Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="Ovinomancer" data-source="post: 8214257" data-attributes="member: 16814">That's mostly on you, though, for using a highly idiosyncratic definition of &quot;rules as physics.&quot;&nbsp; This has been a term of art used in discussion of game analysis for awhile and is more commonly understood as preferring the rules to model the physics of the world rather than how you've used it, which is that the fictional world understands the game rules as it's reality.Perfectly fine approach, but it's not at all what's meant by &quot;system matters.&quot;&nbsp; As I said above, this is a matter of how you design the fictional world rather than a function of the system.&nbsp; In thinking on it, I'm having trouble with pulling out a function of system that lends itself to this approach.&nbsp; I started thinking that more simulationist systems would do so, but that doesn't work, really, as this approach rarely crops up in more modern or more sci-fi systems, even in highly simulationist systems.&nbsp; It seems to really be a function of games where the lore is built into the systems (WoD) or D&amp;D-esque games.&nbsp; I think it's really just a matter of worldbuilding, and not really a system function outside of the cases where a system has been tightly coupled to the worldbuilding or the premise is distant enough that it's easy to assume this kind of fictional understanding because the effort to encompass more is not worth the effort.&nbsp; I think this is the case with D&amp;D, where it can sometimes be easier for the players to engage the lore with the assumption that the rules are understood as reality rather than add work to expand the lore so that the rules are not definitional of reality.I had a poll a number of years ago where I asked a similar question -- do the classes have concrete meaning in your games?&nbsp; The answers were divided fairly equality between all the time, none of the time, and some of the time.&nbsp; <a href="https://www.enworld.org/threads/do-classes-have-concrete-meaning-in-your-game.472788/" target="_blank">Here's the link, if you're interested</a>.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Ovinomancer, post: 8214257, member: 16814"] That's mostly on you, though, for using a highly idiosyncratic definition of "rules as physics." This has been a term of art used in discussion of game analysis for awhile and is more commonly understood as preferring the rules to model the physics of the world rather than how you've used it, which is that the fictional world understands the game rules as it's reality. Perfectly fine approach, but it's not at all what's meant by "system matters." As I said above, this is a matter of how you design the fictional world rather than a function of the system. In thinking on it, I'm having trouble with pulling out a function of system that lends itself to this approach. I started thinking that more simulationist systems would do so, but that doesn't work, really, as this approach rarely crops up in more modern or more sci-fi systems, even in highly simulationist systems. It seems to really be a function of games where the lore is built into the systems (WoD) or D&D-esque games. I think it's really just a matter of worldbuilding, and not really a system function outside of the cases where a system has been tightly coupled to the worldbuilding or the premise is distant enough that it's easy to assume this kind of fictional understanding because the effort to encompass more is not worth the effort. I think this is the case with D&D, where it can sometimes be easier for the players to engage the lore with the assumption that the rules are understood as reality rather than add work to expand the lore so that the rules are not definitional of reality. I had a poll a number of years ago where I asked a similar question -- do the classes have concrete meaning in your games? The answers were divided fairly equality between all the time, none of the time, and some of the time. [URL='https://www.enworld.org/threads/do-classes-have-concrete-meaning-in-your-game.472788/']Here's the link, if you're interested[/URL]. [/QUOTE]

Verification