Why do RPGs have rules?

[Autumnal]

Thus we are inevitably drawn to the conclusion that PCs are in fact HIGHLY UNUSUAL, at which point all the song and dance about how 'unrealistic' it is to simply play about what is interesting or engaging to the players of those characters is no longer about realism at all. So which is it?

This this this. Even out at the fringe, games like Harn, there isn’t any ironclad requirement that the characters must be typical members of any demographic. Many of us here are pretty unrepresentative by any metric. Life is like that.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

This this this. Even out at the fringe, games like Harn, there isn’t any ironclad requirement that the characters must be typical members of any demographic. Many of us here are pretty unrepresentative by any metric. Life is like that.

Amen to that Sir! I mean, the truth is, nobody is representative, or maybe we all are depending on how you look at it. PCs are dramatic tools though, essentially. I mean, if they weren't, we'd call them 'pieces' or 'units' or 'figures' or something from wargaming.

 

[pemerton]

Right. For the game to be worth playing, the PCs have to figure in interesting events. It doesn't add any additional strain on incredulity for that interest to be dramatic interest.

 

[aramis erak]

You were correct, I was referring to the passage of time within the fiction.

So if I'm understanding you correctly, 10 years pass.
Where say in D&D, a DM like myself will narrate to the players what their characters have heard/learned about the changes to a region (imagined events necessitating real world action), your understanding is

The GM frames a new scene (real world action authoring new imagined events), which you say in AW this is referred to a soft move.

I'm suspecting, and please correctly me if I'm wrong or miss something, the only difference that may exist between the two would be the motive for the change in the fiction. Perhaps yours is necessitated by dramatic needs, where the former is because I am attempting to adhere to a simulationist principle (whatever that is). Is that a fair statement to make?

A true simulationist would be using rules for downtime activity to fill the void.
Some hardcore gamists would, as well.
In games like Traveller, either of those two may send the characters back into the character generation as a way to "make use of the downtime."

 

[clearstream]

From time to time, streams in Middle Earth dry up or at least run low - there is drought, Ents dam them, whatever else happens. Sometimes, and conversely, streams run deeper than normal.

With that in mind:

The players decide to travel to Helm's Deep. Is the Deeping Stream running shallow, with the result (eg) that the fortress is short on water? Is the Deeping Stream in flood, making it hard for travellers (or enemies, or reinforcements) to approach?

"Assumptions about the world itself" will not answer these questions. (As @AbdulAlhazred has, in particular, emphasised over many threads.)

Someone can just make it up.

Maybe someone rolls on the "streams in drought or flood table". (I don't think I've ever seen such a table in a RPG rulebook, but I'd be surprised if there has never been one ever in the history of RPG publishing.)

The GM can call for a "ride to the Deep" roll, or a "call reinforcements" roll, and use the outcome of that roll as a trigger for introducing some adversity that otherwise would be absent - a shallow or flooded stream, a shortage of water, etc. This is how Burning Wheel does it, for instance.

None of these produces "world facts" that are more or less external, that are more or less "real".

They will produce different play experiences. For instance, a system of rolling on random-possibility-of-obstacles tables, like the "streams in drought or flood table", will tend to push play towards an operational focus: preparation, logistics, and the like become highly salient elements of play. (Depending on what sorts of random-possibility-of-obstacles tables are in use, the operational focus will vary: tables about streams and terrain produce a hex-crawl vibe; tables about peasant uprising and political crises will produce a different sort of play.)

In that example, the distinction under my account is that some means external to and independent of player intentions is used to determine if the stream is running shallow or in flood. It's "real" from their characters' perspectives in just that way.

I think it sheds no light at all to describe this sort of play as more "realistic" than the Burning Wheel-esque approach.

You've described ways that the above form of realism interferes with narrativist purposes. To be more "realistic" in the sense I take you to mean here would also be measured by something like mapping to real world examples, and conformance to some shared theories about the world. @AbdulAlhazred objects to Tolkien's mountains not on the first and most distinctive of the three components I've proposed for a "simulationist principle" but under these latter two: the mountains' features don't map to those mountains have in the real world and presumably will fail to conform to theories about why mountains have the features they do.

 

[aramis erak]

Realism in the sense being used for the past few post exchanges is about the setting being consistent with how the world works.

This debate over "realism" is irrelevant. What matters for RPG campaigns is consistency. That the mechanics reflect how the setting is described Particularly the descriptions of how things work when you try to do things as your character. [...]

