Why do RPGs have rules?

[Fenris-77]

Just to tack some basic notions onto the P&E thing, because I like it so much, there are two aspects that I really like. One, part of the mechanic is player facing, so a PC can decide to take worse position (a harder roll) to get greater effect, or the opposite. The second part folds into that because the whole process is descriptive - you can declare any kind of action in or out of combat with no need for additional mechanics beyond P&E ad the usual couple of push mechanics that FitD uses. I love it.

 

[clearstream]

Obviously I have no more claim to insight into Dr Tolkien's meaning, but I interpret the words you quoted in a completely different way, to be a commentary about the inevitability, or desirability/obviousness, of certain dramatic elements in LotR given its antecedents. He speaks of the ring as "...the inevitable choice of the link." There's no 'simulation' here, this is an observation about the forms of myths and legends! For example he might well be thinking of the Nibelungenlied, with its ring theme. More straightforwardly, what else was really significant in the story told of Bilbo. The next most significant elements would be the Arkenstone and then perhaps the implications of the death of Smaug itself, along with the destruction of Lake Town and the events which followed. However, the Dark Lord seems to factor heavily here, and any supreme epic of the Third Age must surely grapple with his fate and thus the entwined fates of the remaining ring bearers and the free peoples generally.

I see Tolkien as both storyteller and world builder. To the former, his lifelong interest in languages and European myth gave greatness. The latter is what drew me into Middle Earth past the end of the stories. Tolkien is always interested in why things are as they are in his world. Details such as the flame imperishable - which comes to serve a dramatic purpose on the bridge in Moria - are worked out beyond the necessities of the story: for their own sake. Narya's freedom from Sauron's influence and path to Gandalf's hand follows from world facts that extend like a web.

Seeing the internal logic of Tolkien's world and being more interested in that world than the stories told within it does not diminish Tolkien as a storyteller, but recognises him as something more than that. He created a world that videogame designers today are mapping out and creating further stories within. To an extent it doesn't matter what Tolkien's motives were, but only the result: which is a world that goes beyond the stories and in which internal causes can be discerned.

Where this discussion (of Tolkien) has gone wildly off-track is that his Middle Earth serves perfectly well as a reference set for a TTRPG game world, and in that respect used in simulation. Which is where the original claims lay. The internal causes of that world can be given the crown such as when establishing mountain ranges. Whether or not Tolkien intended that is beside the point.

 

[clearstream]

Just to tack some basic notions onto the P&E thing, because I like it so much, there are two aspects that I really like. One, part of the mechanic is player facing, so a PC can decide to take worse position (a harder role) to get greater effect, or the opposite. The second part folds into that because the whole process is descriptive - you can declare any kind of action in or out of combat with no need for additional mechanics beyond P&E ad the usual couple of push mechanics that FitD uses. I love it.

I haven't played BitD. One fear I observe folk having about the P&E thing is that the non-diegetic negotiation could work to pull them out of their suspension of disbelief or immersion in character. What is your experience of that?

 

[clearstream]

I'm just as interested in the "flip" here - how many systems that are not self-consciously PbtA can nevertheless be run that way? As you've probably seen me post before, Classic Traveller is one.

As you know I have a similar interest (even if we quite often disagree about what works.) I have two questions

1. To what extent do you find yourself prepared to set aside or essentially overwrite advice to players or GMs in older game texts? An example I'm thinking of is Bushido, which I believe in many ways to be ideal for running in a more PbtA way, but that has advice up front that if followed would rule it out.
2. Do you have a list of games in mind? (Beyond CT, which I agree with BTW as we played in a collaborative mode quite different from D&D at the time... although not all the way to what I take you to have been doing.)

 

[Fenris-77]

I haven't played BitD. One fear I observe folk having about the P&E thing is that the non-diegetic negotiation could work to pull them out of their suspension of disbelief or immersion in character. What is your experience of that?

The opposite mostly. Usually that negotiation is pretty quick and it's building on my declared action. I can see how it might not be some peoples cup of tea though.

 

[loverdrive]

I haven't played BitD. One fear I observe folk having about the P&E thing is that the non-diegetic negotiation could work to pull them out of their suspension of disbelief or immersion in character. What is your experience of that?

