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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 9010233" data-attributes="member: 42582">Yet the disciplines of anthropology, sociology, social psychology etc thrive despite your declaration that it is worthless to consider the things they consider!As the OP pointed out, it is possible to play imagination games without any rules framework of the sort that is common in RPGs. Because human beings are capable of social negotiation.So, as the OP asks, what do rules bring to the table?[USER=85870]@innerdude[/USER] has been providing an answer to that question: in various way, they turn unmediated negotiation into mediated negotiation. (Sometimes very highly mediated, as for instance in D&amp;D combat resolution.)A lot of innerdude's examples, and you and [USER=6747251]@Micah Sweet[/USER] in response, lean very heavily on a notion of authority - who is authorised to establish this or that bit of fiction. (In a lot of RPGing, the answer is typically &quot;the GM&quot;.)As I think I posted upthread, I don't think that allocation of authority in itself is a particularly effective way of mediating negotiations in the context of RPGing. Hence why, it seems to me, approaches to RPGing that rely heavily on allocations of authority and nothing else are so prone to debates about &quot;bad calls&quot;, &quot;viking hat GMs&quot;, etc.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 9010233, member: 42582"] Yet the disciplines of anthropology, sociology, social psychology etc thrive despite your declaration that it is worthless to consider the things they consider! As the OP pointed out, it is possible to play imagination games without any rules framework of the sort that is common in RPGs. Because human beings are capable of social negotiation. So, as the OP asks, what do rules bring to the table? [USER=85870]@innerdude[/USER] has been providing an answer to that question: in various way, they turn unmediated negotiation into mediated negotiation. (Sometimes very highly mediated, as for instance in D&D combat resolution.) A lot of innerdude's examples, and you and [USER=6747251]@Micah Sweet[/USER] in response, lean very heavily on a notion of [I]authority[/I] - who is authorised to establish this or that bit of fiction. (In a lot of RPGing, the answer is typically "the GM".) As I think I posted upthread, I don't think that allocation of authority [I]in itself[/I] is a particularly effective way of mediating negotiations in the context of RPGing. Hence why, it seems to me, approaches to RPGing that rely heavily on allocations of authority [I]and nothing else[/I] are so prone to debates about "bad calls", "viking hat GMs", etc. [/QUOTE]

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