If you make a positive claim about how the game is, the burden of proof is on you. "The idea is popular around here" is nothing. You say many people play Pathfinder as a restrictive-ruleset game; fair enough; I'm sure they do indeed. But the claim that it just is that sort of game, somehow, by default, or by dint of the actual rules — that is a claim that needs defending, which is why I challenged it (and also because I simply disagree with it). (And PossibleCabbage makes some excellent points, in his posts, about why it really doesn't make sense for Pathfinder to be a restrictive-ruleset kind of game.)
However, and although you've been nothing but rude to me, I think it's only reasonable for me to at least try to fulfill your request. The designers' posting history is long, so this is by no means exhaustive — just some things that jump out at me as I peruse the archives.
I think the pattern is fairly clear. Do you disagree? I suppose I can dig up more posts, if need be. You did say "find me SOMETHING", though, and this is clearly something.
Think I'm starting to see where the confusion is coming in for you and Cabbage.
Given the quotes you picked to support your position, and Cabbage's last post, you think that the lack of an exhaustive list of every option disproves that this is a (using your definition to prevent confusion between us) restricted ruleset.
That's not what it means. The difference is in a philosophy of design. As SKR says in the quotes you picked up, if a rule does not exist, the GM is capable of making an adjudication for it. That is too keep the rulebook from being bogged down in minutiae. Likewise, the game's reality is assumed to be "Like our reality except where stated otherwise". Gravity works the same in this universe as in real life, except for places it doesn't (specified within rules for things like Planes with different kinds of gravity), for example. Measurements of time and distance are assumed to be the same as well.
This does not mean the ruleset is less restrictive. You are still only allowed to do things that the rules allow, or the GM allows.
Basically you're confusing "simulationist game" and "restrictive ruleset". The game does not model reality, and is not meant to. but it does provide a strong list of options and rules for nearly everything. That's what this system THRIVES on, and the reason rulebooks are still made.
This one is a good example:
{Does having a blanket give you a bonus to Survival checks?}
No, it's just nice to have if you want to sleep. Not everything in the game has to have rules text (though "has straps so it can be rolled up and tied" may be useful if for some reason you need to steal a strap, or justify how you're carrying it). Remember, we got a lot of flak for the CR not saying how much a backpack can hold (because it's a backpack), and this book added more should-be-obvious descriptions to common gear that didn't have descriptions in the CR.
{Do I need an animal harness to use Handle Animal?}
No. Like the blanket, knowing that your animal has a harness may come in handy at some point in the game, but the GM is not a robot and the books shouldn't try to explain every single possibility for every single item in the game. "Your guard dog has fallen into the icy river, how are you getting him out?" "He has a harness! Do I get a bonus for that?" "Sure, GM's best friend rule, I'll give you a +2 on your roll!"
The important part is bolded. That's important because of the argument it's addressing.
People argue that since the backpack does not have a listed dimension, then it is effectively infinite. You can fit anything of any weight within the backpack. In essence "the rules don't say I CAN'T fit anything and everything inside it, therefore I can". The same logic used to defend stuff like "Being dead doesn't technically prevent me from taking actions, therefore I can".
That is how a permissive (again, your definition of it) works. "I am not expressly limited from doing so, therefore I can".
Where Pathfinder has a ruleset, and an assumption that "common sense" and basic reality is in play. Dead people are dead, they can't do anything. Therefore in lack of any rule saying you CAN act while dead, you cannot. That is a restrictive ruleset.
Compare/contrast Pathfinder and a slightly more permissive game, Mutants and Masterminds.
M&M characters have Hero points that allow them to affect the plot. You can spend a Hero point and change something drastic about the scenario. For example, use a Hero point to put a fire hydrant in the area you are fighting the electric woman, and then use a Power Stunt to short circuit her powers. The GM can veto this, but by default anything not vetoed can happen. This is still a restrictive ruleset overall, but is MORE permissive than Pathfinder. A fully free-form RP takes this to its logical extreme, where anyone can do anything, add any character or item to a scene, and perform any feat they imagine so long as the Gm does not explicitly say "No, you can't do that".
Contrast Pathfinder where the players can only work within the options given. If the Gm describes no fire hydrant, there is no way they can put one there. They can ask the GM if it is there, and the GM can say yes or no, but have no way to change the scene themselves short of a rules option to create one (like knowing the spell "Summon Fire Hydrant").
