How Does "The Rules Aren't Physics" Fix Anything?

[LostSoul]

Players can make meaningful choices in RPGs in which the rules are not the physics of the gameworld, but rather a metagame device for distributing narrative control (in such a game, the physics of the gameworld are to be deduced from the totality of the narrative contributed by GM and players).

That's been my experience with Prime Time Adventures, where the mechanics have nothing to do with the physics of the gameworld. (The conflict resolution mechanics are basically this: Get a number of cards equal to your [the player's] investment in this conflict. Red cards are 1 point each. Whoever gets the most red cards gets what he wanted out of the conflict. Whoever gets the highest card gets to narrate what happens.)

 

[billd91]

Exactly right. As DM, I've offered players plenty of meaningful choices that had nothing to do with the melting point of lead, the acceleration due to gravity, or the general physical characteristics of like-sized hominids.

I think you're jumping the gun on whether the claim is false or not. I think the post you and pemerton are responding to was imprecise in talking about making a meaningful choice. The players do have to have an understanding of what the rules mean about the game's physics model for interacting with parts of the physical world, particularly for understanding the boundaries for cinematic action, in order to make some meaningful choices without simply appealing to referee authority.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

When the rules are not the physics of the game you can offer the players a list of options and they can pick one. The players can only make free choices when the physics of the game world don't depend on DM fiat.

In any game you will not have free choice. There are always limitations on what you can do. Some games have more limitations than others.

Even a game where the rules ARE the physics of the game world has limitations of choice. They are just things like "You can't fly at will unless you have an ability that lets you ignore gravity", "You can only jump X high" and the like.

Whereas, if you have a game where the GM is firmly in charge of how the physics work and they (could) change every minute you end up with either just as much choices as you had before or less.

However, less choice isn't always bad. Less choice creates a more focused game. Assuming your choices somehow got reduced to:
-Attack the Dragon and save the princess
-Attack the Beholder and save the princess

All of your options advance the plot of the game, involve an exciting combat, give you the chance to work together with your party to accomplish a heroic and spectacular feat.

If your options are nearly infinite the game could just as likely consist of sitting in a bar drinking as it does adventuring. And this game is fine for some people whose idea of fun is sitting in a bar talking to each other. However, when I sit down to play a game for a couple hours, I want to skip all of those parts and go directly to the action and the story.

 

[Hussar]

Yes, as it's exactly the sort of thing that discussions like this revolve around: do the rules as written support believability. Even something as simple as that one statement gets the point across that things are intended to be believable, and that the game world *does* have internal physics and the DM had better keep this in mind. (what I'd really like to see in the DMG is some brief discussion of the physics of magic, it'd save a lot of arguments; but I'm not holding my breath) Even more useful would be some discussion in the DMG on how to usefully alter fundamental physics and keep things consistent/believable...for example, half-strength gravity, planets orbiting each other at real-world impossibly close range, removal of magnetic forces, etc.

Lanefan

But, in that direction madness lies. Where do you stop? Looking at published settings throughout all time, I see settings that are written by people whose grasp of physics and whatnot is no better than mine. Expecting a proper explanation of fundamental physics in a game world is pretty much beyond the expertise of (I'm guessing here) the overwhelming majority of RPG writers.

There has to be a limit on how much the DMG has to provide for the DM. The DM should be able to pick up the slack. To make D&D even remotely believable you'd have to do massive reworks on the rules. Heck, look at Harn. That's about as Sim as it gets in fantasy RPG's. The rules are certainly grandfathered from D&D, but, they're not even close anymore.

If 4e actually attempted to do what you propose - provide a believable framework for designing entire worlds, you'd need a DMG that's about 5000 pages long.

 

[Derren]

And this game is fine for some people whose idea of fun is sitting in a bar talking to each other. However, when I sit down to play a game for a couple hours, I want to skip all of those parts and go directly to the action and the story.

And how does the existence of many choices prevent you from going adventuring? You seem to imply that more choices = only boring choices which of course is completely false.

Some people simply want to be able to decide if they instead of attacking the dragon/beholder negotiate instead. Or that they instead of attacking can sneak past the dragon and get the princess out. But all those choices are barred unless the DM offers those options as the PCs can never know if their plans would really work as the physics of the game world are not known to them and something which works inside the combat might not work outside of them.

 

[Hussar]

And how does the existence of many choices prevent you from going adventuring? You seem to imply that more choices = only boring choices which of course is completely false.

Some people simply want to be able to decide if they instead of attacking the dragon/beholder negotiate instead. Or that they instead of attacking can sneak past the dragon and get the princess out. But all those choices are barred unless the DM offers those options as the PCs can never know if their plans would really work as the physics of the game world are not known to them and something which works inside the combat might not work outside of them.

That is a very, very large leap that you simply cannot make.

You are assuming that all choices only work in combat. Why would you assume this? We already know that there are mechanics for resolving skill challenges, for example. The players know that their plan has a chance of working because the mechanics are there to resolve the results of their actions.

Actions =/= combat.

However, rules=physics means that all rules must apply equally to everything that exists within the setting. You cannot possibly achieve that goal within the framework of an RPG. Exceptions have to be made and will be made constantly. Omissions will likewise be made, simply because the DM is assumed to fill in those gaps.

You effectively arguing that because there are no rules covering it, no one could possibly swim in 1e D&D. Since 1e lacked any skill based mechanics (other than thief abilities) there is no possible way that anyone could make a sword in that system.

Likewise, in 3e, since there is no penalty for not sleeping, my character in your world should never have to sleep. Makes guarding a whole lot easier I suppose.

