I've seen some people make fun of rules-sets for having drowning and falling rules.

Maybe this is all coming from the same folks who aren't sure games need rules for combat, but I had the distinct impression that people who were generally okay combat rules thought drowning and falling rules were extraneous.

I can see how the players might not choose to use those rules in extreme cases (very long falls, or spending a *long* time underwater) -- if it's obvious that someone's dead, why roll all the dice? But so many drowning and falling scenarios aren't black and white... doesn't it make sense to rule on them?

And in cases where the general physics of the world (e.g. Champions) are somewhat... at odds with regular physics, isn't it preferable for the game system to provide guidance?

For the record, I also think games should provide rules for

• Encumbrance, carrying capacity and how much your character can pick up (dead lift, maybe). not just for hauling gold out of the dungeon. In most military games where re-supply is an issue, what to carry isn't just a detail -- it can be a tactical decision and even a statement


• Fire. Because in the games I play things and people get set on fire. I consider a game system without rules for burning things incomplete.


• Car crashes, collisions in general, and damage from dropping moderately heavy things on people: My games are full of these things. A speeding 18-wheeler loaded with inflammable liquid is *probably* an excellent weapon against a medium-sized Cuthuloid... but before I threw it in gear, I'd want to know for sure. I can think of at least 2 cases where office workers pushed a photocopier into an elevator shaft that a monster was climbing up... as a GM, I just wouldn't be sure how to rule that without guidance.


• Endurance. Your character probably *can't* run all day. But if you've really got to get to Sparta, the rules should help decide if you're going to go down in legend as a hero, or as a slacker.
  

A few notes:

• The rules provided should match reasonable expectations for the genre and as such don't need to be invoked unless it's an important situation. I wouldn't expect characters to pay much attention to encumbrance unless they were trying to carry a load that seemed excessive in a situation where success or failure mattered.
• The common thread is that in all of these cases I want the rules to give me a set of guidelines for ruling on unusual events that may be critically important in the game (live-or-die situation for the PC's).
• By expressing this stuff in game terms, I expect the character's nature to make a difference: a heroic character should be able to stay down longer, run further, and burn less brightly than a more average schmo.

Again, just to be clear: I don't refer to those rules in most cases. When someone gets a 16 ton weight dropped on them I know what happens. But if someone gets hit by a brick from a second story window, that's a call I want the game to help with.

Enough about me, though. How about you?

Cheers,
-E.

QFT -E.

It's better to have rules that you might never need, but have them there when you need them, than to have some extremely vague system that really just a setting with bandaids holding it together.

People have fallen from airplane at great heights and landed without a scratch. Others have 'drown' only to be revived over an hour later, from frigid water.

When it comes down to a PC or NPC that the PCs care about, living or dying, clear, set rules prevent much tactical hair splitting and crying.


Anyone who doesn't want 'a lot of rules' in their games can go play TWERPS.

Principally I have no problem with any of the rules mentioned. It depends entirely on the RPG in question.

Here's a game that foregrounds them more than any other does, though one suspects not in the ordinary way--

http://www.bullypulpitgames.com/games/index.php?game=drowning_and_falling

Quote from: Pierce InverarityPrincipally I have no problem with any of the rules mentioned. It depends entirely on the RPG in question.

Here's a game that foregrounds them more than any other does, though one suspects not in the ordinary way--

http://www.bullypulpitgames.com/games/index.php?game=drowning_and_falling

Can you give me an example of a game where you'd have a problem with them? I can't think of an RPG genre where characters might not drown or fall.

Cheers,
-E.

Quote from: -E.How about you?

I want rules to do two important things for me.  (1) I want them to tell me how to resolve things that I might not know how to resolve or have to spend time thinking about how to resolve and (2) I want them to provide a common "physics" for the game world accessible to both players and GM at any time and upon which both can agree on at the start of the game.  As such, I think games should have both drowning and falling rules.

Well, you can drown or fall or be overencumbered etc. in any game, but games like Everway or the games the blakkster plays don't have a rules subsystem for that. In some games such rules would feel overdetailed. In other games for a PC to drown or fall to death accidentally--would be plain inappropriate.

By "accidentally" I mean breaking one's neck falling from the horse while briefly relaxing from 'venturing out on a fox hunt, as opposed to falling to one's death later that week while fighting the balrog on a crumbling bridge across the Chasm of Nothing.

So, it's a matter of degree--degree of desired sim detail, which varies from game to game. It's not an issue I'm really invested in, btw.

