Why do RPGs have rules?

[niklinna]

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.

It's also hugely diegetic, much more so than binary succeed/fail rolls. You are deciding whether to play it safe, go all-out, or make that hail mary pass, with risk & reward corresponding to your choice in the situation. If we're gonna talk sim, Position & Effect is the most simulative RPG mechanic I've encounted, by far, in terms of character action. The two often correlate (Controlled ▶︎ Limited, Risky ▶︎ Standard, Desperate ▶︎ Great), but that is by no means a necessity. You can be in a Controlled situation and set up for Great effect due to coincidence, clever setup, useful assets, and more, for example. In fact, controlling the circumstances to improve your Position is a big part of play.

Edit: Fixed a typo.

 

[Thomas Shey]

To continue rather than edit my post above, I might suggest that for some people that change in agency can be hard to grapple with on both sides of the screen. It can be hard for GMs to give up their ultimate cosmic power, and it can also be hard for players to have to sit up and be more active participants outside their character sheet.

Strongly agree. I tend to have more sympathy for the latter group than the former (I've been of the opinion the barricades around GM power have done the hobby no favors for a very long time now), but both are true.

 

[Thomas Shey]

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?

Just a side comment but its become abundantly clear to me over the years that the borders of what does and doesn't violate immersion for people is radically varied. After I found some people didn't find the card play in TORG and its kin to do that, I gave up trying to predict what would and wouldn't do it.

 

[clearstream]

Just a side comment but its become abundantly clear to me over the years that the borders of what does and doesn't violate immersion for people is radically varied. After I found some people didn't find the card play in TORG and its kin to do that, I gave up trying to predict what would and wouldn't do it.

I forgot about the TORG cards! That was one game I really wanted to play, but never got the chance to. Nice die, also.

 

[Pedantic]

Just a side comment but its become abundantly clear to me over the years that the borders of what does and doesn't violate immersion for people is radically varied. After I found some people didn't find the card play in TORG and its kin to do that, I gave up trying to predict what would and wouldn't do it.

I've pushed for a mechanical definition of the term for a while now, simply because the term is nigh on useless otherwise:

Immersion is resolved at the level of player decision making, and decisions are more or less immersive the less space there is between the analysis of the character being portrayed and the analysis of the player making decisions for them. You can decrease the level of possible immersion a decision offers most quickly by giving the player agency over things (or especially people) outside the character, or by unmooring a decision temporally, thus that it affects past or far future events, instead of immediate action.

You can add to that a condition about incentives. Any system that incentivizes a player differently than a character (i.e., awarding growth/progression or meta-currency for task failure) is less immersive. Some mechanics get tricky: WoD's willpower comes to mind, as you're incentivized as the player and naturally as the character to engage in your vices, but the reward is a meta-currency. You could argue the action declarations that gain willpower are thus generally more immersive than the actions that spend it. On the other hand, the meta-currency is diegetically represented as additional effort or focus, instead of say, Eberron's hero points, which strictly represent factors like luck outside of a character's control, so even that kind of resource can be more or less immersive.

 

[clearstream]

I've pushed for a mechanical definition of the term for a while now, simply because the term is nigh on useless otherwise:

I've had that on my mind lately, too. I'm wondering if there are different kinds of immersion

Immersion in world
Immersion in character
Immersion in problem

You can add to that a condition about incentives. Any system that incentivizes a player differently than a character (i.e., awarding growth/progression or meta-currency for task failure) is less immersive. Some mechanics get tricky: WoD's willpower comes to mind, as you're incentivized as the player and naturally as the character to engage in your vices, but the reward is a meta-currency. You could argue the action declarations that gain willpower are thus generally more immersive than the actions that spend it. On the other hand, the meta-currency is diegetically represented as additional effort or focus, instead of say, Eberron's hero points, which strictly represent factors like luck outside of a character's control, so even that kind of resource can be more or less immersive.

Using the idea that there are three types of immersion (I'm not saying there are, I'm just putting that forward as a starting point) then I would analyse your comments here as about the second.

Immersion in world would be connected in many folks' minds with the preferencing of internal cause, the logic of the world, whatever you want to call it, that simulationism prioritizes. Folk speak about making the effort to give the crown to internal cause for the sake of the feeling of immersion in world they believe it sustains.

Immersion in problem would include losing oneself to the puzzle or tactical challenge.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Strongly agree. I tend to have more sympathy for the latter group than the former (I've been of the opinion the barricades around GM power have done the hobby no favors for a very long time now), but both are true.

With too much power comes too much responsibility.

This is one reason I like blorby play. If players and GM have both bought into blorb principles, the GM does not even have power to save you from the looming TPK! You must save yourselves.

 

[clearstream]

Regarding simulationism, I'm not of the opinion that the internal cause needs to be pre-established.

Consider a novel fantastical situation, not covered by experience up to now. It doesn't map to anything in the group's reference set, and they don't have any pre-existing theory for how things should go. They accordingly sketch the first inklings of a novel theory... so long as that theory goes on to be used wherever this until-now-novel fantastical situation arises, it fits with the simulationist principle.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Regarding simulationism, I'm not of the opinion that the internal cause needs to be pre-established.

I think I probably agree. Even in blorb play you'll run into situations, e.g. in roleplaying an NPC, where details have to be invented on the spot in order to extrapolate from them.

PCs try to hire a mercenary for $400 a week (20 silver).

He says yes.

They say, "oh by the way, we're never coming back to this town. Is that an issue?"

If he has a family or ties to the community, it probably would be an issue. At minimum he'd raise his price to pay for his travel home at the end of his employment. Does he have a family? The GM will often need to establish that fact on the spot and then extrapolate from it.

Consider a novel fantastical situation, not covered by experience up to now. It doesn't map to anything in the group's reference set, and they don't have any pre-existing theory for how things should go. They accordingly sketch the first inklings of a novel theory... so long as that theory goes on to be used wherever this until-now-novel fantastical situation arises, it fits with the simulationist principle.

In this specific example, I think it's entirely possible that the novel theory is designed with a gamist agenda in mind (maintaining challenge and fairness), and that only subsequent play is simulationist.

That's how I would do it myself. I don't want to accidentally create an environment where play ceases to be fun just because I didn't think before introducing a new magic system like voodoo.

 

[Pedantic]

In this specific example, I think it's entirely possible that the novel theory is designed with a gamist agenda in mind (maintaining challenge and fairness), and that only subsequent play is simulationist.

That's how I would do it myself. I don't want to accidentally create an environment where play ceases to be fun just because I didn't think before introducing a new magic system like voodoo.

Yeah, that's the same realm in which level-appropriate challenges live. It's a sauhagin cult threatening this area and not a mind flayer cabal initially because that's what the PCs can handle, but that then leads to other threads.