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Post by Cedgewick on Apr 29, 2017 14:17:13 GMT -5
...the game can extrude itself off the current map or conceptual area at any time... Didn't the players surprise Wesely with wanting to duel each other, effectively trying to leave the conceptual area of the two army battle that Wesely had prepared? And instead of shepherding the players back to the original scenario, Wesely allowed them to run off the conceptual area and actually duel each other. Then he created rules for the duel on the fly and adjudicated the duel. It sounds to me like Wesely's game was "extruding itself off the current map or conceptual area at any time." It sounds like your definition also requires 1) persistence (an ongoing world) and 2) having no ultimate objective. |
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Post by robkuntz on Apr 29, 2017 14:49:03 GMT -5
...the game can extrude itself off the current map or conceptual area at any time... Didn't the players surprise Wesely with wanting to duel each other, effectively trying to leave the conceptual area of the two army battle that Wesely had prepared? And instead of shepherding the players back to the original scenario, Wesely allowed them to run off the conceptual area and actually duel each other. Then he created rules for the duel on the fly and adjudicated the duel. It sounds to me like Wesely's game was "extruding itself off the current map or conceptual area at any time." It sounds like your definition also requires 1) persistence (an ongoing world) and 2) having no ultimate objective. Again, that is open variability that occurs in Monopoly and Diplomacy, i.e.. one can negotiate properties and/or diplomacy in many variable contexts or ways, even cheat their fellows in Diplomacy with false orders, none of which are accounted for as a leap to open systems. Could they leave the scenario (as one cannot do in a Diplomacy or Monopoly game)? Does the scenario allow you to bring in unlimited resources and/or information? Does it have unlimited variability or does it have a closed boundary at some point and according to the scenario's initial conditions? The answer for FFC and D&D is consistently YES for persistent variability (even with the rules) as Arneson's conception of the systems architecture allowed for an unconstrained flow of information and mutability. At some point Wesely, challenged with the continued introduction of materials and information that is otherwise always contingently available in a Fantasy world would have closed down the boundary and said NO or else his scenario would have been made useless. Thus he allowed for a minor variabile to occur. It still remains a closed scenario with some instances of open variability. |
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Post by Traveroark on Apr 29, 2017 15:19:07 GMT -5
Tough questions and good answers, I like it a good give and take. Granted that Rob's time is short and he will be quite busy for a while as noted above and some questions may have to be reserved for when he is available again.
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Post by mormonyoyoman on Apr 29, 2017 15:25:18 GMT -5
Re: the old problem of "you said something entirely different 30 years ago. I've been wrong many times in the past, and am always grateful for new information to correct my assumptions. It's the nature of the true historian to hope further research and discoveries explore more facts. Information is only provisional especially to a researcher. So we are in agreement. Arneson created something not even he or his players, neither Gary or I and our players, could type. It took nearly two years after its publication to even type it as an "RPG" and that symbology still does not do it supreme justice but in fact has confused the matter as to what he actually created (a new systems architecture) and by people concentrating on the generalized "Role" and "Game" words almost exclusively. This last clause is why I tend to use a term "rolegame" or "rolegaming" that I know I didn't event, but can't remember anywhere else I've seen it. The second thing you lose at my age is your memory, and I can't remember what the first thing is. Your first sentence reminds me very much of a friend's signature line: "My opinions are mutable pending further facts." This would be especially true with the science/art of history (Too much of which is based on memory instead of source documents written immediately as events happen - which never seems to happen anyway.) and the science/mysticism of physics and its various offspring. ("Physical laws are fixed!" "Physical laws change according to speed, light shifting, and hand waving!" "Reality doesn't exist until we observe it!") (I say that reality doesn't exist except as the gamesmaster determines.) |
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Post by mormonyoyoman on Apr 29, 2017 15:38:40 GMT -5
PDF! PDF! (says the old man who doesn't have room for even One More Book and dreads throwing out 34 years of comics this coming Monday) You should sell the comics and fetch a good price for them, don't throw them out! No room in the car as we clean out a storage unit 12 hours away and drive home. Cherie gets first pick of what we keep, and she's already decided on ancient pay stubs, broken crockery, and paintings that she never had time to frame and thus wouldn't hang them since 1973. (Yes, I tried packing and moving them each year since 2010. Always got out-voted. No, I never have understood women and gave up trying when I raised three teenage girls. That way lies madness, and it's more fun to just observe anyway.) |
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Post by Cedgewick on Apr 29, 2017 15:41:55 GMT -5
Rob, could you give two examples of this from d&d? I'm not quite following what you mean with this bullet point.
