A Thought

[Ranger REG]

The rules in an RPG are not there to tell the players what is and is not allowed in game play, the rules in an RPG are there to describe how the world the players' characters live in works.

I've yet to see a core rulebook of any one roleplaying game that actually rationalize each rules mechanics involved. (Or at least ask the gamer's question: "Why are we using this mechanics?")

 

[fusangite]

I've yet to see a core rulebook of any one roleplaying game that actually rationalize each rules mechanics involved. (Or at least ask the gamer's question: "Why are we using this mechanics?")

Yep. The thing is that there are two separate rationales for mechanics:
(a) what kind of play are we facilitating?
(b) what kind of world are we describing?
Mechanics heavily inform both of these things and, in fact, link them.

 

[Ycore Rixle]

Well, actually my original posting had a deeper purpose than mere meaning. That of getting the reader to see RPGs as something other (and more) than a game.

More than a game? I think games can be huge. Games can change our lives, games can make us laugh, games can fill our days with wonder, games can connect us to other people. It's hard to imagine something "more than a game." Games are art, my favorite art, and art is huge.

 

[fusangite]

So am I. I think I failed to express myself very well. So I'll try again.

I know all laws are are codified behavior, or an explaination of "what happens" not really "why it happens". In other words, gravity works because it works and we're trying to find out more of "why" even though we're pretty good at predicting whats going to happen and what has/will happen.

What I'm postulating (and what is different than the gravity anology) is an unknowable "how" that unlike our world constantly changes reasons for "how."

I understand what you are saying. I thought I had made that clear. Let's follow your argument through to show you what I mean.

If you can replicate a phenomenon predictably, one of two things must be true:
(a) there is an underlying cause and effect pattern between your actions and the phenomenon; or
(b) the phenomenon is a completely random occurrence that is just happening to coincide with your actions despite the absence of any causal relationship

Now, approach (a) is my assumption. Approach (b) is, firstly, operationally indistinguishable from approach (a) and creates unfulfilling play. Either there is an underlying principle or pattern for the world continuing to produce the same phenomena or there isn't. Now maybe there isn't -- but how would you operationalize that awareness?

What matters here is that every time the character performs action X, event Y happens. The details of how this is operationalized does not ultimately affect the 1:1 causal relationship.

Its like this. There is level A where players interact with magic and things work based upon laws and principles, but underneath that layer, the layer of "do this and this happens" there is an unpaternable series of events that causes the above layer. Layer A is understandable by us, but layer B is forever unfathomable, even though it's obvious that layer B somehow always makes layer A work in the same way.

Okay. You can build a world like that. It still has physics. In fact, if one compares it to the situation in modern quantum physics, you're not even describing a world that dissimilar to the one in which we live. We only understand the top few layers. This has always been true in science. There is always that layer below that we can barely see whose rules we cannot figure out. Physics is just a coherent system for describing he subset of the universe that we comprehend.

A physicist looking at the D&D world you posit would be interested in asking questions like "Why is it that no matter what chain of physical causation is initiated by the Fireball spell, the final result is always a 40' diameter ball of fire?" But that wouldn't stop the physicist from noting that every time you cast Fireball it produces an identical outcome.

I guess I'm questioning the basic scientific concept of cauality when applied to magic- perhaps every action doesn't have an equal and opposite reaction and only the single layer the players understand as magic is predictive, but beyond that, magic itself cannot be understood because there's simply no pattern of cause and effect.

But if, in reality, there were no pattern, the "top level" awareness wouldn't register one unless every time a spell worked, it was just another random coincidence that had nothing to do with the actions of the caster.

To make an extended example: Fireball requires some bat guano and some words and some gestures. Perhaps those words and gestures aren't the same everytime (one wizard's fireball is different than another wizard's or even one wizard's casting of fireball is different from one casting to the next), perhaps the magic is really transforming (i know it's evocation) the bat guano into the fireball one time, but is opening up a planar rift another time, and yet something different the next time and the next.

So, why do all these different events produce an identical outcome? You have only two possible answers for this question: total random chance or an incompletely comprehended pattern.

Perhaps there's only one layer of understandability that's based solely on trial-and-error, not upon logic concering cause and effect, or the concept of scientific laws and priciples (consistant, predicable action).

All physics is is empirical evidence stitched together into a convenient and constantly revised explanatory framework. Furthermore, the princples of consistent, predictable action do apply to D&D magic. There is absolutely consistent, predictable action. Even if fireball #1 comes into being through the agency of an angel and fireball #2 comes into being through the opening of a planar rift, casting fireball consistently and predictable makes fireballs.