Quote from: -E.Can you give me an example of a game where you'd have a problem with them? I can't think of an RPG genre where characters might not drown or fall.

Cheers,
-E.

Toon. Well, you can drown and fall, but it doesn't kill you. It keeps you from speaking for 5 mins. (IIRC)

As my old sig at rpg.net used to say "Wushu is not an rpg because it lacks falling rules."

-E. speaks with a sort of clear-headed logic and rationality that all should bow to.

What the fuck is he doing posting here?

Strangely, though I helped prompt this thread, I don't really think that rules for drowning & falling are essential for what I think of as a roleplaying game. For example in a game about palace or family intrigue (something like Dallas, I suppose), I could accept a great deal of abstraction when it came to physical conflict and mishap, while social and economic elements would be covered in great detail. The key would be the interpetability of the abstraction in how scenes are framed and resolved. E.g. if a character plotted to assassinate an opponent, I wouldn't waste a whole lot of time on description that wasn't well-connected to the representational mechanics available--such as connections to the underworld, say--and I'd strongly limit the use of mechanics such as purely thematic traits or narration-trading, essentially isolating them as "capstone mechanics" on top of the representational resolution system. If the game didn't have rules for toppling a bookcase on someone, throwing them off a cliff, or pushing them off a boat, then I'd be profoundly disinterested in narrating anything but the most general details of the dastardly deed, in order to justify rolling the dice.

For me, it's really the narration trading and use of thematic traits ("was beaten by my father +3") that take a game out of roleplaying and into storytelling. About the latter, I don't have anything against it in principle (e.g. Polaris strikes me as pretty neat), only the commentary that suggests what I think of as roleplaying is defective and needs to be fixed by foregrounding elements which, for me, harm the essential experience.

I think that if a game doesn't have rules for converting real-world tensile strength to breakability percentages for inanimate objects, as well as providing tensile strengths (and melting points, etc.) for any imaginary substances (like mithril or adamantine or trilithium crystals) that occur in the settting, it's not a role-playing game.

Quote from: Pierce InverarityWell, you can drown or fall or be overencumbered etc. in any game, but games like Everway or the games the blakkster plays don't have a rules subsystem for that. In some games such rules would feel overdetailed.

I think I should have added that, in addition to modeling physics of the game world, I want the rules at the appropriate degree of abstraction for the game.

In D&D, that means rating falling damage in hitpoints and probably calling for some kind of savings throw.

At a higher level of abstraction, we have RISUS. RISUS does not have a rules subsystem for drowning and falling, but it does provide

• A difficulty scale for varying levels of physical feats and a mechanic for resolving them
• A principle (described in the super-human lift section) that gives a non-linear difficulty rating for physical phenomena
• Guidance on applying those rules (relatively, in this case) to gaming situations

I think this is *minimal* -- and it's not clear how to apply it directly to lots of game situations (being on fire), but it's better than nothing. I think high-abstraction games should shoot for at least a RISUS-style framework and set of principles and guidelines for handling physical phenomena.

I'll also note that for a game that tries to give almost no direct physical-world guidance (even to the point of explicitly saying it doesn't give a distance or time scale) RISUS did "break down" and provide a scale for lift.

Why? Well there's no way to be sure but I bet I know the answer:

Players cared how much their character could lift. They cared enough that rules appeared.

I'll get back to this.

Quote from: Pierce InverarityIn other games for a PC to drown or fall to death accidentally--would be plain inappropriate.

By "accidentally" I mean breaking one's neck falling from the horse while briefly relaxing from 'venturing out on a fox hunt, as opposed to falling to one's death later that week while fighting the balrog on a crumbling bridge across the Chasm of Nothing.

Completely agree. In fact, no kidding. In a game of "Heroic anything" modeling falling to the point where a character might die from an accidental fall would be a severe breach of genre and wouldn't be welcome.

Same goes for Toon (to Nazgul's point). I can't remember if Toon has rules for falling or not--but given how often cartoon characters fall off cliffs, I'd be... disappointed if it doesn't. And *of course* falling in toon shouldn't kill you!

Basic Principles:

• The physical world rules should match the game's intended level of abstraction
• The physical world rules should support the game's genre, especially with regard to lethality or the lack thereof

Let's get back to RISUS now -- possibly the most successful high-abstraction game I'm aware of... and it has a scale for physical lift

Quote from: Elliot WilenStrangely, though I helped prompt this thread, I don't really think that rules for drowning & falling are essential for what I think of as a roleplaying game. For example in a game about palace or family intrigue (something like Dallas, I suppose), I could accept a great deal of abstraction when it came to physical conflict and mishap, while social and economic elements would be covered in great detail.

