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Lord_Xaedien
2009-02-19, 04:12 AM
I was DMing a session for my friends in the "savage worlds" setting, and while I found myself slightly annoyed with combat in that style (I am enamored with what I consider to be an excitedly "cinematic" style of combat in 4e), my players and I barely noticed a difference between that session and 4e/3.5

Now I come from the "high school theatre" D&D crowd, so the RP aspect of games has always been paramount. I will admit, when I come to these forums and read the vitriolic fights about which edition is superior, I find myself puzzled. Am I the only one who finds the "rules" of a setting to be secondary to the story itself? I only ask because some of my forays into other groups during college were rule centric dungeon crawls that drove me nuts, and I am trying to figure out if social interaction, skills (in game) based games are really as rare as I seem to find them.

Tempest Fennac
2009-02-19, 04:26 AM
I don't think the rules are really relevant to the story, but they may be relevant to what happens during the story (eg: if you have spellcasters who insist on getting through all their spells qhuickly, the adventuring day will be over sooner, but if the system won't allow that to happen, less ingame time will be spent resting, and abilities are generally seen by me as the most important detail as far as solving problems are concerned due to how they decide what your character's strengths and weaknesses are).

elliott20
2009-02-19, 04:39 AM
first thing: rules matter. They should. They're what makes the game tick and when you change a rule, and you supposedly play by it, there are ramifications for said rule. However, in terms of your game itself? rules only matter as a means to provide consistency and moderation. That's really it. and really, I don't know anybody who actually plays a RAW game. (err... Rules As Written) After all, even the RAW can't handle all situations and so at some point there will be a need for the GM to make a call on the fly. And really, that's fine.

Hell, I personally have been playing this game for 15 years and not one campaign has gone by without me basically ignoring some of the rules in the name of fun.

The reason why people fight about the rules is because of the way their games are played. If you play 4E the way the play testers played 3E, you will notice no difference because the core of the game such as blast-o-mancer, fighter meat shields, etc has not changed. What HAS changed is the style and it's presentation. If you can overlook that, then yes, again you will fail to see how things are REALLY that different.

But a lot of people who argue about 3.5E and 4E play the game very differently. 3.5E is typified with options galore, with books and expansions coming out of your ears. The freedom of combination in 3.5E really allows you to play the game in a drastically different way then what is prescribed as the default play method in the 3.5E books. 4E? well, for one, there is only a handful of books, and the design itself is all about role protection. You have one class, and that's it. You can cross over and learn another skill, sure, but if you start wizard, you're going to end pretty much wizard.

It doesn't end there, there are just fundamental design philosophy differences that become apparent when you try to play the game in a fashion that challenges the traditional roles.

there is much more to it, but that's kind of the gist of it, I think.

Why does this matter? Because rules, while not the end all, be all of a game, can either help facilitate a thematic component a game wants to get across, or severely hinder it's expression if that's what you want. (i.e. for example, cinematic combat in 3.5 (http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=1235))

the second part of your question:

D&D is the most popular game out there. There is no disputing this. When you meet a new group who plays RPGs, chances are they play D&D mostly. The thing to realize though, is no group will ever only play one game when they know they have alternatives. (At least, no group I've seen) As long as someone is willing to at least SUGGEST a different system every so often, chances are they'll give it a roll at some point.

The trick really is find the systems and find one that you want to try. This is why places like RPG.net are great because you can quickly get an opinion on a system rather quickly.

Kurald Galain
2009-02-19, 05:02 AM
Am I the only one who finds the "rules" of a setting to be secondary to the story itself?
No, you're not - but for that precise reason, I prefer a "rules light" system, which both 3E and 4E really aren't.

One problem with "rules heavy" systems is that they may get in the way of the story. This happens when either the rules disallow something that characters really should be capable of (or vice versa), or the rules give a result that simply doesn't make sense.

Of course, in my opinion a good DM would simply ignore the rules at that point, but that doesn't always happen. There is a school of thought that a DM who ignores rules is Doing It Wrong. Also, if a player knows that by the rules, he can't do something, that may discourage him from "thinking out of the box" and trying creative stuff.

For instance, in 3E, a polearm fighter is not allowed to hit an opponent next to him unless he takes extra training (i.e. the Short Haft feat), which any real-life weapon user will tell you doesn't make sense; whereas in 4E, you're not allowed to (try to) disarm your opponent unless you're a high level fighter with the one power that explicitly does that.


Overall, it begs the question that if you're into creative freedom, making up stuff on the spot, and ignoring rules - why on earth would you be using a rules-heavy system?

bosssmiley
2009-02-19, 05:15 AM
Bad rules (too complex, too detailed/simplistic, mathematically clumsy, not suited to the governing tropes of the genre of play, etc.) can destroy immersion more quickly than anything else I've ever known. So yes - at least IMXP - rules matter.

Likewise good rules feel like an integral part of the game experience.

Kiero
2009-02-19, 05:22 AM
It's funny, I always find that people who say rules don't matter tend to fall into one or both of two categories:
1) People who haven't played many different systems
2) People who don't actually use the rules in the game

If you've internalised a single rules-set that you've played for years, it's easy to think the rules have blended into the background, and thus aren't important, because everyone knows them already. You don't need to make reference to them any more, and they don't hold up play while someone looks up something they can't remember.

But that doesn't mean they no longer matter, people are just overlooking that they've been learned.

Similarly, if you ignore, handwave or avoid a lot of the rules in a system, then again of course it can seem like they're not important. But that's not because rules don't matter, that's because the way you're using them makes them less important.

Rules matter. Unless people are ignoring them, you will get a different play experience from one rules-set compared to another, even with the same people playing the same characters and the same campaign. Seriously, try playing the same game with Wushu and GURPS with all the options switched on, and tell me you don't notice the difference at every stage.

I'm playing WFRP right now, I hate the system. Don't much care for the setting either, though the GM's spin on it has made it much more interesting than the usual GRIMDARKMETALRAAAAAR! crap most people seem to like running. Every interaction with the system tends to annoy me, but I put up with it because the other aspects of the game are good - namely the stuff that doesn't come from the rules.

