Jon Peterson: Does System Matter?

D&D historian Jon Peterson asks the question on his blog as he does a deep dive into how early tabletop RPG enthusiasts wrestled with the same thing.

Based around the concept that 'D&D can do anything, so why learn a new system?', the conversation examines whether the system itself affects the playstyle of those playing it. Some systems are custom-designed to create a certain atmosphere (see Dread's suspenseful Jenga-tower narrative game), and Call of Cthulhu certainly discourages the D&D style of play, despite a d20 version in early 2000s.

Does System Matter?

Dungeons & Dragons started out as a game with such an adaptable and open-ended set of rules that early adopters questioned whether any fur...

playingattheworld.blogspot.com

 

[dragoner]

Yes, except when talking about the process, and mechanics, it is about personal preference as well as to what the "endgame" is. Which in turn can sort of falsify the system matters argument, at least in the scientific sense. There could be concrete examples either way, such as the use of communicators not being there in Prince Valiant.

 

[pemerton]

What I want to get out this episode of RPGing is a preference.

What techniques, processes of play, resolution methods, etc will achieve that preference is not primarily a matter of preference. Like any other question of means to ends it's about cause-and-effect relationships.

In the context of RPGing, those cause-and-effect relationships are fairly complicated, and not all of them are under the control of the participants. (Eg most people can't control their personality, except within very narrow limits.) A fortiori not all of them are under the control of the GM.

But to go tack to the example of a gritty futuristic sci-fi horror scenario, here are some relevant cause-and-effect relationships:

* If everything is decided by GM fiat, and some of that involves PCs being attacked by or even eaten by Aliens, the players may feel they've been hosed by the GM;

* If the players have an unlimited depth of resources, including by having their PCs call in assistance via their communicators, the horror and maybe also the grittiness will be undermined;

* Related to the previous point, if the players do not fear their PCs' encounter(s) with the Alien(s), the horror and grittiness will be undermined;

* If the challenge posed by the Aliens becomes primarily a tactical one, the grittiness might be preserved but we're no longer doing horror.​

These are all system things. Some systems give the GM extreme authority over framing; some give the players a lot of de facto authority over framing (eg the role of detection magic in classic D&D, or of similar psionic abilities in some sci-fi games); some make at least aspects of framing a matter for surprise mechanics; etc.

Different systems give the players different degrees of ability to establish and leverage "off screen" resources. Thinking of this primarily through the lens of genre (eg sci-fi PCs have access to communicators) tends to obscure the practical RPGing issue, which is about the interplay between the established fiction, the implicit fiction, and player authority.

The "feel" of encounters between PCs and hostile creatures will be affected by how things are framed, what resources the players have access to, and how resolution works. For instance, if shooting and biting and the like have a strong "sudden death" aspect to them, and if retreating is low-cost in terms of player resources, the likelihood of such encounters - once framed - turning tactical is reduced. To name specific RPGs, Classic Traveller produces a very different result here from 4e D&D.

These are the sorts of things I have in mind when I say that system matters.

 

[dragoner]

I don't necessarily disagree with any of that, and in fact agree with it, system can indeed matter depending on what one wants. Note that I am avoiding the GNS argument from the OP as well. The thing is that when looking at the situation from the perspective of Karl Popper's principle of falsifiability:

Falsifiability - Karl Popper's Basic Scientific Principle

"The idea is that no theory is completely correct, but if it can be shown both to be falsifiable and supported with evidence that shows it's true, it can be accepted as truth."

Such as fighting with Cthulhu mythos creatures from Deities and Demigods using AD&D was very different than playing CoC. I mean we actively felt we would defeat the mythos creatures in AD&D, and knew that with CoC we would die or go insane.

Classic Traveller could be odd, in that some people played it with characters as disposable, which isn't necessarily how I played it. Early D&D as well, could be very deadly, if you played it that way. Except there is a preferential playstyle there, playing very deadly or not.

That sort of bleeds into the second issue of what system someone originally played affecting their playstyle. The answer can be yes, except that people can learn something different. Depends on their preference if they want something different or want something the same. Which in that endgame, it is cool, do what you like.

 

[pemerton]

Yes, except when talking about the process, and mechanics, it is about personal preference as well as to what the "endgame" is. Which in turn can sort of falsify the system matters argument, at least in the scientific sense.

I don't necessarily disagree with any of that, and in fact agree with it, system can indeed matter depending on what one wants. Note that I am avoiding the GNS argument from the OP as well. The thing is that when looking at the situation from the perspective of Karl Popper's principle of falsifiability:

Falsifiability - Karl Popper's Basic Scientific Principle

"The idea is that no theory is completely correct, but if it can be shown both to be falsifiable and supported with evidence that shows it's true, it can be accepted as truth."

