NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Snarf Zagyg" data-source="post: 9480105" data-attributes="member: 7023840">So I wanted to address this because I think that it is a very good articulation of why the Great Thief Debate will always be with us.You have made a good case for rules. Or, as I put it in the essay, putting as much as possible in the Gygaxian Space. To you, rules are liberating, because you know what you can do!From the OP, with certain parts in BOLD:I think what you are not quite understanding is that I am not trying to set up a dichotomy about roleplaying and rules. This essay was never about blah blah blah <a href="https://www.enworld.org/threads/fallacious-follies-oberoni-stormwind-and-fallacies-oh-my.700548/" target="_blank">Stormwind fallacy</a> blah blah blah.It's about the very nature of expressed rules in and of themselves.So to look at what you are saying-To you, a rule that provides an ability gives you freedom, because you know you can do that.The counterpoint is that this rules takes away the freedom of anyone else to do that who doesn't have that specific ability.And the more that we see rules as the sole means to express the way a character interacts with a fictional world, the more players are forces to interact with that world only by specific rules mechanisms.That's a little abstract- so more concretely, the more that rules define how the character interacts with the fictional world (the more that is in Gygaxian space), the more you can get to the point where it's not just that a specific rule (like an ability) for a specific ability excludes the use by others, it also means that the lack of a rule will mean that something cannot be done.In other words, with too much in the Gygaxian space ... trying to do something new without a rule?[ATTACH=full]382355[/ATTACH][USER=63508]@Minigiant[/USER] just expressed a similar concern that I touched on and we often see- that without rules, you can't predict things (as you put it, you have to negotiate, or as people put it in pejorative terms, "Mother May I"). Thing is- that's a fine opinion to have! And one that dates back ... oh, to the beginning. Just like the idea that rules restrict freedom is also a fine idea, and people argue for that ... which also dates back to the beginning.I mean, I've heard it said that this debate has even further antecedents. People even say blah blah The Great Kriegsspiel and Free Kriegsspiel Debate blah blah ...So what does this mean? I guess... blame the Germans?</blockquote>

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