The "I Didn't Comment in Another Thread" Thread

[payn]

Folks are playing a lot of rhetorical games today.

 

[CleverNickName]

Alternate caption:

"Reading the same five threads on EN World"

 

[trappedslider]

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[Hussar]

“Immersion breaking” seems to be used an awful lot as code for “I don’t want to try to imagine how that would work.”

I gotta admit, there’s a number of key word, hot button phrases that make me just tune out the post. This is one of them. They all seem to mean the same thing: I don’t like X but in Oder to make my preference seem like it’s based on more than just what I happen to like, I’ll invoke this phrase in place of anything of actual substance.

It’s exhausting.

 

[RealAlHazred]

It really breaks my immersion when you do cooler things with your character than I do with mine. Please stop.

 

[Alzrius]

Dismissing immersion/verisimilitude as valid considerations of play is becoming a dogwhistle for "I'm entitled to have my idea(s) indulged."

It's honestly somewhat concerning. There seems to be a contingent of players that have taken the "you can be/do anything in a fantasy game" literally. No, you can't; that's the entire point of having rules and restrictions. That some ideas won't work very well, and others won't work at all, is a feature, not a bug.

 

[overgeeked]

There seems to be a contingent of players that have taken the "you can be/do anything in a fantasy game" literally. No, you can't;

Why not? The rules say so? Change the rules.

that's the entire point of having rules and restrictions.

No, the entire point of having rules and restrictions is to avoid playground-style arguments of “I shot you!” and “No, you didn’t!” Hint the rules can be as light as you please and still serve this function.

That some ideas won't work very well, and others won't work at all, is a feature, not a bug.

Maybe for you. I think it’s a bug. The only limit is your imagination. So stretch your “legs” and see what’s out there.

For a concrete example. Planescape. I can think of no more freeing and wide-open setting that is utterly let down and failed by its restrictive rules set. Why play a human when you could play a slaad or a beholder or a dragon or a modron? Why be limited to what the book says you can do? It’s imaginative play. So play and be imaginative. Don’t just pick items from a pre-digested menu. You can do anything you can imagine. So go play.

 

[Scribe]

Why play a human when you could play a slaad or a beholder or a dragon or a modron?

Because its still a game, and games often require some semblance of balance or else you have Fighters crying about Wizards.

 

[Alzrius]

Why not? The rules say so? Change the rules.

Go ahead, but you'll eventually have to settle on rules of some sort, and by their very nature as rules they're going to make some things sub-optimal and/or simply not allowed. Plus, at some point you have to settle on rules that won't change, at least for the duration of a given session/adventure/campaign, etc. Unless you like role-playing Calvinball, I mean.

No, the entire point of having rules and restrictions is to avoid playground-style arguments of “I shot you!” and “No, you didn’t!” Hint the rules can be as light as you please and still serve this function.

Your first sentence strikes me as a restatement of my original point. Adjudication means some things have to be restricted, disallowed, or otherwise ruled out. Plus, you kind of need rules beyond task resolution, i.e. determining what characters are capable of in the first place.

Maybe for you. I think it’s a bug. The only limit is your imagination. So stretch your “legs” and see what’s out there.

There's a reason why so many RPGs don't simply ditch rules and say "use your imagination." Paradoxical as it may seem, limits encourage creativity.

For a concrete example. Planescape. I can think of no more freeing and wide-open setting that is utterly let down and failed by its restrictive rules set. Why play a human when you could play a slaad or a beholder or a dragon or a modron? Why be limited to what the book says you can do? It’s imaginative play. So play and be imaginative. Don’t just pick items from a pre-digested menu. You can do anything you can imagine. So go play.

The "play" part of it requires rules and boundaries in order to facilitate. By all means, go ahead and play as a great wyrm dragon while everyone else is playing as a low-level human. But even presuming you have the rules on hand to adjudicate what such a character can do (as a PC), see how much fun that is for everyone else; we've had how many threads here about the martial/caster disparity? Play as a dragon in a party of humans, and you'll see a much greater disparity.

Rules and restrictions are what turns "play" into an actual game.

 

[Ryujin]

This video has content that has been blocked in your country confused American

Cleopatra 2525 (content also blocked in Canada, though I'm currently in the US). Great, campy show, on the order of Hercules or Xena. They used a rewritten version of "Exordium and Terminus" as the title song.