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General Tabletop Discussion
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Rules, Rulings and Second Order Design: D&D and AD&D Examined
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<blockquote data-quote="Pedantic" data-source="post: 9043613" data-attributes="member: 6690965"><p>Interesting. I feel like you're drawing a distinction here that I'm not totally sure I'd have considered relevant before, and maybe this goes back to that point about the "aesthetics of rules" from a few posts back. Fundamentally, I don't really care whether the rules of the game I'm playing come from a manual, an instruction booklet, the imagination of my classmate on the bus next to me (I recall a fascinating combat arena game about elementally powered stick figures we used to play on field trips), but I am pretty invested in what the rules do in action, both literally, but also meta-textually. I want to use the rules, and I want to understand them. Part of that might be the board gaming background, where finding a rule that doesn't quite make sense or flow smoothly from established processes usually means there's something I don't yet understand about the game's strategy, or a weird and potentially degenerate board state that needed to be solved for I can try to go unpick.</p><p></p><p>It seems to me though, that you're drawing a line between the territory of "rules" and "gameplay at the table" that I'm finding unintuitive. Houserules are still rules by other means, a DM telling me "we'll do the called shot like this" is a rule I've just learned about right now, and so on. The same processes I'd use to evaluate rules outside that context, still seem to apply.</p><p></p><p>Perhaps it's inconsistency that's really the point of variance? Not just table to table, but rule to rule. You might use that called shot rule once, and a different approach the next time, and while that does retroactively establish a conditional on which rule is used, it's not a commitment to uphold that each time.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Pedantic, post: 9043613, member: 6690965"] Interesting. I feel like you're drawing a distinction here that I'm not totally sure I'd have considered relevant before, and maybe this goes back to that point about the "aesthetics of rules" from a few posts back. Fundamentally, I don't really care whether the rules of the game I'm playing come from a manual, an instruction booklet, the imagination of my classmate on the bus next to me (I recall a fascinating combat arena game about elementally powered stick figures we used to play on field trips), but I am pretty invested in what the rules do in action, both literally, but also meta-textually. I want to use the rules, and I want to understand them. Part of that might be the board gaming background, where finding a rule that doesn't quite make sense or flow smoothly from established processes usually means there's something I don't yet understand about the game's strategy, or a weird and potentially degenerate board state that needed to be solved for I can try to go unpick. It seems to me though, that you're drawing a line between the territory of "rules" and "gameplay at the table" that I'm finding unintuitive. Houserules are still rules by other means, a DM telling me "we'll do the called shot like this" is a rule I've just learned about right now, and so on. The same processes I'd use to evaluate rules outside that context, still seem to apply. Perhaps it's inconsistency that's really the point of variance? Not just table to table, but rule to rule. You might use that called shot rule once, and a different approach the next time, and while that does retroactively establish a conditional on which rule is used, it's not a commitment to uphold that each time. [/QUOTE]
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