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Message: <blockquote data-quote="clearstream" data-source="post: 8637002" data-attributes="member: 71699">Consider the matter of cheating. A rule does not cease to be a rule just because a cheater disapplies it. (Views on that differ, but I feel that presents a normal position.) I think a rule has qualities going beyond suggestions, but that gets into very technical ground.Some ways that scholars have been thinking about rules include - cheating (as I noted), accidentally following a rule, following a rule in a different way from another who believes themselves to be also following that rule (i.e. interpretation), following a rule conditionally, following a sufficiency of rules, and so on.Suits and others would have said that in the case of games, that puts the cart before the horse. We follow the rules because of the consequences we enjoy in following them. Not because they must be followed. In their extended discussion of games, Salen and Zimmerman (and others) make the point that it is distinctive of games that they are voluntary, and some suppose that a "game" whose rules you must follow is not a game at all.I kind of agree with your point that the rules are most of interest when they bind, but please remember I was responding to a claim that a DM would be unbridled in their application of the rules of a DM-curated RPG such as 5e. My argument is oriented to the point that we put rules in force for us (or if you like, accept that they are in force for us) just because of the worth they have (the play they are constitutive of, or regulate in ways we enjoy.) You make the point this is a practice with normative force, which I also agree with.EDIT The meaning of the rule is at issue in considering what it binds us to do. If as I say we must choose to put rules in force for ourselves, then the meaning we grasp them to have is as important as choosing to uphold them. It shows that the upholding alone incompletely explains what is going on.</blockquote>

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