We just switched our Saga Edition Star Wars game to FATE 3.0. No change to the characters or campaign, just a switch in system. It's made an immediate difference to play. Firstly, all the characters have been developed in ways they hadn't previously, because through Aspects you actually have to think about who your character is, not just what they can do.

Secondly, the whole thing is much faster and smoother, even with us learning a new system as we go. The GM certainly appreciates how much easier it is to make things up with FATE than it was with the way NPCs worked in SE.

Rules might be secondary to the other things, but that doesn't mean they don't matter. Because they do.

valadil
2009-02-19, 09:59 AM
The rules matter as much as you let them matter. Some games are interactive storytelling. Some are purely mechanical. You can absolutely play a game where the rules don't matter much at all, especially if it's a game run by theater people who would rather talk than fight.

Kiero
2009-02-19, 10:07 AM
The rules matter as much as you let them matter. Some games are interactive storytelling. Some are purely mechanical. You can absolutely play a game where the rules don't matter much at all, especially if it's a game run by theater people who would rather talk than fight.

That's only true if you're happy to let dialogue replace the system. And/or you have a system which pretty much does nothing to support social-based characters.

Tempest Fennac
2009-02-19, 10:19 AM
Something that I learnt when I was in HALO is that some rules for combat or challenge resolution are pretty much essential; trying to run pure freeform combat without someone else to decide the effects of things, and even then it would be awkward.

Winterwind
2009-02-19, 10:26 AM
I have played quite a few different systems, some of them with rules, some freeform, and in one case both in different groups, and I have to say... the feeling of the game does change, the feeling of the setting does not. Whether we played ShadowRun freeform or with its exceedingly huge and complex system of rules, we still were lowlifes in a lethal world controlled by powers and organisations far beyond our reach and understanding. When we played the World of Darkness freeform, we still were people suddenly changed or imbued with strange powers we did not entirely comprehend ourselves, struggling to find a way between continuing our old existance and coming to terms with what we had become, while in a world of conspiracies and different opposing sides the connections of which we could only barely begin to grasp.

However, in either case, the feeling of the game was different - while the mood and setting might be the same, with rules there were invariably more things in our way designed to provide a mechanical challenge, while in freeform the focus shifted decidedly more to talking with people, interpersonal relations and an overall more story-based experience.

EDIT:

Something that I learnt when I was in HALO is that some rules for combat or challenge resolution are pretty much essential; trying to run pure freeform combat without someone else to decide the effects of things, and even then it would be awkward.I couldn't have a more different experience. In my opinion, combat is precisely where the advantage of freeform over rules-based games is the biggest - it leads to much more dynamic, cineastic and at the same time desperate style of combat, with people trying to figure out what action or description might save them from this horrible danger, where each wound, after all, is just as dangerous as it would be in real-life, with no hit points or further abstractions to save one.

Magnor Criol
2009-02-19, 10:31 AM
Rules give everyone a basis to work off off. If there's no rules, it can simply devolve into "I do this because I said so, and his head asplode" - not that a mature set of friends gaming would actually come to that point, but situations like it would arise.

Think about, say...baseball. If both teams are playing by the rules, then at the end of the day, then Team A wins if it has the most people hit the ball and run across home wins. Without rules, then the Team B could pull out guns, shoot Team A's players as they crossed second base, and declare themselves the winners. In that case, they've won their own game, but you can't really say they won the game Team A was trying to play.

Rules provide a common baseline that everyone can be judged equally on. Certainly, you can abuse options to do things, and different characters will definitely be unequal, but at the end of the day they're all made of the same stock and doing things that the other characters, at some point in their creation, had the option to do or head towards.

Another thing they do is help to remove human bias. On a subconscious level, you can't help but bias your stories a bit, and you may be more or less inclined to tell someone that they didn't resist that fireball to the face if they spilled some soda, staining your carpet earlier, which is a bit unfair to that character (if not the player =p ).

elliott20
2009-02-19, 10:34 AM
We just switched our Saga Edition Star Wars game to FATE 3.0. No change to the characters or campaign, just a switch in system. It's made an immediate difference to play. Firstly, all the characters have been developed in ways they hadn't previously, because through Aspects you actually have to think about who your character is, not just what they can do.

Secondly, the whole thing is much faster and smoother, even with us learning a new system as we go. The GM certainly appreciates how much easier it is to make things up with FATE than it was with the way NPCs worked in SE.

Rules might be secondary to the other things, but that doesn't mean they don't matter. Because they do.
Fate 3.0? As in basically SotC? I never realized Fate actually had a 3.0...

Yakk
2009-02-19, 10:34 AM
whereas in 4E, you're not allowed to (try to) disarm your opponent unless you're a high level fighter with the one power that explicitly does that.
To clarify:

Disarming an opponent in 4E can occur, in RAW/RAI, under 3 means.

1> The high level fighter power.

2> You reduce an opponent to 0 HP, after which they are defeated. The player can indicate how they wanted to defeat the opponent.

3> You use a DMG page 42 attack on the target.

...

That aside, rules can matter. Many RPGs are structured in somewhat similar ways. And if you are playing the game in the part where you aren't interacting with the rules (ie, switching between two games in which you ignore the social mechanics of both games), there can often be little difference.

The rules can also change the context. A game in which your characters are explicitly able to catch crossbows or dodge bullets generates a different context than one in which being shot at with a gun is nearly always fatal. Even if you are playing the game in a situation where you aren't using the mechanics, this context can change behaviour (unless, of course, you expect the DM/Players to override the game mechanical context).

Tempest Fennac
2009-02-19, 10:40 AM
Aren't there some systems which are like that, Winter? The biggest problem with me was that my character was afennec fox, so I didn't want him to get hurt and he was good at dodging in addition to being able to teleport. Also, isn't decision-making to avoid death just as important with rules? I know surviving may be easier but there is still a risk even if you memorized all of the rule loop-holes (most freeform characters on this forum are like high level D&D characters anyway, so they aren't likely to die easily).

Admittedly, I'm also not good at descriptions anyway, and I tend to think they can slow things down needly rather then being interresting most of the time.

Kiero
2009-02-19, 10:52 AM
Fate 3.0? As in basically SotC? I never realized Fate actually had a 3.0...

