Are the emergent properties of 3.PF-like systems falling out of favour?

[Minion #6]

As we all know, certain elements of 3.PF seem to be designed with the idea that you have only blaster wizard/DPS fighter/skillmonkey rogue/healer cleric as a team, and things can go off the reservation pretty quick if players start to break away from those roles. A lot of this is due to rules and tools that in 2e or prior would be solely the purview of the GM being put into the hands of the players. That is actually something I love about 3.PF. Emergent gameplay is my jam! Combining two mechanics that do different things to do a third, totally new thing is some of the most fun I've had as a player, and seeing my players do the same is some of the best moments I've had as a GM.

However, I see more and more a sentiment of things like "challenge the players, not the characters" and "rulings, not rules", which just seems baffling to me. These things are dead set against the sort of emergent properties that I love so much. If you are to challenge the players instead of the characters, the corollary of that must be that the character's abilities shouldn't be enough to solve problems - the player solves the problem regardless of what their character can do. And if you are to make rulings on the fly rather than have harder rules from the outset, there's not even an opportunity to have something emerge from the interaction of those rules in a reliable way - can't extrapolate from no data.

I just wonder why games aren't made with these things in mind - or if they exist, why I can't find them.

[Alent]

I'm building one, slowly but surely! I've been tempted to talk about it in the PF2 thread, but I find every time I start talking about it life intervenes and I don't get to work on it as much as I need to. (I also really don't like advertising something I'm not really ready to show off, at some point I plan on doing a reveal thread over in the Homebrew section, the Exile thread in my sig is woefully out of date.) I've basically trashed 3.P's traditional core classes in favor of a varied mix of subsystems along with a lot of other sweeping changes while still trying to keep the D20/3.5 framework.

As to emergent properties, I'm right with you there. One of my favorite play stories involves a friend and me using the handle animal skill to train housecats to kite packs of zombies into a bandit camp, and coordinating a dozen housecats at once using the message cantrip and a dire bat mount to make sure that the housecats and zombies all arrived at the same time. Even more shenanigans ensued after that, but the point is, I really enjoy how much you can do a LOT with low level characters if you embrace emergent properties and encourage creativity.

I think the reason you're not seeing them at the front of the industry is that of the main two players in the D&D corner of the market are operating out of fear. 5e is afraid they'll lose the feel of AD&D, and everything they do is concerned with superficial traits- the 5e team basically always says something to the effect of "We wanted to make sure it feels like D&D" and they intentionally avoid anything interesting out of fear. Paizo is afraid of players breaking their APs through emergent properties, and rather than attempt to explore what's possible, they just make angry forum nerfs any time they see an emergent property they think will break something. More than that, Paizo is/was also afraid of losing the "feel" of 3.5 through the entire run of PF1e. PF2e seems to be a combination of those two fears.

Both fears are in no small part due to the fact that the audience for the product is small and opinionated- We all have our own ideas on how this stuff should work and few people agree. My own project has a mission statement that consists of five tenets I consider central to the TT RPG. Including things like "The rules are the physics of the game world" and "Class changes are non optional- you will have at least two classes, a base class and a promoted class", which I consider to be common sense from years of playing old S/RPG series like Fire Emblem and Shining Force, where you promote units after they hit the limits of their starting class and can no longer gain EXP or levels. I consider this common sense, but many other players believe in one class beginning to end... and again, the big players seem afraid of offending this "one class, beginning to end" player.

Their fear, however, is our strength. We indies can pretty much try things without fear- we have no audience to lose, and with the market transitioning to digital goods, we have no real overhead to speak of. I dunno if my attempt will succeed, but where 5e and PF2e fail to deliver, someone will succeed. It's just a matter of time.

[mabriss lethe]

For the last week or so I've been roughing out the beginnings of my own fork in the 3.5 rule set. Part of that has been taking a good hard look at 3P's various assumptions on gameplay and the overall emergent properties inherent in the mechanics. Quantify which ones are beneficial to the game and which ones are detrimental. Figuring out the changes that can be made and how to implement them without running afoul of Grod's Law. Etc.

