Serket

some context

"Rules Elide" and Its Consequences was an article written by Jared Sinclair. The blog post has been taken down sometime between March 27th and today, but you can still read it through wayback machine.

the reason for this post

Against my better judgement I was looking at twitter and saw a take along the lines of:

Rules Elide means that "Improv is the ideal state of a ttrpg and dice are rolled so we don't have to improv realistic combat", which is counter to the idea of games

I've seen a lot of similar hate for Rules Elide ever since it was brought up in conjunction with an interview where Brennan Lee Mulligan paraphrased it.

brennan was talking about his improv comedy show

Very specifically:

Combat is the part I’m the least interested in simulating through improvisational storytelling.

This entire discussion exists within the context of an actual play podcast focused on improv comedy.

rules elide doesn't argue what the ideal state of a game should be

The only thing Rules Elide explains is an opinionated stance on the function of rules. The fundamental claim is this:

To say that rules elide is to say that they do nothing else. That they cannot do anything else. Rules do not themselves create or conjure or elicit or inspire or invoke or incite—they only negate.

From the viewpoint of Rules Elide, the fictional playspace is an infinite block of marble, and rules define the negative space necessary to create a sculpture. Many people misinterpret this view to mean that the perfect sculpture is the one with the least cuts and chisels applied.

The takeaway here, if there is one, is this: We use rules to remove some of the trees, so we might better see the forest. We argue through negation.

it's a tool

For Jared, Rules Elide was a shorthand to talk about the role of a game designer.
For me, Rules Elide is a lens to look at the mechanics & rules that I'm writing and check to see what gameplay I'm abbreviating and which parts I'm allowing full room to breathe.

If I were to cling to a very narrow vision of Rules Elide, I would argue that the negations carved by rules have the power to create, conjure, elicit, inspire, invoke, and incite. However, I don't need a single game design theory to explain everything about this art form. It is enough for me that Rules Elide gives me another way to look at games.

Meant to post this on Sunday but forgot. This is the result of my first week testing the Dungeon23 format. When the year begins in earnest I'll probably revisit a lot of this flavor / lore, but for now I'm just taking the format and concept for a test drive. Note: this is my setting for my WIP game, Full Metal Bones.

The old earth has been turned into a machine world and abandoned. Humanity has forgotten the origins of their Daemon partners -- 15-20 meter tall "mecha" used in everything from exploration to warfare. Somewhere buried in this megadungeon is the genesis of Daemon life.

Brief retrospective:

• I realized halfway through the week that I wanted to include a bit of random table to every room. This concept is based on the "rarity die" from @jared-sinclair.
• Determining what sorts of enemies to throw at mechs was more difficult than anticipated and I may be revisiting some of my lore regarding wild AI.
• I was initially too conservative with my space.

I'm relatively new to the world of ttrpg design and often don't have the context of being in the community during certain events. A while back I discovered The Forge because I wanted to understand the etymology behind Kieron Gillen's comic Fantasy Heartbreaker.

As a game designer, I was immediately interested in the rpg theory in the articles. Ever since I discovered Nick Yee's Daedalus Project in high school, I've sought out academic perspectives on games. The Forge seemed to have answers I was looking for: a way to categorize different ttrpgs and think about player goals.

...at least, on paper.

In practice, no categorization ever really survives contact with human players. Games do not neatly fit into the GNS (gamist, narrativist, simulationist) categories, and that doesn't make them incoherent either. I still liked the theory though, because it helps me think about the elements I put into games and the types of mechanics I support.

What I didn't realize is that this was a surface-level understanding of The Forge and how it had impacted the ttrpg community at large. I discovered this series of blog posts today after an ongoing discord conversation involving "system matters". This iceberg goes deeper than I realized, and the discussions of today (as usual) are held on untold pre-existing battlefields.

I need more people in my life to talk to about this stuff.