Game rules are not the physics of the game world

[LostSoul]

I think we need to keep firmly in mind that we pretending that the game world is real, and isn't actually real. What are we going to measure game world reality by if not the rules? Aren't the rules pretty much all in existance so that we can measure the reality of an unreal place? Isn't that really what RPG's have rules for? Isn't that why role playing gamers tend to be fiends for measuring and quantifying everything? If we didn't have any rules, what actual measurements of a fictional universe would we have?

What do you mean by "measurements"? Some examples from actual game play would be helpful.

 

[Professor Phobos]

Well, yes, but they are flat out more likely to survive a coup de grace attack as well.

But you see my point, yes? If Superman is our analogy...you still can't kill Superman if he's asleep. Why should a 20th level Fighter be able to survive terrible injury...unless he's asleep? If you can not die from a single dagger thrust when awake and aware due to your hitpoints representing actual physical resiliency, why can you die from one if you're helpless? Shouldn't a would-be coup de gracer have to stab you again and again and again?

What are we going to measure game world reality by if not the rules?

Description. Fluff text. Genre assumptions.

Aren't the rules pretty much all in existance so that we can measure the reality of an unreal place? Isn't that really what RPG's have rules for? Isn't that why role playing gamers tend to be fiends for measuring and quantifying everything? If we didn't have any rules, what actual measurements of a fictional universe would we have?

Ah, measurement. Well, I don't really bother with them for the most part as I have no head for distances and tend to just be fast and loose about 'em, but where are they necessary outside of combat and a handful of edge cases? And what's wrong with inches, miles, kilometers?

In Call of Cthulhu??? You have got to be kidding. Let's say that the players really do know the hit points of the individual in question, and its greater than the maximum possible damage from the gun. If I'm playing an investigator, you can better believe that I'm going to say something like, "Mr. Manly weighed about 20 stone, and we've all seen him heft his own weight in the gym. I have a hard time believing that he was killed instantly by a single shot from a small caliber handgun." Because well, playing an investigator in Call of Cthullu, I'm going to have a hard time believing any one died merely because they were shot and I'm automatically going to be looking for things that seem odd and not quite right. Really big healthy guy killed by itty bitty gun is going to be one of the things that bother me.

Call of Cthulhu is expressly set in the real world, plus the Mythos. If I give them a corpse of a large, strong, healthy man with a .22 caliber bullet in his eye (I believe the .22 maxes at 16 hit points of damage; if our friend has 17 or 18 HP, he cannot die from it)....that's entirely possible in the real world. It's not possible mechanically.

I don't know about 'the boundaries'. That is a pretty abstract term and I don't know what you mean by it. But I do know that the measurements are established by the rules.

Don't think of abstract as firm versus vague. Think of it more like simple versus complex. Presumably most game worlds are vastly more complicated than their rules allow- D&D has no rules for insomnia, but presumably some people can't sleep. D&D has no rules for breaking your neck due to a bad fall- but presumably people break their necks sometimes. Even powerful, experienced, heroic people. Just not PCs- because unless the game is about sleeplessness in some way, there's no real reason to have rules for it.

Which is unfortunately very impercise and not very useful for conveying the sort of information you need to gain an understanding of something which isn't real - which is why games have alot of technical jargon.

I have a lot of faith in my ability to describe the game world vividly, with enough information for players to make decisions. If I'm vague or I leave out an important detail, it's easy enough to say, "Whoops! Sorry!"

Also, it's not like game mechanics are used descriptively all that often. Players need access to their own to have an idea of their capabilities, but it isn't as if I go around saying, "Orc 1 looks like he has a 19 strength!"

 

[Professor Phobos]

What do you mean by "measurements"? Some examples from actual game play would be helpful.

Yeah, I'm having a hard time following Celebrim's logic. I'd also like to see some concrete examples of his point(s).

Particularly the "inevitably cause you problem" line from a while ago.

