If we think about "you can try anything" as a rule, then we can consider other designs in relation to that concept. Do they come before or after it?
Example: The GM describes a button-covered console in an alien spaceship. Does the player ask for a description of the buttons and puzzle out which one to push to activate the life support system, or do they make an Alien Tech check to see if they get it right?
The first case places Rule One first. The player navigates the fictional reality to act. The second one places it after. The player uses a different rule - the skill system - to determine how their character interacts with the fictional reality.
I think that's probably the most basic function of rules in TTRPGs. Do they come before or after the try anything concept?
I think that's right. Whether the session defaults to the mechanics or to Rule One tells you a lot about the kind of game you're playing, and has a major impact on the experience of play.
A player who thinks like a GM can use shared genre tropes to pick up the console of buttons idea and throw in, "I'm imagining buttons with labels, and probably knobs, sliders, and switches, right? Probably organized in groups or with screens to give some info?"
And the GM could take that as a favor, the player is buying in and fleshing out the situation with critical thinking, clearly about to try something.
The GM could add a salient reply like, "There are flashing red lights, pulsing green lights, and a flat glassy surface with no light on behind it on there too."
Other players could, of course, jump in with critical thinking and make callbacks to other tech, or items they collected but aren't sure how to use yet, and attempt to apply them to this situation.
Phenomenologists (philosophers who investigate the nature of subjective, conscious experience) talk about the “horizon of understanding” which are the implicit structures, assumptions, and background stuff that make experience and thought possible, but which we do not notice or actively consider.
Heidegger holds that we live in a world that is full of interpretations we make without reflection or awareness, before we ever make a conscious interpretation of the world.
See also: Foucault's epistemes and "unthought-of" and Kuhn's paradigms.
Also: Hell yeah, glad to follow you on Substack too, brother.
I never thought about it like that but yea when I tell people how RPGs are played, I usually say "It's a book where one person is the narrator, everyone else are the main characters, and as long as you can dream it, you can usually do it...if the dice let you that is."
If we think about "you can try anything" as a rule, then we can consider other designs in relation to that concept. Do they come before or after it?
Example: The GM describes a button-covered console in an alien spaceship. Does the player ask for a description of the buttons and puzzle out which one to push to activate the life support system, or do they make an Alien Tech check to see if they get it right?
The first case places Rule One first. The player navigates the fictional reality to act. The second one places it after. The player uses a different rule - the skill system - to determine how their character interacts with the fictional reality.
I think that's probably the most basic function of rules in TTRPGs. Do they come before or after the try anything concept?
I think that's right. Whether the session defaults to the mechanics or to Rule One tells you a lot about the kind of game you're playing, and has a major impact on the experience of play.
A player who thinks like a GM can use shared genre tropes to pick up the console of buttons idea and throw in, "I'm imagining buttons with labels, and probably knobs, sliders, and switches, right? Probably organized in groups or with screens to give some info?"
And the GM could take that as a favor, the player is buying in and fleshing out the situation with critical thinking, clearly about to try something.
The GM could add a salient reply like, "There are flashing red lights, pulsing green lights, and a flat glassy surface with no light on behind it on there too."
Other players could, of course, jump in with critical thinking and make callbacks to other tech, or items they collected but aren't sure how to use yet, and attempt to apply them to this situation.
Is that FKR, and also OSR? Thats how I play.
Phenomenologists (philosophers who investigate the nature of subjective, conscious experience) talk about the “horizon of understanding” which are the implicit structures, assumptions, and background stuff that make experience and thought possible, but which we do not notice or actively consider.
Heidegger holds that we live in a world that is full of interpretations we make without reflection or awareness, before we ever make a conscious interpretation of the world.
See also: Foucault's epistemes and "unthought-of" and Kuhn's paradigms.
Also: Hell yeah, glad to follow you on Substack too, brother.
Wasn't expecting to see Heidegger & Foucault drops here this morning, but I'm here for it
I was thinking of David Foster Wallace's This Is Water essay. https://fs.blog/david-foster-wallace-this-is-water/
My personal rule one holds the same contents but it is declined into a more 'philosophical' way: the game is not the rules, the game is you!
I never thought about it like that but yea when I tell people how RPGs are played, I usually say "It's a book where one person is the narrator, everyone else are the main characters, and as long as you can dream it, you can usually do it...if the dice let you that is."
If it is not a rule but a principle, why are we talking about it like it is a rule and not like a principle?
I'm not following you. My position is that Rule One is a rule.