Again:
You can't grapple a gaseous creature, that's obvious and we shouldn't need to state that in the rules. If a gaseous creature can slip through any crack because it's gaseous, it can easily slip through the gaps between your fingers or arms.
Permissive ruleset: "I CAN grapple the creature because the rules don't say I CAN'T"
Restrictive ruleset: "I CAN'T grapple the creature because the rules don't say I CAN"
Weird corner case for this specific example: "The rules technically say I CAN, but table variation applies because many GMs will veto it by changing the rules to something that makes sense" (resulting in the same "Can't do it" outcome for either system type".
Hope that clears things up (in a not snarky way this time).
Think I'm starting to see where the confusion is coming in for you and Cabbage.
Thank you for the thoughtful reply.
That said, I'm afraid I still have to disagree...
Given the quotes you picked to support your position, and Cabbage's last post, you think that the lack of an exhaustive list of every option disproves that this is a (using your definition to prevent confusion between us) restricted ruleset.
No. I don't think that. I think that a) the lack of any indication that the ruleset is restrictive; b) the fact that if the ruleset were restrictive, that would make nonsense out of any attempt to play the game as the open-ended RPG that it certainly is; and c) the fact that the game designers (or at least, SKR) have said things that clearly indicate that the ruleset is not restrictive — I think these things shows that it's a permissive, and not restrictive, ruleset.
That's not what it means. The difference is in a philosophy of design. As SKR says in the quotes you picked up, if a rule does not exist, the GM is capable of making an adjudication for it. That is too keep the rulebook from being bogged down in minutiae. Likewise, the game's reality is assumed to be "Like our reality except where stated otherwise". Gravity works the same in this universe as in real life, except for places it doesn't (specified within rules for things like Planes with different kinds of gravity), for example. Measurements of time and distance are assumed to be the same as well.
This does not mean the ruleset is less restrictive. You are still only allowed to do things that the rules allow, or the GM allows.
I have to wonder, with this definition, what it could possibly mean to have a permissive ruleset, then. I mean, of course you are only allowed to do things that that the GM allows — you don't even need the "things that the rules allow" clause in there, because "things the GM allows" is, by definition, a 100% exhaustive and complete set of what you can do in the game. It is in principle impossible to do anything the GM doesn't allow, yeah?
So that's not a useful direction to take this discussion, or a useful way to think about whether the rules are restrictive or permissive. The key question, I think, is this: how does the game, and how do we (as players), expect the GM to handle situations that fall outside the set of things explicitly delineated by the rules? There are two scenarios:
In what I would call a "restrictive" ruleset, the player might say: "I do <thing X that seems like it makes sense to be able to do, but for which there isn't a rule for>." And the GM would respond: "Nothing in the rules says you can do that. So, you can't."
In what I would call a "permissive" ruleset, the player might say the same thing, and the GM would respond: "Nothing in the rules says you can do that, but of course you're quite right, that makes sense as a thing you should be able to do. So, you can do it." [and, probably something like: "... and here is an impromptu ruling / ad-hoc mechanics / extrapolation from existinct rules / off-the-cuff common-sense-based decision on what the effects are / etc."]
Basically you're confusing "simulationist game" and "restrictive ruleset". The game does not model reality, and is not meant to. but it does provide a strong list of options and rules for nearly everything. That's what this system THRIVES on, and the reason rulebooks are still made.
Sean K. Reynolds begs to differ:
The mundane aspects of the game have to try model mundane reality
From http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2kae8&page=2?Can-you-Take-20-to-hide-an-obj ect#73. The entire thread is worth a read. The part where SKR makes it clear that the Pathfinder rules are designed to simulate reality, and NOT designed to simulate things like the Batman movie, is instructive, for instance:
Except that the skills system and many other aspects of D&D are designed to create a reasonable yet speedy approximation of reality. So "what can Batman do?" is irrelevant to a discussion of, "what should a D&D character be able to do?" The real question is, "what can a real person do?"
I think it's clear that Pathfinder is explicitly and intentionally simulationist.