Yes (see here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=103051)), as in hacked-up SotC, but clearly not FATE 2.0. Thus FATE 3.0 is a simpler shorthand, and a fairly standard notation used across a number of fora. I doubt the real FATE 3.0 rulebook, when it finally arrives, will be called that either.

Grey Paladin
2009-02-19, 10:58 AM
The sole purpose of rules is to support themselves - the rules are there because you enjoy following them.

If you find certain rules get in the way of your enjoyment, throw them out as they have become useless for you.

valadil
2009-02-19, 11:16 AM
Rules give everyone a basis to work off off. If there's no rules, it can simply devolve into "I do this because I said so, and his head asplode" - not that a mature set of friends gaming would actually come to that point, but situations like it would arise.


I'll concede that that's true within a game. But roleplaying does not have to take place within a game. I played in a LARP a while ago that had no rules. All we did was talk. We were the jury in a court case. It worked with just sitting and chatting.

Can a dungeon crawl work that way? No probably not. But there are plenty of stories that can be played with nothing but verbal interaction.

elliott20
2009-02-19, 11:20 AM
Yes (see here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=103051)), as in hacked-up SotC, but clearly not FATE 2.0. Thus FATE 3.0 is a simpler shorthand, and a fairly standard notation used across a number of fora. I doubt the real FATE 3.0 rulebook, when it finally arrives, will be called that either.

on that side note, Lord_Xaedien, you really ought to take a look at the Fate 3.0 rules (which are free, btw) if you're into the whole deeper characterization thing. Quite frankly, D&D is a game that encourages you to monitor and manage minutiae while you can get a Fate game be up and running in 20 minutes flat.

I personally love the SotC system as it's so easy to hack up and use for your own thing. Much more so than D&D. To do an alternate D&D game you need a source book. To do an alternate Spirits of <blank> game all you need is one afternoon to hack things out, add things in and voila.

Winterwind
2009-02-19, 11:51 AM
Aren't there some systems which are like that, Winter?I believe there are, though I haven't had the opportunity to put them to a test - one of my groups played completely freeform anyway, and the other prefers to have rules (and I have introduced them to enough different games for their tastes by now :smallbiggrin:).


The biggest problem with me was that my character was afennec fox, so I didn't want him to get hurt and he was good at dodging in addition to being able to teleport.The way we handled freeform was by still having a gamemaster who decided what became of our attempts at various actions instead of us. This, of course, requires a gamemaster whom the players absolutely trust, and works well only with a really, really good gamemaster - I tried myself at that once, and it did not work out nearly as well, and I like to think I am not too bad a gamemaster myself. A sufficiently excellent gamemaster provided, however, it becomes a truly unique experience, as the freedom and flexibility of a gamemaster always trump the limited scope of results even the best system of rules can yield.


Also, isn't decision-making to avoid death just as important with rules? I know surviving may be easier but there is still a risk even if you memorized all of the rule loop-holes (most freeform characters on this forum are like high level D&D characters anyway, so they aren't likely to die easily).Yes, but rules are constraining. They limit the effectiveness of particular actions by giving rules for them which may not account for the situation in question. Not to mention that they tend to draw players into routine thinking. Allow me to present an example.

In a postapocalyptic game (Endland; it is a German RPG and has been discontinued long ago, so you likely won't have heard of it), I once found myself in a fight with a mutant of superior strength and essentially a fish-human-hybrid on little stones reaching from the sea - as a character who never learnt how to swim, I should add - and ended up with the mutant dragging me off the stone I stood on, just barely clinging onto it. Now, from the start, the mentality as player between a game with rules and one without is different here - with rules, one might be thinking "Okay, dumb situation right now, but all my previous hits have inflicted so and so many points of damage, so the situation is not that rosy for him either, I just have to get out of this situation somehow, that may cost me a few hit points more than usual, but then I'll just need a couple more damage points and he goes down. Now, which options do I have... power attack? Maybe a use of power X or Y...". Without rules, the player's thoughts are more like "Oh God, oh God, if he drags me off here, I will be pretty much hopelessly dead, and he shows no sign of weakening, didn't I manage to wound or tire him at all?! Is everything I do completely ineffective?! What can do I do?! How do I stop this beast?!"

And how does it continue? With rules, it's probably some Balance or Strength or whatever check, followed by one of the pre-written options the character has, some standard attack if he doesn't want to risk too much, a use of a special power or anything else for which there are rules - players do not want to risk too much, so as long as there are rules they know, they tend to stay within the rules so they can predict what happens better. Without rules? My reaction was, pretty much: "With all desperate strength, I try to cling onto this stone with one arm, while wildly grasping behind me with my other to see if I can find some loose stone? Yes? I can? Then I hammer down with it on this mutant's skull, again and again, until he lets go... and then some more!"

What I am trying to say is, this safety, this "basis to work off" that is so praised as advantage of rules... is what I consider their greatest disadvantage. It greatly restricts thinking outside of the box - heck, it defines thinking outside of the box in the first place, for without them, everything would be outside of the box, and that much less standardized. With rules, this stone would have likely inflicted some negligible amount of damage and would have been an option nobody would even have considered in the first place.
But it was a stone. A big rock to the head. It was the best weapon I could have had, considering the position in which I was. A stone to the head does not deal d3+1 damage points. A stone to the head can easily crack a skull - which does not mean that I would have preferred it to my sword or what we presumed to be a demon blade (though people more acquainted with our present world might have preferred to call it a chain saw) in a normal combat situation. That's flexibility a rules-heavy system cannot even begin to hope to give.
And also rules take a lot of fear out of the combat - one still has hit points, so one can rest moderately assured that one will not die when hit, one has an idea of how much damage one has been inflicting, etc.


...phew, that has become a lot longer than I anticipated it to be. :smalleek:

Magnor Criol
2009-02-19, 12:07 PM
I'll concede that that's true within a game. But roleplaying does not have to take place within a game. I played in a LARP a while ago that had no rules. All we did was talk. We were the jury in a court case. It worked with just sitting and chatting.

Can a dungeon crawl work that way? No probably not. But there are plenty of stories that can be played with nothing but verbal interaction.

All true. I suppose it depends on the sort of game you're playing. With what I said, there's a sort of implied level of competition, since all characters are being judged in comparison to one another. So if you don't have any implied competition, there's not really a need for rules.

