM sit, even within the same campaign/story-arc. So the rules, for us, work as a mutual contract that we try to abide as much as possible, so to reduce disparities in rulings and playstyles as much as possible.

These are helpful explanations because they describe how vastly different our experiences have been and thus why we have different approaches to rules.

I am the GM. I have always been so and have never had a trust issue as far the rules are concerned.  I have multiple groups that want me to run games on a regular basis.  I try to run games for new players as often as I can, but I also have a group at my local games tore that consists of nothing but other GMs that have their own groups.  They have some wildly varying styles, and some are rules lawyers, but even they agree that having a fun, fair, trustworthy judge is preferable using the book as a social arbiter.  Maybe they are blowing smoke.  I don't know, but none of them will run a game for me to play in because I am the Game Master.  When I show up, they want me to run.  I am not bragging, but in nearly 40 years I have never played in a group of equals who lack trust.  

QuoteOriginally Posted by Kyle Aaron
So this supports your point that setting is more important than system. Because setting is more social than system. The buildings of the game world, the NPCs, the religions and rituals and background events - all that setting stuff - this engages people more than do charts and tables and rule 4.11.2(a), generally speaking.

As well, setting is usually better able to engage the less-than-dedicated players that systems. People don't want to read 100 pages of rules before they play, and most settings are made deliberately familiar with things people already recognise from commonly-read books and movies. Nobody needs to read the rulebook to know what an elf or a cyborg commando are. This, incidentally, is the reason games like Tekumel are not as widely-played as games like D&D. They're the setting equivalent of Advanced Squad Leader. Interesting for some of us geeks, but not very accessible and will put off casual players.

Absolutely!

QuoteOriginally Posted by Lunamancer

I think part of the problem is that people create artificially narrow definitions of terms. Like "rules" for example. Rules in a computer game really can't be broken. The programming can neither handle nor allow it...

Lunamancer, I am trying to follow your train of thought and figure out what it adds up to. Perhaps I am wrong but it seems to me that you are saying that nobody really plays 100% RaW.  I hate to over simplify your many points, but am I getting the gist?

Quote... You know what I like about rules? They provide a certain level of consistency...

I think that a lack of consistency is perhaps the major concern of many people who reacted negatively to a rulings approach.  I have rarely had a problem with it, but it has come up in my games from time to time.  Being a rules-flexible kind of GM, I do strive for consistency, but I do not let it dominate the character of the campaign.  I often wonder if other old style GMs have a problem with it given today's' audience.

Quoteoriginally Posted by AsenRG
Because it's a statement of opinion. Opinion=/=fact.
Consider for a moment that some games, say GURPS, already assume that you'd need to adapt the rules...because using all the rules at once is outright impossible (some variant rules contradict each other). Consider that some games are custom-made for a specific campaign, say Pendragon, and running it with them yields better results than running it with other games.

Bah!  This doesn't prove that my statement was an opinion rather than a fact, though I at least agree that Pendragon is a game that requires minimal rules tinkering and is often more successful if left alone.  However, at the table it is also a game that requires a lot of rulings and trust from the GM.

Quote"Anti-flexibility crowd". Classy.
"Why their way works". Do you have any doubts it does?
...you do understand that after this sentence alone I wouldn't bother explaining anything (assuming I was in said crowd). Don't you?

Okay, okay.  I was slightly provocative, but that's because the campaign-first people were explaining themselves, and the rules-first people were just ranting and insulting people.  It is difficult for me to understand the pov of people who put the rules before the campaign because it is so far outside my experience.  I wanted better explanations.  Thanks to the people above, I have some.

QuoteOK, but which group are you in? I get it you're in the flexible-approach people. Why don't you explain the answer to that question, then?

Because I don't have a single concrete answer and I was hoping to hear from others.

Quote from: Maarzan;889140With this constellation it would also be the duty of the GM to make sure that every participant is getting a complete view of the situation as long as it is necessary to make decisions.
If you don´t give this information we are back to players guessing or having to try to read the GM mind.

Unfortunately I can´t detect any arguments why rules-based understanding is problematic. Could you please point me to it?

Suppose from a mathematical perspective, you have a couple of different choices, A, and B. You could also have choices C, D, E, F... and so on to infinity if it makes you happy. But we can focus on just two without loss of generality. How do you evaluate which choice to make mathematically? Most logically, it would be to add up all the benefits of A, subtract out all the drawbacks, do the same for B, then compare which is better. Pretty simple, right?

Okay, now apply it. Let's say you're trying to decide whether to A - go out to see a new movie, or B - to not see the movie. B is sort of a baseline case, so really we only have to evaluate A. Simple enough. We just need to see whether the benefits outweigh the drawbacks.

The drawbacks would include things like the price of admission, the two hours spent where you could have been doing other things, and the aggravation of fighting traffic to get across town. You know yourself pretty well, so you know more or less how to evaluate these things. So the only question left is this: is the entertainment value of seeing the movie worth all that?

If this were a math problem in school, the answer would be "not enough information." You don't know what the entertainment value of the movie is. You won't know and can't know until you actually see it. The information required to mathematically evaluate the action is itself only revealed through action. There is no rational mathematical solution to this problem. Where it gets interesting is when you step back and realize virtually every decision in life fits this form.

We're used to games providing definite mathematical answers. Some games call for thinking a few moves ahead, so your choice now doesn't come down to what "score" you receive for making this move, but rather based on how well it sets you up to win or lose down the road.

Some games bring in probability. So you may not know exactly what will happen yet, but you have at least a probabilistic framework. If you're playing blackjack and you have 14, you know if you hit you bust on 8, 9, 10, J, Q, or K. If you're playing multi-deck blackjack, you know that's about a 46% chance of busting. If you're counting cards, you may be able to get an even more precise probability than that. Based on what the dealer has showing, you can similarly figure the odds of his busting. Based on this information, you make a choice. You may still lose, but as long as you correctly played, you don't regret the choice. You know if you had it to do all over again, you would have made the same play.

Poker, however, erodes the utility of mathematics. Sure. You can look at your cards, and if you're a wiz you can compute the probability that another player has cards to beat you. But then some players fold. And now there's a selection bias. You have to assume those who didn't fold have better-than-average hands. But how much better than average are they? Good enough to beat your hand? How do you calculate that? And then of course, there's always the possibility that someone is bluffing. How do you know that? How do you calculate that probability?

To the degree that there is slightly more to RPGs than there is to poker, and to the degree that RPGs aren't an arbitrary collection of rules but rather are constructed in a way to represent something organic, the usefulness of math falls off cliff.

Even blackjack players know this. A lot of blackjack players will leave the table if just one player isn't playing optimally. Even if the guy wins off his bad bet. Why? Because a player making a bad choice draws too many or too few cards which in turn at the very least changes the odds of the dealer busting. A blackjack player, whose gaming experience literally lives and breathes math and probabilities, knows his expectations of the odds goes down the toilet under even the slightest human decision.

Quote from: Lunamancer;889159Suppose from a mathematical perspective, you have a couple of different choices, A, and B. You could also have choices C, D, E, F... and so on to infinity if it makes you happy. But we can focus on just two without loss of generality. How do you evaluate which choice to make mathematically? Most logically, it would be to add up all the benefits of A, subtract out all the drawbacks, do the same for B, then compare which is better. Pretty simple, right?

Okay, now apply it. Let's say you're trying to decide whether to A - go out to see a new movie, or B - to not see the movie. B is sort of a baseline case, so really we only have to evaluate A. Simple enough. We just need to see whether the benefits outweigh the drawbacks.

The drawbacks would include things like the price of admission, the two hours spent where you could have been doing other things, and the aggravation of fighting traffic to get across town. You know yourself pretty well, so you know more or less how to evaluate these things. So the only question left is this: is the entertainment value of seeing the movie worth all that?

If this were a math problem in school, the answer would be "not enough information." You don't know what the entertainment value of the movie is. You won't know and can't know until you actually see it. The information required to mathematically evaluate the action is itself only revealed through action. There is no rational mathematical solution to this problem. Where it gets interesting is when you step back and realize virtually every decision in life fits this form.

We're used to games providing definite mathematical answers. Some games call for thinking a few moves ahead, so your choice now doesn't come down to what "score" you receive for making this move, but rather based on how well it sets you up to win or lose down the road.

Some games bring in probability. So you may not know exactly what will happen yet, but you have at least a probabilistic framework. If you're playing blackjack and you have 14, you know if you hit you bust on 8, 9, 10, J, Q, or K. If you're playing multi-deck blackjack, you know that's about a 46% chance of busting. If you're counting cards, you may be able to get an even more precise probability than that. Based on what the dealer has showing, you can similarly figure the odds of his busting. Based on this information, you make a choice. You may still lose, but as long as you correctly played, you don't regret the choice. You know if you had it to do all over again, you would have made the same play.

Poker, however, erodes the utility of mathematics. Sure. You can look at your cards, and if you're a wiz you can compute the probability that another player has cards to beat you. But then some players fold. And now there's a selection bias. You have to assume those who didn't fold have better-than-average hands. But how much better than average are they? Good enough to beat your hand? How do you calculate that? And then of course, there's always the possibility that someone is bluffing. How do you know that? How do you calculate that probability?

To the degree that there is slightly more to RPGs than there is to poker, and to the degree that RPGs aren't an arbitrary collection of rules but rather are constructed in a way to represent something organic, the usefulness of math falls off cliff.

Even blackjack players know this. A lot of blackjack players will leave the table if just one player isn't playing optimally. Even if the guy wins off his bad bet. Why? Because a player making a bad choice draws too many or too few cards which in turn at the very least changes the odds of the dealer busting. A blackjack player, whose gaming experience literally lives and breathes math and probabilities, knows his expectations of the odds goes down the toilet under even the slightest human decision.

Nice analysis of blackjack and poker, but I can´t see any relevance regarding RPGs.

In an RPG math isn´t primarily about dryly calculating abstract winning chances but it is a language and tool to describe the setting in a way that is less suffering from interpretations and personal associations than descriptions alone.

It is also a tool that is transformating the personal input/experiences of the character through the bottle neck of linguistic information flow to something that is accessible for the player and something the group can handle to find common terms and evaluations of a situation.

Regarding freedom:
Rules don´t have the task to evilly constrict the personal freedom of a participant but to enable several people to play a common game at all.
Just think about trying a football, a soccer, a basketball, a volleyball and a hockey player trying to do a ball game without setting the common rules first because someone could feel artificially limited ...

Quote from: Madprofessor;889149Lunamancer, I am trying to follow your train of thought and figure out what it adds up to.

I don't know if this would help you any, but here goes: You know that saying, good in theory, bad in practice? I say bullshit. If it doesn't work in practice, it was a shitty theory to begin with. Good theory actually works. It's practical.

So when I do engage in theoretical discussions, I reject agenda-driven ideas in favor of honest observation. I reject cutesy little models in favor of what people are actually playing and draw logical conclusions from there to get a broader understanding. I reject specialized definitions of common words in favor of how they're actually used.

QuotePerhaps I am wrong but it seems to me that you are saying that nobody really plays 100% RaW.  I hate to over simplify your many points, but am I getting the gist?

Well, if a football team is trying to deliberately injure the opposing team's star quarterback during the superbowl, is the game being played according to the Rules-as-Written?

I mean, it does depend how you define RaW. That sort of thing is against the rules, but you'd be labeled crazy to suggest that the game is being house-ruled or running by fiat because of it. I don't think it would be a very good definition of RaW. It's a rather dogmatic one.

QuoteI think that a lack of consistency is perhaps the major concern of many people who reacted negatively to a rulings approach.  I have rarely had a problem with it, but it has come up in my games from time to time.  Being a rules-flexible kind of GM, I do strive for consistency, but I do not let it dominate the character of the campaign.  I often wonder if other old style GMs have a problem with it given today's' audience.

I don't know if "today" necessarily has anything to do with it. The problem (well, maybe not the only one) is the conflation of feature and benefit. I suppose the longer the two are linked, the more a body of theory and knowledge are built upon it, the more people will be confused and the harder it will be to unpack. And there are some really bad consequences to the conflation of feature and benefit, but that's not really what this thread is about.

Quote from: Maarzan;889166In an RPG math isn´t primarily about dryly calculating abstract winning chances but it is a language and tool to describe the setting in a way that is less suffering from interpretations and personal associations than descriptions alone.

It is also a tool that is transformating the personal input/experiences of the character through the bottle neck of linguistic information flow to something that is accessible for the player and something the group can handle to find common terms and evaluations of a situation.

That's a pretty sentiment, but does it have any meaning?

My example of going to the movies was to demonstrate virtually every decision requires guesswork. We gain knowledge and become better at guessing when the world gives us feedback, communicating via results. So if you're claiming that it's all about communication and not results, I'm claiming you're making a meaningless statement.

You've still provided zero evidence and zero reasoning to make your case. I guess I'm just supposed to take your word for it that language--which was developed over many thousands of years, adopted freely, and all for the sole purpose of communication--should somehow be considered low on the communication totem pole?

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, my friend.

There's a couple things going on here...

Madprofessor is coming from the point of view of a GM, where the rules are supposed to represent the setting at his table.  So if he thinks they don't in some way, they get changed.

Maarzan's thrown out a few times now "feels artificially limited" which means he's trying not to sneer openly at either...
1. PC's who want the rules changed for their special snowflake character.
...or...
2. GM's who want fiat so they have power over the players (sexual references will come in at some point)
...or both, I'm not sure which dog whistle he's using.

In any case, it doesn't matter, because it sounds like what he wants is rules protection from assholes.  Rules don't do that. Ever.  Feet do.

Quote from: CRKrueger;889144This whole "Sorry dude, changing Poleaxe so you can use it as a slashing, piercing or blunt weapon...we just don't know you that well.  We have to trust when it comes to polearms, man." attitude...Jesus Wept.

Pinhead? :p

Trust wasn't my term, though it's good enough to demonstrate that I would trust to not have to sit through a half hour polemic of 'how D&D got polearms wrong' then supposed to read ten pages of special rules. Which I won't do and then pick an axe or something, and have to deal with a passive aggressive attitude for picking the axe. Or the Randian Objectivist world that you wrote as a perfect refutation of Bernie while marathon listening to Alex Jones; and you have it as a railroad where the party are secret socialists that will either have to convert or be destroyed. Or meeting the super GMPC that owns/controls/etc. everything; and any of that happens halfway through the game. Then as the fun dies and you want to quit, but don't want to be accused of ruining it by being the first to leave. Sort of trusting people to not be idiots which goes counter to reality.

However, if you have a long established group, or campaign, it doesn't apply as much because, the rules changes were by consensus, or the campaign has built up it's own momentum, eg the "gravity" that draws people past the house-rules. Still someone writing their own heartbreaker, or really wanting to play something else, so the house-rules are a bait and switch; and I have seen all of this happen. Thus RAW is often easier, as when you sit down you know what to expect.

Quote from: Madprofessor;889149Bah!  This doesn't prove that my statement was an opinion rather than a fact, though I at least agree that Pendragon is a game that requires minimal rules tinkering and is often more successful if left alone.

I think the examples prove it, but we're used to disagreeing in unity at this point:).

QuoteHowever, at the table it is also a game that requires a lot of rulings and trust from the GM.

Have you noticed who's saying that "running a game by RAW" doesn't require lots of rulings and trusting the GM?
It's only, or mostly, the people that don't like the idea of running a game by the RAW, that's who. Why would you take their opinion over the opinion of those that actually have experience with that mode of play?
I can tell you, from experience, that no matter how expansive the RAW is, the GM always needs to make rulings. Where's the contradiction with the Pendragon example?

QuoteOkay, okay.  I was slightly provocative, but that's because the campaign-first people were explaining themselves, and the rules-first people were just ranting and insulting people.

Point me to a post of mine in this thread where I insulted anyone.

QuoteIt is difficult for me to understand the pov of people who put the rules before the campaign because it is so far outside my experience.  I wanted better explanations.  Thanks to the people above, I have some.

Provocative again, aren't you;)?
Let me put this in context for you. People that play games RAW don't put the rules before the campaign (or at least, not all of us do...I suspect there are some that would create this impression, just as some people who dislike RAW are, sometimes, looking to stroke their own ego and unwilling to let their players make any unapproved changes to the in-game situation).

For most of us, however, we just use RAW when and because we believe running the game RAW serves the campaign better (frex, by providing a rather extensive shorthand for what's possible, what's likely, and what isn't either of those things). That's also why we take quite the effort to pick the right game that, if possible, wouldn't require alterations (or, if it's GURPS, picking the right optional rules)!
It's all about fine-tuning the ruleset to fit the campaign and setting. But there are different ways to do that;).

Quote from: Madprofessor;889149I am the GM. I have always been so and have never had a trust issue as far the rules are concerned.  I have multiple groups that want me to run games on a regular basis.  I try to run games for new players as often as I can, but I also have a group at my local games tore that consists of nothing but other GMs that have their own groups.  They have some wildly varying styles, and some are rules lawyers, but even they agree that having a fun, fair, trustworthy judge is preferable using the book as a social arbiter.  Maybe they are blowing smoke.  I don't know, but none of them will run a game for me to play in because I am the Game Master.  When I show up, they want me to run.  I am not bragging, but in nearly 40 years I have never played in a group of equals who lack trust.

Not sure what you mean by "trust"? Faith? English is sort of a vague language. Logically still the rules remain the social contract, from which the fundamental interactions of the players/GM with the universe of the campaign setting are derived. It is simply quicker and easier to play by the rules as written, rather than to wait on decisions, or to be looking things up or changing things mid-stream.

Quote from: Lunamancer;889170That's a pretty sentiment, but does it have any meaning?

My example of going to the movies was to demonstrate virtually every decision requires guesswork. We gain knowledge and become better at guessing when the world gives us feedback, communicating via results. So if you're claiming that it's all about communication and not results, I'm claiming you're making a meaningless statement.

You've still provided zero evidence and zero reasoning to make your case. I guess I'm just supposed to take your word for it that language--which was developed over many thousands of years, adopted freely, and all for the sole purpose of communication--should somehow be considered low on the communication totem pole?

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, my friend.

Almost all nontrivial decisions have a range of uncertainty and thus are theoretically guesswork.

My point is, that your point is so trivially and obviously right, that this is not what formalized rules and numbers in a game is about.

With a game you have two big tasks to fulfill, get the player information about his character and his situation and make the resulting view about these situations as compatible as possible between the players. It is to give them the best possible position to make these guesses similar educated as their characters.
But the input for the character is much bigger then what the player has available from descriptions alone and thus elements get abstracted to game mechanics.

And of course describing language alone is lacking to give exact descriptions. Being told to bring "many rolls for breakfast" will make you bringing you how many of them?

Quote from: CRKrueger;889172There's a couple things going on here...

Maarzan's thrown out a few times now "feels artificially limited" which means he's trying not to sneer openly at either...
1. PC's who want the rules changed for their special snowflake character.
...or...
2. GM's who want fiat so they have power over the players (sexual references will come in at some point)
...or both, I'm not sure which dog whistle he's using.

In any case, it doesn't matter, because it sounds like what he wants is rules protection from assholes.  Rules don't do that. Ever.  Feet do.

Preset rules don´t stop assholes directly, they are a tool for communication. But they hamper them on their way and thus assholes try to get rid of them or make them as vague as possible as often as possible.

Quote from: CRKrueger;889172There's a couple things going on here...

Madprofessor is coming from the point of view of a GM, where the rules are supposed to represent the setting at his table.  So if he thinks they don't in some way, they get changed.

Maarzan's thrown out a few times now "feels artificially limited" which means he's trying not to sneer openly at either...
1. PC's who want the rules changed for their special snowflake character.
...or...
2. GM's who want fiat so they have power over the players (sexual references will come in at some point)
...or both, I'm not sure which dog whistle he's using.

In any case, it doesn't matter, because it sounds like what he wants is rules protection from assholes.  Rules don't do that. Ever.  Feet do.

I really do think that trying to analyze this thread for "sense" is a waste of time. People have expressed opinions about things and have interpreted opinions as facts and facts as opinions.

And that's a fact.

Or an opinion.

Quote from: Maarzan;889192And of course describing language alone is lacking to give exact descriptions. Being told to bring "many rolls for breakfast" will make you bringing you how many of them?

Whatever number you want, the English language has a word for it.

Quote from: Lunamancer;889197Whatever number you want, the English language has a word for it.

Which is a number ...

Quote from: Maarzan;889199Which is a number ...

Which language can communicate.

Quote from: Lunamancer;889202Which language can communicate.

If you see it that way, use your language to talk in mathematical precise numbers and formulas and we have found a compromise :cool:.

Quote from: CRKrueger;889144Amount of rules or types of rules are only a barrier to entry if it is assumed you have to know them before you sit down and play, which, to be honest, no one I've ever played with in 35 years, does.  Hell, even the local Pathfinder crew that is 8 months into a campaign they run at the FLGS has pre-gens to hand out to newbies if they want to sit down and play.

If you don't know how to play...don't worry about it, you'll learn as you go.
If you know how to play, ok, there's changes to the standard rules, you'll learn as you go.

The problem only really materializes when you have complex systems where the byzantine clockwork inter-relation of cards...err powers I mean, leads to emergent complexity like..."My god man!  You can't let a Yithian Dragonchild take the prestige class of Dimensional Conqueror if they have the base class of Crystal Reaver!  What if they take the powers Root of the World Tree and Asp of Heaven?! DON'T YOU SEE WHAT YOU'VE DONE!...and even then, that problem only materializes online...and only really at The Gaming Den. :D

Hell, a friend of mine had a bunch of players sit down at a FLGS to play his game, which was a highly customized variant you could only loosely call D&D.  People said "Ok, how do we make up characters..." and off they went.

This whole "Sorry dude, changing Poleaxe so you can use it as a slashing, piercing or blunt weapon...we just don't know you that well.  We have to trust when it comes to polearms, man." attitude...Jesus Wept.

Exactly. When I started my new campaign I brought a number of pregen characters as examples of how character builds could look.

I expect players to need to be told what dice to roll to do things the first few times, at least, that they play a game. Expecting them to know all the rules before we start to play a new game seems unrealistic.

It may be that I started gaming in teh 70s that I expect the rules to be short and concise, and the GM to be expected to interpret them in play. RAW as much as fits the campaign, but able to be changed when needed.

I don't like games like 3.5 where the rules have become so intricate that changing one small bit can throw the whole thing out of whack in unanticipated ways and players are rewarded for combing through rules tomes looking for exploits and loopholes.

QuoteOriginally Posted by Maarzan
Unfortunately I can´t detect any arguments why rules-based understanding is problematic. Could you please point me to it?

Well, there is nothing wrong with a "rules-based understanding" from my perspective.  However, rules are limiting and are therefore often inadequate in service of the campaign.  For example, a player may have a good idea for a character that is not allowed or mentioned by he rules, the rules of a chosen system may not treat a specific aspect of the setting that is important to your campaign (perhaps you want rules for thieves guilds and the game doesn't cover it), or perhaps the rules inadequately handle certain types of resolution such as combat moving too slow in one situation and not in enough detail in another.

My response to these types of situations has always been to make the rules fit the needs of the campaign.  It is hard for me to imagine forcing the campaign to fit into the constraints of the rules when the rules are working against you rather than with you.

I suppose if the GM and players all completely buy into the campaign as envisioned by the author of the game rules, then there might not be a need to change or adapt the rules at all, and everything will work out.  

I generally develop a campaign idea from scratch and then pick a rules set with features that will help me bring that campaign to life.  I then tweek the rules to the best of my ability before the campaign starts.  I will make further adjustments to the rules as play progresses. Though I try not to rock the boat for rules focused players mid-game any more than I have to, I have no reservations about changing a rule on the fly to facilitate the game.  I of course include the players in any rules decisions that concern them because the objective is to bring the game to life and for everyone to enjoy it.  None of this is so different from how RPGs have been played from their inception.  It works, and my players appreciate and approve of the methodology.

QuoteAnd while a GM will need a certain enpowerment above players for more traditional games, personally I think the attitude to not spell out and fix the chosen basic (yes, it is not possible to cover everything, but ...) rules and setting details is a lazy cop out to leave the players in the blind and thus be able to adjust everything to his own taste at a whim. (Kind of constitutional monarchy vs. absolutism).

I make it clear that my table is a dictatorship, but it is a pretty benevolent one.  There is nothing lazy or a cop-out about my GM style.  It is a lot of f'n work and that is clear to anyone who plays with me.  

Also, I don't "leave players in the blind." I am happy if they bother to read the rules and am happy to discuss all aspects and changes with them.  With some groups, we often have great after-sessions drinking beer and discussing rules, but most players feel that rules intricacies are a boring and just a bother.  They'd rather I handle it. They trust me to be fair and fun and leave it at that.

I can see a problem with some games that have "feated" and thus disassociated the rules to an amount where you can´t piss if you didn´t take the right feat.

Thus it is really hard to just give someone a fresh, mundane character and let him play, because characters are even more not behaving like "people" but like abstract playing pieces and thus even the assumed "common knowledge" actions can´t be estimated by him.

But is this really what is usually meant when someone proposes a conflict between rules and campaign?

Quote from: Madprofessor;889215Well, there is nothing wrong with a "rules-based understanding" from my perspective.  However, rules are limiting and are therefore often inadequate in service of the campaign.  For example, a player may have a good idea for a character that is not allowed or mentioned by he rules, the rules of a chosen system may not treat a specific aspect of the setting that is important to your campaign (perhaps you want rules for thieves guilds and the game doesn't cover it), or perhaps the rules inadequately handle certain types of resolution such as combat moving too slow in one situation and not in enough detail in another.

My response to these types of situations has always been to make the rules fit the needs of the campaign.  It is hard for me to imagine forcing the campaign to fit into the constraints of the rules when the rules are working against you rather than with you.

I suppose if the GM and players all completely buy into the campaign as envisioned by the author of the game rules, then there might not be a need to change or adapt the rules at all, and everything will work out.  

I generally develop a campaign idea from scratch and then pick a rules set with features that will help me bring that campaign to life.  I then tweek the rules to the best of my ability before the campaign starts.  I will make further adjustments to the rules as play progresses. Though I try not to rock the boat for rules focused players mid-game any more than I have to, I have no reservations about changing a rule on the fly to facilitate the game.  I of course include the players in any rules decisions that concern them because the objective is to bring the game to life and for everyone to enjoy it.  None of this is so different from how RPGs have been played from their inception.  It works, and my players appreciate and approve of the methodology.



I make it clear that my table is a dictatorship, but it is a pretty benevolent one.  There is nothing lazy or a cop-out about my GM style.  It is a lot of f'n work and that is clear to anyone who plays with me.  

Also, I don't "leave players in the blind." I am happy if they bother to read the rules and am happy to discuss all aspects and changes with them.  With some groups, we often have great after-sessions drinking beer and discussing rules, but most players feel that rules intricacies are a boring and just a bother.  They'd rather I handle it. They trust me to be fair and fun and leave it at that.

Ok, then we have a misunderstanding here and we are not that far apart.
In my view the RAW crept in later in the discussion and I see the discussed rules as the rules as edited by the GM for this campaign (and any modifications he can include from his players wishlist) and published to his players.

Thus the conflict I visualized was when some time into the game someone wants to deviate from this base. (Or probably someone rebelling after the GM didn´t see a possible compromise and include his wish in the current setting)

But I have a problem with rule changes during the game and try to stay as true to them as a GM as I can. If I see some unsolveable problem I try to negotiate here (preferably between sessions), understanding that I am the one to deviate here.

Quote from: Maarzan;889207If you see it that way, use your language to talk in mathematical precise numbers and formulas and we have found a compromise :cool:.

Except as I pointed out earlier, the mathematical numbers aren't precise, and naturalistic language is a superior form of communication.

QuoteOriginally Posted by AsenRG
Point me to a post of mine in this thread where I insulted anyone.

Believe it or not, Asen, I wasn't talking about you. You are argumentative, but you're not insulting :)

QuoteHave you noticed who's saying that "running a game by RAW" doesn't require lots of rulings and trusting the GM?
It's only, or mostly, the people that don't like the idea of running a game by the RAW, that's who. Why would you take their opinion over the opinion of those that actually have experience with that mode of play?
I can tell you, from experience, that no matter how expansive the RAW is, the GM always needs to make rulings.

Asen, you are confusing. So when you list all of the games that you run "100% RaW" what you mean is 100% RaW except for all of the rulings you have to make because "no matter how expansive the RAW is, the GM always needs to make rulings." :huhsign:  It might have been nice if you had qualified this earlier, not that it is a big deal, as I had never claimed that people don't play RaW or at least attempt to.

...and actually, I believe that it is dragoner, Itachi and Maarzan that are primarily discussing rules as a social contract, which brought me to bring up trust.    In my games trust, friendship, a shared hobby, interests, and specifically the shared imaginary space of the campaign is the social contract - not the rules.  I am just trying to follow their meaning and I haven't criticized anyone for this style.  I am sure it works for them.  It's just alien to me.

QuoteProvocative again, aren't you?

Well, if you want to take offense, then I guess so, though it was not my intention.

QuoteFor most of us, however, we just use RAW when and because we believe running the game RAW serves the campaign better (frex, by providing a rather extensive shorthand for what's possible, what's likely, and what isn't either of those things). That's also why we take quite the effort to pick the right game that, if possible, wouldn't require alterations (or, if it's GURPS, picking the right optional rules)!