Realism is a subset of consistency.
Accurately modelling a setting (especially one from other forms of media) is another subset of consistency.
The two generally overlap. How much varies by the IP.
I, and at least a dozen players I've run for over the years, find it annoying when a game has rules that are simultaneously detailed/complicated, unrealistic, and non-emulative of the setting where it breaks from realism.
The very most realistic fiction has a gravitas from its realism. Some forms of realism include using real world locations and historical events, can bring a historical fiction that sense of gravitas.

Players like they can leverage their knowledge of a setting in to plans that work.

And finally, this has nothing to do with the level of detail. You don't need all the detail that GURPS or Harnmaster has to run a campaign where things are consistent with how things work in the real world. A minimalist system that has a good way of abstracting how things work in a setting is fine. ANd it is fine to have systems like GUPRS and Harnmaster that do use detailed mechanics.

For you, maybe, but not for me. The level of detail does matter to me.
Which is part of why I find Star Trek Adventures far less engaging than Prime Directive 1E...
Hârnmaster is just about the upper end of my tolerance for process; GURPS is actually past it, but Rolemaster isn't... because Hârnmaster is good sim from my experience, and GURPS is bad as sim and as game. Rolemaster is a process as well, but it's sim aspects aren't why I like it.
Rolemaster has a trope of "excessively gory combat".... and I find that fun at times.

The test is whether a player new to the system can use their knowledge of the setting to make meaningful decisions as their character. And that after resolving whatever they are trying to do with the mechanics that afterward they go "Yes those rules make sense. If the answer is yes, then the author of the system has done their job well.

The level of detail in the rules is part of that for me... but it's not a linear function; it's a bell.
Too detailed, such as Phoenix Command, is too hard to play.
Too little detail, such as Risus, is of no use for me as game nor as sim, and it isn't even good for flow of narrative control...
The rules need to be usable, not trigger "this is wrong for the setting", not trigger "this is neither correct for the setting nor realism," and be able to provide some benefit over simply telling stories.

Where that last one falls is important.
Settings affect my need for details, simulation accuracy of the mechanical elements, and tolerance for the mechanics if they support the setting.

What brings the game to the wild west? Did it start there? Did the players decide to go there? Did the GM decide to bring them there? When they get there, do they have an agenda? Do they just wander around and experience random events?

I've run campaigns where every encounter was random in origin, and where I'm just drawing extrapolations from random elements, turning them into some form of sense, and running the characters/monsters/situations introduced from tables/cards based upon random inputs. I've done this with 3 editions of Traveller, 3 editions of Twilight 2000, and have done it with certain sections of published D&D adventures... including season 1-3 of DDAL where there's stretches of random-encounter hex-crawl. Season 1 (Hoard of the Dragon Queen) has 2 stretches of linear crawl, but that's just a really narrow map hex-crawl.

It's actually a common enough mode for many 80's adventure modules... including a few favorites: D&D X1, [classic] Traveller's Mission on Mithril, Nomads of the World Ocean, and Across the Bright Face. At least one Star Frontiers adventure. And my favorite TFT solo module, Master of the Amulets; it can also be run as a GM-less group or GM'd adventure...

Not really, no. Perhaps it can be about both at times. But generally, if you're playing "Against The Giants" or "Tomb of Annihilation" and so on, the game is about the world. It focuses on the characters, but it is not about the characters. You can tell this because I have had characters go through both of those adventures, and many other people have, too, and they largely play the same. The story is that of the adventure.

QFT...
but the emergent story is about the characters discovering the module's story. And the players discovering both stories via play.

I think that reason alone is almost never sufficient when it comes to artistic works of imagination, which RPG campaigns are. Actual life is very often non-retinopathy in important ways, and that’s with vastly greater info density than any campaign can have. There just isn’t enough in a campaign for reason to work alone.

Which is why most simulationists use rules to assist in rational decisions.

And, after seriously studying 3 martial arts (2 of which are armed european forms), plus competitive shooting, some games moved to "bugging me because the combat flow is neither fun, in the realm of things I'd consider plausible, nor setting appropriate." That line varies by experience...

 

[pemerton]

In that example, the distinction under my account is that some means external to and independent of player intentions is used to determine if the stream is running shallow or in flood. It's "real" from their characters' perspectives in just that way.