 

[Celebrim]

What do you mean by "measurements"? Some examples from actual game play would be helpful.

Err... take your pick:

"1. a unit or standard of measurement: weights and measures.
2. a system of measurement: liquid measure.
3. an instrument, as a graduated rod or a container of standard capacity, for measuring.
4. the extent, dimensions, quantity, etc., of something, ascertained esp. by comparison with a standard: to take the measure of a thing.
5. the act or process of ascertaining the extent, dimensions, or quantity of something; measurement.
6. a definite or known quantity measured out: to drink a measure of wine.
7. any standard of comparison, estimation, or judgment.
8. a quantity, degree, or proportion: in large measure."

RPG rules are all about measurements. RPG quantify things. They measure encumbrance, hit points, damage, strength, intelligence, wisdom, charisma, diplomatic ability, the ability to tumble, the sharpness of a sword, the ability to resist damage from fire, the difficulty of a spell, a person's experience, thier willpower, thier resistance to disease, and so on and so forth. They assign numbers to all sorts of categorizations that then have tangible effects in the game, size classes, wind speed, levels of economic activity, and on and on ad infinitum. Even alot of things that don't look like measurements, actually are measurements. For example, RPGs quantify how hot or cold things are by how much damage you are subject to when exposed to them. If you didn't have a rule for how much damage a hot or cold thing did when it something was exposed it, for all practical purposes the thing wouldn't be hot or cold. It's temperature has to be concretely measured because it has no reality until it is.

I actually have a funny story about that. In early 1st edition, a DM I was acquainted with related a story about how he'd tried to have a cold, hard, rain in his game world. But his players weren't impressed with his vivid description. Because at the time the rules didn't cover exposure to environmental effects and the DM didn't know how to smith some out on the spur of the moment, there was no in game consequence to the cold. You could just march on while abstractly 'cold and wet' because, in as far as the game was concerned the characters weren't actually cold and wet. The DM was outraged. The players in his opinion weren't playing right, because he imagined a really cold wet rain that no one would really want to be out in. But the thing is, that cold wet rain existed only in his head, and the rules had no tangible means of conveying cold. In fact, the fault wasn't with the players. The fault was the world the DM wanted to describe didn't exist under the rules, and he lacked the experience (or inclination) to cause the universe he wanted to come into being. He did however, have an alternative means of communicating the experience of cold. He said, "Fine. Lets take game outside." When it started raining a few minutes, the players agreed that thier characters would find shelter.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Why is it OK (in your playstyle) for the GM to stipulate the dice, rather than roll them (to exercise "autonomy", as you put it above)? But not OK (in your playstyle) for the GM (or the players, in some cases) to stipulate matters without regard to the action-resolution mechanics?

Again, not a rhetorical question. I'm trying to work out the internal logic of the permissible parameters of stipulation.

My answer is in a league with Kahuna Burger's. The believability of a world hinges on consistency, and if things outside the direct actions of the PC's are inconsistent with the direct actions of the PC's, it does all those things, for me, that Celebrim summarized above.

I have much less of a problem with the world not working like the Real World. I can accept that some few elite and blessed people (e.g.: those with high levels) just aren't going to die from simply falling out of their saddle, even though, in the real-world, such a thing is impossible. It is more believable for me to embrace a world that is heroic at all times in the game, rather than to embrace a world that is run first by the rules of narrative convenience, because narrative convenience in the context of the game is highly unsatisfying for me for reasons I've definately gone over. D&D, for me, is not a storytelling game, any more than Scrabble is. It's not a simulation game any more than Monopoly is. I don't need it to simulate a realistic world, or to simulate narrative. I need it to evoke a genre, that is, heroic adventure, in the context of a game, that is, with rules. Part of the way it does that is by making high-level characters near-godlike in their actual power, not just, IMO, by giving them more storytelling or world-emulating powers. Hit points don't go away when the camera is off any more than the ability to cast fireball goes away when the camera is off. I don't see hit points as literal physics, either (no D&D scientist could discover a thing called a Hit Point, though they certainly could note that more experienced warriors are capable of enduring pain that would end the lives of others).

