Game rules are not the physics of the game world

Celebrim said:
But that's exactly what the players of the aforementioned DM who had a problem communicating cold did!

Well, you should have mentioned that in the example! What was the DM's problem, then?

But can you at least credit that its existance is of a very different character than if it had a mechanical effect. That is to say, its still not a part of the physics of the game world?

Oh, sure. If I'm playing a game detailed enough that a cold rain has some kind of effect I want to avoid, my reaction will be based on that. But that doesn't mean I won't react to a cold rain without mechanical backup, so to speak, which is what I thought you were talking about.


Just as an aside, that is one of the many reasons I don't play games like Dogs. I don't want a game that tells me what stories I'm supposed to tell. I want a game that gives me the mechanics to tell the stories I want to tell, no matter what conflicts those stories involve ('man vs. nature' is pretty classic and definately appropriate to the setting). (The DitV mechanics could be adapted to anything, but I have other problems with the game.)

Well, naturally, but if you want to play a game like Dogs, Dogs is an excellent choice. It exchanges versatility for focus.





Don't knock my style until you know what it is.

That sounds like a great session, especially since I was going to bring in a very similar example to prove my point. Which strikes me as indicating we may be talking past each other...


Within the framework of the universe he has described so as to maintain consistancy and believability, yes.

But, back to the initial example, the knight breaking his neck is entirely within the framework of and consistent with the universe. It's completely believable by those guidelines- if I describe a world of mortal men, accidents, misery, disease, mud, rats and sinking boats, then why would anyone not believe in High King Badass getting spilled by his horse and landing bad?

But by your standard, since it contradicts the mechanics, it isn't believable. What we are trying to say is that the mechanics are not the only determining factor for believability and consistency; indeed sticking to them as literally the laws of physics conjures enormous problems with regard to a believable world. The purpose of mechanics is not to create a world, or a basis for which a world can be derived. Mechanics are designed for game play purposes. They're designed for fairness. Tactical interest. Ease of use. Speed. Things of that nature. They're not designed, nor are they capable of, simulating a fictional world.

For that you need an intelligent arbiter (or a group of them, in a shared-narrative style) to describe the world beyond the mechanics, how the mechanics relate to the world and what they represent, if anything.
 

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Celebrim said:
you are informing the player that in making decisions he can ingore the cold.

No, you're not. You're just saying that you're not interested in this conflict, not that the character is immune to cold.

I could use the cold in an upcoming Dodge/Block, saying that "The chill in your hands makes you pull the trigger a second too late, giving him enough time to duck behind the barrel."

The cold is still colour, but it exists and has an impact on the game, even though it's not impacting the mechanics. (I'm not getting extra dice for invoking the cold.)

I mean, later on, Fallout could include frostbite from the cold. It's important, it exists, but it's not impacting the resolution.
 

Celebrim said:
I have a bit less tolerance for that stance as a DM, because money isn't at stake. This is for fun. I have even less tolerance for that stance if the director isn't actually self-critical, and is giving the actors bad direction.

It's not my cup of tea, either, but not everyone who plays D&D needs to deal with egomaniacal directors on a near-constant basis, so they might have more tolerance for it. ;)

It doesn't work for you, and it wouldn't work for me, but the world's a rich and wonderful place, ne?

Professor Phobos said:
But, back to the initial example, the knight breaking his neck is entirely within the framework of and consistent with the universe. It's completely believable by those guidelines- if I describe a world of mortal men, accidents, misery, disease, mud, rats and sinking boats, then why would anyone not believe in High King Badass getting spilled by his horse and landing bad?

But by your standard, since it contradicts the mechanics, it isn't believable.

Well, for me, it seems that that unless you've changed the mechanics, the world isn't believable. The D&D rules do contradict such a world in a few places, so if I were to play in a world like that, I'd expect there to be mechanics to represent that the world is different.

Otherwise, like the cold rain, it doesn't matter. It's all color. It is, for me and my players, boring, superfluous, indulgent, and trivial. Not objectively, but simply because the styles don't mesh. I'd want rules like Nyambe's rule of giving diseases SR, or a rule like E6's rules for level limits and alternate progression, in order to keep the rules consistent with what the PC's face.