It wasn't directed at me, but I think that fear has zero to do with the reality. Both the position and the effect are almost always just plain obvious from the narration, and when they aren't, confusion is cleared in less than a sentence.

 

[loverdrive]

Aside VII (I think?): on immersion and abstractions

Immersing oneself in the fictional world is the job of the player. It takes conscious effort to "forget" that you are actually not in a trap-riddled tomb, but here in the real world, with a cigarette in one hand and a half-eaten slice of pizza in another. Not any more or less conscious effort than to forget that you are actually sitting on your girlfriend's lap staring at a flat screen, and not any more or less effort than to forget that the reason why your character got shot is because you rolled 6-.

"Hur-dur I can't believe in a world if I know that it's made to be actually interesting and not sleep-inducing", yeah, skill issue, n00b. Git gud.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Right, so here is where I get off the bus, because it's hard not to see an implication that verisimilitude, setting consistency, plausibility and feeling like a real place are not important in my RPGing.

I think we're both agreed that Apocalypse World is not a simulationist RPG. But the following is from pp 96 and 108 of the AW rulebook (it is addressing the GM):

​

Again I never said that. I don't play apocalypse world so I can't really comment on it intelligently, but taking Hillfolk which I have played quite a bit now, that is a game that is also clearly not simulationist but I pointed out how it can hit all of the same buttons we are talking abbot (verisimilitude, setting consistency, plausibility, etc). My point was is in a 'simulationist' style those things are pretty much non-negotiable. You can't escape from them without the players having a negative reaction. In HIllfolk while things can be like that and often are, you have more freedom to leave those behind if you want for the drama and the story. You still need those things for interesting drama, and Hillfolk can still produce a very consistent setting, but you also could introduce a setting detail, but change it through reframing for something dramatically interesting or revelatory and that is one of the great things about the game (you can't really do that in simulationist play). The other key difference is objectivity. by which I don't mean these games are more objective in the scientific sense than non-simulationist, but that in simulationist, maintaining the sense that the world is an objective thing that exists outside the players is extremely important. Again, none of this is to say other games can't do that. You could make a non-simulationist game that adheres to strong simulationist principles in order to ground the other elements in something that feels a certain way. But these are the things simulationist players will expect and react against if they aren't there.

Also like I have said before, I am not a strict simulationist. I play lots of different kinds of games and campaign styles. But I have a pretty good grounding in the style of play you are calling simulationist. My contention isn't that it is better than any other style, just that it is a style that exists, and what it sets out to do, it achieves for most of the people who play that style. I personally don't think there needs to be a barrier between these camps. People who enjoy this can also enjoy other types of RPGs. You can mix them too. I have worked out mechanics for my games where the players assume a degree of narrative control in key portions. I also introduce a lot more dramatic elements. I do it in a way that I know won't bother more simulationist minded players because that is an audience I understand. But there is no requirement it be done that way.

I do think you are right that technique and procedure are important as well

 

[clearstream]

When I had to make the decision, I considered that (1) the players definitely do not accomplish their intent, and (2) the evil spirt owes them no compromise. So I looked through the list, and thought - the spirit is bound to the spellbook, but takes it into a companion instead, namely Megloss, which only makes sense given that Megloss is Fea-bella's enemy (though one with whom some sort of rapprochement seemed to be developing) and the evil spirt sprang forth from Fea-bella's heart (when her attempt to cast a spell in the lair of a demon failed) and hence would have an affinity for Megloss in proportion to Fea-bella's aversion to him. A bolt of lightning blasting the house seemed a final, fitting capstone, a "freak event . . . at the conclusion of the ritual" that also dramatically framed the PCs into their loss, outside in the rain surrounded by charred tinder while Megloss stands above them sheltering in the surviving half of the house.

On a different day I might have made a different decision. And while I don't claim to be a fantasy author of the stature of JRRT, I think the process here is in the same neighbourhood as the one that you (@AbdulAlhazred) impute to him.

