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<blockquote data-quote="ST" data-source="post: 4860317" data-attributes="member: 14053">The game anyone ever actually plays, at the table, isn't the one in the book. It's made up of the dialog between people at the table, talking about what happens in the imaginary game world.The mechanics reinforce this, and provide support to it, but the mechanics aren't really descriptive of everything that happens during the process of playing a RPG. It really comes down to group preference, too -- I don't think I've ever had anyone in my games in the last five years who particularly cared much about the mechanics beyond &quot;What resources do I have, and how can I use them?&quot;, so it wouldn't be an issue. I pretty much ran a modern occult game this way; we started with D20 Modern, with the appropriate character sheets, but early on the player's nonmechanical plots and plans (along with Action Points as kind of a currency) took center stage. We didn't end up using the mechanics much at all, and we in fact switched over to FATE after two sessions. It didn't really change the way the game played out much at all. To be fair, this wasn't hidden at all -- it was kind of like, okay, we can use the basic rules as written, but how about we do things more cinematically and give players more narrative powers. It was more &quot;Oh, look, we sort of houseruled enough addon stuff to the system that it's taken over.&quot;If your group's social contract includes a strong focus on the mechanics, then yeah I wouldn't do this, but I think in general everything from fudging dice to downright ignoring the rulebook entirely and freeforming for a while still falls under the realm of roleplaying, so it doesn't bother me in the abstract.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="ST, post: 4860317, member: 14053"] The game anyone ever actually plays, at the table, isn't the one in the book. It's made up of the dialog between people at the table, talking about what happens in the imaginary game world. The mechanics reinforce this, and provide support to it, but the mechanics aren't really descriptive of everything that happens during the process of playing a RPG. It really comes down to group preference, too -- I don't think I've ever had anyone in my games in the last five years who particularly cared much about the mechanics beyond "What resources do I have, and how can I use them?", so it wouldn't be an issue. I pretty much ran a modern occult game this way; we started with D20 Modern, with the appropriate character sheets, but early on the player's nonmechanical plots and plans (along with Action Points as kind of a currency) took center stage. We didn't end up using the mechanics much at all, and we in fact switched over to FATE after two sessions. It didn't really change the way the game played out much at all. To be fair, this wasn't hidden at all -- it was kind of like, okay, we can use the basic rules as written, but how about we do things more cinematically and give players more narrative powers. It was more "Oh, look, we sort of houseruled enough addon stuff to the system that it's taken over." If your group's social contract includes a strong focus on the mechanics, then yeah I wouldn't do this, but I think in general everything from fudging dice to downright ignoring the rulebook entirely and freeforming for a while still falls under the realm of roleplaying, so it doesn't bother me in the abstract. [/QUOTE]

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