[Rhedyn]

I just wonder why games aren't made with these things in mind - or if they exist, why I can't find them.I run Savage Worlds like this even though it is a mid-crunch game and things like Rulings still come up.

More games become what you want if you can take on the impartial GM mindset. Systems like 5e just aren't reliable for emergent properties so you really can't run it that way without things breaking down. So yeah, the most popular RPG has abandoned this idea as something they even want to design towards. Ergo, not much buzz around this anymore. In fact, playing this way has been actively marketed against.

[Kurald Galain]

However, I see more and more a sentiment of things like "challenge the players, not the characters"

Modern games are not so much "challenge the players" as "challenge means rolling 1d20 with a 30%-ish chance of failure". You know, because random chance is exciting, and stuff.

[Alent]

Modern games are not so much "challenge the players" as "challenge means rolling 1d20 with a 30%-ish chance of failure". You know, because random chance is exciting, and stuff.

This is so true.

Trying to fix the stealth/hide/sneak skill system will let you run face first into the brick wall that is the false value of chance in ways so few other things can.

[Pleh]

However, I see more and more a sentiment of things like "challenge the players, not the characters" and "rulings, not rules", which just seems baffling to me. These things are dead set against the sort of emergent properties that I love so much. If you are to challenge the players instead of the characters, the corollary of that must be that the character's abilities shouldn't be enough to solve problems - the player solves the problem regardless of what their character can do. And if you are to make rulings on the fly rather than have harder rules from the outset, there's not even an opportunity to have something emerge from the interaction of those rules in a reliable way - can't extrapolate from no data.

I just wonder why games aren't made with these things in mind - or if they exist, why I can't find them.

Let me start by saying my response is purely opinion and subjective, so take it for what it's worth.

As someone who identifies with, "challenge the players, not the characters" and, "make rulings, not rules," I can say the Emergent Interaction from components is really something that mostly only shows up in 3.PF character creation and certain magical spells/traps. That is to say, you're pretty much done once you've made your character, unless you're a T1 caster trying to creatively interpret magical effects and how they interact.

To this end, building a whole game off of emergent properties from a few building blocks sounds like a normal board game rather than an RPG. You get a few pieces with unique rules and you explore permutations ad nauseum.

But in D&D, the rules are a tool. They're a means to an end, not the goal in and of themselves. Character abilities are where your emergent gameplay comes from, so you try to optimize your "tool belt."

So, you challenge the players, not the characters, because the point of the game is to play a character, not to combine a set of rules to produce a particular result. If you just want to combine small segments of rules to create something new, play minecraft or munchkin.

[Minion #6]

Let me start by saying my response is purely opinion and subjective, so take it for what it's worth.

As someone who identifies with, "challenge the players, not the characters" and, "make rulings, not rules," I can say the Emergent Interaction from components is really something that mostly only shows up in 3.PF character creation and certain magical spells/traps. That is to say, you're pretty much done once you've made your character, unless you're a T1 caster trying to creatively interpret magical effects and how they interact.

To this end, building a whole game off of emergent properties from a few building blocks sounds like a normal board game rather than an RPG. You get a few pieces with unique rules and you explore permutations ad nauseum.

But in D&D, the rules are a tool. They're a means to an end, not the goal in and of themselves. Character abilities are where your emergent gameplay comes from, so you try to optimize your "tool belt."

So, you challenge the players, not the characters, because the point of the game is to play a character, not to combine a set of rules to produce a particular result. If you just want to combine small segments of rules to create something new, play minecraft or munchkin.

The emphasised part is self-contradictory. If you're challenging the players, not the characters, they aren't playing a character. They're using the character as a tool to solve the challenge you threw at them in particular.

More generally, your whole post just seems to be coming across as "emergent gameplay is badwrongfun". Do people tell you that if you want "rulings not rules" and "challenging the players not the characters" to go do improv theatre instead?

