Game rules are not the physics of the game world

[Imban]

Well, you broke Celebrim, but I'll go out on a limb and say that what you are describing with P-TA isn't what he's talking about with the coin flip game.

Actually, he is. You can get the same result in Wushu too. It's just that all of those games have at least an implicit "No, don't be an arsehat" rule wherein the other players can refuse your attempt to make "I jump to Mars" part of your narration. I know some have it explicitly, like Wushu.

 

[Celebrim]

...leaving one person's choice to never kill 20th level fighters of any sort with horse accidents, or another person's choice to murder epic-level wizards with heart attacks largely a matter of what kind of game you're going to enjoy.

Not that it matters much at this point, but even this confuses the problem.

You can be expressly playing where the rules apply on and off stage, and these rules can conform to the RAW, and still epic-level wizards can still die of heart attacks.

Obviously, any rules governing heart attacks - should we need any - would be completely house rules. It won't be particularly hard to have such rules, and not have them apply meaningful to the PC's (all PC's are presumed to be healthy, not obese, with no family history of heart ailments, and no other pertinant risk factors) while still either dicing every month to see if notably fat, elderly, pipe smoking NPC's kicked the bucket, or simply deciding that that famous old pipe smoking wizard has finally had too much excitement and had a heart attack and died. None of that creates dissonance between the game universe as the PC's experience it, and what is happening in the game universe off-stage.

Or in short, we can do this and not make the players expressedly conscious of the fact that the universe divides into on stage and off stage. The same is not true of 'falling off a horse' if we have communicated to the players rules for falling off horses that make the observed result impossible.

 

[Celebrim]

Actually, he is. You can get the same result in Wushu too. It's just that all of those games have at least an implicit "No, don't be an arsehat" rule wherein the other players can refuse your attempt to make "I jump to Mars" part of your narration. I know some have it explicitly, like Wushu.

Yes, but I was describing a hypothetical game system with one rule. Rules of the sort you describe have been discussed earlier in the thread. If d2 had such a rule in it, I would have had to list it among the rules of the d2 game system.

But I wanted to talk about a theoretically 'most simple' game system, to avoid complicating the discussion. The more rules I added to the system, the more easily people would get sidetracked and start arguing things that were interesting but not particularly relevant to the point. In particular, a rule like 'Don't be an arsehat', turns out to not be a single rule at all, but a metarule that describes a whole huge set of house rules that are to be dynamically created by the referee. Most playable game systems have this rule, implicitly or explicitly. For example, I discussed earlier the notion of solid objects in D&D. 'No you can't walk through a brick wall without magical aid.', is a house rule generated under D&D's implicit version of what you are calling the 'Don't be an arsehat' rule. We could have a whole thread discussing just that sort of metarule, and what problems it either created or solved.

For the purposes of this discussion though, what matters is that the rules created dynamically under such a metarule are themselves rules which are in force once created. After they are created, the general expectation is that everyone obeys the same rule unless they have an explicit exemption. If you tell a player, "No you can't walk through a brick wall without magical aid!", if he sees a NPC walk through a brick wall, he has the reasonble expectation that something magical was involved. His first assumption won't be, "The universe works differently depending on whether it is a PC or NPC", and I would argue that if that is your player's first assumption, you have or are about to have a problem.

 

[AZRogue]

Well, I certainly don't begrudge anyone their right to play in as complicated or rules-intensive a game as they choose. If that's what you like to do, no one should be able to stop you.

I, however, really hope that 4E holds to the ideal of simplicity. Hopefully they do this by having few "tacked on" mini rule-sets and try to approach as many problems as possible with the very effective: resolution mechanic combined with DM-as-Arbiter. Leave it to the 3rd party publishers to design the rulebook on "Effective Agriculture: Corn; It Will a-Maize You!".

 

[I'm A Banana]

Or in short, we can do this and not make the players expressedly conscious of the fact that the universe divides into on stage and off stage. The same is not true of 'falling off a horse' if we have communicated to the players rules for falling off horses that make the observed result impossible.

Right, it's not the best of comparisons.

It's just that all of those games have at least an implicit "No, don't be an arsehat" rule wherein the other players can refuse your attempt to make "I jump to Mars" part of your narration.

It's an important difference, I think that Celebrim's example did not.

Because D&D doesn't, anywhere that I can see.

And such a rule, for me, at least, would do little to improve my D&D experience. Quite the opposite, actually, where I think part of the enjoyment of D&D for me is saying "I jump to Mars," rolling some dice, and having the DM and the rest of the players react to that which they couldn't imagine a moment before.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I, however, really hope that 4E holds to the ideal of simplicity. Hopefully they do this by having few "tacked on" mini rule-sets and try to approach as many problems as possible with the very effective: resolution mechanic combined with DM-as-Arbiter. Leave it to the 3rd party publishers to design the rulebook on "Effective Agriculture: Corn; It Will a-Maize You!".

