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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 7344566" data-attributes="member: 4937">It's certainly one of the biggest things that rules do.  One of my problems with Savage Worlds is I don't like how it sets up its range of results.  I don't like exploding dice or convoluted dice pools or some of the other random factors that certain implementations of SW introduce to mix up the range of results (such as adding cards as randomizers/modifiers).  To me that's just obfuscating the math, and my experience with systems like that is when you obfuscate the math behind a bewildering array of random factors, players and GMs lose track of what the modifiers that they are using (whether added or decreased dice pulls, or increased or decreased difficulty rankings) actually mean.   The result is consensus by obfuscation, where tables agree to accept the results without really analyzing the odds of failure or success and no demand that the results fit any sort of model of how difficult the result ought to be.D20 or BRP's d% based system makes for very straight forward math with straight forward ways to interpret modifiers compared to many other systems.   D20 veers on the side of tracking too many circumstantial modifiers, but if that's a problem for you 5e seems to be a good compromise. But does it matter?  That's a much harder question to answer.  It's easy to show in an extreme case that it matters.   I frequently cite Celebrim's "World's Simplest RPG" as proof of various basic points about game rules.   The "World Simplest RPG" has one rule (at least, one explicit rule, it turns out it has a ton of unspoken rules that define an RPG), and that is, "For any proposition, flip a coin.  If the result is heads, the proposition succeeds, and if the result is tails, the proposition fails."  In this case it does very much matter if the only tool you have to create an acceptable range of outcomes is a single coin flip.   A simplistic d2 system with no complications and rules about acceptable proposition construction doesn't create a very functional game, because the range of results doesn't match up with anyone's imagination and doesn't really create a game that fits anyone's aesthetics of play.   It's not fair.  It's not balanced.  It doesn't provide for character development.  It doesn't make for good story.  It doesn't simulate anything.So I certainly think it is possible that you are playing a very different game but there is another level to this, and that's how you approach rules.Every game I run is the same game regardless of the rules.I recently opened up a CoC campaign with a bunch of first time players.  None of them had access to the rules, and as usual I didn't put a priority on them knowing the rules.   One of the players asked another player what the rules was in a particular situation and he responded, "You say you do something.  You roll a d%.  You ask [Celebrim] what happens, and he tells you."That's fair summation of any game you play with me.  I could run a CoC game with D&D rules if necessary, and indeed my house rules for D&D have insanity mechanics.  For me, the core of any RPG is a proposition, fortune, resolution cycle.  The only thing that usually changes with me is the exact fortune mechanics used for a given proposition.   Less obvious, most games - at least, most games before the Indy era - do not actually specify what a valid proposition or valid resolution is.   As a result, in any game I play I use the same metarules for how propositions are constructed.  For example, in any game I'm running, any social interaction proposition is constructed first as an in character statement, and then translated if necessary into a rules construct - regardless of what the rules say or don't say about constructing social interaction propositions.  That's far from the only way to regulate social interaction propositions though.  Some tables may construct the mechanical representation first, and either create the conversation afterwards or neglect it entirely.   Those two tables are playing a different game from me even if they are using the same fortune mechanics.Other than providing a variety of fortune mechanics, one thing rules do that is very important is suggest how to approach or how to think about those rules.</blockquote>

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