For me, that's part of embracing a fantasy world. Goblins and dragons and people who can bend physics to their will and clerics who can raise the dead and warriors who can survive things that would kill a lesser mortal. None of these things are narrative devices, they are all permenant features of the world. The D&D rules certainly support this interpretation what with 20th level commoners and NPCs gaining XP and all.

If the stipulation falls outside of what the mechanics describe, it breaks consistency, which breaks believability, and leads me to loose trust in the DM, which results in a poor game for me.

 

[Talislan]

I think we need to keep firmly in mind that we pretending that the game world is real, and isn't actually real. What are we going to measure game world reality by if not the rules? Aren't the rules pretty much all in existance so that we can measure the reality of an unreal place? Isn't that really what RPG's have rules for? Isn't that why role playing gamers tend to be fiends for measuring and quantifying everything? If we didn't have any rules, what actual measurements of a fictional universe would we have?
QUOTE]

This whole thread seems like a very interesting argument within the realms of 'people have different opinions about things'.

Besides that I finally found a point that I can jump in on. In answer to your question Celebrim, IMO, a fictional universe is always measured by the imagination of the visitor. Imagination itself is extremely difficult to either measure or quantify as it is based on individual experience and individual reaction to said experience. You cannot however put a rule on imagination that says 'if person X experiences A,B & C the resulting reaction (as per the laws of physics) is that they will imagine Y'. Such rules do not exist in our make-up as part of an ever expanding universe.

For this reason alone Rules are brought in not to interpret laws of physics in the imagination, but to put controls in place in the imagination so that different peoples concept of a given fantasy can be played out with other people.

This puts no restriction or governance on the laws of physics within a gameworld. It merely places parameters that are acceptible to multiple imaginations in place so that intereactions between said imaginations can take place.

The 'Physics' of the world (again IMO) are an outcome of the combination of the DM and Players imaginations, and the rules that they have used to allow said imaginations to interact.

In conclusion I put forward that the rules are a mathematical mechanic for drawing together different imaginative processes in order to create a representation of what the physics of a fantasy universe might look like, in a cohesive image that can be applied in all individual imaginations involved.
This does make rules integral to establishing laws of physics, beyond DM Fiat (ie in absolute complete non narrative gaming, which doesn't exist), but it does not make the Rules 'the laws of physics' of the game world. That would be like saying mathematics is the Laws of Physics in the real world.


Which side I have just agreed with I have no idea, but hopefully you see my point.

Personally I prefer 'The DM's word is LAW, if that is beyond your suspension of disbelief then you are playing with the wrong DM'.

 

[LostSoul]

Cool, actual game play experiences. That's something I can understand.

I actually have a funny story about that. In early 1st edition, a DM I was acquainted with related a story about how he'd tried to have a cold, hard, rain in his game world. But his players weren't impressed with his vivid description. Because at the time the rules didn't cover exposure to environmental effects and the DM didn't know how to smith some out on the spur of the moment, there was no in game consequence to the cold. You could just march on while abstractly 'cold and wet' because, in as far as the game was concerned the characters weren't actually cold and wet. The DM was outraged. The players in his opinion weren't playing right, because he imagined a really cold wet rain that no one would really want to be out in. But the thing is, that cold wet rain existed only in his head, and the rules had no tangible means of conveying cold. In fact, the fault wasn't with the players. The fault was the world the DM wanted to describe didn't exist under the rules, and he lacked the experience (or inclination) to cause the universe he wanted to come into being. He did however, have an alternative means of communicating the experience of cold. He said, "Fine. Lets take game outside." When it started raining a few minutes, the players agreed that thier characters would find shelter.

That sounds like the cold & rain was "colour". To me that means something you describe that does not impact the resolution mechanics. Red hair on your fighter, for example, is colour. A slick, wet moss on a cliff face is not - it changes the Climb DC.

