Why do RPGs have rules?

[clearstream]

The only reason to have them not relate to the players' goals or characters' themes is because you don't want them to.

I feel here you're forcing the priorities of other modes of play onto this mode of play. In many modes of play it's preferred and has satisfying consequences that world truths relate to player's goals or character's themes. In a mode where a central part of the satisfaction of the play is that the world truths are about the world, not the characters, choosing that approach isn't about wanting to deny players.

I don't see why players who didn't enjoy those things would even play in such a mode: ergo there is no player expectation that is being denied. The problem you are identifying is that were it you playing then you would have expectations that - yes - would be denied. But this is the same as any case where player expectations are not going to be satisfied by the chosen mode of play and game text.

It's like stepping up to Ping Pong, outraged that you are being denied your expectation to perform pawn advances and queenside castling. Ping Pong isn't about pawn advances and castling, queenside or otherwise. It would have been better to choose Chess.

EDIT Reading your earlier post

But the point I was really trying to make was about how active the players are in driving the focus of play. Do they pursue specific goals? Do they make things happen? Or do things just happen to them?

My preference is that players (as players) still do drive the focus of play. They form and pursue goals and they make things happen; albeit they are not alone in doing so.

 

[clearstream]

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. The world described by Toon an RPG about Saturday morning cartoon is very different than the world described by Harnmaster. Yet both are known for being consistent in how their mechanics reflect their respective settings/genres.

Why is consistency important? Because player don't like it when told they have to roll a different way when the same situation comes up later in the campaign. Even in the zany world of Toon, you want to be consistent with how the world of cartoons works. Yes what happens in those cartoons is often random but it is a specific type of randomness which Toon handles well.

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.

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.

That sort of setting-informed consistency falls within the three facets I described. Most of all the naturalistic theory, which supervenes on the mappings to real-world with the imaginary-world additions, to allow player expectations to be formed and turn out to be predictive.

 

[robertsconley]

This may be useful for those debating realism. It is a downloadable PDF from my website.

The World Outside of the Dungeon

https://www.batintheattic.com/downloads/The%20World%20Outside%20of%20the%20Dungeon.pdf

The basic gist, is that they outline the process I use to bring my setting to life for the players to interact with. How I handle the fact that players in my campaign are free to do anything they can do as their characters. If one of my campaigns happens to turn into being about the character living the life of basket weavers along the banks of the Estuary of the Roglaroon then so be it. ALthough that hasn't yet, what has happen is major life decisions that resulted in the campaign being focused on something completely different than how it started. One campaign (using GURPS) started out with the players being a bunch of medieval mercenaries in the employ of a baron and ended with the group as independents building and operating a crossroad inn in a wilderness location.

This is how I handle translating things that the player do as their characters when I use D&D mechanics.

https://www.batintheattic.com/downloads/When%20to%20make%20a%20Ruling.pdf

With GURPS I don't need something like the above because RAW it is detailed enough to handle 90% of what I have seen happen in my campaigns. Other systems like Fantasy AGE vary in what I have to do to make a specific call.

I found throughout the decades that doing this enhances immersion in the campaign so that players have more fun as they can make plans and learn to gauge the odds of success in my settings.

 

[robertsconley]

That sort of setting-informed consistency falls within the three facets I described. Most of all the naturalistic theory, which supervenes on the mappings to real-world with the imaginary-world additions, to allow player expectations to be formed and turn out to be predictive.

I stress the points I made because it is hard to have fun roleplaying if things are not resolved consistently (in the procedure being used not the outcome) when the players try the same thing under similar circumstances. And similarly, if the rulings and mechanics are consistent with the setting even when it is only loosely defined as a bunch of tropes like in Dungeon World or Toon.

 

[chaochou]

Sim isn't a mode of play - it's a mode of GMing - or controlling play - aimed at concealing the GMs authorship.

 

[Maxperson]

A reason? And what could that reason possibly be? List me a set of reasons which would apply! I'm not saying they don't exist, but the only category they can really fall into is the GM's agenda! Every single reason will fall into that category. I mean, I can imagine some fairly unusual scenarios, like "I am not using spiders because one of my players is deathly afraid of them" or other such 'lines and veils' as they are called (this one I have seen once, but it is not common). I mean, verisimilitude could be a whole table agenda, but as I said, its fundamentally flawed in that the GM ultimately has all fictional authority, and thus established the conditions of the verisimilitude to start with.

Calling it the DM's agenda implies that DM has decided that the campaign will be about goblins attacking the party. If the DM is trying to force what he wants to happen, then yes it's an agenda. That's not what simulation does. Simulation looks at the area and if the party is walking two miles away from a goblin village that the DM knows is there when a random encounter is rolled, it's realistic/simulation to choose goblins to encounter. It's not some agenda of the DM's. He doesn't care if it's goblins, rats or rust monsters. He's picking the encounter not because he wants goblins(he may not want goblins at all), but rather because goblins make the most sense for the region.

