Why do RPGs have rules?

[FormerlyHemlock]

You asked me "Why can't you just admit that your game is not concerned with verisimilitude?" If you don't care about that, then I don't know why you're asking me about it.

Without a quote link I can only speculate that that was a generic "you" within the context of a hypothetical like "if you do XYZ, you are doing ABC and you might as well say so."

 

[hawkeyefan]

But I would say events that come up in play will need to be grounded in some kind of logic, whether that is story logic, cinematic logic, real life logic, gritty crime drama logic, etc. I think someone coming from the 'simulationist perspective' or from just the 'living world' perspective is going to ground those things (at least oftentimes) in a way that prioritizes reality. That doesn't mean cinematic events also won't be grounded just there is a difference in the logic applied to things happening. If I am running a campaign in what I call "Chang Cheh" mode, having a bunch of Japanese Ninja pop out of the walls is fine because it is cinematic and exciting. If I am not doing so, the players are going to expect more from me than 'it was exciting' as an explanation. They will ask "how they did they get there?", "How long they were waiting for us?, "How did they know to be in the room at that moment?", "How exactly were they fitting into the walls?". But if they understand we are all effectively operating in a Chang Cheh film, they don't ask these questions because they know that isn't how the world operates. In a more over the top cinematic campaign or module I simply won't worry about answering those questions. However in a more grounded and living world campaign I would. And I even did so where I had a location I wanted that kind of suprise attack, but created in game logic and a kind of ecosystem to explain how and why). Generally though I find in these campaigns, players expect events happen not as set pieces or because you had a cool idea for an encounter in mind, but because they seem to naturally flow from things (and this can be done via random encounter tables, by keeping good track of what NPCs are doing, etc).

Do you think that what you're talking about is unique to a specific game or set of games?

 

[Bedrockgames]

Do you think that what you're talking about is unique to a specific game or set of games?

No, I think it is a spectrum in terms of how much this is emphasized in a given RPG, now feasible it is within the context of the rules, and how much a particular play style emphasizes it. Again, This is just one style of play that happens to emphasizes certain things around this concept of believability and realness, and downplays anything or avoids things that in their view hinder that approach. I've pointed to examples of how other types of games with different priorities can also approach things in this way. But I do think the distinction I made between a campaign that is more cinematically oriented and open to set pieces versus one that isn't, is important to keep in mind if that is the kind of game you are running.

 

[Bedrockgames]

One of the things I struggle with continually is the tension between wanting a living world, and wanting to be fair to the players by giving them lots of information (since I am the bottleneck on all their information about the gameworld). In particular I struggle with offscreen NPC activities. I want to make them do a lot (move around the dungeon and get behind the PCs, sow caltrops; launch coups, explore dungeons, sometimes get themselves killed offscreen, possibly turn into ghosts) but when I can't think of a way to give the players visibility into why e.g. Komar the Terrible is now a ghost, I often don't.

Do you have any thoughts to share on managing offscreen NPCs in a way that's still legible to the players? (Or player reactions to non-legible NPC actions? Could "Somehow, Palpatine has returned" be okay if there actually were a good explanation that the GM doesn't go out of their way to reveal?)

I am pretty transparent with my players and I don't believe in being precious about maintaining the illusion that there isn't a GM making choices and that I am using various procedures and approaches to track and manage NPCs. I remember there was a quote from Tarantino, which I am sure expresses a sentiment others have expressed that basically says the audience is not stupid and never forgets that they are watching a movie. They know it isn't real. So I often do things like explain to players why something happened if they seem confused about it, or pull back the curtain and show them the procedures and logic I was using to figure out how a given NPC would or would not be able to ambush them at that moment.

As an example I sometimes, not always, use a map and tokens to track the movement of NPCs, sects, etc. This creates a more 'objective' interaction in my opinion between the players and their enemies (and is fair too). I often show them this so they understand the way decisions in the game are being made.

 

[chaochou]

When I start a new game of D&D, I make all the player roll a D6. If they roll 17 6s in a row, they're allowed to get past being a single-cell organism.

Another 14 6s in a row gets them an intelligent bipedal animal, and another 9 6s in a row gets them an adventurer.

If they all want an adventurer in the same place in a mind-bendingly enormous multi-dimensional universe, at the same point in time, and all with a similar need to pursue a quest within the parameters of their capabilities - well I have to guestimate the probabilities. But I think I'm being generous to demand they need to simultaneously roll 15 6s in a row.

Otherwise we start character generation again.

That may seem like a lot, but then I'm running a sim - anything less is the grossest contrivance and not concerned with realism or verisimilitude.

 

[Umbran]

When I start a new game of D&D, I make all the player roll a D6. If they roll 17 6s in a row, they're allowed to get past being a single-cell organism.

Mod Note:
Folks, if you do not want to be a constructive part of the conversation, you should probably go find a different thread.

You can do that on your own, or you can do it involuntarily, like Chaochou here. Your choice.

 

[niklinna]

I can't be precisely sure who these "some here" you reference might be, but if you're referencing the usual cast of characters in these discussions, such as @pemerton, @hawkeyefan, @AbdulAlhazred, and @Manbearcat, et al, I can provide a current example that demonstrates how patently false is your sense of how these games operate in practice.