The only way you could create a system where rules=physics is if you place hard limits on what the players can do. In order for the system to work, you would have to forbid any action that isn't expressly covered by the rules. In other words, you'd have to turn the game into a video game. That's precisely what a system where rules=physics looks like. You cannot step outside the phyics in a video game ever.

I doubt that's your goal.

 

[LostSoul]

The players do have to have an understanding of what the rules mean about the game's physics model for interacting with parts of the physical world, particularly for understanding the boundaries for cinematic action, in order to make some meaningful choices without simply appealing to referee authority.

Not true. See my post above yours about Prime Time Adventures.

 

[LostSoul]

Some people simply want to be able to decide if they instead of attacking the dragon/beholder negotiate instead. Or that they instead of attacking can sneak past the dragon and get the princess out. But all those choices are barred unless the DM offers those options as the PCs can never know if their plans would really work as the physics of the game world are not known to them and something which works inside the combat might not work outside of them.

That's why I like to resolve things using dice. That way I don't have to know the physics of the game world, an neither does the DM, and we don't get in huge arguments about the melting point of steel or something like that.

 

[Derren]

You are assuming that all choices only work in combat. Why would you assume this? We already know that there are mechanics for resolving skill challenges, for example. The players know that their plan has a chance of working because the mechanics are there to resolve the results of their actions.

The goal of a good plan is not to have a skill challenge. You don't need a plan for that. You can walk up to the dragon and start rolling skill checks. A good plan still involves skill checks, but tries to minimize them (random element) and instead uses the unique abilities of each characters to their full effect. But when rules are not the physics of the world the players can never be sure how their abilities work when applied outside of their normal territory which makes planning rather hard to do.

However, rules=physics means that all rules must apply equally to everything that exists within the setting. You cannot possibly achieve that goal within the framework of an RPG. Exceptions have to be made and will be made constantly. Omissions will likewise be made, simply because the DM is assumed to fill in those gaps.

No. You simply have to stop ripping of LOTR and cheap fantasy novels when creating your plots/world but instead look at the rules beforehand and write a world which takes the existence of this abilities into account. And if you as DM overlooked something which lets the PCs overcome a challenge then let them. and bring on the next challenge instead of altering the physics of the game world just so that this doesn't work.

You effectively arguing that because there are no rules covering it, no one could possibly swim in 1e D&D. Since 1e lacked any skill based mechanics (other than thief abilities) there is no possible way that anyone could make a sword in that system.

No, I'm arguing that when the rules say that everyone can swim with a speed of 30ft then everyone in the setting can swim at that speed and that racing through water at that speed is normal for this setting. What should not happen is that in combat the PCs (and only the PCs) can swim at 30 ft each round but outside of combat they are much slower in th water.

Likewise, in 3e, since there is no penalty for not sleeping, my character in your world should never have to sleep. Makes guarding a whole lot easier I suppose.

Don't you get fatigued when you don't sleep?
What you should do now is either make a rule that everyone has to start making Con checks after X hours of being awake or that really no one sleeps in the game world. What you should not do is to arbitrarily inform players that they are tired now because they have stayed awake for too long or have some people in the world sleep and some not.

The only way you could create a system where rules=physics is if you place hard limits on what the players can do. In order for the system to work, you would have to forbid any action that isn't expressly covered by the rules. In other words, you'd have to turn the game into a video game. That's precisely what a system where rules=physics looks like. You cannot step outside the phyics in a video game ever.

As I said above, you can make a rules=physics world by simply not ripping of LotR and the medieval time periode anymore and let the PCs do whatever they want even if it ruins your adventure.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

And how does the existence of many choices prevent you from going adventuring? You seem to imply that more choices = only boring choices which of course is completely false.

No, I was just suggesting that sometimes restricting choices to only the fun ones can make a more fun game. It's certainly possible (and perhaps even likely) that a group given infinite choice will still choose the fun options.

Some people simply want to be able to decide if they instead of attacking the dragon/beholder negotiate instead. Or that they instead of attacking can sneak past the dragon and get the princess out. But all those choices are barred unless the DM offers those options as the PCs can never know if their plans would really work as the physics of the game world are not known to them and something which works inside the combat might not work outside of them.

I can tell you now, 4e doesn't restrict things as much as my above example. I was just using it to illustrate that even if those were the only 2 options they were both still fun options. I think it's a matter of having fun using the options you have instead of complaining about the options you don't.

They aren't all barred, however. The idea is that there IS still physics. The rules just don't simulate them. If we had rules that simulated physics exactly then we'd want to determine how much noise was made by the armor and equipment you are wearing each second of your movement and how heavy your footfalls were and then figure out the propagation of sound waves through the chamber, figuring out where they bounce to and how loud they were when they reached the dragon...and so on. You can abstract some of that if you want the rules to be less precise, but you want to model those exact circumstances IN the rules somehow. That means a roll of some sort to try to be quiet a roll of some sort to see if the dragon hears it, modifiers for distance and the like.

You can still sneak past the dragon if the rules are not the physics of the world. You just attempt to model it differently. The questions become: Do I WANT the players to sneak past the dragon? Is it more fun for them or me if it happens one way or another? How difficult should it be to sneak past the dragon? What are the consequences of failure? What are the benefits of succeeding? Does it help the story I want to tell if they succeed? How about if they fail?

Then you use the answer to those questions to determine a DC. If it should be really hard set a hard DC, should be average set an average one, should be easy set an easy one. If it doesn't matter if they succeed or fail might as well resort to the default and use a standard stealth vs perception roll.

However, it gives the DM the power to say "A pure roll would have the PCs discovered every time. I want them to get past this as it makes a more interesting encounter if they do, so I'll set it low." Once again, yes, this is always something the DM COULD have done. The difference is in the rules. One system ENCOURAGES changing it based on those factors, the other one discourages it.