Why do RPGs have rules?

[Umbran]

I think the OP already covered that:

You mention them, but you were focused on "answering the question". Which, sure, they are there to help do that. And I understand that your focus is generally on narratives and processes, but that focus seems to ignore direct engagement with player intrinsic motivations. Game reward dynamics, and player emotional engagement with the game and play seems largely absent in your reasoning.

So, you seem to entirely miss another, more basic answer, "Because playing with the rules IS FUN (enjoyable, entertaining, or whatever similar word you want) in and of itself."

 

[Baron Opal II]

Sure. But what are the rules actually for? What do they do?

Rules shape the theme of the game and prevent calvinball.

From here :

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if all your formal rules do is structure your group's ongoing agreement about what happens in the game, they are a) interchangeable with any other rpg rules out there, and b) probably a waste of your attention. Live negotiation and honest collaboration are almost certainly better. . . .​

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As far as I'm concerned, the purpose of an rpg's rules is to create the unwelcome and the unwanted in the game's fiction. The reason to play by rules is because you want the unwelcome and the unwanted - you want things that no vigorous creative agreement would ever create. And it's not that you want one person's wanted, welcome vision to win out over another's - that's weak sauce. No, what you want are outcomes that upset every single person at the table. You want things that if you hadn't agreed to abide by the rules' results, you would reject.​

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If you don't want that - and I believe you when you say you don't! - then live negotiation and honest collaboration are a) just as good as, and b) a lot more flexible and robust than, whatever formal rules you'd use otherwise.​

Wow, just when I think he knows what he's talking about he says stuff like this.

There are multiple valid playstyles. Story Now is just as valid as Old School. It is worthy to try multiple styles to figure out what style you prefer. It is also worthy to change, kitbash, graft, and alter your favorite rules set to hew closer to the experience you desire.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

As a player you cannot make any concept you want, the game defines some of the confines of the character options (can they do magic, what does the magic do, how do they interact with the combat rules, etc.). There is a lot of freedom in defining different characters both within and outside of the rules, but the rules provide certain lines to work within. This is thrown out a bit with DM's explicitly given authority to make anything including rule violations, but there is a framework to start from.

This is an interesting point, and it makes me wonder why this was seen as so central from the very earliest TTRPG play. I am struck by how this is one of the fundamental questions @loverdrive seems interested in. It bears on the questions arising in @the Magic Sword neotrad thread too.

 

[Darth Solo]

One of my kids likes to play imagination games - she and her friends all pretend to be other people (often superheroes) and do exciting and interesting things.

These clearly have a lot in common with RPGing. But they don't have rules - disagreements about what happens next are just resolved by people talking it over and reaching (or sometimes not reaching) agreement.

So why do RPGs have rules?

I played those same games as a kid. Most of us did, and Pretend™ did have rules. Can I play a superhero or a cop? Yes? Then being able to play a superhero or a cop or a robber or a princess was one of the rules. Can I have a gun? Yes? Then being able to shoot people with my finger-gun was another rule. Did we argue/debate about who got shot and when? Yup - because we didn't have dice and detailed combat rules.

Definition of "Rule": one of a set of explicit or understood regulations or principles governing conduct within a particular activity or sphere. There is no such thing as a "rule-less game".

 

[numtini]

Sure. But what are the rules actually for? What do they do?

Rules define the universal constants and constraints of our fictional universe. Throughout our real lives we rely on reality having a shape and boundaries. We don't concern ourselves with stepping out the door and flying up into the sky. We know that water doesn't poison us. We know that hitting ourselves in the head with a hammer will hurt us. We base our choices in life on what we learn about how the world works. That's what rules do for the game world. They define the limits of our character's existence. I know that falling will hurt me this much. I know that casting this spell will do the following. I know that this armor will protect a certain amount.

We work out the story between players and the GM. But we don't work out certain things because they're baked into the universe in the form of a rulebook and those are the things that are properly rules and that the GM should not stray from. That doesn't mean everything in the game's rulebook. But it should mean that players can trust the decisions they make based on the rules, particularly about the physical universe, won't suddenly be subject to reality bending by the GMs whim.

For example, we were playing this week and a player wanted his character to get out through a window and asked how dangerous it would be to jump. I said it was about 10 feet. The rules say you roll 1d6 for each meter over 2 that you jump. On a 6, you take a condition. So the player knows this is a 1 in 6 chance of taking any damage and relatively minor at that and jumps out the window. Now if you make that drop 10 meters, that means 8d6 each 6 results in 1 damage. That seems pretty low to me for such a drop, but to me, it's not fair for me as GM to just override that rule when someone jumps out a 30 foot window because they're doing so expecting the universe to behave the way they understand it behaves, ie according to the rules.

 

[loverdrive]

I'll read all the previous posts a bit later, but here's my two cents.

The way I see it, the rules are needed to structure the process, kickstart the creativity and provide constraints that everybody understands. Modelling the fictional universe, I'd say, is the least important and least efficient point of application of the rules. I can, like, imagine things. Synchronizing the "image" on the imaginary screen to a workable degree is a trivial endeavour.

The reason I love PbtA games so much is because they structure the process and provide constraints really well through agenda, principles and both MC and player moves.

 

[loverdrive]

Rules define the universal constants and constraints of our fictional universe. Throughout our real lives we rely on reality having a shape and boundaries. We don't concern ourselves with stepping out the door and flying up into the sky. We know that water doesn't poison us. We know that hitting ourselves in the head with a hammer will hurt us. We base our choices in life on what we learn about how the world works. That's what rules do for the game world. They define the limits of our character's existence. I know that falling will hurt me this much. I know that casting this spell will do the following. I know that this armor will protect a certain amount.

There are games that pretty explicitly codify into rules things that have nothing to do with the fictional universe. If my character in Fate has an aspect *The Protagonist, within the universe of the game, it means only two things: jack and s##t. It still bears direct influence on what happens.

And then there are games that don't codify anything within the fictional universe at all, like Microscope, instead using rules to determine who has authority to tell what happens next.

 

[gorice]

Wow, just when I think he knows what he's talking about he says stuff like this.

There are multiple valid playstyles. Story Now is just as valid as Old School. It is worthy to try multiple styles to figure out what style you prefer. It is also worthy to change, kitbash, graft, and alter your favorite rules set to hew closer to the experience you desire.

I think you've got the wrong end of the stick.

Consider a random encounter roll in 'classic' D&D. It might suddenly inform the group that the low-level party just encountered something way out of their league, at exactly the wrong time. This news is 'unwelcome', but the potential for this sort of thing gives the game tension, and can send play flying off in unexpected directions.

That said, I'm not sure I agree that assigning authority isn't an important part of design.

 

[OakenHart]

When I was young, I had a friend who GMed a game without any base rules. It sort of worked and we had fun, but it put an awfully big load on his shoulders to rule on every detail, and I don't think all of us had the same baseline idea of "how crazy can a character get in what they can do and still be reasonable in our game".

Having rules sort of sets a baseline in the world that everyone can agree on and gives a rough idea on how those characters' reality works. DM and players can adjust, homebrew, make a quick ruling at the table and such.

On the other side of that though, I will say that it's always extremely enjoyable to bring in brand new players. New players may not know the rules very well, but understand they exist. They'll try to do interesting things oftentimes outside of the box that a lot of veteran players won't think of because they're usually thinking in terms of the game rules. At least in my experience, your table may vary.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I don't think rules about the working of the game world are all that important. PbtA games generally lack most such rules and when they do exist, like damage rules in DW, they're 'layer 4' stuff. You can trivially change these, but if you alter the agenda or core process of play, you quickly get a whole new game.