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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ariosto" data-source="post: 4850758" data-attributes="member: 80487">There are a couple of negative effects rules can have on a mode of play:(A) They can actively work against it.(B) They can make it less intuitive.One can solve (A) by changing the rules, but (B) may bode against that in the sense that beyond some point there's little point in having started with (or claiming still to be playing) the particular game in question. A high degree of rules integration also poses practical problems, greater the more rules there are. It is easier to keep track of what one is doing and maintain consistency when adding rules of one's own to a simple framework than when changing or removing components of a complex system.In an RPG, mere accumulation of rules can have effect B on role-playing. Where there's no rule for a situation, one is forced to look at the situation itself in coming up with a ruling. When can simply roll dice and look up numbers, it's easy to keep one's attention focused on the mechanical abstraction rather than on what a character would perceive.That effect somewhat depends on the degree to which character players -- as opposed to the referee -- manipulate mechanics. It's hard to "play the numbers" when one does not know the numbers in the first place. Moreover, the need for the referee and players to communicate in sensory and sensible (rather than game-jargon) terms helps keep the one dealing with mechanics grounded in the imagined world. Whether assessment is in purely realistic or dramatic terms, the situation itself gets attention.Thoroughly dissociated mechanics, making no sense from a character's perspective, are an example of class A interference with role-playing. A player must deal with the game construct, and primarily with it, in order to play effectively.Chance factors likewise interfere with the unfolding of a predetermined story. High PC casualty rates interfere with a game simultaneously involving a lot of combat and long term character development. A high lower bound for how long it takes to resolve an encounter works against having many encounters per session. Resource management requires resources to manage, and strategy requires significantly better and worse options. There are many ways in which rules tailored to one style can handicap another.I would say that 2E offers very little in the way of class A barriers to "old school" play, and that even the class B effects are very weak if one is already acquainted with, and inclined to, that style.The effect of the "game philosophy" presented might be more profound if it shapes one's formative impression of what D&D is "about", though. It can be seen as undermining the old game simply by failing to propagate it. While I think it may have done too little in that regard (considering that something billed as an official recension of D&D is rightly judged by standards not applicable to something making no such claim), it remains a work quite usable with a traditional understanding.</blockquote>

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