Why do RPGs have rules?

[AbdulAlhazred]

I could be wrong, but I feel like maybe that is Micha's point - most character sheets list the sort of stuff you expect the character to do, and with d&d I feel that is more than just combat related, it can have skills showing what character good at and not, spells etc - if PbtA games are listing stuff you don't want to do, then perhaps it shouldn't be on the character sheet, and instead something else? speaking from ignorance here, as haven't played any PbtA type games.
I do find all this talk interesting though, and has helped me think about the way I DM games, and try to be a bit more on the 'Yes and' side (and typically I have been more like that in last few years than say 10 years ago), but it also reinforces that I don't think I'd want to run PbtA games, much like I don't like to run sandbox games anymore and fall back on published adventures in known settings, as takes a chunk of the load off that I don't have capacity for anymore - I just have to worry about how an adventure would react to what the characters do, rather than having to think up an adventure initially, and can fall back on the adventure in many places rather than having to come up with responses myself which it feels like PbtA requires - even if it does transfer some of that load to the players as well.

Yeah speaking of DW specifically, the GM can plot up fronts to his hearts content, though too many and too much detail is probably not a good idea.

In terms of what is on your character sheet, in theory it's better to avoid moves in a sort of game sense, but then you're going to not get XP easily. Also you're softballing play, and the GM will surely make you choose at some point, do your thing or pay the price. Honestly if a 5e wizard avoided magic totally it would be some pretty odd play. I bet the GM will push you there too.

Overall character abilities are not really that different.

 

[andreszarta]

think you missed my point. What I took from your post was that you were stating that the claims of trad play being flexible (irrespective of whether non-trad games are or are not) boils down to purely fictional differences as opposed to system and process and even experience differences. In response to that I am asking how you reconcile that view with the actual process/rules/changes in a single trad like D&D that does actually change how a game is played, it's processes and what the experience of play is?

Do you find that moving from binary task resolution to tiered task resolution actually changes how that game is played? Like, qualitatively, is the game really that different? I bring this up because (and specially when these particular point revives a famous discussion from decades ago) in most 5e tables we see online and in play reports, GM fiat is still what often determines the outcome of the conflicts these task resolution mechanisms address.

 

[Imaro]

Do you find that moving from binary task resolution to tiered task resolution actually changes how that game is played? Like, qualitatively, is the game really that different? I bring this up because (and specially when these particular point revives a famous discussion from decades ago) in most 5e tables we see online and in play reports, GM fiat is still what often determines the outcome of the conflicts these task resolution mechanisms address.

Yes I do... and do most 5e tables use these rules?

EDIT: To expound more, I think that adding nuance to the level of success vs having a binary outcome allows for a more flexible process and a lessening of the need for GM Deus-ex-Machina. When there's only do it or fail there can be a greater incentive for the GM to manipulate things either behind the scenes or directly in order to keep things moving forward. Things like levels of succe3ss and success at a cost allow the mechanics to offer up options beyond hard stop or resounding success as well as giving the GM and players multiple options to build their fiction from.

 

[andreszarta]

Yes I do... and do most 5e tables use these rules?

Please elaborate. How is the experience different?

Success with a cost? Sure, I think it's seen frequently as part of the "OC style play" that is primarily based in character concept affirmation which quite a popular way to play 5e these days. Do they outright SAY "We are playing with this optional rule"? Most likely they don't say it, but they still do it.

 

[Imaro]

Please elaborate. How is the experience different?

Success with a cost? Sure, I think it's seen frequently as part of the "OC style play" that is primarily based in character concept affirmation which quite a popular way to play 5e these days. Do they outright SAY "We are playing with this optional rule"? Most likely they don't say it, but they still do it.

Please see my edit above. Yeah I'm not going to assume that they are actually using that since it could just as easily be GM fiat. How do you tell the difference if the rules aren't declared and known by all participants of the game?

 

[andreszarta]

Cross-post, I didn't see your reply before I sent mine.

EDIT: To expound more, I think that adding nuance to the level of success vs having a binary outcome allows for a more flexible process and a lessening of the need for GM Deus-ex-Machina. When there's only do it or fail there can be a greater incentive for the GM to manipulate things either behind the scenes or directly in order to keep things moving forward. Things like levels of success and success at a cost allow the mechanics to offer up options beyond hard stop or resounding success.

Notice that in both cases you are still relying on the GM to adjudicate the result, and you still have a particular story thing that "needs to be moved forward" by someone. The nuance, you propose, is that the partial result may lessen the forcefulness of a GM's declaration after the roll.

How is that, substantially, a different experience of play? The rule merely changes how a given outcome gets determined, and acts only inside only one of the participants heads!

