How Visible To players Should The Rules Be?

[Maxperson]

Stories invariably emerge from play, but that doesn't mean it is necessary for play to be about telling a story. Lots of people do that, sure, but lots of people also "play to find out" (even with D&D) and have no interest in plot.

Absolutely. I wasn't assigning any sort of priority. I was just pointing out that story happens.

 

[Lanefan]

While I agree you can have red herrings, I think often in RPGs they tend to fall flat, unless they can discover it is an actual deliberate misdirect by the villain. If it just is a misleading clue that leads to a dead end, players can feel like they have just wasted time.

Which in a way is good, in that that's also exactly how their characters are probably feeling: "Crap, we've been looking for this guy for weeks as a suspect in the murder only to find that he was killed, probably on the same night! Guess it's back to square one..."

 

[Micah Sweet]

Eh, clocks are absolutely something that can have strong benefit for a sandbox; in the end, its just a way of regularizing the fact that things will continue to go on if the PCs don't interact with it, some of them leading to things they will wish they'd done something about or can't entirely avoid interacting with.

I suppose I'd just rather deal with casually discussed concepts than jargon.

 

[overgeeked]

Which in a way is good, in that that's also exactly how their characters are probably feeling: "Crap, we've been looking for this guy for weeks as a suspect in the murder only to find that he was killed, probably on the same night! Guess it's back to square one..."

It's a great way to get players to stop showing up to games.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Sure. But sometimes that’s exactly what you need. This pillar is crumbling and it will collapse if hit three times, otherwise it will collapse in 300 years. The negotiations are a success or failure after three checks, or the other party loses patience and leaves after three hours.

Sure. But there are three important questions behind that: 1) are the results different enough to really matter, and; 2) what is gained or lost using a generic system vs bespoke subsystems, and; 3) how much word/page count and brain space are you willing to sacrifice for those bespoke subsystems.

To me, the difference almost never actually matters. For example, towards the end of my time running 5E I stopped using hit points for monsters and used hits. A simple clock mechanic that took a paragraph to detail, but replaced dozens of pages of bespoke rules. For a time I tracked HP also, to see how close my clock system was to the official rules. About 80% of the time my clock system was spot on. Though, on a few occasions there was variance in both directions, about +/-20%, well within the range of rolled HP. So, while clocks did not exactly reproduce the bespoke subsystem, they did replicate it well enough. And it was dramatically easier to use and keep tract of.

This also had the benefit of giving me a system for knowing how difficult the monster would be as a non-combat challenge. It told me how many checks the PCs would need to overcome the monster. I gave the players a peak behind the curtain and they immediately started trying other things than just attacking. Want to bribe the monster to leave, that many checks or the equivalent. Want to persuade the monster to fight beside you, that many checks or the equivalent. Switching to clocks improved my game and opened up all kinds of non-combat possibilities.

I’m a fan of lighter systems and frameworks. So I prefer saving dozens or hundreds of pages on bespoke subsystems when a single generic one will do just as well.

Using clocks, I replaced the damage subsystem, the social subsystem, and added in negotiations, bribes, and anything else that could be covered by clocks. And all in a paragraph or so. I’d say that’s a huge win for clocks.

All of that sounds unbearably mechanical to me, like you are reducing the game to, "check these boxes for success however you can"!

 

[Corinnguard]

Yes, but not for the reason you think. The players are their own red herrings, as you point out later. You don't need to add any.

As someone who's run investigative games for decades, I can honestly tell you red herrings are the last thing you want to include in an RPG.

When the DM describes a place or a person to the players, how are the players viewing the information? Subjectively or objectively? More often that not, they are doing it subjectively. This point of view has it's share of prejudicial biases and opinions that can mislead a person into overlooking an important clue and set them down another path than the one they intended.

 

[Micah Sweet]

While I can see the objection to a degree, the advantage to a check based clock is that its often not clear exactly how long before something is complete, and basing it on PC rolls can seem as good a way as any other random roll. If you're really hardcore sim that doesn't work, but even most people who are mixed-bags likely do things like that with some regularity.

I'm as hardcore sim as my players let me be.

 

[Lanefan]

It's a great way to get players to stop showing up to games.

Only if they're the sort of players who can't handle setbacks and frustration, and I'm quite happy to not have those show up in the first place.

 

[Grendel_Khan]

I suppose I'd just rather deal with casually discussed concepts than jargon.

What jargon? Clocks? Sandbox? How basic and widely discussed does something have to be to avoid being labeled as dreaded jargon?

 

[Corinnguard]

What jargon? Clocks? Sandbox? How basic and widely discussed does something have to be to avoid being labeled as dreaded jargon?

When everyone acknowledges a topic has gone seriously meta? There has a been a lot of philosophical waxing and waning on this thread about the OP's topic.