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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 7583841" data-attributes="member: 4937">My usual example after having discussed the limitations of The World's Simplest RPG, is to introduce a slightly more complex game.&nbsp;&nbsp; It's rules are these.1) If the proposition is trivially easy, it always succeeds.2) If the proposition is impossible, it always fails.3) If the proposition is doubtful, then flip a coin.&nbsp; On heads it succeeds, and on tails it fails.Thus, we are able to distinguish between, &quot;I step across the puddle.&quot; and &quot;I leap across the Atlantic Ocean&quot; as propositions.One thing to note about this slightly more advanced game is that I'm actually explicitly stating something that isn't always stated in the rules of an RPG, but which pretty much all of them have in common - namely, that by fiat we can decide when some proposition fail and some succeed.&nbsp; Your very rough idea of complexity runs into the problem that the parameters you need to consider when resolving an action include those that aren't stated explicitly by the proposition-&gt;fortune-&gt;resolution rules, which is in this RPG only Rule #3.Is the factor &quot;doubtful&quot; actually complexity 1?We typically don't think of metarules like Rule #1 and Rule #2 as being part of the rules or part of the proposition-&gt;resolution cycle, because they skip over the fortune mechanic.&nbsp;&nbsp; Still, a huge number of considerations often go into deciding whether to make a fortune check at all,&nbsp; and these metarules by virtue of not usually being formalized will differ between tables.&nbsp;&nbsp; A good example would be to query people who play variants of D&amp;D 3.X as to what the minimum DC that they commonly will make a skill test at.&nbsp;&nbsp; My impression is that the vast majority of tables do not test (regularly) actions that have a DC less than 10, whereas I suspect you'll find some tables that commonly make tests as low as DC 5 or DC 0.&nbsp;&nbsp; The first set of tables are probably resolving the DC's under 10 by fiat in some fashion.And further, back on me harping about how none of my examples have actually defined what an RPG is or how to play one, the above rules set does not specify who gets to decide when a proposition is easy or impossible.&nbsp; But it's a reasonable assumption that most people reading the above rules assumed the presence of a GM in the form of a referee, something which The World's Simplest RPG does not technically need, and which this game does not specify but which is common to most RPGs.&nbsp; However, for the purposes of complexity, the additional step of needing to vote on whether or not a proposition is easy or impossible would in practice make the game feel more complex even if the number of factors in the fortune mechanic (heads or tails, no modifiers) were the same.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 7583841, member: 4937"] My usual example after having discussed the limitations of The World's Simplest RPG, is to introduce a slightly more complex game. It's rules are these. 1) If the proposition is trivially easy, it always succeeds. 2) If the proposition is impossible, it always fails. 3) If the proposition is doubtful, then flip a coin. On heads it succeeds, and on tails it fails. Thus, we are able to distinguish between, "I step across the puddle." and "I leap across the Atlantic Ocean" as propositions. One thing to note about this slightly more advanced game is that I'm actually explicitly stating something that isn't always stated in the rules of an RPG, but which pretty much all of them have in common - namely, that by fiat we can decide when some proposition fail and some succeed. Your very rough idea of complexity runs into the problem that the parameters you need to consider when resolving an action include those that aren't stated explicitly by the proposition->fortune->resolution rules, which is in this RPG only Rule #3. Is the factor "doubtful" actually complexity 1? We typically don't think of metarules like Rule #1 and Rule #2 as being part of the rules or part of the proposition->resolution cycle, because they skip over the fortune mechanic. Still, a huge number of considerations often go into deciding whether to make a fortune check at all, and these metarules by virtue of not usually being formalized will differ between tables. A good example would be to query people who play variants of D&D 3.X as to what the minimum DC that they commonly will make a skill test at. My impression is that the vast majority of tables do not test (regularly) actions that have a DC less than 10, whereas I suspect you'll find some tables that commonly make tests as low as DC 5 or DC 0. The first set of tables are probably resolving the DC's under 10 by fiat in some fashion. And further, back on me harping about how none of my examples have actually defined what an RPG is or how to play one, the above rules set does not specify [I]who[/I] gets to decide when a proposition is easy or impossible. But it's a reasonable assumption that most people reading the above rules assumed the presence of a GM in the form of a referee, something which The World's Simplest RPG does not technically need, and which this game does not specify but which is common to most RPGs. However, for the purposes of complexity, the additional step of needing to vote on whether or not a proposition is easy or impossible would in practice make the game feel more complex even if the number of factors in the fortune mechanic (heads or tails, no modifiers) were the same. [/QUOTE]

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