How Visible To players Should The Rules Be?

[Micah Sweet]

I don’t think that kind of blatantly antagonistic GMing is the best suggestion. But it’s in line with your views about players… so I suppose if’s to be expected.



It won’t “meta-alert” them. It will just alert them. Something here’s not what it seems. Seems perfectly fine to me.

I mean… who cares? This whole “meta” division just seems like a waste of time. It doesn’t really enhance play, unless you enjoy poling and prodding for the GM to slowly reveal basic information. We’re not talking about which of the town’s citizens is secretly the Orcus cultist or anything like that… we’re talking about an AC.



But why aren’t these abilities obvious in some way? It’s a choice to keep them hidden. If you wanted to, you could describe the ogre’s surprising speed, or the way he wields his club defensively. You can share that information or you can not. Again, it’s a choice.

Yes, it's a choice. And the choice you make isn't the only right one.

 

[Maxperson]

Since the beginning of the hobby (and earlier, see The Elusive Shift) there has been disagreement over how much players of RPGs should be aware of the rules of play. Some people think that full access to the rules is the only way for players to have any real agency, while others think that the rules should be invisible to the players in order to enable immersion. There are, of course, many opinions between those poles.

What do you think? How much knowledge of the rules should players have, both going in (creating a character, etc) as well as during actual play? Why? What aspects of players' knoweldge and awareness of the rules and play system impacts your opinion on this?

For my part, I mostly lean toward the "players should know the rules" part. I am not particularly interested in immersion, at least compared to gameplay, so I think that players who understand the rules (both in their character and in the game at the moment) have more agency and more agency by players makes the game more fun. That said, I have experimented once or twice with "hidden rules" and it has turned out interesting, at least. But those were definitely very rules light games.

Note that this is about opinion and preference, so everyone is right. Please respond to others' posts accordingly.

My view is that the players should know the rules that they need to play, such as character creation, combat rules, etc. The rules that are for just the DM like magic item frequency and monster creation they don't need to know. That said, I don't really care if the players know the DM rules. I just don't feel that they need to know them to play the game. Also, since most of my players also DM some of the time, it's not like I can expect them to forget the rules that are DM side only.

 

[TwoSix]

I would at least like to know that before going into the game, because that will affect how I play the game and my character choices therein. But just because leveling and progression may be more opaque with players that doesn't mean that the rest of the rules should be.

Oh, for sure. I generally don't think I can hide that from the players, because it impacts character creation.

But hiding base resolution mechanics from players just seems tedious.

 

[Thomas Shey]

If the players are turning consistently to their rulebooks when they are together in person, then it probably would be a good idea for them to place bookmarks throughout their rulebooks so that they won't waste time flipping through them to find whatever it is they are looking for.

PDFs of the rulebooks with bookmarked links can also reduce the amount of time that is wasted trying to find a particular rule.

Lastly, this problem IMO is probably common with players who are relatively new to the game and the rulebooks. If you have been playing in a RPG for years, you already have a good idea on what's in the rules. And you probably already have a good imagination to boot.

Depends on what they're looking up and the structure of the game system. You can spend an inordinate amount of time looking up specifics in exception based systems, and it may not be something that was relevant to your last character.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Why? What difference does it make to you the preference of people you aren't going to be gaming with? If it's just curiosity, I can't see any benefit to playing the popularity game here.

Because I'm more likely to run into them in the future, and other people who's experiences I care about are more likely to. Its not popularity, its population.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I don't wonder why you believe its a bad approach (people can of course believe whatever they want), I just don't see any value in bad-mouthing someone else's preference. Are they damaging your gaming experience by playing differently from you?

They've damaged the experiences of people I care about. That's sufficient for me.

 

[CandyLaser]

I think there's a second distinction being elided here, between rules the players don't need to know and rules that are intentionally hidden from them. I recently ran a Scion 2e game for about 4 months before the untimely death of a player made my group decide to switch games rather than continue that campaign. I made sure my players understood the rules for character creation and task resolution, as well as the core concepts of the Storypath system—how to build a dice pool, what counts as a success, how enhancements and complications work, etc. I also went over the rules for using divine powers in some detail. I did not go over the rules for antagonists with them—but neither did I keep them secret. I just didn't teach them at the table, since fundamentally the players don't need to know about how antagonist dice pools differ from PC dice pools, etc. I still answered questions about them, and if the players wanted to look up the antagonist rules in the book I didn't stop them.

 

[Maxperson]

It’s untenable because just by taking part in the game and simple observation, the players will learn the rules. Or, many of them, at least.

Like the hidden AC. Forget that AC represents things that are mostly observable, so sharing it seems reasonable… after a few rolls in combat, it’s usually pretty obvious what a creature’s AC is. “Oh, I missed when I rolled a 14, but then Tom hit when he rolled a 15.” It doesn’t take a rules lawyer to figure that one out.

Then they figure it out in combat like their character would. Oh, the character won't have an exact number, but will be able to tell about how hard it is to hit after a while of fighting.

So why not just share it ahead of time?

Because it's less fun that way. Just because it's not less for for you, doesn't make it untenable for us to play that way when in fact it's more fun for us.

 

[Maxperson]

Knowing the odds may help you decide what to do. Maybe there are two opponents with different ACs. Maybe there’s something else you can do with a better chance to succeed compared to attacking an opponent with a high AC.

There could be many ways it helps. It allows the players to make truly informed decisions.

Saying that the monster is easy to hit, very easy to hit, moderately hard to hit, hard to hit and very hard to hit also allow for informed decisions. There's no need for a number to be assigned in order to make such a decision.

 

[Edgar Ironpelt]

Saying that the monster is easy to hit, very easy to hit, moderately hard to hit, hard to hit and very hard to hit also allow for informed decisions. There's no need for a number to be assigned in order to make such a decision.

No but in the opinion of some of us, giving the number makes for a better-informed decision and a better game.

Also, in the Real World(TM) there are official numbers attached to give Official Meaning to terms equivalent to things like "easy to hit":

If the GM isn't using fixed defined chances for his "easy to hit, very easy to hit, moderately hard to hit" etc then he's leaving out information that Official Government Agencies consider Very Important for making informed decisions. And if the GM is using fixed defined chances, then why not just go ahead and use the numbers directly?

(table is from https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/ICD/ICD-203_TA_Analytic_Standards_21_Dec_2022.pdf)