How Visible To players Should The Rules Be?

[Micah Sweet]

OK. The world contains flying dragons. Hence "reality" as far as it pertains to biodynamics, the density of air, and perhaps universal gravitation more generally, doesn't obtain.

Now we can talk about what actually governs D&D worldbuilding - a bundle of tropes and expectations, some established by genre authors (eg REH, Jack Vance, JRRT) and some developed over time by the game authors.

Not the point at all. The idea is, unless shown that something is fantastic (ie, flying dragons, magic in general), the world is assumed to be governed by the same rules we have in reality. Air, gravity, musical theater all operate as on Earth. Exceptions are specific and usually obvious.

 

[Corinnguard]

You, @Corinnguard, seem to have committed a logical fallacy.

Can you tell me which logical fallacy I am guilty of committing?

 

[Pedantic]

I've linked it because success and failure are associated with attempts or things tried.

This jargon-istic use of "success" to mean the GM tells you something and "failure" to mean the GM doesn't tell you something, independent of anyone trying to achieve something, is not one I'm familiar with.

Well, that was easily resolved. Now you are!

I don't see these things as "exactly the same" at all. The trade off between (say) a constant +1 and an activated +3 is partly about maths (and strategic decision-making about the tactical application of maths), and partly about what sorts of decisions I want to have to make in the play of my character.

But what is involved in deciding to have the GM give me more or less information? What is the strategy here? How is it tactically significant to know, now, who the statue is of? It seems to me like it could easily be low- or zero-stakes colour.

That was not my example. Indeed, a +1 always vs. +3 x/period is a pretty solvable problem, unless you expect some really inconsistent scenarios. My comparison was between a passive benefit, like a +1 to a class of rolls, and an activated benefit, that does something you cannot achieve with the default resolution system. Those are generally incomparable, and an interesting trade-off between "give me more information to best deploy my options" and "give me more options to deploy."

I think my monster stats example is a more accessible demonstration of the tactical advantages of more information, but the principle applies just as broadly. I expect the information the statue's history provides will open new lines of play, and agree that if they don't, there's no particular reason to gate the information, but I expect the base design of the game to account for that when the skill (and scenario, encounter, adventure, situation, etc.) rules are written in the first place.

 

[Maxperson]

I said that when I ran games that way, it absolutely was about control. When I played in many games run that way, it absolutely was about control. A plethora of material from that era points out how the GM needs to control the game, and that one of the many methods of doing that is through controlling what information is available to the players.

It was about control.

You then responded to essentially speak for everyone who's ever played that way and said it's not about control.

Not even remotely close man. I never spoke for everyone. Not one single time. Not essentially. Not implied. It didn't happen.

Maybe you were out to control the players via information given and other aspects of the game, but it wasn't like that for me and the DMs I played with during the 1e and 2e era and beyond. You know what that means? It means that control isn't inherent to the playstyle. It just isn't. We played it just fine without it being about control. If you went for control, it was because that's how you wanted to run the game.

 

[Maxperson]

And that takes us squarely into the conversation @hawkeyefan has been having with @Maxperson, about control over the game: it is a characterisation of the flow of play, and the process of play, that assumes (or that places) everything into the GM's hands. As opposed to an alternative way of characterising play, which allocates some tasks to the GM - eg describing the scene - and then allocates some tasks to the players - declaring actions for their PCs - and then talks about how the declared action within the scene is resolved, via the game's resolution rules.

The DM doesn't control everything. The players have full control over their characters and how they choose for those characters to interact with the world as presented.

If it was about control for the DM, then it was also about control for the players. Except it wasn't about control.

 

[Maxperson]

In this case, all the RPGs that I GM are very realistic, because they all include the things you call "realism" - trees, rocks, air, humans, water, armour, swords, etc - and also the things that you call "fantasy realism".

Sure. Every game out there has some degree of realism. Whether it's "very" realistic or not is debatable, but the realism is there in your game, my game, and in the games of everyone who plays an RPG.