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Post by Traveroark on Apr 29, 2017 15:57:51 GMT -5
You should sell the comics and fetch a good price for them, don't throw them out! No room in the car as we clean out a storage unit 12 hours away and drive home. Cherie gets first pick of what we keep, and she's already decided on ancient pay stubs, broken crockery, and paintings that she never had time to frame and thus wouldn't hang them since 1973. (Yes, I tried packing and moving them each year since 2010. Always got out-voted. No, I never have understood women and gave up trying when I raised three teenage girls. That way lies madness, and it's more fun to just observe anyway. If you are travelling there on Monday, one possibility is that you can use google to see if there are any comic book shops or a used book stores like Half-Price books(for example) and you could call them Monday morning or today and tell them what you have and maybe they would be willing to meet you at the storage location or if they are not too far away maybe you could run a few boxes over to them and tell them if you come pick them up I have another (guessing) 60 boxes. For the rest of it, have an exalt. |
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Post by robkuntz on Apr 29, 2017 16:01:32 GMT -5
Rob, could you give two examples of this from d&d? I'm not quite following what you mean with this bullet point. I will answer this soon enough but it's 11:00 pm here in France and I am winding down for the evening. This will be a long post, as well, as I will have to describe/compare initial conditions of scenario-based and open systems and why that is important to why Chainmail gets a NO and Braunstein gets a Very Limited. Ciao and Good Night to All! RJK |
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Post by Traveroark on Apr 29, 2017 16:09:50 GMT -5
Cedgewick, perhaps it is not my place to say this and please don't take offense, but I would love it if you went to the Introductions thread and told us who you are (now I have to remember - well check and see if I did that myself and, if not, then rectify it).
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Post by mormonyoyoman on Apr 29, 2017 16:44:24 GMT -5
Re: comics in Bentonville storage unit. Let's remember that these particular books have been in that particular storage unit since 2009. The Ozark annual floods may not have reached the units, but the mildew gets more impressive each year.
The other thing to remember is that any comic newer than 1966 isn't really an old comic, except Charlton's which managed to be old comics to the end. (and are again in the current revival)
Also making it easier to trash them: these boxes include a bunch of Liefeld comics that Jim Harmon sent me with a note of "I can't stand them, but I don't want to hurt his feelings." (I couldn't think of anything good to say about them either, other than Joe & Jack were getting some money from it.
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Post by Stormcrow on Apr 30, 2017 8:05:28 GMT -5
I typically hear that D&D derived from Chainmail, that Blackmoor was the first true role-playing game, and that D&D derived from Blackmoor, but I don't think I typically hear that Blackmoor derived from Chainmail. People will say that Blackmoor used rules from Chainmail, and people will fail to say that D&D merely used rules from Chainmail, but I wonder if the accusation that people falsely claim that Blackmoor derived from Chainmail is an attack on a straw man.
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Post by robkuntz on Apr 30, 2017 9:44:49 GMT -5
I typically hear that D&D derived from Chainmail, that Blackmoor was the first true role-playing game, and that D&D derived from Blackmoor, but I don't think I typically hear that Blackmoor derived from Chainmail. People will say that Blackmoor used rules from Chainmail, and people will fail to say that D&D merely used rules from Chainmail, but I wonder if the accusation that people falsely claim that Blackmoor derived from Chainmail is an attack on a straw man. WotC has Chainmail listed as the natural descent to D&D in their online history of it. Gary asserts as much over time in his many quotes. References by him to that linkage are also apparent in OD&D's text. |
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Post by Stormcrow on Apr 30, 2017 16:30:55 GMT -5
But as Michael points out, people have not been using terminology consistently, so what exactly do they mean when they say D&D descends from Chainmail? D&D DOES take rules straight from Chainmail, even if it does not derive the RPG concept from it. Hence my point: D&D does have Chainmail as a parent, even if that is not its sole parent. I hear lots of people talk about D&D descending from Chainmail, but I can't recall much of people talking about the RPG concept—separate from the particular rules of D&D—descending from Chainmail.
