Why do RPGs have rules?

[Imaro]

This is the point.

The only possible way a player can succeed in dnd if the GM lets them succeed. The only reason they won a fight is because GM decided not to bring reinforcements. Didn't, but could. Could, but didn't. Ooh but she needs a narrative justification! Yeah, those cost nothing. I'm not a particularly creative person, but I can create a logical explanation for a new pack of goblins showing up. Or a lich. Or a tarrasque. Or an orbital ion cannon locking on the PCs and evaporating everything within a kilometre of them into fine dust.

Yeah, the GM can show mercy (aka being unwilling to crush PCs underfoot) and decide not to field monsters/obstacles/environmental hazards/whatever that completely shut the players down.

Yeah, we can say that a "decent GM" shows mercy.

Doesn't change much, though.

Doesn't encounter budget/CR address this? I mean it gives a measuring stick for the different types of encounters and thus constraints that skilled play can be judged upon. How well does someone deal with an easy vs. hard vs. deadly encounter. There are even guidelines for what is expected in an "adventuring day". Yes these can be ignored but then so can the constraints in any other game.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Doesn't encounter budget/CR address this? I mean it gives a measuring stick for the different types of encounters and thus constraints that skilled play can be judged upon. How well does someone deal with an easy vs. hard vs. deadly encounter. There are even guidelines for what is expected in an "adventuring day". Yes these can be ignored but then so can the constraints in any other game.

Random tables too. Even just having guidelines like eye balling HD and damage output, number of encounters per day, or chance of encounters help constrain it.

 

[loverdrive]

Doesn't encounter budget/CR address this? I mean it gives a measuring stick for the different types of encounters and thus constraints that skilled play can be judged upon. How well does someone deal with an easy vs. hard vs. deadly encounter. There are even guidelines for what is expected in an "adventuring day". Yes these can be ignored but then so can the constraints in any other game.

They would, if the text of the book didn't stress so much that they are completely optional, and they were enforceable. What can you do, even if you know that the current encounter is CR over 9000? Especially considering you are not even supposed to know that in the first place.

And then there are things that are not enemies and don't have a CR at all. What CR does a tripwire trap in the dungeon? What about guard not letting you into the city have? The bureaucratic apparatus that handles permits to enter?

 

[Imaro]

They would, if the text of the book didn't stress so much that they are completely optional, and they were enforceable. What can you do, even if you know that the current encounter is CR over 9000? Especially considering you are not even supposed to know that in the first place.

So you are assuming bad faith DM'ing. Whether it's optional or not you still have those benchmarks and a DM that sets an encounter budget at 9000 over the guidelines is purposefully choosing to end the game... it's akin to flipping the board in a chess game or breaking all the principles in an AW game. The question is why would you sit down to play and choose to do this with any game?

Also there is no rule that prohibits players from knowing CR or what the encounter budget for an encounter is... I don't believe the books speak either way to whether it should be known or not so you're assuming something that has no basis in the rules.

And then there are things that are not enemies and don't have a CR at all. What CR does a tripwire trap in the dungeon? What about guard not letting you into the city have? The bureaucratic apparatus that handles permits to enter?

DC's and the relevant fiction should constrain this naturally.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I'm going to keep asking you what you're trying to accomplish with this push to devalue simulation.

Devalue? I think I literally posted what will serve as an answer to what I perceive as the actual question. Clarity is better than obscurity. Understand what, how, why, when, and where, and then you have greater understanding. Use of language in a way which explicates and differentiates, which tells us what is a this, or a that is necessary to that process. I get there is an ideological reason for the use of certain terms. I don't care about ideology. The only lesson I've learned about ideologies is they lead to less clear thinking.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Edwards uses the term in a completely different way that I have never really grokked. He seems to have viewed it as kind of a pointless, agendaless thing that he didn't really grok either.

To be fair (and I've had plenty of critique of his use of Sim) its mostly that he decided that genre emulation and world sim were the same fundamental things and placed them together. That's pretty worlds apart from GDS sim, but I can at least see the thought process.

 

[AnotherGuy]

The only possible way a player can succeed in dnd if the GM lets them succeed. The only reason they won a fight is because GM decided not to bring reinforcements. Didn't, but could. Could, but didn't. Ooh but she needs a narrative justification! Yeah, those cost nothing. I'm not a particularly creative person, but I can create a logical explanation for a new pack of goblins showing up. Or a lich. Or a tarrasque. Or an orbital ion cannon locking on the PCs and evaporating everything within a kilometre of them into fine dust.

You're not wrong, but at what point in your equation do you include the Table's authority in the game?
Presumably, at some point the Table can negate a DM narrative, yes?

 

[Micah Sweet]

You're not wrong, but at what point in your equation do you include the Table's authority in the game?
Presumably, at some point the Table can negate a DM narrative, yes?

Not without the GM's acceptance of that negation, or the end of the game, imo. Now, in practice negotiation is almost always possible.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I honestly find all these categorization a little to rigid for my tastes, especially as many proponents of the Forge talk about them on these boards... its only as a mixture that I think they even begin to capture what actually happens at many tables in the wild... of course then you're treading on incoherent play territory...though if its fun who cares.

Notably, GDS did not care much about "incoherence" and in fact expected the majority of games were admixtures of its three approaches. You can argue the model was still incomplete, but expecting the binning to be complete was not one of its problems.

 

[AnotherGuy]

Not without the GM's acceptance of that negation, or the end of the game, imo. Now, in practice negotiation is almost always possible.

But in the same vain the players accept the justified narrative by the GM that some reinforcements showed up.

EDIT: My contention is that @loverdrive makes the claim that the GM decides when success happens without acknowledging that the Table has some authority in the matter.