Why do RPGs have rules?

[clearstream]

In my posts, I've been saying that purist-for-system produces a type of simulationist experience for the whole table - because the GM as well as the players gets to see what comes from the application of the system during play. (Imagine, say, a Classic Traveller free trader game that is driven primarily just by the GM rolling on the various tables to produce worlds, cargoes, random encounters with reactions determined on the reaction table, etc.) There are two main risks in this sort of play, in my experience: (i) the mechanics break down as the fiction strays outside of system tolerances - this obliges the group to ad hoc things, or rejig their mechanics on the fly; (ii) play is (or becomes) boring, because the pleasure of seeing what sort of world the mechanics give rise to wears off (if it was ever there).

This echoes back to our differences on GM as referee / GM as player.

Whereas "high concept" produces one experience for the players - they get to experience the "cosmos in action" as narrated by the GM - but a different one for the GM, who has to make up the cosmos and so is not experiencing it in action. And this is where I have hit something of an impasse in this thread, as I am wondering what the principles/considerations/rubrics are that govern the GM's decisions about "what to say next" and am having some trouble identifying them. "Say a plausible thing" doesn't seem prescriptive enough to actually constrain decision-making,

Having dismissed the working theory you discover you're left with no explanation. Shocking outcome!

and is also part-and-parcel of all non-Toon RPGing. "Have no metagame agenda" seems to be belied by the idea that CR guidelines etc are something the GM should have regard to. So I'm a bit stumped.

I'm not sure where you picked that part up (although the amount of drift in this thread could account for it.) Models can be internal, external, or hybrid (have internal and external components.) A system like CR - if you want to use that as part of simulation* - is an example of an external component. There's nothing at all in the way of GM as referee making use of such components. It's players who should avoid metagame concerns.

*Not all systems must have a simulationist purpose: some may perform other jobs that are useful to play.

 

[pemerton]

Did you have the lightning bolt blast the house in half because, to the best of your knowledge, that's what the lightning would have done?

Here is the play in question:

I rolled the weather for the first month of autumn - rain. Not auspicious - as I said, the PCs would not be able to equip the sun streaming through the windows onto the possessed Krystal.

<snip>

The PCs rolled 6 hp, with Golin as conflict captain (relying on his research into Gebbeth's) - 3 for Fea-bella, 2 for Golin and 1 for Megloss as a helper but not an actor. The spirit rolled 7 hp (based on its Possessing nature). At first it seemed the PCs might do well, as they dropped the spirit to 6 hp in the first round. But then in the next two rounds the spirit regained its lost hp and reduced the PCs to zero.

I had a look at the compromise descriptions for Bind conflicts, and settled on the following (with no quibbling from the players): the spirit left Krystal's body - which was left a lifeless, soulless husk - and entered Megloss. It took the spellbook with it, into Megloss's dreams rather than Fea-bella's. And the unnatural spiritual activity caused the rain to get heavier - a bolt of lightning struck the house, destroying its front half and leaving the PCs outside in the wet, while Megloss remained dry in what was left of his home.

The PCs failed, completely, at a magical ritual to drive a spirit from Krystal and bind it in Fea-bella's spellbook. The game makes it my job to decide what happens as a result. I considered all the established fiction, and narrated the above. As I say, the players didn't quibble.

Is the fact that I thought is was interesting and exciting a marker that it's not simulation? I mean, the magical consequences of failed binding rituals seem apt to produce interesting and exciting things, don't they?

What is the internal cause of house blasting bolts in your imagined world?

I've posted this multiple times: here it is again in this post.

 

[pemerton]

double post.

 

[pemerton]

"Extrapolates" seems to be doing a lot of work there. Can you say more about what you mean by that word? (I know what I would mean by it, but I suspect you will want to unpack it in a way that avoids any possibility of internal models or imagined causality.)

Why would I want to avoid any possible imagined causality?

People can imagine causality until the cows come home! Stories are full of it - eg Magneto sank the Soviet submarine by controlling its metal with his magnetic powers, which cause the Soviet leadership to eventually bring him to trial before the World Court.

Vincent Baker gives many examples of imagined causality in the Apocalypse World rulebook. But presumably that doesn't make AW a simulationist RPG!

When I am asking about how the GM extrapolates, I'm asking how they decide what happens next. A focus on internal causation won't, on its own, do the job, because there are too many possibilities. I mean, going back to the Magneto example, there are so many possible parameters i that scenario, how does the GM work out which one comes true? They have to make an authorial decision, and I am curious as to what the principles are that guide that.

 

[pemerton]

Having dismissed the working theory you discover you're left with no explanation.

Are you able to state your theory? (If it's simply that the GM extrapolates what is plausible, then I've not "dismissed" it - I've refuted it.)

There's nothing at all in the way of GM as referee making use of such components.

