Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8141393" data-attributes="member: 42582">I don't know what the measure of obtrusive is supposed to be.It's hard to think of a mechanical resolution process in which the rules are more prominent - in the sense of providing the content and the topic and the focus of the conversation - than D&D combat rules: there is generation and discussion of initiative results, to hit rolls, damage rolls, comparison of rolled numbers to other numbers (eg to hit vs AC), adjustments of running tallies (eg hit points lost or regained), etc.But given that [USER=29398]@Lanefan[/USER] and [USER=7025508]@Crimson Longinus[/USER] both appear to enjoy playing D&D, I take it that this is not an example of obtrusive rules.(D&D combat rules are also not very much of a simulation engine. But that's a different point.)Anyway, the rules of a RPG do the same work as the rules of any other game: they tell the participants what to do and when to do it. This includes telling us when and how to roll dice, and what the consequence is for the game of the result of the roll.If you game rules tell you to roll dice when you don't want to, then you need better rules! The same if your rules don't tell you what follows from rolling this rather than that on the dice.EDIT: <a href="http://lumpley.com/hardcore.html" target="_blank">Here's Vincent Baker again</a>:Roleplaying's Fundamental Act Roleplaying is negotiated imagination. In order for any thing to be true in game, all the participants in the game (players and GMs, if you've even got such things) have to understand and assent to it. . . . So look, you! Mechanics might model the stuff of the game world, that's another topic, but they don't exist to do so. They exist to ease and constrain real-world social negotiation between the players at the table. That's their sole and crucial function.</blockquote>

Verification