Still - why couldn't you, in the case of the jury in a court case, simply say "He's guilty, because I said so," ? Part of the answer is of course that that's no fun at all. But another part is that things don't work that way - and that's a form of rule, no?

So I think this sort of depends on how broadly you define rules, too.



[snip snip snip]

All very good points. I like your description of the mutant scenario.

I'd respond with two things: First I agree, with the caveat that we stress the "really, really good gamemaster" bit - if you don't have an excellent, and fair, storyteller as a gamemaster here, things won't end up feeling so good...but with one, yes, things will be amazing.

But at the same time I'd counter that with that quality of a gamemaster, it doesn't matter what system you're playing in, or whether or not there's rules. A really good DM, particularly if he has some good players under him, will set up situations that push the boundaries of normal rules, and will know when to let the normal rules fly in the face of a good situation or a clever solution by a player, and the players under him will know that they should try things like that. Similarly, I think a good DM won't let players key in to how much damage they've been doing or whether or not their attacks have been effective if the monster they're fighting doesn't call for it. Their players will be kept guessing, just as in the freeform situation. Though, I also think it's part of the player's responsibility to try and avoid metagame thinking like you described, regardless of the mechanics (or lack thereof) they're playing in.

Kiero
2009-02-19, 12:14 PM
All true. I suppose it depends on the sort of game you're playing. With what I said, there's a sort of implied level of competition, since all characters are being judged in comparison to one another. So if you don't have any implied competition, there's not really a need for rules.

You don't need competition for there to be a desire for structure and consistency. They're completely different things.

Winterwind
2009-02-19, 12:26 PM
But at the same time I'd counter that with that quality of a gamemaster, it doesn't matter what system you're playing in, or whether or not there's rules. A really good DM, particularly if he has some good players under him, will set up situations that push the boundaries of normal rules, and will know when to let the normal rules fly in the face of a good situation or a clever solution by a player, and the players under him will know that they should try things like that. Similarly, I think a good DM won't let players key in to how much damage they've been doing or whether or not their attacks have been effective if the monster they're fighting doesn't call for it. Their players will be kept guessing, just as in the freeform situation. Though, I also think it's part of the player's responsibility to try and avoid metagame thinking like you described, regardless of the mechanics (or lack thereof) they're playing in.I basically agree, but as long as rules are in place, I find it is difficult to get players to let go of the pre-written options in favour of spontaneously found ones. As long as players know that, if they choose Standard Attack #2, they need to roll a 76 on the d100 to hit and are going to inflict 2d6+5 damage with it, they tend to prefer this option to the (to them) completely unforeseeable effects of trying something extraordinary. In fact, as long as there is such a thing as a standard attack, it becomes difficult to judge whether something they try does not constitute merely such a standard attack. The advantage I see in freeform is that it gets rid of standards - nothing is standard, everything is a unique situation now, and as such justifies completely different solutions every single time.

So, while a good group can fare equally fine with or without rules, I find rules are inherently discouraging towards flexiblility and out-of-the-box thinking.


(I probably should add that, while my previous post might have left the impression my rules-using group was a bunch of metagaming munchkins, nothing could be farther from the truth; they are, without exception, excellent roleplayers who very much immerse into their characters and abstain from such rule-fixated thinking)

Oracle_Hunter
2009-02-19, 12:29 PM
Rules are only important if you want them to be. That said, if you are playing a rules-heavy system (e.g. D&D) and not paying attention to the rules, you are probably doing it wrong.

With few exceptions, a rules-heavy system is defined by its rules; if it is also a setting, then this goes double. The rules create the unique internal logic of the world; disregarding them is the same as ignoring gravity "when convenient." Yes, you can "ignore gravity" from time to time for particularly dramatic sequences (Rule of Cool) but if you don't pay more than lip-service to physical reality (as defined by the rules), then they're aren't really any laws of the universe, are there?

A good place to look is the magic system of such games. In 3E D&D, if your DM just let you cast an extra fireball whenever it would be dramatic, or allowed you to convert it into a terrifying insta-bomb (just add enclosed space & debris) then what exactly does limit or constrain the power of wizards? DM fiat?

I am particularly interested in hearing how Winterwind's GM dealt with SR's Shadowrun system; did he just figure out when a mage was too tired to cast more magic, or did he preserve the mechanic?

That said, there's nothing wrong with playing Freeform D&D; if you're having fun, that's great. Still, I gotta ask why you don't just pick up a handy rules-light system and run a medieval fantasy game instead?

Tempest Fennac
2009-02-19, 12:46 PM
I don't know whether I agree with you about options or not. The rock in that case would definitly deal more realistic damage then it would in D&D, but I'd have thought that option would have been potentially available in a D&D game (I'd throw it in anyway). Trust is a huge issue with me with these things; my stance is that the DM at least has no control over dice rolls, so it's not their fault if I die as long as they don't put me against something that I don't stand a chance against. Incidentally, have you ever considerered joining GLOG or PEACE, Winter? It could help for comparing freeform styles (I'm not sure how active NO or AMEN are and HALO is pretty much dead, but you'd be able to post in any thread once you joined one).

valadil
2009-02-19, 01:03 PM
Still - why couldn't you, in the case of the jury in a court case, simply say "He's guilty, because I said so," ? Part of the answer is of course that that's no fun at all. But another part is that things don't work that way - and that's a form of rule, no?


Some players tried that. Some characters had goals of convict or not regardless of what the truth was. I think one person wanted us to stay in jury limbo as long as possible. "He's guilty because I said so" is just a statement made by another character though. It doesn't make the person guilty. I suppose the GM could have declared guilt, but what's the point in that? The game was about debate and so we debated. People who wanted the guy to be judged guilty had to convince people they were right. You can't do that by sitting back and saying "he's guilty" over and over.

Again, this type of system doesn't always work. I wouldn't do a dungeon crawl just by talking. Conversely d20 doesn't work everywhere either. A court case in D&D would either be a ton of diplomacy checks or the players would drop the checks and just roleplay.

