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

[Rex Blunder]

The OP is not using the "rules aren't physics" statement in its most usual form, which I think is causing confusion.

"Rules aren't physics" isn't usually invoked to cover areas where there are no rules for a situation, or the rules don't make solid predictions (like his incorrect example about no rules for healing npcs). This example got us all off on the wrong track.

"Rules aren't physics" is invoked for situations where there ARE rules about things, and the rules DO make solid predictions about the universe, and the predictions break verisimilitude.

3.x Examples:
-Raise dead is available to sufficiently high-level clerics, therefore rich nobles and royalty can never die prematurely.
-Falling damage is low, and caps out, therefore powerful heroes and monsters can regularly cascade off cliffs like lemmings to save travel time.
-20th level wizards can solo dragons, therefore there are no dragons and there are a bunch of super-rich wizards.
-The nature of teleportation and attack spells means that castles are not a good form of defense, and armies are easily slaughtered by wizards and monsters. Therefore a pseudo-medieval high fantasy world should have no castles and armies.

All of these situations are caused by EXISTING game rules, not lack of game rules. There's never a situation where, as the OP said, "players don't know what will work and what won't". The problem is, everyone knows how things work according to the rules, and the way things work is stupid.

That's the problem "the rules aren't physics" is usually invoked to respond to. In other words, the rules are how things work for the PCs. However, offstage, things work generally the way we'd expect them to work (kings die, heroes don't jump off of cliffs, there are dragons and armies and castles).

 

[Umbran]

The "rules aren't physics" helps because

People are somewhat confusing "rules aren't physics" with "the rules as written are a complete and comprehensive description of all physics".

Newtonian mechanics are physics. But note how there are edge cases where they don't predict things well (Three Body Problem), they are an incomplete theory that does not cover every possible thing that happens in the universe (Relativity), and allow that things will seem to work differently if you don't take everything into account properly (say, you assume two objects of the same size have the same mass, when they don't).

The problem isn't with the argument that rules aren't physics - the problem is that people don't understand how science works

 

[HeinorNY]

But what when the rules and the physics of the game world conflict?

The rules can't be in conflit with the physics of the gameworld because gameworlds have no physics. Sometimes rules can be in conflit with the notions of physics we have from the Real world (lava rules, falling from high altitude etc)
But the rules don't need to be the physics of the gamewolrd in order to not get in conflit with our notions of real world physics.

 

[Derren]

"Rules aren't physics" is invoked for situations where there ARE rules about things, and the rules DO make solid predictions about the universe, and the predictions break verisimilitude.

3.x Examples:
-Raise dead is available to sufficiently high-level clerics, therefore rich nobles and royalty can never die prematurely.
-Falling damage is low, and caps out, therefore powerful heroes and monsters can regularly cascade off cliffs like lemmings to save travel time.
-20th level wizards can solo dragons, therefore there are no dragons and there are a bunch of super-rich wizards.
-The nature of teleportation and attack spells means that castles are not a good form of defense, and armies are easily slaughtered by wizards and monsters. Therefore a pseudo-medieval high fantasy world should have no castles and armies.

Yes, that is the real problem and the reason why 4E couldn't work without the "rules aren't physics" creed. The target group of 4E want for the most part cool, over the top action stunts but are also unable to accept any other fantasy than a real world medieval one lifted straight from the history books and pulled through the romanticization machine five or six times. Of course people who are able to create energy at will, the existence of intelligent monsters which can destroy towns and villages at will which means humans are not the top of the food chain anymore and traditional medieval lifestyle don't fit together very well (or should I say "at all"?). But in their wisdom WotC simply said that those things have nothing to do with each other by saying "Rules are not Physics" and for most people this is enough to make the setting work even though it isn't.

To make a coherent game world you either have to create the rules according to the game world or design the game world according to the rules. WotC is doing none of those things and instead design them independantly and decree that they work together (which they don't). And whenever a person finds something where the game world and the rules conflict they are simply thinking about it too hard. (This also applies to 3E, but in 4E this is a lot worse).

 

[Aservan]

The rules aren't physics is a good rule of thumb most of the time. Don't violate the spirit of the rule is a better one.

Jack the rogue walks out into the field of recently harvested wheat. Out in the middle of the two acre field he drops trow and proceeds to wiggle his backside at the hovering great wyrm red dragon above. Jack is a rogue and has no magic skills to speak of and yet he stands tall and proud when the dragon trys to incinerate him with it's mighty breath. After the conflagration has melted the soil into magma. Jack still stands. Vincinie cries "Inconceivable!"

In the game world Jack used a his evasion ability to take no damage. The spirit of the rules is that Jack's quick reflexes allowed him to hide behind something or simply avoid being in a situation where he would get toasted. Yet Jack was in the middle of the field with no cover to be had. He purposefully put himself in a situation where he could get toasted. Ballsy sure, but inconceivably stupid too. If I was GM I give the player his props and tell him that he is dead. Evasion is an extraordinary ability not a Supernatural one. He is so dead.