Sure, I get this.  I pick the right rules too - and then I take it a step further and...

QuoteIt's all about fine-tuning the ruleset to fit the campaign and setting. But there are different ways to do that.

Low and behold! I thought you played all of those games "100% RaW." I guess we're not so different, are we? What were you arguing about? :p

Let's see, you "adjust," "fine-tune," and "require lots of rulings and trusting the GM." hmm...

Seriously, I am not sure that our approaches are so different that they are worth arguing about.

Quote from: soltakss;889196I really do think that trying to analyze this thread for "sense" is a waste of time. People have expressed opinions about things and have interpreted opinions as facts and facts as opinions.

And that's a fact.

Or an opinion.

:D
I think you won the thread!

Quote from: Madprofessor;889226Believe it or not, Asen, I wasn't talking about you. You are argumentative, but you're not insulting :)

I think I was among the first to point out that no, running games RAW is well possible. So, when you throw out "the RAW side is insulting people", I can't answer with anything but "huh, am I? Where?"

QuoteAsen, you are confusing. So when you list all of the games that you run "100% RaW" what you mean is 100% RaW except for all of the rulings you have to make because "no matter how expansive the RAW is, the GM always needs to make rulings." :huhsign:

...well, duh, of course! Tell me, how can I run a Pendragon or FWTD game without making a ruling?
A PC had a Saxon mother. Is that enough to trigger the "Hate: Saxons" in the father of the lady you're courting? Who decides? The GM does. What is that if not a ruling?
A FWTD PC decided to run a bakery (true story, I'll see if I have it on my blog or it was from after I'd stopped describing the campaign). How important is each of the parts of running it? Do I just give him a Cooking roll every day, and assume the rest if it doesn't require on-screen attention? Do I make him jump through hoops to get timely deliveries? Do I have him roll Law: Tort when a supplier is late with the supplies he needs, and abstract the rest in case of success, or can he get away with just a Basic Law roll since they have a contract and it's clear who's in the wrong by not delivering? When people roll any skill, fighting included, what does a Critical success mean?
Rulings, again and again. It's a big book, but you still need to make rulings. I simply don't know an RPG where you can run the game without rulings!

OTOH, I was observing all the rules in the book (and the supplements I have), and I'm not letting you off the hook "because you seem to be too sullen". That is "rules as written". But some things are simply not covered by rules...would you expect me to say to the players "you can't do stuff not covered by rules"?
I'd hope you don't expect that;).

QuoteIt might have been nice if you had qualified this earlier, not that it is a big deal, as I had never claimed that people don't play RaW or at least attempt to.

I was replying to a post "not even the game designers are ever going to run that game RAW, nobody does".

Quote...and actually, I believe that it is dragoner, Itachi and Maarzan that are primarily discussing rules as a social contract, which brought me to bring up trust.    In my games trust, friendship, a shared hobby, interests, and specifically the shared imaginary space of the campaign is the social contract - not the rules.

Rules are a shared contract, yes, in a way. They mean "certain actions have a range of predictable outcomes". Wanting to get a different outcome is breaking said contract.
People might let you get away with it because shared hobby, interests and so on, but you're still asking for special treatment.
Or, cue the "wants to be a ninja in Pendragon" rant, which I'm sure I had delivered.
Or, if you prefer: a Struggle attack with a weapon always kills in UA3. If you take a weapon to subdue someone more easily, and then roll a crit, you've got a body on your hands.
Anyone who asks that this hasn't happened, wants to avoid the consequences. Maybe a GM doesn't want an NPC killed, maybe a PC doesn't want to kill a strong friend who was misbehaving. But the consequences, by the book, are clear, and central to the kind of game UA3 is geared to promote.
Again, maybe other people at the table will give you special treatment...but maybe they'd decide to value consistency higher, and in this case, you have to deal with the consequences.

QuoteI am just trying to follow their meaning and I haven't criticized anyone for this style.  I am sure it works for them.  It's just alien to me.

The "provocative" parts sure sound like critic. Just FYI.

QuoteWell, if you want to take offense, then I guess so, though it was not my intention.

Once you get provocative, you're under higher suspicion. Need I explain why?

QuoteSure, I get this.  I pick the right rules too - and then I take it a step further and...



Low and behold! I thought you played all of those games "100% RaW."

I did, as much as possible. The fine-tuning, in my case, meant just "picking the right system"...out of 20 that just might do the job, but probably aren't quite what I'm looking for.

QuoteI guess we're not so different, are we? What were you arguing about?

RAW and GM whims;).

QuoteLet's see, you "adjust," "fine-tune," and "require lots of rulings and trusting the GM." hmm...

Of course I adjust...when the system needs it.
Of course I fine-tune the rules. I pick the best rules for this campaign. I just don't need to change them after that...sometimes.
Sometimes, picking FWTD over CP2020 is fine-tuning enough, and we can run it RAW.
Sometimes, I might need to pick CP2020 and hack it until it cries for mercy...but after that, I'll have exactly the rules I need to run a specific campaign concept.

QuoteI guess we're not so different, are we? What were you arguing about? :p

It's not my job to decide how different we are:). I'm just pointing out that no, playing a game by the RAW doesn't mean you don't trust the GM, for example00. For that matter, most of the above are games I've run.

QuoteSeriously, I am not sure that our approaches are so different that they are worth arguing about.

Neither am I;).

My campaign is no longer going to be RAW. Today we discovered that the speeds of airships and ornithropters just don't make sense to us, so we are going to change them to better fit the way we see this Sword&Planet world operating.

Campaign trumps Rules. It is a small thing and would likely have remained unnoticed if one of the characters was not a Han Solo type crack pilot. Flying is a key thing to this character, so those rules got carefully looked at. Today featured an aerial battle that had some unexpected outcomes due to relative speeds of the combatants. So we spent some time taking a close look at the rules and our campaign expectations.

It isn't a case of RAW being "broken". They work fine mechanically, and maybe even flavourfully for most players. But for us in this case they don't fit the campaign we want. Just a little bit off.

Quote from: Bren;888182Rules that do their job while mostly fading into the background are clever.

That's pretty much my opinion.

And why is this discussion even going on?

Quote from: DavetheLost;889261My campaign is no longer going to be RAW. Today we discovered that the speeds of airships and ornithropters just don't make sense to us, so we are going to change them to better fit the way we see this Sword&Planet world operating.

Campaign trumps Rules. It is a small thing and would likely have remained unnoticed if one of the characters was not a Han Solo type crack pilot. Flying is a key thing to this character, so those rules got carefully looked at. Today featured an aerial battle that had some unexpected outcomes due to relative speeds of the combatants. So we spent some time taking a close look at the rules and our campaign expectations.

It isn't a case of RAW being "broken". They work fine mechanically, and maybe even flavourfully for most players. But for us in this case they don't fit the campaign we want. Just a little bit off.

Well, that's usually how campaigns stop being RAW, IME. Sometimes it just doesn't take long;).

Quote from: Christopher Brady;889285That's pretty much my opinion.

And why is this discussion even going on?

Because we love discussing stuff that doesn't matter anyway, and being able to proudly claim that we reject the opinions we dislike, before going off to run the same game we'd run anyway:D!

Quote from: Itachi;889039MadProfessor, why would someone want to play a space alien in a game of D&D ? :confused:

We could ask Gygax or Arneson who included space aliens in Greyhawk and Blackmoor as well as in the Wilderness Tables in the original rule set, but sadly both of them are dead.

I suspect the answer to your question might have been "Because I thought it would be fun."

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;889055Thus, in order of importance to the success of the game session it is,

1. people
2. snacks
3. setting
4. system

While nice snacks are nice, I can always eat before or after play or bring my own snacks. I'd rate snacks well below

   5. real world location (comfort of seats, lighting, temperature, freshness of the air, etc.)
6. day and time of play

Quote from: Lunamancer;889197Whatever number you want, the English language has a word for it.

Provably it does not.

Simple version: English, like any language, provides countably infinite utterances to each of which we can assign an integer number, but the real numbers are uncountable in number. Thus there are real numbers for which there can be no words.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;889285And why is this discussion even going on?

Some people don't have enough to do?

Quote from: AsenRG;889253I simply don't know an RPG where you can run the game without rulings!

Because it doesn't exist, and in the beginning there weren't RPG's comprehensive enough to cover everything, nor would it even be thought of, as it was about making stuff up anyways. The whole 'rulings not rules' is modern, I didn't hear it back then.

Quote from: CRKrueger;888300People - if they suck will I stay? No, not really under any circumstances.
Setting - if the setting sucks will I stay?  If the people are totally awesome, and the system doesn't bother me, maybe.
System - If I hate the system will I stay?  If the people are great, and the setting intrigues the hell out of me, then I'll probably live with a system I wouldn't touch under other circumstances.

So yeah, I think People > Setting > System is spot on.  
Snacks don't factor in at all, because I can bring my own. :D

Agreed. I played in a long campaign using a hybrid of Aria and HarnMaster (!) because of the People and Setting involved.

Quote from: GnomeWorks;888810Whatever the fuck it is you are smoking, you need to share.

I can't even comprehend this shit. It's insane.

You honestly expect the DM - who is already juggling handling NPCs, every aspect of the world that isn't an NPC, all the story shit going on, reigning in side-talk at the table - to also have all the fucking rules memorized and understand exactly how your special snowflake interacts with them, and be able to handle this information at your fucking whim?

That is quite possibly one of the most fucking self-centered things I have ever read. The only time this would be vaguely acceptable behavior would be in the context of a new player, and even then I'd expect them to do at least some fucking reading.

Tell me about.  Talk about fucking entitled.

What, Princess, reading too hard?  Aw.  Sorry, Cupcake, but having to juggle about (and this is D&D 5e's PHB spell list...  OK, I gave up.  I got to Mirror Image, and that was 250) to about another set of about, 500 individual, exclusionary rule blocks that are called Spells on top of everything else?  The NPC's, what the room/location you're in that you want to trash like drugged up rockstars on a bad binge, and whatever else I foolishly decided to add to my ever growing pile of cute descriptions and rules?

Really?  What kind of overly self-entitled, inconsiderate dickholes are you?  I mean, seriously, there's only ONE of me, and (personally, for my mental state) up to 5 of you (and some of you play in even bigger tables???  Holy Jumped Up Jehosaphat...)  Help a brother out, Pumpkin, get some reading comprehension and learn some of the rules.  Not asking you to memorize the entire book, but at least help out with the spells you plan on using, Mr. Wizard/Druid/Cleric.  And Mr. Fighter, the combat system, if you please.

Wow.  What a bunch of...

Or are we, ONCE again, forgetting that by now, you've all played your version of whatever game you're into long enough that you've already memorized the entire book, twice, and maybe thrice on Sundays?  So you don't have to read them anymore?

Eh. The OP is describing the most popular current trend, but it's certainly not the only way to do an RPG.  There are systems out there (original Deadlands, 2d20, Paranoia) that emphasize a gambling/bidding/risk taking aspects to the rules themselves that is their specifically to remind the players that they are playing a game.  There are certainly more ways to look at rules than mere vehicles to carry players along through a setting- though they should be at LEAST that.

Quote from: Agkistro;889480Eh. The OP is describing the most popular current trend, but it's certainly not the only way to do an RPG.

It is actually the only way to "do" an RPG. The fact it is centered around a campaign where the players interact with a setting as their characters with their actions adjudicated by a human referee is what distinguish the fact you are playing an RPG from a wargame focused on individual characters.

In short if you not doing the above then you are playing some other type of game not an RPG.

Quote from: Agkistro;889480There are systems out there (original Deadlands, 2d20, Paranoia) that emphasize a gambling/bidding/risk taking aspects to the rules themselves that is their specifically to remind the players that they are playing a game.

Rules are tools used by the referee to adjudicate the consequences of the player's action. They can be designed in a such a way to complement the feel of the genre or setting. The mechanics of Deadland (playing cards) and Paranoia are good examples of RPGs with mechanics designed to evoke the feel of their respective settings.

As for 2d20 it mechanic attempts to emulate risk taking and grittiness and which is probably why Modiphus picked the settings it has released products for. (Conan, John Carter, Acthung! Cthulu, etc).

I consider 2d20 to be of borderline quality compared to Deadlands and Paranoia because it goes too far in requiring the players to think in terms of manipulating game mechanics rather than focusing on roleplaying their characters.

I find a similar problem afflict most games who classified themselves as storygames. To focused on their respective "cute' mechanics which distract from collaborating on creating a story as a group.

 

Quote from: Agkistro;889480There are certainly more ways to look at rules than mere vehicles to carry players along through a setting- though they should be at LEAST that.

You not getting the point of my OP then. You are putting the rules first which is not how it works in RPGs.

For example
You are the referee, I am a medieval fighter, I see an guard in a 10' by 10' room with a treasure chest I want.

I could say

"I am going to swing at the guard with my broadsword."
"I am going to run away."
"I say to the Guard." "Hey! Can i have that chest?"
"I run up to the guard and tackle him."
"I run up to the guard and kick him in the nads."
"I pull out a flask oil and throw it at him."
"I start to do a funny song and dance."
"I shout, Hey! You hear the one about the priest, the rabbi, and the reverend?"

Each system you mentioned along with other RPGs offers a different set of tools for you to use as a referee to adjudicate each of these. Some of the above you won't consider using a rule because the outcome is clear in your mind based on your notes or the circumstances of the encounters.  You have personal preferences and favorites among the different ways to adjudicate the above.

But the one constant is that I described what I do as my character and then you decide how to adjudicate it. And doing this in the context of larger campaign focused on players playing the same individual characters from session to session.

This is fundamental to RPGs and the thing that sets them apart from their progenitors and still sets them apart from other types of games.

Estar, the fundamental to a RPG is acting as a character in an imaginary world, with rules to help people adjudicate things when necessary.

"keeping the same characters in the context of larger campaigns" is not fundamental at all. One-shots, troupe-based games, freeform scenarios and other styles are proof of this. In fact, the concept of a "campaign" is totally optional to the activity of role-playing: I can play one-shots forever and I would still be playing RPGs.

Quote from: estar;889501In short if you not doing the above then you are playing some other type of game not an RPG.

Yes, an RPG has to be minimally doing the above, but various RPGs have mechanics that do more than that, too.  

QuoteRules are tools used by the referee to adjudicate the consequences of the player's action.

But that's not always ALL they do.  The Dark Symmetry/Doom system in 2d20 doesn't exist primarily for this. You could adjudicate the consequences of player's actions just fine without that mechanic at all.

QuoteThe mechanics of Deadland (playing cards)

I'm not speaking just of the fact that Deadlands uses playing cards, I'm speaking of the fact that there are times you hide your cards, times you reveal them, and chip-bidding wars you can get into with the players and GM as I recall.  Does it evoke the setting? Sure, but there are plenty of ways to do that.  Another thing it accomplishes is emphasizing the 'G' in RPG.

QuoteAs for 2d20 it mechanic attempts to emulate risk taking and grittiness and which is probably why Modiphus picked the settings it has released products for. (Conan, John Carter, Acthung! Cthulu, etc).

You can declare that if you want to, but what the writers of that rules system have actually said is that these mechanics exist to bring back the idea that an RPG is a *game*, and not a mere simulation. They desire their system to have a competitive/strategic element on the meta level: "Should I take these bonus dice that can hurt me later"?

QuoteI consider 2d20 to be of borderline quality compared to Deadlands and Paranoia.

I don't care.  It's a role-playing game.

QuoteBut the one constant is that I described what I do as my character and then you decide how to adjudicate it. And doing this in the context of larger campaign focused on players playing the same individual characters from session to session.

This is fundamental to RPGs and the thing that sets them apart from their progenitors and still sets them apart from other types of games.

I'm not disagreeing with that. I'm disagreeing with your insistance that this is the only thing game mechanics are allowed to accomplish.

An RPG can absolutely have rules that exist to be played as games in themselves, and not just to efficiently adjudicate outcomes.  I've given examples.

EDIT: Another really obvious example would be limited spell casts in D&D.   What the hell does that simulate or adjudicate?  The fact that wizards in their  setting get tired after a couple fireballs?  It's their setting; they didn't have to make it that way.   The reality is,  limited spell casts do two things:

1.) Create gameplay where the wizard has to decide when to use their spells and when not to, and
2.) Balance wizards against things that aren't wizards.

Neither of those are 'determining the outcome of a player's declared actions' concerns.  They are game concerns.

Quote from: Agkistro;889560Yes, an RPG has to be minimally doing the above, but various RPGs have mechanics that do more than that, too.

Many RPGs have support for referee preparing or managing the campaign. But they are not rules in the sense of "What I need to do to see if I hit the orc." Or "What happens when I do a funny song and dance." They are tools with a different scope than  adjudicating what the player are trying to do as their characters.

Quote from: Agkistro;889560But that's not always ALL they do.  The Dark Symmetry/Doom system in 2d20 doesn't exist primarily for this. You could adjudicate the consequences of player's actions just fine without that mechanic at all.

My view is Dark Symmetry/Doom is a mechanic that meant to help the referee manage the campaign. By imparting a specific feel to the campaign as the group adventures. The problem I have with it is that is a distraction to the players who wind up thinking out of game how to manipulate it rather than focusing on what they would be doing as their characters given the circumstances. The referee would be better off learning on how to better respond to the what the players do to make the campaign feel like how he wants it to feel. In this case how to make the campaign feel like it is in Howard's Hyboria.

Quote from: Agkistro;889560I'm not speaking just of the fact that Deadlands uses playing cards, I'm speaking of the fact that there are times you hide your cards, times you reveal them, and chip-bidding wars you can get into with the players and GM as I recall.  Does it evoke the setting? Sure, but there are plenty of ways to do that.  Another thing it accomplishes is emphasizing the 'G' in RPG.

I am aware of that. Again it about the referee managing the campaign to impart a specific feel.

In the Society of Creative Anachronism, medieval renactment, they have a term "being in period". Mechanics are a poor tool to impart the feeling being "in period" to a campaign oriented to a specific setting or genre. A referee is better off learning how to do it by tailoring the consquences to what the players attempt to do. This allows bring the full force of his creativity to tailor the campaign for his players.

Quote from: Agkistro;889560You can declare that if you want to, but what the writers of that rules system have actually said is that these mechanics exist to bring back the idea that an RPG is a *game*, and not a mere simulation. They desire their system to have a competitive/strategic element on the meta level: "Should I take these bonus dice that can hurt me later"?

I disagree. When these mechanics are promoted it all about how it makes for a more authentic experience. Read the Conan Kickstarter thread and the rationale for Doom. It about imparting the sense that you are in a Conan story.

But let's suppose you are right that the designers are about putting the game back into RPG. Then they are missing the point of what a RPG is. They would be better off orienting their idea as a war/boardgame.
There are several excellent Call of Cthulu boardgames that have the player play individual characters but don't try to be RPGs.

Quote from: Agkistro;889560I don't care.  It's a role-playing game.

Yes 2d20 is a RPG, it just has some mechanics that are a poor fit for what it trying to do and distract from it being a RPG.

Quote from: Agkistro;889560I'm not disagreeing with that. I'm disagreeing with your insistance that this is the only thing game mechanics are allowed to accomplish.

In a tabletop RPGs mechanics are a tool. And there are three things they do well and complement the purpose of playing tabletop RPG.

1) They help adjudicate the action of the players as their character in a consistent manner. For example Harnmaster Combat rule.
2) They help the referee prepare his campaign. For example Traveller Subsector generator, the Fate Fractal.
3) They help the referee manage his campaign. For example random encounters.


IN the OP I said that the purpose of RPG is to experience a campaign not to play a set of rules. The rules are tools, and as tools I judge them on the basis of whether help the players and the referee have a better campaign.

Quote from: Agkistro;889560An RPG can absolutely have rules that exist to be played as games in themselves, and not just to efficiently adjudicate outcomes.  I've given examples.

If the campaing is run to play the game then the players are wargaming not roleplaying. The difference between how Arneson ran his Napoleanic campaign and his Blackmoor campaign that the Napoleanic campaign was used to generate to a series of miniature wargame scenario in the context of a larger grand strategy game. Blackmoor in contrast the point was to play one's character within in the Blackmoor setting. Blackmoor happened to have a lot of miniature wargaming but it was a consquence of the player having their character organize armies or lead troop in pursuit of their individual goals.

It is a blurry line, sure it was blurry. My impression from reading the various accounts and having experience what my friends and I did in our neck of the wood if you were there it was all just a mashed up mess of people trying to do what fun. It wasn't really clear that a roleplaying game developing until the Blackmoor dungeon became popular. Even then what it looked like is a bunch of characters abandoning what they were doing as military leaders in favor of trying to loot the various level of Blackmoor. In fact several of the bad guys players took advantage of this and sacked Castle Blackmoor causing all the good guy players to be exiled to Glendower.

But the thing regardless of whether they were trying to roleplay or wargame, the attitude was the idea first the rules second. For example Arneson's Napoleanic campaign was kitbashed out of Diplomacy, miniature wargaming and his own original rules.

My point in stressing this is that when it comes to tabletop roleplaying if you want a better experience then think of an insteresting campaign first, and then assemble the rules that best enabled it to be played. If you go with the rule first and try to make the campaign from that then you will have as good of a time.

Quote from: Agkistro;889560EDIT: Another really obvious example would be limited spell casts in D&D.   What the hell does that simulate or adjudicate?

It magic, it works how the referee says it work. There no real life example to contradict how the referee sets up magic to work in his campaign like there is for the difference between a 8 inch smoothbore cannon and a 12 inch rifled cannon.




 

Quote from: Agkistro;889560The fact that wizards in their  setting get tired after a couple fireballs?  It's their setting; they didn't have to make it that way.

 No they didn't, but the fact you don't like it is OK. That your personal preference at work which is fine. Note when I said that an RPG is about players interacting with a setting as their characters with their actions adjudicated by a human referee. I didn't qualify any of that. What setting do you play? How do you adjudicate? What characters do you play? All of that is personal peferences. The only right answer is the one that feel right for you and what your group agrees on.
 
 Note I don't even qualify the interacting as needing to be realistic. A Toon Campaign works just as well as a angst ridden Vampire campaign in this regard.
 
 I come down hard on mechanics like Doom, Fate Points because that distracts players from interacting wiht setting. Instead they are thinking about how to manipulate the game.
 
 

Quote from: Agkistro;889560The reality is,  limited spell casts do two things:

1.) Create gameplay where the wizard has to decide when to use their spells and when not to, and
2.) Balance wizards against things that aren't wizards.

Or they reflect the view of the referee, in this case Gygax, how magic ought to work which doesn't work with your view. Which is why D&D didn't remain the only RPG ever made. Dozens thought Gygax was stupid for designing the RPG the way did and came out with their own version. And the hobby benefited enormously.

Quote from: Agkistro;889560Neither of those are 'determining the outcome of a player's declared actions' concerns.  They are game concerns.

I make a character named Mezzo the Magnificant.

"Hey Gary, so Mezzo is the son of moderately properous merchant in the City of Greyhawk. He wants to be a wizard. How do I go about it?".

Gary tells me

"Well Rob, your character needs to get a spellbook. Since you are starting at best you can cast one first level spell a day. After which you need to sleep and in the morning relearn the spell from the spellbook. However to get a spell in the spellbook in the first place you need to find an existing spellbook or magical scroll with the spell in it. Then you can copy it for X gold pieces. Or you can spend some time and more gold pieces to do magical research and create the spell yourself to go into your spellbook. If you don't have your spellbook in the morning then you can't re-learn the spell."

So I want to interact with Gary's Setting as Mezzo by learning how to be a wizard. Gary adjudicated it by describing how magic worked in in-game terms. He also has formatted the above as a concise set of rules to use as a reference during the campaign.

RPGs are unlike any game ever made. Their focus is completely different. Which is why I wrote the OP.

Quote from: estar;889627Many RPGs have support for referee preparing or managing the campaign. But they are not rules in the sense of "What I need to do to see if I hit the orc." Or "What happens when I do a funny song and dance."

So rules that don't do what you say all RPG rules should do don't count as rules?  I guess that makes you right!

Meanwhile, I'm pretty sure the way the rest of us define 'rule', these things that are in the corebook that involve numbers and rolling dice that you are obligated (as much as to any mechanic) to perform are, indeed, rules.

QuoteThe problem I have with it is that is a distraction to the players who wind up thinking out of game how to manipulate it rather than focusing on what they would be doing as their characters given the circumstances.

Yeah, I can definitely see why you'd have a problem with it given what you've said about the purpose of rules in an RPG. And you're not the only one.  Nevertheless, systems like that do exist and they are part of RPG rules.  That was my only point- not all RPGs do it the way you advocate.

QuoteBut let's suppose you are right that the designers are about putting the game back into RPG. Then they are missing the point of what a RPG is.

As defined by you? Yeah, apparently.  But that doesn't change the fact that, as defined by you, plenty of RPGs have been 'missing the point of what an RPG' is practically since the beginning of the industry.

QuoteThey would be better off orienting their idea as a war/boardgame.

Based on what? The fact that they aren't doing it the way you would do it if you were in charge? Who cares?  Based on the fact that their game won't be as fun if they don't do it your way? Who says?

QuoteIN the OP I said that the purpose of RPG is to experience a campaign not to play a set of rules.

Yeah, and you were wrong about that.  It may be the most popular purpose of an RPG these days, or it may be a core element, but it's certainly not the only purpose of every RPG on the market.

QuoteIt magic, it works how the referee says it work. There no real life example to contradict how the referee sets up magic to work in his campaign like there is for the difference between a 8 inch smoothbore cannon and a 12 inch rifled cannon.

Don't dodge my point please.  Yes, the designers of D&D could have made magic work however they wanted- they could have had wizard get unlimited casts of their spells, in the same way that a warrior gets unlimited swings of his sword.  But they didn't, and the REASON why they didn't, is twofold:

1.) To balance the game, and
2.) To give wizards interesting gameplay choices to make in the form of resource conservation.

These are explicitly not 'to adjudicate decision making and experience a campaign' based reasons- and we are talking about the very foundation of role playing games here.
 

QuoteNo they didn't, but the fact you don't like it is OK.

Who said I didn't like it? What are you talking about?

QuoteOr they reflect the view of the referee, in this case Gygax, how magic ought to work which doesn't work with your view.

Now you're just deliberately avoiding acknowledging the point I've made.

Limited spell casts exist precisely for the reasons you said rules in RPGs should not exist.  Face it.

QuoteDozens thought Gygax was stupid for designing the RPG the way did and came out with their own version. And the hobby benefited enormously.

Remember all that stuff you just got done saying about how me not liking something is ok, and your personal preferences are nothing more than that? it actually didn't apply to anything I said, but it applies perfectly here.  

I actually don't really care what you think about Gygax as a game designer.  The fact remains that RPG rules for the sake of enhanced gameplay and NOT adjudication or campaign-experience have existed from the start, and limited spellcasts in D&D are a prime example.

QuoteSo I want to interact with Gary's Setting as Mezzo by learning how to be a wizard. Gary adjudicated it by describing how magic worked in in-game terms. He also has formatted the above as a concise set of rules to use as a reference during the campaign.

Except that you and I both know full well that the reason a level one wizard gets 1 first level spell per day is to balance them against 1st level fighters and to force them to make interesting gameplay choices about when to spend their resources.  If you're going to sit there and tell me that Gygax envisioned a universe in which people advanced through 'levels' and in which 'low level' magical people could only use their discrete list of magical abilities a fixed number of times, and then set about coming up with rules to describe it, then we should stop because I don't trust you to be arguing in good faith anymore.  Limited spellcasts is to create GAME balance and resource management GAME choices.  Xp and level progression are to create GAME progression. These are all game-entertainment based rules.  They are not to adjudicate anything, or to facilitate experiencing the setting.

QuoteTheir focus is completely different. Which is why I wrote the OP.

I understand. You were just incorrect about a few things.

Estar sounds like my grandfather, who believes music is whatever style was around in his youth (usually jazz) and these new styles are not really music. :D

Quote from: Itachi;889681Estar sounds like my grandfather, who believes music is whatever style was around in his youth (usually jazz) and these new styles are not really music. :D

If by Jazz you mean early stuff like Jelly Roll Morton, then sure. If by Jazz you mean that modern wander aimless through some notes stuff...you can tell your grandad to get the hell off my lawn.  ;)

Frankly, the premiss that adding-board game elements or story-game elements to an RPG makes it "more" of an RPG is (or seems) absurd.

To stay with the analogy, it's like saying that adding rap and country to Mozart makes it more "classical" because you like rap and country.

Lets see, let's add to our RPG by... playing monopoly!  Then it will be more of an RPG because we'll also be playing monopoly! Yea! :duh:

You might like 2d20 because you like board-games and story-games, there is nothing wrong with that, but it doesn't make it "more" of an RPG.  It makes it less of an RPG.

Why?

QuoteOriginally Posted by Itachi
the fundamental to a RPG is acting as a character in an imaginary world, with rules to help people adjudicate things when necessary.

My emphasis on Itachi's words.

When you are playing the board game elements that have been introduced into the RPG - you are out of character and not playing the RPG.

