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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Emberashh" data-source="post: 9020868" data-attributes="member: 7040941">I see this question as being tangential to the question of restraints in gameplay, and I always liked to bring up the side effects of things like God Mode in video games.While the effective removal of all restraints in a game can be initially fun, given it allows you play through the extreme limits of the system (and beyond them), the side effect is that it can actually make the normal gameplay feel more tedious than it actually was. Very similarly, the absence of game rules (which is effectively equivalent to '"cheat modes" mechanically speaking) can induce the same issue. However, when the game is designed from the ground up with this state assumed, with minimal rules, then you have to ensure fun happens somehow. In video games, freeform sandboxes, like say Teardown, are pretty close to this. Theres very few restraints or rules to the gameplay, and even with mods that remove those restraints, the game is still very fun. Why that is is because the core gameplay loops are largely segregated from the restraints. At its core, Teardown is about wacking voxels and relishing the destruction and physics. Things like limited health pools or ammunition exist to enhance the gameplay and induce and support puzzle gameplay. But without them, those core loops remain. Its still fun to just wack stuff. But with those restraints, Teardowns story mode brings longevity and challenge to the game. Working through the missions is super satisfying because of the puzzles involved and the slow progression of different tools to use. So in RPGs, rules, by way of inducing constraints, can afford the same benefits. Ultimately, as long as the core gameplay loop is fun, rules or no rules, the game is fun. And this is even evident in RPGs as we have them; lonely fun is an emergent property of a game that directly results from the core gameplay meeting that critical mark. Lonely fun, theorycrafting, are things that largely happen outside of the game rules that govern progression and character building. Despite their absence, its still fun, but with them theres an additional inducement of satisfaction.</blockquote>

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