Why do RPGs have rules?

[clearstream]

Please read Wittgenstein, start st the beginning, come back when you have finished. You are not being sensible here, and models have nothing to do with what you define words to mean.

Can you say how this unpleasantness and belittlement advances your discussion?

I assume you mean the PI and not the Tractatus. Yes, I have read Wittgenstein, commentary on Wittgenstein, and some of the debates coming out of Kripke's thoughts on Wittgenstein. Some of the framings I use for rules and principles are based on those investigations into meaning.

 

[clearstream]

I agree with your initial prediction, we are now in total agreement, such things have none of the character of simulation whatsoever.

I invite you to contemplate what it means to have a model with functional mappings.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

I invite you to contemplate what it means to have a model with functional mappings.

Pithy. I like it!

Aside: one interesting thing about oracles is that they are relational mappings, not functional, unlike almost every other die roll in most RPGs. (Reaction rolls for friendly/neutral/hostile/etc. are the only other exception I can think of.)

 

[Maxperson]

I can see how it can be the case in the AD&D days, I'm not sure if it's applicable now, when the internets exist, AND the current edition is "mature", with more or less established meta.

Because people learn at different rates and cap out in skill in different spots. It doesn't matter how long the edition has been out or how many internet threads someone reads if they still can't use what they've read effectively. Player skill is absolutely still a thing.

from the player side of things, everything is a knowledge check.

This is untrue in 5e. Not everything is a knowledge check and many things are just automatic yeses with no check of any sort. Knowledge is a significant part of the game, but it's not even close to being everything.

You can catch the GM off-guard and win an encounter, sure, but if she is determined to beat you into a bloody pulp and counter your every move, she will, because the ultimate deciding factor determining success or failure in a game like dnd isn't the player skill, it's GM's willingness to crush them underfoot.

This is false as any kind of general thing. It is only true of railroads, and not even very many of those.

In 5e D&D the DC is the deciding factor. Sure the DM decides the DC, but a DM acting in good faith isn't going to abuse the DCs. Your argument up there relies on extreme bad faith by a DM, which is extraordinarily rare.

 

[clearstream]

But from the player side of things, everything is a knowledge check. You can catch the GM off-guard and win an encounter, sure, but if she is determined to beat you into a bloody pulp and counter your every move, she will, because the ultimate deciding factor determining success or failure in a game like dnd isn't the player skill, it's GM's willingness to crush them underfoot.

It's true that on the side of PvE foes, whoever controls the E might have unlimited foes.

One way that player skill is regularly measured in such a context is against a scale of just how considerable a force of such foes is required to beat them to a bloody pulp. In D&D that can be measured by CR, so that a group of players whose 5th level characters can defeat a greater CR encounter can be said to be showing greater system mastery than a group whose 5th level characters cannot defeat that encounter. Of course, this would be best judged across a number of such encounters (due in part to roshambo effects and in part to inaccuracies in judging CR by the game designers).

 

[clearstream]

A story about a bear ISN'T a simulation, which is why the bear/goldilocks discussion is baffling. However, it can be the output of a simulation, which itself can be built around the mental model of a bear and can therefore have bear-like properties like a sense of smell keener than a bloodhound's.

But you can't necessarily tell from a story what play agenda generated it, especially without any dialogue from those who were generating it.

Story: "The fearsome dragon roared and blew fire at Conan, who barely dodged it and then threw his mighty axe--which embedded itself to the haft right between the dragon's eyes. It fell out of the sky with an enormous crash! Thus ended the days of Treacher Leech, the last of the western dragons."

Is that story the output of a play agenda that's mostly Gamist, mostly Dramatist, or mostly Simulationist? You can't tell. But what if I add a dialogue transcript from the players?

Transcript A:

GM: the dragon blows fire at you! DC 18 Dex save!

Conanist: I use my Inspiration. I've been saving it all session for this fight. [Rolls] 13, 18. Made it! Because I have Evasion from my Rogue levels, I take no damage.

GM: okay, your turn.

Conanist: let me see, I'm 10 squares away and my move would only take me 8 squares, so I couldn't attack this turn. Boromir is making death saves so I can't afford to Dash, and besides that would just give the dragon more attacks on me, so I guess I'll throw my axe. [rolls] Critical hit! [rolls] Brutal critical, plus another 10d8 because I'm spending a 4th level spell slot on a ranged Divine Smite, makes 78 points of damage!

