Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="clearstream" data-source="post: 8999797" data-attributes="member: 71699">To take your question to an extreme, is an RPG with no rules the most flexible?Regarding armchair designers, isn't flexibility contemplated solely in view of modifications to the design? That is to say, no test of flexibility can be made where there is no flexing being done? Whether a system asks or does not ask users to be designers has no bearing on flexibility.Suits predates the Forge by decades! I'm just saying that &quot;beneficial for multiple reasons&quot; includes the fundamental reason that limits enable game play. This matters to the tension being debated.On the one hand, meta-rules like rule-zero or rulings-not-rules can in theory supply whatever limits interest us. They're the most flexible possible rules.And on the other hand, they provide no limits. (Any limits are supplied by the user.) That makes it doubtful as to whether they should count as tools in the box.But it's not at all clear what definitively counts them out. If I take a normative approach to a game text then I follow it's rules. If rule-zero is not among them, I should normally not follow rule-zero. I can't really say that a toolbox not containing rule-zero is fine: I just pop rule-zero in. Once I'm doing that, why can't I pop whatever I like into any toolbox?</blockquote>

[QUOTE="clearstream, post: 8999797, member: 71699"] To take your question to an extreme, is an RPG with no rules the most flexible? Regarding armchair designers, isn't flexibility contemplated solely in view of modifications to the design? That is to say, no test of flexibility can be made where there is no flexing being done? Whether a system asks or does not ask users to be designers has no bearing on flexibility. Suits predates the Forge by decades! I'm just saying that "beneficial for multiple reasons" includes the fundamental reason that limits enable game play. This matters to the tension being debated. On the one hand, meta-rules like rule-zero or rulings-not-rules can in theory supply whatever limits interest us. They're the most flexible possible rules. And on the other hand, they provide no limits. (Any limits are supplied by the user.) That makes it doubtful as to whether they should count as tools in the box. But it's not at all clear what definitively counts them out. If I take a normative approach to a game text then I follow it's rules. If rule-zero is not among them, I should normally not follow rule-zero. I can't really say that a toolbox not containing rule-zero is fine: I just pop rule-zero in. Once I'm doing that, why can't I pop whatever I like into any toolbox? [/QUOTE]

Verification