When you are collectively spending baubles to take turns making up stories about the characters you are out of character and not playing the RPG.

The more things you add to the RPG that take you out of what makes an RPG special (and indeed an RPG) - like playing a character in an imaginary world - then the game is less of an RPG.  It is still a game, but it is less of an RPG.

2d20 is a strategy game where you make up stories about a character.  It barely registers as an RPG.

An RPG is different from other types of games.  That's why it D&D was so revolutionary when it came out.  What estar has described is not "the most popular current trend," Agkistro. It is how RPGs were played from the beginning.  It may not have been perfectly articulated, but estar has been attempting to describe is the essence of what makes RPGs different from other games.  You are arguing that making a game similar to non-RPGs makes them more like RPGs.

If you like a heavy dose of board game in your RPG, fine. Just own it.  Don't try to tell me that traditional RPGs are lesser RPGs because your favorite RPG is also a board game.

Quote from: Madprofessor;889718Frankly, the premiss that adding-board game elements or story-game elements to an RPG makes it "more" of an RPG is (or seems) absurd.

That does sound kind of absurd.   Who said that?

QuoteYou might like 2d20 because you like board-games and story-games, there is nothing wrong with that, but it doesn't make it "more" of an RPG.  It makes it less of an RPG.

Oh. Weird.  When you said it was absurd, I thought you were gonna say that the idea of something being "more" or "less" of an RPG in the first place was absurd.  But it looks like you buy into that.

I dunno.

All I can say is, I've ran a few sessions of 2d20 games and 2nd edition D&D, and they seem to be exactly as much RPGs as every other RPG I've run in the past 25 years or so.

QuoteThe more things you add to the RPG that take you out of what makes an RPG special (and indeed an RPG) - like playing a character in an imaginary world

But playing characers in an imaginary world is just 'let's pretend'.  That's not an RPG either.  An RPG is an inherently composite activity with several components taken from other passtimes- it's a little bit like a board game, a little bit like improvisational theater, and a little bit like war.  Different RPGs are going to emphasize different elements to different degrees.

Quote2d20 is a strategy game where you make up stories about a character.  It barely registers as an RPG.

Maybe the way you run it.

QuoteWhat estar has described is not "the most popular current trend," Agkistro. It is how RPGs were played from the beginning.

Well, from the beginning RPG's had features like arbitrary limits on how often you can use your abilities in order to create resource management game play and to address character balance concerns.  From the beginning RPGs have had challenge codes and treasure codes to dictate to the GameMaster what sorts of encounters were fair to pit against his players, and what sort of rewards were fair to give his players for overcoming those encounters.  From the beginning RPGs have kept score based on how many bad guys the players kill.

So apparently from the beginning RPGs have barely registered as RPGs.  Which is why I say this 'what counts as an RPG' horseshit is merely an expression of a popular trend- because it manifestedly has not always been the case.

QuoteDon't try to tell me that traditional RPGs are lesser RPGs because your favorite RPG is also a board game.

If you think I said something like that you need to read more carefully.  I've been arguing against somebody who thinks he gets to declare what counts as an RPG and what doesn't.  I haven't been replacing his fastidious baloney with more of my own.

Got to agree with Agkistro. Different people find different stuff easy to relate to from an in-character point of view, even if many people on this board tend to agree which one work best for them:).
Then again, this board does have a pretty uniform culture;).

So the OP basically tries to say:
 - RPG rules should only include rules of "physics"
 - the "cute" story gamey rules is something to avoid in RPGs

So as there is already topic in the forums - is there anything to innovate and improve in RPGs? Apparently not, right?

But why most of the RPG games (sessions, campaigns) suck? Does RPG have to suck? Because the GM will suck - there is no such superhuman GM, that can continue to entertain the players forever. He will miss something. If he is beginner, he will get the very first thing wrong.

All these "cute" meta-rules are actually something to help GM with. To help enrich the story and not fail. It breaks the immersion of players? Like for example you can manipulate a "risk level". With bad GM, you may not have any risk taking in your game.

And in the end, you can still meta-game in your traditional system. You can manipulate GM and he can manipulate you.

I think the main challenge for RPG rules is to help GM, not players.

Quote from: Madprofessor;889718Frankly, the premiss that adding-board game elements or story-game elements to an RPG makes it "more" of an RPG is (or seems) absurd.

But Agkistro never said that. On the contrary: He said that stating a game is "more" an RPG because it contains element X or Y is absurd, and that all games in this hobby are RPGs in equal measure. The one who is advocating certain games are more RPGs than others because reasons is Estar, since the beginning.


*Edit*: And the argument the hobby began through that "adjudication-only" style and thus it have more weight or something is moot because 1. Gamist elements were there from the beginning (see classes, levels, vancian casting), and 2.the hobby expanded a long way from it, both rules and styles-wise, and trying to say one style is more valid than the other just because it came first is like saying the old black-and-white mute Charlie Chaplin movies are TRUER movies than what we have nowadays. :D

Quote from: Itachi;889772trying to say one style is more valid than the other just because it came first is like saying the old black-and-white mute Charlie Chaplin movies are TRUER movies than what we have nowadays.

But it isn't though, because Chaplin films didn't define what constitutes a motion picture. Role-playing Game (as in Hobby Adventure Role-playing Game specifically, not the other known uses) was used to describe what D&D does.

Quote from: Itachi;889539Estar, the fundamental to a RPG is acting as a character in an imaginary world, with rules to help people adjudicate things when necessary.

"keeping the same characters in the context of larger campaigns" is not fundamental at all. One-shots, troupe-based games, freeform scenarios and other styles are proof of this. In fact, the concept of a "campaign" is totally optional to the activity of role-playing: I can play one-shots forever and I would still be playing RPGs.

That's a fair enough objection. It's a common bad habit for people to toss around the word "fundamental" when people really mean, "but I really, really want it this way." Even SCOTUS does it all the time and they should know better. So I'm sure misuse of the word can be forgiven here.

In any event, the ongoing campaign may not be "fundamental" to RPGs, but it has always been a major selling point. Even supporters of hyper-specialized RPGs that follow "a different game for a different itch" philosophy, when presented with the dilemma that in doing so you're killing this major selling point, agree that it's a problem.

It's not fundamental. YOU don't have to play that way. But for purposes of appealing to a large enough market, the RPG pretty much has to be able to handle the ongoing campaign

Quote from: Nerzenjäger;889777But it isn't though, because Chaplin films didn't define what constitutes a motion picture. Role-playing Game (as in Hobby Adventure Role-playing Game specifically, not the other known uses) was used to describe what D&D does.

Here, this was the first film ever: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6Ppp5902Yg (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6Ppp5902Yg)

It was exhibited on rooms and theathers of the age exactly like that: no dialogue, no acting, no plot or story. By your argument, every subsequent "film" that deviated from that mold is not really a "film", it's something else. Do you see how problematic this argument is ? :)

Quote from: Itachi;889792It was exhibited on rooms and theathers of the age exactly like that: no dialogue, no acting, no plot or story. So, by your argument, every subsequent "film" that deviated from that mold is not really a "film", it's something else. Right ? :)

No, because you concern yourself with what is depicted. Your allegory was faulty in the first place. A motion picture is precisely that, pictures in motion, what you are talking about is a dramatisation. A video game for example has similar attributes, but the interaction in context of a game makes it a different, yet related medium altogether.

Quote from: Itachi;889772that all games in this hobby are RPGs in equal measure.

Are they though...really?  Granted you can stretch the definiton of RPG to mean practically anything, that seems to be some people's entire posting history here :D.  When you start adding OOC mechanic after OOC mechanic that is meant to be engaged with as a player not simple representing actions of the character, you really are making it less of an RPG aren't you?  

I mean if you add a ton of tactical elements that make combat more boardgamish even if those elements aren't really associated to the character and the setting, but provide tactical challenge and gameplay depth, you're choosing to impact the roleplay in favor of something else, right?  Similarly, if you're adding mechanics that let you author more of what's happening from an OOC 3rd person perspective so you can control and create a story, well then you're consciously reducing the amount of time spent actually roleplaying the character, right?..and you're doing it by specific design.

I fail to see how adding mechanics that prevent roleplay to a roleplaying game can be seen as anything else other than making it less of "only an RPG" and more of a "RPG with non-roleplay elements built for a specific sub-purpose".

Try to come with alternate definitions or sub-types though (like they have with film, cars, pretty much everything else on earth except RPGs)...Holy Christ will people come flying in and go to the mattresses.

Quote from: CRKrueger;889796Are they though...really?

If you have a game where you can play a character and take the character through one or more Adventures using a set of rules then those rules constitute a RPG.

Some RPGs are more tactical, some are more narrative but they are all RPGs.

If you cannot use the rules to play a character in Adventures then it isn;t really a RPG.

Quote from: soltakss;889815If you have a game where you can play a character and take the character through one or more Adventures using a set of rules then those rules constitute a RPG.

Super Mario Bros is an RPG?

Quote from: Lunamancer;889823Super Mario Bros RPG is an RPG?

An electronic one ? Yes.

The concept is the same, only in another media.

Quote from: CRKrueger;889796Are they though...really?  Granted you can stretch the definiton of RPG to mean practically anything, that seems to be some people's entire posting history here :D.  When you start adding OOC mechanic after OOC mechanic that is meant to be engaged with as a player not simple representing actions of the character, you really are making it less of an RPG aren't you?  

I completely agree that you COULD do this. If a person wanted to, they could take an RPG and bog it down with such complex tactical rules that it functionally ceases to be an RPG.  So for example, treating everything turn based, even out of combat. Having people roll some sort of 'communication' check every time they speak, having combat rules be so complex and detailed that you literally don't have time to do anything else in a game session but fight.  I can see myself playing such a game, realizing that in two hours I haven't made a single non-dicebound decision for my character or described any actions or had the GM describe anything to me, and thinking "Well, this basically isn't even an RPG anymore."

Similarly, you could have a role-playing game that de-emphasizes mechanics arbitration so much that it basically becomes children playing 'let's pretend'. I could see myself after a couple hour session of doing whatever I want, the GM declaring I succeed in all my actions, the GM letting me narrate parts of the setting, and not even glancing down at my character sheet to make sure I actually have he capabilities to do the things I am describing saying "Well, this basically isn't even an RPG anymore."


My point here is that, as far as I am aware, no pen and paper RPG on the market comes anywhere close to being that way (at least in the former sense. In the 90's it seems like some games really were coming pretty damn close to 'let's pretend'), and that it's absurd to go around looking for 'culprits' as if some game that everybody thinks is an RPG might actually not be one because they roll dice in the wrong way and for the wrong reasons.  Moreover, mechanics that exist purely for the sake of making the game a game do not make something less of a role playing GAME, and these mechanics have been with us since the beginning of the industry, in games that nobody (as far as I know) have had any problems calling role playing games.  If some of us, NOW want to re-write history and declare that D&D isn't a real role playing game because it has level up, game balance, and resource management mechanics, then that is obviously just a function of what's trendy now.

Quote, you're choosing to impact the roleplay in favor of something else, right?

Sure, you're impacting the roleplay in favor of the GAME aspect, which as been right there in the design (and in the name, come on) since the beginning.  If you impacted it too much, such that role-playing isn't even a thing that happens in your game anymore, then sure, it ceases to be an RPG.  

But measuring an RPG purely in terms of how much role-playing you do when the word 'game' is right there in the name is just fuckin weird to me.

QuoteI fail to see how adding mechanics that prevent roleplay to a roleplaying game can be seen as anything else other than making it less of "only an RPG" and more of a "RPG with non-roleplay elements built for a specific sub-purpose".

Maybe it would help if I put it like this:  EVERY role-playing game is an "RPG with non-roleplay elements built for a specific sub-purpose".  That's why we call it an RPG and not an RP.  If you lose the RP, it ceases to be an RPG. But if you lose the G, it ALSO ceases to be an RPG.

Quote from: jux;889770So the OP basically tries to say:
 - RPG rules should only include rules of "physics"

Not quite, I focus on rules that are the "physics" so to speak. But physic is a misnomer because the purpose it to adjudicate something that the player does as a character. In some campaign will have nothing to with reality or anything based in the real world.  For example superhero, magic, or cartoons.

Also rules and games can used to aid a referee or player to prepare for a campaign, or be used to manage a campaign. For example Traveller has mini-games for starship creation, world generation, handling interstellar trading. For the players Traveller has a life path system for generating an experienced character. D&D has random encounter tables as a simplistic example. Pendragon and Ars Magica have mechanics for handling what happen during in a year of game time during the campaign.

But they are tools in used to run a tabletop RPG campaign. Hence my assertion that the point is to play the campaign not the rules.

Quote from: jux;889770- the "cute" story gamey rules is something to avoid in RPGs

Because I view them as a distraction from the player thinking what his character would do given the circumstance and the background of the campaign.

Quote from: jux;889770So as there is already topic in the forums - is there anything to innovate and improve in RPGs? Apparently not, right?

People think different, a new generation has different ways of looking at the world and what entertains them and so on. There will be always be need for a diverse range of designs for how to adjudicate things in a RPG campaign.

None of it is innovation and improvement in the sense my 2016 IPhone is better in many ways than my 2010 iPhone. What important that we have more diversity in how we can manage, prepare, and adjudicate our RPG Campaigns. And that is a very good thing to have.

Quote from: jux;889770All these "cute" meta-rules are actually something to help GM with. To help enrich the story and not fail. It breaks the immersion of players? Like for example you can manipulate a "risk level". With bad GM, you may not have any risk taking in your game.

There are better ways of aiding the referee (novice or experienced) than to use meta-rules.

The key thing to remember in most cases there are a number of equally plausible consequences for what the players do or not do as their character. To impart a specific feel to the campaign, pick the outcome that best matches that.  

Yes there are actions to which there is only one plausible consequence but in my experience that is not as common as people think it is. And very rare when it comes to the things that drive a campaign. As this usually involves NPCs and PCs interacting with each other with all its complexity and choices.

How to do the above can be taught not just in a general way but for specific circumstances, genres, and types of campaign. And it is far more useful and more importantly flexible than any set of mechanics.

Quote from: jux;889770And in the end, you can still meta-game in your traditional system. You can manipulate GM and he can manipulate you.

Sure, people are involved so it happens. However it not considered an ideal.

Quote from: jux;889770I think the main challenge for RPG rules is to help GM, not players.

I agree, however I see metagame mechanic as a distraction from that. The key to fixing the issue is to make a human referee not a better game.

Quote from: Itachi;889824An electronic one ? Yes.

This is more of a general comment on how I view the differences

The concept is the same, only in another media.

Tabletop RPGs are a game where players interact with a setting as their character with a human referee adjudicating their actions.

Computer RPGs are a game where a player interact with a setting as a character with a computer adjudicating their actions.

The fact one uses a computer and the other a human referee is the source of all the differences between the two types of RPGs.

An MMORPG is nearly the same as a Computer RPG except that instead of "a player" it is players like tabletop RPGs.

Quote from: jux;889770But why most of the RPG games (sessions, campaigns) suck? Does RPG have to suck? Because the GM will suck - there is no such superhuman GM, that can continue to entertain the players forever. He will miss something. If he is beginner, he will get the very first thing wrong.

All these "cute" meta-rules are actually something to help GM with. To help enrich the story and not fail. It breaks the immersion of players? Like for example you can manipulate a "risk level". With bad GM, you may not have any risk taking in your game.

And in the end, you can still meta-game in your traditional system. You can manipulate GM and he can manipulate you.

I think the main challenge for RPG rules is to help GM, not players.

+1

Quote from: Nerzenjäger;889777But it isn't though, because Chaplin films didn't define what constitutes a motion picture. Role-playing Game (as in Hobby Adventure Role-playing Game specifically, not the other known uses) was used to describe what D&D does.

Actually, the comparison is very apt. When motion pictures added sound, lots and lots of artists, producers and other filmmakers, proclaimed it was useless and will destroy motion pictures:p.

Quote from: Agkistro;889830I completely agree that you COULD do this. If a person wanted to, they could take an RPG and bog it down with such complex tactical rules that it functionally ceases to be an RPG.  So for example, treating everything turn based, even out of combat.

See: Torchbearer;).

Quote from: CRKrueger;889796Are they though...really?  Granted you can stretch the definiton of RPG to mean practically anything, that seems to be some people's entire posting history here :D.  When you start adding OOC mechanic after OOC mechanic that is meant to be engaged with as a player not simple representing actions of the character, you really are making it less of an RPG aren't you?  

I'm in mild disagreement with this. I mean I see where you're coming from but in my opinion you're losing more than you gain by following that train of thought.

My two main problems:

A) An RPG is a Role Playing **GAME**. So you need to have a game element, which means a structure. It is debatable (and endlessly debated) how much of a structure the "ideal" RPG needs, but some of that structure needs to be in place and by its very existence it will force OOC interactions at the table.

B) By going your route, you could define a "perfect RPG" as something which has 100% role-playing and 0% of anything else. But that means that every time you e.g. make an OOC joke at the table, eat a snack, excuse yourself to go to the bathroom etc. you're acting in a way which makes for a worse RPG. My own personal experience is that a fun RPG session has lots of different things going on at the table and immersion is only one of those and often not the main factor.

YMMV, of course, but it seems to me you're essentially trying to "objectivize" the idea that the only "true RPG" is the perfect-immersion-based RPG.

I'll be the first one to admit that an objective definition of what is an RPG is an extremely hard task. Personally, the only hard and fast rule I find useful (as in: "if I find it in the book it's likely I'm reading an RPG") is that RPG's game structures are never static; they use dynamic rulesets which allow them to tackle any kind of in-game situation, most of which, obviously, can't be anticipated by the author.
Or, the tl;dr version: "RPGs must have rule zero". Anything beyond that becomes problematic from a theoretical point of view.

Quote from: Luca;889855A) An RPG is a Role Playing **GAME**. So you need to have a game element, which means a structure. It is debatable (and endlessly debated) how much of a structure the "ideal" RPG needs, but some of that structure needs to be in place and by its very existence it will force OOC interactions at the table.

The game is this. The players play individual characters interacting with a setting with their actions adjudicated by a human referee. The is called a RPG campaign, the details of preparing, managing, and adjudicating are written up in a rulebook which is a combination of traditional game rules, game aides, flavor, and advice.

The idea is simple the execution is not which is why we have multiple RPGs with diverse ways of doing the above. And it begins with the campaign first and the figuring out what you need including which rules are you going to use.

Quote from: Agkistro;889830EVERY role-playing game is an "RPG with non-roleplay elements built for a specific sub-purpose".

That's the point where we disagree.  You see any rule at all, as a non-roleplaying element.  But there are tons of RPGs where the only purpose the rules serve is resolution of character action.  That's it, period.

I roleplay the character, I choose as the character what to do, and the rules determine what happens with a randomizer to take into account chaos, physics calculations etc.  I don't HAVE to roleplay to play such a game, but the game mechanics don't deliver any choices from a point of view other than my character.

That's a fundamentally different form of roleplaying game from one that deliberately places rules that must be engaged with in a non-roleplaying manner.

One type of game allows me to always roleplay, or not, my choice.
The other type of game says 'For this particular mechanic, you can't roleplay, sorry, but look at the cool benefits!"

Quote from: Luca;889855B) By going your route, you could define a "perfect RPG" as something which has 100% role-playing and 0% of anything else. But that means that every time you e.g. make an OOC joke at the table, eat a snack, excuse yourself to go to the bathroom etc. you're acting in a way which makes for a worse RPG. My own personal experience is that a fun RPG session has lots of different things going on at the table and immersion is only one of those and often not the main factor.

The difference of course being, all the OOC activity you describe above is completely player choice, absolutely none of it determined by game mechanics.

Quote from: Luca;889855YMMV, of course, but it seems to me you're essentially trying to "objectivize" the idea that the only "true RPG" is the perfect-immersion-based RPG.

Eh, I go back and forth on this, but really, when you come down it, it doesn't quite seem right lumping games that have no mechanics that force OOC thinking with those that do force OOC thinking, and calling them both "roleplaying games" without some form of qualifier like Tactical RPG, or Narrative RPG or whatever.

Take any type of item/thing there is, call it X.  Then come up with something that is a blend of X and Y.  Do you still call it X?  In almost any case I can think of, no you don't.  You come up with a name for the new thing you've created, or perhaps even multiple names depending on the blend of X and Y.

It just seems logical to take a game whose mechanics allow you to Roleplay 100% if you desire as the base standard for the term Roleplaying Game.
Anything that introduces OOC, non-roleplaying decisions through mechanics should be termed something else.
James Bond 007 - Genre RPG
D&D 4e - Tactical RPG
Fate, 2d20 - Narrative RPG

Look at the hellstorm over 4e.  People still call it "not a RPG", only because there isn't a term for the type of RPG it is, because the type of RPG it is, is quite different from the type other forms of D&D were.

Better terms are needed.

Most adventures entail in-game travel.  I have always taken a "rulings" approach to handling travel, lots of handwave and some ad hoc encounter rolls and some throwing shit out as it comes to mind (thunderstorm on the horizon, or whatever).

My next campaign, I want to try out making travel more of a formal procedure and have scribbled down notes on the rules to be used.  I will clearly be shifting from a rulings to a rules paradigm in relation to in-game travel.

Is this making the rules subordinate to the needs of the campaign?
Or is this playing the rules at the expense of the campaign?

Quote from: CRKrueger;889864Take any type of item/thing there is, call it X.  Then come up with something that is a blend of X and Y.  Do you still call it X?  In almost any case I can think of, no you don't.  You come up with a name for the new thing you've created, or perhaps even multiple names depending on the blend of X and Y.

It just seems logical to take a game whose mechanics allow you to Roleplay 100% if you desire as the base standard for the term Roleplaying Game.
Anything that introduces OOC, non-roleplaying decisions through mechanics should be termed something else.
James Bond 007 - Genre RPG
D&D 4e - Tactical RPG
Fate, 2d20 - Narrative RPG

This.
German Old Schoolers for a while called their games "Adventure Role-Playing Games" for the sole purpose of differentiating them from the then mainstream trend towards narrativism, storytelling, and other such wankery. Of course what they should have done instead, was to reclaim the term RPG.

Quote from: Luca;889855A) An RPG is a Role Playing **GAME**. So you need to have a game element, which means a structure. It is debatable (and endlessly debated) how much of a structure the "ideal" RPG needs, but some of that structure needs to be in place and by its very existence it will force OOC interactions at the table.

There are two major definitions of the word game as a noun (at least that are remotely applicable). From Dictionary.com these are the first and third definitions of the word:

Quote1. an amusement or pastime
2. the material or equipment used in playing certain games
3. a competitive activity involving skill, chance, or endurance on the part of two or more persons who play according to a set of rules, usually for their own amusement or for that of spectators.

For many, if not most, of the casual tabletop RPG players I've played with over the last 40 years, RPGs are more pastimes (definition #1) than activities played according to a set of rules (definition #3). Most of these players show little to no interest in learning the details of the rules (let alone interest in manipulating the rules as widgets). They aren't there for the rules but to pretend be someone else in another world -- they depend on the GM to provide the structure and don't really care about how that structure is provided.

While more "hardcore" players tend to see RPG as Role-Playing GAME (with stress on the word "game"), many casual players see RPG as ROLE-PLAYING game (with the stress on the word "role-playing" and with the meaning of the word "game" more toward the "pastime" definition of the word.)

This is more a side note than an argument, but I do think it is an important to remember that not all tabletop RPG players consider the word "game" in the same way or even consider the "game" part of the name the most important aspect of what they are doing when they play.

Quote from: Nerzenjäger;889902German Old Schoolers for a while called their games "Adventure Role-Playing Games" for the sole purpose of differentiating them from the then mainstream trend towards narrativism, storytelling, and other such wankery. Of course what they should have done instead, was to reclaim the term RPG.

Too late. :D

Quote from: Old One Eye;889901Is this making the rules subordinate to the needs of the campaign?
Or is this playing the rules at the expense of the campaign?

No just adjudicating travel at a different level of detail that you prefer. Travel is something that happens in-game so a referee of a campaign will need some way of adjudicating it. It obvious you were not satisfied with how you handled that part of a campaign so you are changing it.

The question you need to ask yourself is it something your players will find interesting.

For me personally I vary how much detail I go into travelling. The default for me is to throw a map, and move a marker along and just briefly comment on what the players see. Most time it is over and done with in a minute or two. But occasionally I will describe something that interests them and we go from there.

I find this way, among others, give my players the sense they are moving through a larger world with a life of it own. Plus I get to have some fun exercising some creativity that not directly related to the what going on at the moment in the campaign.

Roleplaying games are games that differ from other games by the qualifying element of playing a role.
Such it is possible to loose the game aspect, but it is much easier to loose the role playing aspect.

The other thing is, that once RPGs branched from other kind of games, they still evolved and diversified and with them the tastes of the players until not everyone still works well with everyone else at the same table.
Like chihuahua and St. Bernards both being dogs but not really making nice couples.

The problem is, that the number of players didn´t grow to proportions and now there is a rivalry for attracting gamers and things get "political" quickly.
Which is the main cause for not getting working labels too, because a) everyone wants to keep the main and best known label and some subgroups seem to fear that not getting the label will make the available gamers dropping quickly.
 
In my eyes there are 6 main interest focus groups (similar to threefold and then divided into way and result styles) in the brawl - beside social gaming for when you are just where their friends are and don´t think too much about what you are doing:

Simulation of the way: Here people are asking "What if" and try to find out and experience what happens in their fame world.

Simulation of the result (genre sim): Here people like a certain genre or feel of events and try to recreate and then experience it in persona.

Gamism of the way: This is where you are into challenge and testing their ability to beat the odds and you try to find out who will (fairly) win.

Gamism of the result: This is rather about winning and blowing of steam and feeling good.

Dramatism of the way: This is sharing in the authorship of a story and looking what will result if several people throw together their narrative ideas and efforts.

Dramatism of the result: This is having an ideal narrative vision and trying to reproduce best possible in front of the audience of the other participiants.  

And while there are still some rough edges in my experience it was the easiest to find compromises between Simulationists  of the way and Gamists of the way (and besides this is also the mix nearest to the original - which is not a qualification by itself but probably leading to be not that far away from the other branches than more special tastes, leading to an easier compromise finding)

And each one can loose something of being an RPG, when ist gets to far away from its roots. Double points if you deliberately shift the focus from playing (in) your role and put it someone else.

Regarding rules:
Depending on what branches you want to serve with your game/campaign you have to choose the fitting rules and then these rules (if you have chosen wisely) are very much what your campaign is about.

Quote from: Maarzan;890106Roleplaying games are games that differ from other games by the qualifying element of playing a role.
Such it is possible to loose the game aspect, but it is much easier to loose the role playing aspect.

Not that anyone's ever agreed on definition. I parse the term just as follows: Roleplaying is a present participle functioning as an adjective. Game is the noun. It's a game, plain and simple, but the way you participate in the game is through the playing of a role or roles. In other words, it's not like pieces on a chess where they are moved according to a purpose greater than themselves by a player who can see the whole board and limited to specified and generally enumerated legal moves.

Rather, each "piece" ideally moves according to a purpose of its owned as best the player can provide, under conditions of limited information according to the piece's perspective, and any number of moves are possible, limited only by imagination and what the character could reasonably do or attempt if he were a real person.

Quote from: Lunamancer;890109Not that anyone's ever agreed on definition. I parse the term just as follows: Roleplaying is a present participle functioning as an adjective. Game is the noun. It's a game, plain and simple, but the way you participate in the game is through the playing of a role or roles. In other words, it's not like pieces on a chess where they are moved according to a purpose greater than themselves by a player who can see the whole board and limited to specified and generally enumerated legal moves.

Rather, each "piece" ideally moves according to a purpose of its owned as best the player can provide, under conditions of limited information according to the piece's perspective, and any number of moves are possible, limited only by imagination and what the character could reasonably do or attempt if he were a real person.

Sounds good for me.

The derived from the "game" part is the aspect "shared social activity" that sets a certain amount of socially imbued limits (leading to "my character is cn" not being an excuse for everything"), but besides this, it is on the point.

This is a good thread! I agree that the Campaign is very central to the idea of RPGs (with the caveat that there can be single session "campaigns"). Here's my definition of RPGs:

A Game is a period of structured play (play - an activity engaged in for enjoyment and recreation rather than a serious or practical purpose). Let us differentiate Game from other forms of Play (Toys, "Pretend", etc).

Games have:

• Agents ~ a list of players and/or their symbolic representations.
• Strategies ~ moves or series of moves governed by rules, that each player may make and the associated goals, risks and rewards.
• Uncertainty ~ the outcome of the activity is unforeseeable but ultimately quantifiable (if we could predict it 100% of the time in advance, why go through the ritual of acting it out, right?).

Lacking multiple agents, we have Playthings.

Playthings with goals (puzzles, etc) are Challenges.
Playthings without goals are Toys.

Play with multiple agents but lacking one of the other two aspects also falls outside of Gamimg territory. This could be a theatrical Play with a script ("goal") but little-to-no uncertainty, or simple "let's pretend" Play with no pre-established goals and plenty of uncertainty.

