Forked Thread: Should players know the rules?

[Nymrohd]

Players should know enough about the rules not to slow the game to a halt. So a 3E caster needs to be a rules master at mid to high levels.
I'm planning a new campaign with some people who haven't played D&D for quite some time (except for a 1-shot in 3.0) but tbh I am not much worried, 4E is very player-friendly.

 

[Korgoth]

If you're playing 3E, 4E, Flames of War, Field of Glory, Starfleet Battles, Federation Commander or Air War, you should probably know the rules.

If you're playing OD&D, Petal Throne, Call of Cthulhu or Traveller, knowing the rules probably isn't necessary.

 

[fanboy2000]

If I'm playing a game where the players are allowed to know the rules, then my philosophy is "the less the they know, the more I can get away with."

 

[Reynard]

I'm always interested in how perceptions vary. Personally I picked to run 4e as my next campaign in large part because it requires less rules mastery from players who aren't into that (I'd say that 3 of my 4 players are not all that into rules mastery). My wife is playing a Cleric and she is a smart woman but a pretty casual gamer. She was able to fairly easily grasp the powers and feats available to her and select choices that she considered to capture the flavor she wanted while still being fairly good choices (in terms of optimizing) for her stats.

The character generation/advancement mini-game of 4E is less complex than that of 3E, but I think the in-play complexity is higher. not only do you have a fairly equal amount of fiddly bits to work with, tactics wise, you also have the added complexity of a much greater emphasis on group/team tactics and interactions. Whether this counts as "rules", though, is uncertain.

 

[Erekose]

I don't necessarily expect a player to know all the rules for their character at the start, but I do expect them to learn those rules. Once you've played a character for a level or so, you've probably got the basics down pretty solidly, and from there the changes are incremental, and easy to pick up.

What he said

 

[Ourph]

I always find it very interesting that RPGs are basically the only game out there where players aren't automatically expected to know the rules. If someone showed up at our weekly soccer game and said "I just want to run around kicking the ball as hard as I can, I'm not interested in learning the rules." they'd be booed off the field. Yet if someone shows up at an RPG game saying basically the same thing, half the people there give him a round of applause for being a "real roleplayer" or something.

It just boggles my mind.

 

[RFisher]

If people can learn the rules to multiple games on board/card game night, then they can certainly learn a single set of rules for RPG night. If they can't, then the rules are too complex. If they won't, then they shouldn't be playing.

Seriously, you can't play a game you don't know (and are unable/unwilling to learn) the rules too. Full stop. Why is this even a question?

I always find it very interesting that RPGs are basically the only game out there where players aren't automatically expected to know the rules. If someone showed up at our weekly soccer game and said "I just want to run around kicking the ball as hard as I can, I'm not interested in learning the rules." they'd be booed off the field. Yet if someone shows up at an RPG game saying basically the same thing, half the people there give him a round of applause for being a "real roleplayer" or something.

It just boggles my mind.

It’s because role-playing games are different. Heck, they arguably aren’t “games” at all. (Similar to how there is debate over whether SimCity is a game or a toy.)

 

[Mark]

Should players know the rules?

Sure. I would think owning the PH and either knowing the rules or being able to look them up quickly would be useful.

 

[Philotomy Jurament]

I always find it very interesting that RPGs are basically the only game out there where players aren't automatically expected to know the rules.

If I were getting ready to play chess, and someone who never played chess sat down to play against me, it wouldn't be a "real game" when we played. It would be a "teaching session" while the new person learned the rules. In a game like chess, knowing the rules is necessary for meaningful play.

When I sit down to play D&D, and someone who has never played D&D joins the game, it would still be a real game. Certainly there would be some learning about how everything works, but it would still be a meaningful, real game of D&D. The new player can tell me what his character is doing, and I will react and describe the scene accordingly. A new player sitting down with a table of experienced players can easily have a meaningful contribution to the game -- all without knowing the rules. It's simply not necessary in the same way that it's necessary to know the rules for chess in order to have a meaningful game.

This is especially true of the older versions of D&D, I think. It's probably less true for modern D&D.

 

[greatamericanfolkher]

The player should know enough to run their character. That's all that I ask as a DM.