Hello, my name is Rick, and I'm pretty much a rule baron. (Funny how the first thing people do in an "Anonymous" group is introduce themselves...) (Rule barons are more commonly known by another name, but by this I mean those people who believe in obeying the rules to the exclusion of customized content in an RPG.) But I'm okay with that, and I'd like to tell you why.
The first reason is because I actually like the rules of Vampire: The Masquerade and the Old World of Darkness. Even the rules for the New World of Darkness are extremely helpful in some ways, especially when you're doing crossover content. In either system, the basic rules are simple: roll one kind of die and score successes based on that single roll. It's not like rolling a d20 for an attack, then a d12 for damage, then a d6 five times in a row to see if you successfully negated damage. The Storytelling system that uses the d10 in the Worlds of Darkness is quick, easy, and unobtrusive, which gives us all more time to do what we should be doing in an RPG, which is to RP. The system is nothing but basic addition and subtraction, which is an extremely appealing idea for a person for whom "math" is something that happens to somebody else.
The second reason is because I like to roleplay. However, if you're purely roleplaying, you don't actually need any sort of rule system or dice system to have a fun time. Provided, of course, that all the players are being mature and reasonable about the process - which is not always the case. That's why so many roleplaying games have rulebooks, instead of just setting descriptions and a sort of lazy "Go off and have fun, kids!" Using a system of rules to back roleplaying experiences is what allows a fair and reasonably just roleplaying experience to take place. In my last blog, I listed some of the dangers than can occur if there's no sort of enforced system of rules in place that players can agree on, and all it takes is one person deciding that the rules do not apply to them to bring the whole session crashing down.
The most important part of the last sentence is my next reason, and that is that rules give all the players something to agree on, even when their characters are all at one another's throats with fangs bared and waving around flamethrowers. A rulesystem is what the players and characters all have in common, and it is this common ground that allows people to come together and engage in a fun experience. If you can do this without a hard rulesystem, more power to you, but as almost every rulebook out there I've read says, the rules are there to mediate conflict. (And I haven't yet met the RPG that doesn't include some sort of conflict inherent in its premise.) Players don't always agree, and characters disagree constantly, and so the rules are what allow us to come together to resolve these differences, even if it's something as simple as "Heads, the priceless artifact lands closer to the Heroic Warrior, tails the priceless artifact lands near the Devious Villain". Especially when it comes to random chance in the universe of the game, there's nothing better than a little mediation.
This brings us to the importance of the Storyteller or other game moderator using the rules appropriately. The Storyteller straddles the fine line of being a full-on rule baron like me and giving the characters a fun and versatile gaming experience. (As a rule baron, I like to think that adhering to the rules also means players can have a fun and versatile gaming experience, but maybe that's just me.) It's sorta-kinda-vaguely like the discrepancy between security and liberty - it's really, really hard to have high levels of both. Maybe it says something about me that I prefer security over liberty (*hums the theme of the Galactic Empire under his breath*), but generally I prefer to err on the side of making sure players get along whether they want to or not. I think following the canon rules is probably the best way to accomplish this.
The difference between the canon rules and "house" or "custom" rules is another little peeve of mine. In spite of calling myself a rule baron, I truly believe that players should be able to customize the rules to suit their vision of the World of Darkness. Some of the house rules I have instituted in the past really just make more sense to me. My favorite example of this is giving Fortitude automatic successes like Potence - it makes no sense to me that a character can be all but immune to bullets one turn (a good Fortitude soak roll), but get chunks torn out of him the next turn (a bad Fortitude soak roll). (They changed this around a little in V20, so now Potence and Fortitude are more-equal than they were in terms of giving successes.) The difference between the rule baron approach and a more laissez-faire attitude, then, is that in the rule baron approach if you institute house rules, you have to stick by those rules. That means everybody gets automatic successes with Fortitude, not just the player characters, or not just one player character. If one player character is getting an advantage not offered to all the other player characters, to my mind this is bordering on god-moding. It is unfair and disrespectful for one player character and the Storyteller to conspire to give one character an advantage not extended to the others.
