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Message: <blockquote data-quote="steenan" data-source="post: 6414492" data-attributes="member: 23240">On the most general level, that encompasses all roleplaying games, rules describe making binding statements about the fiction. What are the limitations on each player's narrative powers and what conditions must be met to make a binding declaration. We rarely use this perspective when discussing RPG mechanics, but it is important to be aware that this is exactly what it does. Anything more is system-specific assumptions.Moving a little from general into concrete, we may think about what rules do in a wide range of RPGs:1. They resolve intentions, that is, decide what are the consequences of activities undertaken by fictional characters (typically, by pointing who describes the consequences and putting limits on this description). This resolution may work on various scales, from single actions, to scenes, to whole quests/story arcs.2. They regulate declaring facts about the setting. This covers GM's power in defining the setting in general, players' power in describing their characters' backgrounds, but also resolution of knowledge-type tests ("what have I heard about X?"), various contacts/allies abilities ("I know a guy who Y") and so on.3. They describe how characters change as a result of actions they take and various external influences. Once again, there are different scales here, from scene level (eg. character health, various temporary conditions etc.) to campaign level (character advancement, evolving relations and beliefs etc.).And these points may, of course, be further narrowed into specific cases, at the cost of losing generality (that is, excluding some RPGs from this description).That is why I called your list from the first post very narrow and asked what class of games you want to describe.The level of generality is completely different when you want to model D&D, Dogs in the Vineyard, Polaris and Chuubo's than when you want to describe D&D, Pathfinder, Dungeon World and 13th Age. In the first case, "rolling dice" and "resolving actions" are too specific; in the second case, you may compare how armor or tactical movement is modeled.</blockquote>

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