Other people will claim I am a jerk because the rules said... I think the spirit of the rules is more important then the letter of them. If Jack gave me any small justification (like he took a shield into the field with him) then I would rule in his favor, but I need that small bit of wiggle room to have things go his way.

 

[Dausuul]

Yes, that is the real problem and the reason why 4E couldn't work without the "rules aren't physics" creed. The target group of 4E want for the most part cool, over the top action stunts but are also unable to accept any other fantasy than a real world medieval one lifted straight from the history books and pulled through the romanticization machine five or six times. Of course people who are able to create energy at will, the existence of intelligent monsters which can destroy towns and villages at will which means humans are not the top of the food chain anymore and traditional medieval lifestyle fit together very well. But in their wisdom WotC simply said that those things have nothing to do with each other by saying "Rules are not Physics" and for most people this is enough to make the setting work even though it isn't.

You, uh...

You did notice that Rex's examples were all from 3.X or earlier, right?

And that some of them (definitely raise dead, probably teleportation, possibly falling damage) are being cleaned up in 4E?

Ah, the irony.

 

[hong]

But in their wisdom WotC simply said that those things have nothing to do with each other by saying "Rules are not Physics" and for most people this is enough to make the setting work even though it isn't.

If it makes the setting work, then it makes the setting work. Remarkable, isn't it?

And whenever a person finds something where the game world and the rules conflict they are simply thinking about it too hard.

Indeed. It is good to see that your edification is proceeding apace.

 

[LostSoul]

But what when the rules and the physics of the game world conflict?

To second ainatan, they don't.

What happens is that you get results from the system that you don't want. That's a different problem.

 

[Rex Blunder]

Of course people who are able to create energy at will, the existence of intelligent monsters which can destroy towns and villages at will which means humans are not the top of the food chain anymore and traditional medieval lifestyle fit together very well. But in their wisdom WotC simply said that those things have nothing to do with each other by saying "Rules are not Physics" and for most people this is enough to make the setting work even though it isn't.

In their wisdom, TSR also had energy-creatin' people, powerful monsters, and a traditional medieval lifestyle.

 

[Storm-Bringer]

I think that this is the result of mixed-up terminology. Physics is an interesting branch of science. It has oodles of what and extremely little why. But, and this is the thing about it that makes it used in the metaphorical case, the lack of why does not detract from the what. The theory of gravitation speculates that objects move towards each other in predictable fashion. The theory of gravitation could be true because of graviton interactions, or superstrings mating, or the Divine Will, or invisible falling elves pushing everything in the universe. But, regardless of which (or any) of these 'why' answers are true, the 'what' is constant; objects fall in predictable ways. Unlike in our world, the physics of D&D are not particularly granular; they do not say what happens on an extremely micro level. But, they do exist, and they can be noticed.

Now, it might be that the flavor of a Con-18 dwarf shrugging off a blow with his 30 hp is much different than the flavor of a highly-leveled 30-hp Con 10 nimble elf doing the same. It is almost certain that the fluff of a 30-hp door experiencing the same hit will be different than both. But if the rules are physics, then despite the difference in fluff, you will need to apply about the same amount of violence to each in order to break it.

Here's the thing, though; you can't get around there being rules-as-physics. If you adjucate everything on the fly, and events set no precedent and can un-happen as the story dictates, then the rules of physics are that reality is a giant quantum event. You can't make that not the case without laying down and adhering to actual rules. 'Rules are the physics of the game world' is another way of saying 'The rules describe what happens in the game world'; if this isn't true, then you've got one unorthodox game.

Now, what happens when what the rules describe does not match what you expect or want? A rules-as-physics would suggest that D&D 3.XE was a very strange place where a trained fighter could unleash a deadly flurry of blows, but only if you could get a swarm of rats to run past him first. The answer to this is not to suggest another 'real' layer of rules that prohibit the bag of rats exploit; it's to note that the rules imply this, then change them so that it is no longer true. It is vital that all players share certain expectations about what the world is and how it behaves in certain circumstances; empirical evidence strongly suggests that when this is not the case, many games degenerate into "I shot him!" "No, you missed!" The problem here is not a limited degree of editorial control over the story (that player A wanted the story to proceed where someone got shot and player B didn't); it's that Player A's expectations were that A's target's shooting was an inevitable consequence of the nature of the universe, and that B's expectations were otherwise.

Now, if players want a universe in which causality and precedent aren't, and things happen simply because they think they should happen, then conflict-resolution makes sense. If you have players that will be upset if their understanding of the world is egregiously violated, and others whose desire for certain types of events takes precedence over their desire for continuity, conflict resolution is not an ideal method of rules adjudication.

Exactly so.

I really do see this trend away from concrete rules as an intrusion of Exalted style play, and that as an extension of the general Storyteller expectations. In a sense, it has a bit of Nobilis in there also. All of which are great games, to be sure (my personal bias places Nobilis head and shoulders above the others, of course ). I think the 'god-like' wish fulfillment play those cater to is not strictly compatible with the D&D genre. Historically, anyway. If the new paradigm is like that, I am uncertain as to how well that will work out.