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lowkey13
Guest
*Deleted by user*
Why the hate for complexity?
Celebrim
Legend
I can really sympathize with Napoleon. As megalomaniac dictators go, he was one of the least despicable, and in particular I share his distrust of leaving legislative power in the hands of judges.
But, I also recognize that no matter what you do, you end up with a body of rulings and some person tasked with interpretation where the law is silent.
There is nothing simple about American football. By contrast, consider the laws of Association Football, which are simple (outside of the description of what footwear you can wear) but which are mostly subjective regarding what constitutes a foul.
I agree with you that there are always tradeoffs.
Depends on how you do it. I write code for a living and it's certainly possible to write code that increases in complexity at a greater than linear rate, but if you do that when working for me you probably ought to polish your resume. There are ideas in code like "separation of concerns" and "separation of layers" and "encapsulation" that are designed to prevent complexity from increasing at a greater than linear rate. Now, writing code isn't exactly like writing game rules, and is even less like writing law, but there is some overlap between writing good code and writing good rules.
For example, somewhere around here I defined an RPG, and I defined it in such a way that the increase in complexity is equivalent to the search time of a list stored in a B-Tree. That is to say, a set of rules to handle an evasion/pursuit mini-game don't necessarily have to add complexity to a combat mini-game or to a diplomatic mini-game.
If you look at rules sets that do this badly, 1e AD&D does have a bunch of separate systems for handling things, but the rules in them are scattered out in no obvious order, sometimes contradictory, and often have emergent properties that aren't clear until you attempt to collect them together into a coherent form. The AD&D rules for covering surprise and initiative are extraordinarily complex and contain huge numbers of exceptions and caveats.
An example of how you end up creating exception based systems that are complex when you were meaning to create something simple are absolute rules. As example, simple sounding rule like, "X always goes last.", becomes an immediate problem with X faces X. Or you might have a rule, "X can't be lifted." which runs into a problem when elsewhere in the rules it says, "Y can lift anything." D&D rules in general contain too many absolutes intended to be simple but which become complex in application. Immunities often end up with situations like, "X is immune to Y.", followed by a rule elsewhere the creates an exception, "Y works even if something is immune to it." Minimizing these things for me tends to create fewer error handling moments, so I tend to rewrite absolute rules as much as possible into quantifiable rules.
On the other extreme, the Mouse Guard rules define a single almost all encompassing game intended to cover absolutely all situations that could occur, and involves less than immediately translucent math (if I have 11 dice, what is the odds of at least 4 successes?), two different systems for resolving any question to choose from (single roll or combat, as in theory any thing from baking a cake to negotiation could be a combat), a system where every roll could have like 11 different factors modifying the roll in 4 separate non-equivalent ways (exploding dice, additional dice, altered difficulty, additional successes either automatically or if the roll succeeds), where the RAW guidelines for setting DC generally involve multiple factors that set all DC's too high for success to be possible under the same rules, and where despite all this complexity the rules provide absolutely no guidance regarding the stakes of the roll and to the extent that they do the largely leave the resolution up to a complex fiat based open ended table negotiation between the parties involved. It is possibly the single most complex rule set for adjudication of propositions I've encountered - in many ways more complex than something like RoleMaster - and yet at the same time it seems to have no intention of simulating anything. And to a large extent, it manages have the same problem of remote side effects that AD&D 1e has, for example a monster's tool might be describe as having the same effect as a sword, axe, or spear, but that requires you to look up sword axe or spear, only to discover that they have an effect like "+1s on a successful attack" which would have cost nothing to write instead of "As axe" especially considering the adjacent monster might well have a weapon that says "+1s on a successful attack". Why not be both consistent and clear?
To give you an easy example from RL- the more trust there is between two parties, the easier it is to draft a short document (settlement, lease, contract, etc.). The less trust, the longer it becomes as a general rule (because of the need to account for eventualities, and additional language in case it goes to litigation).*
I think this applies to a lot of things; if you have believe that there will be a good-faith interpretation, you're less worried about the need to constrain the adjudicator and the other parties; OTOH, if you are worried .... this might apply to RPGs, too.
I think it does, but as it applies to my game, even if all my players trust me, the problem of "good-faith interpretation" still applies because for me at least, there is a contract I feel I must uphold with myself, concerning my duty toward the players. So when asked to make a ruling, even if I know my players will accept whatever ruling I give, it's still no less agonizing because I still question my own judgment. Or, to put it bluntly, I want to give the right answer and I have little trust in myself to know immediately what the right answer is. For this reason, I'd rather outline the contract I intend to uphold after due consideration of the problem before the problem is encountered.
Like Napoleon, I'm an megalomaniac autocrat that yet wants to establish the rule of law in a fair and translucent manner, so that justice is served and the strong do not oppress the weak.
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MichaelSomething
Legend
I just picked cricket out of the blue because I think people here aren't familiar with it. I really wanted to bring up how rulings and rules can be complex in different ways and that some people may prefer one over the other.
As a matter of empirical fact - the claim that "common law" is the source of complexity in a legal system, compared to written law, is not true in the case of Australia, at least in the opinoin of most superior court judges. Statutory interpretation is where the intellectual action is both in argument and in adjudication.
LostSoul
Adventurer
I've found that, with written rules, players focus on the text; with rulings, players focus on the game world.
GMMichael
Guide of Modos
Fair, but [MENTION=75787]GrahamWills[/MENTION] used a good starting point, because the coin-flip RPG is literally the simplest RPG possible, given my stipulation that GM "resolution" is removed and replaced with GM permission-or-denial. [MENTION=177]Umbran[/MENTION] explained properly that GM fiat will be a feature of any(?) role-playing game, so my question is: can having more rules actually simplify a game, by virtue of limiting Rule Zero?
For something we can wrap our hands around (and strangle): I opened up my copy of the D&D Rules Compendium. There are over 50 types of actions listed, divided into 5 (or so) categories. Which, upon reflection, makes me think that D&D 3.5 is actually a rules-heavy game, since that's just the tip of the iceberg.
Ratskinner
Adventurer
..there are games that claim to rpgs and have no GM. Capes, in particular, is one that I think is imminently suitable to this discussion. Capes is super-simple in play, although hard to describe.
That's definitely not the case with Capes. The flow of play in Capes is very structured. It's clear who makes each decision, who narrates each part and what exactly is resolved by dice.
What is, in traditional games, the responsibility of GM, in Capes is not only distributed between players but also moves from one player to another during play. Each player in turn sets a scene. Within a scene, each player may use their action to define a stake that must be resolved and it's typically other players who select sides on given issue (which allows them to narrate its resolution). It's impossible to be a "backseat GM" without clearly violating the rules of the game.
What is, in traditional games, the responsibility of GM, in Capes is not only distributed between players but also moves from one player to another during play. Each player in turn sets a scene. Within a scene, each player may use their action to define a stake that must be resolved and it's typically other players who select sides on given issue (which allows them to narrate its resolution). It's impossible to be a "backseat GM" without clearly violating the rules of the game.
Celebrim
Legend
True of cooperative games in general, but most modern games that are gmless will have some sort of narrative token that is passed between players, which grants ownership of the narrative to whomever holds it.
While this can be overruled in dysfunctional groups where one of the players bullies the other participants into always doing things his way, the same is even true of games with GMs.
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