They're not designed, nor are they capable of, simulating a fictional world.

For that you need an intelligent arbiter (or a group of them, in a shared-narrative style) to describe the world beyond the mechanics, how the mechanics relate to the world and what they represent, if anything.

The mechanics are usually pretty clear in what they represent, which is why, if the world isn't represented by them, it seems inconsistent to me.
 

Celebrim said:
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.

They're not quite "wound mechanics," but the D&D drowning rules are rather like that:

SRD said:
Drowning
Any character can hold her breath for a number of rounds equal to twice her Constitution score. After this period of time, the character must make a DC 10 Constitution check every round in order to continue holding her breath. Each round, the DC increases by 1. See also: Swim skill description.

When the character finally fails her Constitution check, she begins to drown. In the first round, she falls unconscious (0 hp). In the following round, she drops to -1 hit points and is dying. In the third round, she drowns.

It is possible to drown in substances other than water, such as sand, quicksand, fine dust, and silos full of grain.
 

Celebrim said:
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.

Would it be useful to consider your "opponent's" position to be that "everything that occurs off-screen is 'color,' and thus its existence is of a different sort than those things which occur to and around the PC's"?
 

I suspect this whole phase of the argument is really over what people mean by "physics of the game world."

Yes. Everything off-screen is color if you want to call it that.
 

Celebrim said:
Absolutely. So what? Everything doesn't need to be represented mechanically, but you'd do well to represent things that are mechanical mechanically.
QUOTE]

I may have misunderstood this statement Celebrim, but before I thought you were saying that the rules represent the physics of the universe.

With the thinking that rules are mechanics therefore mechanics are physics, and in saying now that not everything needs to be represented mechanically, this sounds like your meaning is more the Rules represent the physics of the mechanics used in certain situations of roleplay, not the physics of the game world in its entirety.

This may have been your point all along and I have been confused by the complication of the posts :)

T.

Superman is not immortal.
 

Professor Phobos said:
Well, you should have mentioned that in the example! What was the DM's problem, then?

The DM was trying to apply 'force' on the PC's by describing something that he felt reasonably people would try to avoid. When the players didn't try to avoid it, and in fact treated it as if it wasn't there, it bothered him because they were not he believed (and I have every reason to believe he was right) getting into the role and empathizing with the hardship that the characters faced. He saw this as 'bad play', and was trying to encourage more sophisticated play.

Both the DM and the players may have been creating good color, but the interesting thing about the cold, ('Do we really want to keep marching in this, its cold!') was resolved entirely by pure tactical calculation. That is, despite whatever color was being offered, the players were taking a gamist stance ('I'll do this because it helps me win.') and he wanted them to take a more narrativist stance ('What would my character do?').

But the thing is, he had only offered 'color' and got a responce that was pure 'color'. From a different way of looking at it, he actually got the right response. From the character's perspective, no matter how cold and wet the color, the character isn't feeling cold or wet enough to bother him so why should he consider stopping? Up until the point the cold and wet have an impact on the game, they aren't real in any tangible way. 'Cold' and 'wet' aren't part of the games physics. They can't force the player to make descisions, the way IRL hitting a brick wall can force you to stop.

Oh, sure. If I'm playing a game detailed enough that a cold rain has some kind of effect I want to avoid, my reaction will be based on that. But that doesn't mean I won't react to a cold rain without mechanical backup, so to speak, which is what I thought you were talking about.

The two sorts of 'reaction' are different in character. One is mere affectation. It's more like, "Since the DM says its cold, I'll pretend to be cold so that he'll be happy. But really, I know that it is not really cold, and so it won't actually impact any decision which has some consequences." The other is, "Since the DM says its cold, I'll pretend to be in the cold so that he'll happy. But also, I know that my character is going to experience some consequence for being cold, so perhaps I should consider the fact that it is cold in my roleplay and make actions accordingly." It doesn't have to be that cynical, but it often is. T

Which strikes me as indicating we may be talking past each other...

We aren't as far apart as some of the discussion might suggest. I need to go back to some earlier things that were said.

