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Rules, Rules, Rules: Thoughts on the Past, Present, and Future of D&D
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<blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 8850169" data-attributes="member: 6790260"><p>Yeah, that would be a problem for me.</p><p></p><p>My thing is, both parts of the term "roleplaying game" are important. Roleplaying requires a great deal of openness, flexibility, etc., and I'm keenly aware of that, I run a DW game. But for it to be a "game," the player needs to be able to make informed decisions, learn from them, and apply that learning going forward (whether "do better" after doing poorly, or "keep it up" after doing well.) Inconsistency is one of several ways that you prevent that from being possible. When the rules are inconsistent--when the rules change without the player's knowledge, so the player can't reason from past experience to future events (within the limits of probability, of course)--you aren't actually playing a <strong>game</strong> anymore. You are, at best, engaged in group improv where one person is allowed inordinate power over the improv setting. And it's cool if that's what you want, but you'd be much better served by dispensing with the pretense of having rules. If you are actually serious about having rules as...y'know, <em>rules</em>, then they need to be consistent so players can actually <em>use</em> them.</p><p></p><p>"60% of the time, it works every time" is a joke for a reason. So I am confused as to how this produces "better play," because if the rules...well, <em>aren't rules</em>, then there's no reasoning you can make from them. You can't learn what it means to make wise decisions. You just do things, and consequences happen, but no reasoning can validly connect the two together--there is no causative connection, because the cause of the results is <em>the changed rules</em>, not the choice.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="EzekielRaiden, post: 8850169, member: 6790260"] Yeah, that would be a problem for me. My thing is, both parts of the term "roleplaying game" are important. Roleplaying requires a great deal of openness, flexibility, etc., and I'm keenly aware of that, I run a DW game. But for it to be a "game," the player needs to be able to make informed decisions, learn from them, and apply that learning going forward (whether "do better" after doing poorly, or "keep it up" after doing well.) Inconsistency is one of several ways that you prevent that from being possible. When the rules are inconsistent--when the rules change without the player's knowledge, so the player can't reason from past experience to future events (within the limits of probability, of course)--you aren't actually playing a [B]game[/B] anymore. You are, at best, engaged in group improv where one person is allowed inordinate power over the improv setting. And it's cool if that's what you want, but you'd be much better served by dispensing with the pretense of having rules. If you are actually serious about having rules as...y'know, [I]rules[/I], then they need to be consistent so players can actually [I]use[/I] them. "60% of the time, it works every time" is a joke for a reason. So I am confused as to how this produces "better play," because if the rules...well, [I]aren't rules[/I], then there's no reasoning you can make from them. You can't learn what it means to make wise decisions. You just do things, and consequences happen, but no reasoning can validly connect the two together--there is no causative connection, because the cause of the results is [I]the changed rules[/I], not the choice. [/QUOTE]
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Rules, Rules, Rules: Thoughts on the Past, Present, and Future of D&D
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