Why do RPGs have rules?

[aramis erak]

Those appear to be valid reasons, even if they don't make sense to us, per my original statement. Valid = it makes sense to them, which is what you describe. Doesn't mean that you agree with them; I hope you don't. What was your point in throwing out these extremely fringe examples? I don't think my claim was particularly controversial; is it not common sense that everyone is entitled to their own opinion about what makes something fun?

Validity is not relative to the player, but to the group; the term itself has strong connotations of outside authority beyond the acting person.

Also, even if one accepts validity as a personal thing (which I categorically do not), a purpose that isolates one from groups (as the first two do) is self invalidating in the end... as reputation spreads and invitations get withdrawn.

And doing things simply to appease the significant other is, itself, a warning sign to watch for psychological abuse. Trying it? sure. Attending without finding a non-external approval reasons? Not good. Not healthy.

 

[aramis erak]

But I don't doubt that other people have different experiences, though how common is a truly toxic AND persistent player?

In 40 years, I've personally had to bounce 6 for various toxic personality issues in Alaska, and 3 of the players I encountered in Oregon counted as toxic; one of whom showed up simply to intimidate his rape victim; he left when the police were called. He lost his bail money... and then his freedom. The Oregon ones got bounced by the Store.

So, about 2%.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

In 40 years, I've personally had to bounce 6 for various toxic personality issues in Alaska, and 3 of the players I encountered in Oregon counted as toxic; one of whom showed up simply to intimidate his rape victim; he left when the police were called. He lost his bail money... and then his freedom. The Oregon ones got bounced by the Store.

So, about 2%.

Ick. I've had players I didn't love, like "OK, this guy is here, I don't want to disinvite him." But not toxic. Generally the ones that weren't having fun self-deleted, generally. Now, the venue and how you get players is probably a variable here, IMHO.

 

[Maxperson]

Sure. But what are the rules actually for? What do they do?

They're there to provide structure and prevent(pretty successfully) the bolded portion.

"These clearly have a lot in common with RPGing. But they don't have rules - disagreements about what happens next are just resolved by people talking it over and reaching (or sometimes not reaching) agreement."

That bolded portion will simply kill many if not most games where there are no rules, and I think it happens more often than "sometimes." It happened fairly often in my personal experience as a child and in my observation of my children playing with their peers when they were younger.

Arguments will occur, but the rules will usually provide the means to shut those arguments down when consulted or at least point in a direction that the group will settle on.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Well, its a bit of an odd blog, with its terminology and the odd statement about the techniques it discusses being in use in RPGs since "the seventies or earlier." (No actually!)

Presumably that's just so we can avoid the argument over whether Braunsteins, Free Kriegspiel, Coventry, and other role-playing activities count as role-playing games. For our purposes it doesn't matter whether the 70s or the 50s are the origin: the point is, the techniques aren't new.

Apropos of "unwelcome truths that no vigorous creative agreement would ever have produced", I heard a funny story today:

Me: In a different game, I once had the joy of watching a Jotun Herse become so enraged and berserk that he CUT HIS OWN LEG OFF for lack of a better target to vent his wrath upon.

Person A: Heh. Ask [Person B] about accidental amputation at GenCon. We were ready to start calling him Tripod

Me: [Person B], what happened?

Person B: Rolled three 18s back to back severing my character's leg in the first attack roll of the game for triple damage with my own sword. It was brutal and funny. My character had his leg regrown but kept the bones. Sean is going to turn it into a DF magic item at some point.

I started wondering why I got so much joy out of the story and immediately concluded that it was an unwelcome and unexpected truth that would not have been produced by vigorous creative agreement, and that maybe that has some relationship to the paradigm of "humor" as "unexpected truths that produce a moment of insight".

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Presumably that's just so we can avoid the argument over whether Braunsteins, Free Kriegspiel, Coventry, and other role-playing activities count as role-playing games. For our purposes it doesn't matter whether the 70s or the 50s are the origin: the point is, the techniques aren't new.

OK, I didn't participate in any of the 'genuine' Braunsteins, so I wouldn't presume to comment on them at that level, but they were, AFAIK certainly fairly 'classical/trad' in pattern. Certainly there was lots of story before, the GM created the scenarios and then the game was run. This is WHY classic D&D is the way it is, its a sort of adaptation of the same pattern, which goes all the way back to actual Free Kriegsspiel with some slight variations. However, I know of no use, within that general tradition, of anything resembling Story Now Zero Myth type play. It might be thought of as being related to theatrical improv, but I think that would be a pretty big stretch in the sense that they don't share techniques.

