First, let me say, for what it's worth, my understanding is that "English" common law as we know it from the Norman decision to honor the law of the commons - the now-occupied Anglo-Saxons - who used a traditional and often oral law system - the idea being the " common " people could continue to use the laws they knew for such matters...
This may not be completely irrelevent...
but the point about Arneson and Chainmail I think echoes nicely what I was getting at.
also,
This is precisely why we play with a human GM instead of a computer.
I think it's also worth adding that it continues to come up that many abstractions that are fine on one level of play, fall apart when scrutinized in the scale RPG's bring - alot of the degree of rules come down to the degree of abstraction one wants in the game ( it was pointed out on another forum that most rpg's combat was so abstract in their "rounds" that combat was unrewarding in the eyes of the poster for the fighter classes... this makes me think how much more graphic combat is in modern fantasy fiction - compare fight scenes of say, Martin, to Tolkien or even Howard ).
If I may, an experience from playing "advanced squad leader", one of the rule-heaviest games of all times.
I had 3 squads entrenched on a hilltop, including the crews of a medium and heavy machine gun. My friend and opponent charged with 2 squads from the bottom of a the hill, through 40 meters of open ground... against emplaced Mg's and Rifle/SMG infantry...
Not only did he survive, the game gave him the ADVANTAGE.
Seriously. This devolved into an argument into an argument over whether machine-guns are effective at point-defense, and ended with me laughing in his face and giving up on that game.
( in retrospect, he was a jarhead and was probably trained that charging MG nests from the front is a good idea ).
But the point of this story is that in my experience, a lot of house rules, like mods for computer games, happen when it turns out the original rules either overlooked something or just weren't all that well thought out (or so perceived by the modder/ house-ruler).
Rather like laws in that respect, too.
This may not be completely irrelevent...
Did he just say Gamma World? ..sigh..Tavis Allison said:
but the point about Arneson and Chainmail I think echoes nicely what I was getting at.
also,
I'm afraid I have to agree - the appeal of "rules light" games is that we may think of the rules as akin to the "wires" in a play - we want the rules to help it happen but not be intrusive - but it's been my experience ( you remember Toon? wow ) that no matter what system, if it's an RPG where you can decide to do something not already a given tactical option, these precise issues come up because of the freedom involved.Archon said:
This is precisely why we play with a human GM instead of a computer.
I think it's also worth adding that it continues to come up that many abstractions that are fine on one level of play, fall apart when scrutinized in the scale RPG's bring - alot of the degree of rules come down to the degree of abstraction one wants in the game ( it was pointed out on another forum that most rpg's combat was so abstract in their "rounds" that combat was unrewarding in the eyes of the poster for the fighter classes... this makes me think how much more graphic combat is in modern fantasy fiction - compare fight scenes of say, Martin, to Tolkien or even Howard ).
If I may, an experience from playing "advanced squad leader", one of the rule-heaviest games of all times.
I had 3 squads entrenched on a hilltop, including the crews of a medium and heavy machine gun. My friend and opponent charged with 2 squads from the bottom of a the hill, through 40 meters of open ground... against emplaced Mg's and Rifle/SMG infantry...
Not only did he survive, the game gave him the ADVANTAGE.
Seriously. This devolved into an argument into an argument over whether machine-guns are effective at point-defense, and ended with me laughing in his face and giving up on that game.
( in retrospect, he was a jarhead and was probably trained that charging MG nests from the front is a good idea ).
But the point of this story is that in my experience, a lot of house rules, like mods for computer games, happen when it turns out the original rules either overlooked something or just weren't all that well thought out (or so perceived by the modder/ house-ruler).
Rather like laws in that respect, too.