Why do RPGs have rules?

[Fenris-77]

There are a number of posters on the No Myth side of things that get traditional play wrong, as well as the explanations we get wrong. Their portrayals of traditional play and our arguments are wrong over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over... At some point we either have to accept that they simply can't understand it or that they are deliberately misportraying it. I prefer to go with the former since the latter speaks very poorly of their character.

It's not arrogance. It's our very often repeated experiences with those posters and their responses to our explanations of traditional play, and how they are constantly getting it wrong.

On the other side, though, we are constantly seeing those posters say things like, "If you only understood the way we play, you would see how much better it is" and tons of other similar passages. The amount of One True Wayism on that side is simply astounding.

Well perhaps let's not use generalities to paint everyone, shall we? I wasn't playing that card. I think it's probably useful to not reduce this whole discussion to an us and them thing regardless of what some posters may seem to warrant.

 

[gban007]

Well... hey, is there ANY RPG where that isn't effectively what a character sheet does? I mean, come on, unless you are playing OSR beatstick, who has basically no options at all! Honestly, the odd thing about PbtA games, at least, is you don't WANT to trigger your moves! It might feel like you do, but if you simply describe some activity that isn't matching up with a move, the GM says "yes" and describes what happens next, which is a soft move, so it won't get you in actual trouble. Presumably whatever action you took was something you wanted to do, so you should always be ahead. Frankly, I don't even think about moves when I'm playing, except secondarily, or if I am having trouble understanding what they do or something.

I could be wrong, but I feel like maybe that is Micha's point - most character sheets list the sort of stuff you expect the character to do, and with d&d I feel that is more than just combat related, it can have skills showing what character good at and not, spells etc - if PbtA games are listing stuff you don't want to do, then perhaps it shouldn't be on the character sheet, and instead something else? speaking from ignorance here, as haven't played any PbtA type games.
I do find all this talk interesting though, and has helped me think about the way I DM games, and try to be a bit more on the 'Yes and' side (and typically I have been more like that in last few years than say 10 years ago), but it also reinforces that I don't think I'd want to run PbtA games, much like I don't like to run sandbox games anymore and fall back on published adventures in known settings, as takes a chunk of the load off that I don't have capacity for anymore - I just have to worry about how an adventure would react to what the characters do, rather than having to think up an adventure initially, and can fall back on the adventure in many places rather than having to come up with responses myself which it feels like PbtA requires - even if it does transfer some of that load to the players as well.

 

[aramis erak]

Again, the rules don't seem particularly open to interpretation. There are many ways to play D&D. I only see one correct way to play AW. The entire book is full of imperatives about how exactly to play that way. The hard structure this and other storygames are designed for is difficult to follow coming from other styles of play, and isn't to me worth it to force myself to learn.

I also found Baker's writing to be too deeply into the weeds of Forge-speak to grasp on first 3 reads. So I got help. (From Luke Crane and Thor Olavsruud)...
Still haven't (and won't) play nor run AW - I don't care for the setting elements included. But one particular PBTA game has my interest (MASHed).

The most important element that's different is the way actions happen. Players narrate until...

• they narrate doing something covered by a move
• they pass off to another player

If no one is ready to narrate, the GM then does a move. Usually not one of the majorly unpleasant ones.

Moves are always thematic to the ruleset's setting tropes; they're about bringing the pain when you don't get full success. They're the only actions which get rolled; others are all in "say yes" mode.
Moves have 3 outcomes: Success, partial success, or failure. Partial may be literal partial, or may be success with complication. Whichever way, it's over, move on

If you narrate doing something that's within scope for a move, narration stops, and the dice get rolled.

 

[Maxperson]

Well perhaps let's not use generalities to paint everyone, shall we? I wasn't playing that card. I think it's probably useful to not reduce this whole discussion to an us and them thing regardless of what some posters may seem to warrant.