[Falontani]

I just want to chime in to see where this thread goes, probably nowhere unfortunately. But the first two posts are wonderfully well constructed. It really puts the words that I have been trying to tell my friend into line. +1, and thank you.

[Florian]

I just wonder why games aren't made with these things in mind - or if they exist, why I can't find them.

You're declaring a bug to be a feature. One of the biggest complaints about AD&D 2nd was a the overabundance of really bad GMs (something that happens with that large a player base), making the "D&D experience" an unreliable thing with each table potentially playing very different.

3E was basically build to counter this by using "player empowerment" and "rules transparency". So, basically, if everything is already a clear part of the rules and those accessible to everyone at the table, you should get a clear and stable "D&D experience", right?

Turns out that this proved to be absolutely wrong. Think about it: 3.0E was written as a modernized and decluttered AD&D 3rd, developed and playtested as such. The result of empowering the players and deemphasizing the GM in such a complex system basically can´t work, unless you radically restrict freedom (and you get 4E).

Honestly, I think that D20 was in a way a right development for its time, but that time is already in the past, so it doesn't make sense to try and repeat any of that.

[Minion #6]

You're declaring a bug to be a feature. One of the biggest complaints about AD&D 2nd was a the overabundance of really bad GMs (something that happens with that large a player base), making the "D&D experience" an unreliable thing with each table potentially playing very different.

3E was basically build to counter this by using "player empowerment" and "rules transparency". So, basically, if everything is already a clear part of the rules and those accessible to everyone at the table, you should get a clear and stable "D&D experience", right?

Turns out that this proved to be absolutely wrong. Think about it: 3.0E was written as a modernized and decluttered AD&D 3rd, developed and playtested as such. The result of empowering the players and deemphasizing the GM in such a complex system basically can´t work, unless you radically restrict freedom (and you get 4E).

Honestly, I think that D20 was in a way a right development for its time, but that time is already in the past, so it doesn't make sense to try and repeat any of that.

:smallsigh: More "what you like is badwrongfun" without actual substance. Your personal opinion that empowering players and deemphasising the GM doesn't work is nice, but there are plenty of us that have had it work just fine.

[Alent]

You're declaring a bug to be a feature. One of the biggest complaints about AD&D 2nd was a the overabundance of really bad GMs (something that happens with that large a player base), making the "D&D experience" an unreliable thing with each table potentially playing very different.

3E was basically build to counter this by using "player empowerment" and "rules transparency". So, basically, if everything is already a clear part of the rules and those accessible to everyone at the table, you should get a clear and stable "D&D experience", right?

Turns out that this proved to be absolutely wrong. Think about it: 3.0E was written as a modernized and decluttered AD&D 3rd, developed and playtested as such. The result of empowering the players and deemphasizing the GM in such a complex system basically can´t work, unless you radically restrict freedom (and you get 4E).

Honestly, I think that D20 was in a way a right development for its time, but that time is already in the past, so it doesn't make sense to try and repeat any of that.

So... let me get this straight. In a game about creative expression- a literal fantasy story simulator- creativity is a bug? :smallconfused:

I'll be the first to admit that when DMing I'll drop the rules and go 100% freeform at the drop of a hat. I love finding creative solutions and I'm perfectly happy with saying the most dramatically appropriate outcome wins because I like the story being interesting... but with great regularity the most dramatically appropriate outcome and the results of simulating rules combinations tend to be a similar if not the same result, because both come from the creative use of available thematic elements.

Putting those thematic elements there is the DM's job. If you, as a player, have not invoked enough creativity and rules, the DM's job is to equip you with more creativity and rules. This is why the stereotypical story where the party monk at most tables gets the amulet that lets him turn into a tiger and flurry of blows while Lolcat omnomnoming faces off- the Monk doesn't have enough rules that benefit him, so the DM tosses him an amulet of unlimited chewtoy.

