Rules Aren't Important

[Art Waring]

I blast it with my particle acceleration rifle. Now let's run back to the Transmogrifier Box...
Wow! Not having any rules makes this game easier than explaining quantum physics simply!

His boundless optimism and unique perspective are a blessing to humanity.

"Any model we make does not discribe the universe, it discribes what our brains are capable of saying at this time" -Rober Anton Wilson

I would recommend all of his books, but he has also written the foreward on some other exceptional books like Angel Tech from Antero Alli.

 

[Reynard]

It's not binary. There's still uncertainty and there's still the opportunity to use dice to resolve uncertain ththings.

So.you mean rules light and narrative. Cool.

But those are not "not rules."

 

[overgeeked]

So you mean rules light and narrative. Cool.

I mean treat the rules like the tools they are. Pick them up when necessary, leave them in the toolbox when not required, don't mistake the tools for unchangeable holy writ, and don't mistake the map for the territory. The rule-tool is an abstract device used to approximate some thing in the fiction. People focus way too much on the rule-tool-map and way too little on the fiction-setting-territory. The neat thing about abstract mechanics is we can simply change them when we need to. We're not beholden to using them. They're not good, right, correct, and perfect. They're convenient when needed and cumbersome when used unnecessarily. If a given rule doesn't work the way you want it to, toss it and make up a better one.

But those are not "not rules."

I never said no rules. But sure, you could absolutely play with no rules beyond Wheaton’s Law. Just like in your "lore isn't important" thread you're not implying that there shouldn't be any lore. Use whatever rule works best for that particular circumstance then put it back in the box. If you can think of a better rule (most referees and players can), then use that instead. Don't be beholden to what some far off designer thinks. Make and use the rules that work for you and your table.

 

[MGibster]

But, broadly speaking, the "rules" are just some stuff someone thought up at the moment. They probably aren't even particularly well thought out, even if designed by a famous game designer. You should absolutely feel free to change them to suit your game. Most game designers are even self-aware enough to put in variations of rule 0, giving you explicit permission to do so.

That's like telling me a recipe is just some stuff someone thought up at the moment. I suppose it might technically be true, but more practically speaking, someone tweaked and refined their original thought until they came up with something worthy of publication. And you can certainly make some changes to the recipe if you'd like, just make sure you know what you're doing. If you insist on subtituting honey for sugar, make sure you only use half as much honey as the recipe calls for in sugar otherwise you'll have some problems.

But it's always good to have that reminder. Go ahead and change the rules if they're not suiting your needs.

 

[aco175]

There is an ogre in the middle of the road.
I draw my sword and go kill him.
He swings his club and kills you first.
But I jump out of the way before he hits me and stab him.
Your stab does not kill him and he squishes your head with his club.
No way, the mage cast a spell and disintegrates him first.
Etc...

Sounds like 5-year-olds at play learning to play together. Might be ok from a story point of view, but the game now needs rules to decide who stabs first and how much damage everyone needs before you die. Rules on how to attack and how to cast spells.

 

[Blue]

Rules are what turn it into a game. Even if those rules are "try to match the storyteller's genre conventions in order to have a positive outcome".

If I swing a cardboard tube at my friend while making lightsaber sounds, we're having fun. But it's not a game. If she then dangles lifeless the arm I him her in, scoops up a cardboard tube in her non-dominant hand and swings at me (with the requisite lightsaber noise), we've now established some impromptu rules - get hit in a limb and lose the use of it. It's turning into a game.

Saying "the rules aren't important" goes one of two ways. Either what's happening it not a game -- it can be fun, like one person telling a story and others adding in. Or the rules are just hidden an the storyteller's head so they aren't obvious and shared. That can be a rewarding game, it can be a frustrating game. And potentially worse, it can be an inconsistent game.

I've played a card game where part of the rules are you can't discuss the rules and have to figure them out via play. But that doesn't mean there aren't rules. It just means you don't have access to them and need to learn them from observation.

This isn't a push for "we need heavy rules for everything, simulation is the only way to go". Part of rules for anything will always be how they are interpreted - in people's heads. Swinging cardboard tubes at each other can be a game.

For me, having a framework so everyone has a shared understanding, but not having much more than a framework that slows things down with rules of progressively less scope and/or importance, is also good. I don't need to have all of the corner cases mapped out. For others they do - or want a lot less formalized than that. That's all fine.

But don't mistake that for no rules, not if it's actually a game.

 

[CleverNickName]

TL;DR: games have rules, stories do not.

 

[overgeeked]

There is an ogre in the middle of the road.
I draw my sword and go kill him.
He swings his club and kills you first.
But I jump out of the way before he hits me and stab him.
Your stab does not kill him and he squishes your head with his club.
No way, the mage cast a spell and disintegrates him first.
Etc...