This flaw you guys keep touting isn't a flaw at all. It doesn't matter if the DM established the foundation for what he later uses for his reasoning. So long as the DM has a reason(prior foundation in this case), it cannot possibly be arbitrary(chosen on a whim).

 

[hawkeyefan]

The existence of the Wild West might be remarkable, but it's something that happened to and among other people.

Deciding to move to the Wild West isn't something that "happens to you". Proactive, not reactive

So clearly it cannot be A or B.

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?

B is both continual and related, and D is neither of those things. It can't be B.

That's my fault, I had mixed up my A and B. I've edited my last post.

I view it as A. I think it's A because the things happening are unrelated to the characters goals or themes.

But no remarkable events are "happening to" them, so it cannot be A. And even if it were A, that would disprove your argument about A being no more realistic than B!

Again, my fault for mixing up my own points! I view this as B.

If I'm a Roman citizen in 100 A.D. and I go to Rome and try to kill the Emperor, interesting things are going to happen to me, but my probable crucifixion and death is not improbable or unrealistic! I can't give a modern example due to ENWorld rules (even the Roman example risks Umbran's wrath IME) but hopefully you get the gist. Making interesting things happen around you by doing interesting things does not require becoming a Weirdness Magnet the way B does.

Your words: "If they aren't proactive, then things are still going to happen to them because it's a game and we all want stuff to happen. Wherever they go, they run into significant events, unrelated to their own agenda."

If you're making the interesting things happen, then I think it would be a case of my B. The weirdness magnet angle is more A, where remarkable events keep happening around the characters that are unrelated to them.

But here's the thing. Even a "random encounter" can be made dramatically relevant to the players' characters. So you roll brigands on your random encounter table, and we know that the Knight character has a Drive of "Justice". The PCs are on their way to the kingdom to prevent a major threat, but this random encounter occurs. They can avoid it and be on their way for their important goal... but does the Knight's sense of Justice supersede that goal? What does his decision say about him as a character?

That's dramatically relevant.

I think this idea that everything needs to be specifically connected to the PCs at all times is misleading. There's no reason even random encounters can't be made to be dramatically meaningful to one or more PCs.

Can you see how much your argument relies upon the false dichotomy that excludes C, D, and E from existing? You even said it yourself: "If [not E], then... [unrealistic things will happen]." You're implicitly acknowledging that E (no improbable events occurring except through player instigation) is more realistic than B (improbable coincidences related to player character's interests and themes, i.e. becoming a Personalized Weirdness Magnet).

A/B is a false dichotomy and should not be used to unilaterally dismiss realism as a genuine concern that some people have. If you do, you will never understand why people have that concern. You'll be talking to yourself about a riddle in a language you've forbidden yourself to learn.

I think your C, D, and E can all be categorized under A or B, so I don't think I'm excluding anything. My point is that A and B are equally realistic (or equally unrealistic, depending on how you want to look at it), so any distinction between the two is simply a matter of preference. So using it as a measure of play doesn't really seem too meaningful.

You could point at my game and say "wow, everything seems to revolve around the players' characters, that seems a bit too coincidental, no?" and I could point at your game and say "wow, nothing that happens to the players' characters has anything to do with them, that doesn't seem believable". Neither is right or wrong. And I also expect neither of our games would totally exclude A or B.

So instead, let's look at what's happening outside of the fiction. What's happening in the game, at the table. Drop all appeals to realism, and tell me from a process standpoint, what's the difference between A and B?

 

[Lanefan]

Here are two scenarios.

1) The PCs leave town, traveling to the north and run into goblins.
2) The PCs leave town, traveling to the north and run into the tribe of orcs that killed the ranger’s family.

Which is more realistic?

Both and neither, at the same time.

The quesiton is more, which is more contrived? Put another way, is the GM intending to put goblins in the way no matter which way the PCs go, or is she willing to honour her prep such that if the PCs go north they meet goblins, if they go south they meet the orcs they're looking for, if they go east they meet giants, and if they go west they'd better have a boat?

But WotC doesn’t make more than one system. And Paizo doesn’t really, either, with Starfinder as an exception (though I don’t know if they’re even still putting out material for it).

Most of the big companies produce games based on one system. So I’m not really sure if your initial point is all that valid.

If that system is intentionally geared toward shorter campaigns - as WotC D&D has been all along - my point stands.

Nope, it’s a preference. If it’s a preference a person has, then they may be more likely to consider a longer campaign yo be good. But, I’d think that if a campaign is good, it’s more likey to go long because the participants are enjoying it. The length of a campaign would, in that sense, seem to be a result of the quality of play rather than a cause of it.

I agree with the bolded. That said, sometimes it also goes the other way, where longevity of play leads to greater enjoyment.

In either case, however, the system in use still has to be able to handle this longer play if and when it arises.