In a game like Dallas fighting, drowning and falling might never come up. Covering them in any level of detail would likely be a waste of resources (paper) that could be better used to advance the main themes of the game (intrigue, family and corporate politics, etc.)

But when fighting, drowning, or falling *did* come up, I bet the players (GM-inclusive) would care about the outcome.

Maybe a lot -- losing a political challenge doesn't kill your character (usually). A bullet to the brain does.

Even in games that are supposedly about political intrigue, violence or the threat of violence exists.

Games that don't cover these situations have, in my opinion, a serious weakness.

That's why I think doing Dallas (or any genre) with a dedicated system is a mistake: I think all games should be done with generalist systems, and Dallas should be a source book. You might never need to break out the BRP core rules for falling damage in a typical Dallas game, but if you did -- meaning that  the people playing cared enough to want a framework for resolution --they'd be there.

This is what I think happens with most high-abstraction or rules-light games: they start off with very few rules; a perfect abstract resolution mechanic, usually.

In their pristine state they're simple but unsatisfying. As people actually play them, rules accumulate and you get a table of rules for super lift on page 6 of RISUS (Credit to Lizard on RPG.net for stating this principle years ago).

If I were designing a game, I'd acknowledge that and provide those rules in a coherent framework up front.

Quote from: Elliot WilenThe key would be the interpetability of the abstraction in how scenes are framed and resolved. E.g. if a character plotted to assassinate an opponent, I wouldn't waste a whole lot of time on description that wasn't well-connected to the representational mechanics available--such as connections to the underworld, say--and I'd strongly limit the use of mechanics such as purely thematic traits or narration-trading, essentially isolating them as "capstone mechanics" on top of the representational resolution system. If the game didn't have rules for toppling a bookcase on someone, throwing them off a cliff, or pushing them off a boat, then I'd be profoundly disinterested in narrating anything but the most general details of the dastardly deed, in order to justify rolling the dice.

Understood (I think), but as above -- if my character came up with a brilliant plot to kill someone in a way that I thought really stacked the odds in my favor and the GM ignored the advantage I expected my character to have because the rules didn't provide a framework for representing it, I'd be wondering why we weren't playing GURPS.

Quote from: Elliot WilenFor me, it's really the narration trading and use of thematic traits ("was beaten by my father +3") that take a game out of roleplaying and into storytelling. About the latter, I don't have anything against it in principle (e.g. Polaris strikes me as pretty neat), only the commentary that suggests what I think of as roleplaying is defective and needs to be fixed by foregrounding elements which, for me, harm the essential experience.

I haven't read Polaris. It doesn't strike me as something I'd be interested in playing.

Cheers,
-E.

Quote from: CalithenaI think that if a game doesn't have rules for converting real-world tensile strength to breakability percentages for inanimate objects, as well as providing tensile strengths (and melting points, etc.) for any imaginary substances (like mithril or adamantine or trilithium crystals) that occur in the settting, it's not a role-playing game.

Excellent point -- I should have added "rules for breaking things" to what I expect from a game and a "framework" for converting from real-world values to game values.

Absent those, I'd say a given game is still an RPG... just not a very complete one (and if it's not totally dedicated to operating at a really high level of abstraction, maybe not a very good one).

Cheers,
-E.

Quote from: John MorrowI want rules to do two important things for me.  (1) I want them to tell me how to resolve things that I might not know how to resolve or have to spend time thinking about how to resolve and (2) I want them to provide a common "physics" for the game world accessible to both players and GM at any time and upon which both can agree on at the start of the game.  As such, I think games should have both drowning and falling rules.

I think this one of (and maybe the most important of the) the underlying core principles for all RPG physical world rules. Absolutely agree.

Cheers,
-E.

This is fantastic, -E.  It doesn't, if you read the enhanced principles about abstraction and such, offend the sensibilities of different "styles" of gaming.

However, my guess is you're going to have to pry the lack-of-physical-world-modeling of more abstract games out of their cold dead hands. Why?

Because in some circles, there is a vested interest in the idea that number-of-words = importance-of-rules.  So if a game designer spends four pages on modeling the physical world, it has four pages worth of importance. Now, you and I might assert that the real "importance" is not in the number of words/pages, but in the level of abstraction and likelihood of deployment.  

But that approach might be too...nuanced...for rational discussion about RPGs.

And, lest we forget, Dallas had violence in it too. Quite a bit if I recall correctly. People getting in fist fights, getting shot, etc.