[dq-rules] Rules vs. Configuration /CORE

["Rodger Thorm" <dqn@ntsource.com>]

A distinction I think we need to draw, as we work out the whole
project, is one between the rules (this might be what is core, as JohnR
first proposed it, at least as I understood it) and configuration. 
Some of the choices a GM may make for a particular campaign should not
be understood as changes to the rules themselves, but just a particular
configuration of preferences.

For example, JohnR was suggesting that humans are the only PC race in
the core rules.  The idea here is that PC races are a factor of each
individual GM's camapign.  If I want to run a campaign without
halflings or shape-changers, then the rules shouldn't require them (ie.
I tell the players that if they use the non-human races table that they
should re-roll if they get a shape-changer or halfling result). 
Basically, it becomes a house rule, which supercedes the written rule. 
I think what John was after with the CORE concept was to identify what
rules are elemental to the game, and which ones are (or should be)
configurable.

By way of analogy, if you are a screenwriter, your copy of M$ Word is
set up with certain formatting preferences (page layout, paragraphing,
indents, etc.)when you open it, while if you are using it for graphic
design, you have different preferences settings.  The screenwriter has
no use for the graphics functions, for instance, while the designer
uses them more frequently than some of the text functions.  But both
are using the same core program.  But Word lets you adjust your menus
so that the things you don't need aren't getting in your way and the
things you do need are right where you can find them.  (AutoCAD does
this even better, but I didn't think it would be as well understood as
an analogy.)

I'm not trying to restart the entire CORE discussion here; I only bring
this up to encourage everyone who is either writing for or editing this
project to bear in mind in the wording and implementation of any added
rules.  I think that it is important to keep the rules configurable, so
that another GM with a different campaign setting can use the rules
easily.  That way, the DQ OS project will be more than just a
collection of everyone's 'House Rules' and will instead become a
document that everyone can make good use of.

  --Rodger Thorm