In any case, I still don't see that the specific blog is committing to anything, beyond the author's preference. And I'm still not sure I think that the 'blorb' and the 'gloricle' is a coherent division. Like, I would put prep in blorb, frankly, its more stuff that has been made up, part of the fiction. One thing we agree on, there's a fundamental difference between Low/No Myth Story Now and Pre-authored play.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

In any case, I still don't see that the specific blog is committing to anything, beyond the author's preference. And I'm still not sure I think that the 'blorb' and the 'gloricle' is a coherent division. Like, I would put prep in blorb, frankly, its more stuff that has been made up, part of the fiction. One thing we agree on, there's a fundamental difference between Low/No Myth Story Now and Pre-authored play.

That could be because I wasn't trying to explain or advocate blorbing, only to comment that neither No Myth nor Blorby play are objectively better than each other: when and how to canonize facts is simply a matter of preference. Since your point appears to be that Blorb, in your opinion, is merely "High Myth" narrativist play, presumably you would agree that both preferences are valid: No Myth and High Myth.

I don't want to derail this thread or argue about what "committing to anything" entails, but I do enjoy blorb far more than No Myth play, so I'll just link Blorb Principles and leave it at that unless someone starts a thread on that topic. Edit: except for the below clarification.

However, I know of no use, within that general tradition, of anything resembling Story Now Zero Myth type play. It might be thought of as being related to theatrical improv, but I think that would be a pretty big stretch in the sense that they don't share techniques.

I think you're responding to the statement that 'I didn’t invent blorby play; both blorby and unblorby moments, or entire games, have been played in RPG since the seventies or earlier.'

I will point out that you're assuming that 'unblorby play' means 'Story Now Zero Myth', but it doesn't. See Blorb Principles for additional criteria beyond No Myth, but for example anyone who disagrees with the statement "A good prepper might think of things like theme, fairness, balance, things being evocative etc but once you start running, all those thoughts need to go out the window" is not blorbing. (And that's okay! Not everyone has to blorb. The point of the word is just to identify the playstyle, not to religiously advocate it.)

Does that help clarify in what sense non-blorby play has clearly existed since the 70s? Based on what I know of his personality, I doubt Gygax saw anything wrong with leaving on his "game designer" hat whenever he put on his DM hat and sat down with players. I suspect he felt quite free to improvise theme, fairness, balance, etc. right in the middle of a game session. Ergo, Gygax was probably non-blorby much or most of the time.

 

[Maxperson]

Rather than putting it in terms of "how those characters' reality works", I'd put it in terms of who is allowed to say what in respect of what happens next in the shared fiction.

There are rules that do that, but that's not why RPGs have rules. I really, really doubt that outside a small handful of times(at best), designers have sat down and said to themselves, "Let's figure out who is allowed to say what in respect of what happens next in the shared fiction and then make rules to match that."

Rules are there to provide structure to the game and avoid Calvinball, allowing the group to have more enjoyment out of the game. What kind of enjoyment you seek will determine which RPGs appeal to you the most.

 

[Maxperson]

I'm utterly lost.

I THINK(not entirely sure myself) that he's talking about rules contained in certain RPGs that allow players to establish part of the in-universe reality. It seems to me like he's presenting that as character reality. Really, they're still the same thing and only the approach to establishing the in-universe reality differs.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

I would argue that rules are there primarily to say "No" to players, and secondarily to make it somewhat more predictable to players when the universe will say "No."

If the universe never says no, then you don't need rules. "I turn into a unicorn" is valid, and so is "I cut off the giant's head" and "I bring the giant back to life." Kids play games like this all the time.

You can have a GM whose job is to arbitrarily say "No" to certain things ("No, you miss", "No, you can't cut through the giant's neck", "No, the giant doesn't come back to life") but having rules that are knowable to the players at least to some extent make the game more navigable and usually more fun. "Resurrection spells can bring things back to life, but it's a 7th level spell, and the GM reserves the right to declare that some deaths are irreversible."

Combat results in particular are no fun without rules. "No, you miss" just feels arbitrary.