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

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Aldarc" data-source="post: 8602776" data-attributes="member: 5142">There are a fair number of responses claiming that the system works when the rules get out of the way. This viewpoint suggests to me that the rules or system are mostly viewed as an annoyance or nuisance to roleplay gaming. Almost like the horrible adage that "children should be seen but not heard," albeit with 'rules' instead of 'children,' with some gamers taking even the more extreme version from the Milford School in Arrested Development: i.e., "children should neither be seen nor heard." I do recognize here, however, the importance of negative space design and I don't want to discount that. But on the whole, there seems to be something of an "out of sight, out of mind" viewpoint when it comes to how systems should utilize rules and what makes systems work. However, similarly to [USER=7028554]@Grendel_Khan[/USER], I think that I am of a different persuasion, likely as a result of the "system matters" debate, even if only as a counter-balance to the above approach. To me, a system works when rules get in the way as an intentional part of facilitating a meaningful game experience in the fiction and the participants are glad that the system does. I think that meaningful rules interactions are an important aspect of games and why we like playing them. Board games and card games are often places where the principle is more readily seen outside of roleplaying games. The rules are constantly getting in the way of the games we play: e.g., Texas Hold 'Em Poker, Uno, Settlers of Catan, Pandemic, Ticket to Ride, etc. Rules restrict possible moves in games like Chess, Checkers, or Backgammon, but in so doing, these rules help facilitate the game experience as well as strategies for playing them. [Here we may point out the almost banal point that the rules don't matter that much to these games, as what really matter is the fun we have the people we play them with.] This not to say that I want to play roleplaying games as I would board or card games, but, rather, that we can see how rules getting in the way are part and parcel for how other games are played and facilitate said game experience. However, I think that when rules get in the way, it should contribute positively to the play experience and the fiction. The rules (and interactions thereof) may push the player characters' story in a way that the players did not foresee or intend, but I think that is part of the fun of playing to see/find out what happens. We the player experience new twists and turns in the character's fiction as part of playing the game.</blockquote>

Verification