Why do RPGs have rules?

[Lanefan]

Count me as someone who does believe that contrived narratives harm my willing suspension of disbelief, and feeling of verisimilitude.

Sometimes that price is worth paying, e.g. so that a new player doesn't have to sit around waiting for his character to be introduced into the narrative.

Agreed; sometimes a bit of contrivance can be - and is - a good thing; your example is one such case. It's easy to get carried away with it, however, and that quickly becomes jarring.

Simulationism is not inherently virtuous. But I'm 95%+ simulationist by inclination; having things like ecologies, technologies, and magic make sense even in retrospect is more important to me than to the average D&D DM or player.

You touch on a very important point here: things not making sense in the immediate here and now is fine as long as there's an underlying rationale for it all that could - if discovered or realized later - make sense of those things in hindsight.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

You touch on a very important point here: things not making sense in the immediate here and now is fine as long as there's an underlying rationale for it all that could - if discovered or realized later - make sense of those things in hindsight.

I can't take credit for that because I was thinking more of Fridge Logic (things that make less sense when you think back on them, like a movie plot hole that's not quite obvious enough to bother you the first time you watch the movie). But I agree! That's where a GM or DM who has earned trust gets to make use of it.

 

[Lanefan]

I've had that on my mind lately, too. I'm wondering if there are different kinds of immersion

Immersion in world
Immersion in character
Immersion in problem

I'd posit the first two of these are inextricably linked in that it's nigh impossible to have immersion in character without also having immersion in world, as the world is what you "see" when looking out through your character's eyes. It's a bit more possible to have immersion in world while eschewing immersion in character, I suppose, but it would seem natural that one would tend to lead to the other.

The third is more on the meta-level, and is indeed a different type of - but is still a form of - immersion.

 

[loverdrive]

To put a discussion of simulationism aside (maybe it should be moved to another thread?), I have this theory that I've jokingly called it Super Theory of Super Everything, and I keep postponing putting it to paper.

So.

There's an infinite set E, that contains everything, everything, Super Everything possible in a roleplaying game, from defeating princesses to rescuing dragons to finding love to getting shot in the face to randomly dying from complications of teeth cavities. If you can think of it, it is included in E.

There's an infinite set S that contains everything possible in a particular system. Let's suppose there's an event o, o ∈ S, but o ∉ E. So, the system allows for a thing that is not possible in roleplaying game. Yeah, impossible, so S⊂E, or, in other words, a system cannot grant you any more freedom that you already have, only take it away. Chat calls it Loverdrive Theorem, and I am egotistical enough to accept such name.

Why do RPGs have rules then?

There's a subset G of E, that includes everything that you know you do want. Things that you are excited about. You can just, like, have those things. Introduce them directly, will them into existence: that's how ERP works. You don't need no rules for that, but it is possible for G\S to exist, things that you do want, but are not possible within the system. In mathematic terms, such scenario is called "this sucks on ice", and if G⊂S, it's called "woohoo, we have the bare minimum, who cares?".

Why do RPGs have rules then?

There's a subset B of E, things that you don't want. You also can, like, just not have those things, will them out of existence: that's how ERP works. But, unlike G, there's a good scenario. When B⊄S, when the system doesn't allow for things you don't want, great! You don't have to worry about them and can pursue G without a care in the world.

Why do RPGs have the rules then? To exclude B. To remove a need to care about #### you don't want so you can chase the high of G. Seek for a G-spot, if you will.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

There's an infinite set E, that contains everything, everything, Super Everything possible in a roleplaying game, from defeating princesses to rescuing dragons to finding love to getting shot in the face to randomly dying from complications of teeth cavities. If you can think of it, it is included in E.

There's an infinite set S that contains everything possible in a particular system. Let's suppose there's an event o, o ∈ S, but o ∉ E. So, the system allows for a thing that is not possible in roleplaying game.

Is this a typo? Don't you want an o that belongs to E but not to S, instead of vice versa? Or am I missing your point?

I agree that rules exist to say no, but they also increase predictability for players and therefore make it easier to get into character. (If the character knows from the process of learning magic how a Web spell is likely to work on a horse, then letting the player know the rules of Web decreases the cognitive distance between the player and the character, compared to having to Q&A with the DM.)

 

[Thomas Shey]

I forgot about the TORG cards! That was one game I really wanted to play, but never got the chance to. Nice die, also.

It and its Masterbook kin were interesting in a lot of ways, but if what is esssentially a game-parallel card game to produce dramatic events doesn't distract you from immersion, I just can't form a model of what will, at least generically.

 

[loverdrive]

Is this a typo? Don't you want an o that belongs to E but not to S, instead of vice versa? Or am I missing your point?

It's a proof by contradiction, the point is that o cannot belong to S, but not to E, it's impossible, so S is a subset of E.

 

[Thomas Shey]

You can add to that a condition about incentives. Any system that incentivizes a player differently than a character (i.e., awarding growth/progression or meta-currency for task failure) is less immersive.

I find I can do that, but its very much because I can run two different tracks in my brain at once, one that's operating in Author Mode and one that's in Deep IC. I'm not going to fault other people who can't, or don't want to, do that.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

It's a proof by contradiction, the point is that o cannot belong to S, but not to E, it's impossible, so S is a subset of E.

Oh, okay. I would have thought that was a truism not worth proving, but okay.

The other big thing I think your argument is overlooking though is that rules aren't just events in G, they are a procedure for (hopefully uniquely!) producing events drawn from G. Otherwise you wouldn't need rules, only constraints on which events to generate by fiat. "Guys, I really don't want this collaborative novella to have any permadeath or mind flayers, okay? Please don't introduce any of those concepts. Thanks."

Having events produced via some kind of explicit procedure enables you to have procedures that have properties, such as in some cases "fairness" or "tactical challenge", which result in the RPG session having those properties too, to the extent the procedures are followed.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Count me as someone who does believe that contrived narratives harm my willing suspension of disbelief, and feeling of verisimilitude.

What narratives aren't contrived?

What distinction are you making?

Agreed; sometimes a bit of contrivance can be - and is - a good thing; your example is one such case. It's easy to get carried away with it, however, and that quickly becomes jarring.

How is it jarring that characters try to do the things they want, and then related events happen to them?

Wouldn't it be far more jarring to have endlessly unrelated adventures constantly happening to the same group of people?

You touch on a very important point here: things not making sense in the immediate here and now is fine as long as there's an underlying rationale for it all that could - if discovered or realized later - make sense of those things in hindsight.

From whose perspective? I'm assuming you mean from the GM's, but maybe I'm wrong.

From the players' perspective, if something is established in the game, then it's simply true. The reason behind it may or may not ever be known to them. So if that's the case, then is it actually important that there be a specific reason decided ahead of time?

"No" is a perfectly valid answer to that question.