When people talk about realism and how they alter the game for realism, it's generally because the level of realism at the game's base level isn't high enough, so they change things to raise it. Occasionally I see someone talk about changing things to lower it. We all have our preferences.

My Burning Wheel play is actually more realistic than D&D play, because it includes all the realistic elements of D&D plus wounds, damaged armour and learning by practice and training.

For sure it's differently realistic. Whether it's more realistic or not depends on if it really does have all of the elements D&D has, and to what degree it has those elements. Both games for example have combat I'm sure, but which one is more realistic isn't something I know. Burning Wheel may very well may be more realistic, but not simply because it has those things you mentioned above and D&D doesn't.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Not even remotely close man. I never spoke for everyone. Not one single time. Not essentially. Not implied. It didn't happen.

Maybe you were out to control the players via information given and other aspects of the game, but it wasn't like that for me and the DMs I played with during the 1e and 2e era and beyond. You know what that means? It means that control isn't inherent to the playstyle. It just isn't. We played it just fine without it being about control. If you went for control, it was because that's how you wanted to run the game.

One of us is talking about our personal experiences. The other is talking about all experiences with a given "style" and what its intentions are.

Your personal experience is that it was not about control. Fine.

What evidence beyond that can you provide that says that 2e era D&D and the bulk of mainstream games at the time were not about the GM controlling the game?

 

[Maxperson]

One of us is talking about our personal experiences. The other is talking about all experiences with a given "style" and what its intentions are.

Your personal experience is that it was not about control. Fine.

That means that objectively control isn't what the playstyle was centered around. If that playstyle was centered around control, I couldn't have used it without also having it be about control. Removing something that central would have changed the playstyle into a different one.

Control might or might not be present based on the DM's personal choice, not the playstyle itself. You chose to use it while using that playstyle, as did everyone you played with I guess.

What evidence beyond that can you provide that says that 2e era D&D and the bulk of mainstream games at the time were not about the GM controlling the game?

Same as you.

I can't speak to what percentage it was, but I doubt I hit the D&D lottery and played with many DMs who didn't play that way and only one who MIGHT have played that way if it were overwhelming the way you describe it. At worst there would be significant numbers on both sides so as to allow both of our experiences to be true without one of us having to hit some sort of extreme longshot.

 

[Corinnguard]

It means that control isn't inherent to the playstyle.

If control isn't inherent to the playstyle, what would you say is inherent about it then? The word refers to existing in something as a permanent, essential or characteristic attribute. I think that one thing that makes playstyle inherent is cooperation. You have the DM cooperating with the players to create an interactive story for the latter's characters to exist in. You have the characters cooperating with each other in quite a number of things. Survival, solving a mystery, and probably more importantly saving the day.

Control otoh is something that is imposed. Usually by someone who wants things to go their way. They want the story to go their way, and no one else's way.

 

[Maxperson]

For the Gamist, immersion must mean calculating risks based on current knowledge and this requires a very specific conception of what it means to embody a character. A Narrativist simply doesn’t do this, it would undercut theme in all cases. Which is why one of the first things a lot of Narrative games do, is change how the resolution works. Narrativist immersion in character tends to embody values and the gameplay revolves round the testing of those values. In some sense all Gamist characters are hyper rational and all Narrativist characters are emotional wrecks.

And this is one reason why I reject GNS. The above is wrong for me and pretty much every player I've played with who enjoys immersion.

Immersion is about inhabiting the character AND the game world completely enough that the game itself sometimes ceases to be present, and the rest of the time is just faintly there in the background. It's about acting on character knowledge AND personality traits, but is not centered on either calculation of risk or testing the values of those traits. Sometimes traits will be tested, but that's incidental to immersion. Sometimes you will calculate risks, but that's also incidental to immersion. And of course realism is extremely important to immersion.

So basically immersion is both all three categories of GNS simultaneously and also not any of those categories since none of them come close to describing a majority of what immersion is.