Quote:
Originally Posted by Varyon
If you were going for a "Ship of Theseus" logic puzzle, I think a better question would be "If I play GURPS but replace the rules with houserules one at a time, at which point am I no longer playing GURPS?"
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Ah, but what if you replace the GURPS rule with a houserule that has exactly the same effect?
If the dragon's hoard is reduced by the thief taking one gold coin at a time, exactly when does the pile stop being a hoard?
Do the PCs have free will, or are they being railroaded?
Consider a party that's located in the middle of a room with two treasure chests, one on each side, which are equally valuable. With no rational preference for one chest over the other, the party with free will has no valid reason to make a choice, and so must starve to death when their iron rations run out. (Grimtooth missed this trap.)
The DM has told you that the location of the boss mob in the dungeon will be a surprise. You know that the boss cannot be located in the last room of the dungeon, because then you'd expect the boss to be there. Knowing that the boss can't be in the last room, you then know it also cannot be in the next-to-last room along the corridor. Similarly for the next-to-next-to-last room, and so, the party can show that the boss cannot be located in any room of the dungeon. The boss thus disappears in a puff of logic, the party gets xp for the boss, and can then easily collect all the loot in the dungeon. Since this conclusion is logically inevitable, the party need not even leave their room in the tavern; they simply get xp and loot.
The DM does no prepwork, being completely indifferent to the game, but instead relies only on making things up on the spot during the game as the players ask questions and take actions. Luckily, the GM is very good at remembering whatever he invented, so he never contradicts himself, and he's sufficiently inventive as to always have an answer ready for the players when they ask. Is the GM creating the game, or are the players, by their choice of questions?