This makes no sense. The character and the player are not the same. The player chose to (say) build a Dwarf Fighter. That doesn't mean, from the character's perspective, that they are a self-created being.

 

[aramis erak]

Goblins aren't real, regardless of how "fair" and "unbiased" the GM pretends to be.

Goblins in some settings have enough about them to treat them the same way historical cultures can be. That they aren't real is a problem for you, but I know about as much about Tolkien's Orcs/Goblins (which are in fact the same "race" under Tolkien's writings), and John Wick's Orcs than I do about Homo naledi, and I enjoy watching the presentations about H. naledi. I've seen 6 hours of content just this last week alone. From where I sit, there's actually more "authoritative" information about Tolkien's orcs than there is about H. naledi. The only behaviors we can establish as very probable for H. naledi are that they used fire, buried their dead inside deep caves (hence the recent rush of vids), and used fire (as there are hearths in those caves and ceiling carbon deposits). We know from the bones they walked upright, that they survived some serious wounds, and would stand out in any modern context - both for short stature, and very different facial structure.
Meanwhile, we have for Tolkien, characters in Tolkien's stories, which we can use to extrapolate many more behavioral cues for, and better knowledge of their gross anatomy than that of H. naledi. We don't, however, know from the volumes I've read (and they're non-exhaustive) if Tolkien's orcs bury their dead. We do know, however, they have a martial prowess based hierachy, and a lack of full free will, but not if it's magical or biostructural/biochemical... but they are "born evil."

It's easier for me to run simulationist mode on Tolkien's orcs than on H. naledi. And Homo naledi were real humans of a different species than us. Simply because there's much more data about orcs.

It's also worth noting that there are different treatments of Orcs, and they're not all clones of Tolkien. Games Workshop's Orcs are rather different. John Wick's are really derivative of GW's, but significantly different, too. The orcs and goblins of D&D are not nearly as well defined as Tolkien's, GW's, nor John Wick's.... and in fact is different in the different eras by edition.
If one's looking at D&D alone, sure, the material's not there to be more than superficially simulationist based upon them being conformal to Hominini and (in many editions) born evil. But in WFRP/WFB/WH40K/40KRPGs, there is enough to examine and make a cogent cultural sketch... and to simulate that.

 

[clearstream]

This this this. Even out at the fringe, games like Harn, there isn’t any ironclad requirement that the characters must be typical members of any demographic. Many of us here are pretty unrepresentative by any metric. Life is like that.

In my experience when playing in a simulationist mode our characters have almost always held exceptional roles within their society. Roles also filled by many other members of society. For example, in Bushido we mainly played samurai. There were thousands of samurai in Japan at that time, hundreds serving alongside us under our Daimyou. But to be a samurai was exceptional compared with the average person, and to us as the persons playing. As an aside, to my observation it is better accepted to play identical characters - e.g. all samurai - in this sort of play.

I define the simulationist principle as

1. Imagined world facts are established independently of player-character intentions.
2. The features of imagined world facts map to the features of real world examples, making them realistic.
3. The features of imagined world facts and how they change over time conform to shared theories about the world, making them plausible.

I think of 1. as the distinctive component - as narrativism rejects it - while 2. and 3. are the "plausibility" components and serve narrativism just as well and potentially to much the same ends as simulationism.

Currently I don't think of the simulationist principle as necessarily including a component defining what sorts of characters should be played, although perhaps it needs to be clarified that the characters must fit to rather than cast into doubt 1., 2., and 3. That says nothing about what those characters become involved with and which moments of their lives are role-played out. I'd also stress that 1., 2., and 3. are agnostic of the means and timing under which they are brought about (they need not be GM authored, they need not be preexisting).

 

[clearstream]

This makes no sense. The character and the player are not the same. The player chose to (say) build a Dwarf Fighter. That doesn't mean, from the character's perspective, that they are a self-created being.

The player-character binary is tricky to describe in games. I mean that the world facts are independent of whatever intentions the player forms on behalf of their character - the character goals. Supposing that the character is created as a dwarf-fighter, they can't have the goal of being created as a dwarf-fighter. If created as a dwarf, they could have the goal of becoming a fighter... so long as whatever amounts to a "fighter" is down to world facts independent of that goal.

So if the player has in mind a dramatic arc for the player, as @loverdrive perspicaciously observed, they could milk the world facts toward that ends. But they could not establish new world facts toward that ends. That requires I believe that the lusory means includes means to establish world facts that are independent of player qua player.

