Does this make sense?


Gamer Life General Discussion


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This is a bit of the intro to my system intended to describe how my intent for the way this system is intended to be played is different from other systems such as 5e and pf2, and thus why it's design sticks to simulationism.

Quote:

There seems to be two ways to play an RPG, "Playing the Rules" and "Playing the Story." In a game of "Playing the Rules," players make decisions based on the game rules, treating the rules as "how to play." They look at stats and numbers and make a decision in the same fashion they would choose a move in chess, then after they make their choice, they then create some narrative reasoning for why their character made that choice and "act" it out. To such players there is an unacknowledged separation between the game played with rules, I.E. the encounters, and the story itself. This includes some players who prefer to focus on the story, for these players, game rule systems that are simplified and vague are preferred because they feel more free narratively as they don't want to have a bunch of rules to follow and find that they feel the need to follow the rules as closely as one would in chess simply because the rules exist.

On the other side, those who "Play the Story" act according to their character, from their character's point of view considering the milieu from a totally immersed perspective. These players might search for the best numbers to represent what their character does, but even in combat encounters, they still make choices according to their character even if they know it isn't the best choice available according to the metagame information. These players follow the creed of a certain memorable pirate, "They are more guidelines than actual rules." These players don't need mechanical balance so long as results make sense within the milieu of the story world because the mechanics are tools and do not represent in any way "how to play."

There is a trend in recent RPGs to focus on the "Playing the Rules" perspective and thus design the rules accordingly and either A) design systems with strong mechanical balance intended to be played with a strong focus on mechanical play, or B) favor the narrative focus and design light or even ultralight rules sets that dictate non-narrative things, such as choosing who gets narrative control for a scene rather than mechanics directly about what happens in game.

This system however is designed with the idea of "Playing the Story" with more significant mechanics favoring naturalistic and casual simulationist design. The mechanics are not intended to be rules that you play and follow like a game of chess with the story attached, rather the mechanics are supposed to tools and a representation of the story milieu, a window through which greater understanding of the story environment can be gained with less effort and less distraction from the narrative (once the mechanics are learned of course), as well as adding tension, uncertainty, and synchronizing expectations among the players so everyone has a good idea of what is possible for normal characters vs demigods/etc. The mechanics here should also provide support for the gm, reducing the need to research things, like how far a normal human can jump, to provide consistency (the mechanics will stay, so if the gm has to make a call about maximum jumping distance, then they can reference or remember it or else it would be different every time), and make things easier to build into the story world. This also avoids weird things such as making a 5' gap "difficult" to jump when it makes no sense narratively.

Does it make sense? Does it give a good idea impression of a way of playing in which the rules are not intended to be strictly adhered to and yet serve a useful purpose other than telling people what they can do next?


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I think it does make sense. I also applaud this effort because you have refrained from making judgements about play styles which is something you have done frequently in the past.

There are some things I think could strengthen this description of your desired system. The concept of skill play vs story now can help describe the desire for characters to experience the world in a less chess board fashion. Sometimes referred to as combat as war (OSR) vs combat as sport (modern). Also, rulings over rules is a common concept that folks understand means the rules are there to facilitate the game, but ultimately the GM is empowered to arbitrate situations when its called for.

These concepts might have more universal understanding and appeal than, "story milieu", "playing the game vs rules".

-Cheers

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