How Visible To players Should The Rules Be?

[Maxperson]

This is kind of paradoxical. Who determines what it is that triggers the sharing of additional information? The players?

The situation determines it. If someone does something that will reveal the information, I can't stop it. It has already been done. It's not about what I want or any kind of timing of mine.

No, I’m not. I’ve been saying all along I’d do both. I’m acknowledging that providing both a description and the relevant numbers is providing more than just the description.

I'm pretty sure it was you who argued to me that numbers were more important than description. I've shown that to be untrue. You can couple them, but without description the numbers are not very useful.

Whether numbers + description is > than description is subjective. For a lot of us adding in those numbers detracts from the scene and detract from a person's ability to make a choice, because some people will hyper focus on numbers.

The PCs don’t see the numbers anymore than they know exactly how many hit points they have. Like, their level if HP is probably expected to give them an idea of how close they are to being killed or taken out of a fight. And the players know the numbers. But we don’t think of it as the characters knowing the numbers.

Yes, but this is apples and oranges. It's apples, because the PC isn't making any attempt to know those things. It's purely player only. Oranges are the folks here arguing that you can look at an ogre and instantly see AC, HP, Move, Dex bonus, magical bonuses and more. Or in the case of one fellow, you can do it because you can reach out and touch a monitor.

Also, you’re choosing to not have any of the creature’s abilities be obvious or on display in some way. You can just as easily describe it in a way that portrays what you want to share with the players.

That's untrue. It's a troll which I said would be very strong on first glance. Trolls are visibly strong. The two abilities, regeneration and keen smell would likely not be apparent on first glance, but perhaps the scenting ability would be revealed if it couldn't see the PCs, but they could see it and it was smelling them.

I'm not arbitrarily choosing to keep things hidden. The players would only get in word information that their PCs would have, and so that's what I give them.

You can give the players information so they can make informed decisions about the game.

I already give them far more than enough to do that. Numbers and monster abilities simply aren't needed for that.

Below is what you said. It’s not remotely clear to me. So I’ll ask for a third time what you meant by it.

What I said was clear to anyone who understands that realism is on a scale. I'll repeat it with arbitrary numbers to illustrate exactly what I said. I said walls were realism. I said bricks were realism. I said that flies were realism. If walls give us realism of 4, making it a brick wall gives us a realism of 5, and adding in flies gives us a realism score of 6, removing flies does not drop realism to 0 like was implies in the post I responded to. We still have a realism score of 5.

We also don't have a situation where taking out flies makes the situation both more and less realistic like you said in your first response. All it takes is understanding that realism is a scale and not a dichotomy.

 

[Wolfpack48]

The less the players know of the rules the better. Once things like player-facing systems are in the mix you get system mastery as a goal unto itself and rules lawyers. The rules get in the way of the fiction. The fiction is where players and referees should be focused, not the rules.

It’s like that bit from Enter the Dragon. Bruce Lee is pointing at the moon but the student is focused on Bruce’s finger instead. The fiction is the focus, not the rules. The rules only vaguely abstract the fiction and the world. The rules get in the way.

The best gaming I’ve had is playing FKR, where you play the world, not the rules. The second best gaming I’ve had is playing Paranoia, where only the referee is allowed to know the rules. Makes things go so much smoother and faster when the player simply declares what they want to do and you handle it as the referee.

This perfectly describes why I love systems that disappear during play. The more a system calls attention to itself, the faster I give it a pass. I want players focused on what they are doing, and to stay as far away as possible from the meta.

 

[Maxperson]

I don’t think this makes any sense. A linear game that can’t be stopped is a railroad, no?

Not inherently, no. If the party chose it, then it's not a railroad. For example, if there's a dungeon that the group knows cannot be exited the way you enter and you must find the exit, and they choose to enter, it's not a railroad to disallow leaving before they find that exit. They chose the linear path.

But this is beside my point. The idea that there’s a “plotline” says to me that the game has enough in common with a railroad that folks who don’t like the railroad adventures likely won’t like it.