Now that we have defined a Game, I would say that:

Roleplaying Games are games where the outcome is a Narrative of the events of a fictional world. One of the Players (usually labeled the "Game Master" or "Dungeon Master") is given authority to interpret the rules as well as advance the narrative of events. The GM does this by describing situations and outcomes and choosing strategies for all NPC Agents ("Non-Player Character").

The other Players control Agents (the "Player Characters") and choose their Strategies by associating themselves with the in-game representation presented by the GM's fictional narrative ("imagining/immersion"). The players learn optimal Strategies by considering the PCs role in the story, their own character goals, the resources and game mechanics available to that PC, and the effect on the 'game-world' of previous Strategies.

The Uncertainty usually lies in if the PCs as a group will succeed in their Goal(s) for the current session of Play (goals may be stated or unstated, GM chosen or collaborated upon) while the GM presents opposition without being emotionally invested in the PC's failure. Uncertainty can also lie in the method used to resolve in-game activities by characters, usually by rolling one or more dice and consulting the game's rules.

Some of the links I mined for this:
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/134922/what_is_a_game_an_excerpt_from_.php
http://www.thegamesjournal.com/articles/WhatIsaGame.shtml

Quote from: CRKrueger;889860That's the point where we disagree.  You see any rule at all, as a non-roleplaying element.  But there are tons of RPGs where the only purpose the rules serve is resolution of character action.  That's it, period.

I'm sure that there are. But there are also tons of games that we've all called RPGs since there were such things as RPGs that aren't that way, too. It is just odd to say that deviations from 'rules are only for resolution of character action' makes something less of an RPG when the first RPGs weren't that way.

QuoteThat's a fundamentally different form of roleplaying game from one that deliberately places rules that must be engaged with in a non-roleplaying manner.

If you say so.  Considering virtually all character advancement systems have rules that must be engaged with in a non-roleplaying manner, I'm still not seeing what the point of the distinction is.  You're still stuck in a place where you have to say that D&D is fundamentally not a role playing game, or is much less of one than whatever ideal you have in mind.  Like we were all doing role playing games wrong for the first decade of the hobby or something.

QuoteOne type of game allows me to always roleplay, or not, my choice.

What makes this thing you're describing a game? We're not talking about role-playing, we're talking about role-playing games, so "I can always role-play in it" is not sufficient.

QuoteThe other type of game says 'For this particular mechanic, you can't roleplay, sorry, but look at the cool benefits!"

So like, character creation for example.

Quote from: CRKrueger;889864Take any type of item/thing there is, call it X.  Then come up with something that is a blend of X and Y.  Do you still call it X?  In almost any case I can think of, no you don't.  You come up with a name for the new thing you've created, or perhaps even multiple names depending on the blend of X and Y.

The problem with this of course is that this abstraction completely fails to describe the actual history of what's happened.  The term "Role-playing Game"  came into existence specifically to describe things that would be excluded based on your distinction.   AD&D is not a blend between an RPG and something else; it is literally the very thing the word "RPG" was created to describe.  

So what's happening here is more like:  Take a thing and call it X. Subtract an inherent element to X that has been there since X was a thing.  Do you still call it X? Most of the time no.

So yeah, feel free to come up with a name other than "Role-playing game" for this thing in which you role-play without any gamist mechanics in it.  Me, I'm happy calling all this stuff RPGs, but you seem to place a greater importance on labels than me.  Maybe the things you like should be called 'role-playing experiences' or 'role-playing parties' or just 'role-playing' instead of role-playing games. You can call them anything you want really- like I said, it's you that things the label is important.

QuoteIt just seems logical to take a game whose mechanics allow you to Roleplay 100% if you desire as the base standard for the term Roleplaying Game.

Look at how silly this reads. Role-playing GAME. It's right there in the WORD.  "Clearly pure role-playing game would be one in which you role-play 100% of the time with no gamist interruptions".   What?

Quote from: Nerzenjäger;889902This.
German Old Schoolers for a while called their games "Adventure Role-Playing Games" for the sole purpose of differentiating them from the then mainstream trend towards narrativism, storytelling, and other such wankery. Of course what they should have done instead, was to reclaim the term RPG.

Well, that was and is impossible, as the defining RPG was Das Schwarze Auge.
And running around telling people Kiesow-style DSA is not even an RPG at all might be true, but terribly ineffective.

Furthermore, I still stand by my old stance that what I engage is as a hobby encompasses Boardgames, Wargames, Miniature Games as well as RPGs. To me, they are not seperate activities, oftentimes.

Quote from: Settembrini;890194Well, that was and is impossible, as the defining RPG was Das Schwarze Auge.
And running around telling people Kiesow-style DSA is not even an RPG at all might be true, but terribly ineffective.

Furthermore, I still stand by my old stance that what I engage is as a hobby encompasses Boardgames, Wargames, Miniature Games as well as RPGs. To me, they are not seperate activities, oftentimes.

Less of a criticism, Sette, but a mere observation. I did actually like term, but today it's meaningless, because even German publishers have gone with the flow and went somewhat old school, even if it was for the wrong reasons (see "Schwarzer Keiler Redux"). I guess my biggest recent disappointment was the new edition of DSA, which is nothing but a missed chance. Hopefully, the more Fuchsian "DSA Classic" they were talking up the last two years will make them see the light.

To your second point: Yes, I call it The Hobby. I'm a Hobbyist, a Hobby Gamer. I even incorporate the new D&D miniatures game for large scale conflict in my current 5E campaign, use D&D Dice Masters as an in-game national tournament the characters can partake in. And of course we all know that games like Diplomacy are basically the Model UN of RPGs anyway.

Quote from: AsenRG;889253I simply don't know an RPG where you can run the game without rulings!

Most any RPG that is not rules dependant on "make stuff up" can be played RAW. IE: Games where there isnt a rule at all for some action that normally youd see in an RPG and can not be covered with existing rules.

Some games give the DM alot of leeway without having to resort to rulings. Stat checks in D&D is a prime example. Its a pretty versatile yet simple rule that can cover a broad array of situations.

I've DMed and played quite a few games RAW without having to resort to rulings or house rules. So yeah. Can be done. Certainly not for every DM. Each group has its own quirks and pure RAW might fail as this thread has had people point out.

Quote from: Agkistro;889641So rules that don't do what you say all RPG rules should do don't count as rules?  I guess that makes you right!

Welcome to EstarWorld. Enjoy your stay.

Quote from: estar;889842Tabletop RPGs are a game where players interact with a setting as their character with a human referee adjudicating their actions.

Computer RPGs are a game where a player interact with a setting as a character with a computer adjudicating their actions.

The fact one uses a computer and the other a human referee is the source of all the differences between the two types of RPGs.

An MMORPG is nearly the same as a Computer RPG except that instead of "a player" it is players like tabletop RPGs.

Um... Except in pretty much every CRPG out there you can not jump on a table or talk to an NPC or pick up a rock unless it is scripted to allow it to happen. No code? No way. There is no real RP to the CRPG or MMORPG.

Huh... I don't think the presence of a human referee is a requisite for role-playing to happen. So I have no objection to computer RPGs. In fact, I find some computer RPGs had stronger and more meaningful role-playing than some tables I've participated.

Quote from: Itachi;890918Huh... I don't think the presence of a human referee is a requisite for role-playing to happen. So I have no objection to computer RPGs. In fact, I find some computer RPGs had stronger and more meaningful role-playing than some tables I've participated.

So you were talking to the computer screen? Fun stuff.

QuoteSo you were talking to the computer screen? Fun stuff.

Huh.. no ? I was talking to other characters in an fictional world depicted through the screen.

Some computer RPGs give the player possibilities for exploring his "role" and the fictional situation at hand in pretty interesting ways that, sometimes, are more meaningful than the futile chat that usually happens at a table. In fact, I would argue that the decisions (& consequences) from computer games like, say, Fallout 2 or King of Dragon Pass are indeed more impactful to plot, setting and your own "role" than most GM-arbitred campaigns.

Quote from: Itachi;889824An electronic one ? Yes.

The concept is the same, only in another media.

Well, then you're clearly using the word "RPG" to mean something no one else means when they used the word "RPG." Certainly not the makers of Mario RPG games who differentiated as RPGs these specific mario games from the rest of the series.

Quote from: Itachi;890918Huh... I don't think the presence of a human referee is a requisite for role-playing to happen. So I have no objection to computer RPGs. In fact, I find some computer RPGs had stronger and more meaningful role-playing than some tables I've participated.

This is not an argument against a human referee as being necessary. It's only an argument against a human referee not being sufficient.

As I earlier parsed the term "role playing game" in plain English, one essential thing that follows from it is that the "allowable moves" are not based on a limited set of rules, but rather they are limited according to the role itself--what could this person reasonable do or not do?

This rules out most video games. It also rules out board games, even those that carry a lot of the trappings of RPGs.

Are computer RPGs possible? Sure. The old text-based ones let you type in whatever you wanted. You could literally try to do anything a human could do. The problem was their lack of sophistication--they weren't necessarily good RPGs because of their lack of responsiveness to all those different things you might do.

But if you want a game where you can not only attempt anything you want, but that it is 100% logically responsive, yes, if you want a truly great RPG, human adjudication is necessary.

See, I think lots of games have role-playing elements in them, even if they are classified to different genres. IE: would someone dare saying the computer game King of Dragon Pass lacks a roleplaying element, for example ? Or Mount & Blade ? Or GTA V ? In all those games you assume "roles" of individuals (or groups of individuals in case of KoDP) living in breathable, dynamical & believable fictional worlds, while behaving and interacting with it in ways accordant to their themes and premises. But all them are classified in different "genres" as per the electronics gaming industry – Strategy, Fighting and Action, respectively. So, I think my point here is: in the case of the electronics industry, the "genres" end up mixing and mashing many elements.  

About the concept of roleplaying, I think each media has its strong and weak points. Tabletop opens up more ways for communication and improvisation, but depending on the group it can bog down to railroading, lack of players agency, unequal player spotlighting, etc. Electronic limits communication and improvising, but it usually offers more in the way of well thought-out decisions with really tangible consequences and impact on the setting and plot. So what if Fallout 2 doesn't allow me to improvise some chit-chat with NPCs ? I doubt a tabletop GM can manage the degree of meaningful and branching decisions and it's consequences in the setting and plot that game provides.

So, TL;DR: role-playing exists on various media, in my humble opinion, and each one offers different advantages and disadvantages.

That is the problem. As your definition of RPG approaches "everything on earth". Your definition of RPG becomes increasingly meaningless and worthless.

We've been over this ground ad nausium.

Omega, my definition of role-playing is the same as wikipedia, it seems:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Role-playing_game (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Role-playing_game) (see "Varieties")

So it's not that absurd in the end. ;)

Quote from: Itachi;891073Omega, my definition of role-playing is the same as wikipedia, it seems:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Role-playing_game (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Role-playing_game) (see "Varieties")

So it's not that absurd in the end. ;)

Not absurd, but practically useless when you then want to then try and apply that definition to game mechanics and game design.

Any definition of "RPG" should probably include the role-playing games that started the hobby in the first place, that the term was created to describe.  The people arguing for strict definitions in this thread have failed to meet this criteria.

Give me a 'strict definition' that actually allows for first edition D&D with it's level ups, spells per day, and etc. to count as an RPG, and we'll talk.

Quote from: Omega;890888Um... Except in pretty much every CRPG out there you can not jump on a table or talk to an NPC or pick up a rock unless it is scripted to allow it to happen. No code? No way. There is no real RP to the CRPG or MMORPG.

You don't have to sell me on the advantages of a human referee. However CRPG are roleplaying games because the player is focused on playing a individual character interacting with a setting. Just as LARPS are roleplaying games. They are both not tabletop roleplaying games.

All part of the same family of games but different experiences.

My opinion is that CRPGs are not better roleplaying games. But because of combination of spectacular visual and above all convenience CRPGs has won for more popularity than tabletop.

Quote from: Agkistro;891100Any definition of "RPG" should probably include the role-playing games that started the hobby in the first place, that the term was created to describe.  The people arguing for strict definitions in this thread have failed to meet this criteria.

Give me a 'strict definition' that actually allows for first edition D&D with it's level ups, spells per day, and etc. to count as an RPG, and we'll talk.

The Benz-Motorwagen was (probably) the first vehicle that you could call a car. But it was the one to jump the line, not the final wisdom regarding cars.
Similar thing with role playing games. OD&D was the first RPG but it surely wasn´t the end of all. And some games even steered actively  away from what makes a role playing game, so it gets questionable if they still belong.

Quote from: Maarzan;891150The Benz-Motorwagen was (probably) the first vehicle that you could call a car. But it was the one to jump the line, not the final wisdom regarding cars.
Similar thing with role playing games. OD&D was the first RPG but it surely wasn´t the end of all. And some games even steered actively  away from what makes a role playing game, so it gets questionable if they still belong.

I'm not saying RPGs haven't improved over the years.  I'm saying if you're going to declare "Here's what definitively makes an RPG!" and your definition excludes everything that was considered an RPG for the first, I dunno, 15 years of the hobby, then your definition isn't 'definitive' at all, it's just an expression of current popular tastes.  You acknowledging OD&D was the first RPG is already more than the original post in this thread would be capable of saying according to the definitions proposed there.

Quote from: Maarzan;891150The Benz-Motorwagen was (probably) the first vehicle that you could call a car. But it was the one to jump the line, not the final wisdom regarding cars.
Similar thing with role playing games. OD&D was the first RPG but it surely wasn´t the end of all. And some games even steered actively  away from what makes a role playing game, so it gets questionable if they still belong.

Nobody says it is. But the Motorwagen defined what constitutes a car. It's not that hard really. Add wings to a car, is it then still a car? Changes in motorisation, electronics, and additional body work are just building upon a foundation that was already there. You can say that a Buick is no Motorwagen anymore, but you can't say it's not a car in the context of a rational conversation.

Quote from: Agkistro;891100Give me a 'strict definition' that actually allows for first edition D&D with it's level ups, spells per day, and etc. to count as an RPG, and we'll talk.

A game where the players interact with a setting as their character with their actions adjudicated by a human referee.

Cover everything from 1974 to now.

A group of gamers sits down, designate a referee, the rest makes some characters, a setting is created, and the game starts. The players interact with the setting, the referee adjudicates.

To break it down

1) The game obviously has players

2) A player has one or more characters however I only mention it 'as their character" because the player is only doing something with a single character at a time before moving on the next character he is playing in the same session.

I don't specify what exactly what a character is. Given the diversity of RPGs the only definition that fits across all them them is that the focus on the game on playing a character in the plain english sense of the world. "A person in a novel, play, or movie."

A person could be a robot, a blog, or a human being. It is not an army, nation, or organization. I acknowledge that it can be a bit fuzzy. In a Napoleanic wargame campaign, do you consider yourself play the army or the general leading the army? But RPGs clearly come down on the "Your playing the general" side of the issue.

3) The point is to interact with the setting. Every roleplaying game ever made has a setting in which the character exist. The players do things as their character in that setting whether trying to get the approval of a magic deer or bashing it ti take it shit. The setting can be defined to the nth detail like with Harn, Tekemul, or Glorantha, or just a few evocative words on a piece of scrap paper.

This is does not just include to simulating a setting, or trying to immerse oneself in the setting. There are multiple ways of interacting as well as multiple styles of doing this.

Nor do I specify exactly what the player do to interact with the setting. Do they talk? Do they kill? Do they sit around and gaze at their navals. Do gaze an awe at the magic deer? It doesn't matter as it all grist for the mill and dependent on personal preference.

4) However the players try to interact with a setting the result is adjudicated by a human referee. The presence of the human referee is what make tabletop RPG is own game. Without the human referee it is still a game but something other type like a CRPG, or a LARP or a story game.

I deliberately don't define HOW the referee handles adjudicating the actions of the players as their character. Not all RPGs use dice, not all RPGs define things in the same way or handle things at the same details. Some RPGs only have one page of rules. The only constant is that there is a human referee who does the adjudication by some means

5) I don't mention anything about a campaign of multiple sessions. Nor do I mention character advancement either via the mechanics or within the setting. This is because RPGs can be played as a single session with no follow-on session.

My definition put a clear limit on what games are RPGs. It involves playing characters, has a human referee, etc. My definition doesn't not specify HOW you achieve any of the elements. The rules are the HOW, and after 42 years of Tabletop RPGs we have a huge diversity in HOW we can play a game where the players interact with a setting with a human referee adjudicating their actions.

Which bring back to my OP. That RPGs are about playing the campaign not the rules.

Quote from: Nerzenjäger;891175Nobody says it is. But the Motorwagen defined what constitutes a car. It's not that hard really. Add wings to a car, is it then still a car? Changes in motorisation, electronics, and additional body work are just building upon a foundation that was already there. You can say that a Buick is no Motorwagen anymore, but you can't say it's not a car in the context of a rational conversation.

The Motowagen had no armour. Some cars today have it. Are they aremoured carriers, or something?
My position on this question: as long as I know what kind of game I'm buying, I don't care whether some people will elect to consider a new game an RPG, or not.

It's interesting, however, that this thread highlights the differences in how different people approach the same situation;).

Some people say, "RPGs are about playing, not rules-wankering, so we're going to play what we want and we're not going to care what the rules are".
Other people, including me, say "RPGs are about playing, not rules wankering, so we're going to pick the rules that support best the kind of game we want to play".

Right? Wrong? Neither, these are just different approaches:). As long as you have fun, what does it matter which one you're using?
Of course, if playing according to the other approach makes it less fun for you, that's a problem. But even then, you just have to know and avoid those games.

The problem comes when one of these camps tries to present their position as ethically superior. Then of course, the other camp presents their position as ethically superior. At the end, we have the proverbial "tornado in a waterglass", or "forum wars":D!

The campaign matters more than the rules.

Which doesn't mean the rules don't matter.

Four pages arguing about the rules of definitions do certainly put a dent into theory that RPGs will ever be more about campaigns than rules ;).

Quote from: RPGPundit;892039The campaign matters more than the rules.

Which doesn't mean the rules don't matter.

Indeed, that is my point:).

Quote from: Rincewind1;892144Four pages arguing about the rules of definitions do certainly put a dent into theory that RPGs will ever be more about campaigns than rules ;).

Why? You think we couldn't easily have fourty-four pages of arguing about campaigns;)?

Quote from: Rincewind1;892144Four pages arguing about the rules of definitions do certainly put a dent into theory that RPGs will ever be more about campaigns than rules ;).

Basically all RPG theories break down when applied to the wild.  They mostly only hold in the controlled experimentation of a relatively small group of people.

Quote from: Old One Eye;892161Basically all RPG theories break down when applied to the wild.  They mostly only hold in the controlled experimentation of a relatively small group of people.

There is a lot of real understanding of games out there. It is just that role-players do not seem to want to read those studies but prefer to invent their own stuff by random-dude-in-internet method.

If we talk about real psychology and real studies (i.e. done by real psychologists) we have a pretty good idea how human mind goes to a full immersion in a game. However, we do not know when role-playing your game avatar starts from that immersion.

We also know what kind of fun people want from a game (i.e. why they like in a game). We do not know why some people play more than others (it is probably tied to addiction) but we are studying it a lot.

There is no system of adjudication I know of which doesn't feature a set of rules interpreted by an authority. You can't make rulings without rules, and rules cannot be applied without rulings.

Quote from: Madprofessor;888780However, at this point they are having a hard time learning the notion that a 50 page lulu title can do that as well as, and sometimes better than, Pathfinder.

Or perhaps they just enjoy the Pathfinder experience, obscenely huge rulebooks and all.

Quote from: Lunamancer;888801Assume all the players are 100% in agreement that the rules are for rules sake. So "teh rulez" IS the purpose in their case. Can you give me an example of a situation where this group would have to make the tough choice between being faithful to the rules and being faithful to the purpose?

I have NO idea what you're even talking about.

Quote from: Phillip;888822Just like in real life. Knowledge of the Book of Nature is won through experiment.

That's why I always play to the GM's expectations as opposed to the rules or even setting. Thing is not everyone is as good at it as I am, and they're looking for a session where their particular skillsets are effective.

Quote from: CRKrueger;888832The posts were discussing RAW, intent of the designer and the Cult of RAW thereof, specifically with regards to learning a new game.

Intent? Cult?!? Seriously, they're just rules to a game, not a political/religious manifesto.

Quote from: CRKrueger;888832The last thing a new player needs is access to the rules.

Bold not mine.

Only in the RPG community will you find this kind of batshit insane sentiment when it comes to games. And it's so established it's become a cultural tradition in some circles.

Quote from: CRKrueger;888832If they are new to roleplaying, you may as well crack them one over the head with the rulebook, it will be about as much incentive for them to come back.

Are you saying that reading the rules keeps new players away?

Quote from: CRKrueger;888832If they are not new to roleplaying, then they already know, generally speaking, how a game kind of works, so the most important thing is how things are going to work in actual play, at your table, and reading a book isn't going to do that whether it's 40 pages or 400 pages.

Unless the way you do things contradicts what they're used to and they want their 400+ page books to play.

Quote from: CRKrueger;888832Reading the rules is like learning how to shoot before you go into the Marine Corps.  They have to spend more time with you to unlearn the incorrect way to shoot.

As if this simile wasn't dumbass enough, you have to know how to shoot before you're even eligible to enter the Marine Corps.

Quote from: CRKrueger;888832Designers these days are way too full of themselves, and fill the rulebooks with too many assumptions as if they didn't know that not a single person on earth, ever, is going to run those rules 100%, not even them.

Yes, how arrogant of them to presume to tell you how to play the game they designed.

Again, this kind of crazy seems completely unique to tabletop roleplayers.

Quote from: Vonn;888847Never ever have I demanded of my players to read the rules before they can play. Everybody in my gaming group is already busy enough with other things in their life.

If the rules are this much of a burden to learn, then they're part of the problem.

Quote from: Madprofessor;889013Playing an RPG RAW is more restrictive than adapting the rules to fit the campaign.

But why do you have to adapt the rules to fit the campaign in the first place? Unless the rules actually do fundamentally define important aspects of the campaign, in which case they already fit the campaign they're designed for.

Quote from: Madprofessor;889013RAW restricts characters, setting, resolution, and story options more than a flexible approach to the rules does.

That's what they're supposed to do. And I highly doubt your 'flexible' approach is any less restrictive, just in different ways.

Quote from: Lunamancer;889080As I mentioned earlier on in the thread, when it comes to people who like rules, it's not really about the rules. Rules are a feature, not a benefit. No matter what the haters may say, nobody actually likes rules. They like what they perceive rules to produce.

No. Some people really do like rules (and specific ones) for their own sake. Some people also like rolling d20s just because, and avoid RPGs where they don't. Some people like the color red.

Quote from: Lunamancer;889197Whatever number you want, the English language has a word for it.

The English language also has words for all the numbers which don't exist too.

Quote from: DavetheLost;889210Expecting them to know all the rules before we start to play a new game seems unrealistic.

Why? Is it because the expectation is that the rules are covered in a 400 page book?

Quote from: Lunamancer;889223Except as I pointed out earlier, the mathematical numbers aren't precise, and naturalistic language is a superior form of communication.

Yep, if you didn't think we were in crazytown already, here ya go.

Quote from: Old One Eye;892161Basically all RPG theories break down when applied to the wild.

So does planning. Doesn't mean planning is a waste of time however.

Quote from: Ravenswing;888829We're a community not merely preoccupied with rules, we're obsessed with them.

Quote from: Rincewind1;892144Four pages arguing about the rules of definitions do certainly put a dent into theory that RPGs will ever be more about campaigns than rules ;).

And I can't think of a better set of quotes to end with :)

Great post, Anon.

Quote from: Anon Adderlan;902749There is no system of adjudication I know of which doesn't feature a set of rules interpreted by an authority. You can't make rulings without rules, and rules cannot be applied without rulings.

However my point is that whether the action is adjudicate by fiat at one extreme or RAW only at the other. It all in service of a larger goal, to play a RPG campaign. And that is the point of the game not to play the rules.

Quote from: Anon Adderlan;902749Or perhaps they just enjoy the Pathfinder experience, obscenely huge rulebooks and all.

Exactly, while I been stressed the point is to play the campaign not the rules. The choice of rules directly impacts how actions are adjudicated. Which impacts how the game feels mainly in how detailed resolution of an action.  A lot of people like the detail and that OK. The only time that is a problem when players (and the referee) lose sight the fact that one is playing character in a setting. That the rules are a way to resolve a character doing X. That if it make sense in terms of the setting, a character can do X regardless of the rules being used. Pathfinder may have specific rules for swinging on a chandelier on page 2XX while Microlite20 just say "Make a dex check".  But in both campaigns swinging on chandelier is something that is plausible for the character to do.

Quote from: Anon Adderlan;902749And I can't think of a better set of quotes to end with :)

People debate rules and riddle with them because they are straightforward to understand. Because we been taught since an early age  to expect to play by the rules when playing a game. Talking about trying to run a great campaign is fuzzy and full of caveat. It is a different kind of thinking than trying to design a system where the fighter, mage, thief, and priest are equally useful over all levels. Or trying to craft a set of rules to adjudicate combat at a certain level of detail while being flexible and playable. It akin to how paint a great painting, or how to make a great movie.

How to run great campaigns is what more important than how to make great rules as it what people remember the most. Look at Blackmoor and Greyhawk, people don't remember all the rules that were used, especially in the case of Blackmoor. But they sure as hell remember what took place within the campaign. There is a pleasure to be had from tinkering with rules, a joy to use a set of rules that is obviously well design, but again it pales to the importance of running a great campaign. If the hobby and industry want to thrive then helping people run great campaigns is the key. Not the endless chase of the next best set of rules.

Quote from: estar;902759How to run great campaigns is what more important than how to make great rules as it what people remember the most. Look at Blackmoor and Greyhawk, people don't remember all the rules that were used, especially in the case of Blackmoor. But they sure as hell remember what took place within the campaign. There is a pleasure to be had from tinkering with rules, a joy to use a set of rules that is obviously well design, but again it pales to the importance of running a great campaign. If the hobby and industry want to thrive then helping people run great campaigns is the key. Not the endless chase of the next best set of rules.

Lovely sentiments, surely, but so what?

We can debate until we're groggy -- and a couple of months ago, to the tune of a couple hundred posts, DID -- as to what RPGs ideally Should Be About.  Aside from that not a few posters suggested that they preferred their own take on the subject to some monolithic ideal, there is no question (or should be none) as to the degree rules debates, questions and problems dominate discourse.  If RPGs were about campaigns, not rules, no one would care what edition of D&D was being played.  No one would care that the campaign on offer used GURPS, or Pathfinder, or Talislanta, or Clarinda's homebrew.  No one would care about questions of balance, or that it was a LARP, or that it was a storygame.  GNS would never have crossed anyone's mind.  People would just play.

You've spent a great many posts trying to convince us that rules don't matter, campaigns do.

It's not that we don't understand what you're saying.  It's that we disagree with what you're saying.  Can we settle on that much?

There are so many variables about our gaming experiences for me to agree or disagree with this concept.

I've played games with rules or even a campaign setting that I felt were shitty and stupid but the DM interpreted them in a fantastic way, so that it was fun.

The inverse as well: game rules or settings that I loved turned to shit because of an uninspired DM (at best) or just awful one (at worst).

To state the obvious: rules DO matter, but so do a lot of other factors in the equation over whether or not my gaming is enjoyable.

Quote from: Anon Adderlan;902749Are you saying that reading the rules keeps new players away?

In a lot of cases, yeah.
I'm about to start running some games for some friends of mine who have NEVER played RPGs. I'm going to use a fairly lite set of rules but I know it will be a non-starter if I ask them to read anything... anything at all. So we're just gonna go the route of, "Tell me what you want to do." No character sheets in front of them, just something to take notes on if they want to.
Then, if they enjoy themselves and we keep playing, I'll explain whatever they want and we'll just go from there.
It's how I generally introduce people to RPGs, unless they obviously have a real hankering to dive into the rules right from the start.

Quote from: Ravenswing;902770If RPGs were about campaigns, not rules, no one would care what edition of D&D was being played.  No one would care that the campaign on offer used GURPS, or Pathfinder, or Talislanta, or Clarinda's homebrew.  No one would care about questions of balance, or that it was a LARP, or that it was a storygame.  GNS would never have crossed anyone's mind.  People would just play.

But all the yammering is going on amongst RPG-fanboys... the equivalent of Trekkies arguing what size underpants Mr. Spock wears (or if he wears any at all). The obsession with rules minutia just scares off any casual Players who might otherwise want to play.
I might care what rules I'm running, but do all the people at the table? I'd say half the Players in our weekly Pathfinder group don't give crap. They care about their characters, the setting, and whatever stuff is going on in-game. The rules don't seem to get in their way and that's good enough.

I agree that the rules are often a hindrance, connecting with the setting is important, and dependent on the GM's story telling ability.

Quote from: Ravenswing;902770If RPGs were about campaigns, not rules, no one would care what edition of D&D was being played.  No one would care that the campaign on offer used GURPS, or Pathfinder, or Talislanta, or Clarinda's homebrew.

I disagree that the implication of my assertion. I have consistently stated that rules matter greatly in terms of personal preference. A Chevelot will get you to work just as well as a Ford but for a variety of reason people prefer on over the other.

