Nystul Wrote:On some games, I may want access to a lot of technical info about character skills, combat, and such that may not be included in the manual, but I may also want to avoid any information about secret areas, plot branches, and so on. In other words, I want the DM guide but not his campaign material.
Well put. It drives me nuts to play a game where the actual rules are obscure. This often happens when the game rules are never actually stated, designed, or documented, but rather just left to some programmer's implementation. Think about "25% Chance Of Crushing Blow" in D2, where there's at least a dozen different permutations of actual rules underneath that wording.
And even a game with seemingly simple execution like D2 has tons of hidden rules in the form of timings and spacings and speeds. These rules don't even really exist in the code, but only in that code's execution over time. Heck, often such rules aren't even known to the game's creator! To perform at high caliber in this type of game, a technical guide is absolutely essential. I never regard discovery of game rules as cheating.
But yeah, there's a blurred line between when game content is a rule that should be well-defined and when the game content is the puzzle for which discovery is the game's challenge. Gamers differ as to where they place their personal line. For some, "what the code allows" is the final arbiter, or not even final if a Gameshark type device is introduced.
Incidentally, this is why I pick up turn-based strategy games more naturally than most others. They tend to define the game mechanics much more deterministically and precisely. And hidden rules are why I got sick of console RPGs, which I used to love back in the NES era. Seems like in every other fight, this weapon doesn't work or this spell is unavailable or so-and-so character isn't around. Some players enjoy having to adapt to unknown rules on the fly, and consider short-cutting that discovery process to be cheating. But for me that's just a new round of trial and error.
I also love pinball, which provides the visceral real-time arcade experience with almost no hidden rules. The final arbiter is physics - as long as the ball's not in the outhole, you're still playing. There's never suddenly going to be a boss who gets healed by attacks from the left flipper.
