Why do RPGs have rules?

[aramis erak]

I know this is just repeating myself from the first page of the thread, but I feel it is worth repeating. You are doing things for fun. You play TTRPGs because they're fun. The #1 reason people play games like D&D (and other RPGs or tabletop games), learn the rules of games, spend money on games, is because they want to have fun.

If a theory or framework of game design doesn't have the design space or terminology to address the concept of fun, I propose that the theory is prima facie falsified.

Except that not every gamer plays for fun.
A rare few do so for money. I have been one of those. Not recently. I've done so for discounts a lot more and more recently.
A few engage certain games not for fun, but for the experiential value. Games such as Grey Ranks are not "fun"... but can be emotionally rewarding. I expect Alice is Missing is likely to be similarly dark, enlightening, yet not fun.

I've had sessions of Traveller, Buffy, Alien, and WFRP that I had zero fun, and my players didn't either, but which created the "unwelcomed consequences" which make the settings so appealing, and which contributed to the fond memories of the larger structure.

And of course, some people are likely to actually enjoy those hostile situations. But many more accept them as part of an overall good game but not fun in themselves.

Fundamentally, without the appearance that failure is possible, success is less sweet.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

(A) Sounds good, like in a PbtA the GM can ask a question like "what danger lurks in the Middle Sea?" Or something like that. Presumably the player understands that said danger is potentially manifest.

(B) I interpret this in terms of ordinary language and simply took it to be pointing out that the ideal adventure from a skilled play perspective in classic play has no drama at all! If the players plan perfectly they just waltz through!

(C) This feels like more of a kind of neo-trad point to me, but I might not really be understanding it.

(A) out of curiosity, would this question be asked during play or before play? I'm trying to understand how the words "like in a PbtA" fit into this otherwise-system-agnostic concept. But basically yes, I think we agree.

(B) That's how I initially interpreted it, and my initial impulse was therefore to agree, but then I thought harder and realized that it's incorrect! The GM can frame the initial hook in a way that deprives PCs of their realistic and drama-destroying advantages like armies of skeleton archers ("your skeletons were all washed overboard during the shipwreck", which the player has already agreed to) and the fact that players don't have perfect information during play creates drama of its own, even if they turn out to be right all along. (Is refusing to eat the halfling meat but offering them cookies REALLY going to be a sufficiently non- offensive choice to win over the natives?)

(C) Not exactly. It's the result of me running a very simulationist game (in terms of Six Cultures of Play it's maybe halfway between Classic and OSR) while thinking hard about the D in GDS and what XP is for. XP is a reward to players for metagame reasons, and unless you view it through a sort of energy-vampire "there can be only one!" lens, it has non-diegetic effects. (In other words, if PCs know that killing dragons makes you stronger and tougher, they are basically vampires. If only players know this, because it doesn't work that way for anyone else in the gameworld, then it's a non-diegetic act of GM fiat on their behalf, as a reward designed to keep players around longer. To Gygax it was clearly the latter: by the account given in The Elusive Shift, after the first game he first played with Arneson he got excited about the concept of character advancement being used to increase a player's emotional investment in continuing play.)

Metagame rewards used to produce non-diegetic effects? That sounds like everyone is in director stance! So why not embrace that fully as an alternate mode of play that has nothing to do with simulationism and everything to do with creativity and fiction-writing?

Therefore, nowadays I award XP (actually DFRPG characters points) exclusively for earning good reviews from other players on your post-session writeup of something related to the session. It has been amazing! Some players write short poems; some write journal entries filling in scenes that I as GM minimized; some retell events in a more highly dramatic way with a hint of unreliable narrator; and every 3-to-5-star review from the other players (including yourself) earns you 1 character point to spend on any character you like, or save for the future. My friends seem content for now to mostly just bank points instead of actually buying new advantages/disadvantages, which means I'm also stressing less about the possibility of accidental TPK in a future scenario, because they can just write up the TPK, gain points for it, and not have wasted a Saturday (or multiple Saturdays).

 

[Deset Gled]

Except that not every gamer plays for fun.

The fact that you can find a rare exception does not diminish the importance.

A rare few do so for money. I have been one of those. Not recently. I've done so for discounts a lot more and more recently.
A few engage certain games not for fun, but for the experiential value. Games such as Grey Ranks are not "fun"... but can be emotionally rewarding. I expect Alice is Missing is likely to be similarly dark, enlightening, yet not fun.

I've had sessions of Traveller, Buffy, Alien, and WFRP that I had zero fun, and my players didn't either, but which created the "unwelcomed consequences" which make the settings so appealing, and which contributed to the fond memories of the larger structure.

And of course, some people are likely to actually enjoy those hostile situations. But many more accept them as part of an overall good game but not fun in themselves.