A emphasis on RPG as a mean of running tabletop campaigns benefits everybody regardless of their preferred ruleset. It would emphasize how to run a successful and fun campaign regardless of the set of rules you prefer. Now some campaign advice would be based on the rule system. For example in GURPS 4e and D&D 4e combat take a longer time to resolve.  So part of the advice on running a campaign for those two games would take that into account.And it would be pertinent other RPGs where combat takes a similar amount of time resolve.

Quote from: Ravenswing;902770No one would care about questions of balance, or that it was a LARP, or that it was a storygame.  GNS would never have crossed anyone's mind.  People would just play.

The campaigns of a LARP or storygame are run very differently than that of a tabletop RPG. For above assertion I disagree.

Quote from: Ravenswing;902770
It's not that we don't understand what you're saying.  It's that we disagree with what you're saying.  Can we settle on that much?

I understand. People look at me like I have two heads when I assert this. "Of is about the rules it is a game." One of my best friends is as picky as the rules as it gets. He only plays when we use one of the rule system he likes. Luckily we share similar tastes so it works out more to be a quirk than a problem. However when he gets talking about what somebody that happened it never about what rules we used. How we used a feint in GURPS to take down the boss monster. No it always told like he was there as the character and re-accounting the experience.

And I had a lot of contact with gamers in my region over the decades and that the behavior I see time and time again. It is the memorable campaigns that get remembered not the rules. Yet when ask them it is still "Of course it about the rules."

Rules are very important but most cases they are the wrong thing to focus on when you are trying fix why you are having no fun with tabletop roleplaying. In my experience, if you are having no fun then likely either the campaign sucks, or there are issues with the gaming group.

Quote from: Simlasa;902774I might care what rules I'm running, but do all the people at the table? I'd say half the Players in our weekly Pathfinder group don't give crap. They care about their characters, the setting, and whatever stuff is going on in-game. The rules don't seem to get in their way and that's good enough.

That my experience as well with a variety of different groups. Rules can be a factor but in most cases it the quality of the campaign and how well the group gets along that are the primary factors.

Quote from: Simlasa;902772Then, if they enjoy themselves and we keep playing, I'll explain whatever they want and we'll just go from there.
It's how I generally introduce people to RPGs, unless they obviously have a real hankering to dive into the rules right from the start.

And the genius of RPG campaigns that it can work perfectly well run that way. There are things that a referee has to watch out for. The most important of which is to educate the player as to his options at a particular moment so he isn't unfairly blindsided because he didn't read the rulebook. And it not always clear the difference between the player that is just ignorant of the rules vs. the player being just plain stupid about what he want to do.

Talking about it is not clear-cut either because any advice will have to be hedged, exception pointed out, etc, etc. In short it is a lot easier to talk about definite rules then the fuzziness of managing a campaign. But the strength of tabletop RPGs comes from that fuzziness.

Riding a motorcycle isn't about your helmet, it's about enjoying the ride.  That doesn't mean you don't need the helmet.

I realize this is a dead horse but:

"I must create a system or be enslaved by another man's. I will not reason and compare: my business is to create." - William Blake.  I think that quote encapsulates the ethos of what makes RPGs different from other games.  It is good GM advice. At least it works for me.

The "campaign" (as Rob has defined it) is the thing.  The rules are just tools to get you there.  

The imagination is a blank canvas.  Anything is possible.  However, it is hard to start creating with nothing but a blank page. Rules, when they are working with you, help to give the imagination structure - which can be both good and bad.  On one hand, they provide seeds and options.  They give you something to work with, not only crayons, pencils and oils, but a subject.  On the other hand, they can be limiting, telling you what you can and cannot do.  Rules can be as structured as paint by number where 90% of the work is done for you and the outcome is mostly visible before the project begins.  "Here's your 400 page rulebook. No coloring outside the lines, kids." Or, they can be as free form as jars of finger paints, where anything goes.  "Why does my dragon look like a poop smear?"  Regardless, the medium is not the product.  In the end we want to see the painting, not the brush.  In my experience, an RPG game is about the product, what you create, and the hands that made it.  The rules, though endlessly fascinating in the minutia of textures and options they provide, are just tools to achieve that goal.

...at least that is my caffeine inspired pedantic bluster of the day.

Quote from: Crüesader;902847Riding a motorcycle isn't about your helmet, it's about enjoying the ride.  That doesn't mean you don't need the helmet.

It doesn't mean you should split lanes, either. False analogy.

Quote from: Anon Adderlan;902749Only in the RPG community will you find this kind of batshit insane sentiment when it comes to games. And it's so established it's become a cultural tradition in some circles.

So I suppose a table full of people you don't mesh with, a GM you can't stand, and a campaign you're not interested in don't matter, what really keeps Anon glued to the table is the system used, right?...somehow I think not.  So, YES, literally the last thing a brand new player needs is the rules of play for an RPG.  They could get a pre-gen, start rolling dice and learn by playing. I've had good feedback from dozens of new players over the years using this method, and even got someone to play RMSS after they swore they'd never play it again, because the first time they tried, the GM let them borrow the book for a week and told them to bring a made up character next Friday.  It's an unfortunate aspect of human thought and memory, but very few people who have internalized something actually remember what it was like to not know how to do something.

Quote from: Anon Adderlan;902749Are you saying that reading the rules keeps new players away?

Expecting them to read a techbible before we start throwing dice can certainly keep new players away.  At the local FLGS here, one of the main PF groups keeps all the giant books off the table during play because the GM noticed when they all had phonebooks at their side, the number of new people who asked to play was nil.  Nothing says "Srs bsns, n00b - leave." like giant rulebooks all over the table.

Quote from: Anon Adderlan;902749Unless the way you do things contradicts what they're used to and they want their 400+ page books to play.

Then they can play that someplace else, can't they?  I obviously can't stop someone from buying a 400+ page gamebook before we play that game, but if they're a veteran and expect me to go through page by page to show them all the differences between the rules in the book and the rules at the table, before they play, then they'll be waiting a while, for infinite values of "a while".  If players aren't willing to invest a little bit of trust in a new GM, they can go fuck off.  I don't care what teenage asswipe of a GM offed their character in some faintly remembered D&D Summer and they've taken refuge in tables and numbers and 400 page books to protect themselves - I'm not their fucking shrink.  Chill the fuck out and kick it back a notch, and you'll have fun like everyone else.  You can't get past your gaming scars, go live on RPG.net.

Quote from: Anon Adderlan;902749As if this simile wasn't dumbass enough, you have to know how to shoot before you're even eligible to enter the Marine Corps.

Yeah, no. I'm not using the definition of "entering the Marines" as "after all preliminary training is completed, you actually now are a Marine", I'm obviously talking about Boot Camp where to show up you most definitely do not need to know how to shoot (like my friend's brother who is at Parris Island right now, having never picked up a gun before he got off the bus) and if you do, most of the time, they have to retrain you.

Quote from: Anon Adderlan;902749Yes, how arrogant of them to presume to tell you how to play the game they designed.
Again, this kind of crazy seems completely unique to tabletop roleplayers.

Authorial Intent is certainly important when it comes to an RPG, I want to know what the designer has in mind.  But there's a difference between understanding what they have in mind, agreeing with what they have in mind, putting it to actual use at the table, and an expectation of RAW.  The book is not a game, it's a set of rules for a game that is not a boardgame, cardgame, console or videogame (no matter how hard FFG and WotC once tried).  The game is what happens at the table, which too many Pro-Players forget.

QuoteOriginally posted by Anon Adderlan
But why do you have to adapt the rules to fit the campaign in the first place? Unless the rules actually do fundamentally define important aspects of the campaign, in which case they already fit the campaign they're designed for.

Because I have never met a set of rules that perfectly match any campaign that I have ever conceived of.  I am not interested in substituting published campaigns for my imagination and swallowing someone else's ideas without processing it or putting my own spin on it.  It don't begrudge anybody their fun, but it seems a sad world for any player who has to borrow a pre-packaged setting/story/imaginative framework without making it their own.  For me, I start with my own campaign idea, then I find a rule set that matches as well as possible, then I adapt those rules to make them fit.  During play, the players and I will continue to change and adapt the rules as our collective imaginary world develops.  I guess we could play someone's packaged campaign RAW - but then if I want a medium for which I have no creative input, I'll just read a book or watch a movie.

QuoteOriginally posted by Anon Adderlan
That's what they're supposed to do. And I highly doubt your 'flexible' approach is any less restrictive, just in different ways.

Well, a flexible approach is more flexible than an inflexible one.  I'm not sure if I can make it any more obvious.  If you have a set of perimeters (rules) that are set in stone then the game is bound by those strictures. If you are willing to change those parameters, then the campaign is not bound by those restrictions.  A flexible approach is "less restrictive" than an inflexible one.  There is nothing for you to "doubt."

Notice, I did not say that a flexible approach is best, or more fun, or whatever.  It just seems silly to argue that flexibility is as restrictive as RAW.

Dice bind and shackle you. They are devil's invention, they bring chaos and unpredictability to the table, they make you think in numbers and make choices according to artificial, often counter-intuitive rules that have little to do with the reality.

Dice USE you.

But there's not too late for the Big Change. Throw away your dice, play dice-less games!

[ATTACH=CONFIG]163[/ATTACH]

:D

The campaign is not about the rules about the rules bit the playing part is undevisible from rules. You may have the wrong rules for the kind of game you intend to play, but lastly you will need some to make it playing.

Even cooperative storygames need rules - granted different rules than a traditional RPG - unless you are not so much interested in the cooperative part ... .

Quote from: Crüesader;902847Riding a motorcycle isn't about your helmet, it's about enjoying the ride.  That doesn't mean you don't need the helmet.

How about: "Cakes are about eating them, not the recipe."

Funny, now that I put it that way, I'm tending to agree with Estar. Hmm.

Quote from: CRKrueger;888455Saurondor and Dave, you guys have been answering those questions yourselves by talking to Estar.

The campaign, by definition, is what happens at the table with the GM and players.  The game designer simply creates rules that describe processes.  These processes can create default assumptions, but the game rules are nothing more than a theoretical model.

You might find a game in which the proposed assumptions the designer provides lines up 100% with the campaign you want, but I've seen that happen...never.

There's always a difference, there's always an alteration, some things get used, some things get changed, some things get axed, sometimes minor, sometimes major.

You always play the campaign the GM and players create.  Even if the table agrees to play 100% by RAW, that's still their choice (remember the Rush song).  The designer has nothing to do with it, nothing to communicate to the player, because even if the GM says "Make up your character according to pages 15-30 in the PHB", without any alterations at all, it's still the GM who is saying that.

It might seem like picking a nit, but it's key to the point being discussed here.  The campaign is the actual specific and unique implementation of a theoretical model, divorced from the designer completely.

The fact that A does not line up 100% with B does not mean that A has NOTHING to do with B. The book called the Great Pendragon Campaign has a lot to do with how many people play......the Great Pendragon Campaign. So what if that's the GM's choice? In many cases the GM wouldn't have a clue what to do without the gaming books.

Quote from: Caesar Slaad;888174What makes pizza is crust, not cheese or sauce.

I was about to say something like this, but there it was :D

Quote from: Trond;903075The fact that A does not line up 100% with B does not mean that A has NOTHING to do with B. The book called the Great Pendragon Campaign has a lot to do with how many people play......the Great Pendragon Campaign. So what if that's the GM's choice? In many cases the GM wouldn't have a clue what to do without the gaming books.

That's a campaign adventure, not the core system.

Quote from: Trond;903075The fact that A does not line up 100% with B does not mean that A has NOTHING to do with B. The book called the Great Pendragon Campaign has a lot to do with how many people play......the Great Pendragon Campaign. So what if that's the GM's choice? In many cases the GM wouldn't have a clue what to do without the gaming books.

A single example doesn't prove the general rule false, it could just be an outlier. If you are playing Pendragon, that means you agree to play that in the first place, however, if you hate the setting, the rules mean nothing, because you wouldn't be playing it anyways.

Quote from: ArrozConLeche;903065How about: "Cakes are about eating them, not the recipe."

Funny, now that I put it that way, I'm tending to agree with Estar. Hmm.

Exactly, but, your Output (eating the cake) will still be affected by Input (the recipe you start with).  It just won't be determined by Input. Along the way, the cook might alter that recipe according to their experience, bake it differently, use more frosting, whatever the hell, then once it's made, you could be eating the cake with your favorite coffee, your favorite supermodel, etc...

Quote from: Matt;902965It doesn't mean you should split lanes, either. False analogy.

It's a perfectly fine analogy.  

Rules are sort of a 'barrier' to keep things where they need to be, to a degree.  You need them.  However, just like a helmet- I don't need to put on a very specific type of helmet.  I have a lot to choose from, some more 'safe' than others- some more comfortable, stylish, etc.  But in the end, that helmet's pretty crucial.  As long as it's protecting my brain, it's what I need.

And splitting lanes is legal in a few states, cities, and on certain roads.

Quote from: CRKrueger;903077That's a campaign adventure, not the core system.

So what? Many rules systems have a lot to say about how to run a campaign, and some contain a meaty campaign in the rules book. So let's say Artesia instead then.

Quote from: dragoner;903078A single example doesn't prove the general rule false, it could just be an outlier. If you are playing Pendragon, that means you agree to play that in the first place, however, if you hate the setting, the rules mean nothing, because you wouldn't be playing it anyways.

So because people have free will, the game designer has nothing to say about how you run your campaigns? In reality, many GMs are self taught, and wouldn't even have a clue what an RPG is, much less how to run a campaign, without some rules book explaining it in the first place.

Quote from: Anon Adderlan;902749As if this simile wasn't dumbass enough, you have to know how to shoot before you're even eligible to enter the Marine Corps.

LOL no it isn't.  You're trained in basic training.  Guys that have never touched a rifle often perform better than good ol' boys that grew up hunting.   The M16 is a weird weapon like that.

Quote from: Trond;903082So what? Many rules systems have a lot to say about how to run a campaign, and some contain a meaty campaign in the rules book. So let's say Artesia instead then.

People
Setting
System

Notice System is there, but it's not first.

I'm running Artesia.  I have a player who loves the comics but has never played Artesia before.  I can give them a pre-gen, go over a couple minutes of the basics and then simply have them say what their character wants to do, I tell them what dice to roll, and they have fun in the world of Artesia while learning how to roleplay without having read a rulebook.

I can do that with Artesia, RQ6, or whatever other system I use with the Artesia setting.  If I am using the Fuzion version, the player doesn't need to know Fuzion.  They don't need to know what alterations I made to the spellcasting modifiers on page XX, or the spirit magic stuff I bolted on hacked from Game Whatever.

Now if you're into a Narrative Roleplaying Game, (like Cortex, 2d20, etc) then obviously those OOC rules specifically designed to give you player-facing narrative control matter a lot more.

If you're into a Tactical Roleplaying Game (like 4e), then obviously those OOC rules specifically designed to give you player-faced tactical choices matter a lot more.

If you're into a Genre Emulation Roleplaying Game, then obviously the rules meant to specifically invoke that genre (even to the point of being OOC or removing player choice), then those rules matter a lot more.

For an RPG which isn't one of those specific sub-specialties, then the difference between one system and another becomes mainly one of personal preference.  Certain systems may "feel" more legit for a certain setting than others, but that is just my or your opinion and they may differ.

Quote from: Trond;903084So because people have free will, the game designer has nothing to say about how you run your campaigns? In reality, many GMs are self taught, and wouldn't even have a clue what an RPG is, much less how to run a campaign, without some rules book explaining it in the first place.

The rules are just the vehicle by which the people (both GM and players) interact with their environment, the game, and more specifically, the campaign. Whatever the designer had to say in the beginning is gone, lost in the game, as no game survives contact with being played, not rpg's at least. The cart does get put before the horse with D&D somewhat, but even when people are making the choice to play it, they are basically picking a setting/campaign, specifically something including Dungeons, and/or Dragons, fantasy. It makes choosing GURPS sound like an intestinal disorder, and that a lot of people complaining, aren't about any rules, but it's about not finding people playing their games. Most of the time, it's about picking the GM and setting, is where people will stick, not about the rules themselves.

Freewill is an illusion, as far as we can tell, it really is.

Quote from: CRKrueger;903086People
Setting
System

Notice System is there, but it's not first.

I'm running Artesia.  I have a player who loves the comics but has never played Artesia before.  I can give them a pre-gen, go over a couple minutes of the basics and then simply have them say what their character wants to do, I tell them what dice to roll, and they have fun in the world of Artesia while learning how to roleplay without having read a rulebook.

I can do that with Artesia, RQ6, or whatever other system I use with the Artesia setting.  If I am using the Fuzion version, the player doesn't need to know Fuzion.  They don't need to know what alterations I made to the spellcasting modifiers on page XX, or the spirit magic stuff I bolted on hacked from Game Whatever.

Now if you're into a Narrative Roleplaying Game, (like Cortex, 2d20, etc) then obviously those OOC rules specifically designed to give you player-facing narrative control matter a lot more.

If you're into a Tactical Roleplaying Game (like 4e), then obviously those OOC rules specifically designed to give you player-faced tactical choices matter a lot more.

If you're into a Genre Emulation Roleplaying Game, then obviously the rules meant to specifically invoke that genre (even to the point of being OOC or removing player choice), then those rules matter a lot more.

For an RPG which isn't one of those specific sub-specialties, then the difference between one system and another becomes mainly one of personal preference.  Certain systems may "feel" more legit for a certain setting than others, but that is just my or your opinion and they may differ.

I know many people who decide on the system first (e.g. we want to play Runequest or D&D) and then the setting. Usually, the players and GM decide together which system to use, at least in the groups I know.


And again, the Artesia rules have plenty to say about how to run a campaign. It will definitely affect how your characters develop over time, in ways few people would have thought of without the book.

It is more like a triangle with setting, people and system all interacting. The players may have read all the rules, or none of it, but I find that usually they have read parts of the rules.

Pizza and cake.  Flour and sauce. The rules are an ingredient that make the pie. That's estar's point.  The campaign is not an ingredient. It's the end goal.  Crust, cheese, and sauce make a pizza.  The campaign is the pizza that's made from rules, friends and snacks.  I don't get why some people want to get sauce by squeezing the pizza, just like I don't get people who think purpose of playing an rpg is the rules that are used to play it.

Quote from: Trond;903092I know many people who decide on the system first (e.g. we want to play Runequest or D&D) and then the setting. Usually, the players and GM decide together which system to use, at least in the groups I know.

Different strokes.  Sometimes it goes that way and sometimes it goes "Hey, want to play in Westeros?" "Sure, what system?"

Quote from: Trond;903092And again, the Artesia rules have plenty to say about how to run a campaign. It will definitely affect how your characters develop over time, in ways few people would have thought of without the book.

A Core Rulebook tied to a specific campaign setting is going to have lots of useful information, even if you're flushing the system.  I do that all the time.

Quote from: Trond;903092It is more like a triangle with setting, people and system all interacting. The players may have read all the rules, or none of it, but I find that usually they have read parts of the rules.

Has anyone advocated that the Rules aren't necessary or aren't used?  All that's really being argued is...

1. The campaign the players are roleplaying in is more important than the rules they use to interact with it.
2. New players don't really need the rules to start roleplaying.
Is this really controversial?

No, it gets controversial when you say the designer has nothing to do with the campaigns etc.

Also I disagree when you put players, setting and rules in such a linear relationship. Anyways, if you're saying that this is how YOU do things, then that's fine. But as I mentioned, I would put them in a triangular relationship with gamers, rules, and setting in each corner.

Quote from: Trond;903100No, it gets controversial when you say the designer has nothing to do with the campaigns etc.

They don't, not really.  Robert E. Howard and George R. R. Martin have nothing to do with my campaigns.  Once I choose to run a campaign in The Hyborian Age or in Westeros, that carries with it setting assumptions, and since they are literary worlds, lots for me to fill in and much I might need to change.  Once I decide on the system, say Mongoose D20, RQ6 or SIFRP, then that system comes with certain assumptions that will affect the feel of the campaign, certainly.  But the opinions/interpretations/expectations of Matthew Sprange, Loz & Pete, Gareth Hanrahan, Robert Schwalb, Steve Kenson etc, don't matter one bit.  They suggested when they wrote the book, the GMs take it under advisement from there.

You want to use Howard's "Russian Steppes" Hyperborea, Camp and Carter's "White Hand" version or Dark Horses' version or flush all three or mix all three, it's all you baby.  Even if you decide to pick one and follow it with worshipful devotion - it's still all you.

Quote from: Trond;903100Also I disagree when you put players, setting and rules in such a linear relationship. Anyways, if you're saying that this is how YOU do things, then that's fine. But as I mentioned, I would put them in a triangular relationship with gamers, rules, and setting in each corner.

The triangle slider is a good analogy, granted.  But allow me to retort. :D
Show me a player who doesn't like the players or GM, doesn't like the campaign, but GODDAMN he's there every week because he's gotta have that system - well nevermind, you can't show me that player because they don't exist.  

On the other hand, the players who show up every week because the people are cool and the campaign is interesting as fuck, even though the system isn't their thing...well isn't that every single player ever, at least once?

I know there are players out there who will only play one single system and that's it.  But 90% of everything is shit, so of course there are shit players.

Quote from: CRKrueger;903086People
Setting
System

Notice System is there, but it's not first.

I don´t think the order matters. At one point of the game someone will say, I don´t think will work out like you think.
And this will come more often and with less common ground to decide this quickly when you don´t have a framework of rules to work with.

If everyone is on the same side on the other hand, you will very seldom find that it is not possible to just vote and change.
Usually the lametation regarding rules comes up if someone doesn´t like the current rules,  but is not able to change them because other players like them better like they are.

The newby example works, because he takes your decission regarding how his actions work out as the standing rule. But quite a lot of them will want to know how it works not that much time later.

Quote from: CRKrueger;903102They don't, not really.  Robert E. Howard and George R. R. Martin have nothing to do with my campaigns.  Once I choose to run a campaign in The Hyborian Age or in Westeros, that carries with it setting assumptions, and since they are literary worlds, lots for me to fill in and much I might need to change.  Once I decide on the system, say Mongoose D20, RQ6 or SIFRP, then that system comes with certain assumptions that will affect the feel of the campaign, certainly.  But the opinions/interpretations/expectations of Matthew Sprange, Loz & Pete, Gareth Hanrahan, Robert Schwalb, Steve Kenson etc, don't matter one bit.  They suggested when they wrote the book, the GMs take it under advisement from there.

If you play in Westeros, then Geroge R. R. Martin clearly has a lot to do with your campaign. Game designers also matter a lot. You couldn't possibly come up with all that yourself. See below.

Quote from: CRKrueger;903102You want to use Howard's "Russian Steppes" Hyperborea, Camp and Carter's "White Hand" version or Dark Horses' version or flush all three or mix all three, it's all you baby.  Even if you decide to pick one and follow it with worshipful devotion - it's still all you.

The triangle slider is a good analogy, granted.  But allow me to retort. :D
Show me a player who doesn't like the players or GM, doesn't like the campaign, but GODDAMN he's there every week because he's gotta have that system - well nevermind, you can't show me that player because they don't exist.  

On the other hand, the players who show up every week because the people are cool and the campaign is interesting as fuck, even though the system isn't their thing...well isn't that every single player ever, at least once?

I know there are players out there who will only play one single system and that's it.  But 90% of everything is shit, so of course there are shit players.

Yes, so the system clearly is important to many people (shit players or not). If someone insisted on using The One Ring to play an Aliens game, then I think I'll pass. :D
Even D&D and Rolemaster can play out in remarkably different ways, to the degree that some might opt out of one but not the other.

And no, it's not all you. It's you, and the system(s) you have learned to use. This sort of argument typically comes from people who have done a number of RPGs, and then found their own way doing things. Yes, you make the decision to run it this way or that, but it comes with a load of background knowledge from what you have learned from all those different systems. You wouldn't have come up with a fraction of the rules or house-rules if you hadn't already read a good number of RPG books to draw upon. (it reminds me a bit of art teachers who tell complete newbies to let themselves loose on the canvas, the only problem being that they can't draw, can't mix colors etc) And in the end those rules will affect the game and the campaign, and so the game designers affect your campaign too. A very obvious example is that in TOR practically every rule reminds you of a passage in Tolkien's book, which is something many players enjoy.

Quote from: Trond;903106If you play in Westeros, then Geroge R. R. Martin clearly has a lot to do with your campaign. Game designers also matter a lot. You couldn't possibly come up with all that yourself.

They matter as much as Ford, Chevy, Hertz or Budget matter to my vacation when I rent a car.  Martin's work is there, a lot of it I can rely on, but go ahead and run a city campaign in Old Volantis.  Tell me how much of it is Martin, and how much is you.  Your home isn't the architect and the painter, it's the people that live in it.

Quote from: Trond;903106Yes, so the system clearly is important to many people (shit players or not). If someone insisted on using The One Ring to play an Aliens game, then I think I'll pass. :D

Travel phase obviously is coldsleep, but there would be Planning Phase, Action Phase, Downtime Phase.  You might have to rejigger some of the stats, but things like Courage, Dread etc could work.  If someone was enough of a crazyass to try that, I might try it just for the hell of it.

Quote from: Trond;903106Even D&D and Rolemaster can play out in remarkably different ways, to the degree that some might opt out of one but not the other.

It's my experience that with a good group of players and a trusted GM, people will try just about anything, especially if it's a test drive.

Quote from: Trond;903106And no, it's not all you. It's you, and the system(s) you have learned to use. This sort of argument typically comes from people who have done a number of RPGs, and then found their own way doing things. Yes, you make the decision to run it this way or that, but it comes with a load of background knowledge from what you have learned from all those different systems. You wouldn't have come up with a fraction of the rules or house-rules if you hadn't already read a good number of RPG books to draw upon. (it reminds me a bit of art teachers who tell complete newbies to let themselves loose on the canvas, the only problem being that they can't draw, can't mix colors etc) And in the end those rules will affect the game and the campaign, and so the game designers affect your campaign too. A very obvious example is that in TOR practically every rule reminds you of a passage in Tolkien's book, which is something many players enjoy.

We're also influenced as people by every book we've ever read, every movie we've seen, every person we've talked to, etc.   If I'm playing Artesia, how Spinachcat once handled spirits in a CoC convention scenario may be influencing how I deal with spirits more than Mark Smylie's comics.

Any given aspect of an author's world, any given rule by a designer, the GM is going to say "That's perfect" and use it, or "That's idiotic" and flush it down the toilet or everything in between.

Quote from: Madprofessor;903093Pizza and cake.  Flour and sauce. The rules are an ingredient that make the pie. That's estar's point.  The campaign is not an ingredient. It's the end goal.  Crust, cheese, and sauce make a pizza.  The campaign is the pizza that's made from rules, friends and snacks.  I don't get why some people want to get sauce by squeezing the pizza, just like I don't get people who think purpose of playing an rpg is the rules that are used to play it.

Spot on!

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It's really most sincerely dead ...

Quote from: Ravenswing;903137[ATTACH=CONFIG]165[/ATTACH]

It's really most sincerely dead ...

He's lifting his head up.

It's a trick...get an axe.

Quote from: Madprofessor;903093I don't get why some people want to get sauce by squeezing the pizza, just like I don't get people who think purpose of playing an rpg is the rules that are used to play it.

I think this is a strawman. No one is saying that the purpose of playing a RPG are the rules. They say rules are an indispensable part of playing a RPG, when someone is coming around again who has a problem with rules.

Quote from: Maarzan;903171I think this is a strawman. No one is saying that the purpose of playing a RPG are the rules. They say rules are an indispensable part of playing a RPG, when someone is coming around again who has a problem with rules.

I think you have that backwards. No one is talking about running a campaign without rules. However, many pages back, someone did try to suggest rules for their own sake is a counterexample to the idea that it's about the campaign not the rules.

Quote from: AsenRG;888412Wrong, some people do prefer rules-heavy just because engaging the rules is fun to them.

Quote from: Anon Adderlan;888753The rules can very well be there for their own sake, and the reason players play, often without realizing it. And huge chunks of gamer culture are built directly on the foundation of rules as artifacts, such as the d20, which has become a defining symbol.

Of course, that idea even fails as a counterexample because if the rules and the purpose are one, you never get a divergence between rules and purpose in the first place. Nor is it possible to have a divergence between rules and purpose if you have no rules. Because that's really what's at the heart of the thread--what do you do when rules and the campaign diverge. Neither of the extreme cases even address the topic at all. But only one of the extremes is a straw man. The other was actually forwarded as a serious way of playing.

Quote from: Anon Adderlan;902749Are you saying that reading the rules keeps new players away?

A game where a player has to read the rules to play the game keeps some players away.

Quote from: estar;902806A emphasis on RPG as a mean of running tabletop campaigns benefits everybody regardless of their preferred ruleset.

No. Just no.

No matter how lovely your campaign may be or how much you emphasize running it, if you are using a ruleset I don’t want, I won’t enjoy playing. (So I won’t play.) Therefore your campaign emphasis benefits me not one jot. On the other hand, if you are using a ruleset that I like, but your campaign sucks rocks, I won’t enjoy playing. Rules and campaign are necessary conditions to enjoyment. Neither is a sufficient condition.

However, rules are a much easier condition to assess than is the campaign. Thus many people first focus on satisfying the easier to assess of two necessary conditions before trying to investigate the more difficult to assess condition.

