Rules volume and play focus.

[loverdrive]

I'd say what kind of character you can't create is a greater signifier of play focus of the system. In Blades in the Dark, any character you can possibly create will be a daring criminal. In Apocalypse World, any character you can possibly create will always be in a dire need of things that somebody else owns. In D&D, any character you can possibly create will wipe the floor with an average joe in a fight, but you surely can create a character who can't speak, can't sneak or can't look for hidden passages.

This seems pretty clear cut to me.

 

[Aldarc]

I'd say what kind of character you can't create is a greater signifier of play focus of the system. In Blades in the Dark, any character you can possibly create will be a daring criminal. In Apocalypse World, any character you can possibly create will always be in a dire need of things that somebody else owns. In D&D, any character you can possibly create will wipe the floor with an average joe in a fight.

This seems pretty clear cut to me.

I agree. I remember almost how liberating it felt when I created a mundane, silver-tongued merchant in 7th Sea (1st ed.) who sucked at combat. How would I even go about that in D&D 5e? Though I had that debate with some people in my old gaming group, whose hottest flavor of the month was 5e D&D then. They argued that I could play a bard or a rogue or a figher. But then I pointed out that I would still have either spells, sneak attack, or multiple-attacks per round with combat proficiencies. The game isn't designed for creating non-combative characters in this world, and there's nothing wrong with that. It's a class-based game of fantasy action-adventure.

 

[aramis erak]

There is an oft repeated idea that you can tell what a game wants you to do based on where it puts the weight of its rules (page count wise). I am not so sure.

Let's take the obvious example: D&D (nearly any edition, but post TSR editions especially). The vast majority of rules that exist in the game are focused on the combat system. Note that when I say "rules" here I mean everything from actual gameplay mechanics, to spells, class abilities, monsters, items, etc... I don't think this is a controversial statement.

Many don't consider critters and NPCs to be "rules"...

That said, I do not necessarily think that translates to the intended focus of play for D&D is combat. It is of course important, but it is one of 3 pillars that are generally considered to be equal, as far as play focus goes (from the design intent standpoint). Rather, combat requires more detail in D&D (and other traditional games) because of what it is trying to accomplish in the world of the fiction. The social and exploration pillars could be just as detailed as combat (and in some games they are) but in D&D the GM is supposed to do the work that those systems might otherwise do in the social and exploration pillars, and let the rules make combat "fair." There are lots of reasons this might be the case -- and we can talk about that -- but the main point is that just because there are a lot more rules, that doesn't mean that the things the PCs are supposed to be doing in the world is fighting in the substantially same ratio of rules volume/page count.

Note that this is slightly different than the amount of time spent at the table. Crunchy combat systems can certainly eat up more actual play time, but that still isn't that same thing as saying "lots of combat rules necessitates lots of combat in the story."

Thoughts?

I've always been one to use the rules present.

D&D 5e is less mechanics focused than any prior edition; it's also got the easiest transitions to non-combat, since it has a unified resolution mechanic. In AD&D, and into some of the BX line, the modules were strongly conflict focused, and the rules were largely "Combat, Getting to dungeons, and getting back, and what you have to kill along the way."

Then again, I use D&D mostly as a wargame, not an RPG...

 

[GMMichael]

I think maybe I made an error using D&D as an example, because all we are doing now is arguing about D&D.

Ah, hindsight. Let me see if I can assist...

I'd say what kind of character you can't create is a greater signifier of play focus of the system. In Blades in the Dark, any character you can possibly create will be a daring criminal. In Apocalypse World, any character you can possibly create will always be in a dire need of things that somebody else owns. In D&D, any character you can possibly create will wipe the floor with an average joe in a fight, but you surely can create a character who can't speak, can't sneak or can't look for hidden passages.

This seems like a fresh take. In Modos RPG, a character must have attribute scores (fairly neutral), at least one skill, perks (generally meta non-skills, but several help in combat), hero points (designed by the player) and... that's it. So you can't create a character who has no skill and can't do something "heroic" at least once per day.

What's the play focus?