A while ago I did a WoD inspired rules light game. Most of the game was talk. Conflicts were settled by DM fiat. In a fight for instance, players would tell me what they were attempting and I'd tell them if it worked. Sometimes we'd use rock paper scissor, with advantage given out if a character was straight up better (advantage meaning they win on ties). And it worked. When you take out the mechanics, being mechanically interesting is meaningless. Nobody is trying to get the highest saves because saves don't exist. The interesting part of the game was the story so that's what the players focused on.

Winterwind
2009-02-19, 01:09 PM
I am particularly interested in hearing how Winterwind's GM dealt with SR's Shadowrun system; did he just figure out when a mage was too tired to cast more magic, or did he preserve the mechanic?The former. The more spectacular the spell tried to cast, the more likely it would end in massive exhaustion, of course. In practice, I think, the mages probably tired even more quickly than they would have ordinarily on average, though this balanced out with the proportionally more bombastic and creative spell usage fairly well, I think.

The GM in question was really, really good at coming up with random results to our actions - sometimes we managed to pull off fairly difficult stuff, sometimes we would have fairly nasty blunders, too, and all the time it still felt quite fair - essentially, just what the dice would have accomplished, except if he wanted to, he could use it for the right "rolls" to come up when it would benefit the story the most, with us not noticing at the time.


I don't know whether I agree with you about options or not. The rock in that case would definitly deal more realistic damage then it would in D&D, but I'd have thought that option would have been potentially available in a D&D game (I'd throw it in anyway).It might have been potentially available, but would a player have chosen it instead of a standardized action prescribed by the system itself? (And what do you mean by 'you'd throw it in anyway'? Just for the record, the GM did not tell me I had the option to use a rock from behind - that was entirely my own idea)


Trust is a huge issue with me with these things; my stance is that the DM at least has no control over dice rolls, so it's not their fault if I die as long as they don't put me against something that I don't stand a chance against.Yes, trust is a big issue here. I am fortunate enough to be able to play only with people whom I trust absolutely (and I would not want to play with people whom I did not trust), but I figure this might be more difficult in the face of player scarcity in the closest circle of friends. :smallwink:
And I trust the GM in question to not send us into a situation with no solution, too - but with the full awareness that combat is lethal, and if we are not creative and thinking quickly, it might be us who bite the dust.


Incidentally, have you ever considerered joining GLOG or PEACE, Winter? It could help for comparing freeform styles (I'm not sure how active NO or AMEN are and HALO is pretty much dead, but you'd be able to post in any thread once you joined one).Ummm... none of these abbreviations mean anything to me. Those are forum based RPG groups, or something like that, right?
Well, frankly, no, I have not considered it, nor am I likely to in the next future - when I want to roleplay, I can do so in tabletop form with friends, PbP holds no interest to me. :smallwink:

Tempest Fennac
2009-02-19, 01:31 PM
By throwing it in, I meant mentioning it if the player didn't notice any nearby rocks. The acronums I used were all separate freeform groups which split from the original GitP town (AMEN came along first as an evil organization where god-modding is legal, unlike in the Town, and HALO came along 11 months later as a good rival for AMEN which used the Town's god-modding rules. NO, which is neutral, and GLOG , which is pretty much the same as HALO when HALO was active, came along last summer).

Oracle_Hunter
2009-02-19, 01:36 PM
It might have been potentially available, but would a player have chosen it instead of a standardized action prescribed by the system itself? (And what do you mean by 'you'd throw it in anyway'? Just for the record, the GM did not tell me I had the option to use a rock from behind - that was entirely my own idea)

This, I believe, is the crux of the question.

In my mind, someone who has trained his whole life to kill things with his sword not only has a good idea of his general capabilities, but probably has more than a few "standard" ways of dealing with foes. This is best modeled by a rules-based system.

In your mind, creativity of the player, not the skills of the character, is paramount in problem solving.

In the mutant situation, we don't know much about your character, but "bashing it with a rock" would probably have been the chosen path for an unarmed combatant without sufficient unarmed combat skills - regardless of system. It was a desperation situation, so you use what you have at hand. But I notice you didn't mention any of your character's traits - was he particularly strong, or agile, or skilled in any form of combat or athleticism?

In a Rules-Based System, these answers would be available to me, and I could easily see which solution is not only the best able to succeed, but also which one my character would most likely use - 'cause it would work. My quickness of wit is useful for social interactions and for taking advantage of resources, but it is not my character's sole survival trait.

In a Freeform System, you have only a hazy idea, at best, as to your character's abilities. You may be "strong" but how strong? As strong as the mutant? Slightly more? Any answer your ST gives has only a vague impact on the resolution of a scene, so you cannot rely on your character's abilities to carry you through a course of action. The only, reliable, survival trait you have is your own mental acuity (and persuasive ability v. ST).

Is one way better than the other? No. But it is a truism that, the less a character's traits are defined, the less meaningful they are to the game; a "strong" character can be as strong (or as weak) as the plot demands. Sure, with a friendly ST you are likely to get a fair shake, but without any way to know, in advance, how likely a course of action is to succeed, you are far better off relying on your personal wit and charisma rather than any "ability" of your character.

Winterwind
2009-02-19, 01:40 PM
By throwing it in, I meant mentioning it if the player didn't notice any nearby rocks.That's kinda what I mean though - that's still, basically, multiple-choice - the multiple choices provided by the system, now bolstered by an additional option mentioned by the GM specifically. In freeform (as we practiced it), there is no more multiple choice - the player has to come up with solutions all on her/his own. And while, even when presented with multiple-choice, a player could still come up with original solutions, many are not going to do so in many situations, out of laziness, a need for safety or rules-back-up, or any such reason.
(For further clarification: The GM had not mentioned there were any loose stones lying around - it was my own idea to reach around and see if there happened to be any, as it was a desperate hope to somehow come out of this situation.)


The acronums I used were all separate freeform groups which split from the original GitP town (AMEN came along first as an evil organization where god-modding is legal, unlike in the Town, and HALO came along 11 months later as a good rival for AMEN which used the Town's god-modding rules. NO, which is neutral, and GLOG , which is pretty much the same as HALO when HALO was active, came along last summer).Ah, I see.

EDIT:

This, I believe, is the crux of the question.

In my mind, someone who has trained his whole life to kill things with his sword not only has a good idea of his general capabilities, but probably has more than a few "standard" ways of dealing with foes. This is best modeled by a rules-based system.How so?