 

[clearstream]

Well... First I would point out that "the world itself" is not a thing, it has no facts, only fiction! So, while I think it is possible to author fiction that has regards to other fiction its still all turtles, all the way down. So in lieu of 2 I would posit "players author world facts based on other criteria and regardless of any dramatic needs of the PCs."

Thank you for a thoughtful reply. It may seem odd, but imaginary facts, or facts that we can pretend we have knowledge of, are not epistemologically disreputable. Your observation is right that the authoring will give no regard to the dramatic needs of the PC. My second and third components of the "simulationist principle" account for what I think it would normally give regard to.

So to embrace your point fully, I say that the basis for establishing and updating the imagined world facts is the point of distinction. So far I've phrased it in the form of an antithesis. The positive form would be something like that the basis for establishing and updating world facts gives only regard to my 2. and 3. from post #2029. That would then lack that there should be a choice made of some subset* of real world examples and theories that form the reference set. A complete statement of a "simulationist principle" would need that.

Recalling an earlier definition

A simulationist design is one whose models and rules take inputs and produce results including fiction correlated with pre-existing references; so that we know when we say what follows that our fiction accords with the reference.

It's now clarified that the "pre-existing references" will be the reference subset and not the imagined world facts based on them - those need not be pre-existing. That the second and third components of the simulationist principle (or something like them) should be the only basis for establishing and updating those imagined world facts forms the point of distinction.


*I'd include intermediaries for real world examples and theories as candidates for such a subset. For instance the reference set could be everything in certain works of fiction. The intermediary may modify some examples and theories in certain ways, without rendering inapplicable those that are unmodified.

 

[aramis erak]

I reiterate: I am not a character in a work of fiction. I have no dramatic needs.

From where I sit, that's not provable.
Nor am I for you provably not a fictional character.
And that's before going all solipsist, and pointing out the only person one can be absolutely certain is real is themself...

Maxperson, AbdulAlhazred, Clearstream, Myself, and Loverdrive all could be seen as filling a dramatic need in a relatively mindnumbing story for you and us. Shades of My Dinner With Andre or Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolfe... but by a less competent author and director.

And that you claim not to be a character in a fiction proves it not; breaking the fourth wall is a rare (and yet still overused) technique in stage, screen, or literature. When it's done really well, it's fun... Deadpool or Howard the Duck both do so well; some of the sitcoms of the 90's and 00's were particularly dreadful about misusing/abusing it. Most protagonists as portrayed would respond the same, as they are unaware of their status as characters.

So, if you were fictional, odds are you'd deny being fictional as the character would be ignorant of their fictionality. At least in competent fiction.

Plus, you keep coming back to the debate... perhaps you enjoy the textual debates as a suitable level of personally enjoyable life-drama? I know that I do. The debate is dramatic; it flows much like the above mentioned movies. (Movies I was forced to watch for academic reasons... not fun for me.)

 

[aramis erak]

This this this. Even out at the fringe, games like Harn, there isn’t any ironclad requirement that the characters must be typical members of any demographic.

There are games that do. The GW Judge Dredd RPG, for example.

Many of us here are pretty unrepresentative by any metric. Life is like that.

Yep. Some of us even have lead interesting lives and done things that would be scarily close to "adventuring"... Pretty much anyone who has seen combat service would count; anyone who's spent time teaching in schools for low income neighborhoods, too.
Hell, going camping in Alaska can be adventure material. I've been at SCA events were we had to chase the bears out of the park. And others were we chased the KKK out.

Amen to that Sir! I mean, the truth is, nobody is representative, or maybe we all are depending on how you look at it. PCs are dramatic tools though, essentially. I mean, if they weren't, we'd call them 'pieces' or 'units' or 'figures' or something from wargaming.

Several RPGs do use the term "figures"... not common now, but many late 70's to early 80's games were unclear about the distinction between minis wargame and RPG... largely because not everyone was making such a distinction. Most do so now... but it's a spectrum.
Car Wars (pre5th ed): RPG? or Boardgame? Both? Neither, but some third thing inbetween?
Gorilla Game's Battlestations, same issue.

 

[loverdrive]

Goblins in some settings have enough about them to treat them the same way historical cultures can be. That they aren't real is a problem for you, but I know about as much about Tolkien's Orcs/Goblins (which are in fact the same "race" under Tolkien's writings), and John Wick's Orcs than I do about Homo naledi, and I enjoy watching the presentations about H. naledi.

