Why do RPGs have rules?

[pemerton]

I mean the world the characters live in. The one where being "the protagonist" isn't a thing.

You've lost me.

You posted:

You can put it that way, and the game certainly encourages this, but that doesn't change the fact that it is how that character's reality works, which has nothing to do with the in-universe reality.

I don't understand how or why "that character's reality" has nothing to do with "the in-universe reality". Aren't they the same thing?

And I'm also not sure which game you mean by "the game". When I first read your post I took you to mean RPGing in general; but now I don't know.

 

[Micah Sweet]

You've lost me.

You posted:
I don't understand how or why "that character's reality" has nothing to do with "the in-universe reality". Aren't they the same thing?

And I'm also not sure which game you mean by "the game". When I first read your post I took you to mean RPGing in general; but now I don't know.

I'm speaking of any game style in which a character has a mechanical aspect to their narrative role. Narrative mechanics, if you will.

 

[aramis erak]

In very simple terms, because it's a role playing game, not an interactive story or play.

Also, if I wanted to play an "imagination game" without rules, I would. I play a game with rules because I think it's more fun that way.

The hardest bit for me as a kid with pure imagination games was ranged weapons, and, in grades 4-6, that I had no cultural commonality with the kids in the neighborhood due to being the token white kid in a black neighborhood. (My parents owned the duplex, rather than rented, but the kids around didn't know that... but that, too, separated me from them.)

SO, we had to establish rules up front. That robbed much of the fun, too, for some, but with others...

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I mean the world the characters live in. The one where being "the protagonist" isn't a thing.

There is no such thing. It doesn't exist.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I'm speaking of any game style in which a character has a mechanical aspect to their narrative role. Narrative mechanics, if you will.

So, rules are not allowed to govern how people act at the table. Any rules that govern narrative don't attach to the character. They regulate things at the table. This is no different from initiative rolls in D&D, but you don't object to those.

In fact, INDIRECTLY all rules simple tell players what they can and cannot say at the table, or when they can say it, or how often they can say it, etc. One of the, largely unwritten, rules has to do with "you can't say things that would require breaking the fiction's consistency criteria" (which are themselves partly set by rules, which is part of the 'what you can say' etc.).

The idea that there is some sort of distinction which can be made that propels certain of these rules into a 'different category' (often labeled 'META-GAME' or somesuch) is simply not possible to support logically. No such distinction exists.

 

[aramis erak]

I think it is important to remember that every player has their own reasons for playing, and all of their reasons are equally valid, even if they don't make sense to us.

I know players whose reasons are essentially invalid...

• in one case, because it allows them to find victims for their toxic sense of humor.
• Another is there simply because they enjoy causing in-party strife. And not at my table in the last 20 years.
• Another reason I'd consider invalid is "because the significant other insists" or "to appease the significant other"...

 

[andreszarta]

If I attempted to run my character as pretty much just a generic guy, go around, do actions, really shallow character, play would basically collapse. There wouldn't really be any direction or force to it. I mean, the GM would probably push on me so hard SOMETHING would happen, but its not like D&D games I've experienced where you can kinda just kick in doors, kill stuff, whatever and just "play the setting." Does that make sense?

I think this post from a friend of mine adds some interesting context to what @AbdulAlhazred said and to which I agree fully.

 

[pemerton]

I'm speaking of any game style in which a character has a mechanical aspect to their narrative role. Narrative mechanics, if you will.

I'm utterly lost.

 

[pemerton]

I think this post from a friend of mine adds some interesting context to what @AbdulAlhazred said and to which I agree fully.

Great blog, thanks for the link!

In my most recent moments playing (as opposed to GMing), I've played the spiteful Dark Elf Aedhros. Being spiteful, it's easy to turn on the NPCs I've met and try and rob them or ridicule them (or both).

Playing the religious knight Thurgon (my other somewhat active BW character) the choices tend to be about trying to persuade others, or sticking to his commitments in the face of adversity (on one such occasion that earned Thurgon an infamous reputation in Hell as an intransigent demon foe).

One way that rules can facilitate these sorts of choices, by players, is by modulating the consequences for these impassioned or dramatic choices. An interesting discussion about this, in the context of Classic Traveller, happened in this thread: Should the PCs try and capture the NPC starship?

One of the posters showed an approach to adjudication that seemed apt to shut down dramatic choices, and force a type of "turtling", "poke the situation very carefully with a 10' pole" sort of play.

 

[kenada]

Well, its always going to be dicey to try to diagnose other people's games based on limited descriptions. Beyond that I think maybe beyond a certain point we're getting into a discussion that is probably tangential to the one @pemerton is engaged in, plus this all seems like one of those "we had this discussion in every 2nd thread all over again" kinds of things. I guess the only observation I would make is that in our ST game, or a DW/AW game, there isn't really anything else but the sort of thing I was describing above. If I attempted to run my character as pretty much just a generic guy, go around, do actions, really shallow character, play would basically collapse. There wouldn't really be any direction or force to it. I mean, the GM would probably push on me so hard SOMETHING would happen, but its not like D&D games I've experienced where you can kinda just kick in doors, kill stuff, whatever and just "play the setting." Does that make sense?

It would be challenging to play a completely generic, shallow character in a PbtA game. A principled GM is going to be thrusting that character into adversity and conflict. Consider Haf, who was conceived as the itinerant mystic who showed up to help people. It’s kind of a neutral conception, really. That didn’t even last a session. He has an acolyte now, and he’s not sure what to do about it, though it’s an obvious first step in revitalizing Helior’s worship in Stonetop. Will he do it, and how will that go? I don’t know yet.