In the second "encounter" of my ongoing 4E D&D PbP with the latter (a campaign that we, as players, set to focus around political intrigue, class strife, and dueling mercantile factions as the initial focus of play), it was suggested by a newly-encountered NPC (who has since become an integral part of the story and a Companion Character (think: Henchman)) that the Empress, who has initiated a fresh Inquisition that curtails some of the freedoms of my PC (and his mercantile family's goals) may be (1) possessed or otherwise bereft of her wits (possibly through nefarious advisors), or (2) a fool who needs to be set back on the "correct" path of rulership.

The game is now at L7, and much of it has revolved around dealing with the fallout of our group's early challenges to this situation (outsmarting one of the Empress's Dragonborn Inquisitors, deposing corrupt and duplicitous family members, investigating a revolutionary group and its aims, facing and making enemies with the Empress's Secretary of Security). There have been other goals in play too, of course: my wife's PC led us on a mountainous Quest to commune with a spirit of her ancestors when the political situation in the capital became particularly hot and we needed to "get out of Dodge." And there's an increasingly-compelling parallel development where agents of the Far Realm entity Caiphon lurk in the background (this too was signalled as a point of fictional interest by us as players, as the steward of my PC's traitorous uncle was a Warlock, and I introduced into the fiction that his patron was Caiphon, at which point @Manbearcat and I discussed our mutual love for that particular trope and how we wanted to explore it more in play). And yet, we still haven't even met the Empress, let alone faced her as a direct challenge.

We have felt compelled by other, more immediate (though certainly related) practical and fictional concerns that nevertheless have as an end-goal setting right what befouls the Empire (from my PC's concerns, the Empress's new edicts that curtail his family's enterprise and power). We've also discussed as a group how dealing with whatever besets the Empress seems perfect for a kind of capstone challenge to the Heroic tier (ie, 9th/10th level), taking the cues from 4E's guidelines regarding a tier progression of the focus of play to be local > regional > planar > cosmic. None of this has felt contrived or predestined. Rather, in the fashion of good film or writing, we see the PCs form goals, some of which change over time (as we "play to find out"), and work to meet those goals. If you're interested in seeing how this actually plays out, there is a meticulous record in our play-by-post.

Oh and in our Blades in the Dark game with @Manbearcat, we players explicitly talked about gunning for the emperor and he didn't just drop the emperor in our laps. We had to settle for like the governor of Dosvol. Small beans! Sad face!

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

As an example I sometimes, not always, use a map and tokens to track the movement of NPCs, sects, etc. This creates a more 'objective' interaction in my opinion between the players and their enemies (and is fair too). I often show them this so they understand the way decisions in the game are being made.

Good point, thanks. A follow-up question on a related but not identical subject:

Table time is not identical to game time. When it comes to moving proactive enemies around a (hidden) dungeon map, do you have any advice or observations to make about how quickly to do so? Do they amble around at one room per ten in-game minutes or so, like OSR PCs exploring a hostile dungeon, or travel with purpose at 2mph from one side of the dungeon to the other in mere minutes? How would a long discussion (in table time) translate to enemy movement? Do you explain the details to the players or just show them that there's a map that you occasionally update while they're talking?

Generalities are fine. I'm just looking for ideas here.

 

[niklinna]

When I start a new game of D&D, I make all the player roll a D6. If they roll 17 6s in a row, they're allowed to get past being a single-cell organism.

Another 14 6s in a row gets them an intelligent bipedal animal, and another 9 6s in a row gets them an adventurer.

If they all want an adventurer in the same place in a mind-bendingly enormous multi-dimensional universe, at the same point in time, and all with a similar need to pursue a quest within the parameters of their capabilities - well I have to guestimate the probabilities. But I think I'm being generous to demand they need to simultaneously roll 15 6s in a row.

Otherwise we start character generation again.

That may seem like a lot, but then I'm running a sim - anything less is the grossest contrivance and not concerned with realism or verisimilitude.

I love a good argument by pursuing a premise to its ultimate expression.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Good point, thanks. A follow-up question on a related but not identical subject:

Table time is not identical to game time. When it comes to moving proactive enemies around a (hidden) dungeon map, do you have any advice or observations to make about how quickly to do so? Do they amble around at one room per ten in-game minutes or so, like OSR PCs exploring a hostile dungeon, or travel with purpose at 2mph from one side of the dungeon to the other in mere minutes? How would a long discussion (in table time) translate to enemy movement? Do you explain the details to the players or just show them that there's a map that you occasionally update while they're talking?

Generalities are fine. I'm just looking for ideas here.

I worry about it more on the large scale (daily movement). Local movement I find more manageable without that kind of in depth tracking. But I just have them move at the same rate as PCs. In my wuxia setting that is roughly a hex a day (this can vary depending on means and terrain). So for every day that passes I will move the NPCs. Keep in mind I don't use this 100% of the time, just when I think it is relevant (especially for fairness).

I will generally show them what I am doing when I think it will be helpful for them to know. Sometimes that is before, during, or after. There isn't a hard and fast rule here.