The idea is lying to you then and you shouldn't believe what it says to you. The following is something that happened in my game once.

Normally we have a session -1 after a campaign ends where we figure out as a group what the theme of the next campaign will be so that I can prepare. One time in session -1 the players all said to me that I should just come up with something on my own, so I did.

I had an elaborate demonic possession and eventually invasion plotline set up. In the first few sessions they discovered demonic influences and the PCs said to each other, "Demons?! Screw(actually it was non-forum friendly language) this! Let's go south and be pirates and avoid whatever this is.

So they did. They travelled south on foot a long ways, giving me several sessions to prepare pirate stuff and the demon plotline continued to play itself out without them. They would occasionally hear rumors as it advanced, but they simply avoided the plot by choice and I absolutely let them. It's not my job to force them into anything, nor can the plot do it.

There is nothing inherent to a plotline that makes it like a railroad. Railroading is 100% on the DM.

 

[Maxperson]

Man, what is it with you and these flies?

Flies. Is in the field of law. @pemerton's identity is revealed!

 

[pemerton]

I just looked at it right now. What I read about the Wuthering Heights session was okay.

This is RPG is a LARP?

No, Wuthering Heights is a regular RPG. It uses dice and pen and paper. No miniature figures. In the session I reported on, we Googled up a map of Soho just to double-check the distance to the Thames.

 

[James Gasik]

Whether numbers + description is > than description is subjective. For a lot of us adding in those numbers detracts from the scene and detract from a person's ability to make a choice, because some people will hyper focus on numbers.

Say Maxperson, could you expand on this? If someone focuses on the numbers, ie, the numbers are more important to them than the description, how does that detract from their ability to make choices, exactly?

If you tell me "this monster has AC 13 and resistance to Fire", I'm not going to use Burning Hands on it, and instead will rely on my trusty crossbow.

 

[Maxperson]

Say Maxperson, could you expand on this? If someone focuses on the numbers, ie, the numbers are more important to them than the description, how does that detract from their ability to make choices, exactly?

If you tell me "this monster has AC 13 and resistance to Fire", I'm not going to use Burning Hands on it, and instead will rely on my trusty crossbow.

Sure!

I've known and played with people who will hyperfocus on things, sometimes numbers, to the exclusion of other things. Take my description example upthread. Such a player will focus on the numerical aspects and ignore things like the fire and barrel of oil, which add options and possible ways to defeat the troll. Giving those sorts of players the numbers will make things worse for them overall. Now, I've only rarely encountered players that hyperfocus on numbers like that, but they are out there.

 

[pemerton]

Sure!

I've known and played with people who will hyperfocus on things, sometimes numbers, to the exclusion of other things. Take my description example upthread. Such a player will focus on the numerical aspects and ignore things like the fire and barrel of oil, which add options and possible ways to defeat the troll. Giving those sorts of players the numbers will make things worse for them overall. Now, I've only rarely encountered players that hyperfocus on numbers like that, but they are out there.

I don't think the mental state you describe here is all that common. And it has no real relevance to what @hawkeyefan has been saying in his posts.

 

[James Gasik]

Sure!

I've known and played with people who will hyperfocus on things, sometimes numbers, to the exclusion of other things. Take my description example upthread. Such a player will focus on the numerical aspects and ignore things like the fire and barrel of oil, which add options and possible ways to defeat the troll. Giving those sorts of players the numbers will make things worse for them overall. Now, I've only rarely encountered players that hyperfocus on numbers like that, but they are out there.

Interesting. I've usually run into the opposite problem, where people kind of zone out on the description and can only interact with mechanics, but everyone's brains are different to an extent, so it's probable.

I think, however, that descriptions and mechanics can complement one another, for a wider range of people, than simply one or the other. Obviously, YMMV, as we all play with different people.

 

[Corinnguard]

I don't think the mental state you describe here is all that common. And it has no real relevance to what @hawkeyefan has been saying in his posts.

What is considered relevant varies from person to person. You and Hawkeyefan might not consider what Maxperson said as relevant, but he sure seems to think it's relevant.