Seinfeld, I guess. It's a game about nothing. By page count, it's about conflict (rules that quantify it) at 10 pages, or magic at 8 pages. By rule count, it's about combat (21 rules), general conflict (17 rules), character creation, magic, and least about basics.

The play focus, from my games anyway, is about 2/3 what the players want, and 1/3 what I want. Which has been much less conflict than the rule or page counts might imply, and closer to the "who can't I create" idea.

 

[pemerton]

In Modos RPG, a character must have attribute scores (fairly neutral)

Why neutral?

PCs in In A Wicked Age have For Myself, For Others, With Violence, With Love, Covertly, Directly. Typically a given action uses two. NPCs have Action, Manoeuvring and Self-Protection, and a typical action uses one.

PCs in Apocalypse World have Hot, Cool, Sharp, Hard, Weird. Typically a given action, that also counts as a player-side move, uses one. NPCs don't have attributes.

PCs and NPCs in Marvel Heroic RP are built the same way, but don't have attributes in the typical sense.

If a RPG chooses to use attributes, that tells us something about its design. Likewise choosing what they are, and choosing how they feed into action resolution (eg many systems use attribute plus skill; but in Burning Wheel and Torchbearer training in a skill replaces the use of the base attribute, it doesn't add to it).

 

[GMMichael]

Why neutral?

PCs in In A Wicked Age have For Myself, For Others, With Violence, With Love, Covertly, Directly. Typically a given action uses two. NPCs have Action, Manoeuvring and Self-Protection, and a typical action uses one.

PCs in Apocalypse World have Hot, Cool, Sharp, Hard, Weird. Typically a given action, that also counts as a player-side move, uses one. NPCs don't have attributes.

PCs and NPCs in Marvel Heroic RP are built the same way, but don't have attributes in the typical sense.

If a RPG chooses to use attributes, that tells us something about its design. Likewise choosing what they are, and choosing how they feed into action resolution (eg many systems use attribute plus skill; but in Burning Wheel and Torchbearer training in a skill replaces the use of the base attribute, it doesn't add to it).

"Neutral" for brevity, but you can take a stab at this:

3 attributes are Physical, Mental, and Metaphysical. They contribute to action resolution by nudging a die roll toward one of three outcomes: Pro, Tie, or Con. These are interpreted by PC and GM.

If required, I'd say that the play focus is "simulation," because the (PC facing) rules pay no attention to relationships, scene -design, or world-building, for example.

 

[Micah Sweet]

"Neutral" for brevity, but you can take a stab at this:

3 attributes are Physical, Mental, and Metaphysical. They contribute to action resolution by nudging a die roll toward one of three outcomes: Pro, Tie, or Con. These are interpreted by PC and GM.

If required, I'd say that the play focus is "simulation," because the (PC facing) rules pay no attention to relationships, scene -design, or world-building, for example.

You think world-building isn't part of simulation?

 

[Lanefan]

I think that one of the reasons that there is so much resistance to the idea that "the rules and play of D&D mostly support combat" is that for ironically both detractors and apologetics of this argument, combat is implicitly regarded as a "vulgar" pillar of play (possibly for a variety of reasons) or even not a proper form of roleplaying. So by pointing out that most of D&D's rules are about combat, this is regarded as an implicit judgment on the game by detractors of D&D and a source of embarrassment for apologetists of D&D, the latter of whom may likewise prefer if their games weren't mostly combat.

Well, for my part I'm quite happy with combat being one of several pillars of play, and don't see it as vulgar.

Sometimes rethinking the "pillars of play" feels a bit like making minor readjustments to Aristotle's categories of "vegetable, animal, or mineral" rather than actually questioning whether such a schema is necessary at all or an appropriate schema for classification. If we were to rethink the "pillars of play," I would begin by questioning whether "pillars of play" acts as a useful tool for describing the play focus.

Personally, I found the 5e 'pillars' model brilliant in how it so neatly defined and focused various vague half-thoughts and ideas about how D&D works, thoughts that in my case go back decades.