Hrm, here's an anology you'll probably get. It's like blacksmithing for someone in the middle ages, but with the idea that there is no replicatable molecular interactions occuring although the result (say a higher quality iron) is achievable. The only way to get a better iron (better spell) is through trial and error and not through understanding the underlying priciples of metalurgy because they are not replicatable, although the result is once the trial-and-error turns into trial-and-succeed. There's no using science to understand the underlying priciples to make a better iron, since the underlying principles are utterly random, even though the results that occur from the utter randomness are predictable.

But people understood metallurgy as science; through trial and error, they did develop adequate predictive models -- they found physical laws. They conceptualized these physicals in a framework we have abandoned but the laws themselves retain their predictive value. This is the point I was making with Darwin's gemules two posts ago.

There's many ways to read the systems magic rules as "how things work" without extrapolating that things work the same way up and down the ladders of causality.

How, indeed whether the characters conceptualize the physics governing them is absolutely up for creative interpretation. However, as far as the players and the GM are concerned, both groups know that the rules are the physics of the world in which their characters are situated.

 

[SweeneyTodd]

The rules in an RPG are not there to tell the players what is and is not allowed in game play, the rules in an RPG are there to describe how the world the players' characters live in works.

That is a valid approach to take. I actually take the exact opposite approach, which is why I go *really* rules light.

In the games we play, the rules apportion power for things like "Who frames a scene" and "Who wins a conflict" to players and GM, but don't really deal with trying to simulate a world at all. We use those rules as structure to create narrative arcs instead.

The way I look at it is: The character's aren't real. Neither is the world of the game. What's going on around the table is people imagining things, and I prefer mechanics that work at that level. That is decidedly and intentionally "metagamey".

I think most rules systems try to do both, while pretending they only describe the world. The truth is, rules don't apply to characters, because characters aren't real. They apply as constraints to the actions people perform at the table.

 

[Umbran]

I am aiming at a change in how RPGs are played.

Ah, then what you're dong is trying to introduce a meta-rule that is proscriptive.

Why? Why not allow them to play in whatever way they have fun? If it isn't happening in your particular campaign, it isn't your entertainment, it is theirs.

Actually, this thread has nothing to do with rules.

Ah. With the first thing you talking about being rules, that point was somewhat lost.

Remember, you are not playing the hero in a story, you are playing someone caught up in events who might become the hero in a story.

Pardon, sir, but I reserve the right to determine my own path to fun, which may or may not match what you suggest. I strongly resist your attempt to tell me how I should conduct my games.

Humans tend to be willful. You might want to try a different approach. Don't try to change how people look at games. That smacks of a superiority complex. Unless you're coming from a real position of authority, people will balk at being told what to do. Instead, approach it as an alternative people can choose to pick up or not, as they wish.

Whatever you do, avoid the implication that what they are doing is wrong. You're giving off a strong, "doing it otherwise is simple lesser" vibe, and entertainment just isn't the place for that.

 

[jgbrowning]

I understand what you are saying. I thought I had made that clear. Let's follow your argument through to show you what I mean.

If you can replicate a phenomenon predictably, one of two things must be true:
(a) there is an underlying cause and effect pattern between your actions and the phenomenon; or
(b) the phenomenon is a completely random occurrence that is just happening to coincide with your actions despite the absence of any causal relationship

I'm postulating (c) Their is no way to ever determine causal relationship even when one does X, Y always happens. This is a contradiction—this is what I'm thinking magic is—contrary to our understanding of how systems work. Regardless if they're "real world" systems or "pretend world" systems.

There's no way to apply knowledge (of x then y) to form a framework about the "inner workings of magic" because the working (the magic) is a permanent black box since things never work the same way twice even when the results are the same.

Now, approach (a) is my assumption. Approach (b) is, firstly, operationally indistinguishable from approach (a) and creates unfulfilling play.

Only when you take the control of magic out of the players hands. As a DM I'm constantly saying "This works this way because of magic" and there's never been a need to explain how the magic works. Say I want a room that turns red, then blue, they yellow constantly. I just black box the magic and it happens. You're postulating that since the magic is predictable and replicatable, all things concerning magic are predictable and replicatable. I like to think that magic, by its very nature is counter to such laws, not just a "new" set of laws. Something completely different.

What matters here is that every time the character performs action X, event Y happens. The details of how this is operationalized does not ultimately affect the 1:1 causal relationship. Okay. You can build a world like that. It still has physics. In fact, if one compares it to the situation in modern quantum physics, you're not even describing a world that dissimilar to the one in which we live. We only understand the top few layers. This has always been true in science. There is always that layer below that we can barely see whose rules we cannot figure out. Physics is just a coherent system for describing he subset of the universe that we comprehend.

