Few discussions at a gaming table get Loud quicker than Rules vs. Roleplay. What happens when a character’s backstory says they should succeed in a conflict, but the dice have decided otherwise? Should a beloved character die, or do we fudge the dice roll? What happens when the rules don’t have a meaningful resolution mechanic; do you describe what happens or make up rules and roll them?
Each group, each game, even each session will have different answers to these questions. One of the biggest things to establish in Session 0 are the methods of conflict resolution, ensuring everyone feels heard and meaningful resolutions can be found. Which is lovely, as long as it actually happens.
Not every game gets a good Session 0. Some games drift or evolve from their original concept, a table can gain or lose players, or maybe people just change their minds and want something different. These arguments can come back up at the most inconvenient times possible.
And if you’re the Game Master, it’s your job to mediate.
The Roleplayer’s Side
“I spent so much time making this character, their backstory is twelve pages… you can’t kill them off!”
Some players love roleplaying their characters with gusto, and bring the game to life. These are the PCs who learn to speak with accents, carry entire social encounters on their backs, and usually contribute outsized emotional weight to decisions and plot arcs. Often, they’re also the players who make character portraits, keep game notes, and actually remember NPC names.
The down side is how they interact with the rules. English majors who count on their fingers has been a trope for decades, and it’s particularly painful to watch someone take three times as long to roll a basic attack as everyone else. In my experience, they’re also the most likely to ask for a dice roll to be fudged, because their carefully created character arc didn’t involve accidentally dying to bandits in the middle of the night.
The crux of the Roleplayer argument is that the rules are here to serve the story. As outsized contributors to the story, rules decisions which don’t match the story they’ve lovingly crafted feels like rejection. Ignoring their backstory, refusing to play into it even when it’s not represented by rules, feels dismissive.
The Power-gamer’s Side
“Because you’re ignoring the rules. Again!”
Some players lovingly twist the rules until they’re screaming to make the Perfect Build. Their character sheets represent a character that’s normally are powerful, capable, and meaningfully more rules-complex than other players. Normally, the power-gamer will use their power for good, and help everyone else with a “good build”, if only so the world makes sense.
Rules represent the world, and characters can only be challenged by a meaningfully represented world. If the world isn’t represented in the rules, it’s fluff. It might be entertaining fluff, but the rules are where the rubber meets the road, and arbitrarily changing the rules is a great way to hurt feelings, destabilise the game, and possibly break the table. Often, power-gamers will have specfic examples for why changing the rules didn’t work, possibly resulting in a favorite game meeting a tragic death.
The crux of the Power-gamer argument is that the rules are here to serve the story. Without the rules, the game devolves into chaos that goes no where, so keep using the rules. When in doubt, find or make rules, but keep going. Ignoring the amount of work it takes to memorise a rule book, make a character, and probably help other players make their characters, feels like rejection, because suddenly you’re refusing to play the game.
Finding Resolution
Let’s be clear: a game is better for having players from both ends of the spectrum sitting at the table. Your job as Game Master is to resolve conflicts, often both in- and out-of-character. I strongly recommend solving conflicts from the outside in: resolve the player issue, then the character issue.
When this particular conflict arises, first reassure everyone you want to hear their side. If necessary, pause the game so this can happen. Make sure your players are fed and watered, as Diabetic Paladins can disrupt the flow of a game very quickly. Then, listen to both sides.
The core of diplomacy is establishing a common language and common goals. Both sides want a good, fun game where the story makes sense and the stakes are interesting. Establishing guidelines like “rules questions need to be resolvable in X time so game flow isn’t disrupted” can help make sure rules-focused players find the page and think of their argument before the scene is paused. Likewise, “if it isn’t on your character sheet, it doesn’t exist” can be a useful forcing function to get method-actor players to craft their backstory with math as well as words.
Once you get to the character part, get creative. Is there a way to represent the story meaningfully in the rules? Does the beloved character have a boon from some strange, eldritch force that saves their life? Can we fudge the rules in this encounter, then rework the character stats at end of session so this is better represented? Ask both players to contribute to the answer; once the power-gamer starts statting the roleplayer’s ideas, magic happens.
In the end, finding the balance between rules and roleplay is a critical skill for any game master. The better you get at this skill, the wider the variety of player skills you can have at your table, and the better your games will become.