Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="howandwhy99" data-source="post: 3767648" data-attributes="member: 3192">Uniformity of rules means a uniformity of play styles.  I'm asserting that any set of rules makes certain playstyles easy, others difficulty without changes, sometimes significant, and other playstyles downright unworkable without the rules being changed to a near unrecognizable form.  This last may be what is happening for me.  The rules continue to change for easier play based upon styles that are not mine.  And with these changes my playstyle may end up near impossible to play under 4E.  Under 3.5 it is/was a huge chore.  My preference is toward simulation, player challenging, player learning, player driven D&D, focused on speed, strategy, flexibility of style, simple rule alteration/addition, and minimalism of player metagaming (specifically, the thinking OOC definition). There are tons of ways to play RPGs.  The more focused the rules are, however, the fewer functional styles are possible under it (with corresponding amounts of work to make them functional).  I could play a tactical submarine RPG with Dogs in the Vineyard rules, but that ruleset will likely be unrecognizable after I've put all the necessary work in.  In the real world I do not know how everything works and I get along just fine.  IME, folks who can play "Let's Pretend" without being told how to, have no problem about needing to know "the rules".  The catch is the consequences of our actions, right?  The referee is there to let us know what worked and what didn't.  They play the world and the world makes sense because they follow rules.  It's as simple as that.Yes, certain characteristics that represent how good we are at an action are necessary.  These are defined by class, an iconic character type that fits the world.  These representations are sometimes numerical, but the certainly don't need to be.  For flexibility, D&D sometimes uses numbers systems on PC sheets instead of terms like "hurt", "badly hurt", "immobile", unconscious", etc.  When starting out I've found it is best to have a smaller number of these numerical representations and focus on the flexibility player definition offers. This can happen in play or out of play with communications like character backgrounds.  The referee uses these and defines how they work in their world with properly constructed rules.  The players do not know these rules.  They merely know how they work when they act in character.  OOG thinking is minimized and play speeds along.The key is: no matter if the numbers are on the character sheets or the DMs, they always represent something in the game world.  There is no "numbers game" that has nothing to do with playing let's pretend.  (i.e. Action Points do not work well as they rarely have an in-game rationale, the golden rule for deciding upon RPG rules).The rules are the province of the Referee.  To be "good" the world requires consistency.  It's cause and effects don't simply change causing questions by the players.  When the Ref adds new rules or alters others, it is up to him.  Can players suggest new rules or better "feels" for the simulated world?  Sure.  It's a group game.  But they cannot presume to know what rules are in effect no matter how long they have played.  Their understanding of the game as Players has nothing to do with the rules.  Now, how to best "win" according to their own policies and what earns XP...  (yes, that matters)If my world conception is different than the rules are properly simulating, I'm going to ange the rules, not the world.  If the rules don't allow me to change them without days or even weeks of work, I'm stuck looking for another game.  And most folks like to play what's in fashion, so I hope 4e will work for me.</blockquote>

Verification