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Message: <blockquote data-quote="howandwhy99" data-source="post: 5080644" data-attributes="member: 3192">Whew! There is a lot of thread to go through. Below are some points of my own regarding some topics I've read so far:1. The world does not work according to how a player believes it should.  Patterns are fantasy, not reality.  Learning how the world behaves and using one's suppositions to their advantage is the players' role.  Saying, "This is nonsense! Samurai swords can cut through steel!" is treating the game like a trivia game.  There is no right answer to killing orcs to be found in our reality.  The fiction should not be treated as if it is real and obeying of the laws of whatever each of us holds as our own "reality".  We cannot know fundamentally how either the pattern or reality works, but we theorize based upon past experiences in hopes of predicting future consequences.  This is why PFGs are pragmatic games placing players into something like the human condition.  IOW, "how many times do you need to bang your head against a dungeon wall before you start positing it is there?"2. Character knowledge is largely held to be identical to player knowledge.  As characters don't exist you cannot rely on them to "do the right thing" in a given situation.  It is the role of the players to investigate the expressions of the referee for what might happen next.  If they are encountering something without any prior experience, something endemic to the beginning of any RPG, then they cannot be sure of any outcome.  The character cannot save them from this.  The character only "knows" the background as submitted.3. In a PFG you cannot ask "Is doing X risky?" and expect an answer. You have to trying doing X and find out.  Roleplaying was posited to be the performance of a behavior, not the discussion of such.4. The rules set up behind the screen are a mathematically finite system (not a closed mathematical system, which would allow no outside interaction).  Attempted actions by the players that are not covered by any rule receive neither a yes or no answer, but an "irrelevant, so yes" one. "Okay, you dance the hula."  However, once defined that is the answer from then on.  This is not a common game rule, but one found in other PFGs like situational pattern puzzles.</blockquote>

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