A quite different mechanical approach to failed rituals is found in Rolemaster Companion III (p 27); here is the relevant portion of the chart:

49-40 - The ritual fails, and all present are blown back 20 ft. All take an "A" Impact critical and lose all spell points for a whole day.​

​

39-30 - The ritual fails, and the casters are badly hurt. They taken an "E" Impact, others a "C". All persons lose all spell poitns for 1d10 days.​

​

29-20 - The ritual fails. All participants take a "C" Impact crticial, lose spell points for 1d100 days, and are knocked out for 1d10 hours.​

​

19-0 - The ritual is perverted The effects of this are up to the GM. Suggestions are given later in this section. In addition, all present take an "A" Electricity critical and lose all spell points for a whole day.​

​

(-01)-(-20) - The ritual is perverted, and all present take a "C" Electricity and an "A" Impact critical. All participants are unable to cast spells for 1d10 days.​

​

(-21)-(-40) - The ritual is perverted. All present take an "E" Electricity critical and a "C" Impact critical. All participants are unconscious for 1d10 hours and lose spell points for 1d10 months.​

​

(-41)-(-100) - The ritual is perverted. All present take an "E" Electricity and an "E" Impact critical and must make an RR vs the level of the ritual or be deprived of all spell points permanently. All are unconscious for 1d10 days.​

​

(-101)-(-200) - The ritual backfires in a spectacular manner, killing all involved instantly.​

​

(-201)-(-300) - The ritual backfires in a blaze of arcane power. The spell effect will radiate out into a mile's radius, causing whatever effects the GM sees as necessary. The souls of all participants are ripped apart. They may be resurrected, but all mental stats will be halved.​

​

(-300)-(-400) - The souls of all participants contribute their Essence to the power of the ritual. The spell effect will radiate for several miles, with a total effective level equal to: (ritual level) + 0.5 x (sum of participants' levels).​

​

(-401) down - The release of arcane power has caused a breach in reality that will call for a god to repair it. The souls of all participants are totally annihilated, along with the surrounding few acres of land. The magical repercussions will be felt by all spell casters within a thousand miles.​

The concept of "ritual perversion" actually requires similar GMing decision-making to Torchbearer (eg for summoning/possession rituals, the suggested options for perversion are "The caster may very well be possessed, or the summoned creature might be uncontrolled, or the caster may have called up something of much greater power than intended"). But the use of the chart otherwise permits the GM to disclaim decision-making.

One obvious upshot of the RM approach is to encourage attempts to use failed rituals, with hefty penalties to the roll, as an attempt to blow places up by getting a-401 down result; or just to lure enemies into participating and then killing them or sucking away their spell points by lesser failure results. This is a repeated experience with RM, where rules elements introduced in order to generate genre-appropriate results invite being used in other ways to produce genre inappropriate results, requiring either rules modification (we didn't use the ritual failure chart as written) or gentlemen's agreements (we had a few of those in place too).

It doesn't matter too much, because surely the claim is generalisable. It cannot be ruled out that some world fact established on dramatist grounds turns out to be warranted on simulationist grounds. I set the bar higher by saying that it is the world facts collectively that should be assessed: that they have been and will go on to be established in conformance with simulationist principles.

Suppose we simply concede the lightning example - i.e. that it's also warranted under simulationism - would the same confidence apply to the full set of world facts? And if it did, why would one not count that as simulationism?

Considered another way, is there any reason not to call those facts established following simulationist principles "simulationist facts" and those established following dramatist principles "dramatist facts" and to allow for hybrids (facts that have both qualities)? That makes my bar simply the bar for when we'd normally call the play "simulationist" rather than "dramatist": not because of an absence of dramatism, but because of a prevalance of simulationism.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Without reading the rest of the downstream replies I have a thought here. On a different forum I interact with rather a lot of old school simulationist type RPG folks. I think that the stakes here are very much about the word simulationist, and thus from there simulation generally. The folks in question, and I love and respect all of them, have a pretty narrow and specific idea of what is being simulated and a very specific idea again from there, about what some version of the idea of 'immersion' means in light of that brand of simulation. To get somewhat granular, that brand of simulation doesn't, for example, involve metacurrency of any kind, nor does it involve abstractions when it comes to resources. Generally it tends to model the very old fashioned separation of church and state in terms of agency, where the player runs their character and the GM runs everything else, full stop. Full disclosure, I played like that, perhaps not exclusively, but regularly, for a very long time. I have fond memories of those games an the people I played with. However, I know more about different games now, I've played more games now, and perhaps most importantly for this discussion, I have a much better grasp of RPG design now that I used to.