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Post by robkuntz on Apr 30, 2017 16:48:07 GMT -5
But as Michael points out, people have not been using terminology consistently, so what exactly do they mean when they say D&D descends from Chainmail? D&D DOES take rules straight from Chainmail, even if it does not derive the RPG concept from it. Hence my point: D&D does have Chainmail as a parent, even if that is not its sole parent. I hear lots of people talk about D&D descending from Chainmail, but I can't recall much of people talking about the RPG concept—separate from the particular rules of D&D—descending from Chainmail. Because they are using a flimsy causal relation that is merely an i nfluence and not a "parent" (which of itself is a word that leads to wildly general assumptions) and then promoting it past a hole as wide as the Grand Canyon while ignoring the hole's existence. And to date no one has described that hole and why it exists. I have put forth scientific proof using systems thinking to define what the game is (and isn't), and it isn't a lineal descendant of any one type, ordering or class of information or systems: It is a transcendent leap that cannot be traced back to any one origin source. However the systems architecture Dave created (which was then used whole cloth for D&D, making D&D an iteration/promotion of Blackmoor's conceptual model) gives us clues as to what Arneson was thinking. Thus we have Arneson's Genius. Have you read my book? Much of what you are asking/referring to is actually answered therein. |
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Post by Admin Pete on Apr 30, 2017 17:42:04 GMT -5
I posted this over at ODD74 and I am posting it here because it is pertinent I believe to this discussion. Some claim membership in the "OSR" and some of us do not, for a number of quite valid reasons, but no one is saying it is bad, though some of us say it has not yet reached its potential.
So quoting myself:
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Post by robkuntz on Apr 30, 2017 19:43:56 GMT -5
PD said I have been reading the posts on here and I partially agree with each of you, but I also have quite a bit of disagreement. First of all I represent that part of old school gaming that does not think of itself as belonging to the "OSR" and does not ever use modules and has little to no interest in them. As the OGL is used mainly for simulacrums, some of which are close to and others that are distant from the original games they based off of and for modules compatible with those simulacrums they really hold very little interest to me. The "OSR" is so vague and diffused it is in many ways IMO irrelevant. I am glad there is no central authority governing an official "OSR." The main thing an "OSR" tag does is hopefully identify the part of the genre that a product will be compatible with. That is not always the case because opinions about what is old school run the gamut from very narrow and defined to very loose and almost anything is included. So there are some things that are "OSR" identified that IMO are not remotely old school. So some things are IMO "OSR" in name only.YMMV I realize that people who view it like me are a tiny minority .. and the rest Thanks Mighty Darcy for te heads-ip of my mis-post earlier;; and PD: Good points and even-handed as usual. |
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Post by Mighty Darci on Apr 30, 2017 21:29:32 GMT -5
robkuntz, did you quote the post you intended too?
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Post by Cedgewick on Apr 30, 2017 23:43:59 GMT -5
I typically hear that D&D derived from Chainmail, that Blackmoor was the first true role-playing game, and that D&D derived from Blackmoor, but I don't think I typically hear that Blackmoor derived from Chainmail. Here's a few lines from pg. 57 of Jon Peterson's book: Further along on pg. 64 Peterson says:
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Post by increment on May 1, 2017 0:18:53 GMT -5
Here's a few lines from pg. 57 of Jon Peterson's book: Further along on pg. 64 Peterson says:
Um... well, I guess I'm not surprised to be summoned to this thread. While I could enumerate lots of quotes from PatW about other influences on Blackmoor (e.g. "medieval Braunstein", etc.), I will instead just hastily say there were a lot of other influences. It was a Chainmail campaign in so far as it was a campaign and it used Chainmail rules. I think if you asked Dave at the time "how have you modified Chainmail for your campaign?" he wouldn't have said, "Nonsense, this isn't Chainmail, it's something else entirely," but he would have been quick to point out that he'd also modified Outdoor Survival and other systems for components of the campaign. And that a lot of the real magic in Blackmoor came from the imagination of the referee. |
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Post by Cedgewick on May 1, 2017 1:05:19 GMT -5
It was a Chainmail campaign in so far as it was a campaign and it used Chainmail rules. I think if you asked Dave at the time "how have you modified Chainmail for your campaign?" he wouldn't have said, "Nonsense, this isn't Chainmail, it's something else entirely," Dave Arneson wrote on pg 131 of Schick's Heroic Worlds book: While Dave of course used some of the monsters and other superficial details from Chainmail, I can't agree with your statement. It was, and still is, something else entirely. Chainmail with its fantasy supplement, was published before D&D. It had its run, but it never ignited a firestorm like D&D did. Kuntz's third essay, "Debunking the Chainmail/Braunstein 'Derivation' Claims," explains why. |
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Post by Deleted on May 1, 2017 1:36:04 GMT -5
Using the combat matrix IS using CHAINMAIL rules.