I'm familiar with Popper's notion of falsifiability, although the quote you have provided isn't quite accurate - Popper does not think there is such a thing as a theory being supported with evidence, because he is a sceptic about induction (basically on Humean grounds) and so denies that any finite set of consistent data-points can support the truth of a universal generalisation. He thus adopts falsifiability as a non-induction-dependent principle for the formation of scientific knowledge.

As an account of the formation of scientific knowledge, I don't agree with Popper's notion - basically for the reasons put forward by AJ Ayer. But in any event system matters isn't a scientific theory of anything, any more than would be a painter's claim that brushes matter or oil vs watercolour vs acrylic matters. It's not a theory, it's just an assertion. And if the question is is "system matters" a falsifiable assertion, the answer is yes. It would certainly be refuted by showing that no change in processes, techniques and/or mechanics of play was ever associated with a change in RPGing experience. And it would arguably be refuted if the changes in experience associated with changes in processes, techniques and/or mechanics were arbitrary or unpredictable.

But as it happens the evidence that changes in the processes, techniques and/or mechanics of play produce broadly predictable changes in the RPGing experience is overwhelming. The evidence I have in mind is both evidence from my own experience, and evidence from others' posting. I'm not going to try and rehearse all that evidence in this post, but here is the single clearest bit of it that I know: in an essay written in 2003, about 5 years before 4e D&D was published, Ron Edwards identified virtually all of the features of the 4e system that would make it so controversial among a wide number of RPGers who were looking for a play experience different from the one delivered by 4e:

• Common use of player Author Stance (Pawn or non-Pawn) to set up the arena for conflict. This isn't an issue of whether Author (or any) Stance is employed at all, but rather when and for what.
• Fortune-in-the-middle during resolution, to whatever degree - the point is that Exploration as such can be deferred, rather than established at every point during play in a linear fashion.
• More generally, Exploration overall is negotiated in a casual fashion through ongoing dialogue, using system for input (which may be constraining), rather than explicitly delivered by system per se.

(By exploration Edwards means establishing the content of the shared fiction. In his essay Edwards describes these three features as departures from "Simulationist-facilitating design" - whether his label is the best one, or an accurate one, doesn't change the fact that these are design features that are not typical in systems like RQ and RM, were not present in most of the mechanical features that 3E D&D added to AD&D, and where they remain in D&D are treated as embarrassments rather than embraced by many D&D players.)

Classic Traveller could be odd, in that some people played it with characters as disposable, which isn't necessarily how I played it. Early D&D as well, could be very deadly, if you played it that way.

If you look at the play of tables that treat PCs as disposable, and those that don't, I think there is a reasonable chance that you will see them adopting different expectations about, and practices in respect of, the processes of play - eg who exercises what sort of control over certain key aspects of the shared fiction. One point at which you would expect to see those differences is at the point of introducing new PCs into the immediate situation. But I think you might expect to see it at other points also.

That sort of bleeds into the second issue of what system someone originally played affecting their playstyle. The answer can be yes, except that people can learn something different.

I agree that this is a different topic - a second issue - from the one addressed by the phrase system matters as coined by Ron Edwards, although as the Peterson blog notes it's a topic on which Edwards also expressed a view.

I would say that there is strong evidence that many RPGers, who are very familiar with one particular set of processes, techniques and mechanics and who have little exposure to other such sets, can struggle to understand how those others are used to produce satisfactory RPGing experiences. Again, I'm not going to rehearse all the evidence but here are a couple of choice examples:

* The Alexandrian notoriously characterised 4e D&D as a skirmish miniatures game punctuated by improv storytelling. This suggests an inability to appreciate how RPGs work that exemplify the second two of the dot points I quoted above: he can't tell the difference between (i) improv storytelling, and (ii) RPGing that uses FitM techniques and uses system to constrain but not deliver the shared fiction (this would include not only 4e D&D but Over the Edge, Maelstrom Storytelling, HeroWars/Quest, much of PbtA, and interestingly enough some elements of Classic Traveller like the rules for performing difficult manoeuvres in a vacc suit).​

​

* On ENWorld, if you start talking about a RPG in which the content of the shared fiction is systematically shaped by player action declarations in ways that go beyond the immediate causal impact of the PC on his/her immediate environment (eg the question is X present in the PC's immediate environment is settled by the result of a Do I notice/encounter X? check made by the player) you will almost certainly have one or more posters respond by talking about Schroedinger's X. They will find it very hard to comprehend that the shared fiction in a RPG might be established in a different way from GM decides and that the orientation of the participants to that fiction might be different from the players' goal is to learn what the GM has decided the shared fiction shall be. And if the discussion continues for more than a post or two, it is almost certain that the unfamiliar technique will be described by the incredulous poster as if it were no different from improv storytelling.​

Notice that the evidence I am adducing is not of bloggers or posters expressing their own preferences (eg for non-FitM mechanics, or for GM-driven RPGing). Rather, it is an apparent inability to appreciate that other approaches to RPGing might deliver an experience that is recognisably RPGing rather than simply improv storytelling.