Sounds like 5-year-olds at play learning to play together.

Imagine that. An example you wrote specifically to sound like children playing make believe sounds like children playing make believe. You even included a fantasy version of "I shot you!" "No you didn't!"

Might be ok from a story point of view, but the game now needs rules to decide who stabs first and how much damage everyone needs before you die. Rules on how to attack and how to cast spells.

Sure. But what rules do you actually need? It sounds like you'd need at least a rule to determine whose statement becomes true in the fiction. That could be anything, really. A flip of a coin, a roll off, draw lots, draw cards...anything.

Referee: "There is an ogre in the middle of the road."

Player 1: "I draw my sword and go kill him."

Referee: "He swings his club and kills you first."

Now there are two statements in direct contradiction to each other. Roll to see who's statement is true. The player wins, and we continue...

Player 1: "I jump out of the way before he hits me and stab him."

Referee: "Your stab does not kill him and he squishes your head with his club."

Player 1: "No way..."

Again, two contradictory statements. Roll to see which is true. On and on.

No need for 400-page books giving hyper-detailed rules for everything.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Unless you feel they are.

But, broadly speaking, the "rules" are just some stuff someone thought up at the moment. They probably aren't even particularly well thought out, even if designed by a famous game designer. You should absolutely feel free to change them to suit your game. Most game designers are even self-aware enough to put in variations of rule 0, giving you explicit permission to do so.

Brought to you by every rules discussion thread ever...

So what you're saying is the rules ... the system ... it doesn't mat....

Oh, no.

WELCOME TO THE ALL-VALLEY KARATE DISCUSSION TOURNAMENT.

 

[overgeeked]

Saying "the rules aren't important" goes one of two ways. Either what's happening it not a game -- it can be fun, like one person telling a story and others adding in. Or the rules are just hidden an the storyteller's head so they aren't obvious and shared.

Or it is a game and the rules are discussed beforehand and generally invisible. See the invisible rulebooks link I posted earlier.

 

[overgeeked]

So what you're saying is the rules ... the system ... it doesn't mat....

Oh, no.

No, I'm actually saying the opposite. System matters quite a lot. So much so that it's a problem. What starts as a smart and fashionable smoking jacket quickly turns into a straight jacket.

Systems focus and limit the imagination. But the imagination is limitless. Mechanics are limited and limiting. The heavier the mechanics the more limiting they are. RPGs exist in a weird Venn diagram space between limitless imagination and limited mechanics. To even approach representing a real person in a real situation (definitely my goal, immersion, verisimilitude, etc), you need either rules for everything which needlessly bog the game down and take far too long to resolve or you need very limited rules that cover most if not all the ground. We don't need more mechanics than basic task/conflict resolution. Yet, for some weird reason the hobby has bought into the idea that we must have lots of bespoke mechanics to play, when we really don't. I'm not interested in a boardgame with a bit of theater on top. I want immersion and verisimilitude. And to me, the best way to get that is to recognize that the rules are unnecessary limitations and to get the rules out of the way.

I’ll quote Jonathan Tweet and Robin Laws from Over the Edge 2nd Edition:

“And why the simple mechanics? Two reasons: First, complex mechanics invariably channel and limit the imagination; second, my neurons have better things to do than calculate numbers and refer to charts all evening. Complex mechanics, in their effort to tell you what you can do, generally do a fair job of implying what you cannot do.”

And this from Matt Mercer:

“This is a testament to why I love playing with newer players. There’s a cycle I’m noticing, through the years of playing. Like a player cycle. When you first begin, you don’t know the boundaries that a lot of experienced players expect or understand. The more you know the game, the more you tend to, more often than not, stay within the confines of what the game establishes as the rules. When you’re new to it, you don’t really understand that so you take wider swings, you make stranger choices. You really kind of push against those boundaries because you don’t know where the boundaries are. You’re like a kid learning to how to walk for the first time and bumping into the furniture. And it’s wonderful, and eventually you kind of fall into those lines and not always, but sometimes you find yourself kind of subconsciously sticking, coloring within the lines because you’ve learned to do so. Then over time you begin to realize you’ve been doing that. And then you go back to being weird again. And that’s my other favorite point. It’s new players or extremely experienced players who have come back to reclaim their ‘stupid’ youth as players.”

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

No, I'm actually saying the opposite. System matters quite a lot. So much so that it's a problem. What starts as a smart and fashionable smoking jacket quickly turns into a straight jacket.

I don't think we are in disagreement. As you remember, I am a big fan (and proponent) of FKR and rules-lite systems. I would go so far as to say that the differentiating issue is that for me, what tends to happen is that people put too much faith in rules-revisions. But much like the animating force that drove the FK divide from KS, the problem isn't the fit of the rules to the fiction, it's the rules themselves.