A physicist looking at the D&D world you posit would be interested in asking questions like "Why is it that no matter what chain of physical causation is initiated by the Fireball spell, the final result is always a 40' diameter ball of fire?" But that wouldn't stop the physicist from noting that every time you cast Fireball it produces an identical outcome.

Of course the world still has physics is so far as is related to game play because its not fun playing in a game with no boundries (I killed you! No you didn't! Yes I did! No you didn't!). But there's no need to assume that even though the game boundries function like scientific physics that they are scientific physics. Back to gravity, if anything could be the "cause" of gravity the knowledge of how gravity works is much less useful (and hence not a "building block" upon which more developed knowledge can be developed upon) than something like "gravity is caused by mass which is a disturbance in the fabric of the universe which is a simplification of space/time." The latter is a scientific idea upon which further ideas can be tested and studied. "Gravity is caused by something that is never the same thing twice" completely shuts down any form of real scientific study because the causality cannot be studied. Which is what science continually does... A does B because of C and C does D because of E. When C become X (a non repeating variable) figuring out the remainder of the chain becomes imposible, and hence scientific thought become effectively useless. Which is why you need to say your prayers when you're smelting iron.

But if, in reality, there were no pattern, the "top level" awareness wouldn't register one unless every time a spell worked, it was just another random coincidence that had nothing to do with the actions of the caster.So, why do all these different events produce an identical outcome? You have only two possible answers for this question: total random chance or an incompletely comprehended pattern.

There's a third answer, none of the above. Magic. Magic can be the contradiction-can be both total random chance that functions as an incompletely comprehended pattern. I'm saying that magic doesn't have to make sense because it's magic, not reality, not a "different reality with it's own set of paramenters" but something that, although it can function repeatedly in the same manner (ala fireball spell), isn't restricted by our thoughts that repeatability indicates causality.

Magic means that, no the "top level" awareness doesn't have a pattern but yet there are still identical outcomes.

Imagine that magic really works backwards in time. Players are caused to cast a fireball spell because it's already gone off. Or at least imagine that for that one single casting of fireball, that's why it worked. The next casting will have a different causility. This type of thought makes magical studies something like someone's taste in art. Entirely subjective, and not quantifiable. Think of the consistancy in magic like the consistancy that everyone will have some art they like better than others. The bits and pieces are uncomprehensible but the effect (liking something better) is the same every time for different people. Imagine if the universe and magic was a preference, not a subjective reality that can be causaly studied.

All physics is is empirical evidence stitched together into a convenient and constantly revised explanatory framework. Furthermore, the princples of consistent, predictable action do apply to D&D magic. There is absolutely consistent, predictable action. Even if fireball #1 comes into being through the agency of an angel and fireball #2 comes into being through the opening of a planar rift, casting fireball consistently and predictable makes fireballs.

I'm challanging the idea that consistent, predictable action must come from a consistant predictable universe. I'm saying that magic breaks that concept because it's magic, not science.

But people understood metallurgy as science; through trial and error, they did develop adequate predictive models -- they found physical laws. They conceptualized these physicals in a framework we have abandoned but the laws themselves retain their predictive value. This is the point I was making with Darwin's gemules two posts ago.

At a basic level yes, but to make modern metals, you need our modern concept of metalurgy to produce high-tech products. I'm saying imagine a world in which that knowledge, the knowledge of chemical reactions, is impossible to discover because it's not observably consistant.

How, indeed whether the characters conceptualize the physics governing them is absolutely up for creative interpretation. However, as far as the players and the GM are concerned, both groups know that the rules are the physics of the world in which their characters are situated.

Not true, the DM can fiat whatever he wants because it's magic. Which is (sorta ) what the point of this is. Only the player works within a deterministic system. When I need a flying city, I just *poof* there's a flying city. When a player wants to make a flying city, I just *poof* here's how the flying cities work. As long as I don't openly contradict any existing rules (at least to the detriment of the players or at least without informing the players first that I do things this way), there's no need to assume that there's a set physics concerning magic in the world the characters operate. A determinsitic system is used to provide players with guidelines in interacting with the environment that I non-deterministically created.

In other words, If I can make water flow uphill, I don't have to accept that the rules are the physics of the world because I can make the water stop flowing uphill the instant someone tells me there's a studyable causality involved. Every change I makes changes the physics of the world the players are in.

joe b.

 

[mythusmage]

Ah, then what you're dong is trying to introduce a meta-rule that is proscriptive.

Why? Why not allow them to play in whatever way they have fun? If it isn't happening in your particular campaign, it isn't your entertainment, it is theirs.