Quote from: Bren;903236No matter how lovely your campaign may be or how much you emphasize running it, if you are using a ruleset I don’t want, I won’t enjoy playing. (So I won’t play.)

I can't think of any rules system I flat out refuse to play (vs. run, which is a different story)... especially if I already know and like the other players and have reason to believe the campaign will be decent.
Given a system I love (say CoC), I still need people I can get along with and for the actual play not to suck.

Quote from: Simlasa;903240I can't think of any rules system I flat out refuse to play (vs. run, which is a different story)

How about F.A.T.A.L. or perhaps V.T.N.L. ? :cool:

Quote from: Bren;903236Rules and campaign are necessary conditions to enjoyment. Neither is a sufficient condition.

However, rules are a much easier condition to assess than is the campaign. Thus many people first focus on satisfying the easier to assess of two necessary conditions before trying to investigate the more difficult to assess condition.

This reminds me of the joke about the economist who loses his watch while walking down the street. As he's looking around for it, a stranger comes up to him and asks what he's doing. The economists explains that he's looking for his watch that he lost, so the stranger, offering to help, asks "Well, whereabouts did you lose it?" And the economist points to the other side of the street. Puzzled, the stranger asks, "Then why are you looking for it over here?" The economist replies, "Because the light is better over here."

He's not going to see the watch in the dark. He's also not going to see the watch unless it's where he's looking. He needs light, and he needs to look in the right place. Both are necessary conditions. Neither are sufficient. That said, it's not necessarily the case that he needs to see the watch in order to find it, nor is it the case that just because there is less light that there is zero light. If he searched the dark side of the street, there's at least some chance he'd find the watch. It might be a shot in the dark, but it's still something. Checking the more "easily assessed" side of the street, however, is inherently fruitless.

I have no doubts that what you say here is true. I've observed this myself of many gamers. It's fairly common that they out-think themselves, reasoning themselves directly into futility. And this observation is a great first step. The second step is recognizing the futility trap. The third step is actually changing yourself so you no longer do this sort of thing. For it is equally fruitless to try to cater to gamers caught in this trap.

Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;888168RPGs are mostly Mother May I games where one of the players badly presents a story of some kind to the other players who are just there because they are not socially capable of being in any other groups.

While that may be your excuse, it certainly does not apply to everyone. I know, why don't you make another boring as shit YouTube video about it! :D

Quote from: JesterRaiin;903242How about F.A.T.A.L. or perhaps V.T.N.L. ? :cool:

I don't really know enough about those to say I wouldn't... IF people I really liked wanted to put one of them to a purpose that sounded fun.

Quote from: Simlasa;903264I don't really know enough about those to say I wouldn't... IF people I really liked wanted to put one of them to a purpose that sounded fun.

Well, it's as fun as esophagogastroduodenoscopy - finding it enjoyable pretty much defines you as "weird" and not in a good sense. ;)

Quote from: Lunamancer;903257This reminds me of the joke ….

Essays that start with "This reminds me of a joke..." seldom end in a salient point.

QuoteHe's not going to see the watch in the dark. He's also not going to see the watch unless it's where he's looking. He needs light, and he needs to look in the right place. Both are necessary conditions.

Except for the one that isn’t actually a necessary condition. That would be the false condition that makes the joke funny.

QuoteChecking the more "easily assessed" side of the street, however, is inherently fruitless.

Yes, checking where the watch cannot be is inherently fruitless. Doing so when one has a reasonable assurance that the watch can’t be there is inherently dumb. Of course that has nothing to do with an examination of system or campaign or anything else in my post. But it is a sort of funny joke about social scientists. I know one about a mathematician, a physicist, and an engineer. I also know one about a traveling salesman, but that one is not funny.

There isn’t any trap in addressing the easier to identify condition first. It’s just efficient. The easy to identify condition is often the system, but it might be campaign, it might even be people. Just as there are systems that I like a lot and ones that I don’t want to play at all, there are campaigns that I’ve enjoyed a lot and campaigns that I don’t want to play, and there are people I enjoy playing with and people I don’t want to play with at all. Life is far too short to waste my scarce free time doing things I don’t enjoy.

Quote from: Simlasa;903240I can't think of any rules system I flat out refuse to play.

1. I can.

2. You already assessed the easier step – system. This makes you an example, not a refutation, of what I described.


I do agree with you that it’s reasonable to be more particular about which systems one is willing to run than what one is willing to play. But that is equally true for what campaigns one is willing to run vs. what campaigns one is willing to play.

Quote from: JesterRaiin;903273Well, it's as fun as esophagogastroduodenoscopy - finding it enjoyable pretty much defines you as "weird" and not in a good sense. ;)

They're fun if you're the one operating the endoscope. Decent moneymaker too. :D

Quote from: Bren;9032772. You already assessed the easier step – system. This makes you an example, not a refutation, of what I described.

I wasn't aware I was trying to refute anything... just comparing my reactions to game systems to yours.
Like, I certainly know guys who either refuse to play certain systems (GURPS and BRP are two I run into frequently) or else they'll play, reluctantly... but whine and bitch the whole time to where it's worse than if they'd just said, "no!" to begin with. Most of these guys are long-time 'gamers' who theorize and nitpick everything ad nauseum.
Meanwhile, I think I'm like a number of people who can just play and not sweat the little stuff quite so much... and save our criticism for other Players/GMs.
Not to say that I have NO preferences regarding system... I surely do... I didn't go looking for a Pathfinder game to play in... it wasn't even on my list... but it was a group near my house, playing regularly, with a group of guys I seem to get along with (despite LARGE differences outside of game stuff). And really, they way they play Pathfinder, it usually feels like some OSR sandbox.

QuoteI do agree with you that it’s reasonable to be more particular about which systems one is willing to run than what one is willing to play. But that is equally true for what campaigns one is willing to run vs. what campaigns one is willing to play.

It makes sense... as a GM you're going to be required to have an more enthusiasm and interest than the average Player... so anything that's working against that is going to be much more telling.

Quote from: Simlasa;903280I wasn't aware I was trying to refute anything... just comparing my reactions to game systems to yours.

Fair point. I may have been overly defensive rather than being open to sharing and comparing.

I'm one of those people who wants (needs?) to read the rules for games I play. Which is just one more reason that voluminous, cumbersome games like Pathfinder end up on my list of systems to avoid playing.

Quote from: Bren;903236No matter how lovely your campaign may be or how much you emphasize running it, if you are using a ruleset I don't want, I won't enjoy playing. (So I won't play.) Therefore your campaign emphasis benefits me not one jot. On the other hand, if you are using a ruleset that I like, but your campaign sucks rocks, I won't enjoy playing. Rules and campaign are necessary conditions to enjoyment. Neither is a sufficient condition.

It isn't a binary situation for individuals. Here the rules are good and there are the rules that suck. It is a spectrum. The focus needs to be on creating good campaigns regardless of the rules being used. Figure out how to run a good campaign first and then pick the set of rules the referee and players are happy with second. What has been advocated over much of the history of the hobby and industry is the opposite. Rules first and then the campaign. The culmination of that philosophy was D&D 4e. Paizo kicked Wizard's ass not just by catering to the 3.5 crowd with Pathfinder. They did by making exciting pre-packaged campaigns in the form of their Adventure Paths.

Quote from: Bren;903236However, rules are a much easier condition to assess than is the campaign. Thus many people first focus on satisfying the easier to assess of two necessary conditions before trying to investigate the more difficult to assess condition.

I agree. Campaign advice and techniques are inherently fuzzy. But in my view the most critical part of the whole package.

Quote from: estar;903293Figure out how to run a good campaign first and then pick the set of rules the referee and players are happy with second. What has been advocated over much of the history of the hobby and industry is the opposite. Rules first and then the campaign.

With few exceptions, (OD&D - which didn't come with a campaign would be one), in my experience the rules and the campaign are usually linked.

• Boothill=Old West,
• Gamma World=Crazy Mutant Earth,
• Runequest=Glorantha,
• Stormbringer=Young Kingdoms,
• Call of Cthulhu=1920s or 1890s horror,
• Pendragon=The Pendragon Campaign,
• FASA Star Trek=Star Trek,
• Hawkmoon=Gran Bretan, et al,  
• WEG Star Wars=Star Wars.

Even with my Honor+Intrigue campaign, my first decision was to run H+I because I found the dueling system interesting and second to set the place and time to 1620s France. That's not to say that one can't do it the opposite way, just that I seldom have done so and see no advantage to doing so.

QuoteI agree. Campaign advice and techniques are inherently fuzzy. But in my view the most critical part of the whole package.

I'm a product of the original DIY days of RPGs. We figured that shit out with little in the way of advice (literally very little). Advice and techniques are helpful, but I don't see them as any more necessary than the rules. And sometimes people's belief that creating a campaign is some difficult and esoteric activity for which advice is necessary is a far greater barrier to becoming a new GM than any lack of advice ever was.

Quote from: Bren;903362With few exceptions, (OD&D - which didn't come with a campaign would be one), in my experience the rules and the campaign are usually linked.

• Boothill=Old West,
• Gamma World=Crazy Mutant Earth,
• Runequest=Glorantha,
• Stormbringer=Young Kingdoms,
• Call of Cthulhu=1920s or 1890s horror,
• Pendragon=The Pendragon Campaign,
• FASA Star Trek=Star Trek,
• Hawkmoon=Gran Bretan, et al,  
• WEG Star Wars=Star Wars.

All the examples you give are rules system optimized for a particular setting. A setting is not the campaign, it is one of the elements of a campaign, another being of course the rules used for adjudication. Each of your example make it easier for a referee to run a campaign in that setting.

The Old West, Mutant Earth, Glorantha, Young Kingdoms, Arthur's Britain, Star Trek, Gran Bretan, Star Wars and especially the 1920s/1890s are worlds with a life of their own that can be use to run many types of campaigns. In Boot Hill does on play a group of cowboy attempting to keep the ranch alive? Or bandits preying on forgotten towns and stagecoaches? Or the Sheriff and his friend trying to uphold the law? Each the preceding are possible campaigns among many others that can be run with Boot Hiill. The same with the other games you mentioned.

Quote from: Bren;903362Even with my Honor+Intrigue campaign, my first decision was to run H+I because I found the dueling system interesting and second to set the place and time to 1620s France. That's not to say that one can't do it the opposite way, just that I seldom have done so and see no advantage to doing so.

My assertion doesn't address the creative process people use develop campaigns. Why shouldn't reading a set of rules inspire you to make a campaign involving dueling in 1620s France. After reading White Star and watching the Expanse I was inspired to try to make a go at running my first campaign set in the Majestic Stars, a sci-fi setting that I been messing with for 25 years. I am everybody reading this has their own sources of inspiration.

But it doesn't change the fact that once you have everything assembled if you want to run the best game possible for your players then your primary focus should be on creating the best campaign possible. For your campaign H&I is the  best choice for the rules. However another person running the exact same type of campaign, GURPS may be their choice. For another still, it may be OD&D.

But I am willing to bet that if all three of you were sit down and compare notes on how you each managed your campaign, you would have a lot to share regardless of the differences in rules. That it would dwarf the specifics caused by the rules themselves. That if you took that information and incorporated it into a second campaign about dueling in 1620s France using the H&I rules it would be a better campaign.

Quote from: Bren;903362I'm a product of the original DIY days of RPGs. We figured that shit out with little in the way of advice (literally very little). Advice and techniques are helpful, but I don't see them as any more necessary than the rules. And sometimes people's belief that creating a campaign is some difficult and esoteric activity for which advice is necessary is a far greater barrier to becoming a new GM than any lack of advice ever was.

The problem is the pervasive attitude that the if it not written in the rules then it is something that is not permitted to be done even if it makes sense in terms of how the setting of the campaign operates.

Quote from: estar;903373All the examples you give are rules system optimized for a particular setting. A setting is not the campaign, it is one of the elements of a campaign, another being of course the rules used for adjudication. Each of your example make it easier for a referee to run a campaign in that setting.

In that sense of the word campaign, I've never, ever created a campaign first and then looked around to see what rules or what setting to use for it. It's always rules/setting first, campaign second. Not being MAR Barker, JRR Tolkien, or Greg Stafford I really can't imagine creating a campaign first and then looking about to see what rules or what setting to set that campaign in. Maybe I am misunderstanding what you are suggesting as a reasonable process for GMs to follow.

QuoteFor your campaign H&I is the  best choice for the rules.

I think that Flashing Blades would actually be a better rule set in several ways. But it doesn't happen to be the rules I started out with.

QuoteBut I am willing to bet that if all three of you were sit down and compare notes on how you each managed your campaign, you would have a lot to share regardless of the differences in rules. That it would dwarf the specifics caused by the rules themselves. That if you took that information and incorporated it into a second campaign about dueling in 1620s France using the H&I rules it would be a better campaign.

Well I use a lot of stuff created by Black Vulmea for his Flashing Blades campaign along with stuff from most of the swashbuckling game systems written in English and a fair bit of real history. So I agree with your point that sharing campaign  information can be helpful. But to argue the other side, H+I is a fairly obscure system. I could profit a lot from rules discussions with someone else who knows and has used the rules. At this point in my campaign, that would probably be more beneficial to me than more campaign info.

QuoteThe problem is the pervasive attitude that the if it not written in the rules then it is something that is not permitted to be done even if it makes sense in terms of how the setting of the campaign operates.

Frankly that's a bizarre attitude.

As I said, I'm from the old school. The folks I originally played with did a lot of board game war games. That meant that we were used to reading, understanding, and following rules. Also arguing about rules. So we would first argue for what a rule said or how it should correctly be interpreted. But if the rule as written didn't suit the GM's vision, then the GM stated why not, what one preferred instead, and we moved on from there. Everyone house ruled RPGs to suit their individual visions of how their game world worked. (Come to think of it, we had several house rules for RISK. And I've seldom seen anyone play Monopoly RAW.) The idea that one couldn't, shouldn't, or wouldn't do that strikes me as an odd artifact of tournament style RPG play and people whose prior experience is with computer and console games.

Quote from: Bren;903386In that sense of the word campaign, I've never, ever created a campaign first and then looked around to see what rules or what setting to use for it. It's always rules/setting first, campaign second. Not being MAR Barker, JRR Tolkien, or Greg Stafford I really can't imagine creating a campaign first and then looking about to see what rules or what setting to set that campaign in. Maybe I am misunderstanding what you are suggesting as a reasonable process for GMs to follow.

The campaign is the implementation of the elements you mentioned. The rules, the setting, the players, and the referee combined into a thing called the RPG Campaign. The crucial element that makes this an RPG campaign, as opposed to say a miniature wargame campaign, is the focus. The campaign doesn't exist to play a certain set of rules. It exist to play a bunch of characters doing things in a setting with their actions adjudicated by a human referee USING a particular set of rules. And adjudication includes defining things, like a character, in terms of game mechanics.  Str, int, wis, dex, con, cha as one example.

If you read Playing at the World, Hawk & Moor, and the various personal anecdotes about the earliest days of the hobby, the stuff that even pre-dates even Blackmoor, they didn't have much in the way of published rules. In fact most were not even aware of the few published rules that were out there. Instead they knew that you could play out a wargames in a interesting way by using dice, miniatures, and rules. For each game they figured out what they wanted to fight. For example the Battle of Waterloo, they dug into the history books to figure out what did what. And then came up with the rules to run the session.

Slightly later folks got more ambitious and wanted to fight out whole military campaigns. Again they decided the what they wanted to play, did some research, and came up with some rules to run the whole damn thing. In the case of Minneapolis wargamers, the campaign turned out to be a grand Napoleonic campaign, using a Diplomacy variant to handle strategic movement and the local house system to handle the miniature battles.

Wesely's Braustein started out with him going, "Wouldn't be neat if we had a scenario where everybody was playing different factions trying to take control of a German town during the Napoleonic wars."  What made Braustein a crucial step towards RPG was some of those factions were comprised of individual characters. Then a little later Dave Arneson conceived of Blackstone and crafted/co-opted rules to run it.

The impression I get is that it is the idea of the campaign that initiates everything. Beginning with the statement "Wouldn't it be fun if we pretended to be....." the rule were chosen to suit what the campaign was about.

Now Greyhawk was different. Gygax, impressed by Dave Arneson demonstration of Blackmoor, typed up a set of rules first, and then created Greyhawk as the setting to playtest them in. This pretty much is the same process the majority of gamers have used to date. However when you read how the Greyhawk campaign unfolded, the main attraction was Greyhawk itself. That the rules evolved suit what the players were attempting to do in Greyhawk. That the players were not very clear on all the ins and outs of the rules and responded the only way they could, by acting as if they were there with the capabilities of their characters. (Which is not the same as a stage acting as a character).

Gygax's genius is in distilling what he did to adjudicate and manage Greyhawk into the three books of OD&D. But it is not a perfect work. Other than the presentation issues, the main flaw of OD&D is that it was written for the wargaming community he was a part of. He didn't put down everything he could because he figured his audience already knows it and why should they pay for him writing that down? However as history showed, OD&D didn't stay in the wargaming community and exploded into the wider world to people that knew nothing of miniature wargaming.

The result in the fullness of time is that people started arguing about what were the best rules. And started to trying to fix issues with campaigns by creating "better" set of rules. Even Gygax got in on this in order to handle the deluge of questions and comments that was flooding TSR, he created AD&D to be the STANDARD version of Dungeons & Dragons.

There is nothing wrong with creating rules or tinkering with rules. Everybody campaign is going to be different and as a consequence what needs to be adjudicated is going to be different. More importantly is the personal interest in the kind of details that are to be adjudicated. A bunch of Society of Creative Anachronism gamers in central California play D&D and found AC and Hit points really unrealistic. So from that group came the genesis of the Runequest rules. Which handled the details of combat differently from D&D and emphasized the things that Steve Perrin and his friends thought were important. Combined with Stafford's Glorantha and we have Runequest.

Because of the overemphasis on rules, for decade the standard response of the hobby and industry to campaigns that sucked is to make or buy a different set of rules. I will say, yes there are times when the rules do suck and you look for a better system or game. Or your interests change, in the 90s, you reveled in GURPS, but now in 2010s, with kids in high school and a nearly full life, you just don't have the interest or time to invest in that much detail so you returned to playing D&D.

But most of the gripes I seen are in my opinion are the result of three things, poor players in terms of social interaction, poor referees, or most commonly poor management of a campaign. All three of which rules can't fix. The only way to make things better is to shift the focus to teaching people how to be better referee and to better manage their campaign. As for the first, well I am personally not interested in writing self-help guides, there are people far more skilled than I at writing about how to get along and cooperate with your peers.


 

Quote from: Bren;903386I think that Flashing Blades would actually be a better rule set in several ways. But it doesn't happen to be the rules I started out with.

Well I use a lot of stuff created by Black Vulmea for his Flashing Blades campaign along with stuff from most of the swashbuckling game systems written in English and a fair bit of real history. So I agree with your point that sharing campaign  information can be helpful. But to argue the other side, H+I is a fairly obscure system. I could profit a lot from rules discussions with someone else who knows and has used the rules. At this point in my campaign, that would probably be more beneficial to me than more campaign info.

 

Quote from: Bren;903386Frankly that's a bizarre attitude.

As I said, I'm from the old school. The folks I originally played with did a lot of board game war games. That meant that we were used to reading, understanding, and following rules. Also arguing about rules. So we would first argue for what a rule said or how it should correctly be interpreted. But if the rule as written didn't suit the GM's vision, then the GM stated why not, what one preferred instead, and we moved on from there. Everyone house ruled RPGs to suit their individual visions of how their game world worked. (Come to think of it, we had several house rules for RISK. And I've seldom seen anyone play Monopoly RAW.) The idea that one couldn't, shouldn't, or wouldn't do that strikes me as an odd artifact of tournament style RPG play and people whose prior experience is with computer and console games.

I started by playing Avalon Hill and SPI wargames in 1976-1977. I was exposed to Holmes Basic D&D in the Winter of 77 and got to read the Monster Manual at winter camp in Boy Scout in early 78. It wasn't until the summer of 79 and the release of the AD&D DMG that i started playing RPGs more than wargames.  I too argued and debated rules with my friends. And everybody house ruled their campaign including me.

The reason I got onto the line of thinking that led me today is the fact that I was into world building. I loved the Return of the King appendices and D&D gave me the means to realize my own worlds and have people play in them. I made mistake, too much exposition, to much talk and not enough show.  But one thing I did was different than anybody else was the fact that I let players "trash" my world. They could topple kingdoms and kill emperors and I was OK with it. They had to earn the moment of course, I never gave it to them. But if they beat me fair and square at the end of the day, they would wear the crown, wield the power, and get the glory.

Then I hit on the idea of using what the players did in the last campaign as the setting for the NEXT campaign. And they went "Uh-oh" but really liked it. Not only they get to see past character be important NPCs, they knew that the challenge of doing what they did before was that much tougher and they liked it.

So unlike many of peers, I stuck with the same setting all throughout high school and college. Then during college I grew unhappy with AD&D and took the same campaign over to Fantasy Hero and then later GURPS. The players were still exploring dungeons, still trying to carve out their own niches in the setting while having adventures.  When D&D 3.X came out I ran a few sessions with that but went back to GURPS. I tried other system in various short campaigns.

Running my Majestic Wilderlands through multiple systems, has shown me through actual play, what people were wrong about the importance of rules. It is primarily a PERSONAL PREFERENCE and secondarily the amount of work you have to do to implement your setting using those rules. Everything else is about how you run your campaign irregardless of what rules you are using. For me it not theory but stuff I did over many many sessions of actual play over decades.

What crystallized all this for me is Matt Finch's Old School Primer particularly his point about ruling not rules. The crucial point for me is this.

If I play chess, or Tactics II, or AH's Gettysburg. My tactics and decisions are based solely on the rules of the play and how they interact with the board. Chess is complex but ultimately straight forward given the square board and the limited moves. AH's Gettysburg tries to reflect some for the reality of the actual battle so the rules are more complex in their application and you can use real world knowledge to a limited extent. But in end for AH's Gettysbug the game is going to be decided on mastering the rules and the map better than my opponent.

You can play tabletop roleplaying same way, where every action is based on something the rules say or do not say. But that is missing the point and true power of this type of game. What Matt's Finch Old School Primer point about rulings made obvious to me, that you start with what the player wants to do AS IF HE REALLY THERE AS THE CHARACTER.  The figure out the rules that apply to adjudicate it. It may be "Yes it happen." It may be impossible in which case the answer is "NO it doesn't happen." Or the result isn't certain in which case you roll dice to see what happens.

Now Matt Finch was writing a apologetic about classic D&D and why it minimalist approach doesn't suck. And while I agree that classic D&D a great game in its own right, the core of his idea is important to every system out there from the most lite to the most complex. It ALL about the same thing, the player say "I want to X as my character." and the referee job is figure out what rules apply to resolve X. And that it includes where X makes sense in terms of setting logic and capabilities of the character.

But wait doesn't the rules define the capabilities of the characters? Why yes they do. However they are a DESCRIPTION of what the character can do in the reality of the setting. Just like saying that stone weighs 100 lbs at sea level on Earth is a description of how mass that stone has. By using rules we can be more precise about what a character is capable of.

So why are we spending all this effort into defining settings and characters? It is to run a campaign where the players do hopefully interesting things as their characters.  Hence my assertion, RPGs are about playing the campaign, not the rules.

I play paper RPG games for 15 years now and we started as a bunch of guys trying desperatelly not to make a single mistake and do everything by the books and that was what we considered 'good RPG session'. As years came by and we started to get a firm grip on rules, we used less and less of them. For example we simplified combat system or banned some spells and so on and it allowed us to focus more on the role-playing itself and on the storyline. In the end we used rules only as a 'framework' for what was going on in the story.

RPG games shouldn't be played for rules, but for role-playing itself. But I understand there are some people who enjoy stats development of their characters and how much damage they can do and all this stuff. I just think this stuff can be found in any video-game, it's nothing special... Role-playing with bunch of ppl is something different.

Quote from: Brandybuck;903418I play paper RPG games for 15 years now and we started as a bunch of guys trying desperatelly not to make a single mistake and do everything by the books and that was what we considered 'good RPG session'. As years came by and we started to get a firm grip on rules, we used less and less of them. For example we simplified combat system or banned some spells and so on and it allowed us to focus more on the role-playing itself and on the storyline. In the end we used rules only as a 'framework' for what was going on in the story.

RPG games shouldn't be played for rules, but for role-playing itself. But I understand there are some people who enjoy stats development of their characters and how much damage they can do and all this stuff. I just think this stuff can be found in any video-game, it's nothing special... Role-playing with bunch of ppl is something different.

I think there might be a generational difference.

I started in 1979, and playing d&d and then ad&d, nobody I knew even conceived of playing RAW.  It just wasn't a known paradigm in my circles. In hindsight, it didn't seem possible.  Moreover, there just wasn't a good reason to try.  The game was best when it conformed to the players and GM's vision.  There wasn't even a thought of getting the group to conform to the game designer's vision.  I don't know if everyone played like this, but I would hazard to guess that the looseness of TSR D&D stemmed from the gaming culture of "let's play it this way" that was prevalent at the time.  D&D was likely both a cause and a result of that culture - I  think.

I also played a lot of Avalon Hill, SPI, and miniatures, and everybody I knew house ruled or created there own mechanics for those games as well.

To my memory, it was like this all through the '80s and 90's even as we played newer games like Runequest and MERP that had stronger and more coherent visions as well as tighter mechanics.  We used what we wanted, discarded a lot, and made up what we didn't have, just like we did in days of yore.

The first time I noticed an argument for RAW was in the the D&D revival of 3rd edition.  Players started started quoting rules to me, the GM, for the first time.   I scoffed at first, but then I joined in and started studying rules rather than writing them.   3rd had a published rule for everything, and that was new. The culture seemed to change to reflect it.

After third faded, in the post OGL era, and with the proliferation of games, we were more rule conscious and did a lot of searching for the right game experimenting with different rules sets.  I won't argue which culture is/was better, but today I often find myself in limbo, either unhappy with any published rule-set or paralyzed by too many choices.  I do a lot less gaming and a lot more prep work which includes searching for the right rules set, and meticulously articulating houserules for the many players (including some older ones who bought in) who are uncomfortable with going outside the box. Even I am less comfortable going outside the box then I once was.   Our shelves overflow with rules options, and that I think has changed the culture of how we approach the game somewhat.  IMHO.

Yeah I understand your point, we might actually get there too again, but so far we've just found our 'modest level' of how the game can still be played with rules that make sense and we don't try to push it too hard. In fact lot of decision making has transfered from dice and rules to GM who sometimes decides even things like how much a character is hurt when he jumps out of window. Yes there are clear and easy rules on that and it should be simple to just calculate it, but we often consider other factors relevant to the story (for example how important it is for the character to make that jump - if you know what i mean) and GM either decides on his own entirely or makes some modifications to the numbers. This approach of course requires a very good and objective Game Master.

Quote from: Brandybuck;903427Yeah I understand your point, we might actually get there too again, but so far we've just found our 'modest level' of how the game can still be played with rules that make sense and we don't try to push it too hard. In fact lot of decision making has transfered from dice and rules to GM who sometimes decides even things like how much a character is hurt when he jumps out of window. Yes there are clear and easy rules on that and it should be simple to just calculate it, but we often consider other factors relevant to the story (for example how important it is for the character to make that jump - if you know what i mean) and GM either decides on his own entirely or makes some modifications to the numbers. This approach of course requires a very good and objective Game Master.

Well, I personally think it is awesome that you and your group managed to go from slaves to masters of the rules you play.  I can't say that I know any younger groups (wow, is 15 years of gaming young?) in my neck of the woods who have done what you have done moving from RAW to a more flexible approach. It's encouraging to hear your story.  I completely agree with you that any video game can do rules, but the real essence of a face to face RPG can go well beyond.  You are also right that a flexible approach to the rules takes a great GM and players who trust him.  

I think there are a fair number of people here that have had nightmare experiences with "flexable" GMs who weren't really qualified to run a game.  They're naturally a little gun-shy to such an approach, but there is also large numbers of long-time GMs here who wouldn't have it any other way.  Different strokes I guess.  If nothing else, it keeps the conversation lively.

EDIT: This was supposed to have a preface sentence or two.

First, this ended up being a lot longer than I expected. I'll put replies to other posts in a separate message. Second, Estar I hope this doesn't seem overly contentious or argumentative. I think we agree on a lot of points, but in writing I tend to focus on the disagreements and points of nuanced meaning, rather than the points of general agreement.

Quote from: estar;903417

I started playing in 1974 and I’m aware of the pre-publication origins of the hobby. The people I first gamed with and DMed for came from a wargaming background mostly board games e.g. Avalon Hill and SPI and a few miniatures games, though mostly set piece battles not campaigns.

A campaign exists is a way of pleasantly passing time. For the GM that often includes time outside the group with the twin processes of world subcreation and maintenance. I use the word “world” here, but depending on the campaign the setting might be smaller than a world or include multiple worlds or continuums.

QuoteThe crucial element that makes this an RPG campaign, as opposed to say a miniature wargame campaign, is the focus. The campaign doesn't exist to play a certain set of rules. It exist to play a bunch of characters doing things in a setting with their actions adjudicated by a human referee USING a particular set of rules.

