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Convincing 4th Edition players to consider 5th Edition
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<blockquote data-quote="Balesir" data-source="post: 5959308" data-attributes="member: 27160"><p>Again - not true if one or more players want and expect to be only passive participants and are happy to sit and kibitz, chat and watch, making the occasional (no-brainer) "decision".</p><p></p><p>Or, actually, now that I think about it, if the written rules don't really represent the game mechanisms in use. If the written rules really only represent a fallback set of guidelines for an area of the game that the group is really not that invested or interested in, and the GM or the group is adopting or making up mechanisms (improv acting rules, social dominance game rules - all manner of things are possible) to handle the parts they actually <em>are</em> interested and invested in, then the composition of the written "rules" really isn't that important, other than that they should be simple and unobtrusive, and they should be easy to manipulate to suit the needs of the group (being, for instance, much better if they use "rulings" rather than "rules").</p><p></p><p>Maybe some of the OSR "swell" is caused by the desire for, and absence of, such a "ruleset". I can't help thinking that, if it is, then it would be more productive to focus more on the other mechanisms - improv rules or whatever - that are desired and include them in the bdoy of the game. Maybe part of the allure is based on some sort of "mystery" or deliberate ignorance and/or non-questioning of what it is that is actually being used as a "system"? I don't know; there seems to be a very strong swell of emotion about it, but I have never seen it clearly expressed just what it is that many "old school" gamers really want.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Balesir, post: 5959308, member: 27160"] Again - not true if one or more players want and expect to be only passive participants and are happy to sit and kibitz, chat and watch, making the occasional (no-brainer) "decision". Or, actually, now that I think about it, if the written rules don't really represent the game mechanisms in use. If the written rules really only represent a fallback set of guidelines for an area of the game that the group is really not that invested or interested in, and the GM or the group is adopting or making up mechanisms (improv acting rules, social dominance game rules - all manner of things are possible) to handle the parts they actually [I]are[/I] interested and invested in, then the composition of the written "rules" really isn't that important, other than that they should be simple and unobtrusive, and they should be easy to manipulate to suit the needs of the group (being, for instance, much better if they use "rulings" rather than "rules"). Maybe some of the OSR "swell" is caused by the desire for, and absence of, such a "ruleset". I can't help thinking that, if it is, then it would be more productive to focus more on the other mechanisms - improv rules or whatever - that are desired and include them in the bdoy of the game. Maybe part of the allure is based on some sort of "mystery" or deliberate ignorance and/or non-questioning of what it is that is actually being used as a "system"? I don't know; there seems to be a very strong swell of emotion about it, but I have never seen it clearly expressed just what it is that many "old school" gamers really want. [/QUOTE]
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