In my last post, I argued that “rulings, not rules” wasn’t a gap to be patched but a foundation for how tabletop roleplaying works. The early hobby assumed referees would make calls, and in doing so, developed a craft of rulings. That craft became the foundation for the rulesets that shaped the hobby in the mid and late ’70s.
In this post, I want to build on that idea by asking a deeper question: what are tabletop roleplaying games, really? Why do I approach them differently from most game design frameworks? And how is my approach just one path among many for running campaigns and writing systems?
Throughout the decades I've been playing and refereeing, I've read many of the seminal books and essays on game design. Crawford, Costikyan, and other academic works like Playing at the World and Rules of Play are all outstanding, and they offer detailed and useful analyses of games, including tabletop roleplaying.
Where I depart from those frameworks is in how I classify tabletop roleplaying. I don't view tabletop roleplaying as a game. It is a means for people to pretend to be characters having adventures in other places and times. The "game" elements tabletop roleplaying uses are not the end in themselves, but a crucial aid; they make the experience more engaging than Let's Pretend, and more accessible and entertaining for the average person to enjoy within the time they have for a hobby.
In Salen & Zimmerman's Rules of Play, the issue of game balance is discussed. In Chapter 20, in the opening paragraph of "The Level Playing Field of Conflict," they write:
Competition and cooperation, goals and struggle, victory and loss: how does it all add up? What are the general conditions of a game conflict? One core principle of conflict in games is that it is fair. Game conflict is impartial conflict: it is premised on the idea that all players have an equal chance at winning, that the game system is intrinsically equitable, that the game's contest takes place on a level playing field, which does not favor one side over the other. Anthropologist Roger Caillois points this out in speaking about competitive forms of play: "A whole group of games would seem to be competitive, that is to say, like a combat in which equality of chances is artificially created, in order that the adversaries should confront each other under ideal conditions, susceptible of giving precise and incontestable value to the winner's triumph."
This is excellent advice, and I agree that this is one of the central pillars of designing a good game.
However, I don't view what I do with tabletop roleplaying as designing games. Rather, I view what I do as designing something to be experienced, experienced by people pretending to be characters looking for adventures. Game design considerations are not ignored. For tabletop roleplaying to be enjoyable and feasible as a leisure activity, a good game needs to be part of the package. However, the game elements are subordinated to the larger goal of creating an experience. Anything that gets in the way of that goal is jettisoned.
Next, we need to consider the experience I focus on. There are many ways this can be handled, but every tabletop roleplaying designer has their own creative focus. My particular focus is on crafting products that enable referees to create campaigns that leave players feeling as though they have visited a setting as their characters, while having interesting adventures.
For example, in a Middle-earth campaign, my goal is satisfied if the players feel they have visited Tolkien's world. However, my goal isn't to leave them feeling like they experienced a Tolkien novel. I'm not interested in recreating particular narrative structures. However, I am deeply interested in bringing worlds to life in a way that feels real to the players.
Given this focus, what does it mean for the tabletop roleplaying material I publish or share? It means that often what I design isn't "fair" to the players. It is not impartial conflict. The players will not always have an equal chance at winning, the system isn't equitable, and the playing field isn't level. Certain aspects of the setting,or sides within it,are favored over others.
Instead, my material is consistent with how the setting is described. It is consistent with its own internal logic, not with the idea of equity and fairness that the concept of game balance addresses.
Now, others, when designing their campaigns for players to experience, or when publishing and sharing material, may not handle things in the same way. I've encountered many who feel that game balance is crucial to the creation of a good tabletop roleplaying campaign and its supporting material. That works as a creative goal; however, it is just one entry among many in the arena of ideas that form our hobby and industry.
And I have no quarrel with designers who go that route and focus on making the game behind their rules or campaigns balanced. Where the rules are judged to be fair, impartial, and create a level playing field. As long as they are upfront about their creative goals and acknowledge that other approaches work just as well for different creative goals and have their own fans. While I have my criticisms of RPGs like D&D 4e, one thing I don't criticize is its quality as a game on its own merits. It is an outstanding example of an RPG that focuses on game balance, and I recommend it to any group that views balance as crucial to their enjoyment of tabletop roleplaying.
Rulings, not rules,” was about equipping referees with craft, not just tools. This follow-up is about why I use that craft: to build campaigns where the setting’s logic takes precedence over balance. Where some designers seek a level playing field, I seek the living world. That’s the design philosophy behind my work, and the experience I want players to step into.
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