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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 7632676" data-attributes="member: 4937"><p>Totally on board with that.</p><p></p><p>What I typically find talking to the OSR crowd is the assertion that rules alone create the game, and there is some very tight relationship between the game created by 3e or 5e or OSR and a certain attitude of play. So for example, they'll make an assertion like, "Old games were more challenging than new games." when challenge is obviously a function of encounter design and not rule set. Played straight up by ruthless GMs, Pathfinder adventure paths are every bit or even more challenging that just about anything that was thrown at me or which I would have thrown at players, with brutal encounters that if you go in unprepared for are begging to be TPKs. Sometimes I think that's less to do with intentional challenge than just sloppy playtesting, but still, challenge is obviously not just a result of the rules. I've talked to CoC players that had spellbooks and regularly cast 'reanimate dead' and played CoC like D&D dungeon crawls.</p><p></p><p>Likewise, proposition filters that refuse propositions like "I make a search check" or "I make a diplomacy" check are not functions of the rules. They are functions of the meta-rules that I call "processes of play". How a table decides to apply the rules is a very complicated discussion, but to say that "carefully describing their intended actions after asking for clarification before acting" is a matter of the rules and not a matter of the processes of play is to IMO be utterly unreflective about how you play a game. I mean, that's how we play 3e and Pathfinder, something I'm frequently told by OSR advocates is impossible.</p><p></p><p>You are correct in some ways that the old games didn't tightly specific the processes of play, which is one of the reasons that they could play out so differently at different tables. On the other hand, I consider Gygax's example of play in the DMG one of the most clear outlines of the intended process of play in the history of gaming, and a standard modern games like FATE could learn from, not just because it explained what play should look like, but clearly described the game that the game intended to create in a way that I think FATE often fails (that is to say, FATE's creators intend to create one game, but often fail to realize that they created a different one, something that glares at me from their examples of play both in the book and when watching the game played).</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 7632676, member: 4937"] Totally on board with that. What I typically find talking to the OSR crowd is the assertion that rules alone create the game, and there is some very tight relationship between the game created by 3e or 5e or OSR and a certain attitude of play. So for example, they'll make an assertion like, "Old games were more challenging than new games." when challenge is obviously a function of encounter design and not rule set. Played straight up by ruthless GMs, Pathfinder adventure paths are every bit or even more challenging that just about anything that was thrown at me or which I would have thrown at players, with brutal encounters that if you go in unprepared for are begging to be TPKs. Sometimes I think that's less to do with intentional challenge than just sloppy playtesting, but still, challenge is obviously not just a result of the rules. I've talked to CoC players that had spellbooks and regularly cast 'reanimate dead' and played CoC like D&D dungeon crawls. Likewise, proposition filters that refuse propositions like "I make a search check" or "I make a diplomacy" check are not functions of the rules. They are functions of the meta-rules that I call "processes of play". How a table decides to apply the rules is a very complicated discussion, but to say that "carefully describing their intended actions after asking for clarification before acting" is a matter of the rules and not a matter of the processes of play is to IMO be utterly unreflective about how you play a game. I mean, that's how we play 3e and Pathfinder, something I'm frequently told by OSR advocates is impossible. You are correct in some ways that the old games didn't tightly specific the processes of play, which is one of the reasons that they could play out so differently at different tables. On the other hand, I consider Gygax's example of play in the DMG one of the most clear outlines of the intended process of play in the history of gaming, and a standard modern games like FATE could learn from, not just because it explained what play should look like, but clearly described the game that the game intended to create in a way that I think FATE often fails (that is to say, FATE's creators intend to create one game, but often fail to realize that they created a different one, something that glares at me from their examples of play both in the book and when watching the game played). [/QUOTE]
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