There was a reason I used "a number of posters" and not "every poster" or "everyone on that side." I didn't use a generality to paint everyone. Only those who do in fact repeatedly act that way.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Well... hey, is there ANY RPG where that isn't effectively what a character sheet does? I mean, come on, unless you are playing OSR beatstick, who has basically no options at all! Honestly, the odd thing about PbtA games, at least, is you don't WANT to trigger your moves! It might feel like you do, but if you simply describe some activity that isn't matching up with a move, the GM says "yes" and describes what happens next, which is a soft move, so it won't get you in actual trouble. Presumably whatever action you took was something you wanted to do, so you should always be ahead. Frankly, I don't even think about moves when I'm playing, except secondarily, or if I am having trouble understanding what they do or something.

Good for you. You're a better storygame player than I am, clearly.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I also found Baker's writing to be too deeply into the weeds of Forge-speak to grasp on first 3 reads. So I got help. (From Luke Crane and Thor Olavsruud)...
Still haven't (and won't) play nor run AW - I don't care for the setting elements included. But one particular PBTA game has my interest (MASHed).

The most important element that's different is the way actions happen. Players narrate until...

• they narrate doing something covered by a move
• they pass off to another player

If no one is ready to narrate, the GM then does a move. Usually not one of the majorly unpleasant ones.

Moves are always thematic to the ruleset's setting tropes; they're about bringing the pain when you don't get full success. They're the only actions which get rolled; others are all in "say yes" mode.
Moves have 3 outcomes: Success, partial success, or failure. Partial may be literal partial, or may be success with complication. Whichever way, it's over, move on

If you narrate doing something that's within scope for a move, narration stops, and the dice get rolled.

That style just does not appeal to me at all, unfortunately.

 

[Fenris-77]

Good for you. You're a better storygame player than I am, clearly.

I don't think it's a competition. However, if you replaced 'better' with 'more experienced' things might look a little different.

 

[Campbell]

There are a number of posters on the No Myth side of things that get traditional play wrong, as well as the explanations we get wrong. Their portrayals of traditional play and our arguments are wrong over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over... At some point we either have to accept that they simply can't understand it or that they are deliberately misportraying it. I prefer to go with the former since the latter speaks very poorly of their character.

It's not arrogance. It's our very often repeated experiences with those posters and their responses to our explanations of traditional play, and how they are constantly getting it wrong.

On the other side, though, we are constantly seeing those posters say things like, "If you only understood the way we play, you would see how much better it is" and tons of other similar passages. The amount of One True Wayism on that side is simply astounding.

Part of your specific frustrations probably come from an overly specific definition of trad gaming that basically corresponds to how Maxperson runs D&D. A lot of the things you consider bad faith GMing for example are the norm in the White Wolf / L5R / Shadowrun oriented trad culture I mostly originally come from (and still dip my toes into). There's a whole lot of common ways to play trad games (including fairly popular approaches to 5e) that are not accounted for in the ways you speak about trad gaming.

 

[pemerton]

Could people do more to indicate which posts they’re responding to? In a very fast moving thread, posts like the ones directly above this one are unnecessarily cryptic. Thank you.

I'm not sure if you're familiar with how the "Ignore" function works - but if someone has put you on their "Ignore" list, then quotes of their posts won't show for you, which means that a post that is in reply to someone else might look to you as if it standalone (because you are on the someone else's Ignore list).

 

[pemerton]

A general comment:

Upthread I think I posted about how my Classic Traveller game drifted into exploratory play for a few sessions. To me, it doesn't seem there's any reason why something a bit like this couldn't happen in AW: the GM shares a map (as I did in Traveller), the players declare very explore-y actions, the moves the GM makes are very soft, even the hard moves are at the softer end ("as hard and direct as you like", and the GM doesn't feel like being very hard that day).

That's not how Vincent Baker pitches the game. It may or may not be fun play, depending on the table, and the fronts the GM is introducing, and everything else. But it doesn't seem to me that it couldn't happen, if a table was interested in it. And it doesn't seem like it would violate any of the core precepts of play (perhaps "look through crosshairs"? but a few hours of play without looking through crosshairs won't break anything, will it?).