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<blockquote data-quote="innerdude" data-source="post: 9009878" data-attributes="member: 85870">I don't think this is true. At all. Rules only exist in gaming contexts to serve a purpose. In the arena of sport, it prevents one side from unilaterally declaring they won a contest that was never played. If I can declare I won a game of pick up basketball when I lost by six points, what's the point of rules for scoring?Rules in board games always serve to allow players to collectively agree upon what is a valid board state, and what are valid moves based on that board state.The &quot;fun&quot; from rules doesn't come from having them, it comes from mastering them in ways that stimulate thinking processes. And the thought stimulation comes from achieving the highest level of game state mastery.If D&amp;D rules are &quot;fun in and of themselves,&quot; is only because they point to this element of process mastery --- that the rules can be mastered, and that greater mastery provides a benefit of execution of the rules in context.Can someone claim to have enjoyed mastering the player build rules of 5e by exhaustively reading the source books over the past decade, yet never have played a single session? I suppose, but that seems to be an odd edge case. I'm not saying that doing so is bad or wrong. But it doesn't shed light on the purpose of the rules as they apply in play.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="innerdude, post: 9009878, member: 85870"] I don't think this is true. At all. Rules only exist in gaming contexts to serve a purpose. In the arena of sport, it prevents one side from unilaterally declaring they won a contest that was never played. If I can declare I won a game of pick up basketball when I lost by six points, what's the point of rules for scoring? Rules in board games always serve to allow players to collectively agree upon what is a valid board state, and what are valid moves based on that board state. The "fun" from rules doesn't come from having them, it comes from mastering them in ways that stimulate thinking processes. And the thought stimulation comes from achieving the highest level of game state mastery. If D&D rules are "fun in and of themselves," is only because they point to this element of process mastery --- that the rules can be mastered, and that greater mastery provides a benefit of execution of the rules in context. Can someone claim to have enjoyed mastering the player build rules of 5e by exhaustively reading the source books over the past decade, yet never have played a single session? I suppose, but that seems to be an odd edge case. I'm not saying that doing so is bad or wrong. But it doesn't shed light on the purpose of the rules as they apply in play. [/QUOTE]

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