L'ho già detto, con un sacco di parole, in uno dei miei
rant più famosi (o famigerati),
[teoria] cosa succede con i giochi incoerenti. Oggi rispondendo in un thread (questo:
[Rifts] -- Rifts workable? Possibly, maybe...) Ron ha ribadito lo stesso concetto in breve, e se magari non vi fidate della mia interpretazione della teoria, spero vi fidiate della sua... ;-)
La domanda era (dopo la descrizione di un actual play):
1). Can a good GM make "system" (at least, system in terms of the game text & explicit rules) less important? A unifying idea here at the Forge is that system matters. I know that's been hotly debated at times; with many gamers arguing that the specific rules of the game are largely irrelevant, and my last post asked whether it was system, or players which/who were responsible for generating an enjoyable experience. I suppose I'm really just trying to wrap my head around the idea that the game and the text are two separate things. In other words: What is the "game," really? It's not the text, but it's also not totally independent of the text. La risposta di Ron Edwards (i grassetti sono miei):
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Your final point in the first post, and then your second post, call for some theoretical detail from me. I'm seeing a deep mis-reading of the point that "system does matter," to the extent that I am going to criticize your conclusions. I'm offering what follows in the hope that you don't mind me taking a strong position about the ideas that I authored 11 years ago. I also hope that what I say is useful and interesting.
Many people apparently read the phrase "system does matter" as license to declare that a given game is bad and sucks, and to decry any play of that game as un-fun play. This reading has nothing to do with anything I've written. You've already identified the key error that this reading makes - to confuse system with textual rules. System is what we do at the table, which most of the time is strongly informed by textual rules which sit at or near the table too, but also most of the time, includes much more than is written there, and contradicts those written rules to some degree.
My essay System Does Matter identifies this difference and calls for writing textual rules which actually help the group carry out a system (for play), rather than impede it. I wrote the essay in defiance of an extremely well-entrenched claim to the contrary, that system does not matter, which as I saw it, endorsed poor rules-design and overlooked the fact that a group which "ignores the rules" is effectively creating its own system and cares deeply about that system's qualities. To summarize, I suggest that well-written rules make a functional system more possible, or at the very least, less aggravating to implement. I also suggest that well-written rules can expand people's notions of functional systems rather than continually entrench them into comfort zones, which is definitely what badly-written and constantly-derivative rules texts do.
I think this distinction alters your conclusions to an extent. None of your conclusions contradict anything that I wrote in my essay or have discussed since. First, one can play Rifts and many other role-playing games, and although various textual rules may not stand up well for what you want, you can "kick the tires" as a group and end up with a functional system at your table. In fact, I suggest that this is absolutely necessary for many published games. I've written about it extensively regarding Champions, for instance.
Second, to my knowledge, no one here at the Forge has ever been permitted to get away with the fallacious claim that a given set of textual rules is immune to such tire-kicking, such that the game is utterly devoid of playability, i.e., irretrievably sucks. That would again be committing the same text/system error, in the bizarre belief that somehow the book exerts such pull and power that the group haplessly must apply textual rules that they do not like or want. In some groups, people use such logic in order to wield social and creative power over others (the negative form of "rules lawyer"), but in most, the group simply changes the way they play, often without realizing it.
I think this point also alters your conclusions, or re-colors them. When you say, "So, Rifts isn't a terrible game," you're not refuting any standing point from our discussions here. No one said "Rifts is a bad game" in any sort of definitive or argumentatively-solid way. Furthermore, the very fact that that you identified the specific group-based qualifications that were necessary to make the Rifts rules usable by your group, you're validating the concept that system does matter. I also want to stress that when you say "properly apply the rules," that is a very group-specific, very personal claim to the word "properly." Another group may find maximum fun in competing regarding who can generate the most power-effective character, and call that "properly," and regard your specifications with horror and disdain.
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