On this post I talked about advice on RPGnet regarding a game of Dogs in the Vineyard. The conclusion seemed to be that he highlighted problems were somewhat more on the social contract rather than mechanical level. But this got me thinking about some occasionally conflicting answers I have regarding this question: where do the rules belong?
One of Mike Holmes’s favorite rants at the Forge is basically calling into question: why do you have a combat system? And this really is the start of a lot of good revision of what a good game system is made of. When I first thought about RPGs, I took for granted the reasons to have a full-fleshed combat system, with more detail than the rest. But then I recognized: in many games, this was not the focus, and I could indeed do without the detail there. And then going further: the rules could certainly go the other way, focusing on that which matters.
Where do the rules belong?
From the aforementioned RPGnet thread:
Here’s my opinion—Dogs, like some other narrativist games, foregrounds social contract as a problem-solving mechanism.
In rules-lighter games, a lot of leeway is given to the GM (or the group at large) to make up for clashes within the game, over problems like “is toast a valid weapon type”. Dogs is not “rules-light” in my estimation, with some rules density devoted to the important parts of the game, but nonetheless puts a lot of weight towards this group (or GM-centered) ad hoc negotiation of the rules, and some of this is in the same spots – both Risus and Dogs in the Vineyard will need to group/GM discussion of whether “toast” is a valid reaction to gunplay.
Let me say something that is patently-untrue-yet-possibly-helpful: All games have exactly 42 rules. However, these rules may or may not be written down, and may or may not be implicit rather than explicit. So where are your rules now, and where do they need to go?
Happy New Years, folks!
December 31st, 2005 at 5:53 pm
But really, aren’t all the rules about how we figure out what happens in play?
So, yeah, focus dependent on goal, though I’d say a lot of games put rules where you really don’t need them (”Roll for height, weight, eye color, etc.”)
January 1st, 2006 at 10:55 am
Right, but games with rules in the wrong places are an easy case. I’m more comparing games with rules in the right places, producing functional play - but consider:
* a good game of Sorceror, played with Sorceror rules
* a good game of Sorceror, played with InSpectres rules (oops!)
* a good game of Sorceror, played with the Window or Active Exploits
Given functional games above, (1) the written rules support the play, or (2) the written rules are probably ignored in order to support play, and (2 and 3) the rules that support play are implicit / social / nonwritten.
But rules are rules, so long as they work.