How Visible To players Should The Rules Be?

[payn]

Keep in mind that the internet magnifies the voice of the minorities.

That doesn't happen in most editions...
In CT, it is possible to be unable to hit without insane skill levels - the highest legit level of skill I've seen was 7... but that was a merchant with Trader via advanced gen. (Yeah, 3 weeks prediction). But if you can get the hit... CT armor is reduced to hit.
MT, a sufficiently good roll will get damage through.
T4, damage dice stopped by armor still do 1 point of damage per die.
T20: armor doesn't reduce the stamina damage, only the HP damage.
GT: Crits can get most weapons damage up enough to get through the DR.

TNE, MGT1, and MGT2, it's plausible.
HT, it's dependent upon a number of factors.
I don't grasp the T5 damage/armor mechanics.

Absolutely none of this changes what I said or adds to this conversation.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I think it comes down to a shift in the hobby. Over the last... let's say 20 years... there has been a shift from the traditional role-playing structure to newcomers into the hobby pushing what is referred to as Player Agency. The days of a groups sitting down and playing the game has been pushed aside in favour of the players deciding/narrating everything. By modern approaches, I can see where Pemerton is coming from, even if it's not really accurate.

Fair enough on the shift, if unfortunate from my point of view. Some people have been playing more narratively for more than 20 years even. But that's not 2e books for several reasons, among them the simple fact that 2e never stated anything like what @pemerton said. This is largely projection IMO, based on said shift being to the liking of the narrative gamers making the argument.

 

[Edgar Ironpelt]

I say 'totally visible.' I presume that that players are also GMs of their own games, and even when they're not they should be treated as if they were.

Also for reasons involving the avoidance of assumption clash and/or the isolation of players from their characters.

 

[MGibster]

My point being that even in such a setting, the option for violence is always there, and the protagonists are trained in doing so.

Okay, point made. What it added to the conversation other than a seemingly contrarian point of view I shall leave other posters to ponder.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I am happy to give players an idea of roughly how likely an experienced character would have of succeeding at something like that. That doesn't feel like mechanics to me. Like you said, it feels like being experienced and competent.

But that's it; all character mechanics are usually doing is telling you the likelihood of succeeding at things and what influences it. The benefit of them is that it cuts out a lot of communication of failure from GMs and players not explaining to each other what's going on in enough of a fashion the other properly understands it.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I didn’t catch the value of it in your description. But yes, you’re right… we simply value different things in this regard.

I'd suggest it may be that I place a higher value on the gameplay end of the experience, and under some circumstances insufficient information enhances that gameplay. I just think the degree to which some people want to apply that, instead, harms that gameplay (and frankly, some of the people who are prone to excessive information control seem hostile to the gameplay element in general). If you're coming from a more purely roleplay focused end, that might seem nonsensical.

 

[Thomas Shey]

My point being that even in such a setting, the option for violence is always there, and the protagonists are trained in doing so.

Now ask yourself why that's relevant if its not actually going to be deployed in the campaign.

 

[Manbearcat]

What I want to know is:

If the players don’t know the rules, then how is the GM not deeply foiled in generating compelling gameplay (engine-engaging) decision-points for players?

Every different game I run centers subtly or significantly novel gameplay (engine-engaging) decision-points for players. When players don’t share mutual understanding of both concepts broadly and specific rules that facilitate those concepts, that shows up big time in disparate engagement with and tackling decision-points that I put in front of them. That is very frustrating.

Further, you witness in real time the gradual or sudden increase in the richness of gameplay as a player’s understanding of a game’s concepts and facilitating rules matures.

Further further, same goes for me as a GM. When I’m relatively new to a particular game, I’m frustrated by my relatively poor play in contrast to the GM I will gradually or suddenly grow into as I begin to grok & master the novel concepts of a game and the facilitating rules that govern moment-to-moment GMing.

EDIT (after a quick comm with a pal): Forget depth of rules for a moment. Just stick with core concepts. Take something as simple as the Info Gathering phase of Blades in the Dark. If players are confused about what they’re supposed to be doing, they might resort to rudderless exploration rather than goal-directed, Score-generating (dynamics and fiction) gameplay! That is frustrating!

 

[Corinnguard]

If the player’s don’t know the rules, then how is the GM not deeply foiled in generating compelling gameplay (engine-engaging) decision-points for players?

If the players don't know the rules, they'll put the GM into the unfortunate position of having to explain every rule to the players. Thus they'll be taking away time the GM could be spending on generating compelling gameplay for the players to participate in. GMs spend a significant amount of time preparing for an upcoming RPG session. They review their notes on the previous sessions they have hosted. They look over the adventure they have created or a pre-generated adventure they have bought from a RPG company. So they're looking forward to is an entertaining time with their players.

What they are not looking forward to is holding the players' hands. An RPG session runs smoothly when the GM is dealing with players who can grasp some or most of the rules in the RPG. An RPG should not be a Q&A session. It's a role-playing session where everyone is looking to having fun being someone else.

 

[TwoSix]

Fair enough on the shift, if unfortunate from my point of view. Some people have been playing more narratively for more than 20 years even. But that's not 2e books for several reasons, among them the simple fact that 2e never stated anything like what @pemerton said. This is largely projection IMO, based on said shift being to the liking of the narrative gamers making the argument.

The priority of the DM's storyline, and getting the players to "follow along" with it, was foundational to most of the popular games of the '90s (primarily the White Wolf family, as well as AD&D 2e).

Most of the development of more narrative styles was an explicit reaction against this paradigm.