But this would make it not simulationist. Is that correct?

 

[clearstream]

Here is the play in question:

The PCs failed, completely, at a magical ritual to drive a spirit from Krystal and bind it in Fea-bella's spellbook. The game makes it my job to decide what happens as a result. I considered all the established fiction, and narrated the above. As I say, the players didn't quibble.

Is the fact that I thought is was interesting and exciting a marker that it's not simulation? I mean, the magical consequences of failed binding rituals seem apt to produce interesting and exciting things, don't they?

I've posted this multiple times: here it is again in this post.

Thanks, I didn't see it earlier. With the limits of the transcript, it reads that you employed an internal model in which "unnatural spiritual activity caused the rain to get heavier" and that imagined cause yielded "a bolt of lightning struck the house."

the magical consequences of failed binding rituals seem apt to produce interesting and exciting things, don't they?

This could be disingenous, because of the infinite possible interesting and exciting things, you oddly chose one that fit a chain of imagined causality.

However, this minute slice of play doesn't tell me if you are adopting an immersionist attitude, because I'd need to know if these chains of causality are sustained - a characteristic feature of your play - or just an accident of how things fell in this case.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Well, RE puts it this way: purist-for-system prioritises system over setting, character and situation. And colour and system are closely related in this sort of play (he mentions the "engineering textbook" flavour of GURPS; I'd mention Rolemaster crit tables and, to a lesser extent, spell list naming conventions).

On the other hand, what he calls "high concept sim" prioritises one or two of setting, character and situation, then mixes in the desired colour, and puts system last - because (as per my posts in the recent pages of this thread) system in this sort of play is flexible/malleable in the hands of the GM, whose job it is to narrate outcomes (like the bear) the will maintain the desired sense of setting, character or situation.

The ethos of Traveller, with its relatively detailed rules for generating animal encounter tables that tell us what life is like on the world in question, is purist-for-system. The ethos of AD&D from the mid-80s, with its instruction to the GM to choose or set aside the random encounter result if another outcome would suit your game better, is high concept.

In my posts, I've been saying that purist-for-system produces a type of simulationist experience for the whole table - because the GM as well as the players gets to see what comes from the application of the system during play. (Imagine, say, a Classic Traveller free trader game that is driven primarily just by the GM rolling on the various tables to produce worlds, cargoes, random encounters with reactions determined on the reaction table, etc.) There are two main risks in this sort of play, in my experience: (i) the mechanics break down as the fiction strays outside of system tolerances - this obliges the group to ad hoc things, or rejig their mechanics on the fly; (ii) play is (or becomes) boring, because the pleasure of seeing what sort of world the mechanics give rise to wears off (if it was ever there).

Whereas "high concept" produces one experience for the players - they get to experience the "cosmos in action" as narrated by the GM - but a different one for the GM, who has to make up the cosmos and so is not experiencing it in action. And this is where I have hit something of an impasse in this thread, as I am wondering what the principles/considerations/rubrics are that govern the GM's decisions about "what to say next" and am having some trouble identifying them. "Say a plausible thing" doesn't seem prescriptive enough to actually constrain decision-making, and is also part-and-parcel of all non-Toon RPGing. "Have no metagame agenda" seems to be belied by the idea that CR guidelines etc are something the GM should have regard to. So I'm a bit stumped.

People have told you, you and @AbdulAlhazred basically just don't believe us, which goes to the feeling of being disregarded and dismissed.

 

[pemerton]

of the infinite possible interesting and exciting things, you oddly chose one that fit a chain of imagined causality.

What would it look like to choose something that doesn't fit a chain of imagined causality?

 

[pemerton]

People have told you, you and @AbdulAlhazred basically just don't believe us, which goes to the feeling of being disregarded and dismissed.

Is it "say something plausible"? Or something more? You've suggested something more - no metagame agenda. But @Maxperson not far upthread said that the metagame agenda of "fair encounters" (in CR/XP terms) is consistent with simulationism.

So are you and Maxperson disagreeing? I mean there's nothing wrong with doing so, but I'm trying to work out who the "us" is in your post.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Why is my imagining a lightning bolt blasting a house in two, which my two players accepted without query in the course of play, not a "crude, low quality model"?

It is! I don't agree with those who say it's not.

Upthread I (and some others) understood @Imaro, @Maxperson, perhaps @clearstream and maybe (?) @FormerlyHemlock to say that simulationist play occurs when the GM extrapolates the fiction in a way that they think is plausible and that is accepted as realistic/verisimilitudinous by the players. If that understanding is correct, why is my example of play not a simulation? If that understanding is mistaken, then what is the correct understanding?

I crossed out the part that is not a requirement as far as I'm concerned. How the players react affects the quality of your game but not what the GM was trying to acccomplish.