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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Balesir" data-source="post: 6289134" data-attributes="member: 27160">I suppose that's possible, but I don't think so. I think we just define what is "system" differently.I'm not saying that there should be no consistent correspondance between system and game world - I'm just saying that that correspondance is not part of the "system" and, as such, does not need to be specified in the system. It needs to be specified (in a way that supports playstyle) by the world creator.Sure, I hear you. The correspondance between system and game world should be invariate for all but the most player-authored drama style games.But my point is this: those forty days of horseback riding are simply an arbitrary number of "wandering monster" checks from the point of view of the system. The journey is measured, for system purposes, as a number of "ration use" cycles and a number of "random encounter" cycles and so on. Clearly, those cycles should correspond to some imagined physical distance and imagined number of in-game time units in the imagined game world - and those correlations should remain stable for that specific game world - but the actual scale of correlation chosen is really arbitrary. It is a choice to be made by the game world designer. It makes no actual difference to the system what conversion ratios the world designer chooses - even though it does of course make a difference to the imagined world.But where does the "in-world logic" come from? You make it up!My point is that the ratio of imagined, game-world time to a short rest, the number of random encounters experienced per short rest and the imagined density or frequency of occurrence of "wandering monsters" in the game-world form a "design circle". You can set any two and the third will follow. But the only part of the whole circle that constitutes part of the "system" is the frequency of random encounters per short rest. The rest are not "system" but the defined relation between the system and the imagined game-world, and in setting them you are defining one parameter while you have two degrees of freedom - in other words, you can set either one to be whatever you like and there will be (at least) one value of the other that completes the circle.Now, what you appear to be saying is that you have a specific preference for the number of random encounters per short rest. Cool; hopefully that will be a system parameter that can be set according to the players' taste; I see no real reason why not. But a change to it is a change to the system, and this should be recognised.Further to that, you have certain standards of "verisimilitude"*, it seems, that apply limits to the time duration in which this frequency of random encounter might arise. Again, cool - you can choose any duration that your sense of verisimilitude requires - the extra degree of freedom I noted above will allow you to do so with no problem. I am saying, however, that this duration does not need to be specified by the system. Every world designer should be able to set it to suit his or her tastes; there is no need to dictate it and, indeed, I think it would be positively deleterious to do so.*: I think what this really means is that you have a clear and set vision of how certain things work in the world you have designed/are designing. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that, provided you don't expect that vision to apply for other world designers.</blockquote>

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