 

[Micah Sweet]

What pages of BitD would the hacking section be in? I have Blades but I don't remember reading that... of course it's been a while since I last looked at it.



I think you missed my point. What I took from your post was that you were stating that the claims of trad play being flexible (irrespective of whether non-trad games are or are not) boils down to purely fictional differences as opposed to system and process and even experience differences. In response to that I am asking how you reconcile that view with the actual process/rules/changes in a single trad like D&D that does actually change how a game is played, it's processes and what the experience of play is?

EDIT: Also I'm unsure how to take it as anything but a "knock" when you are claiming their diversity of play doesn't amount to actual diversity except in what cloth happens to be draped over them?

EDIT 2: I think there is something to be said for the fact that, non-trad games tend to rely on a strict set of principles in order to cultivate a specific experience and that deviating from these principles is considered to be playing the game incorrectly... however with most trad games there aren't strict principles used to cultivate a specific playstyle and more often than not players of those games are encouraged to make the game their own and play in whatever way makes the game fun (as opposed to correct) for them, up to and including adding some of the mechanics and procedures from non-trad games... To me this is at least a part of the perceived differences in flexibility.

This is the sort of thing I'm talking about. Knocking other forms of play on any criteria beyond personal preference.

 

[Imaro]

Cross-post, I didn't see your reply before I sent mine.

No worries

Notice that in both cases you are still relying on the GM to adjudicate the result, and you still have a particular story thing that "needs to be moved forward" by someone. The nuance, you propose, is that the partial result may lessen the forcefulness of a GM's declaration after the roll.

No I am relying on the GM to adjudicate whether there is uncertainty or not as well as the difficulty, no different than something like BitD or PbtA (Actually I'm not sure if PbtA has a corollary to DC's if not BitD certainly does). The result is the total rolled after all modifiers have been computed compared to the DC. The GM or player then narrates the resulting fiction based on that. At what point is the GM adjudicating the result?

How is that, substantially, a different experience of play? The rule merely changes how a given outcome gets determined, and acts only inside only one of the participants heads!

And this is the problem I have with your reasoning that GM's are using it anyway in 5e. If it's a house rule that is in use the rule should be known to GM's and players and a player should be aware that succeeding at a cost and/or gradients of success are at play and how they work. Otherwise the rule isn't being used, GM fiat is.

 

[andreszarta]

No I am relying on the GM to adjudicate whether there is uncertainty or not as well as the difficulty, no different than something like BitD or PbtA. The result is the total rolled after all modifiers have been computed compared to the DC. The GM or player then narrates the resulting fiction based on that. At what point is the GM adjudicating the result?

And this is the problem I have with your reasoning that GM's are using it anyway in 5e. If it's a house rule that is in use the rule should be known to GM's and players and a player should be aware that succeeding at a cost and/or gradients of success are at play and how they work. Otherwise the rule isn't being used, GM fiat is.

You said:

I think that adding nuance to the level of success vs having a binary outcome allows for a more flexible process and a lessening of the need for GM Deus-ex-Machina. When there's only do it or fail there can be a greater incentive for the GM to manipulate things either behind the scenes or directly in order to keep things moving forward. Things like levels of succe3ss and success at a cost allow the mechanics to offer up options beyond hard stop or resounding success.

You are saying that partial successes reduce the likelihood of a GM having to "manipulate things either behind the scenes or directly in order to keep things moving forward".

Your statement already assumes a bunch of things about gameplay namely:

• That there is a thing that needs to be moved forward.
• That the GM determines whether that thing is being moved or needs to get moving.
• That the GM may at any point chooses to or chooses not to manipulate things behind the scenes.

So, even if agree with your rebuttal about how this would get implemented, and agree to see it in its best light: Partial, but known outcomes, that we will all agree to abide by...is this expanded set of outcomes truly a substantial deviation of play style when the three things that I mentioned above are still maintained?

We have been talking about differences in rules that allow for such vast differences in play styles; those that restructure the kind of contributions that are expected of the GM.

With all that in mind, how are we expected to accept that rules that trade one narrow way of performing illusionism with a less, but still narrow, way of performing the same kind of illusionism are creating substantially different experiences of play?

 

[Thomas Shey]

It's also not exactly all that different from Cortex Prime, which is a giant book of tools and options for customizing your Cortex games. Does this make Cortex Prime more flexible than D&D? I don't think that people advocating for D&D's flexibility necessarily want to put their own criteria to the test for fear of the results.

Realizing I'm not who this is aimed at, but I'd absolutely say Cortex Prime is more flexible than D&D, and that it requires a very careful set of definitions to argue otherwise. I think that in the end you have to do a bit more work than I'm interested in to get the detail level down to what I'd want for some purposes, but that's still far less work than I'd need to do to hack D&D into an adequate tool for even more.