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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Crimson Longinus" data-source="post: 9641459" data-attributes="member: 7025508"><p>I think meaningful choices are at the core of the agency, and I think the OP correctly identifies, that this requires certain level of predictability and coherence. However, in comparison to some other games like chess, I believe there happens a category error. For most games rules are what the game is. The game is defined by the rules, so the meaningful choices by participants are by necessity choices outlined by the rules. But substance of RPGs however is not the rules, it is the fiction, and choices the players make are fundamentally choices about engaging with fictional positioning. Now the requirement about predictability and coherence still applies but it is about those qualities in the fiction. Codifying some fictional elements in the rules might help to achieve this coherence, but that is merely a one tool for achieving it, it is not a requirement. Fundamentally the RPGs work by the GM creating a compelling fictional situation, and the players interacting with that situation via their characters, and making meaningful choices about it. Setting goals for characters and pursuing them, problem solving, negotiation with NPCs, characters having emotional reactions, etc, etc.  None of this requires rules, although some rules certainly are very helpful and thus commonly employed. But make no mistake, the rules are still just a tool in service of the real game that is about the fiction.</p></blockquote><p></p>

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