this post was submitted on 11 Apr 2025
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Does anything need mechanics? You could just rp everything, after all.
I'm not saying you need something like FATAL, btw, the system I'm referring to is The Sword, the Crown and the Unspeakable Power. It's a pretty normal PTBA system, plus a handful of moves that let you gain an advantage when you sleep with someone (as you might expect for courtly intrigue in an 18+ setting). There's also one class that lets you give birth to eldritch abominations, but that's less of a 'roll for pregnancy' thing and more of a dark ritual. It doesn't have to be done out of a deep yearning for motherhood - that was just the direction I took it because it resonated with me.
The mechanics are the medium through which players relinquish control of their roleplay. They're sort of what mediates roleplaying, I think, by providing a sort of arbitrary and neutral interface to both limit and move along characters.
I can roleplay all day and use real world knowledge to back up how my character can pick a lock, but if there's a mechanic that made me roll dice and I lost, I have to roleplay why that character just couldn't get the lock picked despite it all.
My main point though was more an allusion to game mechanics not needing to be overly specific or defined by manuals. But then again I like cooking up rulesets and customizing campaigns. Or rather I did in the Ye Olde times when I socialized.
Precisely. Which is why it feels different from improv. Rules and predictable-but-random outcomes add verisimilitude to a game.
And the closer something is to the game's core experience, the more likely it is that a rule (instead of a ruling by the gm) is needed. So if you're playing a game that revolves around intrigue and seduction, you will probably want some rules for that. They don't have to be overly complicated, but they will need to exist.