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Post by huillaume on Nov 23, 2021 3:07:49 GMT
A question (partly inspired by me reading old RPG arguments from the late 70s). How do people feel about rules/secrets not available to players? The times I most enjoyed RPGs were when I started to, when everything was new and I had little idea about rules, and none about the secrets the world was hiding. So I wouldn't oppose (as long as rules are known enough as to know how to play, of course) OTOH I once refreed a Traveller adventure where the players did not know where they were entering, and they did not enjoy it (aside from ending quite badly for them, as they had hero mentality and tried to sort it instead of calling the authorities). They (being MERP players) accused me to "make them playing in Middle Earth without knowing who Aragorn or gandalf are". They didn't realize the fact few people in Middle Earth (players aside) know who they are...
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Post by Jacques Bougiedure on Nov 23, 2021 14:35:58 GMT
I am against the idea of rules being secret.
1. Players (as opposed to characters) need an understanding of how the game works. 2. Secret rules can lead to a break down of trust between players and the GM. A die roll and a rule interpreting the result is clear. A GM vaguely mentioning a secret rule can create doubt that the player is being treated fairly especially in a case of a run of bad luck. 3. It increases the workload on the GM. 4. Secret rules require the GM to interpret results without assistance from rules lawyers helpful players,
IMO rules should be available for players.
Garrett
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Post by Jacques Bougiedure on Nov 23, 2021 14:52:40 GMT
I think that it is important to differentiate between "rules" and "setting". Rules are the mechanics of how things work that players know where as setting is the backdrop against which the characters are adventuring. Keeping the setting secret and the characters (and through them the players) learning about the world by interacting with it is the essential of roleplaying.
Rule: Character skill (Guns Skill) and primary attribute (Dexterity) determine the base chance to hit
Setting: Guns are offensive to the Great God Googlimoogli and It will smote any character using a gun
What I read in Huillaume OTOH statement is that the setting was a secret, which is fine.
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Post by huillaume on Nov 23, 2021 16:17:36 GMT
I am against the idea of rules being secret. 1. Players (as opposed to characters) need an understanding of how the game works. 2. Secret rules can lead to a break down of trust between players and the GM. A die roll and a rule interpreting the result is clear. A GM vaguely mentioning a secret rule can create doubt that the player is being treated fairly especially in a case of a run of bad luck. 3. It increases the workload on the GM. 4. Secret rules require the GM to interpret results without assistance from rules lawyers helpful players, IMO rules should be available for players. Garrett I understand your POV too, and that's why I specified (as long as rules are known enough as to know how to play, of course) I guess this answers your point 1, though some details about their specific mechanics may be kept hidden, so that number-crunching matmathics given players cannot calculate hteir exact probablities and some mystery is kept. Point 2: the trust with GM is a very important part of any RPG, of course, but (I guess I told about this earlier at some point) the doubt about "I really have this rotten luck or there's a black hand behind all this" is a good thing to keep. To give an example, open rolls in RG! sure may increase the trust on the GM, but if you know you'll only fail on a roll of 1, and you see a 3 is rolled, and yet you failed, you are sure someone is using influences against you, so not allowing anyone to secretly conspire against you... Point 3: this is the only point I have notheing against. Point 4: too open rules may make those same rules lawyers helpful players to become a PITA. I've had some in games I refereed... Alaso, too open rules may constrict the GM sometimes. I hated when Pendragon gave clear magic rules, as it was the privilege of the GM when to make magic appear and how it did, with no need of having to explain anything. IMHO again, it kept the Arthurian view on it... Of course, balance is always a dificult thing to keep... To give some examples: D&D: having all rolls and tables open can leave to some oddities, as a thief knowing his listening roll was successful, and so that there's nothing to be heard, while keeping them secret keeps him in doubr about if there's nothing to be heard or he simply didn't hear it. Same for secret doors/traps searched, etc... Any medieval fantasy game (though this may be seen as a setting matter as much as a rules matter): should a spell caster know the full spells possiblit ies (spell lists) or only those he know, and probably some more he knows to exist, though he's not able to use? The second possibility may lead to interesting surprises and to more interest to learn more about magic (somethink, IMHO, advisable to be)
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Post by Ymbert Montgomery on Nov 23, 2021 17:47:10 GMT
I think that it is important to differentiate between "rules" and "setting". Rules are the mechanics of how things work that players know where as setting is the backdrop against which the characters are adventuring. Keeping the setting secret and the characters (and through them the players) learning about the world by interacting with it is the essential of roleplaying. Rule: Character skill (Guns Skill) and primary attribute (Dexterity) determine the base chance to hit Setting: Guns are offensive to the Great God Googlimoogli and It will smote any character using a gun What I read in Huillaume OTOH statement is that the setting was a secret, which is fine. That's a good distinction and here I'm looking more at what you're calling setting I think. Specifically, I'm looking at the possibilities of the weird underground city.
And the kind of secrets I'm looking at are things like secret societies/conspiracies where they only exist as rumours unless a character joins them.
On top of that, potentially some high end play/end state (I'm increasingly thinking an actual end state would be good) rules that aren't common knowledge.
So it's things like that rather than task resolution etc.
I'm also wanting to try and make it a "closed system" like EG! What I mean by that is that ideally any ref interpretation should be purely optional (if you want to play with non orthodox actions) and that the mechanics can run a game from start to finish without that if people prefer.
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Post by jacques on Nov 23, 2021 23:18:59 GMT
Players absolutely need to understand a game’s mechanics. If they do not then they will be very frustrated when they ultimately learn them.
What needs to be mysterious are the existence of unmet forces; motivations of NPCs and the capabilities of potential allies/foes.
Please allow me to shift gears to an earlier thread topic. I have long thought that an En Garde type game set in Republican Rome would be a great one to play. For inspiration I would recommend Coleen McCullogh’s First Man in Rome series of novels.
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Post by Madame Heloise D'Armagnac on Apr 9, 2022 17:07:27 GMT
To avoid the High School age side of High School Movie have you considered something like a Space Fleet Academy? While no easy to find now, there was a EG! like module for Traveller related to the Naval Accademy (I'l look for the exact reference) On it, the Characters were cadets in this academy (there was the Navy and Marine divisoins of it) and they tried to reach status among peers, academic points, etc... As a curiosity, it was set on a world where there was a code duello (though cadets were officially forbiden to duel), so duels could also happen, and the Navy and Marine cadets were not in as good terms as they should (sounds familiar?) It was for the Military Academy and appeared in Challenge Magazine Issue #26. It contained some interesting ways to advance the whole class through the equivalent of SP progression with only actions by the player characters. It also included a "bail out" option to the main campaign game if the processing dragged.
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Post by huillaume on Apr 9, 2022 18:54:49 GMT
Correct, this it was. I'm glad to see another Traveller fan here...
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Post by Madame Heloise D'Armagnac on Apr 12, 2022 22:37:48 GMT
The other near EG product from GDW was the Traveller module Prison Planet which had an in prison pecking order system that was one step further away than the Military Academy arcticle. But a very good old school resource for anyone thinking of setting hopping.
For my own geekological reasons, I have been thinking of a Byzantine imperial court as a setting. Very close to EG as it turns out. Perhaps one day...
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