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Message: <blockquote data-quote="karlindel" data-source="post: 5720932" data-attributes="member: 27103">I have twice run games in which the players did not know the rules.  Everyone had a great time in both campaigns.  The first was an anime inspired campaign that ran for about 8 sessions.  The PCs rolled the dice and knew it was a percentile based system, but that was basically it.  I kept the character sheets, and spent xp for them based on the way they roleplayed the characters and how they talked about their characters growing out of character.The second was a halloween one shot game that I ran on the fly using the Warhammer system based on my memory (I had been working on the one shot, but it wasn't ready in time, but everyone was interested in playing a Halloween game, so I figured I'd do my best).  I rolled the dice, people described what they wanted to do, I would ask for clarification when needed, and everyone had a blast.I've considered doing it again sometime.  It is extra work for the GM unless the system is relatively simple.  It would not work for a game like 4e that relies on a lot of powers and tactical positioning and abstracts so much.  It also would not work for narrative games that rely on the players have a lot of mechanical power over the narration.  In addition, the players need to trust the GM, and the GM needs to give enough description that the players can make informed choices and decisions about what their characters do.  Although a lot has been said about needing to know what your characters are capable of, in the games I ran, this was not a problem.  In the anime campaign, the players built the characters via fluff, so they knew what their interests were and what skills would likely go with that, so they knew about how good they were at different things.  If they needed more specific information, they just asked, and I gave them an idea of whether they thought they could do it.  In the Halloween game, they knew their characters were mercenaries and so could fight reasonably well, and if they needed to know if they had any other skills, they just asked when it came up, or I would describe it such that they knew whether or not they had a chance (e.g. you come to a locked door, too bad you left Finn guarding the entrance, as he could probably break in quietly; then they could decide if they wanted to take the time to replace Finn with a different guard or just break down the door and risk alerting those on the other side).</blockquote>

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