As all the thematic elements combine, they tell a story thanks to the magic of simulation. One that emerges from the actions of the players- These actions will naturally demonstrate growth and emergent properties. The DM isn't deemphasized here! Emergent properties let him create the framework of the campaign's story in the first place.

[RedWarlock]

Setting aside the 'player empowerment' argument for now, the big issue is the 'physics simulator' approach is flawed for a couple reasons. One, you get rules bloat, as the simpler baseline rules, which cover a nice majority of cases, but not everything, need to be expanded to cover more specialized cases and fixed for minor omissions, like drown-healing, because they don't meet the expectations for people playing them as a physics engine. (Maybe it works for some, but for others, those results are VERY off from their physical, economic, or other specialized experiences. So the rules are fixed to try to match, again and again.) People then complain about having to carry a dozen extra rulesbooks to cover those special cases/environments. (Heroes of Battle, Sandstorm/Frostburn/Stormwrack, etc) And for some, it gets to be too much, and they complain to the devs..

So, on the next edition, the extra case rules are scaled back, and left more to the whims of the DM running the show. Obviously, there are flaws, as the DM's lived experience may not support the special cases they're trying to support (which is where we get a geology major critiquing lava behavior in a CS major's dungeon)...

[Alent]

Setting aside the 'player empowerment' argument for now, the big issue is the 'physics simulator' approach is flawed for a couple reasons. One, you get rules bloat, as the simpler baseline rules, which cover a nice majority of cases, but not everything, need to be expanded to cover more specialized cases and fixed for minor omissions, like drown-healing, because they don't meet the expectations for people playing them as a physics engine. (Maybe it works for some, but for others, those results are VERY off from their physical, economic, or other specialized experiences. So the rules are fixed to try to match, again and again.) People then complain about having to carry a dozen extra rulesbooks to cover those special cases/environments. (Heroes of Battle, Sandstorm/Frostburn/Stormwrack, etc) And for some, it gets to be too much, and they complain to the devs..

So, on the next edition, the extra case rules are scaled back, and left more to the whims of the DM running the show. Obviously, there are flaws, as the DM's lived experience may not support the special cases they're trying to support (which is where we get a geology major critiquing lava behavior in a CS major's dungeon)...

I think I need to clarify what I mean when I say "Rules as physics", because I think when I say it people could be reading the wrong thing. I don't think anyone wants to play Dwarf Fortress over the table. (Although GURPS proves there is at least some market for that.)

When I say "rules as physics", I'm pointing out the truism that any rule you see in the book is what should happen in the world to NPCs. If I have a spell in the book that says it does something, I expect the whole world to logically reflect the ramifications of that spell. the whole Transmute Stone to Mud/Mud to Stone spell series is a fortress engineer's dream. In a game where that spell exists, if the party encounters a castle mid construction, they will not see slaves toiling to move bricks, but instead slaves with shovels filling plywood forms with mud and wizards transmuting entire layers of the castle at once.

If something is in the rulebook, it should always be fully reflected in the world. If you have gone too far with your rules, you get the Tippyverse. As much as I love emergent properties, there is such a thing as "too far".

Edit: I mean, Drown healing is the best example. If I make use of it, I expect NPCs to make use of it, too.

Edit 2: I should've proofread better, it isn't quite clear that I'm not trying to contradict you per se, but that post really made me go "ACK, I need to clarify that!"

[Ashtagon]

Personally, I don't like the whole rules as physics and emergent gameplay through knowledge of the rules ideal, because it rewards system mastery over roleplaying. However, emergent gameplay through understanding of the storyline is another matter entirely. That's something that is rewarded by participating in the story being played through.

[Kurald Galain]

Setting aside the 'player empowerment' argument for now, the big issue is the 'physics simulator' approach is flawed for a couple reasons. One, you get rules bloat

It strikes me that the actual problem here is not so much simulation, but rather rules bloat.

