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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 3345957" data-attributes="member: 4937">I once had an argument with a philosophy professor in which I said something like, "Surely you must conceed that if we accept the evidence of our senses, brick walls are solid."And the professor smiled and said, "No I don't.  I don't have to concede anything.""Ahh," I thought, "Yes, there is always that."  You can bust your nose on the wall, but you don't have to concede you bust your nose on the wall.  You can suggest that the fact that balance checks are not normally thrown when walking on level ground is an obvious counterexample that shows that things that are merely color are not impotent, but that doesn't actually make it a counterexample.  If I must make 'obvious' why, its because a) 'level ground' isn't merely color, its also statement about the mechanics of the ground (we know its level because it doesn't provoke balance checks), b) the non-mechanical situation of this doesn't prove the potence of the non-mechanical situation, but rather the opposite (the level ground is powerless to cause the characters to fall), just as the example of the earthquake demonstrates that when we want something to have real 'force' in the game system, we give it a rule (this is by definition, since it is a rule because it defines a situation and a consequence, and if it didn't, it wouldn't be a rule), and c) things for which there are not mechanics to tend be driven from the game in the 'out-of-sight, out-of-mind' fashion.  If you don't provide the option via a mechanic, in practice the players (DM's and players) generally do not consider them to be options.  And by certain strict conceptions of 'Rule 0' (or it's explicit absence), they are right.It is possible to role play without rules, but its impossible to have a role playing game without rules.  Things that are color can be a part of roleplay in the sense that you can speak about them in character and that they influence the metaplay (how DM's and players choose to act when in character), but they are never a part of the game (except that color is part of the game because roleplaying is part of a role playing game).  They have been relegated to color.</blockquote>

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