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General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
Should Players Engage With The Rules?
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<blockquote data-quote="mhacdebhandia" data-source="post: 2175116" data-attributes="member: 18832"><p>Although I understand that many people play role-playing games <strong>primarily</strong> for the story, the chance to pretend to be someone else, or for other "non-game" "role-playing" reasons, I personally find it quite frustrating when someone agrees to play a game (like Third Edition D&D) which fairly heavily relies upon a detailed ruleset and subsequently refuses, subtly or overtly, to actually engage with the rules, even if only as they apply to their own characters.</p><p></p><p>You can read anecdotes posted here and on other gaming fora, every so often, about players who won't make any effort to learn the rules and numbers governing their characters' abilities - who tune out whenever dice need to be rolled - who are actively hostile to reading the rulebooks for the game and learning how it works.</p><p></p><p>There are lots of gamers in the world playing D&D (for example) because it's the only game in town - though other, more narrative-oriented game systems might suit their preferences better, they don't know anyone willing to play them or simply haven't even encountered them before. I know a member of my university's gaming society who was intensely jazzed when he encountered White Wolf's new Storytelling System, because he'd simply never seen anything other than D&D in his high school gaming career, and was filled with unexpressible longing for something painted in broader strokes than the d20 System which would allow him to run a looser, more story-oriented game.</p><p></p><p>Maybe he ought to be playing <em>Fudge</em>. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink ;)" data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /></p><p></p><p>I enjoy both sides of the roleplaying experience - I enjoy both the stories and the mechanics, and I've never found that the d20 System interferes with my enjoyment of the stories. It seems to me, though, that if you're going to play in a roleplaying game which assumes heavy use of the rules (like D&D), you ought to commit to learning at least those rules which apply to your character.</p><p></p><p>Maybe it's me. Maybe I just can't fathom how someone can be so committed to their character's personality, motivations, and goals and yet so disinterested in their character's survival as to tune out completely in combat and let someone else "take care of it".</p><p></p><p>What do you think?</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="mhacdebhandia, post: 2175116, member: 18832"] Although I understand that many people play role-playing games [b]primarily[/b] for the story, the chance to pretend to be someone else, or for other "non-game" "role-playing" reasons, I personally find it quite frustrating when someone agrees to play a game (like Third Edition D&D) which fairly heavily relies upon a detailed ruleset and subsequently refuses, subtly or overtly, to actually engage with the rules, even if only as they apply to their own characters. You can read anecdotes posted here and on other gaming fora, every so often, about players who won't make any effort to learn the rules and numbers governing their characters' abilities - who tune out whenever dice need to be rolled - who are actively hostile to reading the rulebooks for the game and learning how it works. There are lots of gamers in the world playing D&D (for example) because it's the only game in town - though other, more narrative-oriented game systems might suit their preferences better, they don't know anyone willing to play them or simply haven't even encountered them before. I know a member of my university's gaming society who was intensely jazzed when he encountered White Wolf's new Storytelling System, because he'd simply never seen anything other than D&D in his high school gaming career, and was filled with unexpressible longing for something painted in broader strokes than the d20 System which would allow him to run a looser, more story-oriented game. Maybe he ought to be playing [i]Fudge[/i]. ;) I enjoy both sides of the roleplaying experience - I enjoy both the stories and the mechanics, and I've never found that the d20 System interferes with my enjoyment of the stories. It seems to me, though, that if you're going to play in a roleplaying game which assumes heavy use of the rules (like D&D), you ought to commit to learning at least those rules which apply to your character. Maybe it's me. Maybe I just can't fathom how someone can be so committed to their character's personality, motivations, and goals and yet so disinterested in their character's survival as to tune out completely in combat and let someone else "take care of it". What do you think? [/QUOTE]
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