Now, the good news is that I've never been in a game where this has happened. The good news is that all players I've ever played with have followed the rules, or looked to the Storyteller for arbitration when there was conflict in spite of the rules. That's great, that's okay. That's why we have roleplaying groups, for mutual support and entertainment. But that's also why we always have a sort of "gamer overlord", or "overgamer" if you will, present to fill in the gaps that might by left by the rules. At their most basic function, a Storyteller is nothing but a vehicle for the rules. I have read recently that the Game Master should know the rules at least as well as the most knowledgeable of the players, and I think this should be true. At their most advanced, the Storyteller exercises wisdom and restraint independently of the rules, because they know enough about the rules to make changes to them. There's a reason why you elected that person as Storyteller, Game Master, or Dungeon Master, right? The theory is that they are the most fair-minded and knowledgeable player, and they can use their experience and god-like perspective of the game, its players, and its plot to keep the game going without much conflict among the players. If it turns out players aren't having fun or finding an agreeable way to resolve conflict, it might not be the rules you need to change, but the Storyteller.
With that in mind, if you do ever get involved in a game run by me, I'm going to ask your patience in advance. I'm afraid of giving my players a bad roleplaying experience, and perhaps I'm not as confident in my own abilities as a growing Storyteller to make the kinds of calls that other, more house-rules-friendly Storytellers make. As far as games go that rely heavily upon an individual player's imagination and uniqueness to pull off, there's still something to be said for the spirit of cooperation. The rules are, to me, the handiest and most objective route to attaining this cooperation. Characters can rip out one another's throats all they please, so long as they do it in a way all the players agree upon.
4 Comments
You need to
register to comment.
-
2 Merits
Nigama
86 days ago
Yeah.. I feel that "Baron" is too positive of a word. I kindof would like to be a Baron. But I don't wanna be a scum sucking Lawyer or an evil Nazi. I'm actually not sure why people get offended by the word Nazi. I mean, there's a few words I won't say out of respect, but that's because they are insults to actual people that are not bad people. I would never use the N word to refer to an African American, I would never use the word Gay to insult something "That's gay!" because there's real good people that that can hurt. But Nazi's? Screw'm, I hate Nazi's, I could insult Nazi's all day. --------- Another thing, more on topic, is that I've played in some VERY memorable games where we had no character sheets or dice or rule mechanics at all and they were some of the most fun events I've ever played in. Rules are not needed. What you need is a good ST who can tell a good story while keeping the players in check. I can think of at least three games that fit that bill (and one of them had five sequels and a prequel). If there are rule nazi's in a game I'm running, I change the rules from what the book says. The important part is to keep the rules consistent when dealing with each player.
Reply
-
1 Merits
Rick Gentle
86 days ago
I've done a few forum RPGs in my time, where we didn't bother with rolling dice or according to a specific system. Most of those, for me, didn't end up very well, but that's because people didn't post regularly (a common danger, if you've done forum RPGs before) rather than because we weren't using rules. It's certainly possible to get by without rules, but as I've said several times in the past, if you're not using the rules of the game, you're not playing that game. Games are, to a certain extent, defined by their rules. This is how you can have novels (storytelling) and RPGs (storytelling that use rules).
Reply
-
0 Merits
Nigama
87 days ago
Looks like somebody hit your blog with the Politically Correct Bat. Nazi is not "Voldemort." There's no scary evil wizard guy who's gonna hear us from afar and come drag us out of our beds in the middle of the night. We beat the Nazis like a red headed step child. These were people who followed "the rules" and not their consciences. I have no problem talking about the Soup Nazi on Seinfeld and how mean he is with his rules and not giving people soup. And yes, in America, when talking about this very real issue/problem in tabletop gaming, that is one of the two terms I'm most familiar with hearing: Rule Nazi and Rule Lawyer. I'm tired of tip toeing around with that word and I'm now officially done avoiding it. I'm not glorifying them, I'm *mocking* and debasing them and their ideology every time I use it. Call the rule nazis by name. --Nigama
Reply