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Rules Transparency - How much do players need to know?
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<blockquote data-quote="Olgar Shiverstone" data-source="post: 6967759" data-attributes="member: 5868"><p>My default is "all of them". But I really think it comes down to the balance of "roleplaying" versus "game" you want to have in your "roleplaying game."</p><p></p><p>If you want to emphasize the roleplaying and have players react organically, they need to know just enough to be able to reasonably judge the consequences of their actions. Done well, the players don't need to know any rules -- and at one extreme, there aren't any rules anyway.</p><p></p><p>On the other hand, part of the social contract of most games is an equality of knowledge about how the game is played, which keeps the game fair and allows players to stimate changes of success because they are performing actions they can't know would succeed in the real world. (I'm setting aside the genre of games where the game is figure out the rules.)</p><p></p><p>So what do you want the game to be about? Figuring out rules? If so, have a lot of them, make them relevant, and don't tell the players what they are. Freeform interaction? Don't tell the players the rules, but don't have many and don't make them significant. Balanced expectation of outcome? Players know the rules.</p><p></p><p>Note that "knowing the rules" does not have to mean the game doesn't contain hidden information -- rules are about the interaction of game elements; elements can still be hidden (monsters, treasure, where they are, motivations, etc -- all are game elements appropriate for hidden information).</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Olgar Shiverstone, post: 6967759, member: 5868"] My default is "all of them". But I really think it comes down to the balance of "roleplaying" versus "game" you want to have in your "roleplaying game." If you want to emphasize the roleplaying and have players react organically, they need to know just enough to be able to reasonably judge the consequences of their actions. Done well, the players don't need to know any rules -- and at one extreme, there aren't any rules anyway. On the other hand, part of the social contract of most games is an equality of knowledge about how the game is played, which keeps the game fair and allows players to stimate changes of success because they are performing actions they can't know would succeed in the real world. (I'm setting aside the genre of games where the game is figure out the rules.) So what do you want the game to be about? Figuring out rules? If so, have a lot of them, make them relevant, and don't tell the players what they are. Freeform interaction? Don't tell the players the rules, but don't have many and don't make them significant. Balanced expectation of outcome? Players know the rules. Note that "knowing the rules" does not have to mean the game doesn't contain hidden information -- rules are about the interaction of game elements; elements can still be hidden (monsters, treasure, where they are, motivations, etc -- all are game elements appropriate for hidden information). [/QUOTE]
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