A miniatures campaign does not exist to play a certain set of rules, but to play a campaign which comprises a series of battles where each person controls a specific unit or units, army, country, etc. Like an RPG, the outcome of one table top battle influences the events of the next e.g. casualties lost are gone unless replaced, units tested in battle may improve in quality. And the off table activity e.g. troop recruiting and training, resource allocation, and diplomacy, effect the parameters and forces available of the next battle on the table top.

The difference between detailed miniatures campaign (as I understand them) and a RPG campaign has nothing to do with one focusing on rules and the other not, but is predominantly the different scale of forces under a given player’s control. For miniatures the forces are at minimum one unit of troops consisting of multiple figures or stands of figures where each figure represents some multiple of people, e.g. 10, 20, or more. Often a single player controls larger forces, even entire countries. For RPGs the forces are at minimum a single player character, but often consist of multiple characters and/or characters who have command of other characters e.g. hirelings and/or other resources.

QuoteThe impression I get is that it is the idea of the campaign that initiates everything. Beginning with the statement "Wouldn't it be fun if we pretended to be....." the rule were chosen to suit what the campaign was about.

I’m sure that happened. I pretty sure people also said, “Hey I have these rules here for running battles in the English Civil War period e.g. Cavaliers and Roundheads. Wouldn’t it be fun if we chose up sides and played out the whole English Civil War?”

QuoteOther than the presentation issues, the main flaw of OD&D is that it was written for the wargaming community he was a part of.

I don’t agree that this is a flaw only that Gygax, like most writers, especially most technical writers, had a particular target audience in mind. As it turned out, he underestimated the size and mis-guaged the composition of the eventual, total market for RPGs in general and D&D in particular.

QuoteThe result in the fullness of time is that people started arguing about what were the best rules. And started to trying to fix issues with campaigns by creating "better" set of rules.

My experience is that we argued from day one about what were the best rules and people started on day 2 to create rules that they thought were better, for some person’s version of better.

QuoteEven Gygax got in on this in order to handle the deluge of questions and comments that was flooding TSR, he created AD&D to be the STANDARD version of Dungeons & Dragons.

The evolution in the hobby to convention attendance and tournament play had a lot to do with the desire to standardize D&D. Fortunately, unless one was sucked into regular tournament-style play the shibboleth of standardization was pretty easy to ignore.

QuoteA bunch of Society of Creative Anachronism gamers in central California play D&D and found AC and Hit points really unrealistic.

I did too, but absent the SCA experience. That’s one of the reasons I like Runequest, its derivative games, and other games that eschew levels. I also dislike classes – so Runequest again for the win. :)

QuoteBecause of the overemphasis on rules, for decade the standard response of the hobby and industry to campaigns that sucked is to make or buy a different set of rules.

People in the industry, like any industry, want to remain in business. That requires selling product. For RPGs that has meant selling a series of packaged adventures and expansions and supplements for existing games, selling revised versions of existing games, and creating new games for sale – with adventures, supplements, and new versions of any game that achieves a modicum of sales success.

Different RPG rules do different things. When I feel like doing something different I change the characters, I change the campaign, but keep the same setting (which often changes the characters), I change the setting (which usually changes the characters), or I change the rules (which changes the setting and the characters unless the rules are just a new version of old rules e.g. when moving from Runequest 2 to Runequest 3 we converted the old characters.)*

QuoteBut most of the gripes I seen are in my opinion are the result of three things, poor players in terms of social interaction, poor referees, or most commonly poor management of a campaign.

I’d divide gripes differently. Most gripes in life are the result of two things: bad social interaction and a perception of unfair treatment. There is some evidence that higher primates, like humans, appear to be wired and socialized to expect fair treatment and protest against perceived unfair treatment. (One could argue that unfair treatment is a type of bad social interaction. Nevertheless, I think it is worth separating out.) Unsurprisingly, most gripes in RPGs fall into the same two categories.

• Player A doesn’t show up on time, misses sessions, leaves, early. A social issue usually tinged with a perception of unfair treatment.
• Player B doesn’t pay attention to the game session e.g. is on some PDA, surfing the web, playing a computer game, texting is making continual off topic out of character jokes and comments, e.g. can’t go 10 minutes without a Monty Python joke. Bad social interaction.
• Player C cheats – on dice rolls, character builds, XP, etc. Perception of unfair treatment.
• Player D argues constantly, about everything. Bad social interaction.
• Player F eats pizza and never pays, drinks all the Diet Coke, beer, etc. Perception of unfair treatment.
• Player G hogs the spotlight or wants to do everything. Perception of unfair treatment.

• My GM treats player A better or worse than player B. Perception of unfair treatment.
• My GM’s significant other gets stuff the other players don’t get. Perception of unfair treatment.
• My GM said the game was about X and it turns out to be about Y (and I don’t want Y). The basic bait and switch. Perception of unfair treatment.
• My GM’s unspoken, but assumed by me promise was that playing in their campaign would be fun for me (and it’s not). Perception of unfair treatment.

Rules don’t fix people problems.

QuoteAll three of which rules can't fix.

I agree. These are all people problems. Game rules don’t fix people problems.

QuoteThe only way to make things better is to shift the focus to teaching people how to be better referee …

You could try teaching people to be better players. :) It’s no more (or less) a social issue than is most of what is involved in teaching people to be better GMs.

Quote… and to better manage their campaign.

Tools and tips for better managing a campaign can be helpful, but I find they are far from universal. The techniques one person loves another loathes. In part that’s because people really don’t all want the same thing from an RPG campaign.

QuoteI started by playing Avalon Hill and SPI wargames in 1976-1977. I was exposed to Holmes Basic D&D in the Winter of 77 and got to read the Monster Manual at winter camp in Boy Scout in early 78.

So you are a bit younger and started a few years later than I did, but had some similar experiences.

QuoteThe reason I got onto the line of thinking that led me today is the fact that I was into world building. I loved the Return of the King appendices and D&D gave me the means to realize my own worlds and have people play in them.

That’s what I call world subcreation. (I think JRR Tolkien called it that first)

QuoteBut one thing I did was different than anybody else was the fact that I let players "trash" my world. They could topple kingdoms and kill emperors and I was OK with it. They had to earn the moment of course, I never gave it to them. But if they beat me fair and square at the end of the day, they would wear the crown, wield the power, and get the glory.

Every DM/Referee/GM I knew in the seventies did that. It’s my default assumption for GM behavior. I suspect, but cannot prove, that the proliferation of canned adventure paths combined with the mass entry of players who weren’t accustomed to winning and losing at wargames had a lot to do with players who couldn’t stand losing and GMs who couldn’t allow their setting to change based on what happened at the table. Also teenage and subteen boys.

QuoteSo unlike many of peers, I stuck with the same setting all throughout high school and college. Then during college I grew unhappy with AD&D and took the same campaign over to Fantasy Hero and then later GURPS. The players were still exploring dungeons, still trying to carve out their own niches in the setting while having adventures.  When D&D 3.X came out I ran a few sessions with that but went back to GURPS. I tried other system in various short campaigns.

I never do that. I get a lot of fun out of world subcreation so I like creating new settings e.g. two different D&D worlds, Glorantha campaigns in Balazar/Elder Wilds and Sarter, a randomly created sector of the galaxy for Space Quest, 1920s CoC earth with multiple interlocking campaigns and 3 major and 2 minor Keepers, Pendragon’s Arthurian Britain, a set of Traveller sectors that I probably never ran for anyone else, Hawkmoon’s Tragic Millenium earth, Tekumel (a setting I worked on but never got to run), the Star Trek Alpha Quadrant for FASA, the Star Wars Universe, 1620s Europe for H+I, and several other settings I can’t recall.

QuoteRunning my Majestic Wilderlands through multiple systems, has shown me through actual play, what people were wrong about the importance of rules.

I don’t know what “the importance of rules” means.

Different rules enable different styles and types of play. As an example, fighting two or three weaker opponents in Runequest, Call of Cthulhu, or Flashing Blades is dangerous, even deadly. In level-based systems like D&D, it is much less dangerous, at least it is in every version of D&D I am familiar with. Multiple weaker opponents in WEG Star Wars – not much of a problem as long as they don’t have time to combine fire and sufficient numbers to overwhelm the PC. Multiple weaker opponents for a starting character skilled in combat in Honor+Intrigue is nearly risk free.

As an example: last Saturday one of the duelist PCs, rapidly and safely defeated, 2 opponents, than 3 opponents, than 3 more opponents, then one poor bastard all on his own. At the end, in effect, his PC wasn’t even breathing hard. Try that in Runequest and you can easily get maimed; or dead; or exhausted, maimed, and then dead.

Quote

It sounds like you are addressing what I might call bounded, fixed-rule 2-player and multiplayer games like Chess, Risk, Monopoly, Tractics, Gettysburg, Civilization (the 1980 version) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilization_(1980_board_game)), and most other board games and games that are not fully bounded, like refereed miniatures battles which may be slightly unbounded and include referee judgment or mediation or RPGs which are unbounded and which usually take place largely in an imaginary space rather than on a printed board on a table.

QuoteYou can play tabletop roleplaying same way, where every action is based on something the rules say or do not say.

You can also hit yourself repeatedly in the head with a hammer…but why ever would you want to do that? :D

There exists a minority subset of players who want not just to say, “my character tries to do X” but who also want to understand the rules of the setting and to have some idea of the likelihood of success for various actions. There are several reasons people want that.

(1) Some players want to maximize the chance that their character survives, prospers, and accomplishes whatever it is that the player wants the PC to accomplish.

(2) Some players are competitive and want to use the rules to help them outperform the other players and their PCs and/or the GM and the NPCs.

(3) Some players are afraid to make a ‘stupid’ move or to select a ‘dumb’ action for their character. They hope that improved rules mastery will prevent that. Usually they are wrong.

(4) Some players use understanding the rules as part of how they understand the setting, how it works, and what actions do or don’t make sense in that setting for a character to attempt. Three classic examples would be (i) how falling damage in a level based system works, (ii) how far my character can jump or how much they can lift, and (iii) how many opponents can my character fight at the same time and expect to win (or at least not get dead or maimed) in combat. It is no coincidence that these are three of the areas where different rules give some widely different answers and answers that often don’t align with real world experience.

(5) Some people enjoy learning and mastering game rules. Often, though not always, this is combined with (2).

QuoteSo why are we spending all this effort into defining settings and characters? It is to run a campaign where the players do hopefully interesting things as their characters.  Hence my assertion, RPGs are about playing the campaign, not the rules.

I don’t think this is a bad approach. I just don’t agree that it is a necessary approach, that it is always the best approach, etc.



* To clarify, I'm not saying that one can't covert characters and settings from one set of rules e.g. D&D to another, e.g. Runequest, only that this is something I've avoided doing. I know you have done that for your Majestic Wilderlands campaign.

I've also seen players who convert or reuse the same character (personality, name, etc.) in different settings and different rules. I almost never do that either. I guess in a way, that seems like the player version of the GM who wants to use the same world. Though I probably attach a bit of a pejorative judgement to the player that I don't attach to the GM.

Quote from: Brandybuck;903427Yeah I understand your point, we might actually get there too again, but so far we've just found our 'modest level' of how the game can still be played with rules that make sense and we don't try to push it too hard. In fact lot of decision making has transfered from dice and rules to GM who sometimes decides even things like how much a character is hurt when he jumps out of window. Yes there are clear and easy rules on that and it should be simple to just calculate it, but we often consider other factors relevant to the story (for example how important it is for the character to make that jump - if you know what i mean) and GM either decides on his own entirely or makes some modifications to the numbers. This approach of course requires a very good and objective Game Master.

(Bolding mine.)

It may be a bit nit-picky, but including story factors or things like "how important it is for the character to make that jump" when deciding if the jump is made is not the action of an objective Game Master, but of a subjective Game Master.

Whether one prefers an objective or a subjective Game Master is, of course, a subjective decision.

Quote from: Bren;903444(Bolding mine.)

It may be a bit nit-picky, but including story factors or things like "how important it is for the character to make that jump" when deciding if the jump is made is not the action of an objective Game Master, but of a subjective Game Master.

Whether one prefers an objective or a subjective Game Master is, of course, a subjective decision.

Welcome to the RPGsite, Brandybuck! Hairs will be split from time to time. It doesn't hurt much. I understood that you meant *fair* and/or *impartial* Game Master.

Is it possible to be subjective and fair? Close to it, I think.  It's seems more likely than finding an Objective Game Master. In fact I have my doubts if such a thing is possible.

Quote from: estar;888083What makes an RPG an RPG is not the rules but the campaign.

In practice though, it's more an adventure game at the table than an RPG.

Quote from: Madprofessor;903456Welcome to the RPGsite, Brandybuck! Hairs will be split from time to time. It doesn't hurt much.

Your post is either an odd way of agreeing with what I said, or you missed the similarity in meaning of the phrases: "nit-picky" and "hair splitting."

What Brandybuck said was that rather than follow the rules, the GM would allow Player A's PC to succeed in his jump because it is important. Here "important" seems to mean, (i) a successful jump is needed to set up or enable the next scene in a planned or predetermined story or (ii) a successful jump is important to player A for some other reasons, e.g. wish fulfillment, embodying a certain character concept, inability to accept character loss or failure at this point, or wanting or needing to succeed despite a lack of character ability or bad die rolls or both for some other reason. Each of these tend towards subjective, not objective determination of an outcome. Objective outcome determination of many actions is embedded in the rules e.g. how far or high is the jump, what is the local gravity, how much extra weight is the character carrying, is there room for a running start, and often some rule that indicates how far a character can jump or how to determine if a jump is successful. Having actual distances and following the rules of the system both tend towards an objective determination. Using the same method for determining success or failure for player A's PC as for player B's PC tends towards fairness and impartiality. It may or may not be objective. But using the word "objective" just made Brandybuck's intended meaning less clear.

Since Brandybuck isn't playing at my table nor I at theirs, it doesn't matter whether or not I agree with Brandybuck's apparent preference for the GM to be non-objective in determining outcomes. Some people like to play that way, some can take it or leave it, some just don't roll that way and hate it.

QuoteIs it possible to be subjective and fair? Close to it, I think.  It's seems more likely than finding an Objective Game Master. In fact I have my doubts if such a thing is possible.

Apparently you are interpreting the word "objective" when applied to human judgment, i.e. to game master determinations, as some sort of ideal or Platonic perfect form where either something is totally, completely, and infallibly "objective" or else it is subjective. Why would you do that? It just seems an incredibly useless and hair splitting interpretation of the of the word "objective" when applied to fallible humans and fallible human decision making. Using a similar hair splitting definition, no human can be fair or impartial. While that may, in a very narrow and pendantic sense, be true, it makes words like fair, objective, and impartial, as well as words like unfair, subjective, and biased meaningless and thus useless for discourse.

Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;903463In practice though, it's more an adventure game at the table than an RPG.

I have no idea what you mean by an adventure game. Would you please clarify?

Quote from: Bren;903481Your post is either an odd way of agreeing with what I said, or you missed the similarity in meaning of the phrases: "nit-picky" and "hair splitting."

I was agreeing with you and sticking up for the new guy a little in the same breath.  It probably came out awkward. I liked his post and didn't want him to take offense at trivial "nit-picking."  "Objective" was the wrong word, and so was "hair-splitting." You are right on both counts.  I am also too tired to be interested.  I'd be happy to banter detailed semantic analysis with you sometime on a topic that I feel strongly about. This topic is pretty well resolved as far as I am concerned. Detailed conversations about words can be cool when precision really matters, but sometimes I just like to talk about games.

QuoteSince Brandybuck isn’t playing at my table nor I at theirs, it doesn’t matter whether or not I agree with Brandybuck’s apparent preference for the GM to be non-objective in determining outcomes. Some people like to play that way, some can take it or leave it, some just don’t roll that way and hate it.

Like I said a couple of posts up, different strokes.

QuoteApparently you are interpreting the word "objective" when applied to human judgment, i.e. to game master determinations, as some sort of ideal or Platonic perfect form where either something is totally, completely, and infallibly "objective" or else it is subjective. Why would you do that? It just seems an incredibly useless and hair splitting interpretation of the of the word "objective" when applied to fallible humans and fallible human decision making. Using a similar hair splitting definition, no human can be fair or impartial. While that may, in a very narrow and pendantic sense, be true, it makes words like fair, objective, and impartial, as well as words like unfair, subjective, and biased meaningless and thus useless for discourse.

Well, isn't this just what you did to Brandybuck? His post was clear enough, and then you had to go after his (mis)use of the word "objective."  I am not being platonic or pedantic, though I sometimes do, so I can see how you might misconstrue my post.  I was just pointing out to the guy that it is OK to use plain idiomatic English, and that if we are talking about things of common experience we shouldn't have to worry overmuch about semantic precision, hair-splitting, or the difference between platonic or post-modernist uses of our common vocabulary.

Now, weren't we talking about about games?

I still think you are mostly looking at this from the wrong direction.

Rather I think rules shouldn´t be put on the same level as the setting, campaign (or gaming agenda, which is missing up to now).
It is rather located in the "playing" part of RPG as a shared communal social activity and completely necessary to gave a functional version of it.
Because at the core of social activity is the player conribution and my impression is, that too many of those that have a problem with rules have a problem with other players participiating with fixed rights to do so.

On the other hand rules are a tool, not an end in itself and thus the critical part is to choose the roght kind of rules for whatwever you want to achive with them. So if the rules are not fitting to your style or your campaign it is (besides some rules authors giving misleading adverticement) your fault to use the wrong ruels or not adapting them fittingly. Or you have to accept that something with your creative ideas or tastes is not expressible in / compatible to a game or at least a game with the given other participiants (if they are unwilling to go your way while choosing the rules).

So campaign and rules are not at odds with each other, but conflicts here point to unjustified expectations or just shoddy workmanship.

Quote from: Madprofessor;903497I was agreeing with you and sticking up for the new guy a little in the same breath.

I got that you were sticking up for him, I wasn't clear on the agreement. I get it now.

QuoteI liked his post and didn't want him to take offense at trivial "nit-picking."

Fair point.

QuoteWell, isn't this just what you did to Brandybuck? His post was clear enough, and then you had to go after his (mis)use of the word "objective."

Yes I was nitpicking.

QuoteNow, weren't we talking about about games?

Maybe? :)

Quote from: Maarzan;903540I still think you are mostly looking at this from the wrong direction.

Which of us does "you" refer to?

QuoteBecause at the core of social activity is the player conribution and my impression is, that too many of those that have a problem with rules have a problem with other players participiating with fixed rights to do so.

Could you elaborate? I'm unclear what you mean by people who "have a problem with rules" and people who "have a problem with" fixed rules participation. I'm also unclear which people any of those people might be.

QuoteOn the other hand rules are a tool, not an end in itself and thus the critical part is to choose the roght kind of rules for whatwever you want to achive with them.

I agree that rules are a tool not an end in itself.

I don't think it is necessary to choose the right kind of rules ahead of time. I think a lot of people don't have a clear idea of what they want to achieve other than having some fun of an evening. Certainly when D&D first came out, there were no other rules available to choose from. I don't think there is anything wrong with playing with a set of rules and seeing how you like the play you get. If you like it - great. If you don't like the play you get from those rules then change the rules yourself or go find a new set of rules to try.

It's a minor point, but some people really enjoy tinkering with rules, reading rules, learning rules, trying out new rules, and thinking about rules to the point that for those few people rule stuff becomes an end in itself.

Quote from: Bren;903557Which of us does "you" refer to?

Could you elaborate? I'm unclear what you mean by people who "have a problem with rules" and people who "have a problem with" fixed rules participation. I'm also unclear which people any of those people might be.

I agree that rules are a tool not an end in itself.

I don't think it is necessary to choose the right kind of rules ahead of time. I think a lot of people don't have a clear idea of what they want to achieve other than having some fun of an evening. Certainly when D&D first came out, there were no other rules available to choose from. I don't think there is anything wrong with playing with a set of rules and seeing how you like the play you get. If you like it - great. If you don't like the play you get from those rules then change the rules yourself or go find a new set of rules to try.

It's a minor point, but some people really enjoy tinkering with rules, reading rules, learning rules, trying out new rules, and thinking about rules to the point that for those few people rule stuff becomes an end in itself.

Those you, that show a problem with (accepting) rules here.

And a problem with rules I see given, when someone thinks that changing rules without general consent is OK - often additionally underlined when justification is taken from abstract and/or taste related things like "fun", "freedom" or "better story" or tries to construct an artificial opposition to some other accepted or necessary element of the game.

If you don´t consider rules in your planning it is your own fault if they don´t work out as you would like it. While no rules system is 100% checked and fitting, I think it is possible to prepare in a way that negotiations later can be deduced to a minimum.  
And I also don´t have a problem with changing rules by itself. It is the way some think they can change the rules by themselves on the fly where I have a problem with.

Quote from: Maarzan;903562Those you, that show a problem with (accepting) rules here.

I'm still confused.

QuoteAnd a problem with rules I see given, when someone thinks that changing rules without general consent is OK

I'm transparent with rule changes and I typically ask for input from the players. But if I'm the GM, I have to be satisfied with the rules because I'm running stuff. So I might change a rule that bothers me even if some players don't like the change. If they keep playing, then tacitly they have given their consent to the change.

Quote...often additionally underlined when justification is taken from abstract and/or taste related things like "fun", "freedom" or "better story" or tries to construct an artificial opposition to some other accepted or necessary element of the game.

Other than correcting an obvious typo or other error, what would a non-taste related justification for changing a rule even be?

QuoteIf you don´t consider rules in your planning it is your own fault if they don´t work out as you would like it.

Sure. But so what? If you do consider rules in your planning and they don't work out, it is even more your responsibility when they don't work out as you would like.

QuoteAnd I also don´t have a problem with changing rules by itself. It is the way some think they can change the rules by themselves on the fly where I have a problem with.

Typically I wait until after the current situation is resolved to change the rules. However, I might change rules on the fly if there was some compelling reason to do that. (Nothing occurs to me as an on the fly rule change I've made, but I've been GMing for 42 years so I'm sure I've done it sometime.) Absent some actual examples it's kind of difficult to agree or disagree with you about the appropriateness of on the fly changes.

Quote from: Bren;903440Second, Estar I hope this doesn't seem overly contentious or argumentative. I think we agree on a lot of points, but in writing I tend to focus on the disagreements and points of nuanced meaning, rather than the points of general agreement.

It's all good and hey! You have to put up with my bad grammar.

Quote from: Bren;903440I started playing in 1974 and I'm aware of the pre-publication origins of the hobby. The people I first gamed with and DMed for came from a wargaming background mostly board games e.g. Avalon Hill and SPI and a few miniatures games, though mostly set piece battles not campaigns.

A campaign exists is a way of pleasantly passing time. For the GM that often includes time outside the group with the twin processes of world subcreation and maintenance. I use the word "world" here, but depending on the campaign the setting might be smaller than a world or include multiple worlds or continuums.

There are dozens if not hundreds of ways to create and enjoy games and campaigns, I seen and experienced what you are describing above. But I think that roleplaying games are fundamentally different despite the fact that at the heart of all roleplaying games is a wargame. My view is that Arneson and Gygax created a pen & paper holodeck that allows people a satisfying way of experience other characters, realities, and situation. One key element of this is the use of game mechanics as an important part of the adjudication process done by the human referee.

A roleplaying campaign could be run by referee fiat alone but I think it would take a referee of exceptional skill to pull it off with a group of players that have that much trust in his ability to be fair. Not a common situation and one that would not apply to me. The use of a game allow more people to be successful at running a RPG campaign.

However important the rules are the end result is still the same, the point of the exercise is the campaign. Everything in service of creating an imagined reality that the players experience as their character. It doesn't have to be profound, or serious. In fact I wager that in most cases is quite silly and shallow. But even then the point isn't to beat opponents, to achieve victory conditions, the point is to experience the campaign.

And what is profound about the whole thing that it will still pretty much works as a pen & paper holodeck even if you are mostly treating it as a traditional game. That what makes the idea RPGS a work of genius by Arneson & Gygax. It just naturally arises when you have players interact with a setting as a characters with their actions adjudicated by a human referee.


 

Quote from: Bren;903440A miniatures campaign does not exist to play a certain set of rules, but to play a campaign which comprises a series of battles where each person controls a specific unit or units, army, country, etc. Like an RPG, the outcome of one table top battle influences the events of the next e.g. casualties lost are gone unless replaced, units tested in battle may improve in quality. And the off table activity e.g. troop recruiting and training, resource allocation, and diplomacy, effect the parameters and forces available of the next battle on the table top.

The difference between detailed miniatures campaign (as I understand them) and a RPG campaign has nothing to do with one focusing on rules and the other not, but is predominantly the different scale of forces under a given player's control. For miniatures the forces are at minimum one unit of troops consisting of multiple figures or stands of figures where each figure represents some multiple of people, e.g. 10, 20, or more. Often a single player controls larger forces, even entire countries. For RPGs the forces are at minimum a single player character, but often consist of multiple characters and/or characters who have command of other characters e.g. hirelings and/or other resources.

I stated my response poorly, what I was getting at is that despite the similarities between managing a miniature wargame campaign and a tabletop RPG campaign. The point of the miniature wargame campaign is to beat your opponent(s). In contrast the point of the tabletop RPG campaign is to experience the setting.

To make more confusing it not a black and white ling. Blackmoor started out as a campaign where was a bunch of players playing individual character doing whatever. And that whatever in service of becoming the biggest and baddest dug in the realm and involved a lot of fighting AGAINST other players and leading armies with battle being resolved by the miniature wargaming rules the Minneapolis gamers were using.

My opinion is that the Blackmoor campaign didn't shift decisively over to being a tabletop RPG campaign until the Blackmoor dungeon became the focus. From reading the various accounts and antedotes, Dave seemed to have gotten a bit annoyed at that at first. Especially after the good guy players stopped paying attention to what the bad guy players were doing and lost Castle Blackmoor to them while they were busy crawling around the dungeon. Dave "exiled" them Glendower. But apparently the lesson didn't stick because apparently the first thing they did in Glendower was look for more dungeons!.

The focus on the Blackmoor Dungeon was important for this shift because it really require the player to think of individual goals and shift the cooperative aspect to the forefront as it proved the best way of overcoming the challenges they faced. Before that, it seemed to me that the players were thinking mostly of themselves as generals or potential generals of the army and everything was in service of those kind of goals.

Quote from: Bren;903440I'm sure that happened. I pretty sure people also said, "Hey I have these rules here for running battles in the English Civil War period e.g. Cavaliers and Roundheads. Wouldn't it be fun if we chose up sides and played out the whole English Civil War?"

I have to stress despite my dissertation and opinion about the point and nature of RPGs, there is no bright clear line. There is a continuum or a spectrum where the focus shift from a traditional contest of wits to see who is a winner, to where you are playing a character in a pen & paper virtual reality.

The Blackmoor campaign is where the shift first happened. The Greyhawk campaign was the first campaign to be deliberately designed as a tabletop roleplaying campaign.

Quote from: Bren;903440I don't agree that this is a flaw only that Gygax, like most writers, especially most technical writers, had a particular target audience in mind. As it turned out, he underestimated the size and mis-guaged the composition of the eventual, total market for RPGs in general and D&D in particular.

It is a flaw because people had zillions of questions directed at Gygax and TSR. So obviously something got missed in the first try :-). But just OD&D has flaws doesn't mean it is a bad game or not worthy of being played even today. What it means, like you pointed out, that probably made more sense to somebody part of the miniature wargaming community of the early 70s than it would to a college aged fantasy fan living in Los Angeles. We got Holmes, Moldavy/Cook, Mentzer, and AD&D out of the attempts to do better next time. So we have still have OD&D and all those version to enjoy as well.

Quote from: Bren;903440The evolution in the hobby to convention attendance and tournament play had a lot to do with the desire to standardize D&D. Fortunately, unless one was sucked into regular tournament-style play the shibboleth of standardization was pretty easy to ignore.

My view is that tournaments were the original sin of the tabletop roleplaying hobby and industry. I think it fine that there were tournaments, but the problem is that the needs of tournaments dictated the format of products that was sold for people running home campaigns. As a consequence what was acceptable got way more rigid in terms of publishing.

However I also you have a point about the hobby side. I think while there was an impact, it could be easily ignored. And it was that way for a long time until the advent of "Living campaigns". Because if you are going to run a Living Campaign nationwide, to be fair you have very rigid in what rules you used. And this in my opinion is where it became really annoying for the hobby.

But I believe not the big issues today as it was in the past because the Internet has dramatically expanded the ways that hobbyist can connect with one another. That combined with the amount of open gaming material means no one standards will hold sway. Every type of roleplaying campaign that can be played now has multiple works supporting it.

Quote from: Bren;903440I did too, but absent the SCA experience. That's one of the reasons I like Runequest, its derivative games, and other games that eschew levels. I also dislike classes – so Runequest again for the win. :)

Yeah for me as well. My switch was propelled by the desire for better character customization, and combat realism. I first went with Fantasy Hero, but its first edition had too much of the Champions DNA and my group wound up going with GURPS.