In the end, rules don't matter because whatever the rules are, people can (and will) either play as they wish (master of rules) or let the rules play them. But that's me. I'm sure you'll get .... feedback ... from others.

 

[Teo Twawki]

TL;DR: games have rules, stories do not.

Stories do have rules... as any good editor or author can talk about. When stories break their own rules, they become not-very-good-stories.

 

[overgeeked]

I don't think we are in disagreement. As you remember, I am a big fan (and proponent) of FKR and rules-lite systems. I would go so far as to say that the differentiating issue is that for me, what tends to happen is that people put too much faith in rules-revisions. But much like the animating force that drove the FK divide from KS, the problem isn't the fit of the rules to the fiction, it's the rules themselves.

I'd say it was both the fit and the rules themselves. But yes, this mirrors that divide. Or rather it is that divide, only repeated.

In the end, rules don't matter because whatever the rules are, people can (and will) either play as they wish (master of rules) or let the rules play them. But that's me. I'm sure you'll get .... feedback ... from others.

Yeah, you can't have an opinion in public without taking a beating getting feedback.

Stories do have rules... as any good editor or author can talk about.

Exactly.

When stories break their own rules, they become not-very-good-stories.

Or they become classics.

 

[Jd Smith1]

Imagine that. An example you wrote specifically to sound like children playing make believe sounds like children playing make believe. You even included a fantasy version of "I shot you!" "No you didn't!"

Sure. But what rules do you actually need? It sounds like you'd need at least a rule to determine whose statement becomes true in the fiction. That could be anything, really. A flip of a coin, a roll off, draw lots, draw cards...anything.

Referee: "There is an ogre in the middle of the road."

Player 1: "I draw my sword and go kill him."

Referee: "He swings his club and kills you first."

Now there are two statements in direct contradiction to each other. Roll to see who's statement is true. The player wins, and we continue...

Player 1: "I jump out of the way before he hits me and stab him."

Referee: "Your stab does not kill him and he squishes your head with his club."

Player 1: "No way..."

Again, two contradictory statements. Roll to see which is true. On and on.

No need for 400-page books giving hyper-detailed rules for everything.

Roll to see which is true?

Dullest encounter ever.

 

[Teo Twawki]

Or they become classics.

I deleted a sentence that mentioned them sometimes becoming summer blockbusters.

 

[Manbearcat]

The shared imagined space is generated so someone’s (either the designer of the adventure/situation, or the GM, or the player) will can be enacted upon it. Its the bare minimum necessary to play a TTRPG game at all (CRPG play space isn’t imagined…its virtual…physical games play space is physical).

Rules exist so players can move from envisioning > embodying (in the imagined space) > operationalizing their own particular will upon the imagined space/situation in a way that isn’t mostly or wholly alien from the way human systems (neurological, endocrine, musculoskeletal) work here on Earth.

Without rules, its just the GM or adventure/situation designer’s will that is being operationalized. Without functional rules, its either the GM’s will being operationalized or its no one’s will being operationalized (because the game grinds to a halt as players predictably try to derive/negotiate the means necessary, rules(!), to envision and operationalize their will in a way that isn’t alien to them).

 

[pointofyou]

If the rules are being ignored then we're not really playing a game. If we're not really playing a game I am not interested. If the GM is unilaterally ignoring the rules they might as well write their novel and be done with it.

 

[Manbearcat]

If the rules are being ignored then we're not really playing a game. If we're not really playing a game I am not interested. If the GM is unilaterally ignoring the rules they might as well write their novel and be done with it.

I totally get you.

But it might still qualify as a game…a puzzle/mystery-solving game where the player’s role is to (a) uncover what has already been predestined/written via artfully triggering GM exposition while (b) bringing theatrics and color to the process of (a).

But, having a fair grip on your tastes by now from your posts, this is not the game (assuming it is one…it might not be, typically if (a) above isn’t even a thing) you signed up for (and/or it might be a total crap game)!

 

[pointofyou]

I totally get you.

But it might still qualify as a game…a puzzle/mystery-solving game where the player’s role is to (a) uncover what has already been predestined/written via artfully triggering GM exposition while (b) bringing theatrics and color to the process of (a).

But, having a fair grip on your tastes by now from your posts, this is not the game (assuming it is one…it might not be, typically if (a) above isn’t even a thing) you signed up for!

The type of game you're describing still has rules however non-explicit they might be. If I want to solve a mystery without gameplay I'll read some old Dorothy Sayers or Ellery Queen or something. If I want to feel as though I'm trying to solve a mystery with a cheating GM there's always Dame Agatha.