In your mind, creativity of the player, not the skills of the character, is paramount in problem solving. Not entirely. Had it been any different character but mine who was in that fight, the mutant would have likely pried them from the rock they were clinging to, or they would not have had the strength to smash the mutant's skull in - not because of their creativity, but because their character was not fit to perform this particular solution.


In the mutant situation, we don't know much about your character, but "bashing it with a rock" would probably have been the chosen path for an unarmed combatant without sufficient unarmed combat skills - regardless of system. It was a desperation situation, so you use what you have at hand. But I notice you didn't mention any of your character's traits - was he particularly strong, or agile, or skilled in any form of combat or athleticism?Actually, he was a fairly skilled warrior (though more trained as swordsman than in unarmed combat, which was the situation I found myself in; I don't remember anymore if he had been disarmed prior to or within that combat, I believe prior to though), reasonably strong for one of such a profession in an extremely harsh world, and decidedly above average agile; however, this breed of mutants was decidedly superior to humans in both regards, especially strength. (I should add that I had already come up with a new character before coming to that session, as I did not expect to survive)


In a Rules-Based System, these answers would be available to me, and I could easily see which solution is not only the best able to succeed, but also which one my character would most likely use - 'cause it would work. My quickness of wit is useful for social interactions and for taking advantage of resources, but it is not my character's sole survival trait.

In a Freeform System, you have only a hazy idea, at best, as to your character's abilities. You may be "strong" but how strong? As strong as the mutant? Slightly more? Any answer your ST gives has only a vague impact on the resolution of a scene, so you cannot rely on your character's abilities to carry you through a course of action. The only, reliable, survival trait you have is your own mental acuity (and persuasive ability v. ST).Actually, the GM can take such traits as "strong" or not into account when deciding what the results of a player's attempted actions are.

What we used to do was either to come up with a short list of positive and negative traits and special talents a character might possess, which were not used as means of any mechanical resolutions involving dice however, but merely to give GM and players an idea of what the character was capable of, or - in the case of systems with sufficiently simple character creation mechanics, as happened to be the case in this particular example - we actually created the character according to normal rules, but used these character sheets as orientation only.

Also, yes, it might be difficult to come up with a precise numerical description of the mutant's physical superiority (but then, that's usually rather difficult to come by in real life as well :smallwink:), but after the first few descriptions of the mutant and the effects of what he does/what one tries to do to the mutant, one gets a general idea for his capabilities fairly quickly...


Is one way better than the other? No. But it is a truism that, the less a character's traits are defined, the less meaningful they are to the game; a "strong" character can be as strong (or as weak) as the plot demands. Sure, with a friendly ST you are likely to get a fair shake, but without any way to know, in advance, how likely a course of action is to succeed, you are far better off relying on your personal wit and charisma rather than any "ability" of your character.Depends. As I said, my character happened to be a warrior, and (while always keeping in mind that combat was, well, lethal), I still came to be quite confident of his combat prowess, bearing a very bold attitude towards others that was quite untypical for both myself and most of the characters I tend to play. My character knew he was good at fighting - it didn't matter that there was little numerical reflection thereof, it was still pretty much always clear to everyone when he was physically superior (a very handy thing in a lawless, chaotic world destined to die).

Interestingly, we even had very distinct and noticeable improvement in our characters' abilities over the course of the campaign - the GM would note that we had become more experienced in some aspect or another, and players would accordingly try increasingly bolder actions, which ended with success, even though we wouldn't have dared to think about them when we started.

Lord_Xaedien
2009-02-19, 02:59 PM
I suppose I should have been more specific in my original post. For me, all systems have a means of denoting success or failure in most instances that is very very simple. DM sets a DC, you meet or beat it, etc. In skill based, social interaction campaigns, I still USE the rules presented. I didn't mean to suggest an anarchy based campaign setting wherein the rules can be broken upon my whims to meet the story. That is inherently unfair to the players. But with regards to a social/skills based campaign, the rules are almost universally simpler than combat rules in every system. Perhaps that is why the "rules" dont matter as much to my respective groups. It basically boils down to rolling d20+7 to beat a DC of 15, or rolling 1d8+2 to beat a DC of 6.

glad to hear there are others who enjoy the detective story/political intrigue plots as much as I do.

Tempest Fennac
2009-02-19, 03:08 PM
I like those sorts of plots but my attempts at running them tend to degenerate into convoluted messes sadly. :smallfrown: I agree completely about fixing the rules to avoid messing with the players (I have a lot of houserules, but I clearly list what they are while checking for objections).

Winterwind
2009-02-19, 03:10 PM
I suppose I should have been more specific in my original post. For me, all systems have a means of denoting success or failure in most instances that is very very simple. DM sets a DC, you meet or beat it, etc. In skill based, social interaction campaigns, I still USE the rules presented. I didn't mean to suggest an anarchy based campaign setting wherein the rules can be broken upon my whims to meet the story. That is inherently unfair to the players. But with regards to a social/skills based campaign, the rules are almost universally simpler than combat rules in every system. Perhaps that is why the "rules" dont matter as much to my respective groups. It basically boils down to rolling d20+7 to beat a DC of 15, or rolling 1d8+2 to beat a DC of 6.

glad to hear there are others who enjoy the detective story/political intrigue plots as much as I do.Well, and my intention was to express that even such a minimum of rules is not necessary for a fun and fair roleplaying experience. :smallwink:

But to answer your question more directly, yes, in every group I was part of so far, the focus lay entirely on the story; none of them were centred on the dungeon-crawl style of a rapid succession of mechanical challenges but rather on social interaction and weaving a complex and multilayered tale (yes, this means that in our ShadowRun group, only a very small percentage of gaming time was spent on something that could accurately be described as an actual run). :smallcool:

Talyn
2009-02-19, 03:31 PM
Something that hasn't been mentioned yet is a major advantage of having the rules: the rules help manage FAILURE.

Let's take the above example: in a free-form system, if the player tries to bash the mutant with a rock and it fails, it is only because the game master says so. In a system that has rules, there is a chance roll, modified by circumstances (as set by the GM) and skill (determined beforehand by the player), and the result of the roll determines the success.

