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If this counts as a ruling, then when I was ordering my latte this morning, I made a ruling. I guess every decision can be called "ruling"? But I don't really see a point in doing so. The way I see it, a ruling implies a binding precedent. If in a dnd game, I say that a character who was...

Here's the entirety of the rules in Swashbuckling! It fits on a half of a A4 page, it surely does exist, and the play process doesn't involve making any "rulings" of any kind. So, yeah, rules-light games do exist.

I mean, you lack a skill critical to playing RPGs — maintaining suspension of disbelief and immersing yourself in the process. There's a term for lacking a critical skill: being bad. It seems crystally obvious to me.

Your "preferences" aren't preferences. They are you coping with being bad at games. Nothing is "less" or "more" immersive, nor can possibly be. Immersion is a skill, that can and should be practised and improved.

I can see gameplay in disarming a trap, fiddling with levers and mechanisms, all that, but not so much in looking for one. And in any case, "hey, this is a chest, and it is trapped, your akaviri danger sense is tingling like crazy" would invite players towards interaction better than staying...

The point is, the actual "maker of a trap" is a real human being in our real world. People who laid it are fictional, they don't exist as entities of their own, and start existing only when interacted with by other real humans in our real world. If a tree falls down in a forest... The value of...

The problem is, the makers of that trap don't actually make it to protect anything. They make it for the players. The same way architects of a fictional city don't build for people to have a nice living in, they create a location for a game that is vaguely kinda sorta resembles a city.

Well, what can I say, skill issue. Git gud. Suspension of disbelief is an active process, not some kind of line in the sand.

There are games that pretty explicitly codify into rules things that have nothing to do with the fictional universe. If my character in Fate has an aspect *The Protagonist, within the universe of the game, it means only two things: jack and s##t. It still bears direct influence on what happens...

I'll read all the previous posts a bit later, but here's my two cents. The way I see it, the rules are needed to structure the process, kickstart the creativity and provide constraints that everybody understands. Modelling the fictional universe, I'd say, is the least important and least...

It's that constraints prevent them from screwing up. DMs and players are utter complete idiots that will run the game off the first cliff given the opportunity, and it's the designer's job to protect them from themselves.

In russian-speaking wargaming community we call it "roster", but now I'm not entirely sure if it's the correct word. I recall some app calling these "army lists"? Idk. Basically, the way I see this imaginary game, there would be a list of various threats, monsters, bandits, traps, automated...

I don't think time invested by the GM matters, really. From the outside, the difference between carefully planned assassination where the GM took sniper's capabilities into the account, rolled dice or whatever the same way she would do for the PCs, and a decision to screw that player in...

Yes, it is artificial. Games are artificial, they are made to be enjoyed. The abilities of PCs and NPCs don't need to be symmetrical. PCs represent actual living people in our meat-space, they are interface to engage with the game. NPCs aren't people. They exist to be interacted with, they...

Overall, balance gives freedom. Imagine like you are playing a fighting game with your friend. Situation A: the game is brilliantly balanced, not a single character has an intrinsic edge over another, there's a legitimate counter-play to every move in the playbook -- so you can pick whatever...

No. Just no. It only makes sense if you think that rules can and should be possible to be processed by a computer, meat or otherwise. There are rules to writing haikus, the author must abide the structure, but pretending like the poet is nothing but a "meat computer" is, frankly, asinine.

...what? — What if the GM makes an illegal move? — The players will point to the rules and ask how the hell that move was triggered. — So I guess just like in other games

If the question is "what will happen if the GM deliberately and maliciously breaks the rules", well, there's no clear-defined procedure. Just like there's no procedure for dealing with players who cheat with their dice rolls. If the question is "what if the GM makes a move they cannot make due...

No, because nobody cares whether NPCs get a chance to act or not. From narrative perspective PCs are more important, and from the gameplay perspective, GM's ability to participate in the process isn't predicated on NPCs, so they are significantly less valueable.