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Do you enjoy playing roleplaying games in which you have no clue about the rules?
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<blockquote data-quote="Blue" data-source="post: 7492198" data-attributes="member: 20564"><p>I <em>can</em> enjoy playing without knowing the rules, but that's not my default.</p><p></p><p>Way back when I had a great experience with this, run by [MENTION=813]jmucchiello[/MENTION]. We knew nothing about anything, and all played young people from a backwater village, just coming of age and needing to go into the wider world. He ran a homebrew system, though part way through he (after talking to us) revamped the freeform magic system because we were getting the hang of it way too fast. I remember being thrilled at being able to make a rope harness and levitate it (since we knew the magic words for, I think rope and telekinesis plus some power booster words), but nothing that would allow us to fly ourselves.</p><p></p><p>I'd have a couple of caveats to playing not knowing the rules, on top of the foundation of trust in your DM to be both fair and consistent.</p><p></p><p>First, it must be that none of the players know the rules and we're all learning them just from interaction with the world. Some people knowing the rules and me not just makes me feel stupid.</p><p></p><p>Second, we know the genre (at least to a degree). For example, assuming everything is gritty and death is cheap when the DM is trying to run a heroic fantasy game leads to frustration and mismatch between what the DM is putting down and how we are interacting with it.</p><p></p><p>Third, the system & DM needs to be able to handle that the players are in <strong>no ways</strong> are constrained to what they try in the world by the rules, only by the how the world reacts in the narrative. For example, I might try to disarm someone, while there's no rules for it or the rules are limited to if you have a particular, power, feat, etc. Same for our characters - my character might try to understand that book of elven runes because she's fascinated by stories of the fae, while the DM intended it to be something for a character who is bookish towards becoming a caster. The character advancement system needs to handle it, and in a way that someone isn't shooting themselves in the foot and making a character who can't hold up their share of the action by accidentally making sub-optimal character.</p><p></p><p>Fourth, we start as neophyte characters. Simply because anything my character understands better than I do I will feel justified asking the DM about. "Do I think we can take those two ten foot humanoids with clubs?" "I described them as muscular" "Yes, but you also described my character as a successful monster hunter - my character should have a reasonable idea of what she can handle."</p><p></p><p>(These are for a campaign. For a one-shot, or something special and long term it's much more relaxed.)</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Blue, post: 7492198, member: 20564"] I [I]can[/I] enjoy playing without knowing the rules, but that's not my default. Way back when I had a great experience with this, run by [MENTION=813]jmucchiello[/MENTION]. We knew nothing about anything, and all played young people from a backwater village, just coming of age and needing to go into the wider world. He ran a homebrew system, though part way through he (after talking to us) revamped the freeform magic system because we were getting the hang of it way too fast. I remember being thrilled at being able to make a rope harness and levitate it (since we knew the magic words for, I think rope and telekinesis plus some power booster words), but nothing that would allow us to fly ourselves. I'd have a couple of caveats to playing not knowing the rules, on top of the foundation of trust in your DM to be both fair and consistent. First, it must be that none of the players know the rules and we're all learning them just from interaction with the world. Some people knowing the rules and me not just makes me feel stupid. Second, we know the genre (at least to a degree). For example, assuming everything is gritty and death is cheap when the DM is trying to run a heroic fantasy game leads to frustration and mismatch between what the DM is putting down and how we are interacting with it. Third, the system & DM needs to be able to handle that the players are in [B]no ways[/B] are constrained to what they try in the world by the rules, only by the how the world reacts in the narrative. For example, I might try to disarm someone, while there's no rules for it or the rules are limited to if you have a particular, power, feat, etc. Same for our characters - my character might try to understand that book of elven runes because she's fascinated by stories of the fae, while the DM intended it to be something for a character who is bookish towards becoming a caster. The character advancement system needs to handle it, and in a way that someone isn't shooting themselves in the foot and making a character who can't hold up their share of the action by accidentally making sub-optimal character. Fourth, we start as neophyte characters. Simply because anything my character understands better than I do I will feel justified asking the DM about. "Do I think we can take those two ten foot humanoids with clubs?" "I described them as muscular" "Yes, but you also described my character as a successful monster hunter - my character should have a reasonable idea of what she can handle." (These are for a campaign. For a one-shot, or something special and long term it's much more relaxed.) [/QUOTE]
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