This is perilously near to "that depends on what the meaning of "is" is."
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Post by robkuntz on May 1, 2017 4:16:59 GMT -5
Using the combat matrix IS using CHAINMAIL rules. This is perilously near to "that depends on what the meaning of "is" is." Which is why any scientific study must deduce as its final goal the new systems architecture's final state, not Arneson's initial, lone and isolated states he was contriving during experimentation and as forming from all of these otherwise disparate systems, all of the latter that cannot, used AS-IS "on their own," achieve the same qualities as does the SA's final state. This is explained in my 2nd and 3rd essays. The final state must then be examined using backward causality to determine a predecessor, if any. In this case there are too many world lines merging to point to a single lineal source, so it became its own origin point in systems terms as a Garden of Eden State. I also checked existing models pre-1971 for a correspondence to the conceptual model of his systems architecture, and I still persist in doing so to this day, but with no echoes so far after 8 years of searching, and neither do I believe there will be any. This is a transcendent system model he created, thus Arneson's True Genius. People, on the main, had become mired in its parts and not the whole, and which I have rectified. Aside: I do hope that Jon got the complimentary copy of the book I asked Paul Stormberg to send about a week ago as a way of returning the favor for PATW that was gifted to me. |
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Post by robkuntz on May 1, 2017 4:37:10 GMT -5
robkuntz , did you quote the post you intended too? Thanks. I rectified that, too.  |
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Post by Admin Pete on May 1, 2017 5:42:46 GMT -5
PD said I have been reading the posts on here and I partially agree with each of you, but I also have quite a bit of disagreement. First of all I represent that part of old school gaming that does not think of itself as belonging to the "OSR" and does not ever use modules and has little to no interest in them. As the OGL is used mainly for simulacrums, some of which are close to and others that are distant from the original games they based off of and for modules compatible with those simulacrums they really hold very little interest to me. The "OSR" is so vague and diffused it is in many ways IMO irrelevant. I am glad there is no central authority governing an official "OSR." The main thing an "OSR" tag does is hopefully identify the part of the genre that a product will be compatible with. That is not always the case because opinions about what is old school run the gamut from very narrow and defined to very loose and almost anything is included. So there are some things that are "OSR" identified that IMO are not remotely old school. So some things are IMO "OSR" in name only.YMMV I realize that people who view it like me are a tiny minority .. and the rest Thanks Mighty Darcy for the heads-up of my mis-post earlier;; and PD: Good points and even-handed as usual. Thank you for the compliment and for helping me get there. My conversations with you over the last few years have contributed to my being more even-handed and more open-minded, than I ever was before I met you. |
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Post by increment on May 1, 2017 6:38:22 GMT -5
While Dave of course used some of the monsters and other superficial details from Chainmail, I can't agree with your statement. It was, and still is, something else entirely. Chainmail with its fantasy supplement, was published before D&D. It had its run, but it never ignited a firestorm like D&D did. Kuntz's third essay, "Debunking the Chainmail/Braunstein 'Derivation' Claims," explains why. I didn't say that it wasn't something else entirely, I said that I don't think Dave would've said at the time (like, back in 1972) it was something else entirely. I surfaced in this thread because you were quoting Playing at the World to demonstrate that some people were saying that Blackmoor derived from Chainmail. When I wrote PatW (like, back in 2010, say), I did have some surviving documents showing ways that Blackmoor relied on Chainmail that perhaps go beyond the sorts of superficial details you concede here. And to be clear, now I have a lot more. I have about 90 letters back and forth between Gary and Dave from the early to mid 1970s, say. I have a 1972 letter where Gary asks Dave about his Chainmail modifications, and I have the response from Dave. So my characterization of what he might have said at the time isn't entirely uninformed - though I fully understand that in retrospect, we might think Dave was mistaken. Neither PatW nor I is suggesting that Chainmail would have ignited a firestorm like D&D, nor that Blackmoor didn't need on a whole lot more than Chainmail to set the hobby on the path towards the things that we call RPGs today. So to my original point, even if I think Blackmoor owed more to Chainmail than perhaps that quote in Heroic Worlds lets on, I'm not an example of a person running around saying that all there was to Blackmoor was Chainmail. |
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Post by increment on May 1, 2017 7:06:47 GMT -5
