It would be quite clear. And the player would always have ways to avoid being forced into doing something, which makes it questionable as to whether the player was really forced to do something or made a choice to have it happen.




Exactly - anything the SYSTEM does is just a mechanism of the game. No matter what it is, if the SYSTEM does it, it can be considered a RULE. It's hard to get angry at the rules of a game. You knew what they were when you started playing. And, if you didn't have rules, you wouldn't have a game, and thus wouldn't be playing.


I'm not sure I see the serious point in it. Would you be so kind as to spell it out for those of us (read: me) who are having comprehension difficulties?


I find it funny that you countered a point I made (the quote), when you and I are actually making the same point. I really only included that lack of choice bit to be charitable. It's true to some extent, but I am a big believer in system interactivity (which generally involves forcing the character to do something or forcing something to happen to the character indirectly). Also, your examples are better than mine - the best I could come up with was the aggressive monster/combat thing.


It's not bad gameplay. The player always has options: A) Fight B) Flee C) Sneak or D) Don't go near the aggressive monster to begin with. I think the gameplay would be worse without the aggressive monster dragging the player's character into combat. It adds elements of danger and excitement. The game world would be quite boring if you just wandered around freely, only endangering your character if and when you explicitly choose to.


I fail to see how this example is different at all. In both this example and mine, there is an aggressive monster attacking. The attack from the monster initiates combat. The combat is the result of the player making a mistake (going near the aggressive monster without taking measures to be stealthy). I'd also liken the pistol whipping thing to fleeing. I imagine it's only done as a means to get away…

Wow. You don't really know many gamers at all, do you? :p



I totally misread the "dragging into combat" part as "dragging away and made helpless" a.k.a. insta-gib. I rarely play games that really differentiate between "in combat" and "out of combat," sorry for the confusion.

Perhaps I should have said that it's hard to justify getting angry at the rules of the game.

Edit: 100th post! Yay! :biggrin:

It's quite simple really: it is one thing for a player to be hurt by the "impartial system" which is just following a known set of rules. So a player might accept being hurt as a consequence of their own mistake. But the player might get really unhappy about other players making the system do their dirty work for them. A simple example is the combination of a "shove" command (forcing somebody to go in a certain direction) and a death trap room. In this instance it is quite arguable that the shoving character has (ab)used the system to do things they wouldn't normally be able to do. There is a fine line between using the system cleverly as strategy and abusing it in ways the designers don't intend and furthermore don't want.