GM: the dragon only had 45 hit points left and is now at zero. The axe embeds itself right between the dragon's eyes. The dragon falls to the ground with a crash!


Transcript B:

GM: the dragon blows fire at you! [rolls] It is aimed squarely at where you're standing!

Conanist: I haven't retreated yet this turn so I'll try a Dodge and Retreat to move to another hex before it gets here. [roll] Success!

GM: Your turn.

Conanist: Well, the dragon is only six yards away and I'm very skilled with an axe (skill 21). Its armor is thick but I was able to damage it before, and usually skull armor isn't THAT much thicker than body armor. And this thing is big, I think you said SM +4, right?

GM: about 50' to 60' long with eyes the size of softballs, SM +4, right.

Conanist: I'm going to throw my axe, aiming for its head, right between the eyes. That would count as a skull hit, right?

GM: right. Let's roll. [both roll]

Conanist: hit!

GM: dodge fails!

Conanist: eat hot iron, dragon! [rolls] 19 damage baby!

GM: DR 9 on the skull makes that... 40 injury to the brain, which is a major wound [roll] and the dragon is knocked unconscious and falls 10' to the ground [rolls] taking another 18 points of falling damage [rolls] and dying!


Transcript C:

Okay, doing a good job of writing a FATE- or Dungeon-World-style transcript is beyond me. But I assert, without proof, that not only could both these games do a dragon-slaying fight, but that they wouldn't look like A or B. Prove me wrong!


Can you tell what the people in A, B, and C value in their games?

Perhaps in a similar vein, I believe that the same game text can be played under different modes. So that RuneQuest for example can be played as immersionists or can be played as say neo-trad. This connects with a view that both agenda and system matter. While that should encourage tolerance of experimentation, it doesn't amount to a prediction that all game texts will be equally effective for all modes of play. Although a text may turn out to be effective in unexpected ways.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Because people learn at different rates and cap out in skill in different spots. It doesn't matter how long the edition has been out or how many internet threads someone reads if they still can't use what they've read effectively. Player skill is absolutely still a thing.

Yeah. Even a simple Fighter can be played well (action surging at the right times, choosing targets wisely, spending superiority dice on effective maneuvers in the right fights) or poorly (attacking low-priority meatsacks when everyone else is desperately trying to kill a glass cannon, action surging immediately in the first fight after every rest, spending superiority dice like a drunken sailor on low-value maneuvers). Those are just simple examples; past level 5 or so Fighters have even more sophisticated options available to them, e.g. voluntarily choosing to take opportunity attacks can be a smart move in some cases.

Not everyone reads Internet threads, not many Internet threads are about tactics as opposed to builds, and not everybody understands everything they read and is able to apply it.

@loverdrive , it boggles the mind to hear you say that you've never seen players who are noticeably bad at 5E. How is this possible?

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Perhaps in a similar vein, I believe that the same game text can be played under different modes. So that RuneQuest for example can be played as immersionists or can be played as say neo-trad. This connects with a view that both agenda and system matter. While that should encourage tolerance of experimentation, it doesn't amount to a prediction that all game texts will be equally effective for all modes of play. Although a text may turn out to be effective in unexpected ways.

Agreed. I chose different systems to make the play agenda as obvious as I could, but obviously both agenda(s) and system matter, as you say, and many systems are usable with multiple agendas. (GDS mostly came out of AD&D after all.) And most people are attracted to more than one agenda to varying degrees and in various circumstances.

But you can't tell from the story alone what agenda created it. That's all I meant.

 

[pemerton]

I think that Tolkien did have something like a model built up over time. If you read his thoughts on Secondary Creation, he clearly valued the attempt to make an environment as strong as reality.

I think that JRRT on "sub-creation" is better approached through a (broadly) theological framework, rather than through a scientific or analytical framework in which simulation, model etc are key concepts.

 

[pemerton]

I'm curious... is simulating a realistic world or verisimilitude even talked about in games like Agon, Blades in the Dark or Apocalypse World? Like is there even a mention of it... I don't believe so but I could be wrong.

It's obviously a huge thing in AW and it's a thing in Agon (allowing for the fact that the "world" is the world of the Iliad and the Odyssey). I can't comment on BitD, which I've neither read nor played.