Aside: I do hope that Jon got the complimentary copy of the book I asked Paul Stormberg to send about a week ago as a way of returning the favor for PATW that was gifted to me. Oh, thanks. I haven't heard from Paul about this yet, but he and I have a thread open about something else, I'll ask. But while I'm here... I also checked existing models pre-1971 for a correspondence to the conceptual model of his systems architecture, and I still persist in doing so to this day, but with no echoes so far after 8 years of searching, and neither do I believe there will be any. This is a transcendent system model he created, thus Arneson's True Genius. People, on the main, had become mired in its parts and not the whole, and which I have rectified. I spent some time myself searching for games that treated rules in a similar way to how I gather Blackmoor and D&D did in practice, and I found a few things that didn't seem like a bad match to me. It would help me understand what you mean by Arneson's transcendent system model if maybe you could explain how it is different from a game like Midgard, a parallel effort focused on playing fantastic characters in an ongoing campaign. Although the original Midgard campaign started in 1971, probably the best text to review is from Midgard II in 1972, as news of Midgard II was pretty widely circulated in the wargaming community. The description Tom Drake wrote as the referee to prospective players of Midgard II reads, in part: "One of the basic rules of this game is innovate. Use your imagination. The rules are simply the norm, a set of guidelines expressing the underlying physical, economic and natural laws. If you want something, or want to do something, not covered in the rules, suggest it to me, and if it doesn't violate the basic tenets of the game, we'll work out a set of rules between us." From what little I've seen so far (and again, without the benefit of having read your book) this informal, iterative, "we'll work out" ethos, where there aren't fixed rules but instead just a referee improvising to meet the needs of players, sounds similar to how you describe "open" systems. Can you elaborate a bit on the distinction? |
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Post by robkuntz on May 1, 2017 7:35:22 GMT -5
Aside: I do hope that Jon got the complimentary copy of the book I asked Paul Stormberg to send about a week ago as a way of returning the favor for PATW that was gifted to me. Oh, thanks. I haven't heard from Paul about this yet, but he and I have a thread open about something else, I'll ask. But while I'm here... I also checked existing models pre-1971 for a correspondence to the conceptual model of his systems architecture, and I still persist in doing so to this day, but with no echoes so far after 8 years of searching, and neither do I believe there will be any. This is a transcendent system model he created, thus Arneson's True Genius. People, on the main, had become mired in its parts and not the whole, and which I have rectified. I spent some time myself searching for games that treated rules in a similar way to how I gather Blackmoor and D&D did in practice, and I found a few things that didn't seem like a bad match to me. It would help me understand what you mean by Arneson's transcendent system model if maybe you could explain how it is different from a game like Midgard, a parallel effort focused on playing fantastic characters in an ongoing campaign. Although the original Midgard campaign started in 1971, probably the best text to review is from Midgard II in 1972, as news of Midgard II was pretty widely circulated in the wargaming community. The description Tom Drake wrote as the referee to prospective players of Midgard II reads, in part: "One of the basic rules of this game is innovate. Use your imagination. The rules are simply the norm, a set of guidelines expressing the underlying physical, economic and natural laws. If you want something, or want to do something, not covered in the rules, suggest it to me, and if it doesn't violate the basic tenets of the game, we'll work out a set of rules between us." From what little I've seen so far (and again, without the benefit of having read your book) this informal, iterative, "we'll work out" ethos, where there aren't fixed rules but instead just a referee improvising to meet the needs of players, sounds similar to how you describe "open" systems. Can you elaborate a bit on the distinction? You are welcome... Paul has many things going on and sometimes needs to have a reminder now and then. My apologies for the delay. As to the other... "...and if it doesn't violate the basic tenets of the game,..." One would have to be aware of what is meant by Drake's inferred constraint embodied in this quote which would then allow an understanding of his system's initial condition; and then by a comparison of his and Arneson's system state qualities, in total, derive correspondences or not. As generally stated I cannot deduce a similarity or not between their holistic system states. |
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Post by Stormcrow on May 1, 2017 8:56:23 GMT -5
