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Message: <blockquote data-quote="clearstream" data-source="post: 9033724" data-attributes="member: 71699">That question, taken as the focus of your OP, was the one that by my lights I grabbed hold of by suggesting a working definition for TTRPG rules.TTRPG rules supersede pre-existing norms and extend beyond them.That forcefulness (that superseding of what might otherwise be normal) is what Baker's use for them is relying upon. It's not enough to say the standards are normative - if that's all we wanted to do we don't need rules. It's that a rule once followed will oblige us to do what we do not want to do, including things that we hadn't thought to do up to the moment we grasped the rule.My contention is that rules go beyond the normative to the prescriptive or enforceable*. Not "you ought to do something like this" but "do this". Normative standards is too broad because they lack forcefulness. We're interested here only in those normative standards that have the force of rules.The why question contains an implied what? What's possible? Baker seems to say that of all the possible things we could do with the force of rules, we should do the unwanted and unwelcome. Seeing as there are many other possible things we could do with the force of rules, this is as you said just a matter of aesthetic preference.Forcefulness is a big deal. In TTRPG we also need rules to extend beyond the normal. To say what happens in cases where we otherwise have no normative standard to deploy.** What we do with that is also down to aesthetic preference.Being about aesthetic preferences, the why question becomes subjective; anyone answering it here will be met with other voices either endorsing or decrying their preferences. For example, I can say that subjectively, I would extend the force of rules to answering what the weather is today in an imaginary Bronze Age world where magic and gods are real. Some might endorse that, others decry it. Either way, it's absolutely true that answering questions of that sort can be a why of using rules for me as a player.I therefore suggested or if you like re-emphasised an objective answer to your question. We use TTRPG rules for their forcefulness and capacity to extend. That's why.*One could say that for standards to be normative entails that those standards be prescriptive or enforceable. I take it that it is possible for a standard to be normative without being prescriptive or enforceable. Either way, emphasis rightly remains on forcefulness.**Deploying a standard could include fabricating one. I take it that it does not, but if so then emphasis rightly remains on the capacity to extend.</blockquote>

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