I've had in mind something closer to "GM invented this deep setting with tons of lore hidden in the depths of her google docs" rather than "we play in a setting that everybody can just look up and call the GM out if what she says contradicts the lore".

 

[aramis erak]

I've had in mind something closer to "GM invented this deep setting with tons of lore hidden in the depths of her google docs" rather than "we play in a setting that everybody can just look up and call the GM out if what she says contradicts the lore".

Still, I can simulate Tolkien's world to an acceptable level I can't do with the real world of 50 to 100 thousand years ago... and approach it in a simulationist mode. It really helps, however, when the mechanics reinforce the tropes, too...

 

[loverdrive]

Still, I can simulate Tolkien's world to an acceptable level I can't do with the real world of 50 to 100 thousand years ago... and approach it in a simulationist mode. It really helps, however, when the mechanics reinforce the tropes, too...

I do not dispute that.

I don't really want to get into discussing what "real" means, but I'd say Tolkien's orcs are "real" (OK, I haven't read anything of Tolkien, so this is my assumption), in a sense that it's possible to verify a particular depiction for integrity and do research about them.

The way I see it, fun of "realism" is predicated on players' knowledge about the subject, and their ability to really appreciate adherence to it, nodding "yeah, this seems legit" in agreement.

 

[gban007]

What criteria for realism? Are the mountain ranges of Middle Earth geologically plausible? Is the existence of a kingdom which has remained virtually unchanged and inhabits the same 3 cities (well, they're down to one in LoTR) for THREE THOUSAND YEARS and maintains the same ruling dynasty all that time realistic? No, none of it even faintly resembles reality!

Its a contrived world which is designed deliberately to act as a stage upon which the author can construct myths of a pretend mythic cycle, and invent pretend ancient languages. NOTHING MORE.

Bit of a sidetrack, but which are the 3 cities here? By talking about down to one, I'm assuming you mean Minas Tirith, Minas Morgul and Osgiliath, but there is also at least Dol Amroth and Pelargir, plus other settlements they mention Aragorn and the Grey Company encountering that some sources paint as cities such as Linhir and Calembel, , and what is Rohan used to be part of Gondor and presumably at least some of their settlements would date from Gondor times.

 

[clearstream]

I've had in mind something closer to "GM invented this deep setting with tons of lore hidden in the depths of her google docs" rather than "we play in a setting that everybody can just look up and call the GM out if what she says contradicts the lore".

As I see it, simulationism doesn't require that the imagined world facts be kept secret from the players, and there are significant advantages in the opposite. Simulationism isn't about the secrecy of the world facts.

 

[gban007]

Sure it did, I read Appendix IV just like everyone else! The 3 cities of Gondor (and its possible Arnor had a city or two as well at some point,

Have talked about the other cities of Gondor, but on Arnor, named large settlements at least / potential cities are Annuminus, Fornost, Tharbad and Lond Daer.

 

[innerdude]

I think for me, the idea now is to connect, as @clearstream is trying to do, the thread between sim mindset to the rules > processes and procedures > table play.

It's actually shocking to me that, for as long as I would have considered myself a "sim" GM, I didn't once think about the process I had been enmeshed in until I was 35 years old.

I'm actually curious how the tenets/ethos of sim is transferred from direct, in play experience to a formulated, procedural mindset.

Like, how is it done? From 1985 through 2012, I had totally and completely been inculcated in the idea that "sim" priorities were paramount without ever having had an actual discussion or conversation with another human being about what that idea looked like or how it had formed in my consciousness. It simply sprang whole cloth into being through my observations and experiences playing D&D 3x, Star Wars Saga, GURPS, Pathfinder 1e, and Savage Worlds.

But somehow that idea had been firmly planted.

It was in 2012 that I started catching snippets of conversation @pemerton, and @Manbearcat, @chaochou and others were having on the subject here.

It took 5 years, from 2012 to 2017, for the idea that maybe my "sim" mindset wasn't as all encompassing as I'd been brought to believe, to move toward actual action, when I tried out Dungeon World for about 6 sessions of GM-ing and mostly failed at it, but it was an interesting failure.

But how does the mindset itself come about without ever having thought about the idea tangibly and concretely?

Is it a byproduct of adopting Rule Zero at some level? Is it based on unstated but culturally understood norms about distribution of authorial authority?