But as Michael points out, people have not been using terminology consistently, so what exactly do they mean when they say D&D descends from Chainmail? D&D DOES take rules straight from Chainmail, even if it does not derive the RPG concept from it. Hence my point: D&D does have Chainmail as a parent, even if that is not its sole parent. I hear lots of people talk about D&D descending from Chainmail, but I can't recall much of people talking about the RPG concept—separate from the particular rules of D&D—descending from Chainmail. Because they are using a flimsy causal relation that is merely an i nfluence and not a "parent" (which of itself is a word that leads to wildly general assumptions) and then promoting it past a hole as wide as the Grand Canyon while ignoring the hole's existence. And to date no one has described that hole and why it exists. I have put forth scientific proof using systems thinking to define what the game is (and isn't), and it isn't a lineal descendant of any one type, ordering or class of information or systems: It is a transcendent leap that cannot be traced back to any one origin source. I said, "D&D does have Chainmail as a parent, even if that is not its sole parent." If you dislike using parent here, use influence instead; it doesn't change the point. I hear people say that D&D is derived solely from Chainmail, and that's wrong, but I don't hear them say the RPG concept is derived solely (or at all!) from Chainmail. When Wizards of the Coast talks about the heritage of D&D, they're talking specifically about D&D. I agree they're waltzing past a giant hole regarding the RPG concept, but they're not claiming to talk about it, either. But it does not mean that whenever one talks about the development of D&D one is speaking of Blackmoor's conceptual model. Maybe they SHOULD, but it doesn't mean they are. No. The price is too high given the content—after buying a house in September and beginning to pay off a mortgage I can't justify it to my wife. But I'm not responding to the content of the book but rather the claims made in these book threads that people claim that Arneson's new concept derives from Chainmail. Nobody says that. They say D&D derives from Chainmail, with whatever value that statement has, and that's a different claim. In other words, people often claim Chainmail -> D&D which has a measure of truth but is far from the whole truth, whereas the claims about the book seem to be saying that people claim Chainmail -> Dave's concept which nobody claims but which you're ready to knock over. Hence it seems a straw man. Anyway, I mean all this in the most respectful way possible; I'm not trying to cause trouble. I'll read your book when I get a chance and an unexpected windfall, though I don't know a thing about systems theory, and, from the reviews so far, it won't make much sense if I don't. |
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Post by Stormcrow on May 1, 2017 9:09:33 GMT -5
I typically hear that D&D derived from Chainmail, that Blackmoor was the first true role-playing game, and that D&D derived from Blackmoor, but I don't think I typically hear that Blackmoor derived from Chainmail. Here's a few lines from pg. 57 of Jon Peterson's book: Further along on pg. 64 Peterson says: None of that says anything about the Blackmoor concept deriving from Chainmail. As Rob has said, you can talk about Rule X or Table Y, but that's not the same thing as where the CONCEPT came from. All those quotes say is that Blackmoor used some amount of Chainmail in its rules. Nobody disputes that. I could take a Monopoly set and use all its components to create an entirely different game with entirely different rules, all invented from scratch, but still using all the old pieces. This would not be a game of Monopoly—but I might call it that when people walked by and asked what I was playing, or people looking on might call it that. They probably WOULD call it some form of Monopoly. But it's clearly not. That's basically what Arneson did, except instead of physical components, he repurposed rules from games like Chainmail. That doesn't make it a Chainmail campaign—but it might be called one. Especially if what it WAS didn't have a name yet. |
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Post by increment on May 1, 2017 9:11:53 GMT -5
"...and if it doesn't violate the basic tenets of the game,..." One would have to be aware of what is meant by Drake's inferred constraint embodied in this quote which would then allow an understanding of his system's initial condition; and then by a comparison of his and Arneson's system state qualities, in total, derive correspondences or not. As generally stated I cannot deduce a similarity or not between their holistic system states. I think I follow you. I had been under the impression that what you meant by Arneson's "transcendent" innovation was something beyond the initial state of the mechanics or the place where the system gets hacked to during play, but instead the framework that enabled that hacking to happen, so I supposed the mechanics involved weren't salient to that. If your concern is that Drake's "basic tenets" makes it sound like not all mechanics are hackable in Midgard II, then maybe a more illustrative example then would be something like Korns, an 80-some page rulebook that contains literally only one rule: that the referee should use whatever mechanics would give the best and most accurate depiction of events. Sure, there are pages of charts, but none of them are charts with die roll tallies next to them, they are real-world charts about how weapons and soldiers and so on behave in the field. Those charts are included to help referees understand how to be accurate, but Korns tells you to throw them out if you have something better. The initial state of Korns's system is well, nothing. Every aspect of the designed system other than Korns's one rule is a hack implemented by the referee. Again, this one seems hard for me to distinguish from the kind of "openness" in system that we saw in Blackmoor - if anything, it seems even more radical. Can you shed any light on the distinction from that? |
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