The manner of play is of no concern to me, what I am concerned with is the paradigm, with how the hobby is viewed. Consider mountain building. Once the explanation came down to, "And then a miracle occurs." Plate tectonics changed our understanding of mountain building. A paradigm shift.

The current RPG paradigm is that they are games you play pretty much in the manner you would any other game. The new paradigm I'm promoting here says that RPGs are a pastime in which the participants assume the role of people living in an imaginary setting. The rules of any RPG, rules heavy or rules light, illuminate how the setting works on many levels.

Ah. With the first thing you talking about being rules, that point was somewhat lost.

Correction. I was not talking about rules qua rules but about how our perception of the purpose of the rules affects how we see RPGs and subsequently use RPGs.

Pardon, sir, but I reserve the right to determine my own path to fun, which may or may not match what you suggest. I strongly resist your attempt to tell me how I should conduct my games.

Humans tend to be willful. You might want to try a different approach. Don't try to change how people look at games. That smacks of a superiority complex. Unless you're coming from a real position of authority, people will balk at being told what to do. Instead, approach it as an alternative people can choose to pick up or not, as they wish.

Whatever you do, avoid the implication that what they are doing is wrong. You're giving off a strong, "doing it otherwise is simple lesser" vibe, and entertainment just isn't the place for that.

Trouble is, the current paradigm has the effect of limiting possibilities and potentialities. Treat an RPG as a wargame and you remove much that can make play a more rewarding experience for all involved.

Playing an RPG as a wargame allows the player to distance himself from the action. Treating it as a place where a fictional alter ego dwells does not. It forces involvement to a degree a wargame really cannot. This, in part, is what I'm working towards, involvement. Involvement in the character. Involvement in the world. Get the players involved and you'll find they actually have more fun.

You'd rather distance yourself, you are free to do so. But that distancing means you miss a lot of what your involvement could be.

My goal is to heighten enjoyment of and participation in this hobby, and if old ways must pass for this to happen, then the old ways pass.

 

[mythusmage]

You may have noted a number of people saying I mean to overthrow old traditions. They are right. It is my full intention to overthrow old traditions, because those traditions hamper full enjoyment of the RPG hobby. Furthermore, they limit recruiting into the hobby, because these traditions have the effect of discouraging potential recruits.

Treat RPGs as some flavor of wargame and that's all they can be, some flavor of wargame. Treat RPGs as a set of guidelines delineating a world and you could treat it as a wargame, but you can also treat it as so much more.

I speak of expanding the options, and in that expanding what RPGs can be.

 

[SweeneyTodd]

I mean no offense, mythusmage, but I don't see any overthrowing of old traditions at all here. It sounds a lot like the old "roll-play vs. role-play" argument, which always felt to me to be a vast oversimplification.

I've heard people thinking of "rules as physics to simulate an imagined world" for decades. Many, many people on this board agree with you on that front. It's not a new way of playing, nor is heavy immersion a new thing.

If we break it down into rules prescribing player options versus describing the game world, there's still a lot left undefined. The former only qualifies as a wargame if played that way, for instance. What does it mean to have prescriptive player rules in a game that's not "played to win"?

I've played and run rules-light games where the rules only describe what the player can and cannot do. The player, not the character; that's important. Things like "Who frames scenes" or "Who narrates" or "Who declares conflicts".

Take Primetime Adventures, a roleplaying game designed to simulate a TV show. The rules only deal with what the players do -- there's no rules that simulate physics at all. Your character's ability to succeed in a conflict is determined by your Screen Presence for the episode, plus any Fan Mail dice you choose to spend. The players aren't wargaming; play is about addressing and resolving character issues as they interact with the plot.

I also question whether distance vs. immersion is such an easy question. I've run games where the players have a lot of fun in scenes where they have no character present. Our games are very "metagamey" by your definition -- if a scene's going on that a player would like to be involved in, they can spend a metagame resource (Drama Points or the like) and just show up. Players often author their characters based on information the character does not happen. (What's interesting is I've never seen them do this to "short circuit" a challenge -- typically they do it to get their character into more trouble.)

So I get that you advocate heavy character immersion with rules treated as arbiter of what those characters can do. I get that that's very different from treating your character as a playing piece on a board. But I don't see that those are the only ways to play, and I don't think that prescriptive vs. descriptive rules are the sole difference between those two styles.

I don't usually mention The Forge over here, but it seems relevant when we're talking about paradigms of play. mythusmage, you might find this article:

http://www.indie-rpgs.com/articles/1/

interesting to read. You might also enjoy discussing the prescriptive vs. descriptive concept on the RPG Theory boards over there. Just a thought.