The players decided to ignore the colour. Did they say "It's not raining?" or "We are not wet?" Or did they say, "It's cold, but I'm tough; the cold doesn't bother me" and "Sure it's raining, but I'm a seasoned adventurer and I could keep dry in a monsoon." If the former, then the DM did not have the authority to bring colour into the game; if the latter, then he did, and the players can't just ignore it.

You don't need something to mechanically impact the resolution mechanics in order for it to exist in the game. The rain and cold still existed, just as colour.

Now: who decides who can introduce new colour into the game, what is colour and what isn't, when colour becomes something more - all these are handled by the system/rules. I'm not sure how that ties into "The rules define the physics of the game world."

 

[Celebrim]

You don't need something to mechanically impact the resolution mechanics in order for it to exist in the game. The rain and cold still existed, just as colour.

We need to carefully say what we mean by 'exist'. In the real world, when we say that something exists, we mean that it has the power to actually have a tangible impact on the universe. Normally, when we say that something really exists, exactly what we mean is that it has a mechanical impact on the universe. If it doesn't, then we say that the thing either doesn't exist or is sufficiently abstract that it may exist, but that we can't quantify it. We might say that 'love' exists, but it doesn't exist in the same way 'a brick' does.

I'm not sure how that ties into "The rules define the physics of the game world."

You just defined a term 'color' to refer to things that exist in the game but have no actual mechanical effect. These things actually exist outside of the rules, and hense the physics of the game. If they existed in the rules, then they would have a mechanical effect. If they were part of the physics of the game, then they would have a mechanical effect. This is because the rules of the game and its physics are inseparable (as I've described).

Lets say that 'color' exists. Well, we can certainly say that 'color' is not part of the physics of the game. But we can't say that because 'color' exists, the game rules are not the physics of the game world. And I further assert that since this thing called 'color' isn't part of the physics of the game world, its existance is of a different sort than those things which are defined by the physics of the game world.

I would define the role of color by analogy. In a program, you have several different types of statements. You will have actual statements in the programming language, things like 'if (<this>) then <do this>'. These are like rules. Then you will have comments, like 'This is a search reutine'. Both sorts of statements 'exist', but the existance of the two things is of different sorts. In particular, when it comes time for the compiler to figure out what you intend the computer to do, all the comments are removed from the code and have no effect on the actual resolution. In point in of fact, in the actual real and tangible program, the comments don't exist. They exist merely to help someone understand what the rules are for. 'Color' is like the comments. It helps clarify what the rules are accomplishing, but when it actually comes down to it 'color' doesn't exist in the same tangible way that rules do. It's a non-physical existance.

This is what I keep talking about when I say that if something isn't a rule, for practical purposes it doesn't really exist. Once the 'color' becomes tangible, 'this thing is solid therefore you can't just walk through it without magical assistance' then that ruling about the color takes on the same attributes of any other rule because it has a mechanical effect. It becomes established precedent 'this object has the attribute solid, objects like it can expected to be solid, and objects with the attribute solid can't be passed through without some defined exception'.

 

[Professor Phobos]

If I say it is cold and raining, I expect my players to do things like: "My character puts on his poncho, or stands in an alcove, or stands there shivering and complaining about the cold."

It's a hook they can hang roleplaying on. It doesn't need to penalize ranged attacks or have any other mechanical impact to have a tangible impact on the game via roleplaying.

The fault in your example is clearly with the players. I don't expect much from players, but I expect them to be more than just accountants managing a set of numbers on their sheet. I expect them to be playing characters that are engaged with and contributing to the story and world that I (and they) describe and share in our heads.

 

[Celebrim]

But you see my point, yes? If Superman is our analogy...you still can't kill Superman if he's asleep.

The problem with analogies is that they are never perfect one to and onto relationships with the thing that they represent. If you push the analogy past the point it was intended to make, don't be surprised if it doesn't work.

