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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Crazy Jerome" data-source="post: 5635792" data-attributes="member: 54877">Despite my generally negative view of the design ethos that populates the rules with simulation fluff meant to drive how the mechanics work, I recognize that there is a kind of fun that you can only get with that kind of design. Namely, if you want the gonzo fun of some oddball element informing the trajectory of the world, and you want these to be treated as a kind of pseudo physics for how things works, then there is a sense in which the person with narrative control (even if only the DM), can't have that fun absent such elements. (The players might or might not, depending upon how narrative control is distributed.) That is, if you want the fun of figuring out how zone of truth can gloriously screw up the world, then you've got to have zone of truth--supplied by someone else to whose ruling you will submit. G. K. Chesteron was the type to appreciate that kind of thing in life and fairy tales, which is very evident in his writing. In his view, that the fairy tale logic said that you couldn't keep the magic sword unless you circled the ring three times--was merely illustrative of the same kind of choices in real life, where things you wanted often have strange and even paradoxical requirements. Truth is stranger than fiction, and you want some of that strange truth in your world.  Then there is the other aesthetic side of that same coin, where the engineering mindset takes those rules as physics an extrapolates to the possible conclusions, based on whatever evidence and presumptions they bring to the table, and can convince others to value. In the healthy version of this view (i.e. non-abusive), things like zone of truth are valuable not only in themselves, but in interaction with other such things. They have to be complicated, because figuring out the world is a fun puzzle, and if it only has a few pieces, there isn't any challenge to it. Truth is stranger than fiction, and fiction that isn't strange enough isn't worth getting to the truth. I rather like fairy tale logic in my games, as played. And I don't mind it in my life, or in stories written by others. But I don't much care for it in my world building. At least not the externally supplied ruling part. I want to pick and choose the places where it manifests. And being a mostly logical-minded software developer, I also get enough of dealing with oddball elements of strange truth to satisfy any unraveling desires in that respect.  When I'm gaming, I'm more interested in the characters than the world. Accordingly, my world building is more about providing a place for the characters to act than it is about the world itself.</blockquote>

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