Permissive ruleset: "I CAN grapple the creature because the rules don't say I CAN'T"
Restrictive ruleset: "I CAN'T grapple the creature because the rules don't say I CAN"
First, I'd like to point out that while the rules certainly don't specifically say you can grapple a gaseous creature, they do say you can grapple creatures in general, and make no explicit exception for gaseous ones. Whether the ruleset is restrictive or permissive, it seems like you should be able to grapple gaseous creatures... assuming, of course, that your GM is a robot, applies the rules mechanically, and either lacks all common sense or deliberately abjures simulationism. (And what a horror such a game would be.)
So no, that's definitely not what I think a permissive ruleset is. (See above for my definition.) The reason you can't grapple a gaseous creature isn't that the rules do, or do not, say that you can or can't. The reason you can't grapple a gaseous creature is because the rules aren't all there is! The rules say what needs to be said, and assume that obvious things are obvious, and that GMs are humans with at least some common sense, and that the game's reality is like our reality except where noted otherwise.
People argue that since the backpack does not have a listed dimension, then it is effectively infinite. You can fit anything of any weight within the backpack. In essence "the rules don't say I CAN'T fit anything and everything inside it, therefore I can". The same logic used to defend stuff like "Being dead doesn't technically prevent me from taking actions, therefore I can".
That is how a permissive (again, your definition of it) works. "I am not expressly limited from doing so, therefore I can".
Where Pathfinder has a ruleset, and an assumption that "common sense" and basic reality is in play. Dead people are dead, they can't do anything. Therefore in lack of any rule saying you CAN act while dead, you cannot. That is a restrictive ruleset.
I think it's critical to distinguish two scenarios.
The rules don't say you can act while dead. (Neither do they say that you can't.)
The rules also don't say that you can buy apples. (Nor do they say that you can't.)
These two situations are clearly different. Does it make any sense to say "in a restrictive ruleset, you can't do either of those things; in a permissive ruleset, you can do both of those things"? It does not.
In what I would call a "permissive ruleset", you can't act while dead (because the game models reality and assumes common sense), but you can buy apples (because the game models reality and assumes common sense). In a permissive ruleset, if there's no rule that says you can or can't do something, then the question devolves to (your GM's view of) common sense and reality. The lack of a rule enabling you to do a thing, in such a ruleset, doesn't mean much; it just means the GM has to make a judgment call. Well, and what's so unusual about that? The GM has to make judgment calls all the time — even when applying the actual rules!
Compare/contrast Pathfinder and a slightly more permissive game, Mutants and Masterminds.
M&M characters have Hero points that allow them to affect the plot. You can spend a Hero point and change something drastic about the scenario. For example, use a Hero point to put a fire hydrant in the area you are fighting the electric woman, and then use a Power Stunt to short circuit her powers. The GM can veto this, but by default anything not vetoed can happen. This is still a restrictive ruleset overall, but is MORE permissive than Pathfinder. A fully free-form RP takes this to its logical extreme, where anyone can do anything, add any character or item to a scene, and perform any feat they imagine so long as the Gm does not explicitly say "No, you can't do that".
Contrast Pathfinder where the players can only work within the options given. If the Gm describes no fire hydrant, there is no way they can put one there. They can ask the GM if it is there, and the GM can say yes or no, but have no way to change the scene themselves short of a rules option to create one (like knowing the spell "Summon Fire Hydrant").
Ah, now this is a different issue entirely. This has little to do with permissiveness vs. restrictiveness. The key distinction here is the presence or absence of narrativist game mechanics! (Which is, essentially, what defines the distinction, or perhaps the spectrum, of roleplaying games vs. storytelling games.)
M&M has narrativist mechanics. Pathfinder does not (at least, by default; hero points in PF are a very weak form of narrativist mechanic).
(This is now a tangent and somewhat distant from the main point, but as an aside: I strongly dislike narrativist mechanics. My preference for permissive rulesets has absolutely nothing to do with the narrativism vs. simulationism issue, in which I am firmly on the side of simulationism.)
[(This is now a tangent and somewhat distant from the main point, but as an aside: I strongly dislike narrativist mechanics. My preference for permissive rulesets has absolutely nothing to do with the narrativism vs. simulationism issue, in which I am firmly on the side of simulationism.)
NOW a tangent??????!!??? Just now? ;-)
I think we've reached the point where communication has completely broken down, since it seems like we're all using the same terms but have different definitions for them. Continue in another thread if you like, and sorry for being a dick earlier. TBH I thought you were just trolling earlier in a similar way I've seen others do before.