Re: (TFT) House Rules?

["Jay Carlisle" <Jay_Carlisle@charter.net>]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Matthew Skipper"

> > Designing a rule "on the fly" as a GM is 'poor art' IMO.

> Not that I want to get into a big debate, but I have to give my opinion on
> this and I could not disagree more.

Uh oh... sounds like I'm in trouble.

> Improvisation is the one of the highest
> forms of 'GM Art'.  You can never prepare for all eventualities (nor can 
> any
> rule system that is playable) and, IMO, you should not try.  You should be
> fluid and adjust to what the players bring to the table and deal with the 
> new
> as it occurs, espeically when they think of things not covered by the 
> rules or
> the setting or whatever.

We're in agreement here.

> No fantasy setting is going to work exactly as our own world, so basing it
> entirely on 'fact' is, to me at least, a lot of mispent effort.  Once you
> start ignoring physics (like any game with giants and dragons does) and
> chemistry (which alchemy does) and include magic, other planes, and life 
> after
> death... all bets are off. ;)

Okay, it seems like we're in agreement here too except for the mispent 
effort.

> Suspension of disbelief only requires so much, and the rest fades into the
> background.  At least that's been my experience over the last 27 years. 
> And
> heck, I've played/ran tons of games where the players don't even want
> versimilitude if it gets in the way of 'the awesome'.  They want the
> book/movie experience, and I don't think there is anything wrong with 
> that.

Of course there's nothing wrong with that.
The ultimate point of a game is to entertain.

I've been messing with this stuff for awhile as well.
I'm of the opinion that fantasy necessarily requires reference to reality.

Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

Now that has the same kind of structure as text that might actually mean 
something objectivly even though it doesn't.
It's certianly possable to assign definitions to the nonsense words but 
those will have to refer to the real world at some point.
Describing a mimsy as "brothadilled vleckishly in mythril" doesn't fix the 
problem.

I'm not trying to say that a GM shouldn't be interperting rules according to 
the particular situation but rather suggesting that the time to set the 
properties of mythril is probably not in the middle of game play.

...

Uggghhh, I went to make dinner and fell into real-life for awhile.
Not ugh for the real-world, ugh for the interruption.

A few hours, a visitor, and some rumentation later I still think that I'm 
not being pissie with all this...

I'm thinking that it's just two different styles useing the same medium.

...

Do you put any "stock" in the idea of a GM/Player contract? 
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