Also, deeper and richer interaction with the characters doesn’t seem to be about length of the campaign so much as the game’s focus. I’ve played years-long campaigns that had very shallow and minimal character interaction. It doesn’t tend to be what the game is about. There are games that are designed to be focused specifically on the characters and the depth of their interactions.

So it would seem. And yet those same games, if I'm reading the various play examples correctly, seem to generally eschew interaction with the greater setting beyond that which affects the PCs in the immediate moment.

Example: when a group of PCs are in town for a bit of downtime, is the GM able to proactively throw in a 30-second-at-the-table "news report" along the lines of "Word on the street is that there's war in the far north, probably against giants; there's a peasant revolt in Spieadeia [a known place south of here] that might still be going; and next week's local harvest celebration/holiday will be grand as there's a bumper crop this year".

Just little things, that reinforce the idea that there's a world out there beyond just what the PCs can see right now.

Given how often you seem to criticize this kind of play, it seems strange to now see you claim that its goal is a positive outcome of long campaigns.

I don;t mind deep character interactions at all, when it's with other characters and with peope in the greater setting. What I tend to avoid (in all media) is the sort of deep character introspection and internal angst that some here seem to very much enjoy - I see more than enough of that in real life through knowing/having known people who delight in it, and it often strikes me as pointless there too. Having that sort of introspection be the - or a - focus of the game would see me running for the hills right quick.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I feel here you're forcing the priorities of other modes of play onto this mode of play. In many modes of play it's preferred and has satisfying consequences that world truths relate to player's goals or character's themes. In a mode where a central part of the satisfaction of the play is that the world truths are about the world, not the characters, choosing that approach isn't about wanting to deny players.

It's not about what the GM wants to do. It's about the effect of what he's doing. The method chosen denies players' the ability to drive play.

Now, if the players are indifferent to that, then it's all good. But again, I wish people would set aside the appeal to realism and call it what it is... "this game is about my world, not your characters".

I don't see why players who didn't enjoy those things would even play in such a mode: ergo there is no player expectation that is being denied. The problem you are identifying is that were it you playing then you would have expectations that - yes - would be denied. But this is the same as any case where player expectations are not going to be satisfied by the chosen mode of play and game text.

It's like stepping up to Ping Pong, outraged that you are being denied your expectation to perform pawn advances and queenside castling. Ping Pong isn't about pawn advances and castling, queenside or otherwise. It would have been better to choose Chess.

No, the problem I'm identifying is people saying that my game is less realistic than theirs. That's not what should be the distinction that separates the two games. Both games present plausible events (such as they can be considered so in a fantasy world of some sort). What's real is what is decided to be real.

I think this is especially fraught when people are saying that having things related to the PCs happen to the PCs is unrealistic because the basis for their evaluation is a trad approach where the GM presents things for them to do as they wander through his setting. So if he's always presenting things that are relevant to them, it seems to push credibility.

But what if a game didn't work that way? What if you're playing Stonetop, and the PCs are all inhabitants of the village of Stonetop, and everything they do is related to defending or improving the village in some way. They rescue their neighbors from danger one session, and then the next session they travel to another town to discuss a trade agreement, but find that town does some shady things, that don't sit well with the Light Cleric... can the deal still be struck? Does the Light Cleric have to compromise his ethics? Or can some other solution be found?

All of that is relevant to the players and none of it seems overly coincidental.

I won't claim that this is more realistic than other methods of determining the events of play... all I'll say is that it's equally realistic.

EDIT Reading your earlier post

My preference is that players (as players) still do drive the focus of play. They form and pursue goals and they make things happen; albeit they are not alone in doing so.

Okay, so by saying they're not alone in doing so... I think you mean the GM has goals and makes things happen, is that right? What kinds of goals? How does he make things happen?

 

[Maxperson]

Right, this is why actual examples from play are always better than these incomplete "what ifs" that come up in these discussions.

We definitely don't have enough information to know what would make more sense in the fiction. But that's beside the point.... the point is that all of it is constructed.

That it's constructed isn't relevant to realism or simulation.

Not in every game, but certainly in many, PCs are not typical folks. Crazy crap happens to them and around them at all times.

No it doesn't. There are times crazy crap isn't happening.

I think your take here relies on a pretty traditional gaming viewpoint. Where things continually happen to the characters. They're not carving their own way... they're just wandering from one unconnected thing to another. And in the past you've vehemently asserted that your players have agency.

"No, no... you don't find the fantastic thing you're looking for... you find this totally unrelated fantastic thing!"

I'm not sure what you are trying to say there. I don't think it's really understanding what I said, but since I can't really understand what you are saying, I'm not sure.

Sure. Just drop the realistic argument because it's totally misguided.

No. You declaring it misguided isn't going to cut it. I'm not dropping what I do just because you can't understand it and think what you are envisioning is misguided. You drop your argument, because it's just plain wrong.