Notice also that the tendencies I've just described exits notwithstanding that some relatively early RPGs contain elements that exemplify FitM resolution (eg the Classic Traveller vacc suit rules I already mentioned) and contain the use of Do I notice/encounter X? checks to determine whether or not X is part of the immediate environment of the PC (this is how Streetwise works in the 1977 edition of Classic Traveller). To me, this suggests that these expectations about how RPGing works are not shaped primarily by written RPG texts, nor by playing in accordance with the procedures set out in those texts, but rather by a shared set of play expectations and play experiences that exist somewhat independently of particular texts and their canonical presentations of play procedures. We could call this a widespread culture of RPGing. Although I agree with you that the two issues - does system matter? and does system exposure shape RPGing expectations? are separate ones, I think they can be related in the following fashion: one way to reduce the dominance of a widespread culture of RPGing, and thereby to increase the variety of RPGing experiences, is to encourage a careful attention to the canonical presentation of play procedures, and then playing in accordance with them and observing how this affects the play experience.

This is what at least parts of the OSR have done with respect to early forms of Gygaxian/Moldvay-ian/"skilled play" D&D; and this is what the Forge did more generally. It is a way of generating, by empirical demonstration, the knowledge that system matters.

 

[Emerikol]

I play that the rules are the physics of the world because I prefer the total immersion as character approach. As a result system very much does matter. That doesn't mean there is only one system for any particular genre. You may want to play different sorts of games.

And I fully support the notion that during 1e AD&D a lot of social interaction was going on in the game. Not a lot of rolling of dice or checking skills/proficiencies was going on though. The social aspects of the game were essentially you as in the real you. So you were a variant of yourself where you could be smarter but only off camera, and you could be far better at fighting and of course wielding magic. That is not a terrible way to play but it's also limited. Some people may want to venture beyond themselves.

For me that has some issues with immersion. You have a PC that acts like a jerk but still wants his roll to be modified by a really good diplomacy skill. So I prefer to keep a lot of those skill checks behind the screen and leave it a bit open ended. Again that is my preference and not a prescription for anyone else.

 

[Neonchameleon]

I play that the rules are the physics of the world because I prefer the total immersion as character approach. As a result system very much does matter. That doesn't mean there is only one system for any particular genre. You may want to play different sorts of games.

Meanwhile I find little more anti-immersive than interrupting the roleplaying to calculate the physics effects using a semi-abstract system. System matters but so does familiarity and so does the person using the system.

 

[Emerikol]

Meanwhile I find little more anti-immersive than interrupting the roleplaying to calculate the physics effects using a semi-abstract system. System matters but so does familiarity and so does the person using the system.

Okay so maybe I used a term you are not familiar with in my statement. When I say the rules are the physics of the world, that means the characters as well as the players are aware of the rules at least in the abstract. In 1e for example, wizards knew there were nine levels of spells. They may have had different names for those levels but they knew there were gradations. In the same regard, the rules as applied to the characters applies generally to the people of the world. So a fighter is not a unique rules concept only for PCs. Fighters exist in the world as NPCs and use the same rules.

Now, the rulesets could vary greatly and still be what the world understands to be true. In a GURPS fantasy world or a D&D fantasy world, the people could understand basically how magic works but that understanding would be different. It would be different for the fighter types too. High fantasy is not low fantasy.

The difference in views is there are those who think the PCs are different from the rest of the NPC world and that the characters do not grasp the rules as the way things are in game. The players understand the rules but when inside the character's head they would not have an awareness of those rules.

It's a nuance but it affects playstyle a lot. It does affect some rules writing.

 

[Emerikol]

But as it happens the evidence that changes in the processes, techniques and/or mechanics of play produce broadly predictable changes in the RPGing experience is overwhelming. The evidence I have in mind is both evidence from my own experience, and evidence from others' posting. I'm not going to try and rehearse all that evidence in this post, but here is the single clearest bit of it that I know: in an essay written in 2003, about 5 years before 4e D&D was published, Ron Edwards identified virtually all of the features of the 4e system that would make it so controversial among a wide number of RPGers who were looking for a play experience different from the one delivered by 4e:
..... removed for brevity....

We've all had these discussions for a long time about role playing and what it means. I probably lean more towards the Alexandrian's take as you know but being a game, I am rational enough to realize if a group is having fun then it is a success for that group.

