Some reasons why people may reject the notion that "System/Rules matter"

[Mark Sabalauskas]

So important it needed a new thread? Let me start a new thread for my reply!

I was anticipating that a discussion of "why system doesn't matter" (to some people) might be a bit derailing to people are (mostly) having discussion to suss out how system matters (to them).

One tries to avoid having "I feel comic books are silly" discussions where people are debating which is the best supers RPG. Wasn't intending to clutter the place.

 

[Campbell]

When I say System Matters I am not talking about what I value about role-playing games. I am making an assertion that a game's design impacts what happens at the table. That the decisions players make, the unfolding narrative or game state, and our shared sense of meaning or enjoyment from the game are impacted by the game's design.

It's a statement that the game's design should be fit for the shared experience we want to get out of it.

 

[nevin]

of course the System matters. The System sets the tone for how rules are adjudicated, systems range between let the players run wild to second guessing and preemptively preventing players from being creative and "Changing the Narrative" . The rules generally set the DM's tone on whether creativity is rewarded or smacked down.

 

[Mark Sabalauskas]

Some people do in word and deed asset that system does not matter, or matter much to them.

If other people find this to be an almost inexplicable denial of an obvious and inescapable truth, they might consider if their understanding of the breath of purposes within the hobby is incomplete in some way.

Incomplete, perhaps, a similar way to how the late 90s academic proponents of ludology had an impoverished model of "what a game is" when they stridely asserted that games aren't narratives.

 

[MichaelSomething]

So a person is better off ttaking improv classes instead of buying a new book?

 

[Campbell]

In my personal experience game design influences, but does not control behavior. I have played games with the same group of people, including some who believe they are above being influenced by game design and seen their behavior change based on the game they are playing. People will be influenced to varying degrees, but no is immune. I believe in the efficacy of game design because I have experienced its effects in myself and others.

In my experience the sorts of people who claim to not be influenced at all by the process of play are often the same sort of people who think they are immune to marketing, sales, and personal influence techniques. I have never actually met such a unicorn where those things were in fact true.

 

[Campbell]

I can understand a desire for more freeform play, but that's an admission of design mattering deeply. Not the opposite.

 

[Jd Smith1]

Given that the few people making a living in the industry seem to be focused upon games in which the rules are vital, I would say that there really is no question about what matters.

 

[Jd Smith1]

The labor involved in TTRPG publishing is woefully undervalued for the paltry prices we pay.

'What the market will bear' rules everywhere.

It does not help that the design of the hobby works against it (a group can game with a single book), and technology further undercuts it (endless copies of that one book are freely available on the Net).

Gaming is one of the few areas of endeavor run essentially on the honor system.

 

[el-remmen]

Some people seem to be taking the statements in the OP as the poster's opinions, rather than his articulations of arguments he has heard or can imagine.