I think some of what has happened here, and this is my own opinion, which understand is not the norm in these circles, even though I do frequent them a lot and agree with 90% of their gaming point of view, is over the course of discussing why we like to play the way we do, and over the course of contrasting the style with style's like Pemerton's, we've defined out mechanics and approaches that really wouldn't be a problem but are because we are hyper aware of them. It is sort of like how there may be a tendency in writing that never bothers you, until you are given the word for it, and suddenly you can't stop seeing it (and sometimes that word points to a real problem, sometimes it is just a trendy way of talking about writing and critiquing it). But the hyperawareness can itself be the issue sometimes.

If you take the meta mechanic example you gave, that was never really a problem that I noticed in simulationist circles until around the time of 4e. Fourth edition might not be the reason, but I feel like that was when there was a lot of talk about dissociated mechanics for example. I found the concept useful but what started to happen was people began having a 'any amount at all of dissociated mechanic is bad because it take some outside my character' mindset. But if you look back at earlier editions of D&D, dissociated mechanics existed, they and made the game better. The problem is usually in volume and quantity where something rises to a certain level and it changes the feel for people (and where that becomes too much, if ever, really varies from person to person). It is one of those things where an observation that may have been grounded in something real, became this pillar and deeply ingrained assumption that you couldn't break. I think that happens a lot in gaming conversations, not just around things like simulation, but this is where I do think taking a step back from one's preferred style and taking a step back from the conversation can be helpful. I also think exposing yourself to different types of RPGS is important. Playing Blades in the Dark isn't going to kill you, playing a deeply simulationist campaign of HARN isn't going to kill you. You can probably learn a lot doing both and you don't have to commit to just one approach. I think when you see one or the other as a problem, then there is a higher tendency to dismiss any wisdom, observations or value that play style has to offer.

What I noticed in myself was after I had extracted a lot of great GMing approaches and play style approaches through conversations online with gamers equally interested in things like living worlds and non-railroad adventures, was I started to get trapped in a way of thinking that reflected online conversation but had flaws when dealing with the realities of actual table play. Which is to say no table is made up ever of purely X or Y players. And it can be really hard to sustain games that prioritize a kind of purity of style. Further, on the mechanical side, stuff like bennies can be perfectly fun and enjoyable in that type of campaign. Learning to take the good I got out of these conversations (many of the techniques I have talked about for establishing living worlds and running adventures more structured around characters and NPCs), but also learning to be more open minded again and not always see things through the prism of online conversation took some time. In the end what works for me is focusing on the needs of the table I have before me, not allowing online conversations to occupy space in my head rent free.

And this is really important in design in my opinion and a door that swings both ways depending on what you want to do. Just to give a couple of more examples here, one from my own design and one from a more known game. I just moved so I don't have the rulebook on hand and it has been a while since I read it, but Numenera takes metacurrency with but grounds it in the setting by making it Effort. I am not saying metacurrency always needs that sort of explanation. But what that achieves it is bridges a divide, and it reflects an understanding of lines that exist in the heads of certain gamers around metacurrency. I know for me it was more palatable when it came out when I was in a phase of not being as open to metacurrencies. It didn't win everyone over, and not everyone is a fan, but I appreciated the idea behind it. Similarly I have tried to introduce more dramatic elements into my sandboxes, but I am very aware of my audience and of the 'simulationsist' mindset, so I grounded that stuff in the cosmology itself (as you point out the key thing is the world being separate from the character). So I made fate a force like gravity and fate is largely responsible for all the dramatic elements. When a character does anything that moves in the direction of their fate, they get a bonus. And I also included ideas like fated encounters. These tie with the cosmology but they are opportunities for introducing ongoing dramatic threads as well. Now you could do that in ways that Pemerton has described and that would work, but my goal was to do it in a way that I felt would appeal to sandbox players (and you meet a lot of sandbox players who don't want metacurrency or approaches that alter the player-GM relationship). And I have taken this further in newer games I work on. I've even drawn on messing around with the GM-player relationship in ways Pemerton has described (I usually do it either in ways I feel my audience will accept or as a deliberate way of injecting the surreal when that is called for). I wouldn't be able to do that if I was only playing games one way or not exposing myself to other approaches.