If the player then succeeds, it's equally okay under either system - the player feels validated, and the story progresses. If the player fails, however, in the first system the only reason that the character was unable to bash the mutant was because the GM said so. I don't care how much Ilike or trust my GM, or how good the story is, after four or five failures determined on pure GM say-so, I'm going to get pretty frustrated.

If there are rules which both players and DM can understand, however, you can at least point to the dice as an intervening factor - in other words, the GM sets the challenge before the dice are rolled and then it's up to luck. Now, a GM can fudge as necessary to get the story going in the way he wants, and that's a good thing, but the dice give the players the illusion of control and at least SOME neutral arbiter against caprice.

The jury example, where the whole game was about debate and persuasion, didn't need rules because there was a preexisting system for determining success and failure.

Cainen
2009-02-19, 03:34 PM
I don't care how much Ilike or trust my GM, or how good the story is, after four or five failures determined on pure GM say-so, I'm going to get pretty frustrated.

You must realize that many people feel the same way about failure due to dice, right?

Winterwind
2009-02-19, 03:46 PM
Something that hasn't been mentioned yet is a major advantage of having the rules: the rules help manage FAILURE.

Let's take the above example: in a free-form system, if the player tries to bash the mutant with a rock and it fails, it is only because the game master says so. In a system that has rules, there is a chance roll, modified by circumstances (as set by the GM) and skill (determined beforehand by the player), and the result of the roll determines the success.

If the player then succeeds, it's equally okay under either system - the player feels validated, and the story progresses. If the player fails, however, in the first system the only reason that the character was unable to bash the mutant was because the GM said so. I don't care how much Ilike or trust my GM, or how good the story is, after four or five failures determined on pure GM say-so, I'm going to get pretty frustrated.Hmmm... maybe that's just me, but I didn't feel this way. :smallwink:

And before you say, "But you succeeded!", let me point out that this fight had not begun with me being half in water and the mutant trying to drag me below the surface - before that, we had a fairly long combat scene, where, whatever I attemted to do, either barely managed to sustain the status quo, or left me in an increasingly worse situation. And I did not feel frustrated by it - rather, I felt genuinely terrified by what a monster I was facing there, and was trying to have some ingenious idea how I could escape with my life after all, while in borderline panic. Because I did not consider me failing a mere caprice of the GM - I considered it an accurate reflection of the gaming world's reality, namely me facing a physically superior opponent in conditions extremely favouring him. That this last attack finally succeeded was a great surprise and relief to both me and my character alike.

So... no, I never had the impression failure in freeform led to frustration. Only to immersion.

KIDS
2009-02-19, 03:52 PM
I'd say that while the personality and imagination of everyone involved is the most important factor, rules are the close second for any kind of game that uses rules. Good rules provide fair adjudication in situations where it's needed, help you invent and create more enjoyable things/stories and don't demand too much of your time.

Bad rules, which do the opposite, are the second most important killer of game enjoyment (right after the opposite of good players). If they get in the way of fun and you frequently find yourself ignoring them as the best way to proceed, it's an obvious sign that they failed.

The rules are made to serve you, not for you to serve them (and A LOT of gaming systems that I've seen frequently forget that).

valadil
2009-02-19, 03:58 PM
If the player then succeeds, it's equally okay under either system - the player feels validated, and the story progresses. If the player fails, however, in the first system the only reason that the character was unable to bash the mutant was because the GM said so. I don't care how much Ilike or trust my GM, or how good the story is, after four or five failures determined on pure GM say-so, I'm going to get pretty frustrated.


In a game where mutant bashing is a regularly scheduled activity, you want rules. This is not the kind of story that works well in a free form environment.

Actually that takes a lot of assumption on my part. I'm already thinking of free form games where that would be a likely scenario. Like one where the police have followed the mutant and you're somehow suspect. In this case though, killing a mutant is the premise from which conflict develops. The conflict is resolved by talking to the police. If the conflict is that there's a mutant between you and your treasure and you have to kill him to win, that's the sort of conflict that doesn't work with a totally free form system.

Knaight
2009-02-19, 04:27 PM
Now, from the start, the mentality as player between a game with rules and one without is different here - with rules, one might be thinking "Okay, dumb situation right now, but all my previous hits have inflicted so and so many points of damage, so the situation is not that rosy for him either, I just have to get out of this situation somehow, that may cost me a few hit points more than usual, but then I'll just need a couple more damage points and he goes down. Now, which options do I have... power attack? Maybe a use of power X or Y...". Without rules, the player's thoughts are more like "Oh God, oh God, if he drags me off here, I will be pretty much hopelessly dead, and he shows no sign of weakening, didn't I manage to wound or tire him at all?! Is everything I do completely ineffective?! What can do I do?! How do I stop this beast?!"

And how does it continue? With rules, it's probably some Balance or Strength or whatever check, followed by one of the pre-written options the character has, some standard attack if he doesn't want to risk too much, a use of a special power or anything else for which there are rules - players do not want to risk too much, so as long as there are rules they know, they tend to stay within the rules so they can predict what happens better. Without rules?

With rules, this stone would have likely inflicted some negligible amount of damage and would have been an option nobody would even have considered in the first place.
But it was a stone. A big rock to the head. It was the best weapon I could have had, considering the position in which I was. A stone to the head does not deal d3+1 damage points. A stone to the head can easily crack a skull - which does not mean that I would have preferred it to my sword or what we presumed to be a demon blade (though people more acquainted with our present world might have preferred to call it a chain saw) in a normal combat situation. That's flexibility a rules-heavy system cannot even begin to hope to give.

And also rules take a lot of fear out of the combat - one still has hit points, so one can rest moderately assured that one will not die when hit, one has an idea of how much damage one has been inflicting, etc.


...phew, that has become a lot longer than I anticipated it to be. :smalleek:

All of this seems to be directed at a few systems though. I have seen a lot of systems where there are not hit points, combat is lethal, and stuff like the rock attack could work, although it wouldn't necessarily work well if the creature caught on to the plan. Rules can be restraining and constrictive, but they can also give a way to handle situations in general, rather than specifics, while still rating characters somehow, although again probably somewhat generally. I have done rulesless roleplaying extensively, and the one place it does worst is in combat, but the same thing applies to systems that get too heavy and predictable for combat. Thats why I usually stick to rules light systems, without rules for social interactions.

