How world and rules interact

[Zelda Themelin]

When playing any rpg I find rules very import to communicate tje same thing to everybody how world works. I hate, hate, hate situations when people throw their little pet system at me (home made typically), don't expain it well enough (whooh didn't take time to write it down anyway), and then tell that understanding those rules when making a chararacter doesn't matter (and don't feel like explaining all the details I ask).

Of couirse it matters, it matters in every aspect when we actually start playing.

My recent experience, yes, I am bitter.

If you don't have common ground with rules, some self-styled tyrant with his/her pet players are going to walk over those players less partial to creating the so called ruleset.

Rules are the world. And basic set of rules shouldn't change, everybody should understand what stuff in their character sheet actually means. How good they are when they are good at something, and such a thing.

When playing with well known system, like D&D few house rules are ok, as long as everybody knows what they are.

And no, I don't think dm should just use monsters and treasure as written, or not come up with new ideas that suit the world. Sure you can limit options and add options. That's normal world building. I like use of imagination. D&D as written kinda takes magic away from magic. And special away from special abilities. Sometimes with D&D game balance bleed into areas where it does more harm than good. Building blocks are fine, the examples are sort of vanilla.

But I don't want any unclear land lurk within those rules I need to run my character as player properly.

And of course not every system works equally for different game-styles/worlds. I woudn't want to play everything with some edition of D&D.

Rules are physics of the game world, and different physics tell different story.


When speaking of D&D 3.x I prefer games that pretty much use core rules as written, maybe with some alternative magic/psionic system. Anyone who wants to houserule D&D to death, should IMO consider another system that supports those world ideas better, and find group that agrees.

 

[genshou]

Other. It's both for me. There's a symbiotic relationship between the imaginative setting and the rules. What magic can and cannot do affects the shaping of the world, but sometimes the setting overrides the rules via handy "creative license". I like to think of it as a friendly game of tug of war.

 

[Hussar]

I prefer a setting that takes the rules into account when its developed rather than trying to shoehorn the rules in afterwards.

To me, the rules are the "physics" of the world. In order for that world to function, it has to recognize those physics. There shouldn't be a whole bunch of poor interactions between the setting and the rules and the only way to do that is to either create the rules after the setting or create the setting from the rules.

If you create the rules, then create a setting and then try to dovetail the two together, IMO, it works very badly.

I guess I just really, really detest "exceptions". For example, if magic is easily repeatable, as DnD magic is, then it makes very little sense to me that it would not permeate every level of society just as any advantageous idea does. Some scoff at the idea of continual lights in a city, but, to me, it is simply an adjunct to the existing rules. Either change those existing rules so that continual light no longer functions as written or accept that a ruler of a city would want a well lit city.

 

[Li Shenron]

The basic rules are fixed. Everything which is in the PHB or which is added on a campaign basis, but only as long as things are considered individually. Wizards are what they are because magic is what it is in the PHB.

When two or more rules interact, then they always fit the world and never viceversa.

Additional rules anyway are chosen for the world, so it's the world which dictates what material is used (if I don't like Monks in a western setting, it doesn't matter that they are in the PHB).

 

[el-remmen]

For me, my homebrew setting comes before the rules. . . I started it when 2E came out and by the time 3E came around my players and I were very attached to it - but didn't want to ruin the "continuity" of it by changing certain things because of the new editions (for examples making all the various specialty priests into very plain clerics that are only different based on domains) - so we started house-ruling from day one to keep some basic sense of continuity.

Also, certain aspects of 3E did not fit the philosophy of the world (rarity of magical items, consequences for casting certain powerful spells, etc) so these had to be adjusted as well.

But when it comes down to it, D&D is what we want to play and what we are all familiar with - we'd rather changed the rules and keep playing D&D then try to familiarize with some other system.

Plus, it is easier to recruit new players by describing your game as "D&D + house rules" (which is fairly common) then as some other system people are not familiar with and might not be interested in.

 

[Tonguez]

What Rules??? Its all about the World

What I love about the D20 system is the basic simplicity of it roll D20 + mods, thats simple enough to fit into any world setting.
The less appealing part of the system comes in the form of fixed classes and the spell system which requires tinkering to 'fit'

 

[tzor]

Before 3E, literally in the previous century (actually in the 90's but hey that's the previous century) I used to run Lankhmar under 2E, before that I had run Lankhmar under 1E. Lankhmar required a whole lot of significant changes to the rules that frankly didn't work well was inconsistantly used within the modules for the campaign world and required massive modifications on occasion to other AD&D modules. Too much headache for too littel reward.

When I converted over to 3E I eventually made the campaign world submit to the rules, not the rules to the campaign world.

 

[genshou]

I guess I just really, really detest "exceptions". For example, if magic is easily repeatable, as DnD magic is, then it makes very little sense to me that it would not permeate every level of society just as any advantageous idea does. Some scoff at the idea of continual lights in a city, but, to me, it is simply an adjunct to the existing rules. Either change those existing rules so that continual light no longer functions as written or accept that a ruler of a city would want a well lit city.

Generally speaking, the ratio of population to spellcasters in a "standard" D&D community (one randomly generated by the rules in the DMG) is pretty wide, extremely wide in cities. Even if there's a total of thirty Wizards in that small city, they just don't have enough spells to cast for everyone who might possibly want their services. However, a spell such as continual flame could easily be cast several times over the course of a few weeks or months if the king wants to spend a few thousand gold illuminating his town. Seeing as most kings have very large coffers, I think that it certainly makes sense for at least the wealthy quarters and the land surrounding the palace to be lit by such items. If the spell has a permanent or instantaneous duration and has low-cost or effectively free components, I definitely think it should permeate society.

 

[RFisher]

I've enjoyed D&D a lot more since I adopted a "let D&D be D&D" attitude. Of course I'll tweak things, but I no longer try to shoe-horn arbitrary worlds into a D&D framework.

There are other games that are easier to mold to fit the world when I want to do that. But...I still try to find a system that is close-enough instead.