There's nothing wrong with (e.g.) jump checks resulting in similar distances to what people could jump in real life (at low level). This doesn't require complex rules, just the game designers doing their homework. And, setting this as baseline for low level gives a nice starting point to map mid-level characters to the kind of jumps you see in action movies, and high-level characters to jumps made by superheroes and/or Beowulf.

Certainly this strikes me as more appealing than just having the DM make something up.

[Crake]

Personally, I don't like the whole rules as physics and emergent gameplay through knowledge of the rules ideal, because it rewards system mastery over roleplaying. However, emergent gameplay through understanding of the storyline is another matter entirely. That's something that is rewarded by participating in the story being played through.

To some degree I agree with you, but for example, saying that "Your jump check determines your jump distance in feet" would be an example of rules as physics that I would agree it. Things like that give players a sense of cohesion, rather than arbitrary rulings by DMs.

On the other hand, something like shock trooper + leap attack + valorous weapon for massive damage on a charge is indeed a pretty lame. It's one thing when combining a+b = c, but it's another when combining a+b = a^2, in this case, just bigger numbers. Nothing new is happening, you're just doing something significantly better than the game expects of you, which is exactly the sort of circumstance that leads to rocket tag.

I am very find of the former, I am not so fond of the latter.

I honestly sometimes find myself stuck in a limbo of "I like rules to define the limits of capabilities" and "I want people to be able to come up with interesting ideas on their own". An example I often like to bring up is the old addage of "I slide under the opponent's legs to catch them off guard before stabbing them". It feels like something someone SHOULD be able to do, but players are limited from achieving it due to the system of rules in place: A player can move and feint, or move and attack, but not move, feint and attack without some extra helping force. Either something like hustle for an extra move action, followed by a move action improved feint, and then finally an attack. Of course, there's a skill trick to allow the players to do it once per encounter, but some people haven't even HEARD of skill tricks, let alone thought to grab that.

Of course, the above could easily be resolved by treating feint as an attack action, allowing the player to attempt an off-hand "feint" using the two weapon fighting rules, and then allow him to attack with his main hand, a difficult thing to attempt, but a good payoff if he succeeds, so I think I generally equate the above to more of an issue with the rules of feinting above all else, but there are issues like that all over the 3.5 rules, and finding the right balance between what the rules should define vs what should be left more freeform is very hard. I don't like freeform for two reasons: It leaves players unsure as to what they're capable of, having to ask the DM "Can I do this", with varying answers, and the second reason is it's hard to maintain consistency. Sometimes the same DM might give two different answers to the same question when asked at different points in time.

Maybe it's just the action economy that I don't like, I don't know.

[Florian]

So... let me get this straight. In a game about creative expression- a literal fantasy story simulator- creativity is a bug? :smallconfused:

Nope.

Minion #6 indirectly mentioned it already. D20/3E is a two part design piece, with a simulation approach and a "balance" approach at the core (Plus a huge chunk of inspiration lifted from Diablo. Grab the old AD&D 2nd Diablo and see the foundation of 3E, same as ToB has the foundations of 4E)

First thing is, those two parts are at odds because they have different functions, which will lead us to "rules as physics" thinking, which is again at odds with the underlying simulation and can only be solved by "rulings, not rules". (Stuff like Drown Healing is a byproduct of this.)

Second thing is, the original assumption was always, that the GM is in control of what gets added to the game and how it will interact with already existing stuff. It´s most obvious with the earlier books of the editions, that everything created was done just with Core in mind and no thoughts about cross interaction. Paizo devs even openly stated that they don't really care about archetypes, class and such having duplicate names, because they don't expect that a given table will simultaneously allow all the rules and material.

Let´s use the Forgotten Realms as an example. We know that they are firmly grounded in our reality and the general physics and behavior should match our own and perform as expected. Jumping should then deliver plausible results, a wolf should be a wolf, and so on. That's the simulation part of it and it´s actually a thing for both sides of the table not to make it break, or at least, break as little as possible (maybe have the Druid raise the INT score of their animal, so that the wolf doesn't act like a animal but rather like a humanoid). Same holds true to the "balance" part of it. It only ever means something when both side accepts that it´s there and that breaking it is bad. It´s a bit the question why the GM should cling to the CR system and create fair encounters, while the players try to circumvent the CR system and "beat" the game, and so on, age old topic.

