Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 5356606" data-attributes="member: 4937">I'll probably want to come back to this at a latter point, but I disagree.&nbsp; The game world generally isn't even discoverable from the rules.&nbsp; It's not in there.&nbsp; And, with the exception of a few GMless systems, if all you are interfacing with are rules and not a GM then you don't even have a game.Ok.&nbsp; That's unavoidable.No.&nbsp; Don't get me wrong, I'm not arguing for a rules wall here, but you are just wrong.&nbsp; Consider for example what you know after falling in the pit once under my rules.&nbsp;&nbsp; You know, for example, that after falling 20' that you took 12 damage.&nbsp;&nbsp; So, you might say, &quot;The rule is that if I fall 20' I take 12 damage.&quot;&nbsp; But, you'd be wrong.&nbsp; You have only one data point.&nbsp; You as of yet have no idea what the range of possibilities are.&nbsp;&nbsp; Maybe I threw 2d6 and you got really unlucky.&nbsp;&nbsp; Maybe I threw 2d100 and you get really lucky.&nbsp;&nbsp; You have no way of knowing what the rule is, nor do you now how it scaled.&nbsp;&nbsp; For example, you might suppose that the rule is, &quot;You take 6 damage for every 10' you fall.&quot;&nbsp;&nbsp; But if I'm using the common cummulative damage rule, the 30' fall will do on average twice the damage of the 20' fall.&nbsp; That's not a feature that would be obvious from the rules.&nbsp; Under my rules the actual damage range for that 20' fall was 0-40, and there are emergent features that might not be immediately apparant.Let's try not to drift too much from the topic.&nbsp; We aren't actually discussing the utility of rules walls generally, which I wouldn't support.&nbsp;&nbsp; What we are discussing is attracting new players to the game, and in that situation an actual 'rule wall' isn't useful but it is I think quite useful to approach playing the game from something other than a rules first perspective.&nbsp; It probably won't be nearly so short of a time, but yes, it's inevitable and even useful that the players will eventually acquire some knowledge of the rules.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 5356606, member: 4937"] I'll probably want to come back to this at a latter point, but I disagree. The game world generally isn't even discoverable from the rules. It's not in there. And, with the exception of a few GMless systems, if all you are interfacing with are rules and not a GM then you don't even have a game. Ok. That's unavoidable. No. Don't get me wrong, I'm not arguing for a rules wall here, but you are just wrong. Consider for example what you know after falling in the pit once under my rules. You know, for example, that after falling 20' that you took 12 damage. So, you might say, "The rule is that if I fall 20' I take 12 damage." But, you'd be wrong. You have only one data point. You as of yet have no idea what the range of possibilities are. Maybe I threw 2d6 and you got really unlucky. Maybe I threw 2d100 and you get really lucky. You have no way of knowing what the rule is, nor do you now how it scaled. For example, you might suppose that the rule is, "You take 6 damage for every 10' you fall." But if I'm using the common cummulative damage rule, the 30' fall will do on average twice the damage of the 20' fall. That's not a feature that would be obvious from the rules. Under my rules the actual damage range for that 20' fall was 0-40, and there are emergent features that might not be immediately apparant. Let's try not to drift too much from the topic. We aren't actually discussing the utility of rules walls generally, which I wouldn't support. What we are discussing is attracting new players to the game, and in that situation an actual 'rule wall' isn't useful but it is I think quite useful to approach playing the game from something other than a rules first perspective. It probably won't be nearly so short of a time, but yes, it's inevitable and even useful that the players will eventually acquire some knowledge of the rules. [/QUOTE]

Verification