Why should a 20th level Fighter be able to survive terrible injury...unless he's asleep? If you can not die from a single dagger thrust when awake and aware due to your hitpoints representing actual physical resiliency, why can you die from one if you're helpless? Shouldn't a would-be coup de gracer have to stab you again and again and again?

In the case of a commoner stabing a 20th level fighter, that's the expected result. He'll almost certainly make his Fort save, and it will takes maybe a dozen stabs to actually kill him. Exactly how the game justifies this isn't really the question. The point is that however the justification, this is how the game universe works.

Description. Fluff text. Genre assumptions.

If those are enforcable, if they have any mechanical effect, then those sound like synonyms for 'rules'. And if they aren't, they don't sound like a means of precise communication.

Call of Cthulhu is expressly set in the real world, plus the Mythos.

Doesn't really have anything to do with anything. By 'expressly set in the real world' what you mean is that it more formally than most has as a rule that where silent, you may assume that things work like the real world, and that this rule includes things like geography, history, and so forth. I would argue that D&D is expressly set in the real world, plus the fact the D&D magic and the differences in geography and history, but that would probably just confuse you. The main point is that the world that Call of Cthulhu actually takes place in is really just an imaginary space shared between the players which has certain rules.

If I give them a corpse of a large, strong, healthy man with a .22 caliber bullet in his eye (I believe the .22 maxes at 16 hit points of damage; if our friend has 17 or 18 HP, he cannot die from it)....that's entirely possible in the real world. It's not possible mechanically.

You aren't setting the precedent you think you are setting. The actual you just set is, "In this universe, if you manage to put a bullet from a .22 in someones eye, then it does more than 16 points of damage." And that precedent would I think come back to haunt you, because you are inviting players 'in the know' to figure out how the NPC did more than 16 points of damage with a .22 handgun. You are going to get questions like, "What if I hold a the hand gun to the monsters eye, can I do extra damage if it doesn't move? Why not, when I know that it did extra damage to Mr. Manly?" And the problem is, you will probably blame that behavior on the player and say, 'he's not roleplaying right', and maybe some of the other players at the table will feel the same because they 'know' you have to overlook some inconsistancies and mistakes for the sake of getting on with the game. But let's not be too hard on Mr. Gamist here. From his perspective, he's just responding to the information you've given him. The problem would have been completely avoided if you'd actually created the universe that you wanted to tell the story in, or actually paid attention to the setting while you were creating the story. For example, would the story have worked fine if you'd just shot Mr. Manly with a bigger gun, given him fewer hit points, or shot him twice?

The other issue is that I doubt a referee with your perspective would have paid much attention to making sure that the bullet wound was obviously lethal because he isn't thinking about the game world physics. So its highly likely that in your presentation, you would have presented the scene in a way that as Mr. Gamist explored it, he would have found further inconsistancies between what you described and the game worlds physics as he understood them.

Don't think of abstract as firm versus vague. Think of it more like simple versus complex. Presumably most game worlds are vastly more complicated than their rules allow

Why presume this? Functionally, the game worlds are not more complicated than thier rules. True, its true that presumably, the rules are incomplete. The rule for insomnia doesn't need to be created until insomnia needs to be measured, but insomnia doesn't actually exist until we give it some substance. No one actually sleep until you give them insomnia, and not sleeping has no effect until you define one. NPC's with insomnia aren't fatigued until you say, 'Because he has insomnia, he is fatigued and can't recover his spells'. People in D&D probably have broken necks all the time. It's called 'Getting dropped to -10 hit points with one blow', or rather its one possible color you can give that mechanical event. But broken necks aren't anything different than crushed skulls until you define how they are different, and hense don't have existance in that sense. D&D doesn't have 'Fortune at the end' wound mechanics. You can't say, 'Because he has a broken neck, he has -10 hit points.' Or rather you can, but as soon as you do you are implying to the players the existence of 'Fortune at the end' mechanics that they can use to subvert D&D's normal combat rules.