Ari, The following things were never quite addressed and I consider them still relevant. So here they are again:
From your reply to Hobo:
One, could you provide situational examples? To be honest, I'm just not following your comments here and examples would be helpful for me to understand where you're coming from.
Can you provide these examples?
I'm not sure we're even arguing the same topic as each other. By what you wrote above, it reads to me as you're suggesting a game can be as complex as it wants to be as long as the player can just sit down and say "I do X" and "X" happens (or Y or Z depending on factors of course). In other words, the GM must be a master of all complexity the game contains and the player can merely attend and purely roleplay all their actions. The GM rolls the dice, figures out the modifiers, holds the character sheets, etc. Am I understanding you correctly?
Can you please respond to this? I’d really like to know if one of us is arguing against tomatoes by extolling the virtues of chili powder.
Yes! As I have repeatedly stated, THAT IS THE DIFFERENCE. Old-style D&D does not require precise and specified 'corporate official rules'. Your "wonderful feature" is our "frustrating kludge", and vice-versa, because the designs are means to different ends, different games, different experiences.
Let’s get this straight before it escalates. NO version of D&D requires precise and specified rules. ALL versions of D&D provide avenues for on-the-fly rulings. If I’m playing a swashbuckler that plans to leap off a chandelier to maneuver himself behind an enemy for a shocking strike filled with flair, the GM will need to decide how to handle the situation regardless of edition.
Simplified rules mean that if players want to experience a tangible effect for saying they act like a swashbuckler in combat (perhaps catching foes off-guard with witty repartee) the GM needs to adjudicate it. More complex rules might provide a GM and the player rules to cover such effects, eliminating some of the adjudication needs. Allow me to disclaim for the Nth time: I am not saying EITHER is better. The are just different styles of play.
Your WoW character can't gonzo across the room via swinging on the chandelier before swashing his buckle in someone's face and catching the swooning damsel in his arms. Nor can her howl be heard as she heedlessly charges at the center of the enemy line, foaming at the mouth (and I bet a WoW character can't do *that*!) and ready to kill for the gods or to all too soon join them.
All of this and more happens in WoW through the liberal use of emotes. Will you see it on screen? Of course not. But you can do it. And if everyone you roleplay with in WoW goes along with it, well then it happens doesn’t it?
Does doing so have tangible effects in game? If my warrior howls at the enemy, is it cowed? Of course not. The code that operates WoW is clearly not that flexible. The code, a.k.a. rules, don’t support it. Without some rules to support it, roleplay in WoW can quickly devolve into children games of “I shoot you,”-> “Well I dodged it” -> “But I knew you dodged and aimed accordingly” -> “But I knew you anticipated my dodge so I put up a shield” -> ad nausea.
The point is, with a handful of responsible people interested in playing cooperatively, roleplay in WoW works just fine. However, when you don’t hit on that utopia, it can break down pretty quickly.
If people are in a tabletop game where (a) there is more competitiveness (b) there is a by-the-book GM (c) people don’t have the time to develop house rules (d) people aren’t good at developing house rules (e) house rules are communicated poorly or not at all (f) all other sorts of communications issues or other scenarios I’m failing to list here then perhaps more “corporate official rules” (as Ari affectionately calls them) might be just the thing that game needs to excel.
Or perhaps some people just like to play that way.
Individuality does not come from mechanics. Please repeat: individuality does not come from mechanics.
Mechanics are merely the fiddly things (some say nuisances) that allow combat and danger to be a playable part of the game. Individuality comes from the personality - the (dare I say it) character - you as the player put behind those mechanics, for all the times when those mechanics aren't in use.
If everything else is working, it shouldn't matter a tinker's damn that the swashbuckler and the barbarian are using the exact same to-hit matrix, because in the game they'll look, sound, and feel very different assuming they're played well.
Poppycock. I’ll hand-wave past all the derision in here because it’s not productive. And while I believe Tequila already said it, I’ll repeat it: individuality CAN come from personality AND mechanics.
Barbarian Bob wades into combat, his mouth frothing. He sees two enemies in front of him and takes a mighty swing with his huge two-handed sword, slicing into both in a spray of blood and guts and caring little for the multiple attacks that cut into him while he executes his less than tactical maneuver.
Swashbuckling Steve darts in and out of combat, toying with his foes thanks to his obvious superiority with his finely crafted rapier.
So the two are in the same combat. How would you resolve this? Would they both roll an attack and then the GM would just narrate the result down so it fits into the rules that exist? Might that mean that despite Bob’s description he only could ever hit one person anyway? Might that mean that Steve is just as easy to hit as Bob?
You need rules to resolve these kinds of things. I don’t care what kind of rules they are. They could be house rules, published rules, or whatever. But you need rules. Even if we just say Steve is harder to hit than Bob, there has to be some sort of mechanic to back it up. Again, it could be in the GMs head, written on a sheet of loose-leaf paper, or in a PHB somewhere. But SOMEWHERE you have to know how much harder Steve is to hit than Bob or failing that, have a repeatable method to determine it.
So if Steve wants to be harder to hit than Bob, game mechanics somewhere have to back it up or it’s meaningless. And I’ll repeat it again. Said mechanics can be solely in the GMs head, but they have to exist somewhere. Therefore, game mechanics have all the capability in the world to help define a character’s individuality.
Should you require another discussion point, would Steve and Bob deal the same amount of damage? Remember Steve has a rapier and Bob has a massive two-handed sword.
At any rate, if you truly want to argue that mechanics don’t have this level of an importance in a roleplaying game than I’d suggest you are rather arguing that roleplaying games should just be storytelling sessions that are pure collaborative narration. Of course that works too, and it certainly can be a good time, and it certainly isn’t badwrongfun (did I cover enough bases here to not touch nerves or get misrepresented?
). But it certainly isn’t in line with the style of roleplaying games I think we’re talking about in this thread, though I’m willing to be convinced otherwise.
Handbooks of guidelines are fine, if the Game Master needs them. It does not follow that his own guidelines are inferior to someone else's. It certainly is not likely that someone not at all informed of the situation at hand should be better acquainted with its particulars.
Who’s arguing that rulebooks are an unyielding set of instructions that must be heeded by each and every printed letter? There’s a reason any gaming book worth its salt has a “rule zero” that states having fun should take precedence over the printed rules.
My contention with your stance is you seem to be suggesting most if not all rules of an rpg should be ignored (Although I may be completely wrong and your stance is on a completely different plane. See further my question way up top). Surely you can and perhaps do play this way. But don’t think that people who play otherwise are just in it for the “sub-game” of character building.