What I've found is that the failure to develop a common language we can all use effectively at describing our games has led to system being a stand-in. Meaning some games lend themselves to certain playstyles and perhaps by default that is the assumption when playing those games. That is not to say a game like D&D couldn't be played in a variety of different ways.

This may be as much as anything part of the reason for the OSR. It's not that people want old clunky rules. They want a playstyle that they grew up playing and enjoyed. It's the GM creates the world and actual player skill matters. As you mentioned in your post.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Okay so maybe I used a term you are not familiar with in my statement.

You did not. I just happen to find different things immersive to those you do. In particular

• Every second you spend negotiating with the rules is a second you spend having had your immersion thrown out
• Every time you are stopped in the middle of an action rather than at a handover point by the rules is a time you are thrown out of the game.

Apocalypse World, for what it's worth, is amazing at this second one. I roll when if I was playing freeform I'd be handing over narration anyway.

When I say the rules are the physics of the world, that means the characters as well as the players are aware of the rules at least in the abstract.

To which, as far as my immersion goes so what?

I know my quadratic equations and am aware of how they work. This doesn't mean I literally calculate the math every time I catch a ball. However if I were to try and roleplay in the real world using rules as physics of the world this is what it would make me do. If I'm playing a sniper and want to calculate trajectories mathematically, sure. But for most people in most situations calculating trajectories is almost entirely unlike what I would do in real life. The real world has a physics model. But that doesn't mean that I'm thinking about how real world physics works in abstract terms in order to engage with it.

The difference in views is there are those who think the PCs are different from the rest of the NPC world and that the characters do not grasp the rules as the way things are in game. The players understand the rules but when inside the character's head they would not have an awareness of those rules.

It's a nuance but it affects playstyle a lot. It does affect some rules writing.

No. That's not the difference. The difference is whether the rules are a physics engine that bind the world or whether the rules are a user interface that let you engage with the world as fluidly as possible. Whether the rules are about calculating the trajectory of the ball, or whether they are about enabling you to track it into your hands (or not).

And the immersion question is also about whether you find it more immersive for you through your character to be able to interface with the game setting or whether you are more concerned by abstract questions of how other characters that you are not actually playing do so.

And do you really, sincerely, think that DMs roll all NPC action behind the screen?

 

[Emerikol]

You did not. I just happen to find different things immersive to those you do. In particular

• Every second you spend negotiating with the rules is a second you spend having had your immersion thrown out
• Every time you are stopped in the middle of an action rather than at a handover point by the rules is a time you are thrown out of the game.

Apocalypse World, for what it's worth, is amazing at this second one. I roll when if I was playing freeform I'd be handing over narration anyway.

To which, as far as my immersion goes so what?

I know my quadratic equations and am aware of how they work. This doesn't mean I literally calculate the math every time I catch a ball. However if I were to try and roleplay in the real world using rules as physics of the world this is what it would make me do. If I'm playing a sniper and want to calculate trajectories mathematically, sure. But for most people in most situations calculating trajectories is almost entirely unlike what I would do in real life. The real world has a physics model. But that doesn't mean that I'm thinking about how real world physics works in abstract terms in order to engage with it.

No. That's not the difference. The difference is whether the rules are a physics engine that bind the world or whether the rules are a user interface that let you engage with the world as fluidly as possible. Whether the rules are about calculating the trajectory of the ball, or whether they are about enabling you to track it into your hands (or not).

And the immersion question is also about whether you find it more immersive for you through your character to be able to interface with the game setting or whether you are more concerned by abstract questions of how other characters that you are not actually playing do so.

And do you really, sincerely, think that DMs roll all NPC action behind the screen?

First I think we are talking completely past each other. I really don't think you are using rules as physics of the world the way I am and your responses keep showing that that is true.

For the purposes of this particular discussion (only):
I don't care about how much math is involved. Whether is would use a complex equation (never in reality) or whether it's a very easily computable value is irrelevant to my point.

The question I was discussing was rules as in world knowledge. Do NPC's know that there are nine levels of spells in a D&D world? Do they generally understand that high level fighters can wade through low level fighters with relative ease? These are not things we know in our world. They are known in the D&D world. At least from my viewpoint. Other perspectives might argue differently and say that for them that knowledge is not known in game world.

And immersion is immersion. It is a person thing. I can't argue that your claim that something bothers your immersion is wrong. Nor can you argue that mine is wrong. The whole point of this discussion is -- does system matter? I think it matters because typically systems cater to some degree to all the different playstyles. The more general it is the more it tries to cater to more viewpoints. I absolutely though think that D&D 5e does not cater to someone wanting an OSR style game. You can try to bend it that way of course but I think it is more trouble than it is worth given so many good OSR games.