Rules Aren't Important

[MGibster]

Exactly. It’s like people forget their first few games where anything goes and everyone has a blast regardless of the rules. Instead what we get is people acting like their fond memories are of flipping through the book making sure all the Ts are crossed and Is dotted.

My favorite game isn't Ledgers & Charts for no reason.

 

[Manbearcat]

A wise @Campbell once (ok, very recently) said:

Fiction first <is not> fiction only.

Fiction first was never meant to be worlds, not rules.

To which someone might have replied:

"Yeah, Fiction First is not "Gamestate Whatever-the-Eff by GM."

 

[Reynard]

Fiction first is an operating philosophy. It doesn't inherently say anything about rules density or complexity.

 

[pemerton]

The fiction.

"There's an ogre standing in the middle of the road up ahead."

The players are now aware of the situation in the game's fiction. Not a rule in sight.

Of course there is. There's a rule about who got to make that statement true in the shared fiction.

 

[Aldarc]

Of course there is. There's a rule about who got to make that statement true in the shared fiction.

Yeah, but that rule is invisible. You're not supposed to see it.

 

[Larnievc]

It's just an obstacle of some arbitrary difficulty and threat.

With rules on how to overcome it?

 

[Reynard]

With rules on how to overcome it?

Yeah but we have already established @overgeeked didn't mean "no rules."

 

[Fenris-77]

A clock in Blades isn't some completely abstract thing with no mechanics attached. The players have a lot of leeway about how to approach the problem (the clock) but it's mechanically defined. It's always X roll with Y success reduces the clock by Z.

 

[Reynard]

A clock in Blades isn't some completely abstract thing with no mechanics attached. The players have a lot of leeway about how to approach the problem (the clock) but it's mechanically defined. It's always X roll with Y success reduces the clock by Z.

But does it matter? Does it actually matter in play whether the ogre is a clock or is a bag of hit points? I don't think it does, except insofar the bag of hit points has a more narrowly defined set of applicable mechanically discrete PC abities that can be leveraged. Which really just shrinks the game. But otherwise, it's still some re that says some number of appropriately high dice rolls overcome the obstacle. So from that perspective @overgeeked is right: the (specific) rules don't actually matter.

 

[Fenris-77]

But does it matter? Does it actually matter in play whether the ogre is a clock or is a bag of hit points? I don't think it does, except insofar the bag of hit points has a more narrowly defined set of applicable mechanically discrete PC abities that can be leveraged. Which really just shrinks the game. But otherwise, it's still some re that says some number of appropriately high dice rolls overcome the obstacle. So from that perspective @overgeeked is right: the (specific) rules don't actually matter.

Of course it doesn't. I was just saying it is mechanically defined.