Or it's an extremely rigorous military simulation (cf. free Kriegsspiel.)Playing an RPG without game rules isn't a game. It's improvisational theater.
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Or it's an extremely rigorous military simulation (cf. free Kriegsspiel.)Playing an RPG without game rules isn't a game. It's improvisational theater.
What's reasonable? Off the top of my head, I do not know what's the reasonable range on a long-bow. I do know that D&D 3 and D&D 4 disagree seriously on the in-game distance of a long-bow. That's even a real-life example; if I'm playing a mage, how long can I keep a light going and what's the costs? There are tons of other examples where being on the same page is difficult, unless you have an extensive written document setting out "reasonable"... like a rulebook.
Would you -- and this is addressed to everyone here -- have a problem with a rules-free or hidden-rules game where the game's world followed the same physical laws as our own? Or one where the game world deviated from our real world in ways that were equally mysterious to the characters in it -- because you weren't playing wizards, or because the mouth to hell had just opened, or whatever?One of the fundamental purposes served by a rule system is that of a game world's physical laws.
Would you -- and this is addressed to everyone here -- have a problem with a rules-free or hidden-rules game where the game's world followed the same physical laws as our own? Or one where the game world deviated from our real world in ways that were equally mysterious to the characters in it -- because you weren't playing wizards, or because the mouth to hell had just opened, or whatever?
I'd like to emphasize that "a fictional version of the real world" would include cops & robbers, cowboys & Indians, pirates & Imperial Navy men, any real war, Three Musketeers, Robin Hood, etc. That's a lot of action and adventure.A game with physical laws exactly like our own--essentially taking place in a fictional version of the real world--would be much easier to manage as a rules-free or hidden-rules game, certainly, and as a player I'd probably have a better grasp of what's possible and what's not.
No idea what's going on? Random?But I think a game where even the PCs have no idea what's going on wouldn't be particularly fun in the long run: in that situation, you're asking people to perform actions and make decisions when the outcome is random, at least from their perspective. When people start to get the idea that their choices do not have a meaningful impact on the results of their actions, they lose investment and stop caring.
You enjoy the gamist elements elements of a roleplaying game as much as the simulation. There's nothing wrong with that. But you can certainly explore the Caves of Chaos without detailed character metrics.And that leads me to my next point: player choice. As a player I like to decide what kind of character I want to play, and I like having the freedom to customize and craft them (within the limits of whatever system I'm playing in). If my character advances, I want to be able to make some choices to advance them, and those choices are more meaningful to me if I actually know what it is I'm advancing and how much, and how that changes the overall configuration of my character. I'd frankly rather have a +1 Intelligence than "a little bit smarter", because the former has a quantifiable effect (on skills, knowledge, magic, whatever) and the latter still leaves me a bit in the dark as to how much "a little bit" means.
But you can certainly explore the Caves of Chaos without detailed character metrics.
But you can certainly explore the Caves of Chaos without detailed character metrics.
The old-school game was 90-percent rules-free: you described what you did, and the DM told you what happened -- sometimes after rolling a die to get a feel for whether things went well or not.You can, yes. And with a sufficiently competent group, it might be interesting. But that sort of thing--which I do participate in--is what I use MU*-based freeform roleplaying for, and it's not what I expect or want when I sit down at the gaming table, for the reasons outlined above.
The old-school game was 90-percent rules-free: you described what you did, and the DM told you what happened -- sometimes after rolling a die to get a feel for whether things went well or not.