[Pleh]

The emphasised part is self-contradictory. If you're challenging the players, not the characters, they aren't playing a character. They're using the character as a tool to solve the challenge you threw at them in particular.

More generally, your whole post just seems to be coming across as "emergent gameplay is badwrongfun". Do people tell you that if you want "rulings not rules" and "challenging the players not the characters" to go do improv theatre instead?

You're overreacting (and getting needlessly defensive). I'm not saying anything is badwrongfun. I'm saying there are better media for what you're describing as "emergent gameplay." Some fans of certain video games create emergent gameplay from consistent glitches that can be exploited (sort of like non canonical rules). I was showing that emergent gameplay is an attribute on a spectrum and that board games and video games already have that element fairly well covered. Some of them even use d20 mechanics.

What I said was not self contradictory. When you challenge the players in an RPG, you are challenging them to play their characters. But, while this includes their toolbox of character abilities, it should also include their character's personality, which isn't defined by rules (no matter what the alignment rule developers thought).

Meanwhile, with emergent gameplay focus, you're instead focusing on meta knowledge of the rules to produce a new or unique result instead of what your character would most likely do with respect to their combined personality and ability.

To me, "challenge the player, not the character" means, "don't get caught up in a RAW arms race with your players, instead give them scenarios they can personally invest into (through their characters)."

Off the top of my head, two encounters I gave players that did this really well really were rather independent of rules. In one scenario, they were told about a primary quest goal and given several optional sidequests that would increase their main quest's chances of success.

One of these sidequests involved getting information from an ancient lich trapped in an angry deity's prison. Forcing information from him was unlikely given his advanced CR, but all he wanted in return was blood from an innocent (i.e. never having experienced violence) orc child (basically had to be an infant due to orc culture, but going so young meant killing the infant to get enough blood or taking the blood from multiple individuals). This forced the party to confront their presuppositions about the inherent morality of orcs, the question of nature vs nurture, and weigh the risk against the need for information on their main quest. They had to play their characters to figure out what they would do and how they would go about it.

In another game, players investigate a missing child (standard wilderness encounters along the way) and discover he wandered off trying to find his missing sister, who was already presumed dead. They discover the two of them in a necromancer's hovel, the necromancer already dead from some disease. It turned out that the sister's aunt had tried to sell her neice to the necromancer, only to become a loose end and get tied up. The necromancer had been following a vague description of a slaymate trying to create one for himself, but was unaware the danger of the girl's bite as a slaymate. He eventually succumbed to the disease. But it left the players with the quandry: do they return the girl to her parents?

[Beckett]

Personally, I don't like the whole rules as physics and emergent gameplay through knowledge of the rules ideal, because it rewards system mastery over roleplaying.

To me, that is a good thing, because "good roleplaying" that is not backed by some system mastery is NOT very good roleplaying. The two are not dramatically oppossed things, but rather things that work together.

The common problem I see with roleplaying without strong system mastery is it incintivizes people to make characters that can't actually do the things they say or act in game like they can or should, (a city guard that can't tell when someone is lying, doesn't know the law, and has a 50/50 chance of being able to find their own shadow on an investigation, for instance). What actually then happens is the DM is forced to hurt other people who did actually put stats or options into doing these things in order to make the "good roleplayer" actually work, which feels pretty ****ty to everyone else, because why bother?

Another thing is that not everyone enjoys the same things the same ways. I personally like the more tactical aspects of 3E pay with grid maps, mini's, and set rules. A lot of games now are designed away from these things, maybe allowing for it, but not expecting it. To me, that's much less appealing.