Fundamentally, without the appearance that failure is possible, success is less sweet.

Sounds like a lot of round about ways to describe "fun". Feel free to invent jargon as needed; some people seem to think that's a lot of fun.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Yes, on several levels.

1. On the presupposition of GMs having the role of keeper of secrets; a role not inherent to all forms of roleplaying. Most especially oracle-in-GM'd play such as one of the explicitly expected modes for Ironsworn.
2. On the level of using published material. GM's routinely get things clearly wrong.
3. On the level that the GM is likely to forget some previously established facts.

Good points! I haven't played Ironsworn and until I read this thread I had no techniques for allowing anyone but the GM to be Keeper of Secrets; it's the one GM role I saw no way to delegate elsewhere. How does Ironsworn do it?

 

[Autumnal]

Except that not every gamer plays for fun.

it’s possible to get not too analytical but inappropriately analytical. I’m left-handed, but if someone were to say that people at large are right-handed, my existence doesn’t disprove the generalization. I can just barely walk a few steps or stand a few minutes, but that doesn’t falsify any observation that people walk in a bipedal fashion nor any discussion of typical walking speeds in various conditions, durations, etc.

If someone says every X this or every Y that, then yes, single instances refute. But that doesn’t happen much, and “gamers game for fun” has the structure of a generalization, not specifically of a universal. “Yeah, pretty much, but here are a couple interesting kinds of other motives” makes a better response than “You fool! Consider this and mourn the death of your assertion!” (No, no, that’s me exaggerating, your perceived tone was nothing like that.)

 

[Autumnal]

Fundamentally, without the appearance that failure is possible, success is less sweet.

But there are many genres in which presumed and expected success is an important part of the appeal! Uncertainty is invested entirely in how the p&e success is achieved. What obstacles will there be? What mix of luck, skill, innate virtue, and other factors will it take to overcome them? People dig these questions in men’s adventure, romance, many kinds of mysteries, and lots more. The tally of narrative frameworks in which a genuine expectation of possible failure is part of the formula is relatively small, and ii can’t think of a good reason that we should presume that most gaming can and should work like them as a matter of default.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Again, what is the point of this screed? Are you trying to belittle proponents of simulation on purpose? What purpose does that serve?

Well it's not a 'screed'. At most, in terms of what people are playing, I wonder at sheer vehemence of the determination to use this one word. Whatever you are doing, it is what it is, and it's not defined by the name.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Well it's not a 'screed'. At most, in terms of what people are playing, I wonder at sheer vehemence of the determination to use this one word. Whatever you are doing, it is what it is, and it's not defined by the name.

So you object because what we're doing doesn't match your personal definition of the word, "simulation"? I don't see that attitude as positively contributing to much of anything, but maybe that's just me.

 

[aramis erak]

it’s possible to get not too analytical but inappropriately analytical. I’m left-handed, but if someone were to say that people at large are right-handed, my existence doesn’t disprove the generalization. I can just barely walk a few steps or stand a few minutes, but that doesn’t falsify any observation that people walk in a bipedal fashion nor any discussion of typical walking speeds in various conditions, durations, etc.

If someone says every X this or every Y that, then yes, single instances refute. But that doesn’t happen much, and “gamers game for fun” has the structure of a generalization, not specifically of a universal. “Yeah, pretty much, but here are a couple interesting kinds of other motives” makes a better response than “You fool! Consider this and mourn the death of your assertion!” (No, no, that’s me exaggerating, your perceived tone was nothing like that.)

except that the person I was quoting was presenting it as a fundamental truth of the hobby, by use of the inclusive plural without limiting the scope of the inclusive contextually.

Whether it was intentional or not, it smacked highly of dismissiveness via platonic idealization to me, and I commented based upon that.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Well it's not a 'screed'. At most, in terms of what people are playing, I wonder at sheer vehemence of the determination to use this one word. Whatever you are doing, it is what it is, and it's not defined by the name.

I'm vehement about simulationism as play mode--it's important to me that metagame concerns not drive play, with specific exceptions such as character advancement as described above--but not vehement about the word. Like, if someone wants to call it something like "realistic task resolution to the best of the GM's ability", I'm fine with that. But simulationism is a pretty well-known descriptor because of the GDS model; it's a bit unfortunate that GNS uses it too in a different way but what can you do?

Anyway, I haven't noticed anyone on the thread with strong feelings about the word "simulationism" or "simulation" specifically, as opposed to the concept. Did I miss something?

FWIW I disagree that a very crude 1D simulation of something cannot be an attempt at simulating it, but I don't think the point would be changed if I said "model" instead of "simulate." A crude BOTE model is still a model.