Celebrim
Legend
In my experience, 'open' rules sets actually end up constraining player choice.
The trap a player tends to get in is this. They start roleplaying by reading the rules. Very quickly, they have a full understanding of the system. Because of this understanding of the system, they implicitly believe that every legal proposition under the rules is specified by the rules. Armed with this understanding, they couch every proposition - every action that they wish their character to try to perform - that they make to the game referee in terms of the rules. They select actions based on the anticipated rules outcome, and to make sure that they get that outcome they couch their proposition in as open and legalistic of a fashion as they can so that there can be no misunderstanding about the rules result they are trying to achieve.
In doing so, they become a slave to the rules. They don't even notice that they have become rules blind. They don't even realize that there are more non-rules propositions that they can try in a given situation than there are rules propositions. They self-limit themselves down to a tiny fraction of their possible choices and they end up in my opinion completely unable to roleplay.
For example, just because the game depends on a '5 foot step', doesn't mean that the game world is actually a 5' grid. I've seen players utterly baffled by a world where things don't occupy neat little 5' squares. They treat 2' diameter pillars as occupying the whole square. They never make a 3 foot step. In short, when you see the world as being completely defined by the rules, you end up believing that the only things you can do are what the rules say you can do.
For me as a DM, it's a very frustrating habit for the player to develop because usually players that develop this habit end up not only developing strongly antagonistic traits, but they also end up being unimaginative, uncreative, and ultimately have difficulty with anything that they can't understand in terms of the rules. They slow play down, become frustrated when they aren't prompted with game information, and end up rules lawyering and argumentative.
By contrast, a player that learns to role play before they know the system rules is forced to coach their propositions in real world language. They end up unconstrained by the rules. They attempt things that aren't covered by the rules. They make propositions based on what they think a character of their abilities could perform in the real world, and they are goal orriented not by specific rules outcomes but by general results. They learn to role play. They begin to treat role playing - interacting with the game world in an expressive way - as their primary problem solving tool. The solve problems by interacting with the game space, not by looking up rules or arguing with the DM.
What I've discovered is that new players are often better role players than experienced ones. New players dig up childhood memories of playing house, cops and robbers, and whatever they role played as a child and they apply those skills. Veteren players tend to just try to use the rules.
In my opinion a 'good' rules set has the following attributes:
1) It provides a reasonably congruent set of outcomes to common sense propositions. A person with legitimate real world experience has a fairly good sense of how a proposition relates to the outcome. Where the game system departs from common sense, it makes it fairly clear how it departs.
2) It provides a lot of tools for the game referee to translate a non-rules proposition into some sort of fortune mechanic. In short, it lets the DM say 'Yes' quickly and easily.
I would say that that is an attribute of most rules light systems that have a simulationist or gamist mind set, but I wouldn't say that its necessarily an attribute of 'closed' game systems.
Most of the time, what you hear about on this topic are the horror stories of DM's who have met a particular non-rules proposition by the player with a wholly unexpected and highly adverse outcome. An argument over what is 'realistic' ensues, often with one side or the other (usually the DM) taking some stance on what is realistic that is based on dubious second or third hand information about how the world works and then punishing the player for doing something the DM thinks is ludicrous but which seemed reasonable to the player.
I'm sure such things happen. I don't however think that they are the whole story, and in any event, I think the question of what is 'realistic' misses the larger point here. Virtually every argument in role-playing games can be prevented (assuming non-adversarial players, otherwise all bets are off) if whenever the player makes a highly risky proposition the DM pauses for a moment and acts as the voice of the character's common sense and experience to make sure the player understands he's making a risky proposition. In D&D for me, this usually involves some sort of wisdom or knowledge check based on my understanding that the character would know something about the universe that the player does not.
For example, if in my game world Centaurs are brutal berserker cannibals and I relate the in game experience of Centaurs approaching, its my job as a DM to inform the player of what their character would know about Centaurs. In particular, if the player makes a proposition that indicates they are basing their action on the players understanding of how Centaurs work in Harry Potter or Narnia or something, its my job to explain that the character - who lives in a wholly different world where Centaurs have a bad reputation - knows things that the player doesn't. Trying to ambush players with missing character knowledge that there is no way that the player could know, but which would probably be the equivalent of reading, writing, and 'rithmatic in the game world is really bad DMing.
But no ruleset is actually very extensive. All the information that has ever been published for a setting constitutes a very tiny fraction of all the information that exists in the game world. No heavily codified ruleset even begins to cover all the possible actions that can be taken in a game world. If you treat it as is if it did, you end up DMing from a 'say no' stance (because it's not in the rules). Worse, you end up as a player playing from a 'say no' stance because if it's not in the rules you assume its impossible. You self limit to the limited space of 300 pages or so, rather than a whole world of possibilities.
Open rules heavy sets are actually worse about this than rules light ones. Light rules sets have their own problems, but they are far less confining to DM and player choice.
Yes, but that's the DM's job - not the system's job. Regardless of the system, it's the DM's job to help the player with the internal logic of the game. Certainly, that doesn't mean that the DM should reveal every mystery to the DM, because there are some things that are legitimate mysteries in the game world. But it does mean that the DM acts as the players body of common knowledge and experienced. In that way, it doesn't matter if the player knows or understands the rules. What matters is that the player can use his imagination to interact with the game world via the DM to learn about the situation they (in the role of the character) find themselves in.
It's not just a matter of 'optimal decisions'. The core problem is the players perception that their is a list of legal propositions codified by the rules that is complete and that as a player they must at each decision making oppurtunity select from this list. Essentially, the player begins to play the PnP game as if it was a computer game or board game with a rules set limited to what was written, and not to the imaginations of the participants. That problem can arise in a rules light system even, and when it does, it's even more stultifying because a rules light system generally presents a smaller set of rules options.
I think we are basically on the same page, but don't agree on the descriptive language to describe the problem. Rules propositions are IMO still perfectly meaningful and even valid choices. Sometimes making a propostion in open metagame language in order to avoid ambiguity in the player's intention is the right choice. And regardless of whether a proposition is coached in metagame or cinematic language, the choice is still meaningful if it has a meaningful impact on the future course of the game.
Again, I think the basic cause of all table arguments comes down to just a few things usually acting in combination: lack of player trust of the referee (player takes an antagonist stance), lack of referee trust of the players (referee takes an antagonist stance), and lack of communication.
