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D&D's Evolution: Rulings, Rules, and "System Matters"
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<blockquote data-quote="Malmuria" data-source="post: 8398703" data-attributes="member: 7030755"><p>• As I said in the other thread, the fiction has to be established somehow. That being the case, what is an appropriate means of establishing the fiction. Is a dm creating exhaustive prep and then sticking to that prep more "fair" than a dm deciding in the moment that the terrain is more difficult in the moment?</p><p></p><p>• If it is the case that FKR offers no particularly innovative solution to such a problem, and that may be, then it is also true that your criticism of the problem is not really a criticism limited to FKR games but applies to all games that allow the DM to make judgement calls. The same scenario could easily happen in 5e:</p><p></p><p>DM: the day is spent walking through Neverwinter Wood. Because it's raining heavily, you move at half speed*</p><p>Player 1: But I've gone hiking before</p><p>Player 2: But in the rulebook it says we should be moving at 2/3 speed*</p><p>Player 3: Back in 2e, you only moved at half speed if you were more than 3/4 encumbered and had a Str score lower than 15 and failed a 65% percentile roll.*</p><p></p><p>*I'm deliberately not looking up any of these rules because I think the point is, does it matter? An adversarial table will challenge each other, whether on the ground of realism (as defined by individual knowledge and experience) or on the basis of a ruleset that could be ever extended and more codified. I think the best solution, whether in 5e or in a rules minimal fkr game, is make a ruling and move on.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>You have to trust in the GM's ability to make things up in a consistent manner, or at least make up a die roll to address the uncertainty. And I would say the GM has to earn the player's trust by listening to their suggestions. Again, I can accept that FKR holds no special answers, but that also means the approach you are critiquing is not limited to FKR but applies more broadly to trad games (where the gm makes up everything from the setting to the possible scenarios to the npcs in the fiction.) It's an interesting question to ask, when does a gm just "making things up" become a problem for a style of game or a style of play. Further, it's not necessarily a matter of realism or verisimilitude; sometimes you just need to trust that the gm and in fact everyone at the table knows the genre of story that you are trying to play through.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>The dynamic you describe here is exactly the kind of thing that is interesting to me about some of these FKR posts. But I'm confused as to why this has nothing to do with trust. I think if you wrote a game, and wanted to explain to the reader how a group was supposed to arrive at a consensus about what should happen next in the story, or what sort of method to use to resolve uncertainty, either you would have mechanics like gm intrusions that gameify consensus-building or you have play advice that would emphasize the collaborative nature of the game and how you needed to trust each other, whether or not you used the T-word.</p><p></p><p>What does still appeal to me about FKR is less to do with its framework as a system than in a shift in perspective that emphasizes transparency over illusionism, improvisation and collaboration over extensive rules and prep. These all seem like an extension of OSR principles, but moving beyond the dungeon-and-wilderness setup of much OSR play. Now, as I mentioned, I don't know about many if not most rpg systems or debates on rpg theory that have happened over the years, so it's great to learn from all of you about that!</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Malmuria, post: 8398703, member: 7030755"] • As I said in the other thread, the fiction has to be established somehow. That being the case, what is an appropriate means of establishing the fiction. Is a dm creating exhaustive prep and then sticking to that prep more "fair" than a dm deciding in the moment that the terrain is more difficult in the moment? • If it is the case that FKR offers no particularly innovative solution to such a problem, and that may be, then it is also true that your criticism of the problem is not really a criticism limited to FKR games but applies to all games that allow the DM to make judgement calls. The same scenario could easily happen in 5e: DM: the day is spent walking through Neverwinter Wood. Because it's raining heavily, you move at half speed* Player 1: But I've gone hiking before Player 2: But in the rulebook it says we should be moving at 2/3 speed* Player 3: Back in 2e, you only moved at half speed if you were more than 3/4 encumbered and had a Str score lower than 15 and failed a 65% percentile roll.* *I'm deliberately not looking up any of these rules because I think the point is, does it matter? An adversarial table will challenge each other, whether on the ground of realism (as defined by individual knowledge and experience) or on the basis of a ruleset that could be ever extended and more codified. I think the best solution, whether in 5e or in a rules minimal fkr game, is make a ruling and move on. You have to trust in the GM's ability to make things up in a consistent manner, or at least make up a die roll to address the uncertainty. And I would say the GM has to earn the player's trust by listening to their suggestions. Again, I can accept that FKR holds no special answers, but that also means the approach you are critiquing is not limited to FKR but applies more broadly to trad games (where the gm makes up everything from the setting to the possible scenarios to the npcs in the fiction.) It's an interesting question to ask, when does a gm just "making things up" become a problem for a style of game or a style of play. Further, it's not necessarily a matter of realism or verisimilitude; sometimes you just need to trust that the gm and in fact everyone at the table knows the genre of story that you are trying to play through. The dynamic you describe here is exactly the kind of thing that is interesting to me about some of these FKR posts. But I'm confused as to why this has nothing to do with trust. I think if you wrote a game, and wanted to explain to the reader how a group was supposed to arrive at a consensus about what should happen next in the story, or what sort of method to use to resolve uncertainty, either you would have mechanics like gm intrusions that gameify consensus-building or you have play advice that would emphasize the collaborative nature of the game and how you needed to trust each other, whether or not you used the T-word. What does still appeal to me about FKR is less to do with its framework as a system than in a shift in perspective that emphasizes transparency over illusionism, improvisation and collaboration over extensive rules and prep. These all seem like an extension of OSR principles, but moving beyond the dungeon-and-wilderness setup of much OSR play. Now, as I mentioned, I don't know about many if not most rpg systems or debates on rpg theory that have happened over the years, so it's great to learn from all of you about that! [/QUOTE]
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