At the most basic level, RPGs are like playing make believe as a little kid, but with rules such that conflicts can be resolved without cries of “I hit you,” “no, you didn’t,” “did so,” and “my dad can beat up your dad!” This is pretty much agreed upon by most roleplayers.<\/p>\n
What I did not realize was that the place of the rules is something that varies from player to player. I’ve always been of the opinion that the characters I play are characters that can be transported from one story to another and are playable in any system. Granted some characters are more effective in certain settings. But by and large, I play a personality and choose to represent him in whatever system is available. This means that I choose whatever actions I want, and then apply the rules at hand to resolve those actions.<\/p>\n
What’s been coming up more and more in some forums I read is the idea that the rules exist as an exhaustive list of what actions you can perform with your character. Some players even go so far as to say that their characters are aware of the list of available actions and the mechanics behind them. If a game system doesn’t include rules for pinning a grappled opponent, then you can’t pin (at least until a new splatbook comes out explaining the new pinning rules).<\/p>\n
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For once I’m not interested in looking at this one from both sides. Yeah, they’re both valid. Okay. Fine. Whatever. Any tabletop game I run, and hopefully any tabletop game I play in, will function such that I determine my actions and then we find rules to govern them. I just wanted to throw this out there so people know where I’m coming from when reading my opinions.<\/p>\n
But I also wanted people to be aware that the other side exists too. In the past I’ve gotten very frustrated with players who did act based on what was available in the book. I almost shut down one of my games over it. It wasn’t the player’s fault – she’d probably played that way under a different type of GM prior to my game. Just another case where you have to be aware of everyone’s playstyle because even though D&D is the name of the game, we don’t always play the same game.<\/p>\n