Combat, exploration, social, and downtime (and in editions that really key on it, char-gen). Four (or five) major aspects of play that can then be kept in mind and designed for/around in one's kitbashing.

 

[Emberashh]

My thoughts on this subject can be summed up by pointing at Lord of the Rings.

I greatly enjoy the final denouement of Samwise Gamgee, greatest hero in Middle Earth, masterfully portrayed by Sean Astin, uttering the famous line "I can't carry it for you...but I can carry you."

Its emotionally gratifying and, from a narrative standpoint, is the perfect capstone to a story within the story that, up to this point, hasn't necessarily been all that exciting or fun. Sam and Frodo's Journey post Fellowship is downright depressing even, but its worth it, because the uplift of Sam's determination in the end is just so great.

But I can only stand to take in that journey once in a while, and I'll watch the Ents wreck Saruman or the glorious Battles of Helms Deep and Pellenor Fields over and over. The political turmoil and world spanning stakes are excellently chewable and repeatable. Ill even just pull up individual scenes from time to time just to take them in on their own.

Who doesn't love hearing the Rohirrim cry DEAAAAATH as they make 10,000 Orcs and Goblins soil themselves?

I think a great deal of players, for whatever reason, get a bit too caught up in trying to do Sam and Frodo when the game is more about Aragorn and Gandalf, and miss that its Aragorn and Gandalf that bring the excitement to these kinds of stories, even if you want to do Sam and Frodo at the same time.

And beyond that, the whole discussion over rules framing what the game is "about" tend to miss the forest for the trees I think.

Of course the game is about combat, because the genre's of fiction it systematized into a game are also largely about Combat in the context of Adventuring.

A game like Blades in the Dark, while very adjacent in genre to that of DND, can deemphasize combat because its own genre doesn't emphasize it much.

Even in media examples of that genre where combat is a big part of the story, its still ultimately a relatively minor part in terms of whats being conveyed through the medium.

For instance, Heat is a heist film thats famous for its visceral and hyper-realistic gun battles. But it isn't really a movie about gun battles, its a movie about the turmoil the events of the movie have on the lives and relationships of the opposing Detectives and Criminals.

You could, and it has been done, do stories that skip the exciting combat and just focus on the drama (Reservoir Dogs is a great example from Film), but the drama has to be very well executed to be worth it. While Heat doesn't slack in that department at all, its excellent thrills would give it leeway.

DND at the end of the day has always been a kitbash of sword and sorcery, epic fantasy, and a smidge of pulp science fiction; the genre of Appendix N.

All three genres are very combat driven in every medium they occur in, and ergo its only logical that when systematized into a game, combat ends up being the focus.

Theres been heist and crime fiction that doesnt even feature any kind of violence at all. Blades when systematizing those genres (among others) can get away with a huge deemphasis on combat.

And it has to be said, while Blades and DND are wholly different animals mechanically speaking, Blades and Ironsworn are not, and Ironsworn and its sister game Starforged go back into the same sorts of Genres that DND is systematizing.

And what do you know, both games have a considerable Combat emphasis, an emphasis Id wager is, relative to their respective base systems, equal in scope to what DND is doing.

While how Ironsworn and DND accomplish combat are dramatically different, when actually played they end up providing pretty similar stories. Thrilling combat interspersed with minor drama and world exploration.

Where Ironsworn has a bit more of the latter two, DND has a bit more of the former.

At no point for either of these games though, would I describe them as "just" being about one thing or another. I wouldn't even describe them like that at all; Id emphasize the genre. Ironsworn is a dark epic fantasy game where DND is a mildly campy Appendix N game.

 

[The-Magic-Sword]

My drumbeat since that neotrad thread (and probably before) has essentially been that the activity itself, and the tastes of the people engaged in it, define the volume of rules necessary or desirable, not a sense of focus for a game as a whole. In other words, its ok for a game to take the position that something it gives less rules is important because you don't need as many rules to perform that activity in the way the game wants you to do it. Similarly, its ok for a game to give more rules for something that won't occupy the majority of the time you spend playing, if it wants to make a big event of when it does happen.