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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Gorgon Zee" data-source="post: 9489850" data-attributes="member: 75787">Each group needs to work out what style of game they are playing; specifically are they playing a game where rules are more important than simulation and narrative or not. When discussing on the internet it’s very hard to have consensus if your priorities are different AND you don’t acknowledge that.Specific games have default priorities — 2E and 4E were very much “rules first” games. If the rules say X and it makes no simulational or narrative sense, the default way to play is that X happens. But another group may use a different priority, and so add house rules or just unspoken guides to prioritize simulation or a more narrative game. Take the example quoted earlier about old-style CoC and not finding critical clues. A rules-priority group would have the game come to a halt. But a narrative-first group (which I feel is defintiely the default for CoC) just hand-waves that. They don’t even bother to add house rules because that is not the way the game is played. For them, there is no flaw in the rules, because a narrative way of playing is the accepted way of playing CoC, and there isn’t a rule that says “you cannot give players a clue when they fail to get it using mechanical resolution”, so the rules do not contradict the way the game needs to be played. Someone saying “if you play only by the rules as written, the game doesn’t work” is making a pointless statement to them, because that is not the way the game is played. In a rules-first game, like D&D4E, in the other hand, it’s a useful question.So, if you want a profitable discussion on rules, you need to establish if rules have priority. If not, then be aware that the response “I don’t use that rule because it makes no sense” is a valid one — it basically says that the player wants to play Rules As Intended, not Rules as Written. So your argument attacking the system need to focus not on specifics, but on the overall. For CoC, the argument for weak rules is not “if the players fail to make rolls, the game collapses”, because that’s not RAI, and never happens in normal play. The argument is “since following clues is so important, why does the game not really have mechanics or rules to make that easier or more fun?” — which is why we know also have Trail of Cthulhu!</blockquote>

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