[Rhedyn]

Setting aside the 'player empowerment' argument for now, the big issue is the 'physics simulator' approach is flawed for a couple reasons. One, you get rules bloat, as the simpler baseline rules, which cover a nice majority of cases, but not everything, need to be expanded to cover more specialized cases and fixed for minor omissions, like drown-healing, because they don't meet the expectations for people playing them as a physics engine. (Maybe it works for some, but for others, those results are VERY off from their physical, economic, or other specialized experiences. So the rules are fixed to try to match, again and again.) People then complain about having to carry a dozen extra rulesbooks to cover those special cases/environments. (Heroes of Battle, Sandstorm/Frostburn/Stormwrack, etc) And for some, it gets to be too much, and they complain to the devs..

So, on the next edition, the extra case rules are scaled back, and left more to the whims of the DM running the show. Obviously, there are flaws, as the DM's lived experience may not support the special cases they're trying to support (which is where we get a geology major critiquing lava behavior in a CS major's dungeon)...

This is part of why I like Savage Worlds. Rather than adding a ton of rules to handle edge cases, they will say "GM decides", BUT Savage Worlds actually tries to make the edge cases small and rare. Rather than the D&D 5e approach where "GM decides" is considered a "value-added" part of the rules and shoved into as many mechanics as possible.

[Florian]

To add something to what Pleh wrote....

For me, rules system (roll) and setting (role) both count as "hard rules" and are equal components in what I consider the game itself, with the social contract (genre) making up the "hardest rule of all".

That means that participating players must attain a more or less balanced amount of mastery in all three regions, rules, setting lore and genre conventions.

Let´s take L5R for example. You can play using the same setting (Rokugan) with or without different time lines and meta plot, you can chose between three different rules systems (RnK, D20 and that Star Wars thingie) or create a conversion to a system of your choice, but most importantly, you can choose between different genres (Samurai Drama, Horror, High/Low Fantasy...), with this choice ultimately defining what the actual game is going to be. (Ok, maybe add format, like Sandbox, Linear Adventure and so on...)

The inherent problem of this approach should be quite obvious, right? That level of flexibility means that we have to establish an order of primacy, of who trumps whom when push comes to shove. Genre > Setting > Rules will generally generate a different result than Rules > Genre > Setting, for example. This has nothing to do with role > roll or roll > role or, god how I hate that term, badwrongfun, but simple preference and how a given table weights those things.

To use Pathfinder as an example, the two Fighter archetypes Foehammer and Aldori Defender have very concrete and deep ties to the fluff. What that means is entirely dependent on what order of primacy has been established for a given table. As we´re talking about the Fighter class here, if or if not 2+INT skill points is a problem is entirely dependent on genre and style. For some, you must roll on everything, for others, all is dependent on stakes and you don't roll when nothing is at stake, i.e. everyone can climb, swim, talk, lie and such, you only roll when it matters, like, everyone can climb a tree just fine, doing the same fully equipped and armored in the middle of a fight while being shot at is when you roll.

[Pelle]

Emergent gameplay is my jam! Combining two mechanics that do different things to do a third, totally new thing is some of the most fun I've had as a player, and seeing my players do the same is some of the best moments I've had as a GM.


Do you have any examples?

Personally, if it makes sense in the fiction, I think it can be great. If it relies on abusing abstractions or how the rule is specifically written, instead of what it represents in the fiction, I think it's boring. Like peasant railguns et al.

[OgresAreCute]

Do you have any examples?

Personally, if it makes sense in the fiction, I think it can be great. If it relies on abusing abstractions or how the rule is specifically written, instead of what it represents in the fiction, I think it's boring. Like peasant railguns et al.

Peasant railgun is a bit of a bad example since that does rely on a weird "use RAW when that's convenient, use real world physics when that's convenient" way of thinking. Going by pure RAW, the railgun just passes the 10-foot pole to the last guy in the row, then he makes an improvised weapon attack by throwing it at someone. Being able to pass the stick so fast obviously doesn't fit optimally with the fiction, but it's not like it's going to come up unless you specifically try to do this.