But, back to the initial example, the knight breaking his neck is entirely within the framework of and consistent with the universe.

No it isn't. That's my point. It's entirely consistant within the framework and guidelines of this universe. The rules of this universe mean that knights that fall off thier horses can break thier necks. But, the game isn't occuring in this universe, even if one of the conceits of the game is that it is. It's actually occuring in an imaginary universe that has rules which are usually abstractions of the rules in this universe (plus usually a little something extra). And the knight falling off and breaking his next is not at all consistant with the framework and guidelines of the imaginary universe.

Except, you think that it is. And this creates a problem. Because on the one hand you are communicating to the players that the guidelines and rules of the imaginary universe are this, but in your head you are keeping a picture of the imaginary universe at odds with what you are elsewhere describing. I don't know how many of the stories related on these forums come down to a DM who had one picture of the universe (often what he thought was 'realistic'), and players that had a different picture, and a DM that was too inexperienced, arrogant, or being too cute to actually communicate to the players what was really in his head.

It's completely believable by those guidelines- if I describe a world of mortal men, accidents, misery, disease, mud, rats and sinking boats, then why would anyone not believe in High King Badass getting spilled by his horse and landing bad?

Because the rules don't in fact necessarily describe a world of mortal men, accidents, misery, disease, mud, rats, and sinking boats. So you giving two conflicting descriptions of the world. The mere fact that you've provided some color which is appropriate to one universe (the real one maybe?) doesn't make it real and believable in a different universe. High King Badness getting spilled by his horse and landing badly isn't believable in the context of the normal D&D rules. You are trying to make the universe outside the rules that govern the PC's behave in a very different way than how the universe works when the PC's are around. But you can't keep those two universes as distinct as all that.

But by your standard, since it contradicts the mechanics, it isn't believable. What we are trying to say is that the mechanics are not the only determining factor for believability and consistency

They don't have to be the only factor. If they are a factor at all, then they play a role in a games believability and consistancy. That's what being a factor means. The term comes from math. There might be and probably are other factors, but you can't ignore this one.

indeed sticking to them as literally the laws of physics conjures enormous problems with regard to a believable world.

Only if you think that the world is believable, if and only if it conforms to the expected standards of this world.

That's a little bit of an oversimplification, because I do believe that there can be 'bad rules', but a rule isn't necessarily bad if it doesn't create a result that is within the framework of what is believable in this world. For example, a rule that says experienced characters never fall off thier horse and break thier neck (indeed a rule system that forgoes the explicit possibility of broken necks entirely), doesn't necessarily create an unbelievable world. It only creates an unbelievable world if you can't imagine a world where if you are sufficiently 'destined', 'lucky', 'tough', or whatever, that you can't possibly break your neck by falling off a horse.

I really believe that you are confusing 'believability' with 'desirability'. I really can't help but thinking that when you say it creates problems with a 'believable' world, you mean, 'it creates a world with characteristics that I don't find desirable'. It's pretty close to the same thing, except that it ought to be evident that plenty of people can find the world you don't find desirable believable.

The purpose of mechanics is not to create a world, or a basis for which a world can be derived. Mechanics are designed for game play purposes. They're designed for fairness. Tactical interest. Ease of use. Speed. Things of that nature.

One doesn't preclude the other. The purpose of mechanics is to create or simulate a world, or a basis from which a world can be derived. They are most certainly and most evidently often designed for simulating a fictional world. And while they and nothing else could ever fully simulate a fictional world, that is there purpose and that's what they do. They are designed with various other attributes in mind, but simulating a world is there reason for being.

The rules have to simulate the thing you want simulated. That's why we say that certain rules do a better job of simulating some things than others. If you want a universe "of mortal men, accidents, misery, disease, mud, rats, and sinking boats" and the rules set doesn't simulate such a universe, you are headed for trouble. The game is going to continually be disappointing you, and your players are going to continually make decisions based on what really is happening in the game world rather than what you want to be happening in the game world. The created game universe will fail to look anything like the picture you had in your head, especially once the players figure it out and start taking advantage of what is really possible (or not possible) according to the rules.

