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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hussar" data-source="post: 7524539" data-attributes="member: 22779">A while ago, I tried to take a stab at differentiating RPG's from other games.  The reception of my ideas was... mixed <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" />.  Ok, fair enough.  Critics of my idea made some very valid points and I can see now where I went wrong, although, to be perfectly honest, I do think that there is some validity in the idea that RPG's are differentiated from other games by the fact that RPG's require the group to create the actual game that you play.  But, I don't want to rehash that.  I'm going to go back to the drawing board on that one and let it lie.No.  Thinking about it, I think I might have another angle to take.  And that's what I'd like to discuss here.Basically, the idea is this:  In RPG's, the mechanics of the game are descriptive while in non-RPG's, the rules are prescriptive.  Let me expand on that.  It's true that in many non-RPG's, you can create scenarios to play - Warhammer is a great example of this.  But, in Warhammer, even after you create that scenario, what you actually do in that scenario is prescribed by the rules of Warhammer.  The rules say that the player, on his or her turn, can do A, B or C.  The player may not choose to do X which is not prescribed by the mechanics of the game.  So, I cannot suddenly decide that my orc figure falls in love with that skeleton figure and they go off and have a wonderful life together.  I cannot choose to pull out a Magic the Gathering card and use it in my Poker game.  Well, not without serious chance of getting punched in the nose by the other players.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" />Essentially, if I created a Warhammer scenario and handed it off to someone else, it would play out mostly the same.  The details would be different of course, one side or the other might win, someone gets a real hot or cold streak on the dice, that sort of thing.  I remember playing an old Axis and Allies game years ago and watching my German forces get annihilated in the second round as I couldn't roll a single success.  Shortest game of A&A I had ever seen.  But, again, nothing that happened was outside the prescribed mechanics of the game.But, in all RPG's, the mechanics are not prescriptive.  They are descriptive.  If the player chooses to do A, B or C or even X, the players then engage the mechanics in order to resolve the results of that action.  Which leads to each RPG table being a very idiosyncratic collection of resolutions that are virtually impossible to replicate at another table.  Because the mechanics are descriptive, player choices (whether they are a player or the DM/GM/whatever) will create a chain of events that will play out very differently at different tables.  To me, this is the essential difference between RPG's and non-RPG's.  The way the mechanics are used in play are very different.  You don't suddenly decide that your car runs over the thimble in Monopoly.  You can't.  It isn't allowed by the mechanics.  In any non-RPG, EVERY action is prescribed by the mechanics and this applies to board games, card games or computer games.  But an RPG does have this limitation.  If your PC's decide to cover a moon in invisible whale scrotum, they can do so (and yes, this is an actual event from an actual RPG that I ran - Sufficiently Advanced can get seriously weird).  Am I barking up the wrong tree  again?</blockquote>

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