Kurald Galain
2009-02-19, 06:32 PM
So, while a good group can fare equally fine with or without rules, I find rules are inherently discouraging towards flexiblility and out-of-the-box thinking.

QFT.

And the rest of the stuff you wrote, not Q but still T. Yay!

Kiero
2009-02-19, 08:05 PM
Something that hasn't been mentioned yet is a major advantage of having the rules: the rules help manage FAILURE.

Let's take the above example: in a free-form system, if the player tries to bash the mutant with a rock and it fails, it is only because the game master says so.

You've left out some other possibilities: because the player of that character says it fails; because another player at the table says it fails; as just two examples.

Innis Cabal
2009-02-19, 08:10 PM
The rules have never mattered. Your finaly free.

Grommen
2009-02-19, 09:32 PM
You can tell a story without rules, but you can't interact without at least the basic agreement of rules. Weither it's "We will flip a coin to see who wins", or a complex set of feats and skills such as 3.5 ed D&D. Rules take a major back seat to telling a good story in my opinion. However you still need to abide by and follow the majority of the game systems rules. Keeps from haveing hard feelings and playing favorites. When you do change a rule, make it well known. As long as everyone agrees or can at least live with it, your fine.

Rules do make a difference though. In D20 modern someone taking 10+ damage might die, where as good ol D&D 10 damage is a wimpy hit. Systems like Shadowrun are rather nasty and visceral, but characters don't often die so players tend to do some really outlandish things, knowing that the worst thing that happens is that they take a deadly wound, not killed out right.

LurkerInPlayground
2009-02-20, 03:20 AM
I actually found some interesting reading on a topic related to this:
A Quick Primer to Old School Gaming (http://www.lulu.com/content/3019374)

Which is to say that a simple dungeon-crawl isn't necessarily mutually exclusive to roleplaying or engaging improvisation.

To be honest, I find some of the advice applicable to 4e, even though the rules might be relatively more "rigid."

PinkysBrain
2009-02-20, 04:43 AM
That this last attack finally succeeded was a great surprise and relief to both me and my character alike.
Really? Cause realistically it was just the GM/storyteller/yourself giving you a freebie to keep your character alive. Your actions didn't matter one iota in the end, any excuse would have been found to make the combat end with the same result.

Satyr
2009-02-20, 08:23 AM
I find it somewhat amusing how muc it is persisted by some people that a system of resolution for challenging actions is necessary. It is not, or at least ot within the scope of a freeform game, which is (and I generalise here) usually more focused on the story or the characters than on the solving of conforntations. From a stoy-focused point of view, the result of a challenge only matters for its effect on the plot and the most plausible result, or the result which is most interesting for the narrative will be the best choice. From a character-driven point of view, it is up to the player which result is the best for his impersonation of the character, or the player's depiction of the character.

I am not completely fond of freeform games, but claiming that a set of rules is required is a fallacy (and I would guess that these claims come mostly from people who have not played in a freeform campaign).

Even apart from the direct rules of the game, there are some standard rules on the metalevel, which may or may not be applied to the game and derive from the consent of the group or the style of the game master. This include stuff like a code of conduct both withnin the game world ("player characters do not steal from other PC's") or between the players on the meta-level ("players do not interrupt each other while another is talking"), censorship of contents within the game world (which is not necessarily a bad thing if it comes to stuff like human trafficking, forced prostitution, cannibalism, war crimes...) preferences of the players which are vocalised into the game (too many to count), stuff like the dreadful "Rule of Cool" or versimilitude, etc. Even a freeform game is always going to follow rules like this.

Now, on the matter of rules: Rules matter when they are applied. If they are ignored (or don't exist in the case of a freeform or light weight game), they have little possibilty to influence the gameplay. Which should be obvious.

Different rules support (if they are good) or enforce (if they are bad) certain styles of gaming. Not every style and every system work well together. Some systems ( "Koala games") are highly specialised and have little room for the group-specific rules mentioned above or alternatives to the prescribed style; others ("cockroach games") are more like a set of options and do not enforce but support many different styles.
This has almost nothing to do with the complexity of the game's rules, as there are both highly complex and very rule-light Koalas and Cockroaches out there.

Likewise, there is only a marginal interconnection between a game's complexity and its difficulty, meaining how hard it is to learn, adapt, apply or modify the rules. A simple, but completely arbitrary and inconsequental set of rules (e.g. Savage Worlds) is certainly less complex, but not less complicated than a complex yet stringent and logically constructed set of rules (such as Gurps).

Winterwind
2009-02-20, 09:25 AM
All of this seems to be directed at a few systems though. I have seen a lot of systems where there are not hit points, combat is lethal, and stuff like the rock attack could work, although it wouldn't necessarily work well if the creature caught on to the plan. Rules can be restraining and constrictive, but they can also give a way to handle situations in general, rather than specifics, while still rating characters somehow, although again probably somewhat generally. I have done rulesless roleplaying extensively, and the one place it does worst is in combat, but the same thing applies to systems that get too heavy and predictable for combat. Thats why I usually stick to rules light systems, without rules for social interactions.Yes, I know - most of the systems we play are rules-light (not all, ShadowRun is also amongst them, but still), and as for lethalness, well, I think ShadowRun is one of the less lethal systems amongst the ones we play - but I haven't found a system yet that was freeform's equal in terms of flexibility and immersiveness (note - every moment, however short it might be, where you have to consult dice or numbers before continuing with the story/action/whatever is a disconnect and lessens immersiveness. Only a tiny bit - but if one is used to freeform, one notices.


QFT.

And the rest of the stuff you wrote, not Q but still T. Yay!Thank you. :smallsmile:


Really? Cause realistically it was just the GM/storyteller/yourself giving you a freebie to keep your character alive. Your actions didn't matter one iota in the end, any excuse would have been found to make the combat end with the same result.As I mentioned before, I had already come up with a new character prior to that session, as I did not expect to survive this situation. We have had character deaths - not random ones, only in climactic situations, but this definitely was one. And considering how other situations of this caliber went, I am fairly certain that with worse decisions during this combat I would not have prevailed.
Keep in mind, again, that we are talking about an extraordinarily excellent GM here. :smallwink: