Quote:
Originally Posted by Kromm
Pretty much this. I see my job as writer and designer as not, "Here's another brick in the wall of total rules coverage," but rather, "Here, let me inspire you and give you more random ideas to riff on."
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For me the rules in a book are there to back up whatever setting and ideas are present in the rest of the book. They're a tool to help describe characters, places, events and so on as well as how things might interact.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kromm
I sigh and roll my eyes whenever people want a hermetic rules solution. But that's probably because I'm from the late 1970s cohort of gamers . . . we made up everything and saw game supplements as ideas, not scripture.
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I believe the "rules as scripture" mindset in part stems from people wanting to compare their characters and adventures, which can end up in a lot of "but that's not how the rules work".
I have certainly done my share of "that's not RAW" in discussions on this forum, but I use it mostly as a "there's no guarantee a GM will let you do this". Granted, just about everything needs GM approval (even RAW stuff), but as long as you aren't obnoxious about it (and it doesn't break the story) a GM is generally much more likely to allow RAW stuff than non-RAW stuff in my experience.