Quote from: Bren;903440People in the industry, like any industry, want to remain in business. That requires selling product. For RPGs that has meant selling a series of packaged adventures and expansions and supplements for existing games, selling revised versions of existing games, and creating new games for sale – with adventures, supplements, and new versions of any game that achieves a modicum of sales success.

I think the difference is that back then it was expensive to make a mistake. Once the industry settled a bit after its initial expansion it was very conservative in the kinds of products they sold. Because if they fucked up they were left with a warehouse of unsold product. Note this didn't effect people designing new sets of rules. But if you were going to have an RPG then you were going to have corebooks, adventures of a certain format, supplement done a certain way, and so on.

Quote from: Bren;903440Different RPG rules do different things. When I feel like doing something different I change the characters, I change the campaign, but keep the same setting (which often changes the characters), I change the setting (which usually changes the characters), or I change the rules (which changes the setting and the characters unless the rules are just a new version of old rules e.g. when moving from Runequest 2 to Runequest 3 we converted the old characters.)*

I never switched rules in the middle of a campaign. If I am going to make a switch, I wait until the campaign is over and then use the new rules for the next campaign. For example the last Majestic Wilderlands Campaign I ran used the D&D 5e rules. THe next Majestic Wilderlands campaign I run will likely use a Fantasy AGE variant I came up with. However despite the latter two, I still run the Majestic Wilderlands using Swords & Wizardry and my MW Supplement at the game store near my hometown. The RQ2 to RQ3 sound logical. I am sure I would have done the same thing if the timing worked from GURPS 3rd to GURPS 4th. But as it turned out, I wasn't running a GURPS campaign during initial releases of GURPS 4th edition. So the next campaign started with GURPS 4th.

Quote from: Bren;903440(List Snipped)

I think your lists work.

Quote from: Bren;903440You could try teaching people to be better players. :) It's no more (or less) a social issue than is most of what is involved in teaching people to be better GMs.

Sure but my insight mostly relate to the referee side of things. I do think that while a good referee can't do much about bad players, that they make a huge difference when it comes to mediocre and indifferent players. Thus in terms of time and energy it better to invest more in making good referees. But again you can't ignore the player side either, it just what I consider to be priority.

Quote from: Bren;903440Tools and tips for better managing a campaign can be helpful, but I find they are far from universal. The techniques one person loves another loathes. In part that's because people really don't all want the same thing from an RPG campaign.

Outside of a handful of classics, (Gygax's AD&D 1st DMG for example) that have come close, nobody has done it right. And you are right about one thing, I even done right it won't be universal. However what would be universal would be the format. I think a major part of the problem is that people don't know what needs to go in such a thing. Hell I don't have a grip on it either and still figuring it out for myself.

I am certain whatever form this hypothetical work takes that it has to focus on the campaign first above everything else. That the rule exist to implement the campaign and not the other way around.

Quote from: Bren;903440Every DM/Referee/GM I knew in the seventies did that. It's my default assumption for GM behavior. I suspect, but cannot prove, that the proliferation of canned adventure paths combined with the mass entry of players who weren't accustomed to winning and losing at wargames had a lot to do with players who couldn't stand losing and GMs who couldn't allow their setting to change based on what happened at the table. Also teenage and subteen boys.

I think my experience was because I was in Junior/Senior High and because of our immaturity most of my fellow referee couldn't stand for our little lovely sandcastle being kicked over by the evil nasty players. And then you had to contend with the referees that railroaded which is a different problem. While I sound very negative, understand that the vast majority of high school referees I know tried to do right. Yeah they railroaded players, and got in a snit for messing up their setting, but most did just as many other things right. I fucked up more times than I account and for me I had the added fun of being partially deaf. The #1 reason I started using miniatures and battlemats from day 1 is to overcome the issues my deafness caused. "Don't tell me, just move your figure to where you are going to be."

 

Quote from: Bren;903440I never do that. I get a lot of fun out of world subcreation

I did use other setting when I did different genres. I ran Champions on modern Earth, Traveller in the Third Imperium, FASA's Start Trek, and so on.

And I admit this was the mid 80s while I was in college I would been a bit of stuck up asshole about the fact I stick to the same campaign for fantasy versus the guys that keep switching settings for their D&D games. BUt it not college or the 80s anymore and I am older with a lot more experience.

What I will say about running a setting for as long as I have for as many different players as I have is that you get depth in a way that you don't when you keep creating a new setting for campaign. However, you have to really work at keeping the depth manageable. And you really can't go too far off the standard tropes or you going waste multiple session explaining how the damn thing works. For example most players don't have the frame of reference to deal with Barker's Tekumel right off the bat. It has to be explain. Even Glorantha suffer a little from that although the RQ2 version was pretty approachable.

So in the end neither is any better or worse than the other. There are benefits and there are consequences. The only responsibility involved is for people to understand what they are and factor that into their decision when setting up their campaigns.

And to be hypocritical, I did fire up a "new" sci-fi setting, the Majestic Stars, for the campaign I am running now. I put "new" in quotes because it one of those setting that a gamers works on forever but never ran any campaigns with. For me it been 30 years that I been dicking around with it. It started out as the setting for a SPI Universe campaign I never ran. But a combination of my friend not wanting to play Traveller or any other of the major sci-fi setting, but wanting to play something original sci-fi wise. I mulled it around for a while and then by confidence finally watch the Expanse. And boy that show inspired me.

Quote from: Bren;903440There exists a minority subset of players who want not just to say, "my character tries to do X" but who also want to understand the rules of the setting and to have some idea of the likelihood of success for various actions. There are several reasons people want that.

I am aware of the type, and you made another good list that reflect what I experienced. Believe or not, when it comes to the mechanics of what the character attempt, I am pretty much RAW type of referee. What I will jettison, if present in the system, is any rule that dictate what the players motivation or what they decide. Alignment, fuck that, etc. But when it comes to trying to pick a lock, or swing a sword, the rule say what the rules say. I fix stuff that is inconsistent with the setting, not plausible, or just a plain problem PRIOR to the start of the next campaign.

For example no more +4 or +5 gear in my D&D campaign again. The 5e guys were spot on on capping gear at +3.

As a consequence rules mastery gets its due in my campaigns. If you figure out how to manipulate the rules to your advantage great you just won the day. Might not fix the overall problem but probably helps.

However where I don't let them off the hook is in terms of first person roleplaying. They have to act as if there in the setting as the character even if that character is just a reflection of themselves. I find that doing along with the way I roleplay NPCs pretty much eliminates munchkinism, and assorted rules related asshole behavior.

My theory as to why it works is because it forces them to engage the NPCs as people not as pogs or tokens on a board. And causes their normal social instincts to kick in. It not 100% in making this type of gamer by any stretch but I rarely get the any of the horror stories people typically relate either. Other things I do is that I always make sure some NPCs are actually friendly. That if all the players want to do is kill things and take their shit, that they have the opportunity to do that.

All of these things I do is to make for a better campaign, for a better experience for the players while they are pretending to characters in the setting I created.

Quote from: Bren;903566I'm still confused.

I'm transparent with rule changes and I typically ask for input from the players. But if I'm the GM, I have to be satisfied with the rules because I'm running stuff. So I might change a rule that bothers me even if some players don't like the change. If they keep playing, then tacitly they have given their consent to the change.

Other than correcting an obvious typo or other error, what would a non-taste related justification for changing a rule even be?

Sure. But so what? If you do consider rules in your planning and they don't work out, it is even more your responsibility when they don't work out as you would like.

Typically I wait until after the current situation is resolved to change the rules. However, I might change rules on the fly if there was some compelling reason to do that. (Nothing occurs to me as an on the fly rule change I've made, but I've been GMing for 42 years so I'm sure I've done it sometime.) Absent some actual examples it's kind of difficult to agree or disagree with you about the appropriateness of on the fly changes.

I think it is up to the GM to set choose the rules and house rules in his gaming proposal.
But afterwards I see the GM bound by the same agreed on rules like everyone else.
You (plural, as who is participiating in the game. Too many rules sets sound like they mean the reader instead for me ) can change rules afterwards too, but then it has to be unanimously in the group.

Regarding taste. The point wasn´t that someone wants a change because of tastes, but that someone is justifying a singlehanded change by the virtue of some taste related abstract ideal, like i.e. "better story".
And remember: if all of the participiants are OK with a change it is never and has never been a problem to change a rule. Trouble comes when there are participiants that like the original rules better.

So the standard question is: Why does someone lamenting about rules gong wrong, not just ask the other players, instead of constructing some abstract justification to break the rules?

Quote from: estar;903582My view is that Arneson and Gygax created a pen & paper holodeck that allows people a satisfying way of experience other characters, realities, and situation.

Temporally speaking, the writers of Star Trek described a computerized, 3D version of pen & paper roleplaying games. :D

QuoteI stated my response poorly, what I was getting at is that despite the similarities between managing a miniature wargame campaign and a tabletop RPG campaign. The point of the miniature wargame campaign is to beat your opponent(s). In contrast the point of the tabletop RPG campaign is to experience the setting.

It's a bit of a quibble, but I'd say that the only point of either is having fun passing the time. I don't think players have just one point to their play. People differ as to how much of their enjoyment comes from experiencing a different setting as opposed to other elements of the play experience e.g. playing a character different from themselves, showing off their improvisational acting ability in a small audience setting, gaining the approval of others for their play, playing out some level of wish fulfillment or power fantasy through their character, enjoying the thrill of victory or the agony of defeat, and vicariously experiencing different emotions by playing their character. Maybe those other points to an RPG are part of what you mean by it not being a black and white thing or there not being a bright and clear line.

QuoteIt is a flaw because people had zillions of questions directed at Gygax and TSR. So obviously something got missed in the first try :-).

I'm of the opinion that it is not possible to answer everyone's questions. Nor is it desirable to try. Anything that complete would be unbelievably long and would bore the life out of everyone, make memorizing the rules more difficult, and make any one rule almost impossible to find when you needed to look it up.

I remember my friend Brad wrote to TSR with some question. (This was probably in the spring of 1975. I can't recall what the question was). It took a while to get an answer back (because snail mail). When we read the answer, I recall thinking something to the effect of "That answer isn't amazing or especially insightful. We could have decided or made that up ourselves." So from then on we did. From all I've read since, that was close to the response that Gygax expected, but mostly didn't get.

QuoteWe got Holmes, Moldavy/Cook, Mentzer, and AD&D out of the attempts to do better next time.

Whereas I would say those are written to address different audiences and have somewhat different design philosophies. Much in the same way that Runequest and GURPS addressed different audiences and had different design philosophies than did any of the versions of D&D. AD&D had as a design philosophy that included trying to create a uniform rule system for tournament play. That philosophy was totally absent in OD&D. I recall feeling that AD&D was actually too detailed or complete. There was so many rules for so many things, many of which any one group of PCs would never encounter, that it made the referee's job harder because there were so many rules to remember.

QuoteMy view is that tournaments were the original sin of the tabletop roleplaying hobby and industry. I think it fine that there were tournaments, but the problem is that the needs of tournaments dictated the format of products that was sold for people running home campaigns. As a consequence what was acceptable got way more rigid in terms of publishing.

I'm uncomfortable saying that the way other people like to play an RPG is wrong, but I would say that there were certainly unforeseen side effects of tournament play that in my view have been unfortunate for the hobby. Much in the same way as some of the side effects of collectible card games have been unfortunate.

QuoteAnd it was that way for a long time until the advent of "Living campaigns". Because if you are going to run a Living Campaign nationwide, to be fair you have very rigid in what rules you used. And this in my opinion is where it became really annoying for the hobby.

I refuse to play Living campaigns.

• I don't want to be an itinerant gamer hauling my PC from one GM to the next.
• I don't want to play every week with a bunch of strangers.
• I certainly don't want to codify the rules because I don't want every GM to give me a similar experience. I want different experiences from different GMs.
• And I really, really do not want deal with the bureaucracy and politics of a formal organization in my leisure time.

QuoteI never switched rules in the middle of a campaign. If I am going to make a switch, I wait until the campaign is over and then use the new rules for the next campaign.

I don't ever really end campaigns. They either continue with new characters and/or new players or they go on hold awaiting renewed interest and a gathering of a quorum of the original players. We've been playing and running an overlapping set of Call of Cthulhu characters off and on since about the 1980s. We've switched from one GM to another, to another, and then back again. We've even had a couple of guest Keepers run mult-isession scenarios. I think we've gone from 1st edition of the rules to the 5th or 6th editions. (Up until 7e, CoC editions are really similar. Even closer than RQ2 to RQ3.) I expect that I will end up switching from Honor+Intrigue to Call of Cthulhu at some point. It will be the same setting. It may include some of the same PCs. If it is the same setting and some of the same PCs, in what sense would it be a different campaign? The only separate CoC campaigns I run are the one-shot scenarios I've run from Blood Brothers 2. Those are based on various B-movies and each one is a based on a different genre, takes place in a different setting with separate pre-created characters. Clearly these are separate campaigns.

QuoteOutside of a handful of classics, (Gygax's AD&D 1st DMG for example) that have come close, nobody has done it right.

I'd say that Chaosium's Griffon Mountain supplement provided one of the best examples of a campaign setting. I think WEG's Star Wars did an great job of explaining how to play the game and how the GM was supposed to run a campaign...but it is not focused on the sort of player driven, the action goes wherever the PCs say they want to go sort of activity that OD&D featured. Star Wars, like the movies, is much more mission driven. There are some pretty significant differences in how I GM for a mission driven game like Star Wars, Star Trek, or Call of Cthulhu and how I GM for D&D, Runequest, and H+I.

QuoteI think my experience was because I was in Junior/Senior High and because of our immaturity most of my fellow referee couldn't stand for our little lovely sandcastle being kicked over by the evil nasty players. And then you had to contend with the referees that railroaded which is a different problem. While I sound very negative, understand that the vast majority of high school referees I know tried to do right. Yeah they railroaded players, and got in a snit for messing up their setting, but most did just as many other things right.

One really great thing about playing RPGs in school in the 1970s was that there were a lot of GMs. So if a GM did stuff you really couldn't stand, you could just go play in somebody else's world. Players voting with their feet or seat was a good way to keep referee shenanigans in check.

QuoteI fucked up more times than I account and for me I had the added fun of being partially deaf. The #1 reason I started using miniatures and battlemats from day 1 is to overcome the issues my deafness caused. "Don't tell me, just move your figure to where you are going to be."

I really prefer using miniatures when there are multiple PCs in combat. When I GM I almost always have at least one player whose spatial recognition is poor or whose mental view of the situation is significantly at odds with mine and with that of the majority of the other players at the table. If I never, ever had to again hear a player say, "I thought I was over by the window/inside the door/outside the door/away from the chest/behind the guy in plate" I would be ever so happy.

QuoteHowever, you have to really work at keeping the depth manageable. And you really can't go too far off the standard tropes or you going waste multiple session explaining how the damn thing works. For example most players don't have the frame of reference to deal with Barker's Tekumel right off the bat. It has to be explain. Even Glorantha suffer a little from that although the RQ2 version was pretty approachable.

I was fortunate to have played the original White Bear, Red Moon and Nomad Gods board games with one of my players. Between those two games and their maps and unique counters and the supplement Cults of Prax, at least a few of us had a decent handle on Glorantha. And the Griffon Mountain supplement was a wonderful campaign setting. The stuff set in Pavis and Prax was good as well. Nowadays though, I'd say that Glorantha is getting less rather than more approachable.

QuoteSo in the end neither is any better or worse than the other. There are benefits and there are consequences. The only responsibility involved is for people to understand what they are and factor that into their decision when setting up their campaigns.

Agreed.

QuoteHowever where I don't let them off the hook is in terms of first person roleplaying. They have to act as if there in the setting as the character even if that character is just a reflection of themselves. I find that doing along with the way I roleplay NPCs pretty much eliminates munchkinism, and assorted rules related asshole behavior.

My theory as to why it works is because it forces them to engage the NPCs as people not as pogs or tokens on a board. And causes their normal social instincts to kick in. It not 100% in making this type of gamer by any stretch but I rarely get the any of the horror stories people typically relate either. Other things I do is that I always make sure some NPCs are actually friendly. That if all the players want to do is kill things and take their shit, that they have the opportunity to do that.

All of these things I do is to make for a better campaign, for a better experience for the players while they are pretending to characters in the setting I created.

This right here is some good GM advice.

Quote from: Maarzan;903583I think it is up to the GM to set choose the rules and house rules in his gaming proposal.
But afterwards I see the GM bound by the same agreed on rules like everyone else.
You (plural, as who is participiating in the game. Too many rules sets sound like they mean the reader instead for me ) can change rules afterwards too, but then it has to be unanimously in the group.

While I'd like a rule change after play to be unanimous, I reserve the right as the GM to be a tyrant.

QuoteSo the standard question is: Why does someone lamenting about rules gong wrong, not just ask the other players, instead of constructing some abstract justification to break the rules?

I have no idea. Possibly bringing up a change as the topic for discussion seems too controversial or like it will create a conflict. Many people are afraid of controversy and intensely dislike conflict. So it may seem easier to try to slip the change in without discussion.

Typically as a GM I point out what I see as a problem to the table and ask the players if they too see it as a problem. Sometimes they agree. Sometimes they don't. Often they have no strong opinion either way. I might suggest a solution to get their feedback. I might ask them to suggest a solution. Depending on what they say and on how strongly I feel about the change, I might decide not to change anything. I might look for a compromise change. I might decide to make the change anyway even if some people disagree. I'm the GM. I get to do that.

I've also brought up rules for change as a player. Sometimes the GM and the other players agree with me. Sometimes they don't. I do find GMs are a lot less likely to have no opinion about a change than are players.

My view is pretty simple and pretty old school. The GM is in charge. Sort of like the host of a party. Sort of like the referee at a sports event. Sort of like the producer of a movie.

However, we are engaged in a social activity to have fun together. It is polite, socially desirable, and wise for the GM to talk to the other people involved about any changes to the program and to seek consensus. GMs who don't act polite and aren't wise deserve to lose their players. Often they do.

Quote from: Bren;903590While I'd like a rule change after play to be unanimous, I reserve the right as the GM to be a tyrant.

Awesome. Can I steel it?

RPGs are about

Sorry, but you have already lost me.

Quote from: yosemitemike;903634RPGs are about

Sorry, but you have already lost me.

1) RPGs mean something otherwise you wouldn't used it in your sentence.
2) Nowhere I specify what a campaign is about. What style the referee is to use while adjudicating. What type of genre, setting, or types of adventures that are to occur.

The implication of my initial statement is that the focus should be on making a good campaign first and then adopt, adapt, or create the rules to support that campaign second. That the hobby and industry would be healthier if it adopted this focus as well.

I view this approach as more expansive than focusing on the rules. Because it is not possible to write a set of rules that covers everything that a player could do in a setting.

Finally I stress the specific rule system used is an important personal preference. Some people can't stand class based system. Others find AC and HP to be unrealistic enough to lessen their enjoyment of the game. Other still find games like GURPS too complex to enjoy as a pastime. And so on. Nowhere I advocate that you should not care about the rules you use. Only that what rules you use should be chosen in light of how well they support the campaign you are trying to run.

And I will stress, when it comes to tabletop roleplaying there are not that many outright bad choices. Most choices have benefits and consequences. The choices to focus on the campaign over the rules or the rules over the campaign, or even both equally are the latter and certainly not the former.

In my view the benefit of focusing on the rules over the campaign is clarity and certainty. The consequences include limitations on the choices that the player make that otherwise make sense in term of the setting. Or that players do things that are unrealistic, in terms of the setting, to take advantage of the game mechanics. And I will stress that what unrealistic for a campaign using TOON is very different than what unrealistic for a GURPS World War II campaign.

While the advantage of clarity and certainty seems like weak point, it isn't. Managing RPG Campaigns is a demand task for a leisure activity. For some groups this may be the most practical approach given their circumstances. Since the point is to enjoy oneself while playing an tabletop RPG that is a legitimate choice made for good reasons.

Quote from: estar;903660I view this approach as more expansive than focusing on the rules. Because it is not possible to write a set of rules that covers everything that a player could do in a setting.

I had a friend who owned a lot of RPGs. In part, this was because he liked reading RPGs - both rules and settings. And in part it was because he was not satisfied with any of the systems he had seen. And he had seen a lot. None were just right. All had some source of dissatisfaction. He started gaming around the same time I did, but for the first ten years or so he never GMed. In part, because he kept looking at new rules instead of sitting down and figuring out something to run. Of course he bought Runequest 1, because it was new and because it was set in Glorantha. When he bought yet another RPG, I used to tease him by saying that his game was Rules Quest. But his dissatisfaction helped me to reach a minor epiphany.


Every RPG is a compromise of design choices. Skill-based gives greater flexibility over class based, but you get long lists of skills and you have to decide whether swinging an axe is different than swinging a broad sword and how much either is like fighting with a knife. Is driving a motorboat more like driving a car or like sailing a small boat? Is sailing a small boat like conning a cruiser and does the answer change if the cruiser is from the Age of Sail, the Age of Steam, or nuclear powered? Or maybe we should just focus on careers instead of classes or skills.

Quote from: Madprofessor;903631Awesome. Can I steel it?

Sure.   Were you thinking of something like this?
(http://goldenopenings.com/assets/images/I%20Beam.jpg)





I just couldn't resist.

Quote from: yosemitemike;903634RPGs are about

Sorry, but you have already lost me.

Come on, the statement could be "RPGs are about whatever you want them to be about" and you can still cut it off at "RPGs are about" and say you're lost. It just doesn't mean anything, and so it's entirely thoughtless, not to mention rude of you to respond as such.

It is not valid logic to parse statements in such a fashion "RPGs are about X" and thus conclude that the speaker is trying to dictate what RPGs are about. Because that is not the case for all X. There exists some X, for example, when X = "whatever you want them to be about", where the speaker is clearly not dictating anything.

Instead of saying X, Estar has used "campaign" as his placeholder. If campaign refers to whatever YOUR purpose is to playing an RPG, then your response is purely argumentative, contributing nothing of value to the discussion.

Quote from: Bren;903666I had a friend who owned a lot of RPGs. In part, this was because he liked reading RPGs - both rules and settings. And in part it was because he was not satisfied with any of the systems he had seen. And he had seen a lot. None were just right. All had some source of dissatisfaction.

I had milder case of this through my gaming history. Although it never stopped me from refereeing. I can definitely relate.

Quote from: Bren;903666

There are no perfect rules.

I can agree with this.

Quote from: Bren;903666Every RPG is a compromise of design choices. Skill-based gives greater flexibility over class based, but you get long lists of skills and you have to decide whether swinging an axe is different than swinging a broad sword and how much either is like fighting with a knife. Is driving a motorboat more like driving a car or like sailing a small boat? Is sailing a small boat like conning a cruiser and does the answer change if the cruiser is from the Age of Sail, the Age of Steam, or nuclear powered? Or maybe we should just focus on careers instead of classes or skills.

Like I said earlier, reading Matt Finch section on Ruling vs. Rules was like a "Road to Damascus" moment for me in regards my relationship with rules. I still like and use complex rules system like GURPS. But I much more comfortable with running very lite RPG system. But after reading that I realize, my standard is and will continue to be; does this ruling or rule fit the setting of my campaign, and does it resolve things for the character in a way that makes sense for the campaign. Not quite the point that Matt Finch was aiming for but my own take on it.

Quote from: estar;903678...my standard is and will continue to be; does this ruling or rule fit the setting of my campaign, and does it resolve things for the character in a way that makes sense for the campaign.

Whereas I look at the setting and the rules as being in a dialectic. The setting impacts how one interprets rules and should impact what rules one selects or creates, but the rules that get used impact the setting.

As an example, I provide Honor+Intrigue. It puts characters into different categories or levels. (They aren't like D&D levels though as there is not necessarily any intended progression. And PCs are all the same "level" which is Hero.) The three main categories are Pawns, Retainers, and Heroes & Villains (there is no mechanical difference between a hero and a villain).

A consequence of the rules regarding Pawns, Retainers, and Heroes & Villains is that combat ends up looking like 4 against 40 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Paut4zNx-3c) rather than 4 against 6 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRR0k2-8i-I) (starts at 2:30). H+I gives you the former, while the latter is what you get using rules like Flashing Blades or Basic Roleplaying. And that difference impacts the setting.

Quote from: estar;9036601) RPGs mean something otherwise you wouldn't used it in your sentence.

It means lots of things to lots of different people.

Quote from: estar;903660the focus should be

Should?  Sorry but you lost me again.

Quote from: yosemitemike;903727Should?  Sorry but you lost me again.

He tried, but you keep coming back.

Quote from: Bren;903735He tried, but you keep coming back.

Well, at least you are consistent.

Just in case I hadn't mentioned it, RPGs are about the campaign for me too, but implying that everyone should share those values is a bridge too far. So I'm agreeing with most of what's being said here, just not that these priorities are or should be universal.

Quote from: Simlasa;902772In a lot of cases, yeah.

Fair enough, but should they? Are rulebooks which keep players away not a problem we should be addressing as opposed to accepting?

Quote from: dragoner;902785I agree that the rules are often a hindrance, connecting with the setting is important, and dependent on the GM's story telling ability.

What use are the rules if they don't help you connect with the setting? That's what they're supposed to do.

Quote from: Crüesader;902847Riding a motorcycle isn't about your helmet, it's about enjoying the ride.  That doesn't mean you don't need the helmet.

But you don't need a helmet to enjoy the ride, or ride at all. In fact it often makes the experience less enjoyable.

It's there to protect you from events on the road which would otherwise be far more harmful, so it's more like an X Card.

Quote from: Matt;902965It doesn't mean you should split lanes, either. False analogy.

Not a rider, are we :)

Quote from: Crüesader;903085LOL no it isn't.  You're trained in basic training.

And so you are.

#TheMoreYouKnow

Quote from: Crüesader;903085Guys that have never touched a rifle often perform better than good ol' boys that grew up hunting[/B].   The M16 is a weird weapon like that.

Research or personal experience? And no, I'm not discounting either.

Quote from: Ravenswing;903137[ATTACH=CONFIG]165[/ATTACH]

It's really most sincerely dead ...

Nono it's resting.

Quote from: Simlasa;903280with a group of guys I seem to get along with (despite LARGE differences outside of game stuff).

If only more people could manage this sort of thing.

Quote from: Simlasa;903280And really, they way they play Pathfinder, it usually feels like some OSR sandbox.

Then honest question: Why are they playing Pathfinder?

Quote from: Bren;903440Rules don't fix people problems.

I agree. These are all people problems. Game rules don't fix people problems.

The foundation of western civilization begs to differ.

Quote from: estar;903660The implication of my initial statement is that the focus should be on making a good campaign first and then adopt, adapt, or create the rules to support that campaign second. That the hobby and industry would be healthier if it adopted this focus as well.

I view this approach as more expansive than focusing on the rules. Because it is not possible to write a set of rules that covers everything that a player could do in a setting.

Finally I stress the specific rule system used is an important personal preference. Some people can't stand class based system. Others find AC and HP to be unrealistic enough to lessen their enjoyment of the game. Other still find games like GURPS too complex to enjoy as a pastime. And so on. Nowhere I advocate that you should not care about the rules you use. Only that what rules you use should be chosen in light of how well they support the campaign you are trying to run.

And I will stress, when it comes to tabletop roleplaying there are not that many outright bad choices. Most choices have benefits and consequences. The choices to focus on the campaign over the rules or the rules over the campaign, or even both equally are the latter and certainly not the former.

In my view the benefit of focusing on the rules over the campaign is clarity and certainty. The consequences include limitations on the choices that the player make that otherwise make sense in term of the setting. Or that players do things that are unrealistic, in terms of the setting, to take advantage of the game mechanics. And I will stress that what unrealistic for a campaign using TOON is very different than what unrealistic for a GURPS World War II campaign.

While the advantage of clarity and certainty seems like weak point, it isn't. Managing RPG Campaigns is a demand task for a leisure activity. For some groups this may be the most practical approach given their circumstances. Since the point is to enjoy oneself while playing an tabletop RPG that is a legitimate choice made for good reasons.

Completely agree.

Again, it's the implication that RPGs should be about the same things for everyone where we differ.

Quote from: Anon Adderlan;914059Just in case I hadn't mentioned it, RPGs are about the campaign for me too, but implying that everyone should share those values is a bridge too far. So I'm agreeing with most of what's being said here, just not that these priorities are or should be universal.

I distinguish between what you have to do to run tabletop RPGs and what people enjoy about playing RPGs. Rules are a huge factor in how people enjoy RPGs. But what you have to do in order to even get to the point of enjoying the rules is to setup a campaign even if it is only for one session.

It not a question of what is priority or not, it is absolute one thing you have to do in order to start playing tabletop RPG. Hence my assertion that playing tabletop RPG is about the campaign not the rules.

And again I don't distinguish between multiple interrelated sessions and a single session because you do the same steps regardless if it is one session or multiple sessions.

Quote from: Anon Adderlan;914059The foundation of western civilization begs to differ.

A cute soundbite, but as so often the case. Wrong. The history of all civilizations, not just western civilization, shows that societal rules don’t fix people problems. Punishment can eliminate some of the people who are causing some of the problems. But it can’t eliminate all of them and despite eliminating some of the people, more problem causing people just keep on showing up. The war on drugs is a good example of this.