How Visible To players Should The Rules Be?

[Lanefan]

I made a bit of a joke earlier in the thread about not liking the term "sandbox" because it refers to a child's toy, and I think comparing RPGs to sandboxes infantilizes the hobby and its participants.

Would you cater to this interpretation and find some other term to use than sandbox? I doubt it. Nor would you consider yourself having failed at communication for not doing so.

I've never personally been a fan of the "sandbox" term, but reluctantly use it anyway so people understand what I'm on about. "Open-ended" or "open exploration" would for me be better terms, but I don't fancy my chances of getting the whole community to switch to them - and so I don't bother trying.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I'm not also terribly fond of hyperbole in discussion.

Nor humor, it would seem!

 

[Lanefan]

I'm not sold they ever really were; too many spellcasters and specialty classes too early on.

In 0e, and to an extent 1e if using 0th-level rules, you could have Farmer Bob as your PC; he'd learned how to use a few weapons while defending sheep from wolves, then when the farm burned down he became a wanderer and eventually got caught up in the adventuring life. Ditto for an urchin who became a street thief and progressed from there to adventuring.

And yet their knowledge of runic circles would likely match their knowledge of helicopters. Same for their knowledge of dragons, for that matter.

4e and 5e moved hard away from this; there's no 0th-level, and 1st-level types are already a very long way removed from commoners in terms of what they can do and what they're assumed to know.

 

[Umbran]

Nor humor, it would seem!

Well, that would require it to be funny.

Sorry, but you walked into that one.

In the context of your argument so far, reading it as snark, or snarky hyperbole, would be quite natural.

 

[soviet]

Well, that would require it to be funny.

Sorry, but you walked into that one.

In the context of your argument so far, reading it as snark, or snarky hyperbole, would be quite natural.

What a disingenuous perspective

 

[thefutilist]

No, but they do have backgrounds and ideals and flaws and so forth, which a 5e DM could focus on and test if that's how she wanted to run the game.

A lot of the Forge/story games crowd have had huge issues actually getting the style of game they want. The parts of the furniture are there in trad games but the assembly guide isn’t. So yeah, if you read The Burning Wheel you can back port the knowledge to 5E but you don’t get that knowledge by reading 5E.

It’s a bit analogous to stuff like the ‘old school primer’, you have these furniture parts and some seem absurd or stupid or outdated, then you read a good guide and suddenly it all makes sense. You can assemble the type of game you want.

Now this raises the question, should we evaluate a system based on the play advice for the system? If you don’t think so, then all story game type critiques are going to seem ludicrous. On the other hand, I don’t think you can credit the game text either. There’s some belief type stuff in 5e, so what.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Well, no; because player characters aren't allowed to be rubes any more. Didn't you get the memo?

Whoever wanted the PCs to be rubes?

The impression I get is more that GMs in those systems are strongly discouraged from having or using (or at the extreme aren't allowed to have or use) pre-existing ideas; which for me would defeat a large part of the point of GMing on the first place.

I'm never not going to have setting/adventure/NPC/plot ideas, and it's a bit much IMO to ask/expect someone else to run those ideas so I can play through them. And so, where else are my ideas supposed to go except into the games I run?

I don't think of it as being discouraged from using their own ideas so much as how they come up with the ideas. What is the impetus for the GM's new idea? Is it related to the PCs in some way? This can be specific (a relative or an enemy or similar) or can be broad (a danger to X when one of the PCs is sworn to defend X).

It's just a different way to channel your creativity. We've talked about this kind of stuff before. You actively don't want the game to be "about" the PCs. They're all interchangeable in your eyes (or very close to that). These games are inherently about the PCs. So everything the GM does is meant to be in service to that idea.

In 0e, and to an extent 1e if using 0th-level rules, you could have Farmer Bob as your PC; he'd learned how to use a few weapons while defending sheep from wolves, then when the farm burned down he became a wanderer and eventually got caught up in the adventuring life. Ditto for an urchin who became a street thief and progressed from there to adventuring.

And yet their knowledge of runic circles would likely match their knowledge of helicopters. Same for their knowledge of dragons, for that matter.

4e and 5e moved hard away from this; there's no 0th-level, and 1st-level types are already a very long way removed from commoners in terms of what they can do and what they're assumed to know.

I think that shift happened much earlier than 4e. I'd say mid-90s, although I think there was plenty of that stuff sooner. At most, that was a phase that you were meant to endure and move past as quickly as possible. And there's a reason... it stinks.

Over ten years of staring every game that way was enough for me. I don't need to try and control the power level of the PCs just like I don't need to limit their knowledge to of runic circles or what's over the next hill.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Well, that would require it to be funny.

Sorry, but you walked into that one.

In the context of your argument so far, reading it as snark, or snarky hyperbole, would be quite natural.

The snarky hyperbole is what made it funny, silly!

 

[soviet]

A lot of the Forge/story games crowd have had huge issues actually getting the style of game they want. The parts of the furniture are there in trad games but the assembly guide isn’t. So yeah, if you read The Burning Wheel you can back port the knowledge to 5E but you don’t get that knowledge by reading 5E.

It’s a bit analogous to stuff like the ‘old school primer’, you have these furniture parts and some seem absurd or stupid or outdated, then you read a good guide and suddenly it all makes sense. You can assemble the type of game you want.

Now this raises the question, should we evaluate a system based on the play advice for the system? If you don’t think so, then all story game type critiques are going to seem ludicrous. On the other hand, I don’t think you can credit the game text either. There’s some belief type stuff in 5e, so what.

Good points. There's a difference between something like Beliefs being in the gamebook, for people to use or not use as they wish, and having Beliefs be an absolute driver of play that feeds into the resolution system itself.

Inspiration in 5e fills a similar space, where it's there but easily forgotten if you're not careful (we forget it all the time), but nowhere near the driver of play that similar metapoints are in other systems.

 

[Umbran]

What a disingenuous perspective

Oh, take a hike with your accusative approach. You aren't a mind-reader to know my perspective, and if you are, you can collect your reward from the Amazing Randi, as you'll get no reward, and only small patience, from me.