So make sure you've smithed out some 'physics' that describe the universe you actually wanted to create. Then once you decide what you can work with, work with it. A decent system is going to leave you lots of flexibility. If you are continually feeling constrained by it such that you need to break the system, you probably need a different system.
 

Celebrim said:
The DM was trying to apply 'force' on the PC's by describing something that he felt reasonably people would try to avoid.

Force them to do what?

And I disagree with your spin on "player thinking." I don't have any players who think in purely gamist terms- in addition to the calculations of "Will this help me win?", there are, "What would my character do?" (and sometimes, "What would be interesting?") I've seen players accept mechanical disadvantage for roleplaying purposes and I expect to see it again. They're not doing it just to make me happy.


Except, you think that it is. And this creates a problem. Because on the one hand you are communicating to the players that the guidelines and rules of the imaginary universe are this, but in your head you are keeping a picture of the imaginary universe at odds with what you are elsewhere describing.

Eh. If it comes up, and a player says, "But that's not in the rules!" I'll probably just copy & paste some of pemerton and John Snow's posts and send them to him.


Because the rules don't in fact necessarily describe a world of mortal men, accidents, misery, disease, mud, rats, and sinking boats. So you giving two conflicting descriptions of the world.

No, I'm not. I'm giving one description. The rules do not describe the world.

But you can't keep those two universes as distinct as all that.

I totally can.

So make sure you've smithed out some 'physics' that describe the universe you actually wanted to create. Then once you decide what you can work with, work with it. A decent system is going to leave you lots of flexibility. If you are continually feeling constrained by it such that you need to break the system, you probably need a different system.

Again, we've hit this point before- "Just don't play D&D!" and the answer is, "But we like D&D!"

Maybe I want all that feats, AoO malarkey, prestige class stuff? (I don't, but hypothetically) Let's say I want to have all that stuff and a grim world of perilous adventure.

Now, you're saying these goals are contradictory- that my system doesn't support my setting. I say, "Sure", but I shrug and ignore it because I don't care. It is a trivial effort to just recognize the game mechanics as serving other purposes than simulation. I can have this cake and eat it too.

Take Storytelling (the system). Mortals in the current World of Darkness system are surprisingly robust; gunshots do not tend towards all that much lethality. Is this because mortals in the World of Darkness can take a lot of punishment? No. It's designed that way because getting one-shotted sucks for a player. Intelligence is rated between one (below average) and five (extremely intelligent). Does this mean every individual in the World of Darkness can be evenly broken down into five categories of intelligence, or that there are no mentally retarded people whose intelligence could be said to be lower than one on the scale? No. Not at all. The fluff and rules contradict. Where fluff and rules contradict, the fluff wins, except in the case of PCs, of course.

Take Call of Cthulhu. There are all kinds of edge cases where "the simulation" breaks down, and if the rules were the very laws of the game universe, it would not then resemble a real historical or modern day setting. People would probably notice if babies could throw footballs.

But I like BRP. It is simple, it is fast, I know it well, I can run it from memory, I like the SAN system, etc. No system is perfect. Why should I discard it entirely if I'm not willing to accept its little contradictions and occasional bit of silliness when I can just take it to be solely for the purpose of PC interaction with the world?
The purpose of mechanics is to create or simulate a world, or a basis from which a world can be derived.

Nope. The purpose of the mechanics is to create a certain gameplay result. Tactical elements, genre emulation, speed and ease of play. Those sorts of things.
 

Professor Phobos said:
The rules do not describe the world.

But they can, and they do a pretty decent job of it right now (as per the link above).

I might as well say "Color does not describe the world." It'd be roughly as accurate.

It is a trivial effort to just recognize the game mechanics as serving other purposes than simulation. I can have this cake and eat it too.

But it's not an effort everyone is comfortable in making, and an effort that doesn't HAVE to be made. Indeed, a lot of fun can be had for some people to, instead, make the effort to ensure that the narrative adheres to the mechanics, and to use the mechanics to lend consistency to the narrative setting (or to change the mechanics if they get in the way).

Nope. The purpose of the mechanics is to create a certain gameplay result. Tactical elements, genre emulation, speed and ease of play. Those sorts of things.

For you, yes, for everyone, no.
 

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