I pretty much agree with everything, with the possible quibble that I really hate heavy DM arbitration, and so derive immeasurably more enjoyment from a system where the DM can turn to the rules for arbitration, and mostly just puts together rules to achieve the goal he wants, except in corner cases and other wierdness where the DM arbitration is handy because, as mentioned, no rules system can describe the whole world.

DM arbitration is a powerful tool, and a necessary one, but I'd like to NEED to be employed as rarely as possible. I say this as a player, and as a DM who prefers to use rules rather than to just talk it out.

 

[AZRogue]

If d2 had such a rule in it, I would have had to list it among the rules of the d2 game system.

Do you really think that it would have to be included as part of the rules? Don't you think, instead, that the level of limitation would spring naturally from the actions attempted by the player and those allowed by the other players and DM (if the game had one)? It would actually make for some interesting scenarios where one group is more than happy to allow people to jump to the Moon while another is unwilling to allow someone to do a handstand. Listing the limitation as a rule would be uneeded.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Do you really think that it would have to be included as part of the rules? Don't you think, instead, that the level of limitation would spring naturally from the actions attempted by the player and those allowed by the other players and DM (if the game had one)? It would actually make for some interesting scenarios where one group is more than happy to allow people to jump to the Moon while another is unwilling to allow someone to do a handstand. Listing the limitation as a rule would be uneeded.

It won't necessarily spring naturally, and even if it does, it would tend to be arbitrary and based on "narrative," which would exclude certain types of players.

Plus, there's the aforementioned joy of having everyone at the table say "no, that's impossible!" but having the rules say "yes!" and having it be possible. That's EXCEPTIONALLY evocative of the whole heroic motif for me.

 

[AZRogue]

I pretty much agree with everything, with the possible quibble that I really hate heavy DM arbitration, and so derive immeasurably more enjoyment from a system where the DM can turn to the rules for arbitration, and mostly just puts together rules to achieve the goal he wants, except in corner cases and other wierdness where the DM arbitration is handy because, as mentioned, no rules system can describe the whole world.

DM arbitration is a powerful tool, and a necessary one, but I'd like to NEED to be employed as rarely as possible. I say this as a player, and as a DM who prefers to use rules rather than to just talk it out.

Ah, well, it's just a preference thing then. The most successful and FUN games I've ever had were where DMs used heavy arbitration, and therefore PCs were more free to do those things that felt the most natural to them.

I remember a player propping up his longsword in a cloud dragon's mouth to keep it from closing on the cleric and killing him. I didn't try to find the rule on whether it was possible; it was creative and so I ran with it and made him roll to hit and let him pull it off.

That's the kind of thing I mean. It's cinematic and exciting and the player hadn't paused to look on his sheet for the stat on how to prop up swords to keep dragons from closing their mouths, and I didn't go looking through the books for a rule that I knew didn't exist. Maybe there SHOULD have been a rule for it, but with a resolution mechanic it wouldn't have been needed. I could have just used that and it would have felt the same as any other action (this was back in 2E, no simple resolution mechanics anywhere ).

 

[I'm A Banana]

Ah, well, it's just a preference thing then. The most successful and FUN games I've ever had were where DMs used heavy arbitration, and therefore PCs were more free to do those things that felt the most natural to them.

The thing about heavy arbitration is that it's extremely dependant on how good of a DM you have. The most successful and fun games have heavy arbitration, but the most awful, boring, and slow games have heavy arbitration, too. A good narrative DM doesn't need many rules beyond "what I say goes." They can tell a good story no matter what system they use, just because they're naturally engaging, they know neat tricks, and when they make a descision, you know it's going to be basically for the better.

But no one starts off as a good DM, and the great ones are rare, and I don't think D&D should require a naturally good DM to be enjoyable to play. The rules are there, IMO, to ensure that otherwise good DMs don't do something that scuttles their own game because they are imperfect human beings, as well as to give the vast majority of mediocre and semi-decent DMs out there something to turn to.

This, IIRC, was, in part, 3e's philosophy. Give them good rules, and they won't need a talented DM to have fun. It's a philosophy I wholeheartedly support, as a lazy, improv-heavy DM who would rather play the game than write the rules. I understand that 3e went a bit too extreme in this direction, though, and I'll be happy to see 4e reign it in, I'm just worried they'll go too far in some places, weakening, in my mind, the game I love.

That's the kind of thing I mean. It's cinematic and exciting and the player hadn't paused to look on his sheet for the stat on how to prop up swords to keep dragons from closing their mouths, and I didn't go looking through the books for a rule that I knew didn't exist. Maybe there SHOULD have been a rule for it, but with a resolution mechanic it wouldn't have been needed. I could have just used that and it would have felt the same as any other action (this was back in 2E, no simple resolution mechanics anywhere).

The rule of DM arbitration is an important and necessary one, I just don't want my fun as a player to depend on the lottery of DM quality, and I don't want my fun as a DM to depend on my ability/desire to make things up as I go. The heavier DM arbitration is emphasized, the more the game depends on good DMs. Good DMs have the best games, but I do want our medoicre and sub-par DMs to be able to run a fun game, too.